Another Day Another Myth

Haiku :Answers

2007-07-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

	Language:		Direction: Into English From English
	Word:	G

Hoping for a word
A response to questions asked
How long is the wait?

Letter to My Daughter

2007-07-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

	Language:		Direction: Into English From English
	Word:

At least...
Two years since we exchanged words.
No connection beyond family ties.
I think of you often.

Sharing fifty years of history
For better or worse.
We were friends for awhile.

Restaurants in Tuscany

2007-03-11T13:26:00.001-07:00

Volterra is in the heart of Tuscanny, midway between Siena and Livorno on the coast.

clipped from www.volterra-toscana.net

Why Obama Should Be the Next President of the U.S.

2007-02-19T07:57:00.000-08:00

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	Word:

The current Administration and particularly its figurehead/puppet: Bushboy, has done more in six years to undermine and our image and the respect of the peoples of the world than any previous administration with the possible exception of Richard Nixon . Not only did the current administration make all the wrong moves but the figurehead was a bumbling, inarticulate redneck, personifying all of the stereotypical false impressions of Americans that are common throughout the world.
Barrack Obama, can do a great deal to counter the false impressions being conveyed by "W" and his gang. He is the personification of literacy without pedantry, and he is articulate without being glib. He conveys an image of compassion and sincerity and demonstrates the strength of a unified, and integrated nation. He will gain back respect for our nation abroad and put us back on the right track in the eyes of the world

Pelosi vs. Britney

2006-11-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

A quick check of "intellipost" shows that Nacy Pelosi has been leading Britney Spears in the blog race over the past two months. Who says America doesn't care?

The Next President of the U.S.?

2006-11-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

POLL: 2008 NOMINEE

Democrats' choice for 2008 presidential nominee:

This just in from CNN

Sen. Hillary Clinton: 28%
Sen. Barack Obama: 17%
Al Gore: 13%
John Edwards: 13%
Sen. John Kerry: 12%
Sen. Evan Bayh: 2%
Sen. Joe Biden: 2%
Sen. Russell Feingold: 2%
Gov. Bill Richardson: 2%
Gov. Tom Vilsack: 1%

Source: Opinion Research Corp. interviews with 472 registered Democratic voters October 27-29. Sampling error: +/-4.5% pts

The Future of Western Civilization?

2006-11-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

Once, a long time ago (about 60 years ago) I lived with my family in a house overlooking a lovely litttle lake called "Sparkle". We had many weekend guests at the "Lake House" as we would call it later but for me the most memorable was an Indian gentleman, a real Guru. He spent a weekend with us in the Autumn of 195?. We went onlong walks around the lake, wading through the red and golden leaves, skimming stones over the lake and talking. On Sunday afternoon it had turned cold and gray so we sat together, all of us, parents , my four siblings, Mr Tata, our Indian guest and I. We talked of many things but mostly about the Bomb and the troubles facing our world. Several of our neighbors were building or had already fiinished bomb shelters in their basements and my brothers and sister and I were all practicing air raid drills at school. At a pause in the conversation I asked Mr. Tata about what he thought the chances for peace in the world might be and I remember very vividly his reply. He was doing a headstand when I posed my question and after I asked he paused a while before he said:

" My dear young friend, the only chance for peace that we will ever have in this world will be when we become more evolved and the only way that man can evolve is for him first to become "in-volved". He must be able and willing to focus his mind inward to learn to understand his own actions and feelings truly and objectively
and only then will he be able to truly understand others.
Until we can truly understand each other, there is no hope for peace in the world"

Almost like Diogenes, and his search for an honest man, I have been looking for some sign of evolution since my first meeting with Mr. Tata and like the Atenian philosopher I'm still looking. If there are any at all (and perhaps the Dalai Lama, Ghandi and a few others might ) but it seems hard for me to believe that I would find someone who is truly in-volved in politics today. The very things that draw people to political life in this century would probably repel the "in-volved" person.

Texas Prosecutor Kills Himself in Police Sting

2006-11-07T06:14:00.000-08:00

From today's NYT:

TERRELL, Tex., Nov. 6 — A prosecutor in this North Texas town killed himself Sunday as the police tried to arrest him on charges of soliciting sex over the Internet from a person he thought was a 13-year-old boy.
The prosecutor, Louis Conradt Jr., 56, had been caught in a sting operation set up by Dateline NBC, the television news magazine, and an Internet watchdog group called Perverted Justice. An NBC camera crew was outside the house to film the scene when the fatal shot was fired.

How far will the media go to get a story? Or make one?

When Will I die

2006-11-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

How Will I Die Quiz

You will die at the age of 115

You will die when your underwear gets to tight and cuts off your blood circulation

Find out how you will die at Quizopolis.com

In Key House Races, Democrats Run to the Right

2006-10-30T14:23:00.000-08:00

From NY Times 10/20/2006
"ASHEVILLE, N.C., Oct. 28 — In their push to win back control of the House, Democrats have turned to conservative and moderate candidates who fit the profiles of their districts more closely than the profile of the national party."

I guess this proves that "winning is everything"

What Myths Are Made Of

2006-10-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

Mythical personnae who shape our dreams and our
mightmares

The Future of Blogging

2006-10-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

In another corner of the Blogosphere, there's a small site, that provides free hosting for bloggers and is somewhat looser in terms of infrastructure than this one. It has a total of 900 blogs or participating members and there is plenty of opportunity for the members to interact. One of the features is the "Blog Ladder" where everyone can see:

Who posted lately
How many posts he/she has contributed
How many times his/her posts have been viewed
How many comments have been made to his/her entries.

The winning blog, has 121 entries, that have been viewed 5,227 times and received 593 comments.
The most popular entry of the week, which was posted by the champ mentioned above, Consisted of "And Boom"
The comments were

"boom"
"boom"
"boom, boom, boom"
"boom"
"developers"
"WAIT,WRONG STEVE"
"boom...boom..."
"boom"
"bam, ops thats that other guy"
"boom?"

This the way the world ends, not with a "bam" but a "boom"

When I first entered cyberspace, I thought that it would be an exciting adventure in discovery, dialogue and community instead I find "jackass forever"

For the Super-Rich, It’s Time to Upgrade the Old Jumbo Jet - New York Times

2006-10-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

For the Super-Rich, It’s Time to Upgrade the Old Jumbo Jet - New York Times
Ever wondered:"What do they do with all that money?"
Here's a clue.

Free Hugs

2006-10-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

Free Hugs
After a day of BushSpeak, Korean Bomb & the Foley Follies.
This was a wonderful segue.
When I first started watching the video I felt a little uneasy, like "Oh god, this is goy is going to make a fool of himself" but then it happened! People came and kept coming. Getting hugs, giving hugs. It was truly inspiring!
Give somebody a hug today

Call Me Mythster

2006-10-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

Mythster- Modern American: 1) A person who practices the art of mything. One who collects, analyzes, creates and disseminates myths. Myths are attempts to explain or elaborate on the mysteries of everyday life. Our caveman ancestors created the first myths to explain the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun and the origins of life itself. Although the word "myth" is used to describe a fantasy or something that is not true. A true myth is always true when it is created even though it may be seen as untrue later on.
2) The pronunciation of the salutation "Mister" by someone who lisps.

I sent the explanation to someone who asked me the meaning of my e-mail address but it

is not totally mythical. I have been collecting, analyzing ...myths for most of my life. I have created a few and been fascinated by more. Most of our great American Myths seem to have become "untrue" recently. No more" streets paved with gold", "rags to riches", "Any boy can become president"or "Land of Opportunity etc.
But they were true and inspiring "Once upon a time"

TIME.com: What Makes Us Different? -- Oct. 9, 2006 -- Page 3

2006-10-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

TIME.com: What Makes Us Different? -- Oct. 9, 2006 -- Page 3 More scientific evidence to indicate that the Creationists are merely retarded monkeys

G.O.P. Aides Knew in Late ’05 of E-Mail - New York Times

2006-10-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

G.O.P. Aides Knew in Late ’05 of E-Mail - New York Times
The corruptive influence of power and the inevitable result. Six terms made Foley think he was invinceable.
Until now.

In Setback for Democrats, Incumbent Wins Republican Senate Primary - New York Times

2006-09-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

In Setback for Democrats, Incumbent Wins Republican Senate Primary - New York Times
In Politics as usual it's "Business as usual" Chafee is to the Republicans what Strom Thurmond was to the Deomcrats.
He's a good guy. Even if the Democrats won the majority in the Senate, would they know what to do with it?
"A pox on both their houses"

Updike, Roth and Marquez look at Aging

2006-09-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

It was the title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez latest novel that caught my attention when I was perusing the New York Times Sunday Book Review . "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" promised something quite different from the Columbian Nobel Prize winner. I got a copy from Amazon and gulped it down like a cold beer in July. Later, I re-read many passages and savored the delicate flavor of this short novel.

Next, my wife brought home "Everyman" by Phillip Roth who, according to Wikipedia "is arguably one of the most decorated writers of his era (circa 1934- til present) "Everyman", like "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" by Marquez is a story of aging and death but where Marquez retains a light and humorous approach to the subject throughout his story, Roth's Everyman is crammed with pain, pessimism and death. Updike's opus "Bech at Bay" was published in 1998 when the poet was the author was only 66. Perhaps we can excuse the rather sophomoric tone of the book to the writer's youth. Since then he has written several more books including "Villages" which I read last year and found little in it of interest.

Three authors, close in age, writing about the same issues, contrasting styles and viewpoints but in the end sharing a common preoccupation with their loss of powers and virility. Roth's character still trying to seduce young women from the steps of his nursing home, Updike's Beth starting a new family with his 30-something partner and Gabriel Marquez finally consummating his affair with his melancholy virgin whore on his 91st birthday.

Since I'm a contemporary of all three authors, I can relate directly to their situations. The invisibility, frustration and impotence of humoristicly named "Golden Years". Do we not "Go gentle into that good night" or adjust, accept and ..."fade away..."?

The I’m-Not-Ugly American - New York Times

2006-08-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

The I’m-Not-Ugly American - New York Times
This summer was the first time in 50 years that I felt real resentment about my nationality but then again maybe some young French people just resented my age. "Ugly Old American"?

The Greatest Poets of the 20th Century

2006-08-29T19:10:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Â« ÂThe Road LestravelededÂ

T.S. Elliot, was certainly one of the greatest poets of the 20thth Century along with W.H. Auden, Allen Ginsburg, Ezra Pound, Ted Hughes, Langston Hughes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Frost , Dylan Thomas,and a.e.Cummings.
T.S. Elliot, more than any of the others successfully conveyed the "angst und drang" of the century. Tedious frivolity and meanlingless communication were frequent subjects of his poems but there was as well a strong trace of Buddhist feeling to most of his latter works.
Ginsburg conveyed the desperate frustration and sadness of his era in "Howl".
Auden suggested the ennui of the pre-war era.

No one, so far has suggested nominees for the "20 th Century Poets Hall of Fame"
Any takers?

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

2006-08-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com
Jeremiah Compton, a high school junior who plays in a local metal-and-punk band, agreed. "It's just that we're bored and expressing our right,"
HS students in Brattleboro VT. are doing hula hoop & more w/o clothing.
WHY NOT?

Nonconformity Is Skin Deep - New York Times

2006-08-27T07:58:00.000-07:00

Nonconformity Is Skin Deep - New York Times: "And thatÂs the most delightful thing about the whole tattoo fad. A cadre of fashion-forward types thought they were doing something to separate themselves from the vanilla middle classes but are now discovering that the signs etched into their skins are absolutely mainstream. They are at the beach looking across the acres of similar markings and learning there is nothing more conformist than displays of individuality, nothing more risk-free than rebellion, nothing more conservative than youth culture.

Another generation of hipsters, laid low by the ironies of consumerism."

That about says it all folks. Except for another view of the tattoos; one from a guy who spent a couple of years taking photographs of tattooed and scarified people in Africa, Polynesia, America and Europe. I haven't seen his book yet but I can imagine it and I was impressed by a remark he made on Public Radio when asked if he had
any idea people mutilated their bodies and he said that it was all about "affiliation". Anybody remember the Mexican-American street gangs of East L.A. where every member had diy tattos on his hands and fingers?

The New York Times > Washington > Image > Graphic: Perceptions of the President, Terrorism and the War

2006-08-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

The New York Times > Washington > Image > Graphic: Perceptions of the President, Terrorism and the War
But does anyone really care?

Sex change for JonBenet killer?

2006-08-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Sex change for JonBenet killer?
The lengths humans will go to in order to find some recognition are truly amazing. Most of the world's political assasins were motivated by their need for recognition. Remember Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinkley etc.?

Truce Strained as Israelis Raid Lebanon Site - New York Times

2006-08-20T08:25:00.000-07:00

Truce Strained as Israelis Raid Lebanon Site - New York Times
Was the White House involved in this?

Mama He Sold the Farm

2006-08-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

Less than two miles from my home in south west Austin, there was this wonderful small (by Texas standards) farm. It was surrounded by a huge shopping center that included all the usual suspects like Home Depot, Circuit City, Linens etc. They had a couple of donkeys who grazed accross the road from Pier One and a bunch of cows grazing opposite Circuit City. Nice barns outbuildings and tractors - it was the real thing and looked like the farm had been there for quite a while.

Today when I drove by, the farm was gone and bulldozers were grading the ground for the construction of more temples of the Church of Consumerism. It happened so fast that it had a major effect on my mood. I got a bad case of the "There They Go Again Blues". Pretty soon the whole country is going to be one huge shopping mall; from "Sea to Shining Sea". Mile after mile of Borders, Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy and Burger Kings, Circuit City, Cosco, Compuserve, & on and on.

"All the lonely people, where do they all come from" They'll shop 'til they drop and then get up and shop some more. Trying so hard to fill the emptiness of their lives with all the shit they don't need and can't afford.
"That one don't work? Okay, try this Visa, I just got it the other day.
I got more than twenty cards and I'm maxed out on fifteen but I just gotta have that phone with the vibrator attachment"

Techno

2006-08-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

Technorati Profile

Radio with Pictures aka "TV"

2006-08-09T09:01:00.001-07:00

An entry posted on Blog ladder and my reply
"Why We Never Got to the Chapter on Nostalgia... by austinslin
I used to by radio shows on tape when I was in elementary school. Radio shows from the 1930s, 1940s like The Shadow, Arch Obler's Lights Out, Suspense---I suppose I had leanings toward the creepier serials..."

I replied:"I heard all the shows: The Shadow, Jack Armstong, The Green Hornet, Lux Radio Theater, Grand Central Station, The Theater Guild on the Air etc./i] lying on my stomach, in the dark, listening to the Radio!
We didn't have tape then and television was still an S.F. fantasy.
What I miss is the opportunity to imagine. Visualising what "The Green Hornet" and his car looked like and what kind of a kid "Kato" was.
I think we lost a lot when we got "Radio with pictures" (aka TV)

My kids and now my grandchildren missed the chance to excercise their imaginations.
To make them stonger and more powerful. To "see" things in their heads instead of in "Living Color" on a 44 inch screen.

They were "the good old days" and I miss them a lot (and not just for the radio shows)"

Your Congress at Work

2006-08-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

THIS JUST IN

"MySpace.com is facing a new threat on Capitol Hill.

MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are the potential targets for a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users. "and "that's a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google's Orkut.com. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo's instant-messaging features."

Meanwhile>>
"Israel puts another 10,000 troops into Lebanon and the Lebanese are using bulldozers to bury their dead.
Israeli commandos raid hospital in Baalbek"
and the "beat" goes on...

Had a Nice Trip?

2006-08-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

2006-07-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

Come With Me to a Special Place

2006-07-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

Where it's always green and peaceful. A place to ride, walk or cruise. No hurry (you're not allowed to go more than 6 miles an hour. (in a barge-cycles can go faster if they want) There are cafes and restaurants along the way and the local wines are truly special and cheap!

It's called the "Canal du Midi" and if you want to experience the best of France This is the place!.
It was built in the 17th century and for about two hundred years was the main commercial thoroughfare linking the southern ports of the Atlantic with the Mediterranean. Toulouse is the midpoint between the two and a good place to start your voyage either in a barge or a bike. That's where we started on July 1st.

Dan Rather Won't Go Gentle

2006-06-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

When Dylan Thomas wrote:

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Dan Rather was a young man of 22 and perhaps like me at that time, not quite convinced of his mortality and sure that he would never get old. Now both Rather and I are well passed the "three score and ten" mark, wondering how we got this far.Some say that he should walk away gracefully - quit while he's ahead but I know he wants to have that "last hurrah" and not just "fade away" as Douglas McArthur described the demise of old soldiers.
Our society has removed many taboos, sexual and otherwise but one of the new taboos is the obscenity of old age. It just isn't something to be exposed in public but instead hidden away and never mentioned in our polite, politically correct society. One day soon, people will be tested annually after the age of seventy or so and when found lacking in the abilities and faculties necessary for a dynamic and "productive" life style they will be confined in appropriate premises for their own and society's good.
I remember watching Marciano knock out Jersey Joe Walcott in the first round of their final bout. It was sad. Jersey Joe should have quit a winner.

Good luck Dan

On the Road Again

2006-06-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

Heading out for Toulouse and the "Canal du Midi". I'll be gone about a month. Stay tuned for impressions (graphic & otherwise)

Evolutionary Developments

2006-06-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

A "Level playing field"? Where can you find one? No two playing fields, in any sport or activity can ever be identical. One has mud and rocks another sand pits and gullies. Some have "mental hazards" almost impossible to overcome. No two of us are alike. How could our playing fields or "champs de battle" be comparable.
It really is all about the evolutionary process. Some of us are endowed with expanded capacities for mathematical thought and the superior ability to deal with spatial relations and something like geographical orientation. Men are supposed to be able to deal with map reversals and other similar cinquefoil/visual experiences better than women. But- the truth is that some men are better at some things than others, (Duh!)
and some women do the map thing a lot better than most men.

The sectors in the brain that control humor, creativity and compassion are very probably located in the same lob of the brain. It is quite likely that the development of these sectors was very different in the various sub-species that constituted the main stream of human development. In a few sectors of a few sub-species, the "creative/compassion/humor" lobe developed at a much faster rate than with other sub-specicies. In the European sub-species, this might have resulted in a bio-genetic strain that resulted in a division of cultures. The sub-species, who had a higher development of the Creative/Compassionate/Perceptive lobe were those who rose to the higher strata of the socio-economic ladder. The others were relegated to the "Peasant" level. The peasant, never understood or appreciated the "absurdity" of his position, the others (nobles, priests etc.) exploited. The peasant with a real sense of humor was truly "a hair in the soup"

My Father's 100th Birthday

2006-05-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

If he were still alive, we would be celebrating his 100th birthday in July. Josephine Baker was born in the same year (1906) as well as Dimitri Shostakovitch, Oscar Levant, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger and Samuel Becket. It was a good year for writers, dramatists and musicians.

My father, was an interesting and somewhat enigmatic character. Jovial and sardonic, sentimental but never demonstrative. I brought him home from the hospital after a month's stay and the death of my stepmother. He was barely able to climb the stairs to his bedroom but after he sat down on his bed, in the room he'd shared with his wife of forty years, he caught his breath and then said "If I let myself, I would be feeling really miserable right now"
He had been driving to my house for dinner when he had a head-on collision with someone who was driving the wrong way on a free-way exit. My stepmother was thrown through the windshield and suffered severe head injuries. She never regained consciousness, and died in a coma a month later.

I'm still not able to understand how or what I felt. Even though she had been the instrument of my parent's separation and divorce when I was a boy, I had become very fond of Claire and in some ways her death affected me more than my father's. That was partly because I was indirectly responsible for her death.

Three months before her death, Claire told me that she had decided to leave my father. She could no longer put up with his abusive behavior and the heavy drinking that caused it. During most of their marriage, my father had been "on the wagon" and as far as any of us knew he didn't drink for more than twenty years but after his sixtieth birthday, he retired and his children were out of the nest, he lost his focus- golf and household chores wasn't enough of an outlet for his creative energies. He began drinking again. At first it was almost moderate but soon it became heavy. I told Claire that she couldn't leave him now because he really needed her and that she had to pay her dues for all the good years they'd had together. Maybe if I hadn't convinced her not to leave her husband she'd still be alive.

When he was drinking, the cruel and bitter side of his nature became exposed. He would attack anyone available at the least excuse. Once, when I came home from Italy for my mother's funeral, I stayed with my father and Claire. The night after I arrived, we went to a dinner party at a neighbor's. When we got back to our house, my father started taunting me because he said I was "sulking". He knew the difference between sulking and grieving but he chose not to understand so he kept on bugging me until finally I said "Hey lay off. I'm upset about my mother's death it was a complete shock. She was only 53. I didn't know she'd been sick"
Then he did his tough guy thing, something he learned from Bogart movies and he said " I say she's dead and the hell with it" I got up and punched him in the mouth.

My Great Granfather's AKA

2006-05-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Who Was Christopher Columbus Smith?

When my Aunt Polly gave me The Lincoln Cane , she told me how she had sent private detectives back to the Ohio town where my great grandfather, C.C. Smith, had lived and operated his feed and seed store. After searching the records in Town hall and other local sources of information, the detectives could not find any information about where and when my grandfather was born or even where he had come from before he settled in western Ohio around the middle of the nineteenth century. For the last fifty years I have been intrigued by the “Mystery of the Old Gent”. Who was he? Where did he come from? What was his real name? (It was unlikely that he was christened with the name “Christopher Columbus Smith”)

I tried various genealogy sites on the Web and never found a trace anywhere but finally, I submitted my DNA sample to FamilyTreeDNA and received their report .The main part consists of a section devoted to:

RECENT ANCESTRAL ORIGINS (RAO)

“The results…show the ancestral origin of those you match or nearly match in the RAO.

The ancestral origin is provided by each testee and is only as accurate as the testee’s knowledge…

“Exact matches show people who are the closest to you genetically. The Ancestral Origin shows where they have reported to have lived…”

EXACT MATCHES

(i.e., people with identical 12 Marker DENA Configurations to mine)

RUTLEDGE, Edward de Wolfe

“ Ellis Quitman

“ Michael Edward

“ Kenneth Jack

“ George W.

“ Ethan Taylor

“ John David

“ Ronald Gary

“ John Duane

“ Noah R.

“ Larry D.

SMITH (None)

Other Surnames 12

ANCESTRAL ORIGINS

England 8

Great Britain 3

Ireland 4

Netherlands 1

Scotland 2

United Kingdom 2

In light of these preliminary findings I think it might be reasonable to assume that:

My great-grandfather’s real name was not “Christopher Columbus Smith”
His real name might easily have been Rutledge
His origins were probably pure “Celtic”

After the results of my DNA analysis was published on the FamilyTree DNA website,

I received an e-mail from John D. Rutledge who is one of the “Exact Matches” I have mentioned previously. Mr. Rutledge offered to exchange the Rutledge family information, his “GEDCOM” file, with information I could provide about our family

In examining the Rutledge history, I discovered one “Edward Augustus Rutledge” who was born in 1827 and has no history other than the date of his birth and the names of his parents. I have assumed that “C.C. Smith” was born sometime around 1830, which would have made him about 36 when he knew Mr. Lincoln and about fifty when my grandfather, Ned C. Smith was born (I ‘guesstimate’ that to be around 1880).

It is possible that “Edward Augustus Rutledge” might have been my great-grandfather’s

“real” or original name before he changed it.

I have ordered additional tests (25 markers) from FamilTreeDNA in the hope that these will further clarify things but I’m realistic about what to expect. It could remain a mystery forever. But it is an interesting story.

One last bit of trivia: Abe Lincoln’s first and some say “true” love was:

Anne Rutledge. She died before she and Abe could marry.

Comments, questions and complaints should be addressed to me at mailto:nsmith33@austin.rr.com

Karma and Me

2006-05-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

Karma; destiny, fate, cause & effect, predestined. Call it what you like, we are virtually powerless in the forces that drive our lives. Free will? Bullshit - "you can check out but you can never leave".
My grandfather's mother probably died when he was born, my father's mother as well, my mother put me and my three brothers out to surrogates when we were born and never even tried to reclaim my youngest brother until she sent me to Philadelphia to fetch him when he was three and I was ten.
Later, I got married and my wife went back to work when our first-born was two weeks old and I was making over $100K a year in London in 1975.
Her mother put her out to live with her grandmother for the first three years.

Can you see some kind of a pattern here?

The relationship between mother and child is "primordial" it over rides virtually every thing- genetics, environment - all of it.
You can not ignore it and you can't overcome it.
I am the sum of everything I have experienced, learned and inherited but most of all the sum product of my first two years. If my mother rejected me then- I am (most likely) crippled for life.
Mothers; do you realize the terrible responsibility that is yours? My great-grandmother never had a choice about pregnancy, but my mother did and my wife was totally in control of her situation. She chose to pursue a rather nebulous "career" rather than spend time with her new-born child. Which ring of hell is reserved for women like that?

Sick Shlickers and the Shlock That Makes Them Shlick

2006-05-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, just north of New York City, my brothers and I invented and frequently used the word "Shlicker" to describe someone who outwitted and usually cheated his adversary (i.e. sibling or other contemporary) through the use of nefarious and often offensive tricks and schemes.
After reading this Sunday's edition of the NYT , I have come to the conclusion that the Age of Shlicking has arrived. "Shlicking" is no longer unusual or remarkable, now it is the norm for business and social intercourse.

The "honor"of being the pioneer of the Age of Shlicking must go to Ex-Pres. Bill Clinton (AKA. "Shlick Willie") who set the ball rolling with his famous or rather infamous statement "I did not have sex with that woman" Thus helping horny adolescents and others avoid pre-marital sex by turning the whole concept of sex upside down.
However, the 42nd President preceded the greatest "Shlicker" of our age, George W. Bush. If Clinton took "one small step" on the path to shlickerdom, his successor has already run a marathon. As the chief executive and official role model of his country, "W" has gone where no man has gone before. He has made shlicking an established method of communication and negotiation. He shows us the way. It's ironic that he's appointed Mr. Snow as his Press Secretary. Now the Press Conferences will all be "Snow Jobs"

In the "Sunday Styles" section of this weekend's Beth Landman writes about the new phenomenon of "emotional support dogs" Ms. Blandon writes that notwithstanding Health Dept. Rules that prohibit pets in NYC restaurants "At "French Roast", on upper Broadway,... Two women sat down to brunch with dogs in tow: a golden retriever and a Yorkie toted in a bag"
The restaurant manager, Gil Ohana, explained "They both said that their animals were emotional service dogs...One of them (the women not the dogs) actually carried a doctor's letter"

Ms. Behan explains "The increasing appearance of pets whose owners say they are needed for emotional support in restaurants- as well as on airplanes, in offices and even in health saps goes back to a 2003 Dept. Of Transport ruling . It clarified policies regarding disabled passengers on airplanes, stating that animals used to aid people with emotional ailments like... Anxiety should be given the same access and privileges as animals helping people with physical disabilities like blindness or deafness. Later in her article "Wagging the Dog and the Finger", Ms.Landman
describes how a tenant lawyer's client "is a recovering alcoholic and apart from her pet , all her other friends are drinkers" So she needs to have her dog in an apartment in a building that does not allow animals.

For further reading on this subject consult: "On Bullshit" by Harry G. Frankfurt, (Princeton University Press-January 10, 2005) Available from Amazon for $9.95)
T
[Current-Affairs]

Outback with an Ipod

2006-05-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

David is a friend of my son’s. They went to High School together, did the “Great European Tour” right after graduation and have remained friends ever since, even though my son is married with three kids and David has remained single, they still enjoy each other’s company whenever they can get together.
Last summer, David took a trip to Australia. He did some surfing near Sidney at Bondi and Bronte and after a week of beer, sun and “The Nude Surfing Festival”, he headed
For the Blue and Snowy Mountains and the Outback.

Eventually he had a chance to spend some time with an Aborigine tribe and learn a little about their lives and customs and listen to their stories. Storytelling is as old as the Aborigine culture itself dating back more than forty thousand years. David had the privlege of listening to Aboriginal storytellers, who, by their words and actions bring the
Listener into the story, that is, they listen and visualize the story and become a part of the
Process of storytelling. These gifted people have a charisma that captivates their audience
With their words and actions and their facial expressions. This has been the true essence of storytelling in every culture.

David made friends with one of the Storytellers he met in the Outback, his name was Jimmie Taylor and he was a “Keeper of the Stories” and very proficient at his vocation. After participating in a few of Jimmie’s sessions, David told Jimmie how much he had enjoyed the stories and asked if Jimmie would be willing to record a few into David’s iPod. Jimmie was reluctant at first but gradually he understood how much this meant to David so he eventually agreed. David took the iPod from around his neck and gave it Jimmie after explaining how to operate it.
Jimmie took it and went back to his hut.

The next evening, Jimmie went to the place where David was staying and when he saw David he took the iPod from his neck and handed it to David and said “I’m sorry David but I couldn’t tell your machine any stories. I know how it works; I sang a song into it and it played back the words of my song but it didn’t understand the song and it wasn’t my voice that I heard. It could record things but it couldn’t see me and the way I moved my hands when I told about the flying birds or the kangaroo jumping on the anthill. It didn’t understand what I meant and it couldn’t tell me with its eyes that it understood or even liked my story. It couldn’t tell me when to slow down or explain something. It couldn’t laugh or sing or cry at my stories. I can’t tell stories to this iPod."
[podcasting]

Live-est Music Capital of the World

2006-05-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

I'm not kidding here. I'm really serious. There is nowhere, anywhere to match the vibrant, dynamic, innovative atmosphere of the Austin music scene. Catch it at the airport when you get off the plane. Experience it in the clubs on 6th Street and on Red River, Guadalupe and South Congress. In the theaters, the bars, the shoe stores and the super markets. I rehearsed in the Brill Building in New York, worked in the clubs in Brooklyn and the Village but there was never anything like the atmosphere of Austin and it seems to get better every day.
Tonight I watched a telecast from "Austin City Limits". Two musicians I've never heard of before and both of them -
First, Ben Folds and his group did some cool stuff with a couple of low key "Welcome to My Famly" numbers and then at the end of the set, Ben Folds started conducting the audience in a choral sing-a-long that raised the energy levels to the roof and left the audience applauding and screaming for "MORE!"
The audience were the star performers and they couldn't let it stop.

Then, Ray La Montagne came on and did a couple of songs solo, that were more than a little derivative- of Dylan but when he teamed up with a local string quartet - "Tosca" it was like sounds I'd never heard in my life.
[Austin Music]

Tomorrow's Best Sellers Today

2006-05-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Books of Tomorrow editor Adam Eden, interviewed noted author, Fosco Guidizio, about his soon to be published "Sounds of Music and Language". An excerpt of the interview follows:
A.E. : So your saying in your book that all music has a "national accent" give me an example

Fosco: Ok let's take the German composers- Beethoven and Wagner as examples. Listen to their music, like "Eroica" and "Parsifal" and compare it with the Russians. Tchaikovsky and Borodin. The Germans evoke visions of beer and sausages with the Russians it's vodka and blinis. Even a little familiarity with the two languages will allow you to hear the rhythms of speech in the music and vice versa. When I listened to recordings of Hitler's speeches as a child I always heard Wagner.

A.E. :What about American music, how does it reflect our language or does it?

Fosco: Certo! Of course. The truly American composers like Copeland, Bernstein, Gershwin , Ellington are as American as apple pie and the slurred, rapid speech of the American city street
and country furrow is deep in all their music. Like you say in this country, "You can get the boy out of the country but you can't take out the country boy" Or something like that.

A.E.:How about the Asian countries?

Fosco: That's even more closely connected, especially in China and the other countries who have tonal languages.

A.E.: Can you explain to our readers what a "tonal" language is for those who are not familiar with the term?

Fosco: Certo! In Chinese, the tone, whether rising, falling etc. will determine the meaning of the word. "Ma" for instance, can mean "horse", "mother" or a curse, depending on the tone you give it. So the language is inherently musical - much more than Italian even though westerners might not recognize it easily.
Man learned to make music before there was language. They've found musical instruments that date back 50,000 years. So it's true that music came first. Maybe we could have evolved like birds, with music- songs & whistles being our main means of communication. Just imagine that.

A.E. That's really fascinating Professor, I'm definitely looking forward to reading your book and I know our readers will be to.

Fosco: Certo! I hope so. I need to sell at least 10,000 copies just to cover the advance.
coming-best-sellers

My Backyard

2006-05-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

We've just had a lot of rain
[dailylife]

The New "Self-Service" Economy

2006-05-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

Alvin Toffler's new book "Revolutionary Wealth: How it Will Be Created and How it Will Change Our Lives" prompted me to see how much I am contributing to the new economy by "Prosuming" i.e. producing goods and services for myself and my family that in other times I would have purchased.
Like:

Making my own travel arrangements and bypassing the travel agents
Photo processing (No film or film processing)
Mail Delivery (e-mail - no stamps or envelopes- no postman)
Health services (Diagnosing and prescribing for my own illnesses)
Greeting Cards ( no cards to buy, no stamps or envelopes)
Overseas Phone Calls at one-tenth of the price I was paying just a few years ago

The above have become possible recently thanks to the internet,with faster large capacity computers and highly intuitive, user friendly, software. In addition to these high-tech activities, my extended leisure (i.e. retirement) has allowed me to develop new skills that make it possible for me to cut my own hair, make my own bread and create pre-prepared meals that I allow me to eat what I want, when I want it at half the cost of Swanson's or Stouffers.
There's more but it's enough evidence to show that Toffler's thesis is valid.

We are moving into a new era and for once in a long time I feel a little more optimistic about the future. Knowledge is power and each of us has the power to create a new kind of wealth for ourselves and our families.

Will this put more money in our pockets? Not directly, but it will allow us to create a better life style than we now can in a traditional cash economy and at the same time it could offer more in the way of "self-esteem" than most of us get out of the "nine-to-five" we're holding down to pay the mortgage.

Make a list of the things you are doing and what you could do to live better independently.
Share it with others here on the web and with your friends.

It won't help with the problem of Bush's deficit spending but it could make you feel a little better

2006-04-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

For almost half a century I've been trying to define and comprehend the innate differences between the French culture and that of their neighbors just across the channel and those of us "across the pond"
Until today, all of my efforts have been in vain. I knew there were significant differences besides language and ethnic influences but every time I tried to describe them I came up short.
Then, I wanted to demonstrate the different way the English and French designed their gardens.
I googled "Jardins Francais" and "English Gardens" and you can see what I got above.

Both are typical examples of contemporary gardens in England and France. Could there be any greater contrast in style, aesthetics and philosophy?
The French gardens are amazing examples of an attempt at the control and subduing of nature.
The man made constructions and elements dominate the garden. Plant life becomes a very secondary element. In the English garden the natural elements dominate completely and there is very little intrusion of artificial elements.

Now, if we apply these ideas to other elements of the two cultures...(hmm!)
Tune in tomorrow

Photobucket

2006-04-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

The Story of Stoytelling

2006-04-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

Before e-mail, iPods, and the internet, before TV, movies and radio, even before magazines, newspapers and books, there were Storytellers. As soon as man started talking, there was somebody who told stories. The person who helped people understand the weather and the seasons and the forces of nature –not only what was happening but why; this was the Storyteller. The culture was aural and man learned principally by ear and observation. It wasn’t until the the fifteenth century that we had easy access to the printed word and this eventually led to the demise of the Storyteller and the rise of the writer. The writer never actually replaced the Storyteller he just took over some of the functions. Storytelling and writing are completely different art forms.

Storytelling is an interactive art form whereas writing is not. The Storyteller is constantly interacting with his audience – modifying his tone, rhythm, his language and style to the reaction of the listeners. He will even change his story for the benefit of his listeners. ”You’re not interesting in how stars are born? Okay, how about the land of the giant grasshoppers?”

There are certain special talents or aptitudes that a good Storyteller needs to successful.
He needs to have good memory , a powerful imagination, a good sense of humor, a “good ear” and the ability to mimic. He also needs patience and a genuine love of his craft. Storytelling must be a vocation not just an occupation.

I began Storytelling when I was a small boy, entertaining family and friends with stories of mine and others’ adventures. Making up stories about the world around me and what I believed to be the reasons for why and how people did the things they did. People enjoyed my stories and I was happy when they were but it wasn’t enough. Storytelling wasn’t the pathway to glory and I wanted to be rich and famous with my picture on the cover of Time Magazine. I wanted to be a famous writer. So I wrote stories but they never worked the way my Storytelling did. The words just sat on the page and nobody really enjoyed them because I couldn’t interact with my audience, gauging their moods and modifying my delivery and content as I went along. Storytellers never tell the same story twice unless they’re performing for small children .

So I gave up a writing career and tried acting but I was never satisfied just telling other people’s stories.

The Myth of MYTHS

2006-04-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

The wannabe debunker aka "karmabackatya" hasn't debunked much since she promised to some months ago but I recently was reading Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth and found a great definition of myth.
"Myth is about the unknown; it is about that for which initially we have no words. Myth therefore looks into the heart of the great silence..(and) myth is not a story for its own sake.
It shows how we should behave.

Art Buchwald is Dying

2006-03-28T21:23:00.000-08:00

I suppose that the majority of people who read this post won't know anything about Mr. Buchwald and would be unable to understand what importance his life (or death ) could possibly have. Art Buchwald was a newspaper columnist who wrote columns for the Herald Tribune and (later) the Washington Post. His career has spanned a period of 58 years, starting with his first columns in what was then the Paris Edition of the Herald Tribune and currently his contributions to the Washington Post. I was stationed in Paris for five years of his Herald Tribune career. We drank in the same bars, ate in the same restaurants and knew many of the same people. (Remember "Harry's" Art?)
Art Buchwald, like his contemporary Jonathan Winters, who paralled his career in many ways, was a Marine veteran of WW II, a "bon vivant" and a monumental ball buster. Art talks about himself as a funny man, a guy who was blessed with the ability to make people laugh and made a deliberate decison to be a funny man at the age of eight when he realized that he had the gift and it was one worth having. I discovered my own "talent" when I was six or so. Ten years after Art, but I was a delayed "prodigy", born 10 years after Art and Jonathan. We all "did our time" in the "Corps" and notwithstanding a real pride in our survival, we knew that we weren't real Marine material- not like Ollie North or Ira Hayes but we also understood that because we had all come through the same rites of passage, we were brothers, part of the "few good men" that comprise the Corps. Like it or love it but you can never leave it, it's part of you, like your own skin or your family.

Art has decided not to undergo the dyalisis that his doctors have told him could lengthen his life but instead to end his days in a Washington hospice where friends come to visit and he can finish his days in peace and happiness.
It's real"death with dignity"and I admire my friend greatly. I hope I can do it myself when the time comes. He's eighty- I'm still eight years behind. Just like WWII, by the time I was old enough to join up, it was already over.
Here's to you Art and you too Jonathan. The only thing we have to fear are the men and women without a sense of humor.

Hillary Clinton for President?

2006-03-12T06:53:00.000-08:00

George W. Bush will probably go down in history as one of the worst presidents we've ever had but electing Hilary Clinton to replace him would probably be trading "a headache for an upset stomach" In an OP-Ed piece for today's NY Times, David Brooks explains why:

"... when I've been asked if I think Hillary Clinton can win a general election campaign, I've always answered yes. I figure if she can win over Republican senators (and Bush staffers), she can probably win over 30,000 more voters in Ohio.

She's also got a key voting bloc disposed in her favor. Ten percent of the electorate are what Pew Research Center pollsters call pro-government conservatives: mostly white, working-class women who attend church weekly but support government welfare programs. Only 12 percent of these voters supported John Kerry in 2004, but 51 percent say they have a positive view of Clinton. These voters alone could put her over the top.

But campaigns reveal character, and force us to adjust our views. The Dubai ports deal — a politically unpopular measure that almost all experts agree was justified on the merits — was a test of character. John McCain and Chuck Hagel passed. Clinton, though, joined the ranks of the nakedly ambitious demagogues.

Clinton didn't seem to mind when officials of the United Arab Emirates kicked in up to a million dollars into her husband's presidential library. She didn't seem alarmed when Dubai poured at least $450,000 into her family bank accounts through her husband's speaking business. She didn't object when the Clinton administration approved a deal for a Chinese government firm to run the Port of Long Beach. But when the Dubai ports deal set off Know-Nothing mobs, she made sure she had the biggest pitchfork.

"The White House is trying to hand over U.S. ports," Clinton charged.

"We cannot afford to surrender our port operations to foreign governments," she roared.

"We cannot cede sovereignty over critical infrastructure like our ports," she insisted.

All of these statements were deliberately misleading, since there was never any question of ceding sovereignty or security. They played to the rawest form of xenophobia.

The consequences for the war on terror will be significant. As David Ignatius wrote in The Washington Post, the government of Dubai has done what we've asked all Arab governments to do. It has challenged Al Qaeda; supported U.S. forces; modernized the educational system to combat extremism. It even gave $100 million in hurricane relief.

But my subject is Clinton's political prospects. This episode — which combines buckraking with pandering — brings back the Clinton years at their worst: the me-me-me selfishness, the occasional presumption that humanity exists to serve Team Clinton.

It also shows Clinton doesn't understand her political weaknesses. First, nobody, not even among her friends, is totally sure she actually believes in anything, or whether she just coldly calculates political advantage. This episode reinforces that sense.

Second, Clinton is the only presidential candidate who does not offer a break from the current polarization and bitter partisanship. A McCain or Mark Warner presidency would shuffle the political deck. But if Clinton is elected, American politics over the next years will be as brutal and stagnant as now. The 1960's Bush-Clinton psychodrama would go on and on.

A lot of the bitterness would not be Clinton's fault. But over the past weeks, she has shown that far from behaving in an unorthodox manner, or flummoxing hatred, she is happy to be a crude partisan, and egg on prejudice and paranoia.

In the short run, Clinton did the popular thing. But over the long run, people vote on character. After a rehabilitating few years, Hillary Clinton just reminded us of her ugly side.

* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Deal With India - New Strategic Alliance?

2006-03-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

Could there possibly a secret, sinister motive behind George II's deal with India?
What if it was really about hooking up with a country that has never been too comfortable with Islam? Something like the alliance between the USSR and Nazi Germany in the thirties. Obviously the sweetheart deal for Atomic energy smells just a little off but maybe there's a lot more behind than we realize . Now , what's George going to in Pakistan next week or hasn't he thought that far ahead?

Debunking My Myths?

2006-02-28T05:47:00.000-08:00

Some poor soul has gone to the trouble of setting up a blog for the sole purpose of refuting my rants & raves. How sad that he/she can't find anything more constructive to do.
I guess it could be a form of flattery or?

Port Politics?

2006-02-23T08:24:00.000-08:00

After recovering from an attack of severe jingoitis brought on by massive exposure to the propaganda and spin of all sides of the American political spectrum. I recovered my senses , calmed my jerking knees and asked myself what the hell is going on here?
On the surface, it appeared as if the usual suspects, the DNC, led by Lady Hillary, the lord Frist and other members of the opposition were launching a frontal attack on the supposedly fraudulent and evil intentions of George II (aka "Mad King George") but stop,
and ask yourself. What's all this fuss all about anyway?
Foreign companies are already managing "the majority of key U.S. ports." And by the way, what exact links did the UAE government have to 9/11?
The answer my friend, is written in the wind .
I think it's just "Politics as usual", both Republican and Democratic legislators (Yup, that what they call 'em) are jumping on the jingo bandwagon. Everybody's draping themselves in the stars & stripes and singing "God Bless America" with everything they've got.

At a time when the greatest issues of our times are being deliberately ignored by almost everyone in Washington. The Port Issue is a no-brainer. "Arab terrorists are taking over our ports" "Call out the Marines, man the barricades, battle stations everyone!"

Clean My Windows

2006-02-18T06:02:00.000-08:00

Last week a friend forwarded me an e-mail about a Buddhist weekend retreat to be held at a local State Park. Both the subject of the Retreat “Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment" and the sponsoring group were of interest to me so I pre-registered online.

Yesterday, I packed my gear and headed out to McKinney Park, only a 20 minute drive from home. When I got there and inquired about the retreat at the Park Office, no one knew anything about and they had nothing in their computer about the Plum Village Group. However, someone by the name of “Ted Miliken” had reserved the dining hall and three shelters for the weekend. I assumed that Mr. Milliken was one of the group leaders and settled down to wait his arrival. I’d been waiting about half an hour in the office when a Park Ranger told me that they would be closing in a few minutes and would I like to take the keys for the shelters and wait for the group there. By this time it was around five p.m., and according to the preregistration confirmation e-mail , check-in was scheduled between 3:00 and 5:00.
I decided to check out the shelters and wait for the others up at the site. So I drove up to the shelters.

We are having a very sudden and dramatic cold snap in Austin; the temperature was hovering around 40 deg.. and the wind chill factor made it feel like 25. The shelters were very spartan the bunks had plywood boards for mattresses, there was no heating and although the screened windows were completely shuttered- the wind whistled through the shacks with a menacing moan.

I waited in my truck until a little before 6:00 p.m. without seeing another soul and then returned to the closed park office where I met the Park Hosts who were just starting their evening checkup and lock-down. I told them my story which sounded a little crazy when I told it, we all had a good laugh and then I handed over the keys to the shelters, got in my truck and went home.
Once home, I checked my e-mail for some notice of cancellation or postponement and after I found nothing I rechecked the preregistration e-mail. It included a list of things to bring and not to bring (no radios, CD players or hair dryers) and directions to “McKinney Roughs Park”. There are two Mckinney State Parks near Austin; one is about six miles from my house and is in Travis County - that’s McKinney Falls Park and that’s where I had just returned from. The other, about 20 miles from home and in Bastrop County is McKinney Roughs and that’s where they were holding the retreat.

Since early childhood I have had a difficulty in recognizing errors in math and I’ve always been one of the world’s worst proofreaders (Spell check was created for me). Now at my advanced age, my hearing is somewhat impaired, I can’t read anything but super size type without glasses and short-term memory is virtually nonexistent.

When I woke up around four a.m. this morning , I realized that the windows of my mind are badly fogged. I am missing a good portion of the information I’m exposed to but up until now, I have been unaware of the degree of my disability or “challenge" as we say in the 21st century
The good news is that I’m now fully aware of my limitations. The question is what am I going to do about it? I obviously need to read and check everything very carefully and try to position myself to hear what people are saying but what about memory? How do I compensate for that? How can I be sure to remember all the things that I forget?

It is “Bleak Mid-Winter” in my heart and I’m not sure that Spring will come again.

2006-02-18T05:58:00.000-08:00

Fogged Windows

Last week a friend forwarded me an e-mail about a Buddhist weekend retreat to be held at a local State Park. Both the subject of the Retreat “Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment and the sponsoring group were of interest to me so I pre-registered online.

Yesterday, I packed my gear and headed out to McKinney Park, only a 20 minute drive from home. When I got there and inquired about the retreat at the Park Office, no one knew anything about and they had nothing in their computer about the Plum Village Group. However, someone by the name of “Ted Miliken” had reserved the dining hall and three shelters for the weekend. I assumed that Mr. Milliken was one of the group leaders and settled down to wait his arrival. I’d been waiting about half an hour in the office when a Park Ranger told me that they would be closing in a few minutes and would I like to take the keys for the shelters and wait for the group there. By this time it was around five p.m., and according to the preregistration confirmation e-mail , check-in was scheduled between 3:00 and 5:00.

I decided to check out the shelters and wait for the others up at the site and drove up to the shelters. We were having a very sudden and dramatic cold snap in Austin; the temperature was hovering around 40 deg.. and the wind chill factor made it feel like 25. The shelters were very spartan the bunks had plywood boards for mattresses, there was no heating and although the screened windows were completely shuttered- the wind whistled through the shacks with a menacing moan.

I waited in my truck until a little before 6:00 p.m. without seeing another soul and then returned to the closed park office where I met the Park Hosts who were just starting their evening checkup and lock-down. I told them my story which sounded a little crazy when I told it, we all had a good laugh and then I handed over the keys to the shelters, got in my truck and went home.

Once home, I checked my e-mail for some notice of cancellation or postponement and after I found nothing I rechecked the preregistration e-mail. It included a list of things to bring and not to bring (no radios, CD players or hair dryers) and directions to “McKinney Roughs Park”. There are two Mckinney State Parks near Austin; one is about six miles from my house and is in Travis County - that’s McKinney Falls Park and that’s where I had just returned from. The other, about 20 miles from home and in Bastrop County is McKinney Roughs and that’s where they were holding the retreat.

Since early childhood I have had a difficulty in recognizing errors in math and I’ve always been one of the world’s worst proofreaders (Spell check was created for me). Now at my advanced age, my hearing is somewhat impaired, I can’t read anything but super size type without glasses and short-term memory is virtually nonexistent.

When I woke up around four a.m. this morning , I realized that the windows of my mind are badly fogged. I am missing a good portion of the information I’m exposed to but up until now, I have been unaware of the degree of my “disability” or “challenge as we say in the 21st century

The good news is that I’m now fully aware of my limitations. The question is what am I going to do about it? I obviously need to read and check everything very carefully and try to position myself to hear what people are saying but what about memory? How do I compensate for that? How can I be sure to remember all the things that I forget?

It is the “Bleak Mid-Winter” in my heart and I’m not sure that Spring will come again.

Robert Frost Birches

2006-02-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

Robert Frost Birches: "Poem lyrics of Birches by Robert Frost.

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
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But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the "

The Way to Your Target's Heart

2006-01-29T11:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not a fan. In fact, I really don't like Brad much but I have to admit a certain sense of empathy, in fact, I actually identify with the Brat (whoops) I mean Brad. It's the way he tries to get really close to his girlfriends, to get inside their skin. To be them and he does it very well.
OK, so he's an actor and actors imitate other people but you have to admit that Brad's talent is really special. I'll confess to doing the same thing in my younger, evil youth. It is the most effective seduction tool known to man (or woman). Just "mirror" the person you want and 9 out of 10, you're home! "Gotcha"!
Is it just flattery? Imitation being the most sincere form of flattery?
No, it's something much more. It's a way of showing someone that you really approve of them and the way they look, dress or act. It always produces a very warm, fuzzy feeling of security that just naturally opens the door to intimacy. (sexual and otherwise)
So the next time you're having trouble with your partner, get a pair of sunglasses just like her's and change your hairstyle.

I'm a Dog- What's Your Sign?

2006-01-27T21:53:00.000-08:00

People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people¡¦s confidence because they know how to keep secrets. But Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric. They care little for wealth, yet somehow always seem to have money. They can be cold emotionally and sometimes distant at parties. They can find fault with many things and are noted for their sharp tongues. Dog people make good leaders.

Smith Family Reunion Maui

2006-01-12T14:08:00.000-08:00

The latest addition is Cameron Smith born in November 2005. Her "big" brothers are staying close to Dad

"What Is This Thing Called Love"

2005-12-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

It's a pop tune written by Cole Porter in 1929. The truth is that
"Love" in the abstract has no meaning. It is only when we put the word
in some context that it has any meaning, and then it has so many
different meanings (depending on context) that it's still meaningless.

Last night, my wife and I celebrated our thirty-first wedding
anniversary with a quiet and very pleasant dinner at home, just the two
of us. I had prepared a special dinner for her, just the things I knew
she liked, prepared the way she liked them. I made her a card and gave
her a gift. Something she would have never think of buying for herself
but that I know she enjoyed. After dinner, my wife went straight to bed
and I finished cleaning up the kitchen, watched TV for about an hour and
then went to bed myself. It was a pleasant evening that we both enjoyed.
I went to sleep at around midnight and then woke up about 5:00 A.M.. I
had a strange dream. As I lay in bed after waking I thought about my
dream and what it was telling me. In my dream, my wife told me that she
was divorcing me, almost in the same manner as she might have said "I'm
stopping at the gym tonight so I won't be home 'til eight" There was no
emotion or anger just simple, straightforward "matter of fact" in my
dream, I did not react emotionally either.
In another part of the dream, or perhaps in another dream, (I'm not
sure which) a very close friend tortured me until I gave him information I had
that he needed to give to the "enemy" (unknown, unidentified in the
dream) that he was secretly working for.
The details of my dream aren't particularly important but what I
realized after I woke up was (at least I think so).

My dream was talking to me about attachment and perhaps how I no longer
felt very much attachment to anyone and that not feeling attachment is a
positive thing. I recently came across something in my dharma studies
(and I can't recall either where, who it, or the exact words) but
something that cautions us to avoid being "attached" to any particular
person or persons but instead to try to feel love for all sentient
beings. I remember my reaction to this at first when I read it.
I thought "But what about my wife, my children?' and now I do understand
the real meaning of the teaching. I am certainly no holy man or saint by
any stretch of the imagination but through the process of aging,
experience and most of all circumstances, I have become almost
completely "unattached". I do feel love for many sentient beings (not
all, not yet) but I am no longer "attached" to anyone.

It occurred to me as I was thinking about my dream that perhaps
attachment is a natural instinct as when a mother cat, bird wolf or lion
etc. will fight to her death to protect her young and the way a human
mother will sacrifice almost anything for the good of her children. This
is a form of "attachment" that is natural and necessary but when the
children become adults and are ready to fend for themselves,
attachment becomes inappropriate and unnatural. There are many other
cases where attachment is "normal" as when the child is attached to his
parents- he "loves" and depends on them for survival because he or she
is unable to survive without them until the time when his wings are
strong enough for him to fly from the nest.
Another example of "normal" attachment would be adolescents and young
adults who attach themselves emotionally and physically to another
person in what they would describe as "love". They "can't live without"
him or her; they're in a state of depression when they're not with the
object of their affection and in absolute euphoria when they are. In
this case it's probably two parts lust + one part physical dependency
and one part narcissism that constitute the prime "active ingredients"
of this kind of "love". Eventually, the early stages of adolescent
emotional dependency and attachment wear off and the relationship grows
into a real friendship, complete with respect, compassion and sharing or
it dies or turns into something ugly.
It is possible that "attachments" become addictions in the sense that
when we are free from the feeling of attachment we feel "empty" but
that's the way we should be shouldn't we?

So, is this thing called "love", and here I'm referring to the real
thing, a feeling of tenderness, caring and compassion for other persons,
places or things that is devoid of grasping covetousness, lust, control
and attachment?

What do you think?

This is My Life?

2005-12-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

This Is My Life, Rated

Life:

Why Do We Blog

2005-12-07T12:49:00.000-08:00

10 Reasons Why People Blog:

10. "Everybody's doing it"
9. I need an outlet for my creativity
8. Because it's there (Credits to Edmond Hillary)
7. Express my thoughts and feelings
6. It's an on-line diary. A record of what I've done
5. For the pleasure of writing (self-expression and creative exercise)
4. Connect with others
3. See how others react to my ideas
2. Practice writing (To prepare for the creation of my masterpiece)

1.JE BLOG DONC JE SUIS

Places I have Seen

2005-12-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas '05? "Fagetabouit"

2005-11-26T10:08:00.000-08:00

A man sits at a table writing. A second man walks into the room

2nd Man: So what are you writing Bro? Last will & testament?
1st Man: No, it's my Christmas list
2nd Man: What's that for?
1st Man: It's a list of the stuff I'm gonna give to people this Christmas. You know what Christmas lists are.
2nd Man: Yeah I know what they are I was wondering what you were doing that for?
1st Man: I gotta figure out what to give who. Otherwise I won't know what to buy, like for my grandsons.
2nd Man: OK, since you're not getting my drift, I'll spell it out. Why do you have to give people stuff at Christmas?
1st Man: Because everybody does that. People expect it. If I didn't, everybody would think I was Scrooge- a miser.
2nd Man: "Everybody does it" So that makes it right? How did "Everybody" start buying presents for Christmas?
1st Man: I don't know, maybe they just felt like it.
2nd Man: Spontaneously, just like that, "Everybody" just went out and spent all the rent money on neckties and Barbie dolls?
1st Man: Aw come on, you know, it's all about Santa Claus and baby Jesus!
2nd Man: "Santa" was dreamed up by a reporter back in the eighteen hundreds - it's just a fairy tale. You know "coal in their stockings if they're not good" and baby Jesus? Do you think that when he grew up he told people that they should buy each other lots of gifts to celebrate his birthday every year? The whole Christmas thing is just one big marketing bonanza. A way to sell a lot of stuff that nobody really needs or in many cases even wants to make bigger profits for the manufacturers and retailers- and the credit card companies too.

Nov. 24, 1963 - Ruby Shot Oswald

2005-11-24T12:42:00.000-08:00

JFK was assassinated a few days before. It was only a few weeks after my twenty-ninth birthday and it was the beginning of the biggest crisis in my life. I suddenly realized that the world was under control of "the forces of evil" that could eliminate a president who interfered with their agenda and that no one was safe from their reach not even in the middle of the Dallas police station. Lee Harvey Oswald was only a pawn, just like Jack Ruby. We never saw any of the real killers. The effect of all of this was to bring about my own personal "Mortality Crisis" . I suddenly knew that I too would die someday just like JFK. Even he was not immortal, nor was I.
The details of my crisis are too sordid and tawdry to describe here but the crisis lasted about six years and after it I was almost an adult.
I suppose some readers might wonder how I could have lived for 29 years without understanding that I wouldn't live forever or why the death of JFK hit me so hard but those of you who lived through the Kennedy Era (so short but so beautiful) will perhaps understand.
The young people of this country are normally completely apathetic about politics. The principals are seen as hypocritical liars and thieves whose only interest is to increase their own power and line their pockets. It's always been that way and I don't see any likelihood that this will ever change. Like the French say: "La plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme choses" ("The more things change the more they remain the same")
But for "One brief shining Moment" , young people became involved - the baby boomers or "Flower Children" as they were then called, demonstrated. Against Vietnam, against segregation and materialism. They exposed the Emperor's New Clothes and laughed at his nakedness. They turned on and dropped out and notwithstanding the end result of their exaggerations and oversimplifications, they filled the land with a huge breath of fresh air.
Now, forty three years later, the "Flower Children" are getting to retire, they're evaluating their 401K's and Iraq's looking at property in Costa Rica or Arizona and sending checks to the Republican National committee. They "tolerate" George W. Bush because he gave them tax cuts after Slick Willie (Clinton) gave them prosperity.

The young people of today don't have a JFK. Certainly Howard Dean is no substitute and I doubt that Hillary could inspire any of us except a few very bitter women (who are probably Republicans). Every once in a while I look around to see if there's anyone around who could spark ideas and action but as yet, I ain't seen a soul.

Their is a perennial controversy about whether it's the man or the moment. Do the times produce the hero or
do a few, rare individuals act as catalysts for major upheaval? Think Hitler & FDR, maybe JFK (if he had lived long enough) Or do the times produce the heroes?

My Biopic

2005-11-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Black Comedy

In your life, things are so twisted that you just have to laugh.
You may end up insane, but you'll have fun on the way to the asylum.

Your best movie matches: Being John Malkovich, The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Paris Daze (Redux)

2005-11-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

"The times they are a changin'" (Bob Dylan said that)
Here's another side of "gay paree"

Slaves' Revolt ?

2005-11-07T16:24:00.000-08:00

The "riots" in Paris continue to escalate. At the last count, there were more than 300 communities affected and now there are a few deaths as well as many injured. It is ironic that it's the French who are under seige by their disenfranchised minorities. "Liberte, Egalite & Fraternite" is only for native born, white Frenchmen. The young people in the 'burbs are fed-up. They know that they have no future in France. Even an education will not guarantee either a job or acceptance in white France. When I lived in Paris, many years ago, when people discovered "un Americain", they would confront me with the "segregation" and "racial prejudice" practiced by my fellow countrymen.
Now, the Nike is on the other foot. People of African or Arab origin, even if their families have been residents of the country for two generations or more, are still not considered to be full citizens. The difference is frequently not always visually obvious but most of the time, just a few words spoken by someone will identify his ethnic origins.
The French have always been hypercritical about foreigners' attempts to speak the French language. The ability to speak correct, unaccented French is an absolute requisite to social acceptance as well as meaningful employment.

So the young residents of the dismal suburbs that surround the principal cities, have taken to the streets to express their frustration, anger and desperation. We've had a glimpse of our own "malaise" in New Orleans just a short time ago. It was the French Philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote "Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.". Economic slavery is no less slavery than any other form and millions of people all over the world, are in chains today. Western civilization must resolve this issue before a "slaves revolt" brings down the civilization that we cherish. We've had a glimpse of our own "malaise" in New Orleans just a short time ago.

"I read the news today oh, boy"

2005-11-05T05:49:00.000-08:00

It's "a day in the life"...
Last night one of our local channels screened an interview with an eight year old girl who was shopping for hunting gear with her dad. This little blonde cutie shot her first deer three years ago, when she was five years old! Now if that's not the beginning of a dark tale, what is?
What happens to someone who kills at five? Could we try to imagine what she might do or be at eighteen? Perhaps she'll have an awakening at puberty (adolescence is a crucible) and realize the error of her childish ways.
Or perhaps, her taste for the kill will develop. When tigers kill people they are hunted down and killed because it is believed that the taste for human blood is addictive. Of course she might become a soldier, we need good killers in the Army or ???

Once in a Deep Dark Forest

2005-11-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

The woman was awakened by the sun as it rose above the trees surrounding the clearing where she was sleeping. She opened her eyes and looked around her. She saw the tall evergreens and the grassy meadow.
She tried to remember how she had come to this place, where she had come from and where she was supposed to go.
She couldn't remember anything about where she'd come from, she didn't know where she was and she had no idea where she was going.
She wept and hoped that somebody would come and rescue her.

The woman was awakened by the sun as it rose above the trees surrounding the clearing where she was sleeping. She opened her eyes and looked around her. She saw the tall evergreens and the grassy meadow.
She tried to remember how she had come to this place, where she had come from and where she was supposed to go. She couldn't remember how she had gotten to the forest but she knew she was where she was supposed to be and she knew she had continue west, with the sun on her back until she reached the river where there would be a boat to take her to her final destination.
She rose,rolled up her sleeping bag and put it in her back pack, then she took the path heading west through the forest.

The woman was awakened by the sun as it rose above the trees surrounding the clearing where she was sleeping. She opened her eyes and looked around her. She saw the tall evergreens and the grassy meadow.
She tried to remember how she had come to this place, where she had come from and where she was supposed to go. She remembered her home near the ocean, and her family that she had left there. She remembered her bedroom where she had slept all her life. She remembered her father and all the good times they had together.
She knew she had come from the east, she could see the path that had brought her to this place and she saw the path the path that headed west, towards the river where there would be a boat to take her to her final destination.
She rose,rolled up her sleeping bag and put it in her back pack, then she took the path heading west through the forest.
She knew where she was going and why she was going there, her memories of the past helped her to understand where she was and where she was going Her vision of her destination, gave her the courage to head towards it with joy and determination

Guilty As Charged

2005-11-01T15:15:00.000-08:00

Today, November 1, 2005, only two months since my return from Nepal, the situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate. Nepal's part in the Iraq war is that of an-innocent bystander with no political or religious ties to either the Iraqis or the U.S. Yet, because of their position as the best source of literate, low-cost labor the people of Nepal are now reluctant participants. Many young Nepalese has been tricked into jobs as "civilian support personnel" for the U.S. Armed Forces. Local village headmen have earned huge (by Nepalese standards) bounties or recruitment bonuses by convincing young men in their villages to sign employment contracts with companies thought to be offering employment in Saudi , Jordan or the United Arab Empire. After flying to Saudi (at their own expense) they discovered that their jobs were in Iraq cleaning toilets, cooking or other menial jobs that the soldiers no longer perform. (What ever happened to KP?)
If they refuse these jobs they are required to pay their own way back to Nepal and reimburse their employers for all expenses incurred on their behalf, including the headman's fees. The only way this would be possible would be for their families to sell their small farms and everything else they own of any value in order to pay back their sons' debts.
A group of Nepalese workers who worked on one of the U.S. military bases in Iraq was captured by insurgents and after a short attempt at ransom negotiations it became obvious that no one was going to pay anything for their freedom. After some videotaped statements by the prisoners, all of the Nepalese were brutally murdered on camera.
Their only crime was poverty

My Achin' Back

2005-10-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

I can't think of anything more boring than backaches unless it's somebody talking about it but I gotta tell you because I think I learned something that others might find useful. So if you've never had a backache and are sure you're never gonna have one- read no more.

Last August, I spent three weeks in retreat in a monastery in Nepal. The daily routine included 10-12 hours a day seated crossed legged on the floor. Anticipating some objection from my back to this kind of treatment, I started my own daily routine with a half-hour of yoga in the morning before breakfast. I have been doing yoga for more than 30 years after breaking five vertebrates in a climbing accident in '68. The yoga excercise I do are specifically aimed at strengthening and stretching my back muscles and other related tendons, ligaments etc. Normally I do my yoga practice 2-3 times a week but I upped it to seven in view of the special circumstances. After a week of sitting and yoga , I was experencing a lot of pain - so much that I had to sit with my back against the wall. Getting up was a real chore. When I returned from Nepal, the pain lessend somewhat. I was still doing my yoga but I wasn't sitting for ten hours a day. Then I consulted a Yoga teacher to try to find out if I was doing something wrong in my yoga practice. He corrected a few of my postures and suggested some supplements to my routine. In my sessions with the teacher, I experienced occasional moments of excruciating pain which passed quickly

Two weeks ago I went to Washington, D.C. and from there to North Carolina. I was gone for about a week and during the trip there was no opportunity to practice yoga. By the end of the trip, I noticed that my chronic back pain had virtually subsided. It didn't take me long to realize that element missing from the equation was yoga.
So I did not return to my yoga routine and I've been practically pain free now for almost a month.

I practiced yoga for over thirty years without any painful side effects but somehow, I did something in Nepal that injured something in my back and the yoga aggrivated the condition. I do swim, cycle and play tennis on a regular basis now as before and these activities seem to make a positive contribution to my overall health and well-being.

Surfing the 'net for back pain etc. I came accross a report on a recent study where seniors (like me) who suffered from back pain were divided into two groups. Half did specific excercise to strentghen their backs and relieve the pain the other half did no specific excercises but walked a mile or so every day. At the end of the study the "walkers"" back conditions were considerably better that the group who had been speciific back excercises.

I am quite sure that yoga served me well for more than 30 years and that it was how I recovered so well after a very serious accident that left me with 80% disability but I don't think I should do it anymore.

The NRA Got Lucky

2005-10-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

From today's NY Times:
"WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - The Republican-controlled Congress delivered a long-sought victory to the gun industry on Thursday when the House voted to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from liability lawsuits.
....Opponents called the bill shameful - "bought and paid for by the N.R.A.," in the words of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, whose constituents include victims of the 2002 sniper shootings in Washington and its suburbs, called the measure "a cruel hoax" on victims of gun violence."
I wonder how much the NRA laid out for this bill? Is it a "frivolous lawsuit" when you sue the manufacturer of automatic wepons whose gun was used to kill Middle School students?
Or the gun dealer that sells a "Saturday Night Special" to a 16 year old wannabe gang banger?

Ms. Meirs Born (Again) To Be Justice

2005-10-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

In a fairly low-key article about Bush's newest nominee for the High Court published in the New York Times today:
"Religion appears to have influenced her views on certain subjects. In a discussion with her campaign manager in 1989, Ms. Miers said she had been in favor in her younger years of a woman's right to have an abortion, but her views evolved against abortion, influenced largely by her born-again religious beliefs, said Lorlee Bartos, a Democratic campaign consultant in Dallas who managed Ms. Miers's City Council campaign.
"She was someone whose view had shifted, and she explained that to me," Ms. Bartos said."

Looks like the Bush man's going to pack the court with born-again folks just like him and we're gonna have one hell of a "Roe" to hoe

A New Friend

2005-10-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

ClickFor News You WON'T See On CNN

Beginning of the End?

2005-09-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

In the three centuries since its' beginning the Great Nation had grown from a few small settlements of political and religious dissidents, adventurers and slaves to the dominant military and commercial power of the world. During the same period, several other nations rose to world power but by the beginning of the 21st century the one-time world powers were reduced to secondary status.
Now, the Great Nation was severely divided on ideological and political lines. The country's leader had pursued a course of military conquest and political colonialism.
The youth and resources of the country were being squandered on the President's pursuit of personal power and vindication of his father's mistakes and bad judgment. Like other members of his dynasty, the Leader was short on good sense and ethics but totally committed to his own personal agenda.
Cronyism was the foundation of his personal political system. Many of the important government Agencies had been staffed by unqualified personnel with political "connections".
Unrest among the Nation's citizens was growing more vocal and visible every day.
As a result, the Leader began to be hesitant in his political activities. Where once he had been confident, even arrogant in his treatment of the press, he now appeared hesitant and tentative. When a reporter at a Press Conference suggested that the Leaders' planned visit to the site of a natural disaster might interfere with the work of rescuers. The Leader immediately cancelled his appearance.

Meanwhile, the Nation's enemies were preparing to re-launch their attacks on what now appeared to be a "limping giant".

To Be Continued

Moments of "Lucidity"

2005-09-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

Once in a while (not often these days) I get a sudden feeling that I've got things figured out and then I wake up and realize I've just been day dreaming. I don't know how or where I first heard "The more you know, the more you know you don't know" and even after Googling it, I can't find out who first said it or wrote it but I do know that it sums up my situation perfectly. Only the very young can imagine that they have things figured out.

The Dalai Lama, aka "The simple monk", offered some simple truths to an audience of more than 12,000 here in Austin yesterday. I don't belittle his talk but I don't think he offered any new or particularly revolutionary ideas. Instead, he shared his thoughts with us in a pleasant, unpretentious, friendly way and told his audience that if they found something in his talks that was useful, they were welcome to take it with them and if not "forget it"

This had a very familiar ring to it and last night, I looked at the framed Sutra I have on the wall of my room:
which ends with the words "When you find any thing agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it." The Buddha said that over twenty-five hundred years ago.

Nice seeing His Holiness again. We were born in the same year - I sometimes feel a true kinship with my friend
"The Simple Monk"

2005-09-17T03:08:00.000-07:00

I ran into an old friend at Central Market yesterday, Scott and I worked together in Santa Barbara - it's almost ten years ago now. I used to call him "Sport" or "Kid" but that doesn't quite fit anymore. It's not just that he's in his mid-forties but also because he's gotten so big! He's tall, maybe 6' 3", but in the last five years or so he's broadened a lot, not really fat, jus wide. He told me that I keep looking younger and better. That's partially bullshit of course but not a real lie. Scott's a salesman but he doesn't lie. I can tell when someone's lying by looking into their eyes and Scott's are almost always very clear, bright and alive. "Windows of the soul" is absolutely true and anyone that doesn't believe it can't see much at all.

Talking to Scott is always interesting - he's not boring even when he's talking about things I'm not interested in. We think alike, Scott and I, even though he's a born- again Catholic. He understands about consciousness and compassion even if, like me, he sometimes strays from the path. We talked about responsibility and helping other people, about the Dalai Lama and Andre Agassi. Scott was once a "contender" in Tennis.
Not a real star but someone with a little talent and a lot of ambition. He worked at the Santa Barbara Tennis Club when I was a member there (about 16 years ago).

I woke up about an hour and a half ago, glanced at my bedside clock and thought it was seven a.m. but when I got up and went to the bathroom, I discovered that it was four a.m. so I read for a while but the book I was reading was causing more "angst" than I wanted to experience, so I decided to get up and write.

Maybe we all have a lifetime quota of sleep- like seven or eight hours a day for every day we live and now at the age of 71, I've gotten most of the sleep I really need - for a lifetime.

250,000 Trailers

2005-09-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

So the FEMA chief buys all these trailers before he "resigned". Now what are they gonna do with them. It looks like most of the homeless evacuees (aka "refugees") have decided they don't want to go back to "The Big Easy", so I guess that means that cities like Houston, Dallas and Austin are gonna get most of them. Assuming that Austin gets let's say 10% - that means we're gonna have one hell of a trailer park. Bush finally gets his revenge on the only major city in Texas that he couldn't carry in the last "election".
They can't really park them out in the boondocks of east Austin and I know Sun City up in Georgetown will fight hard ("not in our neighborhood") so I guess South Austin will get them.

Interesting Times

2005-09-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

It turns out that the Chinese toast : "May you live in interesting times" was not as some have suggested a back handed curse or malediction but none the less it does seem especially appropriate in our own times.

After 70+ years in this current lifetime, I feel that I have gone the gamut or perhaps even run the gauntlet.
Starting with the simple world of depression-era New York in the late 30's and on to the 40's and the age of Rosie the Riveter and "Johnie marching home". Times Square on V-E day. Los Alamos in 1945. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the A Bomb, Cold War, Beatniks, Korean Police Action, Existensialism, The Silent Generation, "JFK, Blown Away- What Can I Say"
Flower Power, Love not War.
Weathermen & The Velvet Underground,
Beatles, The Brady Bunch
Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Red Buttons, Red River Valley
Dylan, Jagger, Bianca, & twinkies, tweetie & Looney Tunes
Steve McQueen, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe
Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller
Norman Mailer and Susskind.
And we're still not past the 60's
It was interesting.

"The Police Taught Everyone Around Here How to Loot"

2005-09-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

A local blogger from New Orleans:
"Kirby Gee works as a bartender at a New Orleans Bar called "Miss Mayes". He says the bar did pretty good business even through last Wednesday—the cops kept them in shotgun shells as long as they kept pouring drinks. Gee says the police taught everyone around here how to loot. They were the first to bust into the grocery store down the street and the Wal-Mart a mile or so up the road. He also says they took to breaking into car lots in the days after the storm and driving off with brand-new Escalades. I'm not sure whether to believe him, until a cop car drives buy towing what looks like a mint-condition Corvette Stingray. "And these are the people telling us to evacuate," says one of the porch dwellers. Every time a Humvee rolls by, a few of the guys make sure to flash the peace sign."
Maybe it was the cops who were doing the shooting last week!

New Orleans: The Horror & the Promise

2005-09-08T09:17:00.000-07:00

So far, I haven't found an awful lot of coverage by the world press on the NOLA disaster and most of what I've found so far has not been particularly enlightening or thought provoking but a few comments are worth repeating like this from Le Monde correspondent Corine Lesnes: " Katrina aura peut-être réduit le fossé entre les Etats-Unis et le reste du monde.
L'hyper-puissance est revenue dans le commun des mortels." (Maybe Katrina has reduced the moat between the U.S. and the rest of the world" and "The super-power has rejoined the world on equal footing"
Katrina, "The Big Leveler" literally and metaphorically.
Barbara Bush has expressed concern that the Katrina regugees now in Houston and other parts of Texas, may not go home ( Reminds me of a bumper stcker in I saw in California : "Welcome to California - Now go Home").

Will New Orleans ever be rebuilt? Should it? Jack Shafer in SLATE says no "New Orleans won't disappear overnight, of course. The French Quarter, the Garden District, West Riverside, Black Pearl, and other elevated parts of the city will survive until the ultimate storm takes them out—and maybe even thrive as tourist destinations and places to live the good life. But it would be a mistake to raise the American Atlantis. It's gone."

Maybe it could be the New Atlantis, just let the Mississippi reclaim the delta and maybe they can build a subterrenean pleasure dome.

The idea of rebuilding an entire city from ground (or water) up is a fascinating fantasy. All the Utopians of the world should hold a convention with a grand prize for the best plan. Personally, I would love to a "Nova Venezia" instead of a new New Orleans.

Canals in place of streets, a huge" Piazza San Luigi Braccio Forte" (for the city's patron saint, Louis Armstrong)
water taxis driven by "Gonzolieri"
I'm sure you get my picture- what's yours?

2005-09-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

"Seeing is Believing"?
We "see" someone running out of a darkened store front carrying a carton of soft drinks and a bag of groceries.
Voice over: "Widespread looting is hampering rescue efforts in New Orleans"
We assume that the man with the groceries has taken them without paying and he is "looting" but what else might be going on? Maybe the "looter" can't buy what he needs or wants because the stores are all closed.
Maybe whatever is left in the abandoned store will be swept away by the rising flood tides.
Maybe the man and his family haven't had anything to eat or drink in two days.
Maybe- the man is just returning to his home after receiving the groceries from relief workers.

Our perception of what we think we see is completely distorted by the media and their own agenda.

Maybe you can't believe what you "see" on television.

Kopan Diary - part 1

2005-08-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

Kopan Diary
007/18/2005
Austin>L.A.:My seat mate was a 28 year old HS teacher from the L.A. suburbs, very nervous and talkative. I talked her through the takeoff and she relaxed. She thinks she’s engaged to a teacher who is 13 years older than her (same difference as my wife and I) but her fiancé doesn’t know yet. She was returning from Costa Rica where she’d enrolled in an immersion Spanish course and quit because “the people in San Jose weren’t very nice” It seemed to me as if she was “looking for love in all the wrong places” and frequently getting hurt. She told me about her 80 year old Dutch grandmother(who has been living in the U.S. since she was thirty something and how she wanted to visit Holland with her but Grandma was reluctant to travel. I told her about my 84 year old mother-in-law who was traveling alone to Hawaii and how she goes water skiing in Turkey every year. My companion asked me how old I was and was amazed. I told her about “The Story of Dorian Gray” and how we all age at the same rate but demonstrate it in different ways.

Hong Kong : Stopover in LA (6 hours) then on to Hong Kong via Cathay Pacific. 13 hours in the air. A long but not unpleasant flight. Most of the passengers were Asians. Americans are avoiding travel to Asia for several different reasons. Cabin attendants were “correct” but not cordial. Food was okay, definitely above the standards of the American air carriers (Delta, United etc.) but not up to Air France. I was in a middle row with a mother and her small child- very quiet and well behaved.

The new Hong Kong Airport opened on July 6, 1998 and the engineers not only had to build the largest passenger terminal on earth but a whole new island to house the airport with tunnels bridges and roadways 16 miles out at sea. Never the less, from inside the giant dome that houses the entire terminal, Hong Kong Airport looks like most other international hubs- L.A., Bangkok, Paris etc. It will soon be the gateway to the orient and China will take the lead in air transport just as it has already done in so many other areas.
The Chinese are rapidly becoming synonymous with international commerce. The way the French were to sex and romance and the Italians were to the “dolce vita”

It’s no accident that Confucius’ main focus was on ethics, in the same way that Jesus and Buddha concentrated on compassion. The Chinese have the business skills and determination but their aggressive, often ruthless tactics can lead them to almost vicious treatment of enemies and competitors. The airport offers a special opportunity to exploit customers. Most of the transactions are “one-time” situations and it must be a great temptation to try to “take the sucker for everything he’s got” An example would be my own experience with the “Nap shower facilities” at Hong Kong Airport. I paid $28.00 USD and was shown to a sleeping cubicle which was in an appropriately darkened, noise-proofed area. Almost as soon as I put my head on the pillow, the overhead lights went on and stayed on for the next hour and a half. I finally gave up trying to sleep and went to the showers where I discovered no hot water . When I dressed and complained to the manager, I was offered a slight shrug of the shoulders for my pain.

George W Bush, (A Self-Made Man)

2005-08-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

Dad had failled in his bid for re-election and it looked it might be curtains for the Bush dynasty- but wait, young George walk up one morning with a very big head and an idea!
"The whole eastern establishment thing was dead" he realized. "If I'm going to lead our family to political victory and restore the honor of the Bush dynasty, I've got to be someone that the people, the voters, can trust and relate to- no blazer & ascot, no white bucks . I've gotta be down home and friendly, the kind of guy other guys would really want to have a beer with"

So George W. re-invented himself. First thing he did was to get born again with the help of Billy Graham and then he swore off the Wild Turkey and the happy dust. He bought some chewing tobacco and practiced chewing and dribbling a little. (Came kind of naturally)
He could out-Bubba that Rhodes Scholar hiilbilly from Arkansas-easy!

It was kind of a shock for Laura at first but she soon got used to it. She was never really comfortable with the Kennebunkport crowd anyway and the fact that he was not going to drink anymore made her happy. George W.
was not a pleasant drunk.

Bali Hi!

2005-07-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

The original photo was taken at a Buddhist temple in Bali last Novemeber. It was my first visit to Bali and was completely taken by the country and its' people. Two things appear to me to dominate Balinese culture:
1. Religion: the people of Bali are predominantly Hindu and religion plays a very important role in their lives.
It is said that the women of Bali devote no less than a quarter of their waking hours to the preparation, delivery and arrangement of "offerings" for their temples and shrines. You'll see these floral displays almost everywhere - even on the counters of the duty-free shops at the Airport.
2. Family and the extended family of the village. Balinese are very attached to their village and family. The authority of the village headman is virtually unquestionable.
3. Craftsmanship. Almost every village I encountered in Bali had an arts/crafts speciality. There are woodworking villages, stone carving villages and painting villages. In these villages everyone practices the village craft. Imagine living in a place where you and all of the neighboring families spent at least eight hours a day painting pictures-all in the same style!
The result of all of this is to create a sense of place - an identity that is solid as a rock.

Austin Weather Forecast: Unbearable

2005-06-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Ever since I arrived here, seven years ago, for nine months of the year, I wondered why it took me so long to get here and for the other three months, I wonder: "What the hell am I doing here?"
Summer just arrived and we're already in the middle of a heat wave- with no respite in sight.
Daytime temperatures in the mid-to-high nineties. It's still cooling off a little at night but by this time next
month we'll probably start seeing the "triple digit weeks" when we can go several consecutive days without seeing the thermometer ever drop below 90 deg, (farenheit)
There has been a population explosion in Austin during the past 10 years. It would never have happened without efficient and (realatively) cheap central AC.

I wonder how people existed here without AC? I guess a large percentage of the population e.g. University students and faculty just "got outa Dodge" for the summer .
I'm leaving in two weeks and won't be back until the 3rd week in August.

Helping to Rebuild in S.E. Asia

2005-06-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton's OpEd peice in the NY Times this morning stimulated my curiousity about what volunteers are needed and what they can do to help relieve the suffering of the millions of people whose lives were affected by the Tsunami. Millions of homeless, children without schools etc.
Briefly, it seems that the answer is "None, nothing" hundreds have tried to volunteer their services via the web (see:http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/adwait/archive for examples) but there is no organization willing or interested in matching volunteers with opportunities. It looks like another example of Western civilization strangling in its' own vomit.
Media hype=emotional response=national & corporate promises= "none, nothing"
By the time the beaureucracy is up and running the people of Asia who were devastated by the Tsunami will either be dead or have taken care of the problem themselves.
Maybe it's just another step in Malthusuian population control?

"We're Only Here to Help Each Other"

2005-05-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

Humor, Creativity and Compassion

Edward De Bono once wrote that “Humor is the most significant activity of the human brain”.
He also proposed the idea that humor, creativity, generosity and compassion all stem from the same area of the brain. This has recently been confirmed by MRI brain scans and the recent neuroscientific research and it is not very difficult to that humor offers us an opportunity to adjust our perceptions of the world around us and a related thought process enables us to perceive another’s need or suffering, to “feel their pain” sufficiently to take some action to alleviate it. The creative process enables us to search out alternative solutions to problems or difficulties as well as thinking of “non-lateral” ways of communicating ideas or impressions.

We don’t expect everyone to be blessed with perfect pitch or a “musical ear”. In fact, the ability to reproduce a piece of music after hearing it only once is a fairly uncommon talent and the simple ability to draw a straight line without a ruler or compute the the total of a series of five digit numbers is again a special talent. Some of us have been born with brain formations that enable us to accomplish difficult tasks easily but many of were not. However, we can use rulers and calculators in our daily lives but if some one is born without the necessary brain configuration for humor and compassion he probably has no way of even knowing even what they are.

The world’s Great Teachers: Buddha, Jesus and some of the Prophets, frequently taught their followers the primordial importance of compassion because they knew that it was not in the hearts (or minds) of everyone. To some, the golden rule or caring for those less fortunate was an obvious duty but others found the idea bizarre or perhaps even incomprehensible. “Taking care of number one” is for many, the only “rule” they obey.
They would probably consider the Golden Rule just another one to be broken.

Our political and religious leaders have an important responsibility to teach compassion and objectivity by their speeches and example. However, in the current era it seems that our leaders lack the very qualities needed to over ride the basic indifference of the majority of their subjects and followers. The new Pope seems to be rattling the sword of the Crusades, while George W. Bush continues to pursue his own “Holy War” against the enemies of Capitalism, Christianity and Imperialism. Coincidence that the two share the spotlights of the world or as Sidney Hook wrote in “The Hero in History”
“The more troubled the times and the more conventional the education, the stronger are vestigial patterns of dependence and the easier it is for the leader to slip into its frame”

2005-05-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

An article from this week's issue of the New York Times Magazine offers some interesting directions for the rapidly developing field of Brain Research. I am reproducing it here because I think it should be of interest to very thinking person.

May 8, 2005
" Of Two Minds

By JIM HOLT
The human brain is mysterious -- and, in a way, that is a good thing. The less that is known about how the brain works, the more secure the zone of privacy that surrounds the self. But that zone seems to be shrinking. A couple of weeks ago, two scientists revealed that they had found a way to peer directly into your brain and tell what you are looking at, even when you yourself are not yet aware of what you have seen. So much for the comforting notion that each of us has privileged access to his own mind.

Opportunities for observing the human mental circuitry in action have, until recent times, been almost nonexistent, mainly because of a lack of live volunteers willing to sacrifice their brains to science. To get clues on how the brain works, scientists had to wait for people to suffer sometimes gruesome accidents and then see how the ensuing brain damage affected their abilities and behavior. The results could be puzzling. Damage to the right frontal lobe, for example, sometimes led to a heightened interest in high cuisine, a condition dubbed gourmand syndrome. (One European political journalist, upon recovering from a stroke affecting this part of the brain, profited from the misfortune by becoming a food columnist.)

Today scientists are able to get some idea of what's going on in the mind by using brain scanners. Brain-scanning is cruder than it sounds. A technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging can reveal which part of your brain is most active when you're solving a mathematical puzzle, say, or memorizing a list of words. The scanner doesn't actually pick up the pattern of electrical activity in the brain; it just shows where the blood is flowing. (Active neurons demand more oxygen and hence more blood.)

In the current issue of Nature Neuroscience, however, Frank Tong, a cognitive neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University, and Yukiyasu Kamitani, a researcher in Japan, announced that they had discovered a way of tweaking the brain-scanning technique to get a richer picture of the brain's activity. Now it is possible to infer what tiny groups of neurons are up to, not just larger areas of the brain. The implications are a little astonishing. Using the scanner, Tong could tell which of two visual patterns his subjects were focusing on -- in effect, reading their minds. In an experiment carried out by another research team, the scanner detected visual information in the brains of subjects even though, owing to a trick of the experiment, they themselves were not aware of what they had seen.

How will our image of ourselves change as the wrinkled lump of gray meat in our skull becomes increasingly transparent to such exploratory methods? One recent discovery to confront is that the human brain can readily change its structure -- a phenomenon scientists call neuroplasticity. A few years ago, brain scans of London cabbies showed that the detailed mental maps they had built up in the course of navigating their city's complicated streets were apparent in their brains. Not only was the posterior hippocampus -- one area of the brain where spatial representations are stored -- larger in the drivers; the increase in size was proportional to the number of years they had been on the job.

It may not come as a great surprise that interaction with the environment can alter our mental architecture. But there is also accumulating evidence that the brain can change autonomously, in response to its own internal signals. Last year, Tibetan Buddhist monks, with the encouragement of the Dalai Lama, submitted to functional magnetic resonance imaging as they practiced ''compassion meditation,'' which is aimed at achieving a mental state of pure loving kindness toward all beings. The brain scans showed only a slight effect in novice meditators. But for monks who had spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation, the differences in brain function were striking. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex, the locus of joy, overwhelmed activity in the right prefrontal cortex, the locus of anxiety. Activity was also heightened in the areas of the brain that direct planned motion, ''as if the monks' brains were itching to go to the aid of those in distress,'' Sharon Begley reported in The Wall Street Journal. All of which suggests, say the scientists who carried out the scans, that ''the resting state of the brain may be altered by long-term meditative practice.''

But there could be revelations in store that will force us to revise our self-understanding in far more radical ways. We have already had a hint of this in the so-called split-brain phenomenon. The human brain has two hemispheres, right and left. Each hemisphere has its own perceptual, memory and control systems. For the most part, the left hemisphere is associated with the right side of the body, and vice versa. The left hemisphere usually controls speech. Connecting the hemispheres is a cable of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum.

Patients with severe epilepsy sometimes used to undergo an operation in which the corpus callosum was severed. (The idea was to keep a seizure from spreading from one side of the brain to the other.) After the operation, the two hemispheres of the brain could no longer directly communicate. Such patients typically resumed their normal lives without seeming to be any different. But under careful observation, they exhibited some very peculiar behavior. When, for example, the word ''hat'' was flashed to the left half of the visual field -- and hence to the right (speechless) side of the brain -- the left hand would pick out a hat from a group of concealed objects, even as the patient insisted that he had seen no word. If a picture of a naked woman was flashed to the left visual field of a male patient, he would smile, or maybe blush, without being able to say what he was reacting to -- although he might make a comment like, ''That's some machine you've got there.'' In another case, a female patient's right hemisphere was flashed a scene of one person throwing another into a fire. ''I don't know why, but I feel kind of scared,'' she told the researcher. ''I don't like this room, or maybe it's you getting me nervous.'' The left side of her brain, noticing the negative emotional reaction issuing from the right side, was making a guess about its cause, much the way one person might make a guess about the emotions of another.

Each side of the brain seemed to have its own awareness, as if there were two selves occupying the same head. (One patient's left hand seemed somewhat hostile to the patient's wife, suggesting that the right hemisphere was not fond of her.) Ordinarily, the two selves got along admirably, falling asleep and waking up at the same time and successfully performing activities that required bilateral coordination, like swimming and playing the piano. Nevertheless, as laboratory tests showed, they lived in ever so slightly different sensory worlds. And even though both understood language, one monopolized speech, while the other was mute. That's why the patient seemed normal to family and friends.

Pondering such split-brain cases, some scientists and philosophers have raised a disquieting possibility: perhaps each of us really consists of two minds running in harness. In an intact brain, of course, the corpus callosum acts as a constant two-way internal-communications channel between the two hemispheres. So our everyday behavior does not betray the existence of two independent streams of consciousness flowing along within our skulls. It may be, the philosopher Thomas Nagel has written, that ''the ordinary, simple idea of a single person will come to seem quaint some day, when the complexities of the human control system become clearer and we become less certain that there is anything very important that we are one of.''

It is sobering to reflect how ignorant humans have been about the workings of their own brains for most of our history. Aristotle, after all, thought the point of the brain was to cool the blood. The more that breakthroughs like the recent one in brain-scanning open up the mind to scientific scrutiny, the more we may be pressed to give up comforting metaphysical ideas like interiority, subjectivity and the soul. Let's enjoy them while we can. "

Jim Holt is a frequent contributor to the magazine.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

French Lessons - Part 1

2005-05-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

It was in 1951, there was a "Police Action" in Korea and I was bored in college, looking for excitement and adventure. When W.W.II ended in 1945, I was a disappointed that I hadn't had a chance to be a hero. So I enlisted in the Marines and started an odyssey that would eventually take me around the world and back...

Boot Camp at the Recruit Training Depot, San Diego was mostly like you see it in the movies. My Drill Instructor, Sgt. Snarksy (real name) was a prototype DI - even his name was threatening. (I bet you can't say "Snarsky" without curling your upper lip at the corner)
I was named after my father, who was named after his, so on my birth certificate it says: "Ned Carlton Smith III" and my Marine Corps records show that name. At roll call every morning Sgt. Snarsky would call out each platoon member's name "Adams" and Adams would reply "Here Sir" and this would go until he got to me
and Snarsky would read slowly and carefully "Ned Carlton Smith III" and I would reply "Here sir" every day for 90 days.
Later, I would buddy up with a guy from New Orleans, "Shelton S. Harell III " and we would be known as the "two thirds"
After Boot Camp, I went on to advanced infantry training at Camp Pendleton and then a thirty day leave before going to Korea.

While waiting for reassignment after a short stint in the hospital I was in the Battalion Sgt. Major's office and while waiting to see the Sgt. Major I examined the Battalion bulletin board. Every bit of the board was covered with memos and instructions, the stacks pinned to the board were at least two inches thick and there three rows and four column. maybe 12-1500
documents. I browsed randomly and after only a few minutes came upon one that really caught my attention.

It read: "VOLUNTEERS WANTED FOR SPECIAL FOREIGN DUTY WITH THE STATE DEPARTMENT"
Reading further I discovered that applications were being accepted from Marines with a minimum of 1 year of college, GCT scores of 120 or more (GCT scores are roughly the equivalent of IQ's) Minimum height 5' 10" and fluency in at least 1 language besides english. Although my fluency in French at that time would have been stretching things a little, on the whole I met all of the other qualifications and I decided that Embassy duty would be a lot more fun than a muddy bunker, I took the document into the Sgt. Major's office when he called me in.
He started to hand me my new orders but before he could say "Now, get the hell out of here" I said "Excuse me Sgt. Major but I want to volunteer for this" and handed him the bulletin. He stared at it for a minute and asked me where I got it. I told him that it had been on the Bulletin Board outside his office, which seemed to surprise him completely. Obviously he did not read the Bulletin Board twice a day as we had been instructed to do.
He asked me if I was a "College Boy" and I told him that I'd been a sophomore when I enlisted. Next he checked my Service Record and verified that my GCT was 120 and I was exactly 5" 10".
Then it was the Foreign language fluency. "OK Smith" he said, "what foreign language do you speak?" and I sad "French, Sgt. Major" and this seemed to amaze him but he wasn't flustered, he only hesitated a second before he said: "Yeah, well say something in French to me then." and I said something that sounded like "Bon
jower, monsewer" He though about it, and the said "OK Smith, you're gonna have to wait while I get some new orders cut for you"

Two days later I was on a MATS plane to Washington.
(To be continued)

Expectations

2005-04-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

I was thinking this morning about how I am frequently getting my knickers twisted about the things people don't do that I expect them to. I send people e-mail and they never answer or even acknowledge receipt, I lend people stuff and they never return it etc. Today I realized that it's all about expectations . When I give someone a gift, my ownership ends at the moment I give it. What somebody does with that treasured bottle of wine, book (read it or not) is not under my control. The recepient of the gift is totally free to do exactly what he wants to with my gift.
The same is true of letters, e-mails etc. If I choose to send a message, that's my privlege and if the recepient chooses not to answer that's his.
We clutter up our lives and our peace of mind with expectations and they are really only simple manifestations of that old devil- ego. Letting go of expectations is a step towards diminishing our own egotism (note, I didn't say eliminating, just diminishing - let's be realistic)
Just as spontaneous acts of gratuitous kindness & generosity are good for your spiritual health as the devine Surgeon General has declared so are expectations a serious threat to our spiritual well being.
I'm going to try to reduce mine immediately

Letter to Jerry

2005-04-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

4/20/05

Dear Jerry,

Once, a long time ago, I told you that you were my best friend and whether you believe it or not, I want you to know that you have been my best friend, for over forty years and you will always be.

We disagree about a number of things, ideologies, religion, politics among others but over the years none of these have interfered with our friendship. You have been generous, understanding, patient and compassionate with me, often when I didn’t really deserve it. You have shared your home with me, put up with a lot of dumb tricks, shared your friends and your ideas. We have skied together, peed together and laughed together. You have taught me more about myself than any one else could ever have done.

If there ever was a real Odd Couple, it must have been us but I think it was our different backgrounds that made us such a good fit. Our personalities clashed a little too. You the frugal shopper and the guy who taught me how to get the most out laundry, bar soap and so many other things and me, the guy who was always one paycheck behind (I can’t imagine what you could ever get out of that).

Neither of us have ever what could ever be described as “demonstrative” and I don’t think I’ve done enough to convince you I cared but I do want you to know how much you’ve meant to me and always will.

Love-sincerely,

Ned

Movies

2005-04-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

Saturday night my wife and I watched a movie. It had gotten a lot of publicity and sounded like fun since it was set in a place where we had lived for almost twenty years and was focussed on a subject that interests both of us.
The movie was "Sideways" the place Santa Barbara and the subject was wine. She collects and I drink it. (sometimes our approaches clash.

He: "Let's have the '80 Mouton Rothchild with the lamb on Sunday."
She; "We only have one left. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to replace it?"
He: "Ah c'mon, life's for living and wine's for drinking"
She: "You're crazy."

Anyway, you get the idea. So we watch the movie and at the end I tell my wife that the movie was lousy and how come they don't make good movies any more. On Sunday, I tell some friends how much I was dissappointed in "Sideways" and this morning I look up to see what the critics said about it.
They said it was good/great.

I thought about that for a while and then I realized that I wasn't reacting to the screen play, the directing or the performance of the actors. I was reacting to two over the hill L.A. guys who were fighting the onslaught of middle age and trying to be hot shots. One was looking for a last fling before his immenent marriage.
The other, a wannabe novelist and the ultimate wine snob couldn't get over his divorce and the rejection of his novel. So totally engrossed in his own self-pity he didn't even realize that a woman he had just met was really eager to have a relationship him - self pitying slob not withstanding.

It was the characters and their actions that upset me. "Sideways" may very well be a good movie I just don't like the shallow, selfish world it portrays. I really like movies about heroes. Even "The Clearing" with Robert (Stoneface) Redford and especially the recent "Motorcycle Diaries" . We need heroes more than ever these days.
Real life isn't producing any at all

Ratios, Connections and Relationships

2005-04-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

I discovered ratios in HS Algebra - it was the only thing I got out of the course but it was worth the pain. Ever since I 've been old enough to put two and two together I've been fascinated by the relationship of people, places and things to each other. I learned later in my college philosophy courses that: "Many people distinguish between two basic kinds of argument: inductive and deductive. Induction is usually described as moving from the specific to the general, while deduction begins with the general and ends with the specific; arguments based on experience or observation are best expressed inductively, while arguments based on laws, rules, or other widely accepted principles are best expressed deductively.
Later psychological testing indicated I was significantly oriented towards the deductive method. My understanding is generally based on observation and rarely on theory or rules.

The ratio that has intrigued me lately is the reationship between Compassion to Companionship and Competition and Control.
Obviously. we can arrange the components any way we want to but I believe it's most appropriate. So let's say that x= Companionship, a= Compassion b= competion c= control.
Thus-

a:x::b:c

or compassion is divided by compassion and control by competition
The success or validity of a relationship is controlled by the degree of compassion expressed by both parties.
And the final product would be a relationship strengthend by compassion free of control or competition.
As people often tell me,

It's just no as simple as that

but my observation seems to indicate that it is.
There is no such thing as competetitive compassion or controlling companionship
and yet how often do I see intense competition be tween husbands and wives: controlling parents.
Competition thrives in the work place and the sports arena. Control must be excercised by the police and the government but how do they fit into the marriage bed?

The 10 Greatest " Foriegn" (Non-U.S.) Films

2005-02-27T08:30:00.000-08:00

1. La Dolce Vita - (1954, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni)
  2. The Seven Samurai - (1954, Japan, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune)
  3. La Strada - (1954, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Anthony Quinn)
  4. Wild Strawberries - (1957, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman) (Victor Sjostrom, Ingrid Thulin)
  5. Grand Illusion - (1937, France, Jean Renoir) (Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay)
  6. 8 1/2 - (1963, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale)
  7. Rashomon - (1950, Japan, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune)
  8. The Bicycle Thief - (1948, Italy, Vittorio De Sica)
  9. Diabolique - (1955, France, Henri-Georges Clouzot) (Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse)
10. Fellini Satyricon - (1969, Italy, Frederico Fellini) (Martin Porter)
N.B. 6 out of the top ten were made in the '50s (the golden age of Cinema)

The Real You

2005-02-27T05:45:00.000-08:00

Back in the middle of the last century when TV was the size of a
an ordinary microwave oven and the screen the size of the door,
Sid Ceasar's "Show of Shows" was the big event every Saturday night. His zany, "gonzo" humor was unique.
One of his ongoing skits was the world as seen through the eyes of a toddler:
they'd get the video camera on a boom and drop it down until it was about a foot from the floor and then view the set from that perspective. The world was big shoes, pants legs, skirt hems and kittens the size of horses. This was "the world" as seen through the eyes of a two year old.

In Buddhism, we learn that "reality", is what we perceive it to be and your reality is probably different from mine even when we are looking at the same person, place or thing. How we perceive things determines how we think about them. If I see you as a beautiful, sympathetic individual. You are that but someone else might see you as a mean spirted, awkward child. You, on the other hand probably don't see yourself in either of these two ways but as someone completely different.
Which is really you? For that matter is there such a thing as the real you at all?

The Original Seduction

2005-02-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

Everything started in the Garden of Eden, including seduction.

Adam and Eve were hanging out in the Garden as usual, climbing trees, picking fruit, swimming and just having a good time.
One day when he was playing in the lake, trying to catch a fish that kept swimming around his legs, giving Adam a little nip every once in a while. Eve was up in a big tree with a snake, and she asked the snake:
“Tell me again about babies”
and the snake replied: “I already told you about them” “Tell me again” said Eve
“OK said the snake” and he slid over and coiled up in Eve’s lap. “What did you do that for?”
“So you can hear me better” the snake answered. And he started his story: “Babies are very small people-just like you only very small” “Where do they come from?” asked eve.
“They come out of a woman’s tummy. They call the woman a momy when she has babies”
Eve asked: “How does the baby get inside the woman’s tummy” and the snake said: “It’s hard to explain, you don’t know the words” and Eve replied: “Well show me then, just like the last time”
“Ok” said the snake I’ll be the man’s thing and you’ll be the woman” ...
“Oh my, that feels good” Eve said and then: “ I can’t hear you very well” . The snake slipped his head out of Eve and said “I can’t talk and make babies at the same time”

Later, Eve found Adam down by the lake: “Adam, there’s something I want to show you”
Adam said “Hey, what are you doing, ohhhh that feels good! Eve pulled him closer and said
“Do you want to make a baby? Luke the snake showed me how. Adam replied “ I don’t know what a baby is but if this is how you make them, I don’t mind at all”

About My Pix

2005-02-23T16:14:00.000-08:00

'flickr'
Was supposed to have left tag lines on all the photos I posted in My Pix yesterday but well you know what happens. So there are no descriptions.
Just in case anybody ever looks at this blog, I think I'll try to identify the cast.
So, from the top:

A One a It's my grandad, Ned C Smith (the first) with my Aunt Polly and her sister, Aunt Helen. The piture was probably taken in Oakland, CA or maybe Akron, Ohio. Sometime in the mid-to-late 1930's.
2. That's me, at the Longchamps Race Track (Paris) circa 1955.
I was stationed at the American Embassy, Paris for a few years.
3. Hanging out with my grand daughter, Camille -we were riding around Big Sur in July '03.
4. That's my old man, Ned jr., Picture was taken in Baldwin, N.Y. 1940 probably
5. My wife Danielle, the Biker Chick
6. Me on the beach in Santos, Greece - Danielle and I toured the Greek isles - 8it was the summer of '96 (or maybe '97?)