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

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

Thoughts on The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost « ‘The Road Lestraveleded’

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

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

Nonconformity Is Skin Deep - New York Times: "And thatÂ’s 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

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?

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

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

Mama He Sold the Farm

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

Technorati Profile

Radio with Pictures aka "TV"

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

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?

  

Come With Me to a Special Place

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

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

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

Evolutionary Developments

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

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

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

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?