1000 & 1 Things

Some thoughts on 2012

2011-12-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

I would ordinarily do a "Better Bryan 2012", but I'm thinking about doing something just a little bit different than that tired trope.

Instead, I'm considering two actions:

1: email every one of my Facebook friends and say some kindness about them or some good memory I have of them.

2: For every "non-necassary" item I purchase, either purchase the same for donation, or donate some percentage of the cost of the item. On second thought, I would just donate the money.

Hop on Mom and Pop

2011-12-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

You hear a lot about buying local these days. Buy local food. Avoid Wal-Mart and shop at local Mom & Pop stores. In the later instance, I guess you spend a day going to 15 different stores, but whatever.

Meanwhile, over at PointofLaw.com, the site notes a story involving a guy complaining about Amazon's new push to have people post price information. The guy complains on Facebook about the policy and and says he will boycott Amazon. One assumes the guy is upset that the prices at most local stores won't beat Amazon, thus hurting those businesses.

PointofLaw notes that Facebook itself has put a couple businesses out of business (Friendster, anyone?), and couples with Gawker to put the squeeze on local newspapers.

Further, many of the localavores (at least on my Facebook) use Netflix, which essentially killed local Blockbusters, listen to music on iPods that helped kill local record stores, etc. etc. etc.

The road to hell is paved with canned goods

2011-12-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit of a contrarian at heart, and I love when "common wisdom" is wrong; when doing action "A" has a perverse, unintended affect. In fact, I love unintended consequences altogether. Not that I love when they happen, only when I spot them.

Meanwhile, at this time of year, plenty of offices and groups are doing canned food drives. And plenty of people are feeling good about dropping off that can of tuna or soup.

Turns out your good deed might be done better a different way, and might actually do some harm.

All that food can overwhelm food banks. Not to mention that they now have 700,000 cans of high-sodium food to distribute to people who may have high-blood pressure, or jars of peanuts that can't be given to people with allergies. Or some godawful can of creamed something or other that no one knows what to do with.

Not to mention, apparently the food banks can buy the food cheaper than you ever could. Like $0.10 on the dollar cheaper, so it makes much more sense to simply send them a check that they can use to buy food they actually need for their clients. As the article says, eat the can of tuna and donate half its value to a food bank and you've done a much better deed.

As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

UPDATE: The original title of this post was "In a canned pickle". Like either one better?

Week 2

2011-12-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

Week 2 without a Nanny, that is, if you count the week she was out "sick." We had a phone interview today, and face-to-face Thursday, and a couple other potential phone interviews this week, so I'm feeling better about our place.

It is amazing the number of people who will respond to an ad for a Nanny for newborn triplets who aren't comfortable caring for more than 2 kids. Are you not reading the ad? It's triplets. Are you now comfortable but haven't updated your online profile? What?

It also happens to be week 2 of the Push-Up Challenge. Day 1 went pretty well, considering I did the push ups at 10:30 p.m. It's a ladder like set up, where you do a small number, rest, do a larger number, rest, then do two more sets of a middling number, rest, and do a max. I couldn't do the max all the way, but still.

And somehow, I'm actually getting stuff done at work. Luckily we are slow during this time.

Because I don't have anything else going on

2011-12-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

Honestly. Not like triplets are much or anything. Oh, or like our Nanny quit. Which she totally did. Or that I have Christmas shopping to do. Or 100 things to do around the house.

Anyway, because I don't have anything to do, I'm learning how to code in Javascript at Codecadamy. It is a free online site that supposedly teaches you the Javascript langauge. Here is to hoping. I think it would be neat to learn another langauge, one that would be more useful than say, Mandarin, which everyone seems to want to learn.

Also, I've restarted my 100 Pushup Challenge. Friday (tomorrow) is Day 3 of Week 2, which I started this week. I started on week 2 because I'm that freakin strong and awesome.

Back to the salt's mine

2011-11-11T06:26:00.000-08:00

After NY and other places went on a tear and tried to ban salt, or at least reduce its use, and after years of government programs shouted from the rooftops regarding the hazards of the white crystal, it turns out that lowering your salt intake can be harmful. And these weren't crazy reductions to like 600 mg per day, these people were still eating - after the reduction - 3,800 mg, which is much much higher than the 2,000 mg the government recommends.

Meanwhile, out on the left coast Los Angeles is busy preventing new fast food chains from opening, on the premise that they locate in poor neighborhoods and make the poor fat. Ignoring the personal choice issue, it turns out that - OMG - middle class people eat more fast food and in fact, the richer you are, the more fast you eat, up to about $60,000 in income. The availability of healthy food in poor neighborhoods, and health and obesity in general in those areas, is an issue, but simplifying it down to "fast food = bad" is not the way to solve it. But it makes some people feel like they are helping, so who cares who it hurts.

Oh, and after needlessly worrying parents for the last 5 or so years, it turns out that your fat baby probably isn't going to grow up to be the blob.

I'm expected to raise my kids in this world?

2011-11-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

Two Florida school children suspended after they were caught... doing drugs? No. Having sex? No. Vandalizing property? Again, no.

Hugging. Yes. Hugging. According to Reason.com the principle "admits it was an 'innocent' hug, but the school has zero tolerance for hugging."

Wait. "Zero tolerance for hugging"? What?

I'm generally an enthusiastic supporter and believer that the times we are living in now are better than any time in the past; and that my kids' future world will be an infinitely better place than today.

Sometimes though, I have to wonder. To the extent that things like this make our world worse, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

And be careful, next time your teen kid smiles at someone, they could end up married, pregnant and full of STDs.

Two other things, while I'm at it

2011-10-31T07:11:00.000-07:00

1) do unto to others as you would have them do unto you. Its a seflish code, being as its focused on what you would want and all, but its a great way to live life...

2) Start with the man in the mirror. So many things in this world would be better if people took this advice.

A message to my sons, and daughter

2011-10-29T06:06:00.000-07:00

There are two things that I've learned in life that I think are incredibly poignant and true and that I hope to impart on my kids. I wish I could claim to have arrived at them on my own, but the one I read in the Bible; and while I'm not sure where I picked the other up at, I know its origin isn't with me.

So here we go:

1) There is a difference between being frugal and being stingy. Know the difference. A frugal person eats Ramen at home and skips the dinner at the swanky Ramon's Restuarant. A stingy person orders the surf & turf at Ramon's and then wants to split the bill equally among all the diners

2) You should never be shy about what you like, but you should never under any circumstances be finicky. Find that drink, or meal or entertainment you like and make it your signature; but you should never put off if it isn't available. "Real men (and women) are discerning, but they're not disabled if things are not just so."

I hope you three realize them earlier in life than I did.

Over/Under: Day 10

2011-08-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

If you took the over on Day 10, you would have won. The clock continues.

Word Cloud

2011-07-29T06:14:00.000-07:00

The following link takes the last 3 days posts from any site with an RSS feed and turns it into one of those word cloud things. I did one on 1000 & 1 things, but because it only covers 3 days, it was mostly text from my editing. Which got me thinking... you can copy and paste random text into http://www.wordle.net/.

Might it be cool to post your book - or a chapter of your book - and see how it came out. The neatness of the result warrants a visit, in my opinion.

http://www.wordle.net/

Better, Worse, Needs More Work?

2011-07-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

Some people think they flirted with quiting; not to mention procastination and avoidance. However, the thin edge of quit they think they faced - a mere illusion. True quit remained a good ways off. I've tiptoed that line; stared down the vacuum-like abyss on the other side. I know.

Anyway, I've kinda decided that even if I get Falsley Accused edited, my Alpha editor may never lay hands on the Beta copy. Maybe it was the disappointment in not getting it read the first go around that led me to my decision. Maybe it was reading her copy that led me to it. I'm not sure. I reserve the right to change my mind and give her a second shot.

All of that notwithstanding, below are a couple pre-edited paragraphs from my book. Below that is a version as I edited it tonight. What thinks you?

Michael pulled out of his spot, turned around, and drove to the stop sign. He sat their a second, watching Officer Faris in his rearview mirror. Officer Faris seemed distracted in his car, so Michael inched into the intersction and made a right. He eased his car along, checking to see if Officer Farish noticed or intended to follow him, until he was behind the row of houses on the Apple Orchard Lane, the street running parrallell to Vine. Michael made it all the way to the middle of the block without seeing Officer Faris in his rearview mirror, so he turned down the small alley that ran between the row of houses. He pulled in just enough to avoid having Officer Faris see him when he pulled out and killed the engine. "Now what?" He thought.

Michael sat in his car pondering his next move when a movement at the end of the street caught his eye. Someone had come out of 92 Vine. Even as Michael looked up he could see the screen door banging shut behind the man. Michael watched for a moment more as the man walked down the steps and began to cross the alley. Even though he had been sitting in his car for almost six hours Michael had no idea what to do. The man continued his casual stroll across the alley. There were no cars. It was obvious he was on foot and appeared headed between houses to the next street over. Michael debated what to do. He couldn't drive his car to the end of the street. If the man ran into the woods or the next street over Michael would lose him. But he didn't feel comfortable backing up and going into the next street either. Too likely to tip off his position and he was in the same position. Him in car, man on foot. So Michael made the decision to be on foot as well. He opened his car door, left it open so as to not make noise shutting it, and started walking down the alley toward the man.
____________________________

Michael pulled out of his spot. Turned swung his car around and drove to the stop sign. He sat their a second. In his rearview mirror Michael could see the policeman's smug face. Officer Faris fiddled with something inside his car. Michael eased into the intersction. He looked back, checking to see if Officer Farish noticed or intended to follow.

When it appeared he didn't, Michael made a right and eased his car along. He coasted along until he found himself behind a row of houses. He was now on Apple Orchard Lane, which ran parrallell to Vine. Michael made it all the way to the middle of the block without seeing anyone follow. Michael turned down the alley running between the houses. It was more of a breezeway than alley; the houses packed so tight his car barely fit. He pulled in just enough to hide his car. He turned the key in the ignition, killing the engine. "Now what?" He thought.

Michael's eyes unfocused; his attention stopped on a broken piece of blacktop at the end of the alley. A movement beyond the end of the street caught his eye. Someone had come out of 92 Vine. Even as Michael looked up he could see the screen door banging shut. Michael watched for a moment more as the man walked down the steps. Jittery strides carried the man across the alley entrance. The man continued his herk-jerk stroll across the alley opening. There were no cars on the street. The man must be on foot, Michael though. Michael debated what to do. He feared driving to the end of the street. If the man from 92 Vine spooked he could quickly run into the woods or slip down another alley. Backing up would likely tip off his position. Either to the man or Officer Faris. So Michael opened his door and slid out. Careful to leave it open so as to not make noise. He began walking down the alley toward the man from 92 Vine.

Two signs/bumper stickers I hate

2011-07-20T10:30:00.001-07:00

The first is the seemingly ever more onmipresent "Watch for Motorcycles" sign. Really?

Someone voluntarily takes to a road dominated by metal-caged vehicles on a dangerous vehicle without any impact protection and I'm supposed to "watch" for them? I'm willing to swallow that as a person, I have a duty to protect other people. That much I can understand. I would never willingly or intentionally go out of my way to hit a motorcyclist and I try to give them a wide area in which to operate. I'm aware of what my hitting them would do to them, and to me. I imagine you never get that image out of your head.

Having said that, I will begin "watching" for motorcycles when they stop riding down the shoulder in stalled traffic, riding down the center line in stalled - or moving - traffic, pulling wheelies while in highway traffic, jumping in and out of traffic on highways in excess of what must be 120 mph* and other fun stuff that, because they can do it on a bike, I should apparently "watch" for.

Hey you, yeah you in the small, unprotected, hard to see vehicle riding along dangerously on a road dominated by vehicles 200x your size: You may want to put the oneous of "watching" on yourself. Not to mention maybe not drive down the street at 1 a.m. revving your engine to top RPMs.

You have a bike; it is loud; you think you are cool; I get it.

The second isn't nearly as offensive: the "Children on board" signs. These seem to have waned in recent years. But honestly, what is that supposed to tell me? If I'm careering toward you, am I supposed to turn away because I see that sign? And do what, hit the guy next to you instead? Is that sign a "kill the other guy not me because I have kids" permission slip?

I suppose the idea is that if you see the sign you may back off a bit. I honestly find it hard to believe. That idiot tailgating you isn't likely to stop and drive more conservatively simply because of that sign. This is true mostly because tailgaters fall into two categories, in my experience:

1) teens who don't know better, are oblivious, or doing what teens do and acting teenagery and;
2) douchebags.

The inherent nature of each group means neither is likely to alter their behavior soon or based on a simple sign. Teen behavior you can change by waiting it out. Teens grow up.

It's generally too late to do anything about D-bags .

* all things I've witnessed with my own two eyes in my almost 20 years of driving.

I wish I could write like this

2011-07-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

This article by E.D. Kain pretty much nails how I feel about Libertariansim, including both its pros and cons. I highly recommend the article, which is very accessible, I think; even to those who aren't politically inclined. I wish I could write this well about my beliefs.

The whole thing is worth reading, but I liked the following:

Libertarianism, if we are to practice it honestly, requires as much self-denial as possible, as much abandonment of special interest as possible.

Only 37% of all people have a freezer; really?

2011-06-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

Is that possible? According to this chart that I borrowed at the every fascinating Bleeding Heart Libertarians, it is:

That just jumped out at me as an odd stat.

The point of the post was that if you look at how the poor have fared since 1984, things aren't really so bad. Almost none of the poor had computers, cell phones, microwaves or clothes dryers and less than half had air conditioning. Not all of those are life changing. But computers almost certainly are. Computers - hand in hand with the internet - open a vast world of education and knowledge to the poor that they would have almost certainly been locked out of in the past.

Microwaves, clothes dryers, and cell phones, while not life changing in the same way, certainly are time savers, allowing the poor to work longer hours, or to have more leisure time while working the same hours. Air conditioning, although largely taken for granted, is a life-saving invention. And I'm not being dramatic. It literally saves lives.

The author of the post also notes that while many "experts" lament how wages have been largely stagnant over the last 20 or 30 years, that isn't the whole picture. As computers and cell phones and microwaves have become cheaper we now live better lives, even if we make the same money, than we did 30 years ago. Not only that, but thanks to microwaves, VCRs, the internet and things like dryers, we have more free time, and more entertainment options available to us.

So it's not really fair to simply lament that wages have largely remained the same over the last 30 or so years, because in the big picture, our lives are vastly easier than they were 30 years ago, and we have access to a much wider array of entertainment and educational options.

"The hardest job kids face..."

2011-06-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

Fred Astair lived from May 10, 1899 to June 22, 1987. For the purposes of this post I'd like that 1987 to be a bit earlier (no offense Mr. Astair), but it will do.

At some point during his life, he said the following:

"The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any."

It's important to realize that he died in 1987. So at the very latest, he must have been talking about "kids" in 1986 or 1987. Given this, the "kids" he was talking about would now be between 20 and 40 years old (roughly ages 0-20 in 1986). Again, this is assuming the latest possible date he could have made this comment.

Why is this important? Well, next time any one between those ages tries to tell you about the lack of "manners" kids have these days compared to their day, keep in mind that Fred Astair thought the same thing about them way back when they were kids. And any time some one over those ages tries to tell you how parents don't set good examples for their kids... well... guess who was "not setting" a good example for all those kids Astair is talking about.

Just another example of how things really aren't worse today than they were back then. The good old days weren't always good, and (today or tomorrow) ain't as bad as they seem.

SCOTUS (did not) Kill The Video Game Star

2011-06-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

The SCOTUS gets it right. Video games, even violent ones, cannot be banned:

"This country has no tradition of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence. And California’s claim that "interactive" video games present special problems, in that the player participates in the violent action on screen and determines its outcome, is unpersuasive."

It was an action no one would be fool-hardy enough to ever try to do with books. Becuase, well, books are old and fancy and respected and stuff. Old people remember when they used to read them, especially the paper kind. Way before anything fancy like "interactivity."

This ruling is the right one and I give hearty "boos" to Justices Thomas and Breyer for their dissent. There is no room, in my opinion, for dissent on this issue. It's cut and dried First Amendment stuff. "Congress shall make no law ..." No law. Not "sometimes might wanna make," or "could make" or "in special cases may make." No law. Period.

These types of cases provide plenty of potential for bad outcomes. A ruling against the video game industry pretty much forever relegates it as a second class citizen. At least until its so accepted as a medium that the point is moot and the court finally reverses path. Thankfully, that didn't happen here. Look, for instance, at TV, where swear words subject networks to fines, but not cable shows. All because networks are "free" to access. As if the First Amendment is phrased "Congress shall make no law limiting speech unless its readily available speech." Meanwhile, society picks away at the restriction bit by bit until its pointless, until "F" bombs are eventually allowed, so long as they don't reference the implied physical act.

But secondly, this is the type of ruling that, if it goes the other way, eventually ends up impacting all manner of things. If interactivity is the turning point, then "choose your own adventure" books eventually looped into the ruling. If not them - a childhood staple of mine, I realize they aren't tremendously popular now, then Dungeons and Dragons games. "The kids can create and commit violent acts against zombies, which in their imaginations look like people! Not to mention skeleton, which potentially WERE people, at one time!"

I'm not entirely against the idea of keeping kids from playing ultra violent video games. But I think the right way to go about it is to have parents police the games, and to a larger (and more important) extent to explain to kids that this is what you do in games, not in real life.

I won't be against my kids knowing or using curse words. I don't find it that corrupting. Most everyone I know is aware of curse words, and I can't find a correlation between the knowledge of them - or even their use - and the idiots I know. So I won't care if my kids use the words - so long as they use them in the right instances. You don't use them to your parents, or your grandparents, or in social settings, or especially in formal settings. But if you hit your thumb with a hammer, you have carte blanche just that one time to let one rip. I hope that level of permissiveness takes away the "shock" value of the word.

Help me, please!

2011-05-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

So, after finishing Feed and posting a little about it, I read an article about how Oprah's television spot could be filled, but the real question was who would fill her spiritual leader role.

The article noted some reality chick - Bethany - with whom I'm passingly familiar. It noted that she has a self-help book that counsels that "big changes come from small choices." It's a mantra that I love. To often the really big problems in our lives seem overwhelming, but could be changed by some small change, if we'd only see the chain linking the two. This is especially true before all the consequences of a choice have played out. Does this make sense? So, choice A, while seemingly insignificant, ends up being a very bad outcome B.

A simple thing like complaining about your spouse to a coworker about a "male" behavior, while it seems small, dominoes. Since the conduct is "male," its not changeable, so you don't try. You end up complaining to others instead of working on it with the spouse. This builds resentment both ways, as the complainer hates more and more conduct and the complainee feels henpecked. This results in more unchangeable conduct. Soon, a marriage lays irretrievably damaged and both hate each other.

Anyway, this got me thinking: there are probably more self-help books than one could count. Most, or at least a large number, seem to offer good, if not always helpful, advice (or is it the other way around?). Yet people will tell you we are more dysfunctional, trend addicted, media led, status conscious sheep then ever.

So, are the books not working? Are the books working but only to slight affect, and if so, is that really "working"? Are we actually getting better (whatever that means)? Are we getting better, but not at a rate that compensates for the negatives in the society and culture around us?

Maybe the books are simply wrong about their advice, though I'm disinclined to believe this. I think it probably goes deeper than that.

Maybe I'll try to come up with an answer in a future post.

Almost had me fed

2011-05-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

I finished Feed last night.

It's premise is kind of an antithesis to my whole "today is better than yesterday, tomorrow isn't as bad as it seems" philosophy. In fact, I think author MT Anderson was kind of poking fun at me, saying essentially that I was turning a blind eye to the problems. The book features a main characters and his friends who seem to think or believe that all is well in their world, but there are hints that things outside of that small world are not all that well and are actually falling apart.

It really had me thinking.

Then I read a short interview in the back of the book. Anderson talks about how the media doesn't encourage curiosity and is misleading all of us, but especially youth. Putting aside whether the media should do things like this, I think its a fairly ridiculous statement. First, there has always been alternative media. It wasn't mainstream, but then again, that is kind of the point. Had it been mainstream then, well, it would have been mainstream. Second, the internet, which is at the heart of most of the evils in the book, has only added to the plethora of choices as far as media goes. In the past, if you lived in a less populated area you had easy access to say one newspaper, and maybe mail order to others that you would really never find out about, plus magazines. In cities you probably had access to a handful of papers. Now you have access to literally thousands of "newspapers" and other sources of news and curiousities.

Curiousity, if it is indeed lacking, isn't caused by the lack of media or the media' lack of engagement in the process. I have ideas about what might be at the root of any such problem, to the extent that it exists, but that's for a different post, I suppose.

Toward the end of the interview Anderson says that he listened to really obscure music. He says kids listen to music to self-identify into groups and doing that isolated him. This all came in response to how kids who are aware they are being manipulated by the media can handle it.

Anderson said you should try to extend your knowledge into obscure and eccentric things, rather than trying to chase the new thing. But obscure isn't for everyone, and that is probably for the best. And frankly, if everyone went exploring obscure and eccentric, it would not be obscure or eccentric for long. Plus, I think just about everyone has some obscure and eccentric thing they like.

My FB post alone shows a person who loves 1980s rap. Another is a member of a jam band, yet another "friends" small local bands and my sister is into music that is probably accurately described as either obscure or eccentric. I love science shows, especially outer space based, but earth-based as well, and stuff about ancient civilizations.

Maybe I'm not the guy Anderson is talking about. However, I love Def Leppard and radio rock, I know its not the most deep music, but I like it for my own reasons. So what that its not obscure or eccentric. I don't always, or even often, want deep music. If every aspect of life is deep, it's tiresome. You need rest.

This is what always bothers me about these arguments. I often feel that they boil down to "this is what I like and so should you." The fact that you like something outside the mainstream doesn't denigrate the mainstream in any way, but I think those outside of it often think it does. That being outside that stream somehow makes them superior.

Stories like this

2011-04-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ignore that this guy is getting his novel published. For these purposes, its nice, but not required.

First off, the story itself is nicely crafted. It's the type of writing and story that carries my interest even outside of the marriage and book publishing topics. I sometimes wish this is what I was writing. Or at the very least that I was writing like this.

But the point I really want to ram home is that this guy took four years to write his novel. Four years. I've long since forgotten how long I've been at mine. My guess would be 3 years. Four years is possible.

And his original drafts were, if he is to be believed, dreck as well. Of course, admitting your work was originally dreck is easier once you have published a book and have an agreement for a second. First off, its easier to take criticism when once you've succeeded. Secondly, its much more complimentary to you if you cleaned up this original mess you made into a sellable novel. "I worked slavishly to clean up this mess" is better than "the words pretty much fell onto the page as they are here."

This is all on my mind because The Oven and I were discussing my progress on my novel last night. Or lack thereof, anyway. And so I rededicated myself to editing.

I have a new novel fleshing itself out in my head that I'd like to eventually write. But I'm determined not to start it until the work in progress is finished. Finished finished.

The honest truth is I'd like to finish this damn thing and it be good. Almost to the exclusion of its publication.

Douchebaggery

2011-04-18T06:14:00.000-07:00

Money Magazine runs a "write in and have your question answered" segment. They not only get experts, but regular joes and janes from the street to answer, as well. This month's question involves an adult man who is the executor of his parents' estate. The will apparently give each child $X free and clear. The question asker is worried because his brother is, in his opinion, bad with money, and he wonders whether its OK for him to parcel out the out the money slowly, you know, so his brother won't blow it all at once. What do you think is appropriate?

The answers varied widely. The worst, however, were the people who answered that yes, the executor should only give his brother money in drips and drabs. Honestly? So, the people who "owned" the money - the parents - legally give it to their son, and instead of doing what they legally established, people think its OK to meddle in those affairs because of some impression that the brother isn't good with money? This a true test of douchebaggery, if you ask me.

Some picked the correct answer: it is the parents' money, the executor is merely there to make sure the parents' wishes are fulfilled, and the money should be conveyed as they wished. Had the parents wanted it distributed in drips and drabs they could have seen to that. Also OK as an answer: offering to help the brother manage such a windfall.

The worst part of it is that the only evidence of the monetary immaturity of the brother is the writer's impression. Who knows what he takes as being irresonsible with money. Maybe his brother buys expensive cars, or antique guns that the writer thinks are a waste. To suggest that an executor should go against the wishes of an estate simply because of his interpretation of his brother's conduct is truly a sad statement about the internal workings of the individual.

That got followed up by this letter writer to a slate.com advice columnist:

I ride on public transportation to and from work everyday. My problem is that I have a very sensitive nose, and I am easily overwhelmed by smells. I am frequently in the uncomfortable position of sitting next to someone who is either wearing far too much cologne or who reeks of cigarettes and beer. I find it very difficult to breathe and end up unsubtly coughing as I inhale these noxious fumes. My commute is a little less than an hour, so I sit next to these people for quite a while. What is the protocol for asking someone to switch his or her seat? If I'm already sitting and there are other seats available, can I ask the olfactory offender to move? Or is it my obligation to move because I'm the one who can't stand the smell? How do I even approach the topic with fellow commuters?

He's just helping out

2011-04-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

This article in The New York Times (via Reason) paints a "sympathetic, lighthearted" picture of a beloved person in the community. So beloved that the New York Times runs his story and picture on its front page. A Legal Aid lawyer notes that the man is the "goodwill ambassador of Eighth Avenue" and that everyone says hello to him at his court appearances.

Now, you may have caught on from the last part of that sentence that not everything is on the up and up. In fact, the man - Lonnie Loosie - sells cigarettes on the street. He'll sell you one at a time, with discounts for multiple cigarettes. And he sells packs for $8 (which seems expensive, until you realize they go for $12.50/pack in NY). All this is fine and good. It's a nice story. Except that, as Reason.com notes, you would never see such a story about a guy selling marijuana or, god forbid, something stronger.

Yet the difference between the guy selling Mary Jane and old Loosie is... what exactly? Neither Loosie nor our hypothetical Janer salesman is legally able to hawk his wares. Neither drug drives people to crazy danger looking for a high. Neither is probably very good for you when used in the traditional way. Yet Loosie gets a front page story about how good a community person he is and how he is beloved and merely filling a need created by government policy.

Which is easier: Hitting .250, or writing a half-way decent novel?

2011-04-04T09:54:00.001-07:00

Bill James at Slate.com wonders "why are we so good at developing athletes and so lousy at developing writers?"

James makes some good points, but mixes in one truly aweful one and ignores another somewhat easy explanation.

The easy explanation is that writing, at all but its top-most performance, is very subjective, while baseball isn't.

Sure, Shakespeare is universally regarded (and maybe because of that gets undue regard). Outside of him and a handful of others, "good" writing is subjective. Romance, legal thrillers, etc etc etc. Is Grisham good, or a mere hack? He's certainly good at what he does, but does "what he does" constitute hackery? Stephen King sells millions, but is he merely rewriting the same 5 or so stories? Is he formuliac? Is he verbose? Does it matter? The Invisible Man by Ellison (the one about race, not Sci Fi) is considered a classic. It is one of probably one or two books I've ever started that I couldn't finish. It was like reading by rubbing my eye against broken glass.

On the other hand, a guy who hits .300 is pretty good hitter regadless. You can nick-pick whether he gets on base enough, or whether he has sufficient power for this position or that, but honestly, .300 is good. James wonders if some of it is because we already have Shakespeare and Dickens, but we "need" new baseball games every day. It sounds good on first inspection. But we also "need" new books every day. And despite James' contention that we would could and would fill any expansion of baseball teams with new talent of equal character (James suggests even 5,000 [5,000!] teams could be filled with quality talent!), I just don't think its true. In its formative days writing had Dickens and Shakespeare; baseball had Aaron and Ruth. Today, a watered-down and mass produced writing has King and Grisham, while a watered-down and mass produced baseball has all those .240 hitters and come-this-year, gone-the-next relief pitchers with whose names I won't bore you.

James cites baseball's payment-on-potential nature. In other words, baseball pays a young high schooler based on potential, but a writer must toil for years before finding any type of success. True. But a young hurler can have a big impact quickly, and that impact can be predicted with some measure of consistency. Absent injury, a guy consistently pitching 8 innings of 1.25 WHIP ball is likely to be a productive player. A person consistently writing a novel a year, even completely readable, well-written novels, isn't necassarily ever going to turn out a great novel, let alone a profitable one.

So I put it to you: Which is easier... hitting .250 (a mediocre average that would make you an iffy prospect) or writing a half-way decent novel?

The good old-times weren't always good ...

2011-03-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

... and today ain't as bad as it seems.

Talk or read politics or current events long enough and you are sure to run into someone discussing the current crisis in incomes. That is, that incomes have stagnated. People make roughly what they made in the 1970s. It's a travesty, suppposedly. It's blamed on the decline in union power, the meany corporations, globalism, global trade. It's blamed on pretty much an boogey man that can reasonably be dug up.

But as this article points out, while wages may have stagnated, the purchasing power of those wages has increased.

Today, cars cost roughly what they did in 1970 ($20,000ish) but last twice as long. Cars in the 1970s would never have made it to 200,000 miles, which a reasonably cared for car can make these days. And this ignores the mandated safety devices that make these more valuable cars even safer.

Meanwhile, computers, televisions, refrigerators and music playback devices are all cheaper, more convenient and for the most part, built better than in 1970. Back then computers were unobtainable, televisions staticy, refrigerators needed defrosting, and record players and 8-track tapes offered poor quality and limited lifetimes. Meanwhile, computers are now sub-$300 playthings, televisions are low-powered, HD-bulging devices five times larger than their 1970s relatives, plenty of people have two refrigerators, none of which require taking all your frozen goods out of them to defrost them.

Progress.

The meltdown over nuclear power

2011-03-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

It's started. I received the following in an email at work:

Friend,

We are at an energy crossroads. We could continue rushing blindly down a road strewn with nuclear meltdowns, oil spills, and toxic emissions until we realize too late that we have altered our world’s ability to nourish its inhabitants. Or we could step boldly onto a new road to a time and place where energy is abundant, affordable, and safe for people and our planet. The choice is clear. But as long as the government keeps propping up toxic energy with taxpayer dollars, the roadblocks to a clean energy future are insurmountable.

... help build grassroots momentum for a future free of nuclear emergencies: Forward this message to everyone you know who supports a transition to a clean and safe energy future.

I'm all for ending the government prop-up of energy creation. All it does is distort the price of certain, favored policies, over others. And I'm for cheap, clean power. But the reality is that this just doesn't exist in the way Public Citizen - the author of this letter - hopes. "Clean and safe" pretty much defines nuclear power. We've had what, two accidents, in the entire U.S. No injuries. Compare that to coal and oil, and for fun let's put aside the environmental problems from their burning. You still have oil rig explosions, mine collapses, resulting pollution from obtaining the materials, etc.

Public Citizen's letter is suspiciously quiet about which clean, safe and abundant power source it favors. My guess is wind or solar. But of the two of them, only wind produces a smaller carbon footprint than nuclear. Solar's carbon footprint is actually twice as large. Not to mention the best place for windfarms - which come with their own set of problems outside of having the actual, visible windmills - is in ecologically sensative deserts. And consider the amount of space wind requires to produce 1,000-megawatts over that of nuclear. Geothermal is nice, but requires enough space that it probably isn't an option for cities.

Could God have created a radioactive-free world?

2011-03-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

Those who believe him omnipotent would certainly say so. And those who don't believe him to exist would certainly say that he had nothing to do with it. Regardless of my own personal stance, there is room for both beliefs, I think.

This article touches on religion and nuclear power (sorta) and so it touches on two topics of endless interest to me. As a disclaimer, I generally like Slate.com, question the existence of God in a Buddhist "we can't know" kind of way, and support nuclear power. I believe there there are certainly good questions about God. This is not one of them:

Those who believe that suffering and evil can be explained, even justified, by the fact that man has free will and thus the ability to choose evil (the "blame-it-on-the victim" school of theodicy) and argue that courage and goodness would not mean anything if mankind did not have that free choice, still have to answer the question: Is this really the best of all possible worlds? Couldn't God have made it a little better? A little less suffering, fewer of those earthquakes, say, a slightly smaller number of childhood cancers, a little less heartlessness, a little more humanity in human nature? Whenever I hear people echo Voltaire's mocking (in Candide) of Leibniz's assertion this is "the best of all possible worlds," I hear Leibniz with a different, sardonic, anti-Candide questioning tone: "This, THIS is the best of all possible worlds?" This is the
best you could do, God, Mr. Big Shot burning-bush guy?

Asking questions like "couldn't God have made it a little better" begs the question. And while we are at it, couldn't he have made it a little worse? It's a juvenile argument, as far as I'm concerned. It really adds nothing to the conversation. If you think God is silly (as the author appears to), you should consider how silly discussing whether or not he could have created a "little better" world is really dumb. Even allowing that the author concedes the existence of God for this discussion, the discussion itself is entirely myth-based and unknowable.

"Could God have created a "little better" world by not including radioactivity" strikes me as a smoke-filled dorm-room/freshman philosophy question.

At last: Atlas Shrugged The Movie!

2011-02-26T13:31:00.000-08:00

I could not be more excited. It's a movie I've been waiting to see for at least 5 years. And it finally arrives April 15, 2011!

IMDB info:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

and the trailer:
http://www.atlas-shrugged-movie.com/atlas-shrugged-movie-trailer/

Having loved the book and waited 5 years for the movie, I'll probably be disappointed. It has cheese potential coming out its arse for about 80 different reasons. And frankly, with a limited budget and the tortured way the movie came to be it might not even make it to a local theater. Still, I'm stoked.

Now if only we could get The Dark Tower series into production.

1000 & 1 Things - almost literally

2011-02-25T05:53:00.001-08:00

That's what it feels like, anyway.

There is so much to do at this point. I won't bore you with the entire list, but here's a representative samep of the interesting stuff:

- I'm editing-reading my sister's novel,
- keeping in mind that mine has to be done, probably before the triplets
- gathering baby stuff for the triplets,
- caring for R. who is doing well but is exhausted and starting to get large and who needs to rest as much as possible,
- checking into day cares,
- investigating Nannies who might come to the house
- finishing the bedroom (it's essentially done, though not yet furnished)
- financial planning, which is always busy this time of year but more so with triplets
- playing 2 hours or so of Fallout: New Vegas per day
- walking the dog
- general house stuff
- reading about Buddhism, which I'm really enjoying and might have a post on shortly

All that said, I realize I haven't posted here in almost a month. I've considered creating a triplets website to document our journey. The reality is that once the triplets are here, I probably won't have time for both, so I'm not sure. I'd like to keep one alive to document what I'm doing, keep in touch with certain people and have a place where I can have a dialogue with myself, but who knows.

Better Bryan '11

2011-02-09T08:06:00.000-08:00

A month late, but thankfully timeliness isn't one of the goals.

In fact, I'm not sure there are any solid goals at all. I had intended on having two (1 + 1 equating to 11 and not wanting to have 11 after last year's 10).

But now I have not one, not two, but three kids on the way. My entire childbearing activities done in one shot. So I have the usual child-prep work times 3, not to mention the financial planning and strain that will cause. Because frankly, we planned and worked and put ourselves in a place where we could easily handle one and could do two. Three at once is another whole game.

I'm stressed about one thing or three just about any minute of the day and any day of the week. It's draining my energy to make posts here, I know that.

So I think just getting through the next six or so months is goal enough.

I never assist slavers

2011-02-08T07:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's post got me thinking about the way I play video games. I thought I had posted on this before, but I couldn't find anything on it, so here goes:

No matter my intentions going into a game, I always play the "good" guy.

I play a lot of games that permit choice - you can rob, kill, help out the bad guys, or run errands to help a town whose water supply is poisoned, a person held captive or cursed, what have you. Pretty much no matter the setting - outer space, post-apocalypse Washington, New Vegas, or mythical land - I choose to help out the good guys. Sometimes I do it with a gruff attitude and with little leeway for what my character will put up with and little remorse for negative consequences, but I almost always chose to try to help. Sometimes I'm what you might call a reluctant good guy, but I'm always what you would call - I think - a good guy.

- I never assist slavers. In fact I relish in wiping them out.
- I never provide comfort the the bad guys. I don't always actively wipe them out (until they turn actively hostile), but I don't help them.
- I usually donate money to the poor, and though I usually suspect there is some "in game" angle, I do so even when there isn't an obvious end game in the game.

This isn't to toot my own horn. I actually think the behavior cuts both ways - its a pro and a con, in other words. It shows both what is best and what is worst about me. And sometimes, it reflects the moral black and whiteness that composes the gray of my real life, as it did with Boone. Because although he had murdered woman and children, he regretted it now and I took him on as an ally. I helped him kill the person who sold his wife into slavery (the laws of good and bad are a little loose in post-apocalyptic worlds missing a court system, in my estimation). I genuinely wanted to help him wipe out the Legion who had taken his wife. And I was sorry to see him die.

And its not just companions in general - I got a second, a robot, and lost him in the first mission with little remorse. I'm now on my third companion, mostly because I know want a companion in tow. Partly for the company, partly for the help carrying stuff and partly because I'd like to replace Boone. But she's kind of annoying.

Another example: I freed some slaves from the first batch of Legion I happened upon. Boone was in tow, though I had stowed him away up on a cliff. This was both to prevent him from dying in a battle against unknown forces and also benefited his style. But as the family fled a soldier I missed started shooting at them. I killed him, but not before he took out the mother. That broke my heart and I kicked myself for it. I couldn't find the other two, so I assume they got away. But I honestly wished I could have protected her.

It's an interesting psychological study, I think. Or maybe I just don't get out enough.

Boone has died

2011-02-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

... and with those words I had a very weird experience.

Boone, I should explain, was a companion in the game Fallout III: New Vegas. He had been with me for about half of the game at that point. He was quiet and personal and conflicted: not only had he participated in slaughter as a military man, his wife had been sold to slavers and he killed her to save her. His was a sad story of regret, loss and the resulting demons.

My affection for him was heightened because he had helped me out of several tight spots in the game and I gave him all the scavenged stuff to carry, effectively doubling my carrying capacity.

But then I made a bad decision and we ended up in the middle of a pack of wild dogs. Close combat where Boone's sniper rifle skills amounted to very little help. And then he was dead. And I was actually a little moved. Not to tears; I wasn't really sad. But I certainly felt a sense of loss. I felt enough that I ceremoniously dropped a hat he had given me with his corpse and placed his sniper rifle in an unused locker in the shack I use as home base. Then I took a moment and moved on. He had just gotten finished telling me that he felt bad things were due him because of the bad things he had done. I guess he was correct.

Miss Takes

2011-01-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

Posting again about yesterday's error because my comment got a little long:

The misspelling is unacceptable (especially in today's world of spellcheck; unless "presindet" is a word). As an editor I'm sure that is what sticks in my commentor's craw the most.

For me, though, its the content. Spelling mistakes, regretablly, happen. But either we are getting enough calcium or we aren't. To say we aren't, and then quote a reputable source as saying we are, well, what should I believe - and is the article worth anything?

This error actually smells of writer bias to me: the "we don't get enough" line was probably written as the story idea/hook, then the author found out that, oops, we actually do get enough. Both lines stayed in the story. Its just sad that either the author and editor missed it, or left it in because the "shortage" line creates drama.

This happens in drug stories A LOT, too. Legit news outlets run stories about "Pill Parties" where kids just bring pills, put them in a bowl, and then pass the bowl around. None of the stories ever have a witness account by either the journalist or a student. And yet they publish them - mostly based on a "crazy drugged out kids" meme that isn't true and in the case of Pill Parties certainly has no evidence to back it up. But the author follows this bias, possibly without even knowing it exists, without thinking about the flaws in this story. And the flaws go way, WAY, beyond not having a real source outside of other news stories and third hand reports. Just think about what would have to occur for this type of conduct to exist. It just doesn't make sense if you think about it for more than two minutes.

Writing and editing failure

2011-01-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

A WebMD story featured this as its second sentence:

Although Americans have improved their calcium intake in recent years, we're still not getting enough to maintain our bone health.

Ooooh. Scary. We should rush out and buy some calcium supplements straight off.

Or should we? This is from the fourth graph of the story:

The Institute of Medicine notes that most in the US get enough calcium except for girls 9 to 18 years old.

So which is it? Or is the "we're" in we're still not getting enough referring only to 9 to 17 year-old girls? The article is written by a woman, but since it is unlikely she's between those ages, and since its not a women's or girl's magazine, I'd assume the "we're" refers to the previous "Americans have improved" line.

I suppose you could argue that calcium is a bigger issue for women, especially at that age when bone is being grown and cemented for later on in life, and thus that the "we're" is referring to women in the group with the largest risk of calcium deficiency. But if that's the case, the "Americans have improved" should probably be "America women have improved."

Someone (the writer? the editor?) messed up here. And it wouldn't be such a big issue if plenty of health-scare/drug-scare stories didn't often have holes this big in them.

Something... religious

2011-01-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

I'm talking about The Road. The trip through the book in two words: seriously good.

Short, sharp sentences create the perfect sense of setting for this post-apocolyptic novel. McCarthy adds to that setting by using archaic words for certain things to really slam home the idea that things are different in this world. It gives the setting a true sense of self: these things he is describing, you know them; you've probably heard the word, but maybe can't quite place it. It's spot on: this is a world you know, but can't quite place as the one you live in. I think this also adds to the feeling that things are breaking down. The current words are no longer "the" words.

McCarthy also forgoes several forms of puncuation mostly commas and parenthesis. And while he uses contractions such as can't and don't, he cant seem to fit in the apostrophe. This was, at first blush, troubling. But I eventually became accustomed to the style. And I think it makes sense: it once again lends itself to the breakdown in society, post-apocolyptic scene; one where contractions would exist but an apostrophe would mean little.

That's not to say that I found it all perfect. The smashing together of words was a littleoverdone. It seemed like a failed attempt to add to the scene, but not only was it seemingly random, I'm not sure what it was trying to say. In the post-apocolyptic future words are said together, faster? What?

I've seen complaints that the dialogue is overly simple and blocky. Whether you agree with the style or not, I think the it represents a purposeful choice. In a post-apocolyptic world devoid of almost any life and in which survival is goal A, B and C, conversation would be limited and simple, I imagine. The boy and father spend literally all their time together, and without neighbors, work, art or any of the other peripherals of life, there would be precious little to discuss.

And while some complained about the repetitive use of ash and grayness, I have news for you - in what appears to have been a post-nuclear winter world, ash and gray are probably not only paramount in your mind, but just about the only thing in your vision. You may not like the ascetic, but I don't think you can complain about the choice. It's like reading a Stephen King novel and complaining about the horrors explained within. Or reading Grisham and complaining about all the legal aspects.

I loved the immersion I got out of this book enough that I immediately searched On Demand to see if the movie was playing. Sadly, it was not, but I'm going to keep my eye out for it.

Boys will be Xs, but Y is that?

2011-01-06T06:50:00.000-08:00

In this case, at least.

I'm foregoing the usual Religion/Buddhist Thursday post to comment on the linked article. Its about three people - two brothers and a paternal uncle. The brothers are married to women.

All three have all the traits of being male. As the article states:

Both brothers are married to women, and they and their uncle have the sexual anatomy, behavior, growth, and skeletal development of males. All have normal health and intelligence.

Except that all three lack the Y chromosome that makes a male a male. Instead, they have two X chromosomes, the genetic marker of women.

Holy Shirts and Teas

2011-01-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Because I'm too busy to post the post I should post (on 2011 resolutions) that everyone else has already posted, and too void of ideas to post anything else, I'll post these links, which are neat:

The (apparent) bible on how to make a proper cup of tea from Slate.com. Sad to know that my first steeping has apparently been wrong all this time. I'm torn about the article though: I understand it needs to have a wide, broad audience, and thus delving into the nuances of black and green is probably unwarranted. But at the same time, simply stating that tea should be brewed with boiling water without comment about those nuances makes me question the author. Not more than the fact that tea bags are actually discussed as a proper form of tea, but some.

Since lots of people probably got shirts this Christmas: An article on why men should untuck their shirts and leave them that way. Yes, Craig, I'm looking at you.

And then there were three...

2010-12-22T06:02:00.000-08:00

The big day is almost here!

As a result, I'm posting some random stuff and thoughts in this holiday-week post. Partly because I wanted to post, partly because I wanted to avoid work. Who has the energy or focus for actual work - there are 1.5 days of work left before I have more than a week off!

A great Slate.com story on Swedish Christmas tradition: Watching a Donald Duck special from the 1950s on Christmas Eve. Every single year the entire nation shuts down to watch it. Crazy Swedes.

And here is a cute little ... we'll call it a blog... in which the author imagines the fictional marriage situation that led to the pictures in a home-decorating catalog. While it sounds kinda boring, its actually quite clever.

Sometimes, you complain about something, and it goes right out and surprises you.

(I consider myself an almost entirely rationale person. At least I try to be. I don't keep many totems, or believe in much of the mystical, or do any routines. I don't have a lucky shirt, nor do I do certain things to help the Eagles win or whatever. But for several reasons I won't get in to, I consider the number 3, if not lucky or magical, at least special in the universe.)

Religion Thursday

2010-12-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

This week I'm addressing the Buddhist concept of dependent origination.

I gotta say, I'm really liking what I'm getting from Buddhism right now. The law of dependent origination "analyses life and the working sof human beings and society as they actually are," according to the book. The author likely takes to task deity, deterministic and accidental teachings as violating this law.

Originally, Asian philosophies would sometime advance such practices such as acting like animals or purifying in river waters. But the Buddha apparently considered these doctrines as defying reason, since the actions could not be shown to actually lead to enlightenment.

The author really emphasis that all actions lead to certain results and all results arise from certain actions. In other words, WWII was caused by human choices and actions, and could have been avoided. Poverty is caused at least somewhat by human choices (perhaps not entirely individual, but society wide).

Interesting.

Better Bryan X Final Review

2010-12-15T05:46:00.000-08:00

Some house cleaning before all focus turns toward Christmas, the year ends and Better Bryan '11 begins:

1: Donate or volunteer more often than in 2009

- Managed this one pretty well. Between all the weight R. lost, leading to lots of donated clothes, and the money I donated that I got work to match, I think this was a success. And its a Buddhist principle to boot!

2. Be less petty/condescending

I'm not always sure why anyone would ever choose to live with me, honestly. This wasn't a resounding success early in the year, but I think I've come a long way in the last 2-4 months. This has been a tough year, and one of my patience-depleting triggers has been right at the core, but we'll be generous and say its a modest success.

3. Cut out the sighing at R

This was - at least a little - tied to the one above. I'm told I do other things now, so its an ongoing thing. But that is part of what this is all about: growth.

4. Keep the house more clean, more often

Success. And considering I'm home 100% of the time over the last month, and thus 100x more likely to make a mess, I'd say its a pretty damn good success.

5. More focus at work

Much more work going on (even though its now from home).

6. Spend 15 minutes/week in meditation/silent

15 minutes? Not close. A couple minutes before bed. Yes. I was doing this at red lights and in traffic, but, well, I don't drive anywhere anymore.

7. Talk less/listen more

At best, with myself as the judge and jury as well as administrator of the appeal process, the verdict wan't so good.

8. Stop singing so many bastardized songs, especially to the dog

Sigh. What can I say: I like the sound of my own voice, have no one to talk too, and am creative.

9. Don't get so annoyed by C.

Mostly a success. Entirely avoiding an irritant counts as not being irritated; correct? Does this seem mean? Too f'in bad. It's my life and I don't want irratation. Speaking of which, this entire convo is starting to irratate me. And abbreviating conversation as convo normally does, so we are done.

10. Get R. the earrings she wanted.

In hindsight this was, well, not a mistake. Not really premature either. Just shortsighted with the benefit of hindsight. I'm glad I/we did it. She's wanted them for ever. But life is what happens while you are living out your plan. I wouldn't undo this, but certainly I would have like to have that money back at various points during this somewhat trying year.

Final review: Outright success on 4, passing grade on another 3. Only missed outright on 3. Ten things is a lot to address in a year. It's a lot of self improvement, and its hard to change one thing, let alone 10.

Looking ahead: Can we please? I didn't exactly hate 2010, but like a house guest who overstays their welcome, I won't be overly sad to see it go, either. It's been a long bruising year of health problems, surprise expenses, illness, job worry, job change and house problems.

Sure, I fixed some of the house stuff, and bought a new truck that I love, and R. lost most of her 75 pounds during the year, and quit smoking, and the person we know who contracted cancer seems to be doing well, but every 365-day period is going to have some good things. And I hate to complain: I know my life, through a combination of hard work and luck, is amazing and amazingly good. Still, 2010 would have to qualify as one of the tough years. At the very least, it is one of the landings in the continually upward spiraling staircase that has been my life. I mean, I have my core health and a job, so I can't complain too much, right?

So here's to 2011 being an end to 2010.

Religion Thursday*

2010-12-09T10:42:00.000-08:00

I'm starting what I hope will be an every week kind of posting thing. If not a series, at least a miniseries while I'm reading Basic Buddhist Concepts.

The first here is the First Seal of Law: Impermanence.

It's an interesting concept and one with which I'm willing to get on board, even though I struggle to obtain it. Nothing in permanent. Not wealth, not health, not status, not stones.

It kind of goes to the "either you are growing or you are dying" quote. And to this blog post about not wasting the time deposit that is your life.

It is a combination of these - the blog post especially - that prompted me to set up a schedule for editing my book and reading. It's only half an hour a day, but its something. 30 minutes per day four days a week. 1,800 seconds per day. 2 hours per week. 8 hours per month. It adds up. It's time when I won't be appreciating the false promise of permanance in my life and will instead be doing something about the impermanance.

And I'm also loving the first parts of these books about how Buddhism should never be in conflict with science. Not sure how that meshes with the "wrongful sex" Law, but we'll see.

My one criticism so far is that at one point the author objects to Buddhism being considered a philosophy rather than a religion due to the lack of deity. He points to faith in the Laws as evidence of its religious nature. But I think this feels a bit forced. And a bit too determined to make it a religion. My firm faith that rocks are rocks doesn't make that belief a religion.

The book is a bit vague on how, if nothing is permanent, the Laws are. Especially since it explains how impermanance requires that no god exist. For somone who swings between agnostic & Diest like myself, that really isn't a problem. But the problem with impermanance is nihilism, in my mind. If impermanance reigns, is it permanant?

* I wanted it to be matchy, like Two-for Tuesdays, or Wacky Wednesdays. I went with Thursday because in college Thursday was represented by an R, to distinguish it from Tuesday.

Preamble

2010-12-08T11:22:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll be posting something religion/Buddhism related. For now, I wanted to share the following quote from an Inquirer columnist talking about religion and God's role in sports and how he probably isn't interested in whether the Bills win or lose or cover and all the sky pointing and other nonesense:

"Only the flimsiest of faiths attributes success to the Lord but chalks failure up to . . . something else."

So true. And so often overlooked, I feel.

The column is written by a religious conservative, but one for which I have profound respect. For those who don't gobble down religious doctrines in heavy, heaping spoonfuls, the column is well worth a read.

For selfish reasons - the discussion continued

2010-12-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

"We don't call the man living in a cave selfish for not providing anything to
society, but we call the individual on welfare selfish, because we pay for it."

You could argue, as the author herself did, that this is a bit roughly hewn. Perhaps it is. But I post it because I think it also makes a great ancillary point. And that is that in a world ruled by a selfish ruler, whether you were a janitor, Mother Teresa, an astronaut, Bill Gates, or Madame Curie wouldn't matter.

For the sake of ease, let us concede that all added to, or at the very least didn't detract from, society. They lived their lives as they saw fit. Selfishness virtually requires at least a minimally productive life becuase there is little in the world more selfish than being extremely good at what you do. In 99% of cases, that takes a lot of time and investment spent on yourself.

Perhaps the one exception to the list would be Mother Teresa. It's best we don't go too far down that path, but suffice to say that for every single giving act Mother Teresa committed, there was a receiving act on the other end. Potential for a balanced ledger. Perhaps the giving multiplied and outweighed the taking. Perhaps.

I've now completely lost where I was going with this. I warned you not to go too far down the Mother Teresa path. Now you've gone and gotten us entirely lost in this deserted wood. And its dark. Oddly dark. Creepily dark.

And are those the red eyes of a selfish person I see...

Selfishness run Wilde

2010-12-02T11:14:00.001-08:00

One of the blogs I follow has the following quote:

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."
- Oscar Wilde

If you know me, then you know that, unlike most other people, I'm not skeeved by the concept of selfishness in the correct formulation. I think in general it gets an undeservedly bad reputation.

This Wilde quote caught my eye because I'm kind of on his side on this one. What could be more "bad" selfish than to want other people to live like you do? The entire idea is anathema to my libertarian principles.

But that got me thinking: what exactly would you call "living as one wishes to live?" If forcing others to live that way is selfish, what would Wilde's alternative be called? If living as you wish isn't selfish, what is it? And what would be the boundries?

We run into two problems: due to its bad reputation, the entire concept of selfishness is vaguely and poorly defined, studied and investigated. People spend large portions of their time thinking, studying and writing into advice columnists on how to help others or what to do for others. Upon coming across the mere mention of selfishness, however, most people balk and repell. End of conversation.

Suggest to someone that they are selfish and you've almost certainly earned a rebuke, or admonishment, if not an enemy. The conversation, if it doesn't stop entirely, tends to break down to the point of senselessness. No one, or very few, would concede to selfishness.

Suggest someone is selfless, and you've generally been considered to have heaped great praise on them, despite the fact that you've essentially said they place little value on themselves.

This dichotomy is most readily present in parents/child rearing. Parents will tell you that having a child is the most selfless thing you can do. Many times, you'll hear it told to childless couples that they are "selfish" or its too bad they wouldn't give up their selfish ways to have a child. And yet, the reasons given for having children are entirely selfish: they "wanted" children; they "wanted" someone to love; "they" felt it was the right time; they "wanted" to save their marriage.

In fact, bringing a child into the world is one of the most selfish things you can do. I'm not a huge environmentalist, but I don't think it can be refuted that more and more children aren't great for the earth. If you believe overpopulation exists or can exist, more children probably isn't the answer. If you buy that people = pollution, then people + more people = more pollution.

Having a child is at heart a continuation of your genes/lineage, which is just about the most selfish thing you can do. But even divorced from that basic natural explanation, I'm hard pressed to come up with a selfless reason to have children. Adoption, where you are "rescuing" a an existing child, is selfless, perhaps. But nothing "requires" that child you birth into the world to be brought into the world. There isn't a conveyor belt conveying children into the world - if you don't have one it won't be placed into some forgotten warehouse of ignored children. Birthing a child isn't caring for a neglected child already existing.

I'm actually hard pressed to think of any reasons having a child would be selfless. I guess rearing a child simply for a spouse, though your selfish desire to keep the spouse would have to be considered. Perhaps if you birthed a child for a third party - as in a surrogate. Hey, look here at what we've done: we've managed to come to the conclusion that people who give their kids up for adoption are the most selfless, pious people on earth!

And yet - the very suggestion that having a child is selfish would probably garner you crazy looks.

Under Wilde's formulation, choosing to have a child might or might not be selfish, but forcing others to only have so many would definitely be "bad" selfish.

Unfortunately, the first part of the equation, the part Wilde hasn't addressed, probably doesn't get answered, and probably won't, because no one wants to address the topic.

The Diners

2010-11-12T08:02:00.000-08:00

The setting: Inside a room sits a heavy, solid oak dinner table of exquisite quality. Hand carved, its dark wood permeates the room around it with a sense of the extreme accumulation of skill and power that had to be brought to bear to create such a masterpiece. And a masterpiece it is. It's of such uncomparable quality that it rivals the best works of Da Vinci and Mozart.

The table is drapped with a revolutionary-blood red runner. The runner is fringed with twirls of gold. Upon closer inspection, the fringes are dollar signs. The material is so perfectly crafted its hard to tell of what it is made. But one thing is clear to us viewers: it is such a marvel of craftsmanship that its beauty is all consuming. And yet at the same time goes unnoticed, as it so totally meshes with the room that it becomes an extension of it. The runner shimmers in the light of the chandalier, reflecting the brilliance of the room, and for a moment appears to become one with it. But with the slightest turn of the head, it once again forms to a solid representation of the crackling air of creativity and genuis that sparks around the room.

At the one head of the table sits Thomas Jefferson. At the other, Ayn Rand. Six others sit along the sides. These guests are seated three to a side. They are, perhaps, capable of being just as distinguished as our main guests. Though certainly not more so. Given our guests of honor, the identities of these six, your narrator/reporter included, are of no concern.

A lone server stands in the corner. He is tall and thin. Neither is noticeable. His build appears genetic. In reality it is carefully honed to complement his skill at the art of being everywhere he is needed - and not there at all - at the same time. He is at once constantly noticed by the guests, and totally invisible to them. His head angles upward, as if something where the wall and ceiling meet has his intense interest, giving him an air of disinterested detachment from the rest of the room. He knows exactly how much is on each guest's plate and exactly how much water and wine remain in their glasses. He listens intently to the dinner conversation already in progress.

TJ: ... all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

AR Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. Evil requires sanction of the victim.

1 of 6 But doesn't democracy demand, not silence or sanction, but that the majority prevail? That its will be done? That regardless of how a minority feels about, say the intervention into their lives by the expansion of government, , whether through tax or regulation, if the majority desires it, it should be?

TJ All, too, will bear in mind this sacred priciple: that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable.

AR Reasonable? I'm not sure I fully agree. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote. A majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority. The political function of rights is precisly to protect minorities from oppression by majorities.

TJ Do not misunderstand. The minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

AR Too true. The smallest minority is the individual. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

TJ Since you mention government, it seems on point to note that I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.

AR Reason is not automatic.

1 of 6 so... Mr. Jefferson, you would educate a populace, not regulate it?

TJ Fix reason firmly in her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existance of god. Because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

AR God... a being whose only definition is that the is beyond man's power to conceive.

TJ Regardless. Enlighten the people generally, Ms. Rand, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

AR But is your faith in education enough, Mr. Jefferson? I believe that reason can prevail where given a chance. However, those who deny reason cannot be conquired by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.

TJ Educate and inform the whole mass of people... win or lose, they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

1 of 6 This vein of discussion reminds me. I was quite angered to learn recently that it took a Supreme Court case in 2005 to make the government allow beer makers to place alcohol content on their labels, while wine makers have done this for all of memory. The reasoning was that beer makers would race to advertise stronger and stronger brews to the masses. While seemingly good natured, this appears to be demeaning, condesending and oppressive of our liberty. Agreed?

TJ Regulating things as simple as beer? What goes on outside the walls of this room. I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

AR Do not ever say that the desire to good by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

TJ Do not become too discouraged. There is both good news and bad from that. It is unfortunate, but experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have in time and by slow operations perverted it into tyrrany.

AR Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.

TJ Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

TJ It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

AR From the smallest necessity to the hightes religious abstractions, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attriubute of man - the function of his reasoning mind. And how true what you say is, Mr. Jefferson. Acheiving life is not the equilalent of avoiding death.

TJ True. Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

Do you want to konw who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than thta of blindfolded fear.
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of hte people under hthe pretense of taking care of them.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
In matters of style, swim wiht the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
One man wiht courage is a majority
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at teh same time.

Ayn RAnd
A creative man is motivated by teh desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal whcih is worth acheiving.
Acheivement of your happiness is th eonly moral purpose of your life, and tha thappiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it si the proof and ht eresult of your loyalty to the acheivement of your values.
Ask yourself whether the team of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now on this earth.

God... a being whose only definition is tha the is beyond man's power to conceive.

Happiness is that state of consciouness which proceeds form the achievement one's values.

Money is only a tool. It will take you whereever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.
Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is eveil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.
So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
There are two sides to every issue: One side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.
Walth is the product of a man's capacity to think.
When I die, I hope to go to heaven, whatever the hell that is.
When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be jsutified in believing that he has become civilized.

On infected knee

2010-11-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when things are busy and emotional, its tough to post here. Time doesn't always allow it, and sometimes I'm just emotionally drained.

And sometimes its bad luck.

Yesterday, I post about Duke and kinda how we are almost out of the woods. Then today the Veteroo tells me that Duke has a medicine-resistant form of bacteria growing in his knee (of course he does). Only one medicine on their shelves can knock it out. The pills cost $5. Not too bad, I'm thinking. He'll need 11 pills. Ok, that hurts, but all things considered... what is that you say, that's per day? For 2 weeks?

Reread those last few sentences. I edited it twice to make sure it was right and I wasn't confusing anything.

$5 x 11 x 14 = bankruptcy.

Only Duke. He's one of the happiest, most obedient, fun-loving, eager to please dogs you'll ever know, but if something can go wrong with him, it will. I'm convinced that he's from a bad breeder. One of those breeding farms. I'll never buy another dog from the place we got him, and I'll probably never buy another dog period (rescue, yes; purchase, no).

To finish this story: I think the vet took pity on me, because she's writing me a script for human medicine for Duke that is supposed to work according to the charts.

I've read that no blog post is complete without pictures of dogs, so here is Duke during happier times:

On bended knee

2010-11-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

So two Mondays ago, Duke had an appointment to see his surgeon because his repaired knee was bothering him. He had begun limping again and really favoring the knee and an X-ray showed advancing arthritis.

So the surgeon took out the titanium staples (which had been pulled out of place) and elastic bands (one of which ripped) he installed last year. The hope being that the foreign bodies were bothering the knee. The knee was now supported by scar tissue so it was fine.

Or at least it was until Duke tore out or overworked the stitched area. That was a fun find: We came down to go to dinner Friday night to find blood on the floor. No problem, quick trip to the vet, one stitch and some liquid skin and its all fixed up.

Till next morning, when I come down to blood soaked fur below the wound. So I schedule an afternoon appointment.

And good thing I did, because by the time I got Duke there, the wound, all 3 or so inches of it, had opened up and no stitches held it closed. You could see into his leg. If you know how much I love my dog, you know it was kind of traumatic. Kind of.

So that's where we've been over the last week or so. The stitches come out early next week, at which time, hopefully, this ordeal will be over.

Hacked to death

2010-11-02T12:52:00.001-07:00

As a newspaper editor, I've had occasion to peruse a decent amount of self-published works. I can tell you this: Most of them are self published for a reason.

Now, no less an author than Edgar Allen Poe has taken the self-publishing route. But, with the obvious benefits of hindsight, he was pretty damn good. Admittedly, the publishing biz isn't doing good biz right now. I harbor no ill will to those who self publish, nor do look down upon them. In today's world, they are a bit of a revolutionary, I think.

But getting back to the original point: Most are self-published for a reason. Say what you want about publishing biz problems, and stock subject books with unoriginal, copy cat plotting, but if you read a bit of self-published work, you'll start to see that there plenty of good reasons lots of those books aren't getting through. Writing isn't hard, necessarily; writing well is.

What always struck me about these self-published books is how obviously bad they were. The authors either had an obvious axe to grind and either were just piss-poor at hiding it or didn't care to hide it, or just weren't great writers. And I'm not suggesting they had to be the next Hemingway. The next Hemingsomeguy would have been fine. I've read my fair share of what I would call "mediocre" novels published by publishing houses. Its one of the ironies of the biz that its nearly impossible to get published, and that good authors regularly struggle, while the industry goes on its merry way publishing some very tepid stuff. Works that are instantly forgettable and not especially well written, well plotted or well charactered.

It's the lack of self awareness that worries me. These guys obviously either were so egotistical that they thought publishing would win them accolades, or they just didn't realize that their works didn't even compare to the mediocre stuff out there.

That is my fear: I don't want to spending all this time doing all this work (both of which I have a love-hate relationship with anyway), all while the end product is just so obviously bad. If I can't get published, I can't get published, I just don't want to be so bad its obvious to everyone but me.

PS - I'm not doing Nano, but I'm going to use the month to sketch out and structure "Slide", my next novel, and edit Falsely Accused.

PS - stay tuned for updates all this week!

I can't post much for the moment

2010-11-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

I had a post about the story I wrote in my last post, but its going to have to wait. I could tell you what it was about, but that would ruin the fun.

Even if time permitted a real, thought-out post, the emotional toll of everything prevents such. I'm going to need time to sort stuff out and figure out how all the post-worthy events and news come out.

Till, perhaps, tonight, then.

Dinner at 7:30

2010-10-25T11:02:00.000-07:00

Julie sat alone in the semi-circle booth at the small round table by herself. She sat away from the table, as if she was melting into the floor. Her body pressed into the cushioned booth seat.

She stared at the lone candle burning slowly in the center of the circular table. The flame fought its battle against the darkness of the restaurant. Julie fought against the urge to touch the still burning and painful flesh around her eye.

She waited. She checked her watch: 7:30. Her parents would arrive soon.

She touched her right eye, wincing. Her fingers gently probed the taut, puffy smooth skin.

She wondered what her parents would think. It suddenly occurred to her that arriving first was not the best decision; it was a terrible decision. She thought she could avoid a scene by not making her own entrance. But how was this alternative – giving her parents the long walk between here and the door - better. She reached to her right and rifled through her purse, forgot what she wanted, and gave up.

Maybe the darkness would shade most of the bruising. Julie began pecking through her purse but gave up, decided it was too dark to locate whatever she might have wanted to find.

Her stomach growled, but she wasn’t hungry. She realized she was inhaling quick, short, ragged bursts and tried consciously taking longer breaths. She removed her hand from the warm flesh of her eye and placed it on the cool smoothness of her water glass. She ran her finger up and down the slick, condensating surface. She gave up on breathing altogether.

Movement caught her eye and she looked up from the table. Even in the dim light she could recognize the figure coming toward her, her mother’s shoes clip-clopping along the floor as she closed the distance in a controlled power walk.

Julie tried not to raise her head, tried to avert her eyes, but it was too late. Once her mother caught her eyes the facade of control disappeared and she covered the last bit of distance in an explosion of clips and clops. Couldn’t she have worn quieter shoes, Julie thought to herself.

Her mom grabbed Julie’s head in her hands. Julie could see her mother’s eyes wet with emotion as her mother leaned in too kiss her eye. Not even the darkness of this place could hide her eye at that distance.

“Oh my god.” Julie’s mother pulled away, taking a deep breath. “What did he do to my baby?” she wailed, stroking Julie’s eye.

Her father arrived at the table. “Oh, would you quite it. I told you. That kind of treatment is exactly why she’s in the place she’s in.” In his navy-blue suit he was nothing but a large shadow in the darkness minus a dissected V of white where his tie cut through his collared shirt.

Julie's mother shot a look in Julie’s father’s direction, but otherwise didn’t seem to hear him.

Why, its like comparing two things from the same category!

2010-10-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

"That's like comparing apples and oranges."

Its a statement meant to convey the idea that the two things you are discussing are can't be compared. That subect/item A is so different from subject/item B that any analysis or comparisson is rendered irrelevant or moot.

But the use of this line is one of my pet peeves (or annoyingly overthought ideas, take your pick) and I take some pride in being one of the few who oppose its use. Because rephrased, the speaker is saying "that's like comparing two fruits."

And why couldn't you compare two fruits? When you go the grocery store, don't you decide between purchasing apples or oranges? If you were going to the store to buy food, you'd compare apples and oranges as options, where as you wouldn't compare apples and say cereal, or milk, or bread. So you can compare apples and oranges at the macro level of food. But you can also compare them at the micro level of fruit.

In actuality, unless you go so micro as to include only "apples" or strictly "oranges" as your category, apples and oranges are entirely comparable.

Its like comparing baseball and football as sports. Both are games, both are sports. Comparable. Sure, the NFL and AFL versions are both football, but that doesn't exclude a comparison between football and baseball. Now, you would never compare football to say house cleaning, or writing, or painting.

Would you admit to believing that little green men are stealing all your socks?

2010-09-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

"More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ."

Here. That's half of all Catholics. And the teaching is mentioned every bloody week. Or at least alluded too. Or at the very least, was while I was a regular church goer some 15 or 20 years ago. But since probably 45% of self-identified Catholics are "lapsed," I guess it makes sense.

The gist of the story is that the pious have a piss-poor knowledge of their religion, at least as far as the the 32 questions on the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life survey.

Who is knowledgeable? (Drum roll, please).... turns out athiests and agnostics (A/A) answered 20.9 of the questions correctly. They were followed by Jews and Mormons. It gets really ugly when you look at the 12 questions on Christianity: A/A answered 6.7 correctly. Christrians, who might expect to be somewhat of an expert on the topic, answered 6 correctly. Mormons (7.9) and white evangelicals (7.3) blew the field away.

Two-thirds of respondents actually indicated that teachers weren't permitted to teach the Bible in school, even for its literary and historic aspects. This is dead wrong.

It seems that for a great many, religion truly is a leap of faith.

!: .,?; !

2010-09-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

Happy National Punctuation Day! Who knew? Celebrate in all the usual ways.

Burning books - they have an ointment for that

2010-09-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

I would think that people reading the book's described here, would probably be skirting perilously close to violating this Oregon law:

The statutes broadly take aim at practices of “luring” and “grooming” that expose minors to sexually explicit materials in the hopes of lowering their inhibitions against engaging in sexual conduct. The “furnishing” statute, Oregon Revised Statutes § 167.054 (“section 054”), criminalizes providing children under the age of thirteen with sexually explicit material. The “luring” statute, § 167.057 (“section 057”), criminalizes providing minors under the age of eighteen with visual, verbal, or narrative descriptions of sexual conduct for the purpose of sexually arousing the minor or the furnisher, or inducing the minor to engage in sexual conduct.

Thankfully, wiser heads have prevailed:

Appellants, a broad cross-section of booksellers; non-profit literary, legal, and health organizations; and a concerned grandmother (together, “Powell’s Books”), argue that these statutes violate the First Amendment. In particular, Powell’s Books claims, among other things, that the statutes are facially overbroad and criminalize a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech. We agree.

Now might be one of few times when it's appropriate to panic

2010-09-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

I've always chuckled when I've reading warnings say "First, don't panic." Then I came across a warning that said "now is not the time to panic."

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

The silliness of the warnings (is there ever a good time to panic?) has led me to saying "now is the time to panic" - or just saying panic! - during times of relatively unimportant disturbances. So, if we are out of pudding - panic!

But in answer to my question above, I thought I may have found a situation where panic is entirely appropriate, via CNN:

What to do when body parts fall off

Sadly, the headline is a bit misleading, since it opens with a story about unintentional amputation. That isn't exactly "falling off." And of course, panic isn't the proper response. Foiled again!

The technological future will be OK

2010-09-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

Well, duh.

Editing

2010-09-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

For the NaNo project/plan I mentioned yesterday to happen, I have to get the first edit of Falsely Accused/The Needles On Pine Tree Street finished. My goals is one read through/edit by NaNo, take a month off to write for NaNo, then do a second, closer edit of the first book in time for a Spring unveiling.

The editing is a laboriously slow and frustrating process. But a heartening one at the same time. I like the basic bones of what I've written, if not always the fleshing out of them. And I feel like my editing is improving the work. Making it more readable and interesting and active. Its filling in some gaps and making the story more complete, I hope.

And I'm hoping its making me better prepared and given me insights into organizing my NaNo project: Slide.

Anyway, at this point, I'm a quarter of the way through Accused. I read recently that just completing a book, just completing it, is a pretty hefty accomplishment of which to be proud and which puts you in rarified territory. That's my immediate goal. Complete a book for submission.

The plan for the future

2010-09-13T07:11:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that November will be smack in the middle of football season, the holidays, my new volunteer activity and probably the completion of the bedroom remodel, I was recently inspired to at least start planning to participate in Nano.

Of course, I planned to participate two years ago, as well.

But this time I have an actual, honest to goodness story brewing. One of the two or three ideas worming its way through my head. At any given time one or the other is in the lead in taking form from mere ether into a somewhat solid shape.

Of late, one particular idea has taken the lead and not let go. It stems from recent admiration of science fiction writing. I've also been enamored lately with "what ifs;" as in, what if X wasn't necassary, or didn't happen. Nothing so grand as in "what if Hitler was killed as a child," but... what if our preconcieved ideas of roads and buildings and society weren't so preconcieved.

In my story, a former mining town laboring under the weight of past misteps and its own policies and history allows a sparsely populated, left-for-dead district to start fresh, free from any existing structure or policy. The experiment lasts 50 years, at which time the two areas vote on whether to rejoin each other.

The book picks up at the run up to the vote, at a time when both sides are suspect of the other, extremely xenophobic and antagonistic to each other, and anxious about what the election will mean for them and their way of life. The entire thing is thrown into disarray when a mud slide buries large parts of the town.

That's two moving story lines. Throw in a love triangle, a possible murder and some individuals dealing with personal growth and I think I've got a novel.

Better Bryan X (late) Mid Year Review

2010-09-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

No need for an explanation, let's get right down to it.

1: Donate or volunteer more often than in 2009 - Success. Yeah!
2. Be lessy petty/condesending - I think success, but its probably an ongoing battle.
3. Cut out the sighing at R - Success, Yeah! I beat her more now, but that wasn't on the list (I keed, I keed; I also use somewhat derogatory accents in blog posts!)
4. Keep the house more clean, more often - Success, mostly. Yeah.
5. More focus at work - (again, if you ignore that I'm this post at work - Success, Yeah!)
6. Spend 15 minutes/week in meditation/silent -15 mintues? I meditate while I'm stuck at red lights and in traffic. 15 mintues/week. Probably not, but its a start.
7. Talk less/listen more - abject failure
8. Stop singing so many bastardized songs, especially to the dog - abject failure.
9. DLCAMSM (Not for publication goal) - eh
10. ERA goal (Not for publication goal) - done

On being social

2010-09-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

I'm social enough.

That is to say that if I know you, I can probably talk your ear off. Its unlikely that - barring you being much, much smarter than I am about a subject and only interested in talking about that subject - we can't find something to talk about. I discuss some pretty nuanced, pendantic and specific things that I figure most people find boring. So I'm even willing to listen and chat about the stuff I don't know much about just to talk. So I'm social enough.

But I'm not really the outgoing type, if that makes sense.

My number of friends have varied over the years. In college I had a group of about 20 people with which I hung out. My group is much smaller now.

Some of that is life: People move away, have kids, enter different periods and phases of their lives. Generally two people become two different people without much in common any more.

I was just thinking about this last night, before what led to this post even happened: I think I have an innate distrust and discomfort with the outside world. I'm certainly not xenophobic. My support for immigration, et al. and general libertarian nature should put that to rest, I would think. It would explain my tendency to be contrarian, I think, and to favor out of favor things. I'll generally favor the underdog in the fight, all the more if I perceive it as an underdog despite what might be read as top dog status. So for instance, I'll favor something like Microsoft, a giant in its industry, from the general hate and distrust of the company in the public and regulatory circles.

I also hate cultish things. So again my distrust explains my dislike for all things Apple and The Beatles. It doesn't help that many people comprising the cult of those two things are people savoring their uniqueness by expressing their cult love of a million-people strong cult.

And its true that I generally feel at odds, even at war at times, with the outside world. Not in a general way, because I like individuals and I love life and like most people I meet. Like I said, I can talk to almost anyone for hours. I do volunteer work. I'm even considering volunteering to be a pen pal with a child from an underprivileged school, corresponding with the student about books.

So I'm not sure what it is. But there is definitely something there. And its somewhat hidden and locked away. Some small part of me that is, as I said, innately distrustful of the outside world. It's something I'll have to investigate. Hey, maybe it can be part of Better Bryan 2011!

As an aside: I find myself, I know I do, interjecting, or trying too, anyway, a lot of thoughts into sentences through the use of commas. Have you noticed, and is it annoying?

Hungry for some Pansies - Part II

2010-09-07T07:23:00.001-07:00

It's the summer doldrums.

And then lightening strikes.

It comes in the form of two new interests. I had off Friday and began listening to the Pansy Division CD I had been given. I'm about half way through now, having listened to most of the first half twice. There are a couple of real gems on the CD. The first song in particular has gotten 3 listens, just because I find it so funny. The James Bondage song is a winner, as well. I like the song - and I'm going to mess up the name/topic - about the beautiful boy who is the singer's dream guy, as well. But that first one about - love love love love love, blahblahblahblahblah cause its all about sex sex sex sex sex- is a classic.

And I'm reading Hunger Games. Its a book I first heard about in a Slate.com headline (but didn't read the story or anything about it). Then I saw a post on Facebook about it. So I picked up a copy at Target. Its fantastic. A little fatalistic, a lot violent, but an awesome read. Very well plotted. It's kind of 1984 meets Lord of the Flies, in a way. I haven't been reading much; I just haven't had the strength. But I'm reading away at 50 pages per day on this and loving it. That might not seem like a lot to you, but I've had a 60 birthday party to prep for at my house - and clean up from - and 100 things going on. And like I said, I've had trouble reading of late. But this book - I hate to put the book down. I find myself wanting to get to the next page, next event; only then I'm sad that I've read so far.

The book is the first in a trilogy that I definitely plan to read.

Hungry for some Pansies - Part I

2010-09-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

Its' been a hot and humid spring & summer. And then August happened. So, I haven't been much but ducking in and out of buildings avoiding the soup-like heat. Consequently, there hasn't been much to post about. I'm ordering new windows for the bedroom today, and once they arrive in two-to-three weeks, I'll be installing them. But I hardly think you much care, and that feels more like a "Hooray, it went well, I'm sorta kinda handy" or a "I have plywood for a window" kinda post down the road.

I'll be working from home by Nov. 12. Supposedly. This is, by my count, the 12 plan they've had for us, so I'm not holding onto that too dearly until it happens. In the meantime, its got me nervous and excited and worried. It's much better than not having a job, but I'll miss the social aspects of the office. Plus, I may never shave, shower, dress or socialize with anyone ever again.

The UPS guy will drop off a package - probably of tea - and will be confronted with a mountain man looking fellow, pizza crusted in his beard. Flies will buzz around the man, and, despite it being 3 p.m., I'll be in my robe and swat them away with the cuff .

It's the summer doldrums.

Kindling Kindle

2010-08-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

I'm late to the party, but I apparently was the only one put off by unoriginality of Oppenheimer's Kindle lament. In which an author at the Atlantic makes an argument similar to my own. And there are apparently three guests to this party, as another Atlantic reader takes Oppenheimer to task for even suggesting that romance might die at the hand of the Kindle!

Still, even Eleanor Barkhorn falls into the old trap:

Of course, we've lost something as we've transitioned from old-media flirting to new. Like so much on the web, broadcasting our likes and dislikes can turn into an exercise in self-promotion, and we can be calculating about how we reveal what what's on our bedside tables and in our playlists.

Well, no; not exactly. Even back in the days of dusty paper tomes, people chose to display books as "an exercise in self-promotion." Oppenheimer himself pretty much concedes as much in his column. I'm not sure why the Barkhorn thinks people weren't "calculating" about what was on their bedside tables or playlists prior to the invention of electronic media.

I can post a tweet about how much I'm getting out of reading the Washington Post's Top Secret America series—when really I'm poring over Us Weekly's latest spread about Jessica Simpson's weight loss.

Well, yes; sure. But the same was always true. There always was, and always will be the stranger that we never let people see (or try hard to prevent them from seeing). I suppose no one has ever left an unread copy of Crime and Punishment on the coffee table for guests to see while stashing a copy of People magazine away in the bedside table?

She goes on to say how her planned posts to Gchat, or GoodReads or Twitter designed to solicite responses are ...

... far less pure than glancing at the stranger across from us on the subway and realizing he's reading our favorite novel.

Really? Far less pure? In the case of a stranger who is legitimately reading a book, yes, perhaps. In the case of someone who leaves a book out as a promo piece, or carries with him as a Red Badge of Courage, its a difference in type, not in kind. And hardly less pure. Someone who posts comments hoping to bait certain responses from certain people is likely to be the same kind who puts out unread books. Both are unpure.

And I don't even know what to say about this bit of self-important hoity toitty pretentiosness ...

When I made the man I was dating during sophomore year of college read All The King's Men before I would consider calling him my boyfriend ...

Honestly? Where do these people come from?

Getting back to the original purpose, Oppenheimer has responded. To the Atlantic columns, not my criticism. And in a not very convincing way. He sorta just rehashes his argument that the Kindle doesn't provide what books do. Never mind that someone reading a Kindle is almost certainly reading a book, and that its just as easy to ask a Kindle reader "whatch reading" as it is to ask a book reader what he/she thinks of The Cabin. Nevermind that for all the lamenting about how we will no longer see people reading Rand on the subway and be able to strike up a convo, you would rarely run up against someone who was both someone you would want to talk to and who was reading a book you would want to discuss.

Redux: Tales of August

2010-08-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

Since this summer/August has been especially hot and especially humid, I thought a little stroll down memory lane might be appropriate.

As this 2009 post and the associated story point out, it might be better if we just got rid of August all together.

This would tea me off

2010-08-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

The price of tea could be rising in the near future.

Say it ain't so.

Sadly, seems like it is so. Blame poor weather and rising wages in China for the increase. And I plan to do just that.

Broadcasting stupidity

2010-08-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

Two things of note that fall under this headline:

First, the National Association of Broadcasters is seeking legislation that would require all portable electronic devices to include FM radio. I assume this extends to cell phones, music players and the like. But as posters point out, will it extend to electric razors? And what about AM radio? This is such an obvious ploy for Congressional action to ensure the dominance and relevance of an existing medium - its scary in its overtness. Not that all that many people listen to FM radio any more, what with Pandora, digital music, HD radio and satellite radio. If this passes, I might have to stop listening to FM radio.

The second I have to kinda shoe-horn in. I fully support the right of Muslims to build a mosque/community center at the old Burlington Coat Factory two blocks from Ground Zero. I also support those who oppose the plans to criticize the plan and oppose it, as long as the opposition includes newspaper columns and protests and not government action, which should/would be barred. I even have mixed feelings about whether the plan is appropriate. But I think that you are generally broadcasting your stupidity if you rely on the constitution or religious freedoms to support your argument.

See, I told you they both fit the headline.

I'm kicking Hell and taking names

2010-08-11T12:15:00.001-07:00

I've been playing a second go-round of the pretty damned good game Dante's Inferno.

At various points in the game, the punishment of the damned are shown or explained. Playing the game got me interested in the source matter (the poem of similar name), which got me doing research on the topic.

And that led me to two types of sinners and their punishments that got me thinking. The first is those who worshipped the Devil or a demon. Their punishment (in game) is supposedly reduced from other nonbelievers and deniers, but they are still locked in burning caskets.

The second is simonists, who sold church offices for personal gain. They are help upside down (per wikipedia's take on the poem) and dipped into fonts carved into the rock of the eighth circle of hell.

I've always envisioned Hell as the Devil's domain. A land he lords over as his own personal fiefdom. But this punishment of those who you would otherwise take as the Devil's ground troops made me wonder. Plus (spoiler alert) the game ends with you freeing the Devil from his bonds.

So... is Hell the Devil's playground, and thus he's punishing those souls that reside there; or is Hell God's creation, and he's the one who is doing the punishing, and the Devil, while there, is mostly imprisioned there? I'd have to say right now I'm leaning toward the later.

But that would raise some additional questions about God, his ability to forgive and forget, and his kindness.

Time for a divorce, indeed

2010-08-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, doing what is fair or decent or even nice isn't what is right or proper. Sometimes, to do what is right, you have to look beyond your own prejudices and beliefs and micro-systems and look at the system from a macro level. bub

It's a testament to your ability to reason that you take a position antithetical (Position A) to your own actual position (Position B) because you believe that while Position B is the nice and fair outcome, you realize that Position A is proper under the circumstances.

Sometimes, many times even, Position A and Position B are the same position. Women and African Americans should have the right to vote. Legislation ensuring those rights fulfilled both the "fair" outcome that you root for (Position B) as well as the "proper" one (Position A).

On to the point of the post: I've often been at odds with myself because I strongly believe that the fair, nice and decent thing to do is to allow gay marriage. If its going to have to be a legislative action, then to that extent I strongly support legislation raising gay marriage to the level of hetero marriage.

On the other hand, I can't wrap my mind around how its a constitutional issue (though the courts don't seem to agree with me). As I see it, the constitution doesn't guarantee marriage at all. I don't see that anywhere in there. Nobody else does either, apparently, because its not argued as a point. I don't see the "victories" in the court cases as all that good a thing, because while Position A B wins, I fear Position B A loses. In the long run, Position B A is much more important. Every time Position A B irrationally wins over Position B A, the system becomes that much more contorted. Anyway, back to the issue at hand.

Rather than argue that gay marriage is constitutional in and of itself, people argue that the "equal protection" clause requires that a gay individual be allowed to marry another gay individual. But that "gay" man/woman already has the right to marry another woman/man, just like a heterosexual does. To me, extending it like that necassarily leads to all kinds of problems. Like, where do you stop the progression? What about bestiality? What about incest? What about pedophilia? What about polygomy.

While we are on the topic, what about polygomy? Because, under the above formulation (equal protection), I'm not sure how you argue against it. All the evidence (i.e. - divorce rate, broken marriages, cheating spouses) suggests that monogomy doesn't work that well. Its rare in nature (and apparently humans), as well. I'm actually OK with that outcome, but its still not an argument I'd make to reach that outcome (there is the Position A/B thing, see, it does all come around). And I used the easy example, because the arguments against polygomy are pretty weak. The harder core situations I mentioned above become very iffy using the equal protection logic. There is a group called NMBLA (or some such) that supports and promotes man-boy love. Its a lifestyle choice and natural, they argue. Aren't they entitled to equal protection?

That leads me to the point of my post: All this could be avoided if we divorced the state from the marriage business. As the article points out, if we didn't have "state sponsored" marriage, two individuals (or more) could sign a contract with whatever (probably mostly standardized) terms they agreed too, call it whatever they wanted, and be on their marry way. Call it marriage, call its a union, hell, call it a balzag (well, don't call it that).

Instead, we have small/minority two groups trying to push what they think the outcome should be onto the rest of us. One wants marriage limited, the other wants it to extend to gays (but, apparently not to polygomists, based on the legislation and court arguments). That's just two groups that currently have power trying to enforce their will.

There is a better way: remove the ability to "enforce" the will of anyone. Get the government out of the marriage business.

UPDATE: Think of the Position A/Position B thing like a tower. Sure, you can probably build a really tall tower quickly, but you want to make sure its on solid foundation and well built, otherwise it all comes tumbling down at the smallest shift in the ground. I'd rather forgo the really tall tower, and slowly build a well-built tower. It might take me years to get where you'll be in a couple months, but 10 years from now, my tower will be around; will yours?

The case of books v. ... well, books

2010-07-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

In reading this Slate.come article lamenting the Kindle, I found myself wondering whether the author was being sarcastic. For example:

Remember when you could tell a lot about a guy by what cassette tapes—Journey or the Smiths?—littered the floor of his used station wagon? No more, because now the music of our lives is stored on MP3 players and iPhones.
Our important papers live on hard drives or in the computing cloud, and DVDs are becoming obsolete, as we stream movies on demand. One by one, the meaningful artifacts that we used to scatter about our apartments and cars, disclosing our habits to any visitor, are vanishing from sight.

Nowhere is this problem more apparent, and more serious, than in the imperilment of the Public Book—the book that people identify us by because they can glimpse it on our bookshelves, or on a coffee table, or in our hands. As the Kindle and Nook march on, people's reading choices will increasingly be hidden from view. We'll go into people's houses or squeeze next to them on the subway, and we'll no longer be able to know them, or judge them, or love them, or reject them, based on the books they carry.

Oh, the horrors! People will no longer be able to be faux-intellectuals by keeping books they don't read, or have only read parts of and won't finish, out in public view for all the world to admire. Never mind the fact that reading Anna Karenina, War & Peace, Atlas Shrugged or whatever tome is currently the counterculture favorite means nothing. It doesn't make you interesting, or less of a prude or a jerk. I know plenty of people who are well read; or would consider themselves well read, at any rate. A good portion of them aren't worth having discussions with; some would be, if they weren't so pretentious. Someone Reading The Cabin isn't any more - or less - of Christian than I am.

The author - Mark Oppenheimer - is at least self-aware enough to realize what he's saying:

This is a delicate matter. I can already hear some readers turning the page (perhaps a Kindle "page"), muttering that only an elitist jerk picks friends or lovers based on what they can be seen reading. Well, maybe. This essay is for the rest of you, the ones who freely admit to having been seduced by a serendipitous volume of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John glimpsed on a potential girlfriend's living-room shelf or by a spine-broken copy of Robert Lowell sitting atop that boy's nightstand. Maybe that was your first time in the apartment, you had been reluctant to go, and now you wanted to linger a while …

Also, if you find yourself miserable because you ended up with your spouse because you saw him reading Catcher in the Rye, keep reading! Um, yeah. This isn't even a novel argument by Oppenheimer. I'm old enough to remember when people still romanticised over vinyl records. Some people still love the scratchy, flawed, poor audio quality of vinyl. Articles just like Oppenheimer's have been written about vinyl. To those people, I say - go eat raw meat and drink unpurified water and unpasturized milk if flaws are so important to you and every improvement is such a terrible thing. As for a direct response to the passage above, well, I'm pretty sure that if you and that girl or boy with a book on display are meant to be, you'll discuss books at some point. Its a difference in kind, not substance.

Oppenheimer goes on to say that he dated this brunette who - when asked - told him she agreed to date him because she liked his books. She liked his books. Surely, if this was the standard she was using she probably could have happened upon another reason to date him. These books were college reading Oppenheimer concedes "I had never gotten to [reading]." So she dated him on false pretenses. Nice. His whole point boils down not to the fact that he got anything from these books, or even that he could discuss them with her - its simply that they made a nice crutch and allowed him to meet this girl. Books as a means to an end, and not even an organic end.

To wit:

So what will you do, Kindle generation, when you cannot tell which of the quiet boys holding the e-reader on the subway is engrossed by the latest, predictable legal thriller, and which one by a cheery, long-forgotten Laurie Colwin novel?

Its sad that the Kindle means we will no longer be able to tell the good guy and girl from the bad through the simple and convenient advertisment of what book they keep, unread but noticed, out on their coffee table or carry with them on the subway. /sarcasm.

I'm guessing the actual answer is that Kindle generation will go on just fine, living life and meeting people of the opposite (or same!) sex, falling in love and reproducing. Oppenheimer concedes as much. His article is more the rant of a grumpy old man lamenting the passing of time and scolding kids to keep their shiny electric Kindles away from his pulped books.

I'm sure he probably purchased his books from the type of quaint, indepedent book stores that aren't around anymore and that he had to walk uphill both to reach it and return home. Often times only to find that, because the selection was small, the book he wanted wasn't in stock. And he probably reads only by candle light, none of the harsh, fake light for him. After all, using electric lights would deprive him of the experience and joys of going to bed at 6 p.m. during the winter.

As Oppenheimer says, the Kindle will likely only make printed books more valuable as it makes them more rare. No one laments that limited-print first editions are ... well, limited and hard to find.

This kind of "from the heart" romanticism irks me. Its the philosophy of those who hate what big, box store book sellers did to indepedent book stores, but enjoy all the benefits that built those stores. Then, when a device comes along that promises to return us to an era of cheaper production and thus more indepedent and increasingly niche publishing, lament that very device. All the while these people usually rail against the horrible destruction of consumerism (but not of consumption of books or the mass printing of them, obviously). Their romanticism threatens to prevent us from finding a way to promote smaller publication runs of the niche books they love so much all while saving the environment that is, otherwise, a top priority of theirs.

So many great short story collections that are classics would never get published in today's world. Electronic formats promise to allow cheap self publishing and quicker returns on investment that encourage publishers to take more risks. I love printed books, just as I love printed newspapers. But I'll be damned if I'm going to favor them over something better just because "they" happened to be the status quo while I was in my formative years.

So, this is your god

2010-07-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

You hear all the time about how Church goers tend to live longer, healthier lives. What you never hear is this tid bit from a Slate.com story (emphasis mine):

Christians, of course, don't limit their prayers to the deceased—they also pray for the sick, and several recent studies have tested whether this practice contributes to recovery. The answer appears to be no.
As part of a study published in the American Heart Journal in 2006, researchers asked Christian congregations to pray for two groups of cardiac patients—the first group knew the Christians were praying on their behalf, and the second thought they might be. As a control, researchers told a third group that Christians might pray for them, but the Christians did not do so.
Mortality rates were comparable across the three groups, but the unprayed-for group experienced the fewest complications.

I'm not convinced it mattered one way or the other. The fewer complications were probably an anomoly or some other issue with the study. But if you are going on faith alone that a omnipotent, benevolent god exists, intervenes, and listens in any way to prayer, this can't be good.

Of course, maybe God knew it was a study, had fun with it, and is sitting up their laughing at us as some kind of practical joke. Since we can't know the plan the man in the sky and his super-marketer have for us, he pretty much has carte blanche to do whatever, doesn't he?

Great story!

2010-07-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

The first couple lines of this story ring very, very true. I haven't read the entire article yet but its about an author whose first book took 10 years (there are others!) from conception to publication (it can happen, even today!). Nicely written and reassuring.

There is surely a word—in German, most likely—that means the state of active non-accomplishment. Not just the failure to reach a specific goal, but ongoing, daily failure with no end in sight. Stunted ambition. Disappointed potential. Frustrated and sad and lonely and hopeless and sick to death of one's self.

Whatever it's called, this is what leads people to abandon their goals—people do it every day. And I understand that decision, because I lived in this state of active non-accomplishment for many years.

I wrote the earliest bit of what would become my first novel, Stiltsville, in January of 2000, when I was in my first year of a graduate writing program. In May of 2009, I old Stiltsville to HarperCollins—the hardcover is due out next month.

This means that the time from my novel's conception to its appearance on store shelves adds up to a staggering 10 years. An entire decade. Between, I graduated and spent a year on fellowship (during which I wrote a lot but only half of it was any good); then there were the teaching years (during which I wrote very little, hardly any of it good); then there were the Internet company years (during which I barely wrote at all).

Stiltsville is in good company, which is reassuring. There are oodles of novels that took a decade or longer to write—including some famous examples, like Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Diaz spoke in interviews about his own decade of active non-accomplishment. He said that five years into the process, he decided to give up on the novel and start a graduate degree (in what, he didn't say). He said his life improved: no more torture, no more fights with his fiance. Oh, Junot, I thought when I read this, I understand! Still, something pulled him back, and another five years passed, and then he was finally done.

[UPDATE]: I liked this column so much, that I plan to write a response column either this weekend or early next week. It probably won't be a straight response. More likely it will be a breakdown of my own struggles and a response to certain parts of the column that struck a cord with me.

Stupid stories

2010-07-16T06:14:00.000-07:00

I thought maybe this story on digital drugs was the worst thing I had seen in a while, having managed to make a mountain out of a mole hill all while also being late to the party; however, then I came across this little jem about a city fining a lady for picking up an air conditioner off the street (with permission).

Slate: Greetings From Fat-Land

2010-07-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Clap, clap, clap

A story that deconstructs another story looking at obesity. It pretty handily takes apart what amounts to a common media representation of the obesity situation in the country

Different day, over zealous in a whole new way

2010-07-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

I had occasion to meet up with a former high school classmate of mine recently. We talked for, oh, about 15 or 20 minutes, maybe 25 at most.

It was a business transaction of sorts, and a planned meeting. Still, I was anxious going in. I'm anxious about 100 things all the time. And this is especially true of things that involve meeting new people or new situations.

But the meeting went well. We had a nice talk. Not awkward at all, as I feared it could be.

And it got me thinking about my high school self, as compared to current self. And I realized that I took some stuff entirely too seriously in high school. I suppose that is an occupational hazard of being in high school.

But then I realized I probably take some stuff too seriously now, as well. It's in a less aggressive form, and much, much more personalized and private. I rarely feel that the world revolves around the proper solution to issue X. Though I suppose I still believe that it does in that making the proper choice is what is good for the betterment of society and mankind.

For someone who doesn't believe that they have a soul to save, I'm preeminitely worried, not about saving my sould per se, but about making sure I'm the person I can be.

Two things about this post: Despite its somewhat public nature, it's not for public discussion outside this board. For various reasons. Secondly, this is the second time in a week that I've stream of concious'd something, and ran flat into a dark void of which I couldn't seem to write my way out.

Two great posts

2010-06-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

A hilarious one about meditation at a Buddhist resort; and one on agnosticism that seems to me to be spot on.

Finally finished. Finally.

2010-06-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight, sometime after 11 p.m., I finally finished Falsely Accused. Only like a year late and after having blown past something on the order of 4 self-imposed deadlines.

But hey, its finished.

It was oddly anticlimatic. For months now I haven't known exactly what to do with the ending. Even when I knew the "what" of the ending, I still struggled with the how.

Even the first ending I wrote tonight underwent a slight edit that changes the "how" - though not the "what." But when it was all finished, I just kinda sat back, looked at the screen, and thought, "huh, I have nothing left to write. There is nothing left to say." Nothing remained in front of me but a dark... void isn't right... more like this wall of solid darkness. Just nothing left in front of me.

So its finished. And printing. Which is actually more terrifying than I expected. Though maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by that. Still, I hadn't expected it to be so scary having the actual words on actual paper rather than having them in pixels on the screen.

The long, cold winter of rewrite/editing begins.

Doggone funny

2010-06-18T06:58:00.000-07:00

Wow. That was a bad headline. Perhaps historically bad. As a former newspaper headline writer and current journal headline writer, I hang my head in shame. Somewhere, in the distance, a dog barks. Ok, its my kitchen.

What does all this have to do with 1000 & 1 Things?

This slate.com article posits that you can pick up just about any book and find one of two lines: A) "A dog barks in the distance" or B) "Somewhere a dog barks."

Story author Rosecrans Baldwin traces the line through a veritable A-Team of writers and novels...

The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
Shadow Country.
Ulysses.
All The King's Men
Alentejo Blue
It
Christine
House Rules.
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

Baldwin explains it as a type of breathing point for authors trying to find their way, a rest stop, a breather. He suggests that editors should probably clip out most of the references as unnecassary. But then he posits that, as amatuer as it may be, it might just be that the dog barkerers are using the trope because, well, so many before them have used it. Its like ND players slapping the sign in Rudy. They do it because those before them did it. Perhaps its silly if you think about it, maybe, but its tradition and harmless.

I think I would generally fall on the side of being against such sentences. They seem superflurous. Unless the dog and his bark is in some way relevant to the story, it shouldn't be there under the guidelines of strong, tight story writing. At least that's what I've been taught. I, however, hesitate to question the writing of giants and those much more published than myself.

The funniest part of the story: Baldwin's first novel is being published soon, and after investigation, he realized that he had included the dog barking line himself. And after a friend whose first novel is also being published soon mocked him for noticing the prevelance of the dog barking line, the friend realized that the line appears in his novel as well.

It's the trifecta! The trifecta, I tell ya!

2010-06-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

Its not exactly the technological singularity, or even the other, more sciency, singularity, but still.

This reason.com post and the accompanying video (well worth a watch in my opinion - but I wouldn't have posted it if I didn't think that was the case) hits all the interests: government programs, health and food. And there is a TED mention, to boot.

Schmarmapuke

2010-06-14T09:24:00.001-07:00

If you've ever wondered what the appeal of the comic Marmaduke is, well, this site won't help you much in figuring that out.

But it is pretty funny in a somewhat mean-spirited way. So, if you don't find Marmaduke funny, and you are looking to waste some time, and maybe laugh a little, and find someone to commisserate with, well, this is the site for you. It certainly won't help explain its popularity - in fact it will do just the opposite.

I for one have always wondered about the appeal of the oafish beast. And I have a dog that is biggish and sometimes mishaves in spoiled ways, so you'd think I would be the prime friggin audience.

Read Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke and you'll realize that not only is the comic not funny, its not very well drawn, either. And pretty dated.

The funniest thing about any of the 88 strips on the blog are the blogger's analysis and some of the insights by the commenters. Cosplay gets a shout-out at one point that I only partly understood.

How much is too much?

2010-06-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

You know what, I wasn't a very good person or husband tonight. It's true and it happens.

Anyway, beside that - I love my truck.

And I've been expanding my borders and watching World Cup soccer. But why have the two games I've watched so far sound as though they were played in a bee's hive? Not near a hive, and not merely the cheering of fans, but like the game was actually occurring in a fucking hive. INSIDE THE HIVE.

And I watched Karate Kid tonight. And it got me thinking... how much is too much when it comes to "compassion" for Buddhists? Is there a final breaking point? Should there be? I'm all for accepting each other, and helping each other, and giving the other the benefit of the doubt, but at what point does it end? At what point do we recognize that the world is as the world is and act in accordance. Or is the idea to change the world altogether? It seems like maybe its that second one.

And a few lines in the movie got me thinking... at one point Dre (Will Smith's son) says something along the lines of "Everything in China is old." How much of our "Westernistish" is from the fact that almost everything around us is less than 100 years old, let alone 200 or 1000. Doesn't being around 1,000 and 10,000 year old buildings and structures and history have to affect you in a different way than beind around 100 year old stuff? And does that necassarily mean that 1,000-year old stuff is better? Because doesn't that mean that 10,000 year-old cave drawings are better than anything that came after? I for one think that the "newness" of our nation means that A) we are bound to have a different outlook than the "older" world and that B) that's not necassarily a bad thing?

Having said that, I wonder if maybe we all couldn't be a little better if we were a little more Busshist? (As I write this, the Republic of South Africa - the host continent, if not nation - scores the first goal of the 2010 World Cup against Mexico. South Africa is the lowest host country in history.

These are a few of my favorite things

2010-06-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

Black tea: Yunnan Jig, followed closely by Assam Melody
Green tea: Sencha

And I should note that after, oh, 3 or so years of brewing, I've managed to coax a subtle sweetness out of it to go along with the usual bitterness.

Such a great weekend.

2010-06-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

I had a gin-inspired post all ready, but I'm replacing it with this: I love life. The end.

Kinda I'm Doing Something (Take Two)

2010-06-03T12:08:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here, having a cup of Sencha tea, having exceeded what is expected of me from work today and having not yet gotten started on what is expected of me for tomorrow. And so I'm trolling the Internet to unwind a bit. And yes, its hot; and yes, blogging is probably not what is expected of me, regardless of my level of production.

But as I said, it's what I'm doing.

And I stumble upon a... its not really a review... more of promotional item by a journalist but we'll call it a review... about a self-published book called the "The Shack." The article itself is really well done.

A sample from the article: "The novel's subject is faith in God, but it is written as if to a reader who has little interest in religion. And although it is a Christian book, its author does not seem to follow any church." But wait, it gets better: "The Shack is to narrative form roughly what the Leatherman Multi-Tool is to pliers."

It makes me want to read the book. And I thought that the topic was cool and probably of interest to at least some of you.

So, I'm trying to kill the rest of my work day, and this got me to Part Two of the post: There is so much to do right now. My book is nearly finished. I've said that probably 100 times. But each time I say it I'm a bit closer. I'm on the final scene now, so I can't be far off. Plus, the next story is already writing scenes in my head. This writing stuff would be easier if I could take the scenes in my head and just transform them into written word, rather than, you know, actually writing them. And don't fear, because this actually does tie into The Shack, because the author of that book took two years writing his novel. So I'm in good company. The novel is self-published, yes, but its been on the best-seller list for 105 weeks.

There is just so much to do. House work, work work, yard work, dog work, car work, life work, health work, blog work, avoiding-the-annoying-census-girl work, book-writing work, book-editing work, reading work, hiding-messages work, XBox work. It can be, well, a little much.

Update: Oh, and in amongst all that other work, I'm surprising R. tonight with a steak dinner. I had kinda intended it to be a candle light dinner, but since it doesn't get dark enough for candle light, it will just have to be a surprise steak and potato and tomato dinner. That might not seem like much, but we don't eat beef or potatoes around here much anymore since we went on the the weight-loss/healthy eating path.

Speaking of which... I'm doing this Spartacus workout. Ten stations of 60 second workouts, with 15 seconds to change. Three full sets for a total of 41ish minutes. Its from the Bible. And its a killer workout that involves weights, but thanks to the stations also improves cardio performance and burns mucho calorieo. So me can eat Oreo. But instead I usually just eat Jello.

It's a tricky thing

2010-05-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

It's a tricky thing; growing up, getting older, that is.

One day, you are your parents' child. The world is laid out before you like a red carpet of opportunity and adventure. You are but one grain of sand in a beach full.

You go to sleep one night, and when you wake up, you are your own person. You look around and realize that you are now securely established on that carpet that that was previously laid out before you. You are still one in a sea of a million, but suddenly, its more like you are one person in a sea of hundreds of people on that beach. The individual particles now softly giving way under the weight of your labored step.

You look back and kinda, sorta - through the gray haze of the years - can see the point where you grew up. But, like a star, you have to look with your peripherial vision. Otherwise you lose it in the march of time that is your life.

Green with envy

2010-05-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Black tea, that is, after this WebMD article on the benefits of green tea.

Nothing horribly new. Green tea compounds have been shown to fight all manner of things, including heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, non-Supermanism and stroke. But most of the studies are in the lab, not on people. Still.

The story notes that most human studies involve those from the East, where other factors could influence results (don't they adjust for that?).

The story also notes the lack of individuals who have a long history of drinking tea that they can study. Uh, right here. Hello! Willing participant with 8 years of 3-6 cups of 50% green tea drinking experience available!

And yeah, I made that pentultimate disease up.

Dealings with the Dalai Lama

2010-05-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

Not personal ones, unfortunetly. That would be pretty cool though.

But on to the point of the post. Interesting article the the Dalai Lama, some of his recent statements, and the author's reaction to said statements are here. Its of special note because I'm reading the Art of Happiness.

Read some of the comments on the article for some... uh, criticism ... of the Dalai Lama's viewpoint. Some of it is even justified.

Anyway, take a read and come back. I'll wait...

-------

Done? Okay then. My problem is this - In my view, religious leaders often get stuck in a sticky web string of "touchy feely" philosophy rather than actual thought. The Marxist idea of everything to everyone get endorsed, despite never having worked anywhere and being responsible for some of the most heinious acts of man imaginable i.e. - N. Korea, USSR, China, et al. The fact that Capitalism has raised the fortunes of 1,000s is ignored. The Dalai Lama even acknowledges Capitalism's positive impact in China, and then dismisses it for the touch feely Marxism.

Part of the problem is that Marxism seems great at the moment if you apply it to a Capitalist made society that is promoting work and productivity because its already established a Living Standard A that can be distributed to all. But once you really start seeing the unintended consequences of a "from each, to each" philosophy, you realize that you now have a Living Standard B that will soon disintegrate into Living Standard C, on and on in a perpetuating cycle.

To me, the Devil is in the details. How much more "moral" can the system be, if it leads to the poverty - to the point of starvation - of thousands, if not tens of thousands? I suppose the Dalai Lama isn't all that worried about poverty - excepting starvation. But putting you in a more productive, prosperous place makes it that much more likely that another person, either through productivity or your generosity, can also be in a good place.

The second part is that it ignores that Capitalism does indeed have a moral underpinning. It suffers from having a title that isn't associated with a person's name, but it does have a moral underpinning.

Having said all this: The DL does seem to make some insightful points - mainly that Marxism/socialism has focused too heavily on destroying the successful class/ruling class and that as a result, when the revolution comes, there isn't much left to distribute. He suggests, instead of a resentful jealousy of the ruling class, that we employ a more compassionate stance overall.

I'm on board with that. I think there are rich that don't deserve their riches just as there are poor who don't deserve their poverty, and I'm not going to say either are totally deserving or undeserving of their lot. Nor am I going to pretend that being poor is the most horrible thing in the world or that being rich makes everything better. Both come with their own problems.

Sat Fat is just Phat

2010-05-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

Someone informed me recently that my last post might have been mistaken and that saturated fat is still considered the boogeyman of fats. I'm willing to concede that the science isn't settled, but I'd like to point out a couple of things from the wiki sat fat page (yes, take it for what it is worth):

A 3-year study conducted of 235 postmenopausal women with established coronary artery disease, many also having metabolic syndrome concluded that "in postmenopausal women with relatively low total fat intake, a greater saturated fat intake is associated with less progression of coronary atherosclerosis." Nevertheless, the authors deemed that "the findings do not establish causality." [41][42]

A 2010 meta-analysis in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition looked at 21 unique studies containing over 350,000 people. They found no association between saturated fat and an increased risk for coronary heart disease, stroke, or cardiovascular disease.[17]

A study of 297 Portuguese males with acute myocardial infarction (MI), found that "total fat intake, lauric acid, palmitic acid [two common saturated fats] and oleic acid [a monoinsaturated fat] were inversely associated with acute MI" and concluded that "low intake of total fat and lauric acid from dairy products was related to acute MI". The authors suggest that "recommendations on fatty acid intake should aim for both an upper and lower limit".[43]

Fulani of northern Nigeria get around 25% of energy from saturated fat, yet their lipid profile is indicative of a low risk of cardiovascular disease. This finding is likely due to their high activity level and their low total energy intake.[44]

A 2004 article in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition raised the possibility that the supposed causal relationship between saturated fats and heart disease may actually be a statistical bias. The authors take the example of the "Finnish mental hospital study" in which saturated fat intakes were monitored more closely than were total fat intakes, therefore ignoring the possibility that simply a larger fat intake may lead to a higher risk of coronary diseases. It also suggests that other parameters were overlooked, such as carbohydrates intakes.[45]

Food choice, schmood schmoich, apparently

2010-05-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

Reason.com has an interesting article of the White House's recent anti-obesity initiative and a peak at the newly redesigned food pyramid, along with the usual anti-government seasoning.

I've got some thoughts at my other blog.

I try not to cross post too often, but part of this blog's 1000 & 1 things is health & fitness. So I thought I would expand upon my other post.

So here goes: Don't even get me started on the food pyramid. It was a staple in schools and on food containers while I was growing up. Nice orderly progresssion from grains/carbs at the bottom (base), progressing up through fruits and veggies and meat and finally ending up in the smallest, topmost portion with fats and sugars. It was very nice.

And pretty much completely wrong.

Turns out, the carbs and grains that made the base of the pyramid really shouldn't form the base, because outside of a few whole grains and vegetables, carbs shouldn't be the base of your diet. Why not? They are mostly empty calories, and worse yet, they are relatively calorie dense and don't fill you up like, say fats and protiens. And lets just forget that the smallest part of the old pyramid makes a demon out of "fats," despite that saturated fats are probably one of the more healthy things you can eat.

So you see, the pyramid was pretty much entirely ass backwards or upside down, take your pick.

To make matters worse, based partly on that pyramid and party on advocacy from decades earlier, companies started abandoning fat at all costs. The result - trans fats and low-fat foods with high calorie counts. Both have since been discovered to be evils in the battle of the bulge.

Oh, and I forgot the best part of this little cross-over article: it gives me a place to crow about the fact that I'm down from 230ish pounds to 220 pounds. Almost all of it fat, as far as I can tell. And while on vacation R. and I worked out and I took a "fitness test" offered by one of the treadmills. It rated by VO2 Max as "above average."

Here I come, 210.

Better Bryan X - update

2010-04-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Well, its the end of April. Spring is here. I'm 34 years old this month. And we are one third of the way through the year. Good god. Anyhow, its a good time to look at how I've been doing on Better Bryan X, and where I need some work. So here goes...

1: Donate or volunteer more often than in 2009
Not too bad. I volunteered on Earth Day (April 21) and have donated some money already. (Success!)
2. Be lessy petty/condesending
This is really a stupid ... j/k. Actually, I think I'm doing well on this one. Compassion and all that.
3. Cut out the sighing at R.
Mission, as they say, accomplished.
4. Keep the house more clean, more often
Uh, I'd say "I'm working on it." R. would probably say "really?"
5. More focus at work
More. Not a lot; but more. If you ignore that I'm doing this during work hours.
6. Spend 15 minutes/week in meditation/silent
If you count the minutes before I nod off at night, then check. If you don't, well, F-.
7. Talk less/listen more
Sure... what was that you said?
8. Stop singing so many bastardized songs, especially to the dog
I was doing so well. Then I wasn't.
9. DLCAMMSM (Not for publication goal)
If only becaus I'm not putting myslf into this situation as much, I suppose. Still, that counts, doesn't it?
10. ERA goal (Not for publication goal)
100% accomplished!

Sprout!

2010-04-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

I received the following message in my email this morning:

Your tea tree has sprouted Congratulations! Your tea-tree has been selected & is being raised in an indoor nursery until it is ready to begin its outdoor journey. In the next few weeks we will update you as to its status & provide instructions on how you can help to take care of it along the way.In the mean-time, please enjoy the glimpse of what your Earth Day contribution has done thus far!

Yeah!

I like to think my plant is pictured in the second photo (the lowest picture) and that my plant is the tall one.

I'm not F'n around

2010-04-28T21:13:00.000-07:00

Seriously.

I've about had it with asshats trying to run other peoples' lives. Its gotten to the point where I'm kinda bitter.

And, shhhhh, I'm not gonna file my Census form in protest. Oh, I may eventually. But I'm going to prolong it as long as possible.

Like I said, I'm getting bitter.

A nice vacation may be just what I need. Oh, and I think I need to stay off the Libertarian posting boards. Little too much echo, if you catch my drift.

The good news is that I've finally scaled a year-long writer's block. Chalk the delay up to my fear of heights. Chalk it up to being a crappy writer. Chalk it up to laziness. Chalk it up to my habit of never really finishing anything. Heck, chalk it up to the Man in the Sky for all I care.

Tonight I wrote - for the first time really - towards the ending of Falsley Accused. About half way, maybe 30% of the way towards the end of the road that remains. I actually know - for the first time - the "how" of how it will end. Sorta. More like I know the road I'll take, that the road heads East, and that it passes through 3 towns. Where exactly I'll end up, well, that's the exciting part.

Hoping to take the rough draft on vacation with me for review and light editing, notation and rewriting of the crappy parts.

So... the entire thing.

Everybody Draw Mohammad Day

2010-04-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

By way of a little back story, Islamic extremists threatened South Park-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker for using a representation of Mohammed in their cartoon.

So, someone with just my sense of humor, passive-aggressiveness and ideals has named May 20 as "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day" in support of Stone and Parker. Genuis.

I plan on posting a drawing. I'll do this despite the fact that - my former incarnation as a graphic designer for a newspaper not withstanding (Photoshop/FreeHand/Adobe can do wonders) - ~~I'm not a very good artist~~ I'm no Darby Conley.

As a journalist, I kinda feel its my professional duty to the First Amendment. As a human being I kinda feel its my obligation to my fellow man. As a rationale egoist, I kinda feel its my obligation to myself.

I'm all for believing that such an image is against the will of your Man in the Sky. I'm all for forgoing such conduct yourself. I'm all for barring such conduct from fellow followers. Where I draw the line is dictating adherence to such a policy to nonbelievers.

If you don't want to curse the Man in the Sky, fine; but you can't ask someone else to forgo the same.

If I end up in hell, I won't send you a postcard.

I only ask that if you end up in hell, you return the favor.

Life without the Web

2010-04-23T07:14:00.001-07:00

This guy here is doing what all of us have probably wondered about but would never really ever be crazy enough to dare to do: Go without the internet.

Not just for a day.

Or a week.

But for more than a month (he's cheating somewhat, in my estimation, but that's a discussion for another time).

Its a well written piece, and if you have the time and the inclination, I suggest you take 10 minutes and read the first piece in the series. As I said, well worth your time.

Anyway, this was originally intended as just a "what I'm interested in RIGHT NOW" post, but it got me thinking. Over the last year or two or three, I've gone from reading large quantities of books, to being a voracious reader of online content. Most of its news. Probably about 55% straight news, actually. Another 20% is political news or analysis.

But the remaining 25%, like the piece discussion above, is only news adjacent. Its more of a feature. Sort of a short story, almost. Or a series of short stories. Is that the result of immersion in the InterTubes? Or is it just a change in reading habits that accompany age and the nature of my life at this point in time?

Good question.

GREEN!

2010-04-22T06:28:00.000-07:00

Green. Because it was Earth Day Wednesday.

~~Yes, I'm a day late.~~ UDATE: Turns out, I'm right on time, actually.

But I have a very good excuse.

You see, I spent my Wednesday hiking through Valley Forge National Park slicing, dicing and chopping through non-native species of plants and vegegation in honor of Earth Day. We get two volunteer days per year, and this was the first of mine. It was a pretty good time. I'm pretty sore today, however.

The coolest thing was julienning the grape vines. They varied in size from walking stick size to the size of moderate-sized tree stumps. But the cool part was that when you cut them, they leaked. And not the thick, gooey sap you might associate with trees. This was clear, quick-flowing liquid. Some of them were like a shower head with the supply turned to on ever so slightly.

We were told that as a survival method, if you are ever lost in the woods (and apparently have a saw) you can drink the liquid. I didn't. Drinking something for survival and for the mere sake of drinking it are two differen things, in my mind.

Anyway, that was my Wednesday. And my other good Earth Day deed. As an added bonus, I direct you to the The Four Things You Should Be Focusing On This Earth Day.

Tea tree for me; tea tree for thee?

2010-04-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

So, Adagio has this pretty neat thing going on for Earth Day. You can plant - i.e., reserve space - a tea tree on a tea plantation in one of three locations. An area of China - known for its white teas; and area of India - known for Assam; or an area of Sri Lanka - known for its Oolong.

Click here, Captain Planet, to save the world - one tea tree at a time.

Now, I'm pretty sure the farmer/Adagio would plant the tree anyway. They let you pick the spot in the field you want to plant the tree, but something tells me if you pick a spot way in the far corner and no one picks the ones near you, they aren't just going to forego planting in the rest of the spaces and then go out and tend to your tree standing 200 yards away by itself. My hunch is the whole field is going to be planted anyway - probably with or without you and possibly it already has been.

So, from an Earth Day stand point, its might really be a wash. If the tree is going in the ground anyway, my selection isn't really doing very much. But it seems like it couldn't hurt.

Oh, and you have to digitally care for your tree. Like a Digipet, except its a Digiteatree. I assume that means watering and weeding, probably along the lines of the god forsaken Farmville crap that is on Facebook, but whatever. The actual instructions weren't all that clear. But hey, its not actual weeding and watering, which is kinda hard work, so again, no harm, no foul. Or at the very least, little harm, little foul. Certainly little enough to ignore.

And last but not least: If you ditigally care for your plant to maturity, they will send you four free ounces of tea from your plant.

This last part is just not believable, and is somewhat makes me question the whole program, even if it is for a good cause and blah blah blah. I can believe the tree will be planted. But am I really to believe that a poor/poorish farmer in a little regulated tea plantation in India os going to label my tree and keep track of it and then when it comes time for harvesting seperate my tree's leaves from the others to ensure that I get tea from - again - my tree?

Sure, why not.

Anyway, I planted a tree. Its in India. Its the third plant from the left in the first row in the second field. If you want to know why I chose the third planting spot, you haven't been paying attention. Three. Triangles. Pyramids. Strongest, least likely to tip over? Ringing a bell? Don't get it? Ask in the comments and I'll explain.

A tea tree takes 3 years to reach maturity. Which means in all liklihood I will have long since forgot about digitally nurturing my little tree and foregone the free tea. But I thought it was neat, cool and worth a try.

Would you go back? Or forward?

2010-04-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

During a great speech, Michael Specter at TED asks the question. The answer you give might tell me more about you than you really want me to know.

But in a speech well worth your time, he goes further than that. When I've gotten worked up about issues in the past, I've been asked "why worry about what people want to do. Let them make their choice, even if they are silly." Specter gives a great response.

I won't spoil it, you'll have to watch to see the answer.

Happy Birthday!

2010-04-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

No, not to me. You're a little late if you are thinking that.

Today (April 13) is personal favorite/hero Thomas Jefferson's birthday.

From whitehouse.gov:

"Freckled and sandy-haired, rather tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, but he was no public speaker. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the "silent member" of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In years following he labored to make its words a reality in Virginia. Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786."

Jefferson was a year younger than I am now when he drafted the DoI.

Quote of the day

2010-04-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic."

- H.L. Mencken

My hat, is a very very fine hat

2010-04-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

The headline has to be sung to the tune of Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to sound anything but arrogant.

So, as promised, here's a look at my new hat!

And from a different angle:

~~Hate it? I don't much care.~~

Maybe this is more your flavor: I also bought myself a kind of birthday present/necessity item (if you define necessity as the need to have like 100 of an item). A new tea cup.

It was the second one I picked out, after worrying that first one was too feminine. Tea stuff can be so girly sometimes. But this seemed masculine enough. Masculinish, at any rate, I suppose. And I like it; despite the fact that it appears to have, for no discernable reason, a Maple leafesque leaf on it. I'm familiar with tea leaves, and this one would be something I'm not all accustomed to seeing as a tea leaf. Maybe it is and I am just not aware. You can kinda see it above the large "a" on the cup. Its not the single, slender leaf that I usually associate as a tea leaf.

Anyway.

Just thought you should know

2010-04-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

So, I was driving to work the other day. It was a normal, every day trip: I proceeded onto the ramp that takes me onto Rt. 422. Now, 422 at rush hour is a bit of a mess. Traffic on 422 itself can be heavy or light. But the ramp is alwasy bumper to bumper as people try to take the 270-degree ramp into the speeding traffic of the road.

It was then that I heard the siren.

Now, the ramp to 422 is pretty isolated, so I had a hunch the siren was coming my way, but a quick check in the old rear-view confirmed - ambulance.

I wasn't sure of the protocal. Do you go toward the inside of the ramp, or the outside? I apparently wasn't the only one, because we split about 75/25, with 75 going outside with me.

I watched the ambulance weave its way through the completely stopped and scattered traffic, pass me, and weave again. Then, on refocusing in front me me, I saw it: The entirity of traffic on 422 had come to a complete stop.

Now, 422 curves at the point I'm talking about, which adds to the traffic nightmare, I think, and made it tough for me figure out just how many cars had stopped. And the wonder of it all shocked me enough that I didn't pay as good attention as I know wish I had.

Still, trust me when I say it was probably 40 cars lined up on 422.

Maybe not all of them wanted to stop. Perhaps some guy 5 cars back was peeved and wanted to still be going 60 but couldn't because the guy in the front stopped. I don't know.

All I know is that, on this particular day, some 50 or 60 cars pulled off of ramps and stopped cold on a highway to allow an ambulance as clear a path as possible.

Next time someone (or you) doubts human nature/kindness, just keep this this in mind.

Fat-free fools

2010-03-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

It turns out, all that "fat-free"/"low-fat" food you see on store shelves might not only not help you lose weight (which we've known for a while), it might also be dangerous to you. All because the original understanding and testing didn't account for the particle size of LDL cholesteral.

The original thinking went that since eating fat raises cholesteral, and those with high cholesteral are at general risk for heart disease, eating fat raised your risk for heart diseaes. Turns out, only eating certain types of fat actually leads to an increased risk of heart disease. And this helps explain why cholesteral tests can predict only about 70 percent of those at risk for heart disease. Some people with heart disease might have LDL level completely within the "normal" range, but primarily comprised of the wrong type of particles.

So says this slate.com story.

I say this as I eat sunflower seeds, after having had almonds yesterday, and olive oil (the oil, not the girl) Wednesday. Oh, the good LDL comes from olive oil and nuts/seeds.

And these people want to run our health care? Oh joy.