2009 in review

Well, I've at this blogging thing for a year now.

Actually, a little more than a year. Anway, I thought it would interesting to see what topics/labels my posts most commonly fell into. Admittedly, not all my posts had/have labels, and this is certainly self selected. And I posted like 7 times in 2008 that I'm just going to lump into 2009. Sue me.

But I thought it might be a neat introspection into what was on my mind and who I was in 2009 and for a very short period in very late 2008. Here goes.

Top 9 Labels Used in 2009 @ 1000 & 1 Things:

1 Writing - 16
2 Fitness - 13
3 Politics - 11
3 Books - 11
5 Interesting tidbits - 9
6 Happiness - 5
7 Interesting thoughts - 5
7 Push up Challenge - 5
9 Video Games -4

Reinventing the wheel

Another delayed post.

This from an analysis of the great Aristotle on a Stanford website:

The good of a human being must have something to do with being human; and what sets humanity off from other species, giving us the potential to live a better life, is our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason. If we use reason well, we live well as human beings; or, to be more precise, using reason well over the course of a full life is what happiness consists in. Doing anything well requires virtue or excellence, and therefore living well consists in activities caused by the rational soul in accordance with virtue or excellence.

And this from Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project on Slate.com:

Act with energy. We think we ACT because of the way we FEEL, but often we FEEL because of the way we ACT. Trick yourself into feeling energetic by moving more quickly, pacing while you talk on the phone, and putting more energy into your voice.

Similar, me thinks.

How we learned to hate the Nuke and ruined (?) our own environment along the way

This is a bit late, but I didn't want to step on the feet of my UnChristmas Story, nor Christmas itself.

The answer to the titular question is: 1970s environmentalism. At one point in the 1970s, it was hoped that 200 "breeder" reactors would be online by 2000, which would have reduced our carbon output by 1/3.

Sadly, President Carter, aided no doubt by a 1973 lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Scientists Institute for Public Information, killed the plan.

Of course, back then nuclear was the Devil, the environment was the Endangered One. Now, carbon is the Devil, and the environment is the Even More Endangered One. Sadly, if we had only chosen the proper course 30 years ago, we might have been able to knock a prefix and suffix off of endangered (that's a beginning and an ending; for those of you who might not get it - that means we'd be left with simply Danger.)

Choices choices. And of course their consquences, people.

Here's the reason link from pre-Christmas week.

Merry Christmas

Hope every one has a very Merry Christmas Eve/Christmas.

Hope you stay healthy and happy on two of my favorite days of the year.

Merry Christmas.

A UnChristmas Story Part II: Scrooge, The Destroyer of Christmas

Awesome post by Peter Foster at the Washington Post. Its regarding the new animated movie "A Christmas Carol," but the point stands and it lets me build on something I was thinking about while watching the 1984 version of A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott.

Indeed, does nobody notice the irony that capitalism has unleashed the consumerist cornucopia and charitable sentiments that were A Christmas Carol’s
ideal?

Poverty is portrayed as rampant, or at least very present, in A Christmas Carol. And certainly poverty is bad. But saving and being pennywise is portrayed as bad as bad as well. In fact, lavish spending and consumerism is exactly what Scrooge is encouraged to do. Its the "ideal" that Scrooges nephew represents. Its exactly that type of spending - the debt that Scrooge complains about - that drove us into our current economic struggles.

And hey, one wonders how much Scrooges' nephew might have been able to help the poor had he not had to pay a servant to open the door for him. Was opening doors much harder back in the day? I know Scrooge's office had a door that required both he and Bob to duck to enter. Maybe most were also so poorly hung that you needed special servant powers to open them?

Anyway, now, people complain that Christmas is all about spending and buying gifts. There is a whole song about how that isn't the true meaning of Christmas. And while Scrooges' redemption isn't entirley based on his new found spending and commercialism, its at least a part of it.

Further:

"Would the world have been better without Scrooge? Did he force people to do business with him? Was Bob Cratchit not free to find better employment elsewhere? And if no such employment was available, was that Scrooge’s fault?"

In reality, without having amassed that wealth, Scrooge could never have purchased the prized turkey for the Cratchits. In fact, its unlikely he could have afforded to pay Bob Cratchit if he lived life prior to that night as he did after it.

I'm not saying Scrooge was perfect. Surely, he was a surly individual. Unfriendly and miserable. And his redemption from these qualities is a great accomplishment. But its hardly the political indictment it has become.

An UnChristmas Story Part I: Scrooge: The original environmentalist?

Ebeneezer Scrooge:

"Coal burns. Coal is momentary and coal is costly. There will be no more coal burned in this office today, is that quite clear, Mr. Cratchit?"

It could be ripped out of a news story from today. Or from the President's most recent speech. I'm certainly not the first to note it, but Scrooge shared environmentalists' hatred of coal's use, saying

"These are garments, Mr. Cratchit. Garments were invented by the human race as a protection against the cold. Once purchased, they may be used indefinitely for the purpose for which they are intended."

Scrooge: The original environmentalist? Environmentalists would probably sympathize with old Ebeneezer, that's for sure. Wearing warmer clothing in the winter and using less heat, and using a lot less air conditioning, would be right down both their alleys. Politics makes for strange bedfellows.

So was Scrooge the first environmentalist? I'm not saying he was; I'm just saying.

We are all as dumb, and smart, as the next guy & gal

From Zogby, via Reason: 72% of the country thinks the American public is not politically engaged and doesn't follow political news closely. Only 15% think the public is informed about national politics.

Ok, we're going good so far.

Here's where it gets a little weird. A full 85% report that they personally follow the news closely. So, 85% closely follow the news, something that would be news to the other 72% .

This is exactly why I'm Libertarian. We all think the other guy is an idiot barely capable of caring for himself. The answer for some is to provide that care - that care being our set of values or restrictions, regardless of whether they want it or like it. Its for the idiots own best interest, after all.

We'd all do well to remember that that idiot is us.

The true meaning of Christmas

From the song Christmas Shoes, which I'm sure you've heard (and R. hates):

Sir, I want to buy these shoes
for my Mama, please
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time
You see she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight
Bridge:
I knew I'd caught a glimpse of heaven's love
As he thanked me and ran out
I knew that God had sent that little boy
To remind me just what Christmas is all about

Soooooo.... extending this all the way out... God gave a little boy's mom a fatal, horrible disease so that he could teach this poor schlub "what Christmas is all about?" Here's an idea: How about, occasionally, you do a little self reflection and figure it out on your own so that no one needs get cancer for you to "remember" what Christmas is all about.

Now, I know the retort will be that either A) I'm overthinking this, or B) the kid's mom had cancer anyway, and God merely sent the boy to remind the guy, no one was the worse off, so no harm no foul.

As to A: I think its pretty hard to overthink the important metaphysical questions of life and our existance, their impact on our lives and actions, and what that means for our future conduct and morals. If thinking too long and hard about morals and how to live life is wrong, well, count me as guilty, I guess. I've done worse, and probably will in the future, and its a guilt I'll willingly take. And recommend to others.

As to B: I guess its possible the boy's mom was sick anyway and not made sick specifically to teach this guy a lesson. As I said, the result is really "no harm, no foul," under that formulation. As to the lesson, the shopkeeper surely seems to have missed the point since he didn't put in his own money or just put the item on "sale." So, we have to assume I guess that God was spending his time specifically lining up these events to teach this solitary man a lesson. I think its more likely the guy did a bit of self-searching in those moments, but whatever. It seems pretty selfish to think God directed this disease-striken mom's kid to the mall to teach this guy a lesson. I have no problem with Objective selfishness, but for a group of people repulsed by the idea of selfishness, its an odd formulation.

I'm just saying.

More News of the Odd coming later this week.

Lift the rock, watch the bugs scurry

Someone lifted the rock I was under. So now here I am. A small, hard-shelled bug, scurrying along on my twelve furiously moving legs to escape the sun and once again find shelter in the dark, dank, wetness of the shaded mud under some rock.

I know I haven't written in ages. I spent a significant amount of time on a project for this blog, and then the whole thing just went dark.

My schedule is really being rewritten right now. Duke is up to two 15 minutes walks per day plus 15 figure 8s three times per day. I've kinda combined the two for the sake of my own sanity. And by kinda I mean I sure as hell combined the two and dropped one of the figure 8s. That is not only a time suck. Its a reordering of my entire day that can cause the other items to spiral madly out of control and collide into each other, if not careful. (Ok, ok, my life is neither so filled nor so important or busy that its items spiral out of control or have any chance of colliding - or at least of the collisions having any real effect - but I wanted to write that line).

Duke loves it. He's outside exploring and walking around for significant amounts of time for the first time in a month. And he's finally excited to walk and not constantly looking to go back inside. Who can blame him? He's probably feeling better walking around than he has in a year. Still a little limp - maybe arthritis, maybe lingering surgery pain, might just be phantom pain; who knows?

Only ... 3 more months until he can walk "off leash."

Duke rehab. Christmas prep. Life. That's pretty much the extent of what I'm doing. Oh, and I've been sick since the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That too. I slept for like 12 hours the Monday after Thanksgiving. Seriously. I took two naps in one day.

I'm back to reading. I really like Compulsion. I've had the book on hold for months, but every time I read it I really, really like. Its a style I aspire too and a good story. I just find that I don't read it. I usually have good intentions and anticipate joyfully reading it at night before bed, and then I find that I just don't read it.

Whatever. I'll be finished it, and Falsley Accused, by Christmas. I'm not promising Christmas 2009, mind you, but Christmas in general.