Clearly I have not the stamina nor discipline to post every day.

The Good News is I do write. Every day. Religiously.

Lately I've been capturing the scraps of writing in various forms. Using the Journal, which I mentioned last week, I write and capture posts from FB nicely (I put them in the "notebook" section, not the daily journal section). I write in a physical journal (or two or three) and I compose emails, which at least I send to a special account that is just for the purpose of capturing my writing. Goal there is to capture more emails in the Journal, so there is a somewhat central suppository. No wait REpository <g>.

My website is set up for the family business, but I'm going to add another website just for my random meanderings. And likely another for a new business. And a non-profit.

All this in the works, along with getting my house in order (physically and digitally), the business in order (accounting and fiscally) and the relationships in order (reconnecting with people I haven't had time to enjoy for 9 months).

It was a cool thing, to birth myself out of the last job. Well worth the carrying and pushing. Now there is a weird bit of transition, getting re-grounded, and cultivating new stuff.

Putting legs under some of these new ideas is an altogether different matter. I do think I can grow my sideline business to support us, take care of essentials, keep income flow UP. And on the side* another business germinates. Like good writing ideas, it's important to protect it from frosts of people who would judge not nurture, yet it also needs the sunshine and warmth, so I share it with a few trusted friends.

We shall see. It could be mental masturbation, but I don't think so. Even if it fails, at least I will have pursued it. That is what matters really. I've done this before and didn't get to see the idea/organization fully birthed. It was not meant to be, and I was ok. Good experience planning it all and then laying it to rest, as gracefully as possible. I've had many other successful enterprises. They have a creation curve, a lifespan, a return to dust. Legacy stuff and sustainability are topics for another day.

For the sane, it's not just the chase (of ideas and new forms) that matters, but balancing stability with exploration. I live in a smaller town now, and that by definition can hinder risk taking. After all, in a community where there are less options, fewer ideas can be chased, with back up opportunities if your brilliant idea fails. In other words, everyone knows if you are a windmill chaser, and what that means is less certain ... outcomes** can be, well, overlooked in a large metropolis. Not so in more intimate settings.

Just realized this is the first time since '85 I've lived in a smallish community. Hmmm... food for thought. I did find the small towns from '76 to '81 nice but constraining. Too small in some ways. Athens was just right, but then I yearned for Atlanta, the siren hussy Belle, and wonderful dance partner. She will always be my first big love, put stars in my eyes.

One goal for this week is to to check out John Green's*** and other vloggers' posts about online community and struggling with how to best connect. I'm considering blogs, vlogs, social media and other forms of building digital community.

Also have more plans to sketch out. There is a garden to dig. No thought required at first, just pulling old stuff out, getting beds ready. That's what I love about housework I think. It's fairly simple work. No thinking required. Let's me rest.
Shalom
v

*that's only two sides, so far.. I think home and hearth are truly my main vocations. This other stuff, businesses and community are avocations :)

**by outcomes I mean failures of course but also successes. And therein lies another two-edged sword. Towns both discourage by their very nature people getting outside the box too much - it's what we do as tribe, only allow so much unknown/unfamiliar behavior. Yet small towns will love to support your success and care much more than cities. Cities encourage exploration and freedom, but care not a rat's ass if you fail. Harsher in their own way, cities sort of offer support, but not like towns.

** I know little to nothing about John Green, but am curious and would like to find info on online communities / forums. Could help the next business grow support. One of my daughters loves Green - I've watch some of his vlogs. Glad he is out there being awesome.

Peaceful and Polarized

Yesterday it was this song on my mind, in my house, taking up my space before I left for work.

Today it is this song, about cold hearts. Actually it's the entire album. Warm, full, soothing and matches my very happy, peaceful self  :-)

I may play the album for a few days, because I love Norah Jones, because I like the songs, and mostly, because I am still staying away from The News.

It occurs to me that elections are tools, just like cell phones. Depends on how you use them. Lots of info is out there. Maybe it's not how we use it but how we approach it.

This morning someone had a sweet crawl-in-bed greeting for me, curling up at my feet, petting the cats. She came back quietly a few minutes later with a folded note card, which she placed on my bedside table. On the outside: "Open if you want to know who won the election   p.s. good morning". It was sealed with tape.

Last night she followed the election online at low volume. I was out most of the evening. Without my asking she gave me space on the issue; I assumed she saw my post ("I want to be the last person on the planet to find out the results of the election").

Later we talked about the idea a bit, when I said goodnight. I described my goal to stay away from the fray, the excitement, the agony and over-dramatization of the entire process. I explained it was an exercise for me to create this separation from the world, for a time. It was a good chance to practice detachment, both from the process and the outcome. I suggested she look up Luddite.

This morning she just couldn't stand my not knowing. So we hung out for a few moments in that tension, noticing that she wanted me to get clued in, and that I was happy with my bubble of Not Knowing. I asked how important was it to her that I get clued in? She wasn't sure. In good relationships, you notice that sort of stuff, work with it. How important was our position to each of us?  Why? I heard her internal struggle of wanting to talk about the results with me, and yet honor my request. She heard that this is my way of not just creating space, but concentrating, honoring the other big things in my life, in fact the only things that mean much: my family, my job. Our home.*

I had some idea of what happened with the election. Saw a hint last night that Obama won Ohio. Still, the not knowing was really nice. Strengthened my resolve to just enjoy my day. To notice how cool it is to not be sucked in.

Just like going without a "smart" phone for a few weeks. What was it, .... wait, it was over 3 months. That's cool. After I lost my 'droid, I used no cell phone at all for a couple few weeks, then went to a flip phone. Loved the release of no calls to make when I was without the device. Just driving. "Check it out.", I thought. How cool.

Then I noticed I was ok not being constantly on the internet, or NOT playing with a phone while I took G out for brunch (we goofed off and it was awesome), and soon I didn't care much about texting.

Now with the re-integration of a new Android into my life, I have a nice, easy balance with it. It's not a new toy, it's a tool. It's useful, and yeah I check various things on it. Go online, whatever. Key word being "whatever".

Elections come and go. So do phones, presidents, laws, houses, people. Elections are tools, just like cell phones. They tell you stuff. Maybe too much.  Sometimes you have to turn them off.

It's still a bit weird to live where I am right now. To truly inhabit my home, my body, my life. Even weirder to just enjoy it. To enjoy the spaces I move thru without a lot of worry.

Speaking of being comfortable. There is a dark side (of course!). For instance, what about the big trends? The routing of the middle class? The economy? Balancing the power of government and regulating big businesses? 

I thought Progressives were supposed to be leading the way these last few decades. Somehow we lost our way. We thought we would just enjoy the prosperity of the 90s without consequences.

And we forgot our fellow citizens. We left behind an entire generation of people who could not work their way out of being born to less education, less opportunity, or the color of their skin, or their accents. We thought it was ok to be a little bit superior because, after all, we did care deeply and did go to school, made a success of our lives. Nice cars, nice house. Retirement. Good shoes.

We really did care about the less fortunate. We gave to charity. Dropped dollars in the red kettle at Christmas. Sometimes a $5 or a $10. It redeemed us from those other excesses and inattention that we didn't want to talk about.

So we paid with 8 years of Bush and two unwinnable wars. We watched our neighbors and friends send their children into battle, and bring them home in the devastation of shattered hearts.

We paid for our arrogance. And we still like to pretend we aren't all that bad.

But we are.

We have easily earned the right to watch the American political process go deeper into high drama, negligible results, and ultimate demise.

But we also have the inalienable right to get our shit together.

How easy it was for us to hate the wars, and pretend we just hate all the stupidity, without considering the alternative. Many of us just wanted the wars to end, but tried to be practical and save face by being mad and sad about them. But would we really have been ok with not going after the terrorists?

We wanted to be all indignant about the stupidity of No Child Left Behind, partly because we hated Bush and were sure he couldn't execute his puppet ass out of a wet paper bag. So we railed against the barbarian standardized testing and came up with nada as an alternative.

We love unions, but we don't hold people accountable - you know, the teachers, the post office, the administrations, those elected officials. We defended teachers blindly without stopping to consider how to turn around those schools where children were not getting the skills they needed, and were dropping out by as much as 43% (black kids; hispanic kids are at 42%; Am Indian kids at 46%).

How many of us actually wrote to or called even one elected official in the last 10, 12 years? I think I have once or twice. A few letters to Obama.

How many school board meetings have you attended? How many city council meetings? Watched them on TV? How many movies?

I'm just too busy. We all are.

We think somehow our small, mostly good lives will be ok even if we don't really listen to the Other Side.

Why listen deeply? It's so much work. They might change our minds on something. We might have to rethink our firmly embedded opinions. We might even have to consider voting for someone from - well, no, that's going too far. (Did you think "Dark side"? have you demonized your political opponents and their followers?)

Being polarized comes from not doing the work of respecting, listening with intent to understand (not find weaknesses), struggling thru to our common values, then working together to try various things until a solution is found. It's hard hard work. Like a marriage. Like a strong, healthy family.

I'm curious to see if the Left will begin to notice how our elected representatives do just that: they represent our entirety. They are a reflection of our inability to work together, put aside differences to solve real problems. No wonder Congress is deadlocked, and makes us nuts, the president less than effective. We hate the dysfunction in government and yet it is created out of our big American family - you know, the extended weird family that has infighting, avoids each other until the holidays, talks over each other, gossips, belittles and gloats.

So yeah, I did finally open the card. Why? Because my need to be apart from the world was trumped by my daughter's need to talk with me about something important to her. I didn't have to say "I love you" in words.

But I did anyway.

And she was off happily to school.

Now, going to inhabit my day, listening to a new song. Hoping we can love America the way she really needs to be loved. Within a strong, healthy, basically happy family.
v

*Madeleine once commented she thought I would eventually become Amish. Too authoritarian but yes, a very attractive lifestyle. As long as I could watch movies, dance, read voraciously, widely, and of course enjoy wine and football (generally not at the same time). Oh yeah, there is that driving thing. I could rock a buggy ;)

Swings, Ebbs and Flows

Heard something on This American Life the other week about how, once someone is convinced that global warming is a theory, that it is very, very difficult to change their minds, even with widely accepted facts (Act Two. Climate Changes. People Don't). The show was fascinating and vaguely horrifying. 


The most interesting sociological moment was the exchange between a scientist, trained to teach kids about global warming, and a teenager who knew her own mind. Somehow the producers managed to convey the chasm that opened, seemingly before our eyes, between the two. The science did seem to become misty, ideological, while the teen stood firmly, arms metaphorically crossed, on ground we have hallowed as a nation: Question Authority.


So we are left with an impasse. Deep and threatening, no matter how far back we would like to stay from the edge.


What do you do when falsehoods, repeated over and over, seem to erode fact? How DO you reach people once they have decided your, or the entire scientific community's, or the government's, or the church's, or the parent's credibility is shot?


It doesn't escape my attention that growing up includes being able to see the world from more and more various points of perspective. Like a cool camera trick where the videographer spins in place, providing a 360 degree view, then suddenly the image shifts to circling something - the room, the "person" whose view started us. Surely it always makes us dizzy to do that shift, from "helio" or earth or personal-centric to spinning from the outside looking in.


I imagine this is why growing up is so damn difficult - not to mention that those frontal lobes (or whatever part of the brain it is) aren't fully developed yet. 


But just like women's brains are different from men's and our hormones deeply affect how we see things and how we think about them, so do children and kids have a great deal to offer in how we grapple with an essential (imnsho) question:


How do we "grow up" as a society without gutting all the staid, safe, reasonable institutions that we have carefully constructed over millenia? How do we not get caught up too much in the "old order" and outdated modes of thinking, while not cutting our collective nose off to spite our face(book)? lol.


There is still plenty of confusion promoted, I think, by persistent internet rumours and "urban legendesqe" (read: misleading) emails. There is also the far right's - oops, no, edit that. There is the radical's blatant interest in a misinformation 


Enter the Age of the Moderate. 


My new theory is that societies and humankind have to go thru these strange periods of vicious, vitriolic, vituperative battles of ideology - an epic clash of Beliefs.  It's Jews and Pagans, it's Greeks and Jews, it's Christians and everyone, it's Inquisitions and Renaissance, it's science and religion, it's industrial and agrarian, it's government and religion, it's communism and socialism and democracy, it's science and religion, it's conservatives and liberals, it's institutions and upstarts, it's radicals and moderates.


I know who I'll vote for :)

Anyway, this is a cool excerpt, on the topic of science and global warming:

We know that the rise in temperatures over the past five decades is abrupt and very large. We know it is consistent with models developed by other climate researchers that posit greenhouse gas emissions — the burning of fossil fuels by humans — as the cause. And now we know, thanks to Muller, that those other scientists have been both careful and honorable in their work.
Nobody’s fudging the numbers. Nobody’s manipulating data to win research grants, as Perry claims, or making an undue fuss over a “naturally occurring” warm-up, as Bachmann alleges. Contrary to what Cain says, the science is real.

from Review of the science by a skeptic who changed his mind 

Loss of Navigational Points

Seems to me that every single point of reference we have is being attacked by the Huns. And by the Huns, I mean all of us. But mostly the radicals.

Call me old-fashioned. I think there is some merit to the idea that we don't have to know everything about every candidate. I would like to know their character, it's true. But I don't want to know about every text message. I do want ethics and integrity to play a huge role in government, corporations, small organizations (who have better odds) and in the medical industry.

I'd like to remove conflicts of interest. It would be helpful to play less "follow the money" and more "applaud thems that do right".

This story reminds me of a growing, quietly nagging concern. If all our institutions are torn down, including the "fact checkers", if they lose credibility, then by what will we navigate? Will there be a renaissance of moderates after an informational wasteland? Will impartiality rise again? Could well-reasoned, thoughtful discourse begin to push back the hubris of partisanship and vitriol, and re-emerge?

Somehow this line of thought is linked to Too Big To Know (not *literally* linked, metaphorically). I'm just not sure how, yet.
Simmering :)
v

Coaxing

[love to know what I was planning to write here - this was a post that never happened... Bet the muse, er, hope she will strike again :) ]

Months later, we return to our heroine. Or is that hero-ine (are they spelled the same, the drug and the character? Can I be a writer if I don't know?)

I think this was to be a post about how coaxing people, plants, animals, art, music, craft is better than forcing.

Nudging has become a gold-plated, jew-jitsu for me :)

It occurred to me several years ago, musing with my BDNHTPATBU (beloved dear now-husband, then-paramour, about to break up), one summer night after a lovely, rare trip to a movie.*

I had been noodling over this idea for a while.  Slowly it came into focus.

(How sweet and lovely are these moments of revealing clarity. It's why focusing a camera is so much fun, to me.

If you wait for it the bread rises, the fudge sets, the child walks, the film negative transforms into an image, the sock emerges, the thought coalesces.)

We had been discussing the difficulty of radical LGBT protests and harsh insistence on their rights. I support their goals - perhaps even all of them. I'm not sure.

What I was and am sure of is that, while it seem important to force change in some instances, it is also rife with risks.

I wonder if true change can ever be forced??

After all, I've watched the gay rights movement become more and more "mainstream", over the last 30 years. Over time society does seem to figure a lot out. With any luck we don't slip back into old, messed up ideas, like slavery and genocide (no guarantees tho - see recent post on global warming).

Along the way they have pissed off a lot of people. Did the strident, arduous protests have to happen? Maybe. I won't deny that it could be that change would not have come without it, without the pushing and shoving or demands for attention.

Stan's amazing contribution, the catalyst to my swirling thoughts, was to comment that he did respect that people are entitled to their life styles and beliefs, but he hated having it, their views, shoved down his throat.**

When raising children, I've learned that it's helpful to remain dispassionate. When working toward solutions with peers, authority figures and those who look up to me, I've noticed stating "my" truth and detaching from the outcome is key. It allows space for movement toward a resolution or even a synthesis of ideas...

I wonder how much it could help to be firm to our world/national/community in our beliefs, without demanding that they accept them.

On the other hand, maybe if we didn't push hard, society wouldn't  grow up. Grin. After all, that is what siblings are for.
v

* movie night, for us, consisted that night of driving for 30 or 40 mins to a theater, watching something fun (I think it was the new Star Trek movie?) and driving all the way back to the farm. I had dressed up, something I had never done there, and I remember sitting on the porch at the barn (a pole barn), having a beer or wine after. Stan took my picture with his phone, or tried to. It was a sweet moment of his looking at me with "fresh eyes", as if seeing me anew.

**I remember well the sense of various lines of thought coming together, that evening, in the moment, and talking this idea over with him. It seemed that he appreciated being a catalyst, and he knew he was, as much as I enjoyed it. He loved the exchange of ideas and synthesis of his thoughts and my own. This was somehow a key moment for us; something intangible quality shared that also came into focus, along with our ideas. We began, I think then to recognize our ability to complement each other, to both challenge and support our thinking.  Maybe it is/was just synchronicity - or maybe it's more than that.

Keeping an Eye on the Working Poor

Here is a good site to keep us informed about the problem of food insecurity in this country. I noticed that the increase need for food assistance had been increasing even before the economy tanked. It's not okay to let our elderly and children go without food, as wealthy as this country is. Add a catastrophe like the tornadoes in Alabama and across the South last week, and you have an even bigger disaster. This is, in my opinion, what Katrina taught us - yes, we have to prepare for disasters, but we can't turn away from the poverty that is pervasive.

Cloudy with a Chance of Sunshine

It's a bit cloudy and gloomy here today, after several days of somewhat glaring sunshine. I cut some newly bloomed roses and brought them into the house, into a couple of different rooms. Heavenly scent.

Haven't turned all the lights on yet, but if it doesn't brighten up soon I will allow this indulgence. (Ha! Someone used to give me hell on this quirk. I raise my chin at you.)

A friend just got out the hospital, I discovered yesterday, and it turns out it was for depression. I'm both relieved that he got the help and concerned it got bad enough to need inpatient care.

I've started talking about depression on the blog because it seems so "politically incorrect" to address. It makes people uncomfortable, like discussing religion and politics, and sometimes sex. Yeah, sex is way easier to talk about.

The truth is that there is always a good deal of the blues going on all over all the time. That we don't talk easily about it is maybe an indication of how strongly it can rattle us. And it isn't just the people who are down, but as the drug commercial so self-servingly highlights, it affects those around us too.

According to WebMd about 19 million adults suffer from depression. This obviously leaves out kids. I assume it includes old people.

If that number is remotely accurate during normal times, I'd bet $5 it isn't accounting for those affected by the current economic depression / recession or for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If about 25.5 million people are unemployed or underemployed, which is about twice historical averages (based on eyeballing a cool chart on the Dept of Labor Website) and 19 million adults are depressed under "normal" circumstances, then a LOT of people are depressed.*

Sure, it's making a leap to say that all unemployed people are depressed. But it's common sense to say that most of them are probably at least bummed. Maybe not all of them, gawd bless those perky people (and please, keep them away from me). And maybe not all the time, but generally, being unemployed and underemployed is depressing.

But this is where those cool Venn diagrams come in so handy.

I'd draw you one, but really I'm not that talented. Imagine one very large circle that represents unemployed/underemployed people and another circle with a whole bunch of sad faces :( Now, overlap the circles and you have a good mental picture of how many bummed folks are walking around out there.

You can't quite just add up the two figures (those unemployed, etc. and those depressed), but you can guess that there is some huge figure that represents depression in this country. And remember, we still aren't talking about children who, we all know, get seriously down too.

If you wanted to be really fair you would add a circle for kids who are depressed (somewhere I'm sure there is an estimated figure, but I already don't trust it) and you can add a large circle for those affected by death and injuries from the wars. Now you have four circles and wow, that's a lot of people.

Here is the good news, and the point to my mental math jujitsu: Most of those 30 - 40 or 50 some odd million people are going to feel better at some point. Some pile of them are going to get jobs, or get over the divorce or death or whatever other sucky situation they are in, and they will move on and feel better. In other words, circumstances change and time heals.

Some will take medication and will feel better.

Some will get talk therapy (proven very effective over the long term, usually with long lasting benefits). Some will seek inpatient care like my dear friend and will muster thru.

Others will try a combination of approaches, or none of these. They may talk to friends, join a group (good idea) or actively decide to do something different.

I'd suggest to anyone dealing with that vortex, or the black sucking hole of hell, (as I like to call it, when I'm in a good mood), that a combination of methods probably hedges your bets.

I have another post I'll put up with my top ten ideas on what to do - a checklist. I hate other people's lists, at least the seemingly trite "let's talk about depression in three to five paragraphs" type articles in magazines and on the web.

Don't forget, while lots of people are good about finding ways to deal with their depression, huge numbers can't. I would suspect that we could get a handle on how many people are not getting better by looking for numbers on the chronically depressed, and suicide rates. And we all know unhappy people who just seem to go thru life that way - I'm sure they stay well below the counting-heads radar.

But that's another post. Today, it's too depressing. (hint - don't do depressing things when you aren't up for it ;)

Today I don't have sunshine, but my cravings aren't too bad. I don't need to curl up in a pool of it.

I read something once where a guy said a good day is when you aren't miserable or terribly uncomfortable, which is true most days for me. Damn I'm grateful for a generally upbeat disposition. And I'm ok with the occasional bouts of the blues. They suck (in more ways than one), but I've learned a lot from those dark spots.

Most days it's about making lemonade. And adding tea, not a shot of vodka ;)

v

*I'm not going to try to figure out how many people are depressed by the wars - when I do take a stab at it I'll be interested in the number of casualties, of course, (seriously injured) and fatalities. Then I'll multiply that by an arbitrary number of close friends and family who are seriously affected by the death and life-altering injury of our soldiers. Yeah, it's a lot. A helluva lot - and again it's what I call situational depression - people get depressed when someone dies or is injured. It is not a "normal" state of affairs for us to be in two wars.

I'm glad to report that NPR did a story about the Veteran's Administration trying to get a handle on the true cost of war, that includes these sorts of "soft" numbers. Granted, so far they are only looking at the cost of long term care for our disabled veterans, but it's a start.

Toss off on House

"Privacy is a relatively new phenomena." (paraphrasing),

from an interesting episode of House about blogging, secrets, community and privacy... I have to think more about the idea of privacy and community and if we have just lost the balance.

In the script someone points out that many people who leave small towns don't want everyone knowing their business, but they give up a support system as they gain anonymity. I'm about to lose some privacy for the sake of building more community, so this is all extremely relative for me right now. Of course I wanted a brief history of privacy, and found it in this article on Wikipedia.

Apparently Brandeis* (Supreme Court Justice) published the first paper on the topic in 1890 in the Harvard Law Review, in response to the widening use of photography and improvements in the printing press. So it truly isn't a very old idea. However the article also points out that the recent advent of so many technologies, where data is stored on private individuals, and often utilized for profit by businesses, has focused concerns about abuse and infringement of rights to basic privacy.

In Europe, in stark contrast to our own laws, data about consumers is owned by each person, not any company who finds or collects it. Therefore the company can't profit from the info, without the consent of the individual. We've had many obstacles to similarly protecting our own privacy, with enormous resistance from businesses. Unfortunately as I've note here before, our government doesn't have a very good track record for protecting us, even from itself.

*An aside, Brandeis was the first Jew to be named to the US Supreme Court and was considered brilliant. The above-referenced article was published while he was in law school, and he earned the highest grades ever awarded while there. I've always wanted to read a biography on him, and may even own one. This quote reminded me why:

“Brandeis was a militant crusader for social justice whoever his opponent might be. He was dangerous not only because of his brilliance, his arithmetic, his courage. He was dangerous because he was incorruptible. . ." Justice William O. Douglas

Good News - Is Civility Coming Back?

I like this story because it highlights that people from many different walks of life and political backgrounds are sitting down and discussing issues. Moderates will disappear if we don't find our voices. Civility, it turns out, isn't optional in our messy democratic process.

Meet the people who are percolating in the Coffee Party - CNN.com

Education Continues to Take Hits

This is the graduate school I'm considering... but less so now. I have several options - thank goodness Atlanta has a full deck of grad schools. I see this as a VERY bad sign of instability in this program, as well as continued deterioration of our educational system - we have teachers having to take 10 days of furlough this year (days off without pay) and class sizes are larger across the board, with teachers being laid off. Meanwhile Congress sends just $3.5 billion to education, and $18 billion to hiring businesses (in employment tax breaks) and $170 billion to banks for the bail out in 2008/09. What is wrong with this picture? Maybe it's that Congressional offspring go to top schools and the rest of us can "eat cake" if there is no bread.

Andrew Young School dean says he was asked to resign - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

Love and Totalitarianism

"I grew up in a society where the motto was, "Those who are not with us are against us," implying that if somebody doesn't agree 100% with a certain point of view, he or she is the enemy and must be eliminated. This is how totalitarian societies are created. This is horrific on a societal level and such an approach certainly has no place in the Arts."

Astute commentary from one raised in Russia and imprisoned because he was Jewish. His observation draws a haunting parallel, for me, to the state of our politics, the polemics and polarized politicians who can't seem to work together for the common good.

Conversation with Mischa Maisky

The performance in which I fell in love with Maisky.

Amazing performance, in the last few years

Building a Better Teacher

Amazing

1. that we don't know how to do this

2. that we are finally admitting it

3. that we've allowed bureaucratic buffoons to determine HOW we measure good teaching (with standardized testing - where does that measure encouragement? or caring?), thereby making teaching even more difficult

4. that it will take years before we can get something in place to teach the NEXT generation of teachers, while we are faced with the immediate loss of the best teachers quitting because it's too stressful and low paying, or retiring, thus leaving us with fewer good role models

5. that anyone would want to teach with all the expectations of parents and administrators to meet all the complex needs of children, where parents are unable or unwilling to do their part

6. that it is difficult to impossible to get good talent from outside the "standard" track because teacher unions create barriers, while many good candidates are out of work

Building a Better Teacher - NYTimes.com

A Hidden Corporate Subsidy

This is interesting, an article about imported workers, tho it's a bit dated. I thought I was a bit dense because I couldn't find figures for how many foreign workers are working in the country. I'm not a zenophobe. My degree is in International Business. But there is a limit to our hospitality, isn't there?

Here is more about importing labor:

No labor shortages

Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman called the program a corporate subsidy, as quoted in a 2002 article in Computerworld.^[15] The accuracy of this quote can not be ascertained, however, as Mr. Friedman has since died. Others holding this view include Dr. Norman Matloff, who testified to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration on the H-1B subject. Matloff's paper for the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform claims that there has been no shortage of qualified American citizens to fill American computer-related jobs, and that the data offered as evidence of American corporations needing H-1B visas to address labor shortages was erroneous.^[16] The United States General Accounting Office found in a report in 2000 that controls on the H-1B program lacked effectiveness.^[17] The GAO report's recommendations were subsequently implemented.

The Real Unemployment figures

New figures are in

There are about 15 million people unemployed

About 9 million are underemployed (working part time but want full time work)

2.5 million are "marginal" meaning they haven't looked for work in the past 4 weeks, for various reasons, but have looked in the last year. These are the folks who have given up.

So that's really about 25.5 million people unemployed.

And the Senate couldn't get a jobs bill passed. Makes you wonder if the now $10 billion package (it was $15 billion a few days ago) wasn't passed by the House just yesterday because they knew the new unemployment figures were coming out today.

How, if we lost another 36,000 jobs, did the unemployment rate stay the same? Did we add that many more imported workers?

(As best as I can tell about 100,000 workers are working under what is called an H-1B visa - wouldn't that make a lot of jobs for our American residents, to just send everyone home who has a green card? I'm pretty sure it's a LOT more than 100,000 workers.. H-1B visas are just for "highly skilled" workers, meaning anyone who can run a computer :)

Wow.

Good Clean Fun isn't Technical

My computer has begun talking to me - something about my "database is updated". Yes, it's a canned message (new virus scanner), but I'm really not sure I'm "down" with this.

I knew the day would come, though. It's not hard to do, make a computer talk. We've had sound boards for about 20 years. But like other technical advances I hadn't really figured on having to deal with my computer "talking".

I don't plan to talk back. It's out of principal, and voice activated anything is still pretty dicey. When I talk to my computer, I want it NOT to talk back. NOT record, or try to understand. I want it inanimate. It's just a freakin' (stupid) machine.

Long range I'm sure we will be able to talk to computers, which will be a fun novelty at first, then useful, then "they" will figure out how to capture conversations, digitize them and run complex searches that ferret out topics like terrorism.

But the technology isn't there yet. "Smart homes" have been around for a while, but you still don't hear your friends talking about how cool it is to set the temperature from work, or start the oven for dinner do you? I can't get excited until my house can start a real fire, pours me a glass of wine, and let's the dogs out. Or does the chores I hate, like wash the dogs. Gently and without electrocution. Clean the bathroom and get all the gnarly spots.

I've been in systems and computing for a while now. Think decades. The truth is that while I knew in theory that lots of data could be stored about us, I also knew that in reality integrating systems across platforms, and then making sense of all that data (think billions of transactions just in the retail world) was out of reach.

But it won't be forever.

I worked in an industry for years where we were always dissatisfied with the ability of even advanced searches to yield data that was relevant (and therefore should be reviewed by attorneys or their minions). I've been out of it for a couple of years, but I'm sure the landscape hasn't changed much. The most sophisticated tools in eDiscovery (electronic discovery) are still pretty crude, in comparison to the brain of an infant, for example. If you take terrabytes of data and run it thru a grinder, and get a bunch of "mis" hits, then you multiply that times $200 per hour for a review, you get a lot of wasted money. Trust me, major class action suits are still getting settled because no one wants to spend the money digging thru warehouses of data.

We have WAY more information than we know what to do with.

But we should be thinking about it anyway - before some Billy Gates or Enron, or Ponzoi scheme, or terrorist or Impeccable Wall Street Bank of Tradition of this century figures out how to use it against us.

It's interesting to me how technology continues to invade our lives, and how younger generations are more and more tolerant of this.

So it's easy to make my computer talk. From a practical perspective it could give me a heart attack if my sound is up. And what value is really added?

In other words, why make it talk?

If I were still a DBA (database administrator) and was backing up a server and walked out of the server room, I might not hear the computer talk. I know they can make a face pop up with the voice on my screen, but would I care? Would I make it Brad Pitt's likeness for fun? Would that make me want to be nice to my server?

Technology already invades my life, do I really want it to intrude in my physical space any more? Sound now, holographics next. Heck, when my daughter webcams with my ex I have to think about what I say and do around the house. Strange sensation. It's a small invasion. Tolerated, to be sure, but let's not sugar coat it. No skimpy pajamas!

I watched iRobot again last weekend. It was interesting, and of course a commentary on this topic. But that technology is a long way off, right? Kinda like computers talking...

Something to think about, how we choose comfort and easy, often without thinking about the long term effects.

Sure I play Farmville because it's easy, fun and has immediate gratification. Same reason people have always played games, right? But it's just a game. If people are getting hooked maybe it's because they are looking for something to get hooked on. (70 million people play Farmville. I wonder how many are addicted?)

TV is the other common drug of choice, and I'm happy not to have one in the house right now. I could watch my favorite shows on the computer right? But I haven't. How many millions of us zone out on TV? (The brain is less active during TV time than it is during sleep.)

I see trends that are about getting hooked, and about easy to the point of complacency. And I watch how we respond when thing are taken away, like privacy, and choices. (My daughter's school allows parents to opt out of vaccinations - for religious reasons. But if there is a "compelling reason" (think pandemic) they think they have the right to vaccinate my child in spite of my objections.)

I think we are doing a weird shift right now, collectively. The trend is toward less everything. Less spending, less hiring, less working, less superfluous stuff. But also less paying attention.

And we are leaning towards easy: Easy entertainment, easy meals, easy relationships. Easy has been "in" for a long time, but now we can add Simple.

I'm all for easy and simple. I'm sure creativity is up :) Sex is up. Music is up. These are blessings from the recession. I wish religious observance was up. But I bet prayer is up, so maybe G-d is down with that.

But don't get complacent. A fearful, tired, beaten down populace is not good. Simplify, enjoy and create a legacy - be happy and pay attention. Voice your concerns. Hold public officials accountable. Volunteer, get involved.

And don't let technology do too much. They are just dumb machines.

:)

v

Schwarzenegger Seeks Shift From Prisons to Schools - NYTimes.com

Maybe we should educate instead of imprison in the first place. Schwarzenegger Seeks Shift From Prisons to Schools - NYTimes.com For every dollar we spend in early childhood education (and problem prevention) saves $4 incarceration costs.

Shifting Power Structures

Anyone see something wrong with this picture? China Manufacturing Expands I think maybe in the midst of a world wide recession the shift of economic power is becoming all too obvious. Foreign interests own our assets, and the trade deficit is climbing. I have been looking for the total number of green card workers in the country now, and can't find a solid figure, although about 40,000 - 60,000 are granted each year. Nothing wrong with immigrant labor, as long as unemployment is reasonably low. My beef is with companies who now import skilled labor to avoid paying decent wages. Anhauser-Busch is one of them, who brings in thousands of Indian nationals to staff their IT department, but of course now they are foreign owned as well.

Asceticism

It seems the more I practice simplicity the easier it gets.

A long time ago it was called asceticism.

Some see it as a form of sacred simplicity.

I have been considering the idea for many months, even before the recession forced changes in my life. But of course the practice has been around for centuries.

While it often has religious overtones, it may be too limiting to consider scaling back as strictly a practice of faith. I wonder about the benefits of getting by with less and adding discipline, and looking for the value of being less dependent on external trappings.

Certainly some see having less as a way to reduce our "carbon footprint". In our home we have less packaging and more recycling. I love that the more we re-use and recycle things, whether we are donating items or buying second-hand, or just cooking more meals without prepared food, we save money, save energy (used in producing more stuff) and have less waste. It feels good.

It's interesting that Judaism has generally rejected the practice, tho Kabbalist (Jewish mystics) often practiced great simplicity in their lives, like so many of other faiths.

My hope is that one of the best things to come from the recession and resulting struggles that so many face in this economy, is a new appreciation for those things that are priceless.

v

Healthy Terror

A couple of years ago someone at a PTA meeting, when I asked why they didn't celebrate Halloween at the school, breezily said she thought some Jewish parents had complained.

Yeah - right. I didn't even bother to correct her WAY off information. No Jew I have ever met has disparaged Halloween. We like it so much we have another one, called Purim, in the Spring :)

But In a continuing effort to get common sense brought back into decision making and viewpoints, let's think about why so many schools now don't celebrate it. And let's applaud the ones that do.

It's a secular holiday. So is July 4th. Some would like to associate Halloween with pagan worship traditions that go back thousands of years, and they would be right. But many others see it as a Christian holiday, All Hallows Eve. Of course the early Christians, specifically Romans conquering Europe, found it easier to Christian-ize existing holidays than to force the locals to take on new holidays. I love how practical the Romans were - win the fight, then win them over, don't fight battles that don't matter. Merging of traditions among tribes is probably something that happened from the beginning of human time.

Who gets to own the holiday now is my question. If we let the Pagans or Catholics take over, isn't this tyranny by the minority?? As much as I hear certain radicals railing against things like atheists pushing prayer out of schools (when in fact it was our Founding Fathers - pretty smart guys all in all), how can these same people run from Halloween calling it "unchristian" because a very small number of people actually see it as part of their religion??

The beauty of Halloween is you DON'T have to be Catholic, or Wiccan, or anything to celebrate it.

Not that we hear Pagans, Wiccans and Devil Worshipers (G-d help them) demonstrating on the street for equal rights. Pretty sure the lessons learned by burnings, drownings and torture over centuries has sunk in.

If people want to celebrate or "observe" (spooky word!) Halloween at church or with gatherings of friends, and Christian-ize it, have at it.

Has anyone noticed that we don't worry about worshiping the Sun God on Sunday, or the Moon G0d on Monday or , did you know, Mercury on Wednesday (see french, mercredi, or your latin) or Thor on Thursday... these were Roman Gods (actually I think Mercury is Greek and Hermes is Roman). But we don't throw out our Roman numerals, or our Gregorian (Catholic) calendar.

We don't need to dump on other religions just because it isn't our faith.

This is the problem with radicalism. And I'd like to compare it to knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing, in ever so polite a way. It comes from fear. "I'm right and by god you're wrong." Could be you are right, but it isn't up to anyone else but me to figure out right and wrong for me, within the context of my beliefs and values. In fact it's my job to figure out good and evil and what is neither or both. Not your job. It's like happiness, an inside job.

Halloween is both about personal choices and public property. A Frankenstein lightening rod!

Why let anyone take over something that is public property? I refuse, for instance, to yield the ever shrinking Middle Ground, where sane, common sense people should - are in fact *obligated* to - take a stand. To me this is an ethical question and based on "If you aren't part of the solution, then you are part of problem."

Halloween is also common, sacred ground. Not in the sense that it is sacred to Pagans, or Wiccans, or Catholics, but in the sense that it is part of the human condition to have deep dark fears.

Those horror stories, movies, plays (who is more terrifying than Shakespeare?) and costumes... Perfect. Glorious! Amazing!!!

Why?

Because on Halloween, not only do we get to be creative and playful, but WE GET TO MAKE FUN OF SCARY STUFF. What is better than a good fun scare to help us confront the darkest parts of the human condition? For me two things are scary: radicalism/arrogance mixed with power and "not knowing". What is in the dark, will it kill me? Am I smarter than it? Can I see it or name it??

Just as children who have never heard scary stories still dream about monsters, we all have our demons and dragons. As adults they are made real with recessions, job losses, divorce, death, illness, taxes, politicians, insurance companies and fat cat swindlers.

I love fairy tales, especially ones about the dragon or Scary Thing that is outwitted by a calm or powerful foe. This is how we teach our kids and reassure ourselves that terrible things can be overcome. Better if you are calm, and bonus points if you are funny. To be wise and therefore able to outwit the scariest thing you can imagine is to gain unlimited power. Just ask Yoda.

How sweet is that?! Love 2 for 1 deals!

Not only does Halloween provide days of childlike wonder, creativity, an excuse for candy and Fun! but it also gives us the chance to face our deepest fears, run screaming! learn from them (we survived!) and maybe, just maybe, even laugh at them.
:)
v

Deep Survival

In my continuing quest to make the blog reflect my many interests, here is a book recommended to me today: Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why I haven't read it, but a good friend has and I trust his opinion (Thanks Bruce). I have read and highly recommend The Survivors Club. Great site and book.

I'm now looking hard at going into Emergency Services as a career. I may go for a Masters of Public Administration at Georgia State, where I can add a Certificate of Disaster Management, or I may apply to the DeKalb County Fire Dept for a fire medic position. This last appeals because I would get 8 weeks of training and a salary, which could lead to being a trainer and administration, maybe even eventually some Chaplaincy.

As usual, I'd like to do both. The job and the Masters. I think it could work, but two recent developments will affect the process.

1. New motto: no crazy sh*t.

This stems from having learned to look carefully before I leap. I've always had a good measure of self discipline, which helps a lot. But I see this as a time to develop more. The other reason to implement this motto is just sheer volume of changes. I've had a lot going on the last several years: changing locations, changing relationships, changing jobs, and then changing careers. Yeah, enough to make anyone a bit batty, and we won't talk about where I started from ;)

2. No decisions right now.

Considering the level of disruption in my life, just like thousands upon thousands of other families and individuals, I am taking a break from major decisions for the time being. Truly burn out has set in. This I know because I've pretty much stopped traveling. And I lost the defrost button in the car. Not literally, just couldn't see it. For about three weeks. Yeah.

It was a great year of being on the road, seeing people in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Pensacola, Charleston and St. Louis. I loved every minute of reconnecting those who are deeply dear to me and mine. Now I'm ready to be still for a while. It's a great time to do it, as I love Fall in Georgia. and Football :)

I'll keep researching my options, applying to jobs that are in the emergency services field, consulting and looking at work that would use my background (such as IT, training, accounting, etc.) but I'm clearly still in the information gathering phase of a huge life transition. I will pick up a part time job for cash flow. There is great scholarship funding here in Georgia, thanks to the lottery (which I have strong, mixed feelings about).

I have to say that it is very reassuring to be with family and close to good friends from high school. I do love Atlanta, and it's great to enjoy Georgia these last two years. My teens are coming down tomorrow from TN and we are going hiking, knocking around and probably bowling. I treasure these times.

Seems that many people will continue to reconnect to family and work out the kinks while we collectively face the rupturing and pains in our economy. It's important to be realistic, consider options you may never have considered before, such as : moving in with parents, or having them move in with you, giving up the big house with no equity for a rental, giving up the car for something cheap and dependable, stop paying the creditors if there isn't any income, and instead save a real emergency nest egg, etc.

In the end, we will all get through this time. It is a moment in history. Pivotal in our country and very possibly the world.

It seems like a burning off too of non-essential things and values. Good time for clearing out old junk and outdated ideas.

We will hopefully reclaim some valuable lessons from our parents and grandparents: work hard, spend wisely, don't ever owe money if you can help it, get a good education (or get more), take care of each other, be content with the small things. Pray. Build community. No one is entitled. Be resourceful. Play fair.

The best things in life are both free, and priceless.

Peace out,
v