#261 / Money Isn't Everything

When we talk about money, we might talk about a trillion with a "T," or a billion with a "B," or even a mere million with an "M." In all these cases, we are talking about measurements that apply in the "human world," the world that we create. 

Money looms pretty large in its importance in our human world, but as my parents used to tell me, "Money isn't everything."

Clean air, for instance. What's that worth? How do we measure that? What do they say in that MasterCard commercial? 

Priceless.

We need to pay less attention to money, and more to the natural environment, the value of which cannot really be measured in money. 

The picture above, for instance, which illustrated a New York Times article on air pollution in China, says that outdoor air pollution contributes to the deaths of an estimated 4,400 people a day, or 1.6 million people every year. 

That's million with an "M."

Image Credit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/asia/study-links-polluted-air-in-china-to-1-6-million-deaths-a-year.html

#260 / Trillion With A "T"

Let's set aside, for the moment, the idea that human-caused global warming is destroying the natural environment upon which our civilization depends, and that we need to do something about global warming because of that. Let's set aside the processes of extinction now underway, also linked to climate change.

Let's talk about money!

According to a report released by CitiCorp in August 2015, the damage to Gross Domestic Product from the negative effects of climate change is likely to be at least $44 trillion dollars. Could be more!

Yes, that's trillion with a "T!"

Image Credit:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gene-marks/so-whats-your-trillion-do_b_2502238.html

#259 / Does Journalism = Espionage?

Click the following link to be directed to the Department of Defense Law of War Manual. The Manual was published in June 2015. Given that the Manual is 1,176 pages long, it might take you a while to read the Manual in its entirety. 

In its August 10, 2015 editorial, "The Pentagon and the Wartime Press," The New York Times suggests that the recently-published Manual may be seeking to turn journalism into espionage. The Times is most concerned that the Manual contains a "broad assertion that journalists' work may need to be censored lest it reveal sensitive information to the enemy."

We should recall that the FBI has already been taking the position that reporting the news can get reporters put in jail. You can read all about it, right here. 

The Obama Administration has prosecuted more "leakers" under the 1917 Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined, and the President doesn't seem to be ashamed of that fact. That's disturbing!

Democratic government depends on the idea that ordinary citizens will be able to know what their government is doing. The people are supposed to be in charge of the government, and you can't be in charge of the government if you don't know what's going on. If the reporters who seek out information, and then publish it, are going to be prosecuted and put in jail, democracy fails at the foundation. 

Image Credit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88bX8D_y1nc

#258 / Last Stop / Bullets And Burgers

 

I would have thought that the World Famous "Last Stop" in White Hills, Arizona was basically just a place to get beer and gas, and maybe some beef jerky, olives, or honey. Check out that signage! Isn't that what you'd think, too?

As it turns out, the "Last Stop" is world famous because families bring their children to the "Last Stop" from all over the world to shoot 50 millimeter machine guns. Here is some background from a story in The New York Times: 

Antonio Nárdiz, a Spanish tourist from Bilbao, said he had chosen a family vacation to America for one specific reason: to fulfill his sons’ dreams of firing real machine guns. In Spain, he noted, 10-year-old Jon and 12-year-old Toni, like all other civilians, are forbidden to use automatic weapons. 

Hey, that's what being a good father is all about, right? If your 10-year-old son wants to shoot a machine gun, fly that kid to Arizona so he can do it. What better dream than to shoot a machine gun? As my father told me, on more than one occasion, "if you don't have a dream, Gary, you can't have a dream come true!"

Last year, a 9-year-old New Jersey girl (living the dream) visited with her family at the "Last Stop," and lost control of the Uzi submachine gun she was firing. The upshot was that she managed to kill her instructor. Mr. Nárdiz had heard about this, so he called ahead to ask about security. Someone told him, “It’s practically impossible for an accident to occur.” So glad to hear it, I bet he thought, as he booked the flights for his family!

The "Last Stop" isn't the only place where you can shoot machine guns in the Las Vegas area. How about "Bullets And Burgers?" Click the link to see their website. 

Bullets And Burgers is highly recommended, according to what the website says, at least.

I think my oldest grandson might (if allowed to dream such dreams) like the idea of shooting machine guns. My granddaughter might like that, too. She's almost nine years old, so maybe next year?

Or... Maybe not!

Maybe let's work on a different dream?

Image Credits:
(1) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyDq5vheEbI
(2) - http://www.gazettenet.com/home/13309534-95/shooting-by-9-year-old-girl-stirs-debate-over-guns

#257 / Option B

WSAC, the City of Santa Cruz "Water Supply Advisory Committee," has been working for more than a year on developing a proposed "supplemental" water supply solution for my local community. 

The main action right now seems to revolve around an argument about whether "to B" or "not to B." In other words, the Committee has come up with a generally accepted plan (let's call it "Plan A"), which does not involve desalination. Instead, the idea is that available surface water can be captured in high-rainfall periods (even during a drought), and then can be stored for later use in unfilled groundwater aquifers under Scotts Valley and the area served by the Soquel Creek Water District. 

As I say, the members of WSAC seem to agree that this is a good plan. But what if it doesn't work? Some argue that the City needs a "Plan B," too. For instance, how about desalination?

The problem with a "Plan B," in this context, is that the temptation will be to try to accomplish both plans simultaneously (just to be sure). The "No Plan B" argument is that we are better off to put all our eggs in that "Plan A" basket, since that plan does seem to have the best potential to solve our problem. Then, of course, we need to "Watch That Basket!"

The Democratic Party is worrying about a "Plan B," too. The San Francisco Chronicle had an exploration of this topic in its Sunday, August 23, 2015 edition. The headline on the article was pretty dramatic: "Democrats’ nightmare scenario: Who’s Plan B if Clinton tanks?"

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and author of Lean In, was listed as one "Plan B" possibility. Other "Plan B" possibles included California's Governor Jerry Brown, United States Senator Cory Booker, and Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. Of course, Senator Bernie Sanders made that list, too. Its Bernie's popularity, in fact, that is causing some people to get worried about the long-term viability of the "Plan A" candidate, Hillary Clinton. 

In whatever context, I am generally in favor of picking what I think is the best plan, and then making sure to "execute" that plan. Let's focus our resources, I say, and not get distracted by trying to do a "Plan A" and a "Plan B" simultaneously. 

The primary campaign season is the time to pick the right "Plan A" for presidential candidates. The year-plus work by WSAC has been the time to pick the best plan for long-term water security for our local community.

I will say (since sometimes the best plan doesn't work out) that Sheryl Sandberg (pictured above) had the very best quote in the Chronicle article, at least in my opinion. She made a good point about what to do when an accepted "Plan A" fails: 

When Option A is not available ... kick the s--- out of Option B.

Image Credit:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/19/technology/social/sheryl-sandberg-facebook-shares/

#256 / Noctilucent

These mysterious, noctilucent clouds are sure pretty. 

But maybe not a good omen for the future!

Image Credit:

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Mystery-lights-in-space-could-warn-of-global-6458563.php

#255 / Relax

The bronze shown, of a boxer, is part of an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibition is titled, Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, and it will run until November 15th of this year. 

I found out about the exhibition from a fine column by Roger Cohen, which appeared in The New York Times edition of August 23, 2015. Cohen called his column "California Dreaming," but the column is not really about California. It is about change. 

Cohen rehearsed both sides of the argument that I often had with my father: Is the world radically and fundamentally changing (this was my claim, and I always thought that the changes were mostly for the worst), or (as my father consistently argued) have things pretty much "always been this way?"

Cohen ultimately comes down on my father's side of the argument, and it is actually comforting, I think, for any son to find his father's viewpoints validated: 

The catalyst to these musings was something I saw in Los Angeles, probably the last place I expected to see it because I think of the city as hot-wired to the new and inclined to the brittle. It was a bronze statue from the third century B.C. of a seated boxer, a life-size rendering of a bearded man who, to judge from the bruise on his cheek and his broken nose, has just emerged from a fight, or perhaps a series of fights. His body is strong, suggestive of the heroic, but his expression is excruciatingly human, full of stoicism and questioning. 

Here I am, the boxer seems to say, and such is life: an unpredictable struggle for survival in which there is no escape from hard work and wisdom must be earned the hard way. You see, he murmurs across 2,300 years, I have done what I had to do and this is the state I find myself in: tired, battered but unflinching and alive. 

The boxer made me think of one of my favorite paintings, Velázquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X in Rome’s Doria Pamphilj Gallery, not in any particular detail but in the evocation of someone who has lived life to the full: the ruddy and weathered face of the pontiff, the shrewd eyes, the expression that says he sees through the pomp of his position and is aware that life, even at the summit of power, may be viewed as a cruel joke. “Troppo vero!” — “Too true!” — the pope is said to have exclaimed on seeing it. 

My late uncle, Bert Cohen, was in Italy during World War II. On July 21, 1944, he reached Monte Cassino and wrote in his war diary: “Poor Cassino, wreck and desolation unbelievable, roads smashed and pitted, mines, booby traps and graves everywhere. Huge shell holes, craters filled with stagnant slime, smashed buildings, hardly outlines remaining, a silent sight of ghosts and shadows. Pictures should be taken of this monument to mankind’s worst moments and circulated through every school room in the world.” 

Along with pictures of the Hellenistic boxer and the Italian pope to illustrate the illusions of power, the bruises of life, the persistence of hope and the limits of change. Relax — we’ve been here before.

Image Credits:

(1) - http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/power_pathos/

(2) - http://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/en/welcome-home-innocenzo-x/

#254 / Our Future Life On Mars

Elon Musk, pictured, is pioneering in lots of high-tech areas. He has "created the world’s leading electric car company, Tesla Motors," and he "conceived and is the board chairman of SolarCity, the country’s premier solar services company.” Musk has also "founded, funded, and runs ... SpaceX." 

I am quoting here from an article in The New York Review of Books, titled "The Man For Mars."

The book being reviewed is Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, by Ashlee Vance. It's not clear from the review whether or not the book mentions the "hyperloop," another one of Musk's far out visions, and one that seems to be moving from theory to reality.

I am not much enamored of efforts to colonize space. I'd rather focus human efforts on the task of making sure that we never have to flee Earth for other planets, or even other solar systems, to avoid the messes we've created right here.

It may be that Musk isn't hoping to escape the messes, however, but to export them. I couldn't help but chuckle when I learned, from the article in The New York Review, that "Musk is not envisioning a colony of a few hundred settlers on the Red Planet, but one on the order of Hawthorne, California, the 80,000-plus industrial city outside of Los Angeles where SpaceX has its headquarters."

Check out a picture of Hawthorne, below. Frankly, I'd hate to see that duplicated on Mars, even if all the cars were electric!

Image Credits:
(1) - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/aug/13/elon-musk-man-mars/
(2) - http://www.panoramio.com/photo/50522876

#253 / FOMO At A Certain Age

The picture above is from a 1516 map of Thomas More's island of Utopia, discussed in Legendary Lands by Umberto Eco. I am a big fan of all things "utopian," and I retrieved this image from an edition of Brain Pickings devoted to FOMO, the "Fear Of Missing Out."

The Brain Pickings' article is titled, "In Praise of Missing Out: Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips on the Paradoxical Value of Our Unlived Lives." I commend that article to you. Phillips' book, Missing Out, may be good, too, but as is often the case in this Two Worlds blog, I find myself commenting on a comment, in lieu of reading the original. 

So many books; so little time! That sentiment is exactly the same as in that famous observation by John Barrymore, who noted that the trouble with life is that there is insufficient time to have sampled more of the beautiful women that life has made (at least potentially) available. 

Talk about FOMO!

In fact, having reached what some might correctly call a "certain age," I find that FOMO (to the degree I ever felt it) is no longer a major preoccupation. FOMO has been replaced by the certainty that I HAVE missed out. There isn't any doubt!

I can remember many speeches counseling and urging my political audiences to "Make Up Their Mind," since making choices (instead of trying to have it both ways) is the essence of a genuine politics. In those speeches, I often said that "you can't be both a ballerina and a brain surgeon." In other words, you might be capable of being either one, but you do have to choose, because there isn't time to do both, either simultaneously or sequentially. 

FOMO might come into play as you consider that ballerina/brain surgeon decision, but when you do reach that "certain age," and the choices you have made have played themselves out, and you are who you are, the lesson that Phillips' book imparts makes a great deal of sense. 

It is a total fallacy to think that one person can do "everything" that he or she might want to do, or can think about doing, or that he or she might even be good at, and having not done something is no failure. 

Not if you have done something, that is! And we all have!!

It is possible to celebrate both possibility and experience. We should be grateful for the experiences we have had, and the lives we have lived.

This is what I think.

That is my lesson learned at a "certain age."

Image Credit:
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=13eb080d8a315477042e0d5b1&id=74b7067de7&e=cfc6fc0836

#252 / A Lesson From The Elephant Seals

I enjoyed an article that ran in the Sunday, August 23rd edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. It reported on recent work by UCSC scientists who, since the days of Burney LeBoeuf, have been doing research on the elephant seal populations that come each year to Año Nuevo, just north of the line that divides Santa Cruz County from San Mateo County. The article was titled, "Male elephant seals use voices to identify rivals, UCSC study finds."

Learning more about elephant seals is always worthwhile, in and of itself. However, in this article, I seemed to find, also, some helpful information from the elephant seals, whose counsel could assist the United States as it confronts international relations in a hostile world: 

They found that male elephant seals responded aggressively to subordinate male elephant seals, but backed away when hearing the call of a dominant rival. The system not only works well at preserving peace and avoiding injury — only about 5 percent of interactions lead to physical contact — it also helps them conserve energy. The cost of conflict is very high and resolution through communication saves a tremendous amount of energy,” said Colleen Reichmuth, study co-author and director of the Pinniped Cognition and Sensory Systems Laboratory at UCSC.

Let's hope the presidential candidates read the Sentinel, and learn this lesson from the elephant seals: 

The cost of conflict is very high and resolution through communication saves a tremendous amount of energy.

Image Credit:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/environment-and-nature/20150822/male-elephant-seals-use-voices-to-identify-rivals-ucsc-study-finds

#251 / Drones Against The Homeless

Various neighborhoods utilize services like Nextdoor to provide a neighborhood communications system. In my home town, the communications I have seen have most often involved lost dogs and cats, lost wallets and keys, block party announcements, requests for recommendations for a good plumber, or for a good auto mechanic, and offers of free building supplies.

Most recently, however (something a bit different), I learned of a neighborhood-based effort to organize a drone surveillance program:

I am getting a drone to identify the encampments where they [homeless persons] are living illegally. As a status, we are $900 away from what we need. Just nine people to give $100 each would do it. That will provide a quad-copter with an infrared camera to identify and report the encampments.

I have always been a strong advocate of community-based organization, but I must admit I hadn't ever thought of this approach.

At least, as far as I know, this drone will not be "weaponized."

Image Credit:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1138088&gclid=Cj0KEQjwu-CuBRCQ2byQtMep7e0BEiQABQKlkQY7e8KYCdS8V_Hde1jH5snk2KsQijcTmc9LTWpbKjcaAk1u8P8HAQ&is=REG&m=Y&A=details&Q=

#250 / Ulysses Travels On

The painting is called Ulysses After The Shipwreck, and is by Jean-Charles Cazin.

The poem Ulysses, by Alfred Tennyson, most often referred to as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, must surely be one of Tennyson's finest works. I reproduce it below. 

In Tennyson's Ulysses, the aging King, who has accomplished much, looks still towards the sea, and wants to travel more. "Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. Death closes all; but something ere the end. Some work of noble note may yet be done ... We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, - one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Words for all ages! 

With Tennyson and Ulysses whispering in my ear, I am off to visit Greece!

Ulysses
BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Image Credit: 
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jean-charles-cazin-ulysses-after-the-shipwreck

#249 / Prolepsis

Prolepsis is defined as follows: 

prolepsis |prōˈlepsəs|

noun (pl. prolepses |-ˌsēz| )

1 Rhetoric the anticipation and answering of possible objections in rhetorical speech.

2 the representation of a thing as existing before it actually does or did so, as in he was a dead man when he entered.

****

Whether it is working out a list of possible national "threats," as discussed in my posting yesterday, or worrying ahead of time about an argument you think you are going to have to have with somebody you care about, I am actually serious in suggesting that it doesn't make much sense to "think ahead," and to anticipate. Our anticipatory preparations for conjured, specific adversities is actually not very beneficial.

This advice does not mean that I am rejecting the Boy Scout motto that guided me so well in my youth: "Be Prepared." If we are personally and nationally prepared (in general), then let's not worry about the specifics. 

Let's not "borrow trouble," to use the phrase made famous (to me) by my mother. 

We will probably see some trouble, sooner or later, but worrying about it in advance, trying to discern all of its possible specific features ahead of time, and seeing all the negative possibilities as "threats," is not really the right way to live a good life. It's not even the best way to be ready for what may, in fact, come. As we worry about specific "threats," instead of preparing ourselves generally for all possibilities, we actually narrow our range of possible future action. 

Sometimes that's called "fighting the last war."

Finding out "Who" to be afraid of is not my idea of a good way to be prepared for a world in which "anything" can happen. 

And if we anticipate the worst, I'm sure we'll l find it.

Or, per Hemingway: "A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave...but one."

My prescription: 

Generally fit and ready. 

Not oppressed by specific and hypothetical threats. 

That's the way to be. 

And besides, isn't this our actual experience?

Image Credit:
(1) - http://blog.laopiniondezamora.es/flamenco/2010/06/08/breve-acercamiento-a-la-conducta-patologica-desde-cinco-coplas-cantadas-por-antonio-mairena/
(2) - https://6degreesofberlin.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/165/

#248 / Threats

Witness the Threat Advisory System graphic to the right. 

We are all conditioned to think about threats, and recently, The New York Times editorial page has asked a question that seems reasonable on its face: "Who Threatens America Most?" 

If you haven't really been focusing on "threats," The Times will give you some ideas. Russia, ISIS, and Al Qaeda seem to be in the top three.

If you are looking for an answer to the question posed by The Times, the editorial itself isn't going to help very much. Quoting its last paragraph: "Gen. Martin Dempsey, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in the 2015 national military strategy, 'Today's global security environment is the most unpredictable I have seen in 40 years of service.' A formidable challenge for the administration is deciding what its priorities should be."

Slightly to rephrase that last sentence: "A formidable challenge for the administration is deciding what or whom to be afraid of."

Well, here is a rather radical thought. What if we decided not to be afraid of anything, or anybody? How would that be for a national strategy? 

That's my proposition. 

That's the change I'd make, if I ran the zoo!

Image Credit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeland_Security_Advisory_System

#247 / Wrestling

I actually participated (for a very short time) in high school wrestling. I didn't like it, and I wasn't very good at it (not necessarily in that order). 

Having been on the mat in a combatant role, however briefly, I remember this one thing about wrestling: just when you think you have either won, or lost, some little slip or change reverses the polarity of dominance, and the person on the top is quickly on the bottom. And vice versa.

I thought about this when I read a news story in The New York Times, published in the Sunday, August 16, 2015 paper. In the print edition, the story was headlined, "Criticism Aside, G.O.P. Is Vague On Use of Power." The article was an exploration of how the current (large) crop of candidates for the Republican Party presidential nomination might wield American military power, in the context of continuing international conflict. 

Would the candidates favor military force, with diplomatic backup, or would they opt for putting the main burden on diplomacy, with military force as the backup (apparently the preferred priority for President Obama, given his negotiation of a treaty with Iran on nuclear weapons development)? The article confirms what The Times' headline says; the candidates are "vague" about what they would actually do as President. 

There was, though, according to The Times, complete agreement on one thing: "If only the United States were stronger, and more feared, the country would not feel threatened by the Islamic State, manipulated by Iran or challenged by a rising China."

More military power, more ability to make others afraid! That's the principle that the Republicans advocate. The stronger nation dominates, so achieving such domination is clearly the way to go!

It works that way in wrestling, too. Dominance dominates. Until, suddenly, it doesn't. 

There is no doubt that this is a dangerous world, and that immediate and unilateral military disarmament is probably not a good idea. 

But for the long run, based on my experience with wrestling and other combative experiences, we ought to be seeking ways to build world stability (even "peace") on strategies of collaboration, as opposed to pursuing military domination as our route to a safer world. 

If we don't get out of the ring, we'll end up on the bottom. Sometime. Probably when we least expect it. 

That's just how it works in the world of combat.

Image Credit:
http://highschoolsports.pennlive.com/school/newport-newport-high-school/wrestling/photos/

#246 / Serious Reading

A recent essay in The Nation poses the question, "Who Needs Fiction?" Joanna Scott, who authored the essay, is a fiction writer herself. Scott cites to a number of well-recognized authors, including Vladimir Nabokov, in searching for an answer. I found her reference to James Wood to be particularly important. 

Wood claims, as I understand him, that it is through fiction that we can explore, and then perhaps actually precipitate, new human realities. These realities, discoverable in fiction, in fact exist within the realm of the possible, but that is a realm that we cannot penetrate, at least penetrate deeply, without a guide. It is fiction that provides that service. 

If this insight is true, then that means that we all need fiction. Fiction is a place where the reality of our human freedom is discovered, and made manifest. Wood is quoted by Scott as follows: 

Fiction constitutes "an utterly free space, where anything might be thought, anything uttered." 

Wood's thoughts about fiction are outlined at length in his book, The Nearest Thing to Life, published just this year. Scott faults Wood, however, for ignoring "the mounting evidence that serious reading is in serious danger of being lost to future generations."

Educational experts are concerned that "literacy is declining," and this is at least partly related, according to the evidence Scott cites, to the abandonment of physical books in favor of one form or another of  a "virtual" engagement with words and text.

To the degree that there is a kinesthetic element to learning, that argues for the physical book, which produces a physical contact. I happen to learn that way, myself. My books are marked on and annotated. I think it makes a difference. 

But what makes at least as much difference, in Scott's discussion, is speed. Scott suggests that "slow reading" is better than "fast reading," and refers her readers to Slow Reading in a Hurried Age, by David Mikics. Simon and Garfunkel's advice is not to be overlooked: "slow down you move too fast."

In the end, Scott is most concerned that we read "serious" books, "difficult" books. If literature and fiction are guides by which we can discover the possibilities available to us in the "real world," we had better not fool ourselves into thinking that bringing such realities into being is going to be "easy."

It won't be!

Image Credit:
http://www.thenation.com/article/the-democracy-of-difficult-fiction/

#245 / So In Play

Peggy Noonan, the right-wing columnist from The Wall Street Journal, is not my favorite pundit, but I do think her column in the August 29-30 edition of The Journal is well worth reading. Unlike the acerbic (and also right-wing) George Will, who is going crazy because Donald Trump's standing in the polls continues to climb, Noonan is actually willing to concede that Trump may be speaking to the real concerns of real voters, and thus is doing what those active in the political life are supposed to do. 

As Noonan sees it, quoting a political consultant: 

Over 80% of the American people, across the board, believe an elite group of political incumbents, plus big business, big media, big banks, big unions and big special interests—the whole Washington political class—have rigged the system for the wealthy and connected ... More than half of the American people believe something has changed, our democracy is not like it used to be, people feel they no longer have a voice.

Who agrees with that statement?

America, says Noonan, is "so in play." So why doesn't she mention....

Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders

Image Credits:
(1) - http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/donald-trump-best-2016-tweets-119057
(2) - http://www.faithdeployed.com/2011/05/raise-your-hand-if-you-have-a-heavy-heart/
(3) - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/bernie-sanders-universal-_n_6534526.html

#244 / Burner Principles

Burning Man is underway, and the San Francisco Chronicle had a story by Carolyne Zinko in its Sunday, August 30th edition that celebrated (and critiqued) the festival as an art event. 

Mentioned in the Zinko article were the "Principles" of the Burning Man Festival. There are ten such principles, just like there are Ten Commandments, though I don't observe much overlap. 

According to the website where the principles can be found, the principles were written by Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey in 2004, with Harvey intending that the principles would be used as guidelines for the newly-formed Regional Network. That Regional Network idea, it seems to me, is essentially the evangelical component of Burning Man. Here is a "short version" of the ten principles. Click the link for an expanded explanation. 

The 10 Principles of Burning Man

• Radical Inclusion

• Gifting

• Decommodification

• Radical Self-reliance

• Radical Self-expression 

• Communal Effort 

• Civic Responsibility 

• Leaving No Trace 

• Participation 

• Immediacy

According to Harvey, the principles were not crafted "as a dictate of how people should be and act, but as a reflection of the community’s ethos and culture as it had organically developed since the event’s inception."

So, the principles are not a set of "commandments," but are an "analysis." This seems to be a different way to try to accomplish something that all societies and civilizations must, in fact, do. We must, as we live together and create our world in common, have some sense of what is required of us, to make that common world possible. 

Getting the commandments from those in authority (or even better, from God), is certainly one tried and true way to forge a common understanding. The Burning Man principles do it differently. They are the result of an analysis of what has seemed to work to create the positive experiences that are regularly reported out by those in attendance on the Playa. 

I sense an analytical research project here! Someone should try to analyze what's worked (and what hasn't worked) in the "non-Playa" society in which we most usually live. You could say that's a "scientific" way to get to morality. 

We need some moral guidance, it seems to me, and the commandments from Popes and Presidents don't seem to be working out. 

Maybe we should review events, and see what's worked for us.

Image Credit:
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/morford/slideshow/Burning-Man-2014-by-Mark-Morford-92675/photo-6802259.php

#243 / A Letter To The Editor

I am reproducing, below, a Letter to the Editor that appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, my home town newspaper, on August 29, 2015: 

Why cost of retail goods is actually going down 

As I waited for a taco Friday, I saw a discarded Sears Catalog dating to 1992. I picked it up and spent the next day browsing. Two things struck me. The prices of everything from pajamas to TVs, from furniture to auto parts, were almost all higher, yes higher, then they are today. Now, I am allowing for 23 years of inflation, but with few exceptions, everything was higher. 

I asked myself, why? The answer is both simple, and depressing. In 1992, we made most of the items here in the U.S. Today the vast majority are made overseas. Again, why? Labor. Factories here are all but gone. Between the labor cost here, the regulations and the numbers of Americans able or willing to work at factory jobs, we have all but given it away. I like being able to buy a new toaster for $25, and that TV, bigger and brighter, for $300. But at the same time I long for the days when my neighbor or uncle worked, here, to build these items for here. 

           — Dan Misko, Felton

I don't know whether it is actually true, as Mr. Misko believes, that past prices for consumer goods were consistently higher in 1992 than they are today, though I'm inclined to believe that he's right. I also don't know, presuming that Mr. Misko is right, whether the basic reason for this disparity is that fewer of those goods are now "Made in the U.S.A." I suspect that things may be just a bit more complex than this simple explanation, though certainly what Mr. Misko says about comparative labor costs is accurate. Let's assume, however, that everything that this letter says is true. What conclusion should we draw from Mr. Misko's analysis? What should we do about this situation?

As Mr. Misko notes at the end of his Letter to the Editor, he likes being able to buy things at low prices. He also wishes that the items he is buying were made in this country. Aren't we all in agreement with those two propositions? I'm with Mr. Misko, for sure! However, if Mr. Misko is right in his analysis, we can't have it both ways. Would we prefer to have things built in the United States, and pay higher prices? Or, would we prefer to pay lower prices, even though we know that this means that lots of manufacturing jobs will be exported to countries where labor costs are lower?

Mr. Misko's letter raises the question, but doesn't answer it. 

My recollection from my somewhat sketchy training in economics is that economists generally advocate for "free trade" because it does (supposedly) deliver consumer goods at the lowest possible price. If we believe in that concept, we are not supposed to "long for" a time in which our relatives worked in the factories to produce goods that actually cost us more. We are supposed to be happy that prices are low, and to appreciate that the "market" is simply allocating labor in the most efficient way possible, so as to produce the most benefits for the greatest number.

I know that's the theory, but the way "free trade" actually seems to work, the main beneficiaries are the corporations (and their CEOs) who are in charge of deciding where goods get made. Neither the workers in the foreign countries, where the cheap toasters get built, nor the workers in our country, where people are being driven into unemployment, seem to be getting a truly good deal. 

Again, it's easier to see the problem than to decide what to do about it. One thing to do might be to set a global minimum wage, what might euphemistically be called a "living wage," effective worldwide, so that all workers, in all countries, actually get paid for the value they create. This would mean that workers in countries that now have lower labor costs would not be turned into semi-slaves so that American consumers can have cheap shoes, shirts, and toasters. 

This plan, which would include raising labor costs in this country, too, would mean higher prices. 

Higher prices would mean we could buy less.

Buying less would mean that we would use less of the world's resources for cheap, disposable consumer items. 

I think I've found my personal answer to the question raised by Mr. Misko's letter. I want higher wages for workers, and higher prices for consumer goods.

I promise not to long for the days of cheap toasters!

Image Credit:
http://ridersclaw.com/2015/07/24/made-in-the-usa-smartphone-motorcycle-mounts/

#242 / Shade Balls

The City of Los Angeles has covered the surface of its Los Angeles Reservoir with 96 million black balls. The picture above shows the balls being dumped into the water. The balls are called "shade balls," and they are made out of plastic. 

According to a story in the Los Angeles Daily News, "the black, plastic shade balls — costing 36 cents each — protect the water in the 175-acre reservoir against dust and rain, birds and wildlife, and chemical reactions caused by the sun." These shade balls are "also expected to keep about 300 million gallons of water from evaporating each year," and that's what Mayor Eric Garcetti was bragging about, as he personally helped dump the shade balls into the water: “In the midst of California’s historic drought, it takes bold ingenuity to maximize my goals for water conservation,” Garcetti said. “This effort by LADWP is emblematic of the kind of the creative thinking we need to meet those challenges.”

Some commentators are applauding, but dumping millions of black plastic balls into one of the city's main drinking water reservoirs isn't everyone's idea of "bold ingenuity."

Some people, in fact, think that this is a rather bad idea. In an "Open Forum" piece published in The San Francisco Chronicle on August 21st, and titled, "Shade balls: not a bright solution," Elisa Ringholm said that "protecting the water surface with plastic produced from petroleum ... is ultimately a shallow, short-sighted, veiled solution ... that doesn't get to the root of the problem of California's water crisis."

Ringholm is a staff member at the Story of Stuff Project, which is trying to build a movement that "changes the way we make, use, and throw away stuff." Anyone not familiar with SOS should check out their inaugural video, which is pretty convincing. 

So, three immediate problems with the shade ball approach: (1) The balls are made out of hydrocarbons, and pumping out more oil from the ground perpetuates the global warming that is exacerbating our drought; (2) Plastic can deteriorate and leach into the water, thus putting potentially dangerous chemicals directly into the City's drinking water supply; (3) Those 96 million balls are going to deteriorate and will have to be disposed of, somehow, some way, some time. Reference that "Story of Stuff" video to see how stupid that is. 

My "Two Worlds" observation is this: Instead of trying to "manufacture" our way out of issues related to our dependence on limited natural resources, we should be using our ingenuity and creativity to figure out ways that we can live within those limits.

What a concept!

Image Credit:
http://space.io9.com/why-are-drought-balls-black-instead-of-white-1724040253

#241 / Viewer Discretion Advised

This posting is about politics, but there is a long introduction, focusing on some recent researches I have been undertaking to broaden my knowledge of contemporary music and popular culture. 

Slowly but surely, I am trying to catch up with popular culture. Really slowly! In fact, the use of that phrase "catching up" is almost certainly a significant overstatement. I am pretty sure that popular culture is emerging a lot faster than I'm catching up.

As one example, let me identify the image above as a picture of the singer Pink. Apparently, she likes to print it as "P!nk," at least according to Wikipedia. Wikipedia also calls Pink a "superstar," and cites the facts to prove it. Click the link to read about Pink, if you don't know everything already. But I bet you do, right? 

I have to admit that I didn't know anything about Pink, until a week or so ago, when I ran across a video of Pink singing "Me and Bobby McGee." In terms of popular culture, the version of that song by Janis Joplin, topping the charts in 1971, is just about exactly at my popular culture baseline. If you want to listen to Janis Joplin singing that song, here's where to click. 

Putting 1971 as the baseline point from which I am measuring progress in my quest to "catch up" with popular culture is one way of admitting that I have lots of catching up to do! In fact, I have undoubtedly fallen way too far behind ever to "catch up." 

I will say that Pink's version of "Me and Bobby McGee" is awfully good! I am happy that I have at least caught up with that. Here it is: 

My first ever introduction to Pink, by means of the video of Pink singing "Me and Bobby McGee," was occasioned by the fact that the video showed up on the News Feed of my Facebook page, and once having seen it, my plans for the evening were redirected. I was diverted from my other occupations, as I searched for more and more Pink, aspiring to "catch up" with her. I figured that catching up with Pink would be at least one way to move forward from my Janis Joplin - 1971 baseline. 

Pink has some truly startling stuff, and I really like it. Her Grammy performance on CBS was spectacular, and I have to admit that I have a special admiration for her live performance of "Slut Like You." Click on the links if you want to share my enthusiasm for these researches into contemporary popular culture.

Now, "Slut Like You," which is feminist to the core, is nonetheless about !!!SEX!!! In fact, the so-called "F" word is featured in a prominent part of the lyrics. If I were going to put any warning label on a video, indicating that "viewer discretion is advised," I would think that the video of "Slut Like You" might merit the label. 

No warning label appears, however, on Pink's live performance of "Slut Like You," though it is worth noting that the video begins with Pink warning mothers in the audience to put earplugs in their daughters' ears, before she gets into the song. 

Here's where the politics comes into this story. 

As I continued my explorations of popular culture through watching videos featuring Pink, I came across a video called "Dear Mr. President (Live at Wembley)." This video was taken during a performance by Pink at the Wembley Arena, in London, England, late in 2006. That means that the "President" in question was President George W. Bush. 

I recommend that you listen to what Pink had to say to President Bush. Mostly, it was questions. Among other things, she asked: 

• What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?

• How do you walk with our head held high?

• How can you say "No child is left behind?" (We're not dumb and we're not blind).

• What kind of father could take his own daughter's rights away?

• And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay? 

It's a powerful song, but here is what I could scarcely believe. The video was distributed by MSN Music, and here is what appeared before the music began (a warning):

Explicit Lyrics. Viewer Discretion Is Advised

I was, literally, stunned by this advisory. Whatever advisories our popular puritanism demands when sex is involved, censorship has no place in politics. 

When we talk to our elected representatives, from the President on down, we need to be as "explicit" as we can possibly be. We all need to hear the questions. Actually, it would be great to get some answers, too.

Proud to have caught up with P!nk.

Image Credit:
http://www.breakingnews.ie/showbiz/pink-slams-critics-who-brand-her-as-fat-671720.html

#240 / The Story I'm Making Up

I don't often read O - The Oprah Magazine, but I ran across an article from the magazine a week or so ago that I thought was pretty useful. Maybe on more than one level. 

The article was titled "How to Reckon with Emotion and Change Your Narrative." It was was written by Brené Brown, who calls herself "a researcher and a storyteller." Here's how the article starts: 

My husband, Steve, and I were having one of those days. That morning, we'd overslept. Charlie couldn't find his backpack, and Ellen had to drag herself out of bed because she'd been up late studying. Then at work I had five back-to-back meetings, and Steve, a pediatrician, was dealing with cold-and-flu season. By dinnertime, we were practically in tears.

Steve opened the refrigerator and sighed. "We have no groceries. Not even lunch meat." I shot back, "I'm doing the best I can. You can shop, too!" "I know," he said in a measured voice. "I do it every week. What's going on?"

I knew exactly what was going on: I had turned his comment into a story about how I'm a disorganized, unreliable partner and mother. I apologized and started my next sentence with the phrase that's become a lifesaver in my marriage, parenting and professional life: "The story I'm making up is that you were blaming me for not having groceries, that I was screwing up."

The point Brown is making is very clear - and actually pretty profound. The external "realities" to which we react are often not "realities" at all. They are simply "stories" that we make up. The "story," in other words, precedes the external data. We don't examine the stimuli that come to us from outside, and deduce from those stimuli what the reality out there is. Quite the opposite; we perceive, outside of ourselves, the realities that we expect to find. 

I've been reading some technical books about the nature of  consciousness and perception, and there do seem to be some good arguments that this is exactly how we formulate our understanding of the world, at least a lot of the time. We have a history to draw on, so in any particular instance, we know what we expect. Then, we gather the data from the outside world that seems to conform to the reality we are already pretty sure exists. 

It's all unconscious, too, so the little "mantra" that Brown is recommending is quite helpful, because it's intention is to make conscious what has been unthought about. If we can just remind ourselves, explicitly, that we are "telling ourselves a story" when we think we understand something, we can then entertain the idea that there may be other explanations for what we seem to see, hear, or comprehend.

I've been in enough conflicts like the one at the refrigerator, described above, to value Brown's advice. 

But I also think that we would do well to subject our "political" as well as our "personal" certainties to this kind of skeptical cross examination. 

The story I'm making up is that the Democrats ....

Or the Republicans ...

I think we can figure out a story that we'd all like! Or at least most of us. Most of the time.

Maybe we should start working on that!

Image Credit:
http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Bren-Brown-Rising-Strong-Excerpt?FB=fb_omag_brene_brown_rising_strong

#239 / Where I'm From Is No Longer Where I'm At

I grew up in Palo Alto, and went to Stanford University. This is the 50th anniversary of my graduation, and a rather thick 50th Reunion Class Book just recently appeared in my mailbox. Every graduate had the opportunity to submit a page, and many did. Many did not, too. 

I am making my way through all these pages, and am getting a feeling for what life has been like for my fellow students from the Stanford Class of 1965. In a lot of ways, my own adventures have been rather typical. Sixty percent of my classmates, for instance, have at some point been employed as a teacher. Not so many have run for political office, though; only seven percent have done that, and I suppose that not all of those people won.

At any rate, the class biographies are fascinating, but what has intrigued me most has been the introduction to the Class Book, titled "Fifty Years Later..."

The introduction does a comparison of Stanford then and now, and as it turns out (and I really actually knew this), that the Stanford University of today is a fundamentally different place from the place where I went to school. 

Some examples:

• Stanford today has three times the building space, twice the number of graduate students, sixty-four times the operating expense, and one hundred and thirty times the endowment it had in 1965.

• According to faculty member Sanford Dornbusch, who taught sociology at Stanford fifty years ago, and who still lives at Stanford, "an enormous number want to apply to Stanford University because they want to make a million before they're thirty."

• "Walk onto the campus and you'll see so many new buildings you'll need a map to get around. Just west of Quad is the engineering quadrangle of sprawling palaces with names like Hewlett, Packard, Gates, Yang and Huang appended to them. The business school has its own spacious quadrangle, and the Medical School has erupted vast structures devoted to cancer research and the marriage of computers and human anatomy...You'll feel like you've stepped into the Emerald City."

• The decline of the humanities is a source of concern. Says former President Donald Kennedy: "...If you're history faculty, you're going to be almost a tutorial instructor. There are art history seminars with only five students. Gone are many of the broad survey courses, and in their places are specialized offerings aimed at attracting computer science majors...The fading of the humanities has combined with the passing of the belief in a common cultural foundation...One student said, "I would say everybody in my dorm knows how to code. Everyone has a specialty."  

I majored in American History at Stanford, and received my bachelors degree with Honors in Social Thought and Institutions. I am still there, intellectually, but Stanford has moved on. The same kind of transformations have been working themselves out at the University of California at Santa Cruz, which just dumped (without any discernible reason I could see) the opportunity to host the annual Santa Cruz Shakespeare summer festival.

The humanities and history are in retreat. Money advances.

But "advance" is probably not the right word!

Image Credit:
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/stanford-1305