And then there were three...

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

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

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*

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

"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?

"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.

!: .,?; !

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

Burning books - they have an ointment for that

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

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

Well, duh.

Editing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

Finally finished. Finally.

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

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!

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

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?

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

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

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]