Twitter (T). Yeah. About that.

This has become a big thing. I remember when it came out a friend was all excited about it. "You talk about stuff and can only use 120 words!" Or something like that. If you've been here before, you know that's not near enough words for me. I'm deep. Or full of shit, could go either way. However. . .

I know I'm not in the mainstream with my thoughts on this. I does give me to wonder though if low these many years down the pike from the introduction of Twitter if we're using it correctly? Should this be the medium in which we declare the basis for our deepest beliefs and policies? Don't we need to say more about these things? Don't we need to provide attributions for our quotes? I don't know.

I do think that tweets are great for stuff like, "Getting hammered at the dive bar with a woman I think I know!!" Or, "I'm done with that sonofabitch and leaving for Tibet to become a monk-ess!" Very cool for mini-rants, describing your latest epiphany, bragging about your bitchen new girl/boy friend. Very good indeed for all that.

But do we, possibly, in the not distant future want to read the State of the Union Address in a series of tweets? I don't think so, I mean, if nothing else it lacks the gravitas that such an address should have, no?

#WTF you talkin' 'bout fool?

Oh, Crap. Politics.

Politics.

I wrote several hundred words on this subject yesterday and today.

While I was pondering what I had written, I glanced up at the opening sentences. Here they are:

"I know what you're thinking. STFU! I've had enough."

I pondered while reading this. What the hell am I thinking blethering on about all this. I nailed it right there at the top. So while you were to be treated to yet another boring analysis about why our political parties should commit suicide and other angry rants, Surprise! I ain't a-gonna do it.

I was driving up to Vallecito Lake to get my hair cut, because that's where I go to do that. About half way up a mountain lion ran across the road. Now all you city folk will think, "Oh, cool," in a very lukewarm fashion. But you see this is quite amazing.

 Mountain lions, or if you prefer, cougars, pumas, catamounts or big-ass kitties that eat you, are very solitary creatures. They each have a range they patrol of up to 500 square miles. They meet with the opposite sex once a year for the purpose of procreation. Mama cougar raises her kits all alone. Pa cougar sneaks around his 500 miles eating mostly deer. They don't like people, traffic, roads, or being messed with. They do swim, though I don't know if for pleasure. I'm pretty sure they like sushi. Anyway, most cougars live far from people as they can get.
So, seeing one run across the road is big deal.

Some people are like that. They don't like to hang around people and while they might get along with folks ok, they prefer solitude. I've a friend like that. When he goes camping he finds a spot as far away from other people as possible. He doesn't like sushi though. I don't understand it. I mean sushi is really good. Personally I really like to be around people, some have said this is because I'm a clown and clowns require audiences. Probably true. Sometimes I like to be alone but by and large I'd rather be around people.

My friend though. He'll do anything for you, even if he doesn't really like you not only in a general sense but personally. Yeah, he'll bitch about it after but I think there's still some little bit of satisfaction in being a good guy under all the layers of crust. He doesn't think he's a cougar. He thinks he's a wolf. I'm pretty sure he's right but he's not your average wolf. He's the West's mythological lone wolf. Solitary in spite of his kind being devoted to the pack. He's a good man.

Ok. I told you I wasn't a-gonna do it, but I can't help myself.

I hope with all of the power of that thing in humans that creates hope that the people we've elected are similar to my friend. Similar inasmuch as underneath the crust, they are good guys. If they are then there is hope for me. Me and my friend, the cougar, the wolf pack, the country and the world.

You see, I'm a romantic. I think that even though there are a lot of really bad endings in a long story, the final ending will be a good one.

Oh, and if you're ever in Durango, Rice Monkeys on Main Ave. has good sushi.

I tried to find a pic of a cougar running across the road.
I didn't 'cause they don't like roads and traffic. 

He was haulin' ass by the way.

When you're young.

When you're young, it seems life is all about getting things. You get older, more hair, bigger. You get stuff. Clothes, shoes. If you're lucky some jeans, a couple flannel shirts, some t-shirts, a good pair of hiking boots. Cargo shorts, a boonie hat, some flip-flops. 

You get some stuff you don't like though thought you would--underwear that turns out too tight. Shoes that fit great in the store then magically crush your feet two hundred yards out the door. 

When you're real young you get a bike, maybe a skateboard, skis, snowboard. A fishing pole, ooh, that's a good one. With that you can not only have a lot of fun but can feed yourself once you get it figured out. A lot of stuff like that is good too because you get to know your Dad or Mom or uncle, aunt, brother, sister when they teach you how to work it. 

Maybe you'll get a car. I hope so. I got one even before I had a license to drive it. It was a '59 Studebaker Lark 7. Ok, well actually it was a Lark 8 but that #4 cylinder never did fire so I called it the Lark 7. It was baby-shit yellow with a gas-chamber green trunk lid. I loved it.

It had an automatic transmission but rather than shifting PRNDL, it was PNDLR. So when you were at the light with your buddy in the '51 Plymouth business coupe next to you and you put it in neutral revved it up and yanked it into gear when the light changed, half the time you skip right through low into reverse and lose the race by hauling ass backwards. Sure did smoke the tires good when that happened. But you still lost. 
That gave you something else, losing that race. Experience. You learned that you had to pay attention to how you did things or they could go terribly wrong. You learned that even though you looked really cool, you were going the wrong way. You learned that tires are expensive. Experience.

So you're young for a while and over time you get lots of stuff. You learn how to do things. How to act with people. How to have a really good time and how to deal with having a bad time. You learn how to love someone. If you're like me, the person you learn to love the most will be someone you didn't expect. And that will be grand.

Wow. It all seems so long ago. But it still feels good to smile about it.

I'm Back. Feels Good.

I've not posted to this blog for some three years. Seems there was a time in there where I got pretty spectacularly depressed. I had done pretty well for a while, lost some sixty pounds. Got told I didn't have diabetes 2 anymore. Had a girlfriend for a little while. But then a bunch of things, holidays, Beth's birthday, our anniversary, her death date all this conspired to make me feel things just weren't right. Abandoned the girlfriend (not her fault at all), went from 245 pounds up to 295 pounds, diabetes came back. Pretty much a personal train wreck.

Lots of changes in three years. I have a grand daughter now and will soon have two grandsons--all thanks to the human building efforts of my daughter. Seriously, Sis, it didn't have to be twins, but it's all good. My boys and their wives have moved to variously Virginia and North Carolina to pursue their dreams.

I'd let myself go. I got all depressed about a lot of things all stemming of course from Beth's death. Gained back fifty pounds. Slipped back in to depression an isolation. But I'm coming back. I'm not sure what the trigger for that was but the things that helped included making some new friends. One in particular discovered an interest in her Scottish ancestry, also a passion of mine (that and the Welsh side, too, of course). 

So what am I doing now? Well, laying about the house a lot of course. But I'm also working on all the rolling stock and with help have almost everything running and running better than it ever has. One thing I can recommend: Commune with your mechanical friends and helpmeets because it's good for your soul. It's also good for vehicular souls unless you're a complete mechanical idiot. In the latter case, find some expert help. 

I've gone back on the diet of my own devising that worked so well last time. I'm down nearly thirty pounds from the recent weight spike. I'm getting a little more exercise walking around the back forty mostly. That also helps with attitude. Communing with nature and all that, especially quiet contemplation of breeze interacting with pine and juniper. The wary Leporidae eyes peering suspiciously until a burst of cottontail bunny or blacktail jack nervous energy scurries out of imaginary danger. . .

So, anyway I'll try to quickly get back to more philosophical meanderings but meanwhile it feels good to be back. I hope you think so too. Thanks for coming. 

Death, Cancer and Time.

As the second anniversary of Beth's death approaches, I find myself taking stock. The grief is still with me all the time, everyday. The quick jab of loss still stings at odd moments of remembrance. The constant dark companion of cancer appears at every turn, Komen commercials, TV sitcoms, drama, daily situations. That bastard cancer and all the attendant memories of the last days rush forward in an instant. The mantle of sadness still dampens my basic good nature.

But it is dulled I suppose by the passage of time. It is said time heals all wounds, I'm not sure of that. Perhaps rather than heal anything, time slides a soft-focus lens before our memories. The pain, despair, the depression remains but it is somehow muffled or blurred by the passage of time.

It could be that like a lump of coal the weight of Beth's death has crushed me to a hard crystalline center that can no longer be reduced. It's possible that Nietzsche was right and this hasn't killed me. So maybe I'm stronger. I don't think so though. I am diminished by the loss of Beth. I'm not stronger, much the opposite. The power her passing had to destroy me just was not quite up to the job. The strength I had before was greater than death's destructive resources could conquer. The battle hasn't left me stronger, on the contrary I am smaller, weaker.

It could be that though reduced, I'm a better person for the experience, hard as that is to say. Maybe I feel the pain of others a little more sharply, my level of compassion is increased. Paradoxically I find it easier to resist the tugs of other's heartbreaks. The crushing defeat of Beth's death, it was my defeat as I could not cure her or save her, has left a hard shell. That shell is like unto linked mail though, the blunt axe and slashing sword is turned away, but the thin, sharp point of the rapier can slide through the holes to pierce deeply.

So, two years from the first end of my life, where have I landed? In a world where the colors aren't as bright, the laughter less sincere, the light more muted. I am better though, better. Perhaps when I get to the twenty year mark I'll have recovered all that I was, but it is doubtful. Still, I learn how to endure this diminished world a little more effectively each day.

“One morning I woke up and I knew that you'll be gone....
A new day, a new way, I knew I should see it along...
Go your way, I'll go mine and carry on...

The sky is clearing and the night has gone out...
The sun, he come, the world is all full of light...
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice but to carry on...”

“Carry On” --Neil Young

Growth? I dunno. . .

I've been thinking about growth.
My wife worked for JCPenney for 33 years. Over most of those years the company wanted her department to exceed last year's sales by x%. This never made sense to me. I mean, think about it.

 If your company is to
--maintain its real estate and infrastructure
--pay its employees a wage that will motivate them and keep them working for you
--provide a benefit package that will aid in retaining employees
--provide the best service to customers to keep them coming back
--maintain a broad product line to keep customers interested

Then doesn't it make sense that there is a limit to how much you can increase? You can strive to increase your market share, but that will require you spend more on advertising, thus cutting into potential growth. You can reduce what you pay your employees, but that will likely cause you to lose your best employees thus reducing sales and service. You can reduce benefits but that causes the same problem.

So, doesn't it make sense that if you made a reasonable profit last year and were able to keep the doors opened, the infrastructure maintained, the employees paid and happy and had enough left over to keep the stockholders paid then whatever percentage of profit you made last year should be your goal for this year?
I thought so.

How about if we expand this thinking to our economy. Maybe if we hadn't been trying to maintain growth, that is increase our national profits over the year before we wouldn't have taken a dive in '08. Yeah, yeah, I know, it was all the bankers and such that screwed us, but if we could just change our perspective--sort of metaphorically shift from a corporate agriculture mindset to a horticultural one. Let's be prosperous but instead of constant growth which by its nature unsustainable, go for stability which is.

I dunno, I only got a B+'s in Econ 101 and 102 so maybe I'm way off here. Seems to me though there was something about prices go up until there's a glut on the market then they plummet. Seems to me there was also a formula I forget for maintaining prices and thus sales at a constant rate.

But again that was a long time ago and I'm not a math guy so I could be wrong.

Maybe one of you math guys could work this out and we could tell someone in Washington about it. If you do let me know and I'll make sure you get the right Washington 'cause while I'm not a math guy, I am a geography guy and I know where stuff is and how to get there.

Things That Go "Woof" and "Scritch, Scritch" in the Night

This morning at around 4:30 or so Boomer the Cow Dog started barking and there were noises coming from the front porch. 

So I gathered up the artillery, went downstairs and grabbed the million candlepower spotlight and went out on the porch. 

There on the end of the porch was, totally oblivious of me, my light and pistol, a skunk. The light bothered the skunk not in the least as it chowed down on a wasp's nest. It was also apparently oblivious to wasp stings. Thus proving that the crazy nasty-ass honey badger ain't the only one that don't give a shit.

                           

Here's the Problem.

If you believe the following;
Don’t spend money you haven’t got.
Don’t make more government than you need.

And you don’t believe:

Fundamentalist Christianity should be the state religion.

Abortion should be universally illegal.

OR:

You believe;
People have a right to good health.

There should be a route to citizenship for illegal aliens.

And you don’t believe:

Abortion should be universally legalized.

The stimulus package was well conceived.

Then you have no ‘major’ party.

You see, both the Republican and Democratic parties are so big they must encompass approaches to every single problem extant in the United States. Therefore if you don’t agree with some or maybe many of their stances, if you support them, you have to buy into things you don’t want or agree with.

Here’s the solution.

I don’t know about you, but I find I can only get worked up about a couple of issues at a time. Right now I’m big on fixing the tax system (fairtax.org) and the health care system. So, how about a party that does that. Just those two things maybe. Say you’re big on saving the planet. Cool. Green party that focuses on environmental issues. 

Then maybe several other parties. Each promoting its own particular issues. Of course, by themselves they’ll never have enough votes to get anything passed. So what they do is make temporary coalitions. So my health and taxes party gets together with the green party and says, “We’ll help you pass your save the rainforest legislation if you’ll help ups pass our fairtax legislation.” This goes on with all the parties, coalitions changing as issues come and go. 

This is how it’s been in the UK, Europe and hundreds of countries in the world that are actually getting needed legislation passed because the system fosters cooperation and compromise rather than competition, obstructionism and backstabbing.

Think about it.

Then vote for the non-major party, that is independent, candidate of your choice. 

Fixing Stuff With Zealotry

Throughout history we have been fortunate to have in the ranks of others, often in opposition to us whoever we may be, heirs to the original Zealots. Oh, I know you’re thinking that Zealots are freedom fighters and heroes and all that. But often they don’t do the folks they’re trying to help much good. But in the spirit of “it’s an ill wind that blows no one good,” SOMEBODY benefits, usually the guy the zealots were zealoting against.  In true zealot fashion, sometimes these groups even pre-date the original, led by Judas of Galilee or Gamala from C.E. 66-70.

Now if you were an average citizen of Roman Jerusalem in 66 C.E, what? 
What’s that? 
Yes, C.E. which signifies “common era” is the same as A.D. which stands for Anno Domini which in turn translates from Latin to “year of our lord,” more or less. Current practice dictates the use of C.E. since a lot of people do not agree that Jesus of Nazareth was God. On the other hand, we were all here for the ‘common era,’ so there’s not a lot you can argue with there. Or maybe you can, I don’t know and it’s not why we’re here so back off.

But I digress. So, there you were in Jerusalem, goin’ bout your business tanning your hides or boiling your dyes or slaughtering your sheep or whatever you do, then going and making burnt sacrifices at the Temple on the Sabbath and so forth. Then the Zealots jumped up and decided the Romans needed to go. So this Judas guy—seems to be an unfortunate name in many spheres, eh?—has a revolution. Seems successful at first, Jude and his bros take Jerusalem and hold it for like four years!! Whoo-hoo!!

Did I mention the Zealots were revolting? Against the Romans? The friggin’ Romans?! So the Romans destroyed the Temple, plundered it, raped, killed and burned in reprisal, and finished off the Zealots at Masada. What happened to you, peaceful middle class citizen of Jerusalem, you ask? I just told you, keep up willya? You got raped, murdered, burned out and your religion pretty well stomped. 

The Zealots are also credited by some with the invention of terrorism, political assassination, murder of ‘collaborators’ and kidnapping for political leverage. They also destroyed the food supply of the besieged city so the inhabitants would rise up against the Romans. The Talmud describes them as boorish, wild, ruffians and condemns them for their aggression, refusal to compromise, refusal to work with the Rabbis seeking peace and causing the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent crushing Roman hold on Judea. Good job lads—if you’re a Roman anyway.

So then who are their heirs? For the purposes of this admittedly slanted article let’s sketch out a definition.

zealot. n. A person or group that forms together under the aegis of the “One True Faith,” whether they say so or not that tries through various methods to install their particular beliefs on any organization be it political, cultural or religious in which they form a minority.

Often marked by a failure to understand the level and depth of commiseration in the larger group to which they belong.

Also often marked by an overestimation of their strength and abilities, thus causing their efforts to end in failure and cause the situations they hope to improve to degrade in actuality. Or, if not ending in failure then leading to the subornation of their original goals and the subjugation of their group or country.

How’s that? Now comes the bit you’ve been waiting for—the list!

Famous Zealots through history:

·  The French Revolution. Creators and executors (pun intended) of the “Reign of Terror,” which lead to the French Empire under Napoleon and the temporary conquest of most of Europe.

·  The Russian Revolution which promised to free the people with the concept of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their need,” and ended up just being Tsarist Russia in more boring uniforms.

·  Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. Don’t drink the Kool-aid.

·  Heaven’s Gate. Oops, the Mother Ship wasn’t hiding in that comet tail after all.

·  The Black Hand and Gavrilo Princip, Serbian terrorist(s) that Killed Archduke Ferdinand, started WWI which not only wrecked things for Serbia but the whole of Europe and the due to the zealotry of the French when  the war ended, caused WWII which wrecked everything for people all over the world. Good job.

·  The National Socialist Worker’s Party in Germany. They started out pretty well but were suborned by a failed painter and architect from Austria. Millions died.

“Ok, ok,” you say, “we get it, lots of zealots in history. So what’s that got to do with the price of eggs in Jerusalem?” Hm, says I. Didn’t you pay any attention to the intro? Never mind. So here’s the deal. 

There are a lot of zealots in the United States these days. There are groups that want to change everything. The Tea Party comes to mind along with those folks on the other side that want a Sweden-style welfare state. There are a lot of Christians that want to make America “a Christian country again,” never minding the fact that it never has been or was intended to be a Christian Country. There are people that want to change bits and pieces, the right to choice and right to life folks, the anti-gun groups and the pro-gun groups. The greenies and the blackies as I call the drill-it-all-now folks. For practically any issue, you can find groups on either side screaming their lungs out about it.

Well, it’s not all bad. You see, history has shown that the best path is the core of what the Pilgrims of the Massachusetts Bay Colony believed. No, not fundamentalist Christianity! Their core belief or one of them at least was this:

“All things in moderation.”

The key to the whole thing is polite discourse and compromise ending in consensual agreements somewhere in the middle of the argument. Now I know that those groups out there on the ends of the bell curve are going to scream, “THERE CAN BE NO COMPROMISE FOR OURS IS THE ONE TRUE WAY!!!”

This is an example of the political concept, “the ends pull the middle” so, you see we kinda need those guys out there so we can have the tug-o-war that shows all the various concepts and hopefully solutions and then, pay attention now ‘cause here’s the point of the whole diatribe, we get compromise and solutions by all those people in the middle of the bell curve. That would be—I love this term—the Silent Majority. Like you and me, I hope. WE have to come together and fix all this crap. WE have to get these idiots to quit yelling at each other.

How do we do that? Honest to God, Thor, Aphrodite or whoever you worship or don’t, I think the only way is going to be another party. I was thinking that the Progressive Party had a nice ring to it as well as a pretty appropriate namesake, but that’s been co-opted. So how about this: The Moderate Party. 

If the charts and curves are correct people that have moderate political beliefs form about seventy percent of the nation. Know what that means? If they all join our new party, theoretically, we’ll have majorities in the house and the senate and a pretty good shot at the presidency as well. The best part? We still have all those screaming zealots on either side of the isle pointing out the problems and potential solutions! Brilliant, ain’t it?

Triggers and Tolerances

Roy Rogers used to have a horse named “Trigger.” Once I became aware enough I wondered at that, I mean, after all, a trigger is something that starts things. Triggers set things in motion. It would seem that the horse is the motion, not the cause, eh? But that’s not what I was thinking about today.

Many years ago when I was trapped in a declining wage spiral with every job I got, I became a housewife. It was costing more to keep the kids in daycare than I was making so I just stayed home. I made a deal with my wife over this after the first couple weeks. She became critical of the way I did things. She had seven different ‘loads’ of laundry and disliked my simpler four—light, dark, red and impossible (those things of hers I would not wash due to the consequences of destruction thereof). She did not approve of using the shop vac, a bucket of soapy water and a brush on a broom handle for spot removal on carpets. She did not think Pledge sprayed on dustrags and used as skates for the kids constituted polishing wood floors. She did not feel that leaving the vacuum plugged in and standing in the middle of the entryway encouraged the kids to vacuum floors. I however, being enlightened, embraced all these things. We agreed that as long as she was satisfied with the results, I could do things my own way. This agreement served well over many years.

While all this is doubtless of great interest and somewhat germane, that’s not what I wanted to talk about either. While playing on the computer and watching “Two Fat Ladies” on the Cooking Channel, I ran out of coffee. So I creaked up to get another cup and my naked feet encountered an eclectic mixture of crumbs, gravel, dog hair, dead juniper gnats and God knows what else. So, what did I do? I got my coffee and sat back down of course. But that crunchy crap under my feet did trigger my grunge tolerance level. So mere days later I gave up on sitting in the great room calling the vacuum to come downstairs and operate on its own, went upstairs, got it and vacuumed. The great room. Not that much grunge elsewhere, you know?

Many years after I first became a housewife and after many yelling matches in which I inevitably came off second I realized that this was the problem. Much like pain tolerance inverted, men have much higher Dirt/Grunge/Filth tolerance than women. You would think that once I realized this, I would, in the interest of peace, harmony, the general good and possible sexual favors establish the exact point at which my wife’s D/G/F tolerance trigger was tripped. So one would think indeed, but you are overlooking a superior trigger present usually only in males: the laziness trigger. This trigger trips when inertia of laying about on the couch is greater than the rewards the perceived work is likely to generate. In other words, lazy always wins. 

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I was not a househusband or Mr. Mom. I was a housewife—if I was to do the work, I would have the title.