Zero Sum

I've often said as I teach or when I was working with restoration teams that we operate from the reptilian part of our brain well over two thirds of the time. When asked a question we (subconsciously) answer the following question: 'what's in my best interest?" The following essay sums it up.

The Ethical Spectacle September 1995 http://www.spectacle.org

The Scorpion

The story of the frog and the scorpion has been cited everywhere from discussions of mid-east terrorism to the movie The Crying Game. In the story, a scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?" Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."
Please note that the story does not portray a prisoner's dilemma. The frog has absolutely nothing to gain by carrying the scorpion across, and is therefore a foolish altruist, proving the truth of the adage, "No good deed goes unpunished." But it is not hard to turn the story into a prisoner's dilemma, as follows.
The frog desires to cross the stream but is afraid of a stork on the other side. The scorpion has no means to cross the stream but is capable of scaring the stork. If the frog carries the scorpion across, the scorpion will reciprocate by frightening away the stork; the scorpion will have crossed the stream and the frog will be safe. The apparent sucker's payoff for the frog is that the scorpion will slip away without scaring the stork once the frog has gone to all the trouble of carrying him across. There is no apparent sucker's payoff for the scorpion--the frog's major opportunity for defection is not to carry the scorpion, but, since the scorpion will not yet have had the opportunity to extend its cooperation it will not have lost anything (the moves are not simultaneous). Perhaps the frog's defection may consist of eating the scorpion, once it has scared off the stork.
In any event, the scorpion's unexpected and selfdestructive defection raises the issue of how to counter a player who defects first, and defects in a way that prevents you from retaliating on the next move (your life has ended in the meantime.) All assassins and terrorists play the game this way. Because they are willing to die--it is their nature--the future has no shadow for them. This madness is not unique to humans--the bee that stings to defend the hive, then dies, is a suicidal defector in nature.
Gandhi succeeded in his variation on the prisoner's dilemma because the British were not willing to resort to the ultimate defection. A player, like the Nazis, willing to stop at nothing, creates an illogical loop much like the one that results when two players play a series for a known number of moves. Since, on the last move, the future has no shadow, I might as well defect. Since the other player will certainly be smart enough to defect on that move as well, I may as well defect on the move before, when he may still be cooperating. But, since he is smart enough to reason this through the way I did, he will probably defect on that move too. So again I will consider defecting a move earlier. But so will he. The result: we both defect on the first move and each move afterwards.
Because the scorpion will kill you as soon as it is given a chance, you must find a way to defect earlier than the scorpion, and decisively. But the scorpion will study the situation, looking for a way to defect earlier than you can; so you must assume he will do so, and seek to defect earlier still. Like gunfighters in a Western movie who run down the street at each other, howling and shooting as soon as they catch sight of each other, the prisoner's dilemma escalates into an immediate duel to the death. The concept of a pre-emptive strike expresses nothing other than a strategy based on defecting early and decisively. Tarquinian's symbolic cutting of the tops from the tallest flowers, or the massacre of opponents after any coup d'etat in history, are other examples.
It is the scorpion that pulls humanity down. If you are not yourself a scorpion, you still are unable to play every move of every game in the cooperation zone, because sooner or later you will meet a scorpion. Not every scorpion is a suicide bomber; the law partner who made a successful motion to cut my draw, forcing my resignation from a law firm, suffered the symbolic fate of the scorpion when the firm's biggest client (the one I alone knew how to service) left as a result, and the firm folded. Yeats' judgment that "things fall apart, the center cannot hold", because "the worst are full of passionate intensity" is a recognition of the fact that there are scorpions.
Scorpions may know the consequences, and not care, like the suicide bomber, or may, through vanity and denial, refuse to see the consequences, like my ex-partner. In any event, the effect is the same: a player defects when there is no reason to, and something--a life, an enterprise--ends as a result.
Game theory does not really take scorpions into account. It holds that people will defect because that is in their best interest--because the future has no shadow. Game theory fails as a tool when we are dealing with sociopathology or extreme denial. The human dilemma is that all progress ultimately fails or at least slides back, that anything once proven must be proven again a myriad of times, that there is nothing so well established that a fundamentalist (of any religion or stripe) cannot be found to deny it, and suffer the consequences, and then deny that he suffered the consequences.
All rivers begin in the human heart and, as I said recently in my Auschwitz essay, the human heart is infirm. The saddest saying I ever heard, "trees never grow into heaven", will be true for so long as we have scorpions.

Autumn, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur

 In three days September 28 we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. In early October, the 7th and 8th is Yom Kippur. While the New Year is great I like the idea of Yom Kippur better, especially because it is about atonement and forgiveness --both giving and receiving. I struggled with these ideas until I realized that while they are tied to scripture they do not conflict with my own views about religion. Yom Kippur just makes sense socially, emotionally, and intellectually. It feels good to assess one's contradictions, the mean and nasty things we've done throughout the year and those that have been done against us. It feels good to let these go. Hate and avarice are not good family values and eat at one's being if we practice them. Yom Kippur is about asking and giving forgiveness especially to one's self. This should not be confused with the act of confession. Self-forgiveness does not mean that you do an act of contrition and then after absolution go back out and commit the same act. It is about assessing your weaknesses and launching a course of action to avoid repetition.
Next month go inside of your denial and find a way to start the act of self-forgiveness. Only after you are willing to forgive yourself can you forgive others. Give yourself a break!  In Ladino: le hayim and in Yiddish: l'chaim!!

Hunting a mammoth

Today I will be leading a team building session for an NGO client. I have titled it Hunting a Mammoth to fed the Community. It is about creativity and firing off the creative side of your brain. The irony is that the client works with young people to 19 years of age teaching the kids how to creatively turn multi-media on its head.
So what is creativity? Can just anyone be creative?
The answer to the second question is easy: everyone is creative and functioning creatively on a scale of 1-10 at any given moment.
The answer to the first is more complex. It starts with an exploration of the word "thinking."

• Thinking in formal education emphasizes the skills of analysis--teaching students how to understand claims, follow or create a logical argument, figure out the answer, eliminate the incorrect paths and focus on the correct one.
• Another kind of thinking, one that focuses on exploring ideas, generating possibilities, looking for many right answers rather than just one.The beginning of this kind of learning is under debate: pre-natal, infant, precocious two's? But most assuredly creative thinking is subverted by the formality of school.

NOTE: Both of these kinds of thinking are vital to a successful working life or working environment. And it takes both kinds of thinkers to make a successful team.

but

NOTE: If your mantra, your belief system is: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" then please, don’t spend any more time reading today!

Creativity is:

An Ability. A simple definition is that creativity is the ability to imagine or invent something new by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas.

An Attitude. Creativity is also an attitude: the ability to accept change and newness, a willingness to play with ideas and possibilities, a flexibility of outlook, the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it.

A Process. Creative people work hard and continually to improve ideas and solutions, by making gradual alterations and refinements to their works. 

     Creative Methods:

Evolution. This is the method of incremental improvement. New ideas stem from other ideas, new solutions from previous ones, the new ones slightly improved over the old ones. Every problem that has been solved can be solved again in a better way.

Synthesis. Two or more existing ideas are combined into a third, new idea. I.E Books on tape

Revolution. Sometimes the best new idea is a completely different one, an marked change from the previous ones.

Reapplication. Look at something old in a new way. Go beyond labels. Unfixate, remove prejudices, expectations and assumptions and discover how something can be reapplied.

Changing Direction. Many creative breakthroughs occur when attention is shifted from one angle of a problem to another. This is sometimes called creative insight. 

Negative Attitudes That Block Creativity

1. Oh no, a problem! The reaction to a problem is often a bigger problem than the problem itself. Many people avoid or deny problems until it's too late, largely because these people have never learned the appropriate emotional, psychological, and practical responses. A problem is an opportunity.

2. It can't be done. This attitude is, in effect, surrendering before the battle. By assuming that something cannot be done or a problem cannot be solved, a person gives the problem a power or strength it didn't have before. And giving up before starting is, of course, a self fulfilling prophesy.

3. I can't do it. Or There's nothing I can do. Some people think, well maybe the problem can be solved by some expert, but not by me because I'm not (a) smart enough, (b) an engineer, or (c) a politician, etc.

4. But I'm not creative. Everyone is creative to some extent. Most people are capable of very high levels of creativity; just look at young children when they play and imagine. The problem is that this creativity has been suppressed by education.

5. What will people think? There is strong social pressure to conform and to be ordinary and not creative. Some peoples' herd instinct is so strong that they make sheep look like radical individualists.

Solutions are often new ideas, and new ideas, being strange, are usually greeted with laughter, contempt, or in the case of Galileo the inquisition.

7. I might fail. Failures along the way should be expected and accepted; they are simply learning tools that help focus the way toward success. Not only is there nothing wrong with failing, but failing is a sign of action and struggle and attempt--much better than inaction. Going-with-the- flow has a low failure, low risk outcome (see sheep above!). Salomon don’t get to spawning grounds and successfully spawn simply by swimming. They must get by the bears first. 

 

Myths about Creative Thinking and Problem Solving

1. Every problem has only one solution (or one right answer). The goal of problem solving is to solve the problem, and most problems can be solved in any number of ways. If you discover a solution that works, it is a good solution. There may be other solutions thought of by other people, but that doesn't make your solution wrong. As a group you decide which solution has the greater application and return on human capital and funding investment.

2. The best answer/solution/method has already been found. Look at the history of any solution set and you'll see that improvements, new solutions, new right answers, are always being found. Pythagoras (6^th century bce) said that the world was a sphere, Copernicus (15^th century) said the earth wasn’t the center of the universe, Galileo’s (mid-16^th century) observations, based on scientific observation, supported Copernicus, and . . . . . .Stephen Hawking. . .has found that. . . . .

3. Creative answers are complex technologically. Only a few problems require complex technological solutions. Most problems you'll meet with require only a thoughtful solution requiring personal action and perhaps a few simple tools. Even many problems that seem to require a technological solution can be addressed in other ways.

4. Ideas either come or they don't. Nothing will help. There are many successful techniques for stimulating idea generation.

Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking and Problem Solving

1. Prejudice/preconcieved ideas. The older we get, the more preconceived ideas we have about things. These preconceptions often prevent us from seeing beyond what we already know or believe to be possible. They inhibit us from accepting change and progress.

2. Functional fixation. Sometimes we begin to see an object only in terms of its name rather in terms of what it can do. And there's a functional fixation of people, too. Stereotyping can even be a form of functional fixation.

3. Learned helplessness. This is the feeling that you don't have the tools, knowledge, materials, ability, to do anything, so you might as well not try. We are trained to rely on other people for almost everything. We think small and limit ourselves.

4. Psychological blocks. Some solutions are not considered or are rejected simply because our reaction to them is "Yuck." But icky solutions themselves may be useful or good if they solve a problem well or save your life. Eating grasshoppers, termites, insects doesn't sound great, but in terms of carbon foot print, caloric intake vs caloric investement these creatures, pound for pound have more energy and use significantly fewer resources than large ungulates. Psychological blocks prevent you from doing something just because it doesn't sound good or right.

Positive Attitudes for Creativity

1. Curiosity. Creative people want to know things--all kinds of things-- just to know them. Why, how, where, who?
2. Challenge. Curious people like to identify and challenge the assumptions behind ideas, proposals, problems, beliefs, and statements. Many assumptions, of course, turn out to be quite necessary and solid, but many others have been assumed unnecessarily, and in breaking out of those assumptions often comes a new idea, a new path, a new solution.
3. Constructive discontent. This is not a whining, griping kind of discontent, but the ability to see a need for improvement and to propose a method of making that improvement. Constructive discontent is a positive, enthusiastic discontent.
4. A belief that most problems are opportunities and can be solved. By faith at first and by experience later on, the creative thinker believes that something can always be done to eliminate or help alleviate almost every problem.
5. The ability to suspend judgment and criticism. Many new ideas, because they are new and unfamiliar, seem strange, odd, bizarre, even repulsive (do I eat beef with its high moral, ethical, and environmental costs or do I start catching and eating grasshoppers?).
The first rule of brainstorming is to suspend judgment so that your idea-generating powers will be free to create without the restraint of fear or criticism. You can always go back later and examine--as critically as you want--what you have thought of.
6. Seeing the good in the bad. Creative thinkers, when faced with poor solutions, don't cast them away. Instead, they ask, "What's good about it?" because there may be something useful even in the worst ideas.
7. Problems lead to improvements. The attitude of constructive discontent searches for problems and possible areas of improvement, but many times problems arrive on their own. But such unexpected and perhaps unwanted problems are not necessarily bad, because they often permit solutions that leave the world better than before the problem arose.
8. A problem can also be a solution. A fact that one person describes as a problem can sometimes be a solution for someone else.
9. Problems are interesting and emotionally acceptable. Many people don't want to admit that a problem exists--with their car, their spouse, their child, their job, their house, whatever. As a result, often the problem persists and drives them crazy or it exacerbates into a crisis and then it hits the fan!

Characteristics of the Creative Person

• curious
• seeks opportunities in problems
• enjoys challenge
• optimistic
• able to suspend judgment
• comfortable with imagination
• sees problems as opportunities
• sees problems as interesting
• problems are emotionally acceptable
• challenges assumptions
• doesn't give up easily: perseveres, works hard

Hunter gatherer diet and trailer trash

We were invited to attend a costume party last night whose theme was "white trash or trailer trash." I was at a loss about what to wear, what a trailer trash costume would look like. I was raised in poverty, no lights, no indoor running water or plumbing for much of my childhood, but I never lived in a trailer. My sister, before she died at the age of 26, lived in a single wide trailer in Gallup New Mexico. And when I was in the army we lived off-post in Lampassas Texas where almost all dwellings and most of the businesses and government offices were in some sort of trailer. We lived in one of the few duplexes in town: a roach infested, stifling hot one bedroom that in hindsight might have been considered upper-class! I'd come a long way from our waterless, utility free houses on the ranch that didn't have roaches and were kept clean to a rodent infested upper-class abode in Texas. (Maybe they should secede from the union)  It was the first time I had ever been upper-class. The Post Office, Social Security, City Mayor, and even the police station (including the jail) were in some sort of trailer.

Some of the lifelong residents built porches on the sides of their trailers and some even put a pitched roof over the entire mess. Those more affluent citizens, presumably the Mayor, Chief of Police, the woman who ran the XXX movie business, all lived in trailers plopped rather haphazardly on a plot of land. (the XXX movie house was a trailer with an extension built towards the back to cover--presumably--the screen) Most, residents however, lived in trailer parks. Each trailer was parked within a few feet of its neighbor. There was enough room between trailers to park a vehicle, usually a pickup truck. Most had a small patch of lawn--less that 100 sq. ft.--and all had some sort of plastic lawn gnome, flamingo, or wishing well in the center of the lawn. The towing frame stuck out of the front of each of them and many had not bothered to skirt the trailer. Dogs and cats, children used the undersides as play areas with trails worn around and behind the tires and axles that had never been removed after the trailer was "installed."  An occasional rattlesnake or copperhead would crawl out of the thickets of brush surrounding the parks and shade-up in the cool and dark undersides of those trailers. At night centipedes as long as the span of a large hand and scorpions stalked crickets and roaches that took refuge in piles of trash stockpiled under the trailers. Layered habitat.

I looked up trailer trash on Wikipedia but other than stereotypes it wasn't helpful.  When I looked up white trash it was more helpful. It even included a reference from Harriet Beechers Stowe's work. The term came into common usage in the south in the 1830's as a term used by black slaves to describe white servants and share croppers. It's hard to imagine that there would be a perceived social order below slaves but apparently "white trash" fit that bill.

So what to wear? I thought about a relative who had purchased my sisters trailer that had been standing empty for several years after her death. My relative and his wife lived in it for a two or three years. When they got the trailer it was in good shape, well tended both inside and out. At the end of three years the trailer was trashed. Holes had been punched in walls, the floor around the toilets was rotting, windows were broken and patched with plastic, none of the interior doors would open and close. Trailer trash? White trash? I suppose even though he had all of his teeth and dressed in clean clothing.

So where to turn for costume guidance  for the trailer trash themed party? I'm missing a couple of teeth that a horse kicked loose and that a very expensive oral surgeon extracted but they are/were at the rear of my jaw, not strategically and stereotypically missing in the front. How could I get a gap in my front teeth? Finally I wore the jeans that I usually mow the lawn in, the pants that I wear when I'm plumbing, or doing dirty chores around the house or farm. They have both knees ripped out and have dried plumbing glue and paint stuck permanently all over. And I wore a torn work shirt, a ball cap, and a pair of work shoes that my new pup has chewed from lace-ups into clogs.

When we got to the party it turned out it wasn't as much a costume party as it was a come-as-you-are. Many of the guests hadn't changed clothing for several days. They weren't faking! They didn't have to pretend.
 Almost all of them came with a well worn beer-can sleeve (a invention that wraps your beer can in foam to keep it cool), cigarettes, ball caps. Most of the beer-can sleeves were preloaded with a beer already being kept cool when they arrived.The host had cases of cold beer in coolers and beer on tap from a keg housed inside of a refrigerator. "Wow, wheredjewgitthet fridge? someone asked?  "We need one of them for our back yard," the man told his wife. Both had tooth gaps. I was jealous. "I madeit," the host said.

What does this have to do with the hunter-gatherer diet? I will discuss the diet in depth in a later posting but basically some s__t-for-brains has decided that paleolithic man ate mostly protein at a ration of 2:1 protein over carbohydrates. Because most at the party were drinking lite beer their carb consumption was down. All dove into the beeny-weeny hors d'oeuvres, and other fried meats like a pack of hyenas. There was even some under-the-breath growling. Nothing was wasted except the salad we brought. I went back into the kitchen after and all of the food bowls (except the salad bowl) looked like they had been licked clean. A few party goers hung around the table wiping out smudges of grease with a finger, licking it clean, wiping any residue on their finger on their jeans or shorts, and then chasing the snack with a slug of beer."Them beeny-weenies was suregood," someone said.

When the host and guests started jumping into the pool it was time to leave. The lemming-like plunge was started by someone bellowing: "geterdun!" Non swimmers were dragged out and left flopping on the lawn. Other "dippers" were comparing the chilled nipple effect in what could have been suggestive of the scientific method.

I forgot to mention that the party was at a home (not a trailer within ten miles), in an upper-class neighborhood funded by old Utah money which suggests (scientifically) that being trailer trash is not necessarily based on an economic scale.  Indeed the "evidence" suggests that trailer trash behavior may be genetic.

Get rich quick

Want to get rich quick? Are you willing to lie, scheme, and take bribes, trade your soul? Are you able to keep a straight face when you manipulate tax laws and tax regulations to favor you and your  rich friends? Does not having to be held accountable for your actions ring your endorphin switch? Then run for Congress!
http://www.rollcall.com/50richest/the-50-richest-members-of-congress-112th.html

Before you start pointing fingers understand that 7 of the top 10 most richest are Democrats. The only redeeming fact is that of the top 50 only 19 Democrats make the list. 

Things I've seen along the road

When you ride a bicycle, whether there is a bike lane or not, the right edge of the road, both on the road surface and in the ditch, are where discarded things collect: metal, plastic, wood, and things decomposing. It is in that section between black top and gravel, shrubs, are where  trash, cast off or lost clothing, and unclaimed  humans settle blown in by the wind.

I've seen:

Plastic gas cans,
empty jugs for oil, antifreeze, and transmission fluid,
juice, cheap vodka, energy drinks;
plastic wrap and diaper covers;
plastic pants, plastic rain coats, a purple plastic belt ;
a plastic grill from a Subaru with a stick driven through it;
and plastic bags flying like windsocks
in the dark forests of the northwest
or waving from the spines
of cholla cactus--next to the remains of a desiccated collared lizard impaled
and left to cure by a bird--on the over-grazed government lands in New Mexico.

There is wood:
dimension lumber: 2x4s, planks, a 10inch wide beam maybe 16 ft long;
plywood sheets, a square of cedar shakes;
and logs spilled from logging trucks,
some smashed through standing trees
others plowing divots of black earth,
reasserting P=MV of classic mechanics;
and a stick rammed thru the plastic grill of a Subaru.

If all the metal I have seen were recycled we could re build the Titanic.
There was a metal beam (see P=MV above);
a roll of copper wire;
and auto parts: mufflers, tailpipes, fenders,
springs, the burned hull of a semi truck,
a chrome fender wrapped around the base of a fir tree;
and lots of screws and nuts: wing nuts, lug nuts, square nuts, hexagonal nuts,
locking nuts and one nut (with a long beard) who should have remained locked up.

Clothing like ball caps, socks, shirts, skirts, underwear, and
the waist band of a pair of jeans with a purple belt still cinched.
Tennis shoes, running shoes, logging boots, cowboy boots, ballet slippers, clogs,
none paired, presumably lost by a man called "Peg leg Slim?"

Live and dead animals,

all families represented, mammalian, reptilian, avian, insects, and many genera of insects
perhaps even one or two that might have been the last of a hitherto undiscovered species,
one salmon miles from the ocean,
and a dead moose (no auto parts nearby).
No dead humans--even at the tree with the fender wrapped around its trunk--but some
that were like the walking dead,
a man with a long beard, who yelled skyward and gesticulated with his arms and hands, his fingers wiggled independent like soon to hatch snakes in opaque white tubes,
and a teen girl who pedaled past me crying.

There are miscellanea
like combs, a hair piece,
a ripped sleeping bag (that I checked for human remains),
tie-down straps, bungee cords, rope,
a freshly branded calf,
tires, old and new, one still mounted on a rim,
car and truck axles, 
hitch hikers,
and gnats, flies, mosquitoes, that are not a problem until you're pedaling uphill.



Future archeologists or anthropologist will sift through this accumulation of junk and then after, in the lab, writing up their notes, have an orgasm describing such things as religious artifacts, language, signs that we believed in reincarnation.

Looking for Love in all the wrong places

Warren Jeffs, polygamist leader, prophet, pedophile, was found guilty, in Texas, of sex with underage people and of arranging marriages between other horny older Fundamentalists men and underage girls. Next, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, he may be tried in Utah, presumably for many of the same things. Texas gave him life in prison. All pedophiles should be given life. Statistically they do not respond well to "rehabilitation" and most, soon after release from the poky, start molesting children again. So, why release them if there is a high risk of "relapse" and recidivism? Why spend the money, especially given today's economy, to try them again and again? Every time they get out many just hurt more kids. Keep-em I say!!  And who knows, maybe Jeffs will find love in the Texas prison system!

I grew up around polygamists in southwestern Colorado. They farmed and ranched just north of the New Mexico/Colorado border along the La Plata River. I didn't know they were poligs until after I got out of the army. My grandfather and I were at a horse sale at the local livestock sale ring south of Durango. One of my high school friends from the small town of poligs  introduced me to his wife. A few weeks later, as I opened the door to go into the bank, he came out of the other door, with another woman! What do you say?
"Hey, A.J." he said. "How you been? Did you guys buy that grulla dun horse? Let me introduce you to my wife Pauline."
I fumbled through the introduction trying hard to keep my poker face on. That face had made me money over time playing poker in the back room at the aforementioned livestock ring but it failed me this day.
Pauline put her hand on my arm (to comfort me? reduce my anxiety?) and looked at her husband and said: "I thought you said he knew we practiced plural marriage?"
Both laughed. He said "I thought you (me) knew we were polygamists? My dad had three wives."
I could remember the clusters of trailers and small frame houses in the small town, where  I had spent many overnights with this friend and others when I was in high school. I just thought that the other women were aunts and all of the kids running around were cousins. After all, in our economy at the time, it wasn't unusual for the men to travel away from home for weeks at a time to make money. My own family practiced this, as did I,  usually working in the hard rock mines or following construction projects across the west.

Since moving to Utah I've met even more polygamists. I don't know how many poygamist men I know.
But I can count the number of polygamist women I know on the span of two hands. They're invisible.The women I've met are absent emotionally and physically. I know polygamists who are county commissioners, a couple of legislators, and others from all professions: attorneys, farmers, construction workers, IT specialists, cops, etc. One older rancher I knew, a member of a militant polygamist sect--Kingstons--which owns  land and businesses in Utah and five other states, told me: "I'm trying to beat Brother Brigham's record before I die! I'm marrying my 29th wife next Friday." He didn't live to beat the record because BY had dozens of wives. The girl, that Merlin Kingston the rancher I knew married,  was fourteen. The old guy died the afternoon of his "wedding", hopefully before he had ruined her life. The Kingstons own many businesses that many of us have unwittingly patronized, adding to the Kingston's wealth--conservatively put at 170 million!
Some figures suggest that there are up to 20,000 practicing polygamists in Utah alone. Who really knows. The Utah border is haven for colonies. The most famous town being Hillsdale in south-central Utah--home of Warren Jeffs before he started living in jail--on the Arizona line. But polygamists are every where in Utah and in the surrounding states. They tend to keep to themselves so few people realize that the oddly dressed women who live in a cluster of houses at the end of a cul de sac in many Salt Lake County neighborhoods are sister wives.

Love seems to come in strange ways. I'm OK with polygamy (no, I'm not advertising to become one!) as long as the children aren't hurt. But how can a secluded life and strict fundamentalism not hurt a child not even counting the many alleged victims of child marriage that occur?
For Warren Jeffs love will be in the form of a "room mate" who shares his cell in a Texas prison. The only advice I have for Jeffs is: if you relax. . . . . . . .! May you live long, may you become a plural prison wife yourself.

Riding my bicycle seems to bring clarity to my mind, which is odd because I am seriously ADHD. At the best there are hundreds of unexplored strings of stimulus trying to be processed at the same time inside my head. I could find more peace if I stood on one of the north south runways at Salt Lake International. The often overwhelming noise from competing ideas, things I glimpse (deer hiding in brush along some of our busiest streets, a rare bird, an odd human, out of the corner of my eye, a totally crazy driver talking on the cell phone (or texting) and trying to drive without seeming intoxicated), sounds like the noise of Victoria Falls.
But riding in traffic makes me focus. This is helpful especially since Salt Lake City, in a recent Gallup Poll, was ranked as the sixth worst city to drive in!! If we could design a car specifically for SLC it would look as follows:

• the steering wheel would have ergonomically correct slots for your knees so that when you use them to steer, while you're eating, texting, putting on make-up, or picking your nose and then gloating about your trophy (yes I saw you lady, you gorgeous thirty something blond creature, the one driving the BMW Porsche-want-to-be sports car down Highland Drive)  your knees would not slide on the steering wheel and you would at least have some control.
• No signal lights or the switch bar (which if you're curious is on the left side of the steering column on most cars) inside the car. While it wouldn't save much in the way of weight, wouldn't give you better gas mileage, or increase your speed when you run a red light, it would be less (broken glass, plastic, car parts, etc) for the road crew to clean up after you t-bone someone in the intersection. And you'd have to find another place to hang your little scented tree. 
• It would have a foldout tray across the center of the steering wheel to hold your makeup, hamburger, etc. The tray would be designed with a gyro to keep it level. The gyro (A gyro or gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of conservation of angular momentum ) should never be confused with a gyro. If you drive, like I think you do, you need a better gyro inside your head while your noshing on a gyro. The simplify even further--just in case a legislator or Congressperson reads this--the gyroscope was invented by the Germans and the gyro was presumably first served up by the Greeks. One keeps you somewhat stable the other can give you heartburn. 
• The car would have a sign that flashes on automatically: when you turn right out of the left turn lane (or left out of the right turn lane), run a red light, or drive down the road like a drunk weaving from side to side while texting, thereby cutting off semi-trucks, bicyclists, joggers pushing their kids in strollers. The sign would say in brightly flashing neon: "Caution this aggressive, moronic, and seriously distracted  driver's head is stuck way up where the sun don't shine! Tee Hee! My Bad!!"
• And for bicyclists, joggers (with or without strollers), and cars approaching an intersection with the green light in their favor, every car would have a klaxon horn that would blare at 200 decibels when a distracted driver was coming up from behind or approaching an intersection: "Watch out dumb-ass approaching!" Or maybe a device that sends a signal to DMV every time a dumb-ass runs a red light, cuts off any of the above, or starts to do the texting weave that would keep track. After two or three violations DMV would take away their license and make them take the bus or ride a bike to work for an year! The car would also be outfitted with an alarm that would alert the cops if the dumb-ass driver got back in the car while under suspension. Perhaps the car's engine would immediately seize.

In spite of crazy drivers, potholes the size of small cars, trash and gravel pushed into the bike lane by construction and the endless digging up of utilities in the shoulder of most roads, I find riding my bicycle fun and relaxing. I somehow blots out all of the competing thoughts, noises (and voices), scents, anxieties and I'm more aware of myself, am better able to work on the issues I have left to fix, and I'm even more aware of crazy drivers coming up behind me.
But be forewarned: If I'm hit by someone who is talking on a cell phone, texting or otherwise distracted I have instructed my family to slap you with a law suit that would make it impossible for you to ever have children or drive again.

Surviving the Tea Party

I would like to think that the Tea Party is like a festered blister and if properly treated--not enabled--it will shrink and go away after time. If the Republicans find themselves held hostage by the TP it is their fault.
The TP says (from their web site:http://theteaparty.net )

"The Tea Party movement is a grassroots movement of millions of like-minded Americans from all backgrounds and political parties. Tea Party members share similar core principles supporting the United States Constitution as the Founders intended, such as:

•  Limited federal government
•  Individual freedoms
•  Personal responsibility
•  Free markets
•  Returning political power to the states and the people

As a movement, The Tea Party is not a political party nor is looking to form a third political party any time soon. The Tea Party movement, is instead, about reforming all political parties and government so that the core principles of our Founding Fathers become, once again, the foundation upon which America stands."

But. . . . . .! 

I agree with the Founding Fathers  who (Thomas Jefferson) strongly recommended limited government

(not all of them agreed to this principle)

.  However, if you read the writing of several of these men they did not necessarily favor semi-autonomous states. Instead they strongly favored the idea of individual states that could manage certain needs of the citizens while at the same time presenting a strong united front: thus the Name The United States. Limited government had it's place in a simple world of thirteen states and a population of about 3 million people. The first census (1790) reported a population of: 3,348, 458 (in the thirteen original states) which did not include blacks, Native Americans, and depending on who was taking the census and where, women.This figure is just slightly less than the 2010 Census that reported about 3.8 million people inside the city limits of Los Angeles CA. Presumably this figure did include those excluded in the first census in 1790. 

Our population is close to 300 million and many of the fifty states have proven that they can not manage a broad spectrum of programs. Some of these states are very close to default. Government can be "fixed" as I've written in other blog entries. But the words efficiency and effectiveness do not form a nice tight package., Indeed they do not belong in the same package. Government and businesses centralize for efficiency and decentralize for effectiveness. The idea that some of the Founding Fathers had was that the federal government would manage the larger pieces of government to more efficiently distribute funding and support and that the individual states would manage these programs for effectiveness, because application of the funds would be closer to where individual needs reside. 

The current opportunity for efficiency and effectiveness in government is to close the holes I've written about that bleed national programs so badly that when the anemic flows do reach the states (that further bleed these programs) there is not enough to meet the needs of all of those people that need the help. 

Individual freedoms are nice to talk about but given the core question in Zero Sum--what is in my best interest--impossible to implement at least in a broad sense. Again it is the issue of a huge population. Much of what we do on a daily basis must have some regulation. How much is to much? That indeed is the question. 

I readily and wholeheartedly  agree with the idea of personal responsibility but again given zero sum many people do not have the same definition of responsibility that I have. As a consequence my taxes and insurance premiums (to name just a couple) are higher that they should be. In my world I would say: you can choose not to wear your seat belt or ride your bicycle without a helmet, but if you get killed not following these concepts (one a law and the other a strong suggestion) then I do not want to be penalized for your stupidity and poor choices. I do not want to be charged "my share" of your emergency room expenses. Let that burden be placed on you and your family. Would the TP support this? Probably until one of them had to pay their own way and then they would want shared liability!! What about abortion or gay marriage? Does a woman have the right to choose in the TP world? I don't think so!!! Shared costs, liability and responsibility form the core values of socialism! Oh my!

The concept of free market has always been a myth! IF the market and business were not controlled by just a few people (globally) it would work quite well. It can and does work at a local level but that is why you pay more for organic carrots at the farmers market than you do at the local natural food store or the chain grocery.

The TP stands for all of these things but only within certain sideboards. Again does it include the rights of individual Americans to make all of their own choices even if they ensure society that they will accept all costs and personal responsibility? NO! The world that the TP promotes is an idealistic picture of what might have worked in the thirteen original colonies but only for a while. Big government sucks and is very inefficient at best but it does try to manage zero sum in the interests of the people. 

.

First aid kit when friends are in conflict

Conflict is a growth industry for mediators like myself. It's sad that I can say it's a growth industry! I would love to work myself out of a job. Yet the growth of conflict is, in my view, directly proportional to the growth in stress caused by many issues.
But what do you do when friends get into conflict with a high potential to ruin their relationship? What do you say to them?
I have a couple of friends who have been building critical mass in their relationship for years. The fuze has lately been lit! Ultimatums and demands have been made and emotional walls that were already under construction have been finished and fortified, and the parties are in the process of enlisting their friends. This is natural. We go to our trusted friends for support. Yet, what we, as the friend must remember, is that we aren't getting both sides of the story. We are getting one person's "truth" which will look significantly different than the "truth" the other person is telling. Whose side do we choose? Logically we would say: "I want to remain neutral," but if one of the parties has approached us or if we like one of them better we will subconsciously weigh in on their side.
Conflict is a contagious disease. If we are recruited (which we may not realize that we've been recruited) we react to the stress of the conflict by sharing it with someone we love. In a way, we are recruiting them into the fray! The disease can infect our personal relationship with our loved one very easily.

When I am mediating conflict I ask both parties to share (briefly) their story. Then I tell them that the past is non-negotiable because it can not be changed. We can, at best, hope to survive the present and negotiate an agreement to settle the conflict. An agreement does not assign blame, it does not pick a side, it does not make judgements. It simply creates a future condition that the parties agree will manage their relationship.

I'm trying to remain neutral in the conflict my friends are in. I definitely do not have both sides of the story and what I do know I've gathered from my historic interaction with them and what I've been told second hand. So, how will I survive their conflict? How will I prevent their conflict from infecting my relationship with my partner? I told my partner that I wanted to remain as neutral as I could be. I said I didn't have enough facts to weigh in, and I told her that the "facts" she was getting were heavily weighed and one-sided. I was careful to explain enlistment, "absolute truth" and other conflict traps. Then I told her that I saw my role as that of a listener, not for my friends but of her. If our friend's conflict was hurting my partner I promised I would listen to Her Fears, that I would hold her close, that I would gently but firmly not pick sides, and that the only relationship I would work hard to save would be ours.

Don't ride your bicycle when you're pissed at Congress

All of this past week I've been so angry at Congress and the President--re: the debt limit--that I've almost been hit or have almost hit a car several times. It might have been safer had I been riding and talking or texting on a cell phone. I am not only distracted I'm, at times, shaking with rage. And my rage is not just aimed at leaders in D.C., some or much of it is aimed at we citizens.
We lack knowledge of how our government works and we lack the courage to step up and change it. Clearly both parties are compromised by big business interests (the Democrats sleep on the left side of the bed, the Republicans on the right and the whore, big business, sleeps between them), lobby groups, and extremists organizations--tea party--who hide behind "we the people" while they take pictures of politicians being jerked off by the "whore."
One of my mentors, Fred Winkler, often used a bell curve as a metaphor. I have, since, likewise used it. The two parties and their various masters and sycophants occupy the tails of the curve of normal distribution. They are walled off by the money poured at them by special interests. Ironically, the tea party--mostly loud-mouthed, working class people, who see a black President as an opportunity to practice more overt racism--do not understand that the only reason Congress is listening is that the noise coming from the extreme right doesn't conflict with the goals of big business---yet!  When the Republican party doesn't find the tea party rhetoric supportive they will drop the tea party like a dose of the clap!
Citizens--the bulge in the curve of normal distribution--give tacit approval to political shenanigans because most of them are  busy making the mortgage payment, worrying about college for their kids, and they do not understand the power that the mass at the people in the middle of the curve have. I don't know if politicians have ever really been honest and this is not the first time in our history that leaders have clearly demonstrated that they could care less about our needs and are instead openly focused on the profit margin of their masters and posturing for power.
But we are the problem. We have put up with this ever increasing slide towards chaos, because we have  misapplied trust, we practice intellectual sloth, and operate inside of a protective shell of seeming indifference. However, there is opportunity in the discord and chaos!!

What would happen if like minded if people with the following agenda got together to find ways to get heard, make change?
 --were not pointing fingers at the other side;
--were interested in continued involvment;
--wanted to long-term solutions for the woes of our country;
--were willing to put aside party politics;
--were willing to have dialogue without discord;
--were willing to put aside special interests in the name of solving the monster problems of the country--Environment, debt, gov waste, bloated government, taxes,
What would happen if these people looked for opportunities and then found people to run for office who would agree to:
four terms for representatives and two for senators
not take money or favors from PACs, Lobbyists, or special interests
would regularly check back with the voters--regardless of party affiliation--to both inform and be informed
would not engage in mud-slinging

Wow! Maybe I should check myself into a clinic and get my urine checked!!

Saying NO again

I’ve decided that it is time I became politically active. The current impasse in D.C. has created ample opportunities for change. First action: to the anti-family values, pro business, extremist Republicans and the ineffective, pro-business, frozen-in-the--headlights Democrats I’m saying: NO to your lack of leadership and insensitivity to the needs of the people; NO to your inability to compromise in the long-term interests of the country; NO to your personal agenda fueled and driven by corporate interests; NO to holding our children’s futures hostage with your self-aggrandizing posturing; and NO to your mean-spirited, nasty, mealy-mouthed rhetoric. Frankly if a child were exposed to this kind of environment in school it would be reported that he/she were being bullied. Second action: I am taking the opportunity to say to all sitting politicians: I will vote NO to your continued service by voting or writing-in someone else. And to those aspiring to gain political office, be advised: walk the talk or you also will lose my vote. Third action: although I’m only one voice, one vote, I do have a couple of friends and they also have a couple of friends and none of us are very happy with you.

Bicycle Zen

I don't know if the thinking and meditation I do when I'm riding my bicycle is zen. What ever it is I get a certain euphoria, a clarity of thinking that I struggle to reach normally. The irony is that when riding I'm probably processing way more information than when I'm walking: cars being driven by people texting, cars not stopping at stop signs or ignoring red lights, pedestrians, dogs, small children darting into the street. While riding I know the weather, the smell of flowers by the season, the songs of birds. The sticky-sweet scent of Tamarisk and Russian Olive in the spring--although they are pernicious invaders of critical wetlands, riparian areas, stream and river banks-- is almost overpowering. It is like hitting a wall of scent, like riding through a swarm of sweet-smelling invisible gnats. I sniff my riding jersey when I get home to see if particles of scent, pollen, have stuck to it.
In the spring the calls of male quail looking for love boom from shrubs and conifers. The hens dart into road-ways, pause, and then when they know you've committed to a route around them, they throw a head-fake and dart back into your path. I've never hit one but I've scared feathers off of a few. I've scared the quack out of ducks waddling out onto the road, paced a coyote pup running through the grass along a highway in Washington state,stared into the eyes of a hawk as it perched on a fence post with a mouse in its talon. I saw him dive into the tall grass and emerge with his prey. He watched me pedal by and then flew.

In Idaho, I rode my bicycle by a creek where someone was fishing. His form--fly fisher persons are sticklers on form--was impeccable, a model of style and efficiency. The way he mended line was graceful and rhythmic. Fish rose to hit his fly but as far as I could see his only flaw was that he missed each strike. He didn't hook-up once while I was watching. He finally noticed me when he was changing flies.
"Great day for a ride," he said.
"Yup," I said. "It's also a great day for fishing."
"The fish are really rising," he said.
"You've had a lot of strikes," I said. "But you've not hooked a single fish."
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
"What fly are you using?" I asked.
"Several, but I've gotten the most attention from a double renegade I've trimmed to look like a nymph,"
I got off of my bike and walked through the grass and weeds along the creek. He sloshed through the water to the stream-edge. The man showed me his open fly box. There were dozens of flies in  various sizes and styles: wet flies, dry flies, streamers, nymphs. All of the hooks had been clipped off.
I held up a hopper and said: "What's up with no hooks?"
He smiled, took off his hat and said:"I don't fish to catch anything. I only fish to see if I can get them to hit any fly I've chosen."
I smiled back and handed back his hopper fly. "I think I better get back on the road," I said.
As I rode away I thought about the number of times I had gone fishing and not caught one fish. I remembered the feeling of contentment and peace. It wasn't the catching it was the challenge of trying. Biking isn't the miles its the quality of thinking I experience.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance

May 21st came and went. Not even one small tremor. From the Associated Press: "It's still May 21, and god's going to bring it," said Family Radio's special-projects coordinator, Michael Garcia, who spent Saturday morning praying and drinking two last cups of coffee with his wife at home in Alameda California. (What? No coffee in heaven? Is it true that the Mormons also own heaven?)

It is, in some small way, the end of the world for some if not many of Reverend Camping's followers. It has been reported that some quit their jobs, gave away all that they owned, and waited and waited for the rapture. Having put all of their faith in yet another con-man is sad. An investment of faith in anything is a huge investment. It puts one in a highly vulnerable position. In a way it is like putting all of your poker chips on the don't pass line on a craps table. If you win, you might win big but if you lose you have nothing including your dignity and self-esteem. Losing trust is losing big. Each of us has put our trust in someone who has taken advantage of the situation. People say they will do something and not do it. Some just walk away with your investment of trust like it was owed to them.  Often these types of people do not look at your circumstances, do not try to understand, and only think about what's in it for them. The are the poster child for Zero Sum. It is these people who manifest Machiavellian indifference to anything outside of their own existence.These people make great salesmen. When they become leaders in an organization they lead with fear and intimidation. This behavior leaks out into their family lives and into their friendships. Ultimately I think many of them die lonely and bitter.

The old saying: never go into business with someone in your family could also be re-worded to say: never go into business with someone who professes to by your friend, especially if you've observed these characteristics in them. If you do go into business with them prepare to be treated poorly especially if you disagree with them. It is especially egregious if it is someone you've known and trusted for some time.

So Camping's followers must feel seriously betrayed today. They woke up this morning with their emotions severely bruised, their dreams shattered, their pockets empty.  I detest the Machiavellian Camping's of the world, and although I have been ridiculing the idea of the rapture I do feel sorry for those people who woke up this morning with someone they thought was their friend having betrayed their trust. I've never bet on the god these people were betting on. I have, however been duped because I trusted someone's word.
So far betting on the existence or non-existence of a supreme being has been a bust for me. So I chose not to follow either school of thought. Both are dogmatic, both are blessed with people with superior attitudes, and the small fish invariable get eaten by the big fish who said: "trust me."

But Camping also said that the earth would be destroyed by a massive fireball sometime in October. In the words of the immortal Gilda Radner: "If it ain't on f ing thing its another."

Have I missed the rapture?

Several 6p.m.'s in several time zones have come and gone on the 21st of May. That is the time and the day of the rapture as foretold by Reverend Camping in his latest prediction of the second coming. So, if the rapture started as predicted why didn't anyone notice? Were there so few people taken up in the time zones that have already hit or gone past the 6pm deadline that we didn't notice? If you subscribe to the notion of massive earthquakes around the Pacific Rim--as predicted by Camping--to warn of the rapture it would mean that the first rapture would have occurred in the Jukarta time zone (May 21st) while it was still May 20th in the western US. I didn't hear of anything but was it because there are more Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims in that time zone, whom I assume don't believe in the rapture? There have not been any major earthquakes, tsunamis, or hordes of people dressed in white being launched into space.

Reverend Camping (source MSNBC today) is worth give or take a few donations, 78 million American dollars. According to MSNBC this morning he is alleged to have said he would not be here after the 21st. He was insinuating, I think, that he would be raptured, but he was careful not to specify that the rapture was his departure vehicle. Could he have meant a one-way ticket to the Cayman Islands or some other tax-free country with out extradition? Or was he just joking? Will that sly old fox stay and while recomputing his figures encourage his followers to give up even more in donations? After all the road to Paradise is paved in gold.

I suppose another reason the rapture hasn't yet started is that he's American and we're such an egotistical people that we think the world revolves around us. (stick that in your pipe and smoke it Copernicus) So it could happen at 6 pm Pacific time which is 7 hours away. I was planning on going fishing today but changed my mind. I hope it turns out that this decision was not a mistake.

Riding in the rain; religion, the rapture, and zombies

The weather sucks. Now that I'm back in the bicycle saddle, and want to get into a regular training routine, it's been raining off and on for several days. Unless I'm caught in a rainstorm while out on a ride or I encounter rain on a long trip, I don't care to ride in the rain. I'm too old to be that gung-ho.
It looks like if I want to get a ride in before the Rapture--scheduled for tomorrow at 6p.m.--I will have to ride in the rain. The current prediction is for more rain until and through the 21st of May. The end of the world is getting a lot of press, most of it tongue-in-cheek. But it has traction. Of course, so does the zombie apocalypse. 
Other than getting born again, the christian rapture seems to require little more than maintaining the reborn feeling and of course paying a tithing. The Pentecostal church, I attended for a few years with my mother, seemed to suggest an unspoken assurance that if you were born again (and didn't back slide) all of the belief system required to support the Pentecostal position was automatically transferred to your soul. I assume it replaced all of the sin that was washed away when you repented.
After a couple of years of the torture of attending a church that used fear and guilt to promote change I started going to the Catholic church down the street. I waited until the parishioners in my mothers church were worked into the frenzy of the holy spirit (talking in tongues, jumping up and down, skipping down the aisle arms raised to heaven) then I snuck out and run to visit the Catholics. The priest said the mass in Latin and the congregation rose, sat, and nealt  on cue probably never understanding what was being said by the priest. In the background you could hear the whispered words and the clacking of rosary beads as old ladies wearing black mantillas said the rosary.
The church was dark, lit by huge candles and light let in through stained glass windows, and smelled of years of sweat, incense, and years of sins released in the confessional. I sat in the back pew among the late comers and, during the winter, bums coming in out of the weather. Compared to my mother's church, the Catholic church seemed peaceful unless you counted the various paintings, statues, and crosses depicting torture, political intrigue, and death on a cross, probably one of the most atrocious ways to practice the death sentence.
The priest noticed me coming in every Sunday and approached me to see if I was interested in converting. I don't think he made covert suggestions of intimacy later disclosed by the media as a pervasive undercurrent of child abuse. I didn't convert but it was in the Catholic church that I started thinking about the lack of divine intervention and consequently that there was either an indifferent god or he/she didn't really exist.
How did I come to this realization? It was Roberta's fault. She was two years older than me. Her family always sat in the second pew from the front. Roberta had matured early and, for their lunch money, she would show the seventh grade boys her boobs once a month on our bus. I wasn't in the seventh grade yet but I had heard the stories, had noticed her early development when we rode horseback together on her father's ranch, where I worked as a cowboy.
The revelation of a lack of divine caring came when I found out I could have the most lascivious thoughts about her boobs and nothing happened. This realization was solidified the day that I put my hand into the air and waved at heaven to "bring it!"
"Show me what you can do," I said. "Blast my brains out, right here in this church." In hindsight I was thinking: cauterize those nasty visions of Roberta's tits that sent shivers down my spine and into my pre-adolescencent crotch." Nada! Nothing happened except that the priest and the congregation, hearing my challenge, turned to look at me standing in the back row challenging god. Roberta smiled and waved. It was the last good thing I saw in any church.

But if/when the rapture doesn't happen tomorrow then I have to go back worrying about the coming zombie apocalypse.What happens if the two are combined? What happens when the people killed in the pre-rapture earthquakes and subsequent tsunami (s) come back to life as brain sucking zombies? But I'm ready. "Bring it on," I say. I've been stockpiling whiskey and some ammunition for years. I can survive for many years. I told my family to come to our house if the rapture happens.

So if tomorrow there is a massive earthquake (or several along the pacific rim as foretold) and I hear moaning and the shuffling of feet, be warned that I'm going to shoot first and ask for ID later.

P.S. Maybe I need a vacation! My brain needs cauterizing. Maybe I will take a bicycle ride in the rain and see if my world view and outlook change.

Riding again

I thought I would never ride my bicycle again. It has seemed like years since I put it away October 31st of last year, the day before my hip surgery. During my second post-op visit with the surgeon I asked him when I could get back on the bike.

"Do you ride in the winter?" he asked.
"I do but only when the roads are dry and it's in the high thirties or higher," I said.
"Think about it this way," he said. "the bones have not grown over the prosthesis and will not be finished growing for a few months. So, if you ride and fall in the next few months. . . . ."

So I didn't ride until last Thursday. The weather has been so strange and crappy that I wouldn't have been riding even if I had not had surgery. But the warm day was more than I could take. I've been driving my son Jake to meetings until his medical condition improves so I took my road bike with us. While he was in a meeting I road up and back the length of the Legacy Parkway bicycle path. It was wonderful. When I finished I felt high! It felt like that day in therapy when you finally see the light or that day when you know for sure that the anti-depressants have kicked-in.
I rode again Friday and today.  The weather is supposed to turn crappy again. Indeed, the wind is doing its best to blow the top soil from southern Utah, over Salt Lake, and on into Canada. I hope I can ride more this week, especially since the world will start to end next Saturday.

And the good news is that my hips haven't been hurting!! My butt on the other hand. . . . . .!

Live it up! May 21st is coming soon.

Saturday’s Salt Lake Tribune (May 14) has run another article about Harold Camping’s prediction that the world will end on May 21^st. According to the Trib Camping predicted that the world would end in 1994, but. . .  

“Uh, Reverend Camping,” Brother Tom said.

“Yes my son?” Said the Reverend.

“Uh, you preached that the world was ending last year, 1994, and, well, it’s January 1^st 1995,” Brother Tom said. “So, I didn’t pay my income tax for ’84 and I gave away all of my earthly possessions except my RV and now I’m living in it, I quit my job, my wife left me because I tried to get her to believe you as well, and, well, so Reverend what happened?”

“It was revealed to me that the math I used was flawed because I used someone else’s theorems. Then the correct formulas were reveled to me and I’ve been working on computing a new date.” The Reverend said. “Furthermore, it was also revealed to me that because He guided you to keep the RV you should use to go out amongst the heathen and spread His new message. Part of that task is to remind those you speak to that the Lord’s work is not cheap. Remind them that they need at least $2000 contributions to be deductible.”

So, Camping “took a closer look at his math” and after a complex algorithm that uses a set date for the Great Flood—4990 BC, author unknown—and then adds 7000 years to the date of the flood. But, the math still doesn’t work so he added a 1 for the missing year “0” and you get 2011 after you translate the number to the Hebrew calendar to the Gregorian (even the Catholic Church is split on the accuracy of this calendar) which results in May 21, 2011.

Scene: date December 31^st, 1 BCE. Location: mud wattle huts along the Thames River.

            “So tomorrow is the first year of the new year, but is that new year 1 CE?” he says. The man sits in the shade of the tree, picking nits from a child’s head. “It feels like there should be something in between.”

            “You moron! Of course there’s something missing but the Maya who actually codified the concept of 0, will not be discovered, exploited, and almost exterminated by the Spaniards for another 1500 years.” his wife says looking up from grinding corn. “Furthermore, getting other moron’s, like you, to donate all of their disposable income to some guy who claims to hear the voice of god, and thereby launching one of the most lucrative pyramid schemes ever invented, is about 200 years hence. That business model will be started by what they will call the One Holy Church. But others will follow because that scam will be very lucrative.” 

  

Camping owns and operates a 66 radio station empire called Family Radio Network. He’s 89 years old so rapture might be a good thing for him. I’m sure he’s made piles of money over the years. That is the business model followed by any company wanting to stay in business. But, when/if the rapture happens as foretold what happens to Camping’s bank accounts, his buried gold, stocks, and bonds? If he’s figured out a way to take it with him that advice would be worth trillions!

Perhaps converting cash to diamonds and stuffing them into a body cavity?

The end of the world has been predicted periodically for over 4000 years. The track record is poor unless you throw in various plagues, regime changes that includes the coming and going of the Greeks and Romans and other empires, hurricanes, Vesuvius, tsunami’s, and death ascribed to religious based or inspired human avarice and war. For the victims of these calamities the world certainly came to an abrupt end.

Raptured?

Only one way to know: become a religious fanatic who believes in physical reincarnation after death and an eternal life in heaven. Some, however, will discover that being a sanctimonious, holier than thou, and Sundays and holidays church member might discover that hell is more than a concept to scare people out of their disposable income.   

   

The world will end May 21st!!!

NPR Weekend Edition Saturday-- May 7, 2011 
The full text of the story as well as audio is available at the following link:
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136053462/is-the-end-nigh-well-know-soon-enough

On May 21, "starting in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone, there will be a great earthquake, such as has never been in the history of the Earth," he (Kevin Brown)  says. The true Christian believers — he hopes he's one of them — will be "raptured": They'll fly upward to heaven. And for the rest?
"It's just the horror of horror stories," he says, "and on top of all that, there's no more salvation at that point. And then the Bible says it will be 153 days later that the entire universe and planet Earth will be destroyed forever."

"starting in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone"  So the Pacific Rim spans (by my count) seven time zones. Whose 6pm do we use? Or will the the rapture happen like rolling thunder--those closest to the strike hear it first then. . .etc? It could mean that the rapture will happen as a phased event. So, if we assume that at 6pm Shanghai time they get their "great earthquake" and their true believers start to fly upwards to the gates, the belivers in Seoul will have to wait an hour which means that they should have felt the massive "great earthquake" and be scared shitless! And an earthquake of that size should produce a tsunami wave of monumental proportions. Bottom line: (1).  It doesn't sound like the Pearly Gates are large enough to handle the numbers of white-robed believers so they've phased the rapture. Bureaucracy in Heaven? (2).  The aforementioned tsunami will have reached the east side of the pacific rim well before its their turn on the west coast of the USA to be raptured. But the bible does say that dead or alive the good, the faithful, those born again, will be taken up. No worries!Even though a tsunami of that size will wash most people into the Great Basin Desert those raptured will just be a bit wet. The rest are going to be a bit bewildered.

I saw a bumper sticker that said something like: In case of rapture this car will be driver-less. Cool, but. . . people in Utah already drive like there isn't anyone in the drivers seat. Some use the middle turn lane as a passing lane and others (probably because they're texting) use the sidewalk as a slow lane.
And being raptured from a moving car begs the question: Unless the car has an open sun-roof, the raptured person has to go through a fairly hard roof. I hope they have a first aid station at the Pearly Gates. There are going to be quite a few people with lumps on their noggins.

Personally? I can assure you I will not be on the "get raptured list" unless I have a change of heart on the 20th. What will be interesting is those who assume they are on the rapture list--they pay their tithing, go to church weekly, etc--that are left behind! I've always wanted to believe at least in the Hell part of religion. I plan on having myself cremated just in case there is a hell so I'll be warmed up when I get down there. Once I'm there I want to apply for the job of gate keeper. I want to see the eyes of those sanctimonious, holier then tho, arrogant people when they pop through the gates and realize that they've actually been sent to the correct place. Now that realization would be true redemption. 
On a last note: If I'm wrong and Brian Haubert and Kevin Brown ( the two prognosticators) are correct I'm going to be pissed because I actually paid my income tax on time this year. It would be of interest that the story states that Haubert is unmarried and Browns family--wife and several kids--think he's a kook! Bummer dude!

So, last question: should those sure of rapture pack a light lunch?

Time flies

Paraphrasing Einstein liberally: time contracts or expands relevant to your viewpoint. For me it's been a few days since I last posted. It has been almost two months! In that time the moon has come and gone a couple of times and daylight savings time started again, evoking the annual argument with some family members: "Do we turn the clock forward or back?" And: "Will we be getting up an hour earlier or later?" This is a family who doesn't have the time to get involved in such time-wasting questions and arguments. Other questions: "Why doesn't Arizona and a couple of other states change? If it's 10 am PDST in L.A. what time is it in Phoenix?"
My response? Who ______ing cares?
But a lot has happened. I learned that Easter is as pagan as any other Christian belief.  First I find out that it's named after the anglo-saxon goddess Eostre. 
The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the 14th day of the first full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the northern hemisphere's vernal equinox.  Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on March 21 (even though the equinox occurs, astronomically speaking, on March 20 in most years). The date of Easter therefore varies between March 22 and April 25.
Gregorian Easter can fall on 35 possible dates—between March 22 and April 25 inclusive.^[52] It last fell on March 22 in 1818, and will not do so again until 2285. It fell on March 23 in 2008, but will not do so again until 2160. Easter last fell on the latest possible date, April 25, in 1943 and will next fall on that date in 2038. However, it fell on April 24, just one day before this latest possible date, in 2011 and will not do so again until 2095. The cycle of Easter dates repeats after exactly 5,700,000 years, with April 19 being the most common date, happening 220,400 times or 3.9%, compared to the median for all dates of 189,525 times or 3.3%. (Wikipedia)

And I paid my taxes again. And I again chose to pay them on the last day of tax season. I've thought about just not paying them and seeing what might happen. Prison I suppose. But think about it: three square meals, a bed, and whether you want it or not all the sex you could ever ask for. Then I thought: if I went to prison who would want to have their way with someone as old as I am? Reality check!  Prison is not  full of intellectuals who carefully consider consequences. Old, young, who cares! Sex are Sex. It's probably why sheep kill themselves when they find out they're going to have to do time in a human prison. (But this begs the question: why don't all sheep migrate out of Wyoming and Montana?) Vulnerable is the key. And if I followed the Christian mantra of: "it is better to give than receive." I'd still be screwed! Age not only fogs the memory, but it also conspires with gravity to make some body parts sag, some without hope of resurrection.

In a way it's like the following story about one of my kinsmen.
The Jewish man finally has to put his aging father into a care facility but given his genetic guilt he comes back in the next day to check on his father.
"So, how was your first night, dad?" the man asks.
"It vas vunderfull," the old guy said. "This morning I woke up with the woody going full blast. The young nurse sees it and jumps on it. I tell you my son, life is gute."
A few days later the man comes back in to see his father. The old guy is clearly depressed. He has a bandage on his head.
"My god," the man said. "What happened to your head dad?"
"Yesterday I got out of bed, got dizzy and fell forward on my head and my gown flew over my head. It knocked me out for a few minutes. When I regained my senses one of the orderlies was having his way with me. Oy Vey!"
"I'm sorry dad but I guess you just have to take the good with the bad."
"Vat good, vat bad! I get the erection every two years and I fall down three times a day!"

Just say NO

Elizabeth Taylor RIP. I liked her in a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff. 

But we are an obsessed culture; obsessed with icons that at most give us a momentary diversion from the daily grind, give us a pretend life to wish for in the hope that the reality of daily life might suddenly turn into eternal sunshine, rainbows without rain, and blankets of wildflowers in late spring that last forever. 

The country, and probably the globe, spent much of last week mourning Ms. Taylor. During that time several thousand more dead were found in Japan, and because of radiation issues, thousands more are dying without knowing that they are. Ordinary people, who want a different life in the middle-east, have died or been imprisoned as they fight for change. And the two wars that Obama should have shut down immediately continue to kill.

I’m not offering a plate of sour grapes, nor do I want to take away from Ms. Taylor's life or death, but instead of mourning one human’s passing we should celebrate that one human—Ms. Taylor—singlehandedly forced our collective conscience to recognize HIV-AIDS as a serious disease, to force our leaders to recognize that to ignore this disease was unconscionable, that the disease preys on all equally: poor, uneducated, rich, gay, straight.

In forcing us—especially our “leaders”—to look at the disease she was a driven person. She refused to give up, refused to hear the word no, refused to accept that apathy and prejudice were a family value.

It is this same attitude that we must use to take back our government, reshape our economy, develop a forum for civil dialogue, and say NO to extremists—the Tea Party (America’s Taliban) and the politicians who superficially embrace them--who would redesign our country into a society mired in contention, hate, and a severe loss of rights for those who disagree with their agenda.

Will Whacko Politics become Mainstream?

It has been a strange legislative season across the country. The Democrats in Wisconsin fled the state to avoid a show-down over the anti-union bill. It didn't make a difference. The Republicans re-wrote some floor rules and passed it anyway. Will the legislation stand up to legal scrutiny? Who knows. The Democrats allegedly ran off to Illinois. Why? I've been to that state. Other than hanging out in some of the great blues clubs in Chicago, if it had been me, I would have headed to a southern California beach or a ski resort in Colorado. Ronald Reagan was born and raised in Illinois which may give you some idea of my feeling for the place.  Lincoln, Grant, and Obama were living in the state when they became President. Reagan had the record for the most significant increases in national debt until the Bush dynasty got finished with us. In a ranking of Presidents who have lead the charge to increase our debt load since Eisenhower, all have been Republicans starting with Nixon, then Reagan, and finally the Bush dad and son.
Source: CBO Historical Budget Page and Whitehouse FY 2011 Budget - Table 7.1 Federal Debt at the End of Year

But I digress. I try hard not to pound on any one party, instead I try to shame and humiliate both major parties equally. Both groups bear responsibility for our ecologic, economic, and social erosion. Both parties are, after all, controlled by the same big businesses.

The legislative season in Utah this year was especially troubling. Our single party legislature, who pride themselves on family values, low taxes, and limited government finally came out of the political closet. They tried and or succeeded in doubling the food tax, moved to legalize concealed weapons in public schools, went after women's rights through the limitations put on abortion, brought back the silver and gold standard, made xenophobia legal, tried to get a sweet deal for developer friends by trying to sell off the state prison grounds, limited spending on drug prevention and treatment and increased spending for prisons, and enacted legislation that further hid what government did in our state. There were a multitude of other crazy ideas and Gary el Pendejo Herbert has so far signed everything that he could find in his in-basket. And they aren't finished. They have until midnight tonight to pass more egregious mayhem. Stay tuned buckaroos! Keep a hand on your wallet and wear body armor. And if you're a minority carry several forms of proof that you're an American.

Be careful what you pray for darling. . . .

I was very smug about passing through security at the airport Thursday morning without a second glance by TSA. But in some way I missed the attention I usually get, the "random selection" for further screening, "can we look inside your suitcase", where are you going, and the full enchilada. I should explain that the full enchilada starts in the queue waiting to pass through security when you're pulled out of line for an extra interview. Then, even though you don't beep, you're pulled out of line to have your suitcase explored, your shoes are inspected, and sometimes you're frisked. Back, post 9/11, you could get pulled out at the gate for a "random" pat down. Once, just after 9/11, in Denver, I was given the full enchilada starting at the ticket counter. So by the time I was "randomly" pulled out of line at the gate--I lost my A status on Southwest--I was getting annoyed. I was standing with my arms outstretched while a TSA agent looked into my shoes. (Can you imagine a worse job? You spend the day digging through people's soiled underwear and smelling sweaty shoes)

"I'm sorry sir," he said looking up. "These inspections are random."
I started to laugh.He looked at me bewildered.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh out loud," I said. "But if I could hit the Colorado Lottery with this kind of randomness I'd pay you a million dollars a shoe to re-lace them!"
He had a sense of humor because he didn't haul me into the back room to be flogged. Instead he softly said:"I could've used the money."

On my return trip last night I got the full enchilada. Everything was back to normal. I stepped through the machine which shrieked. "New hips," I explained.
The young man was soft spoken but firm. "Stand here," he said. He pointed at two yellow footprints printed on a piece of carpet. He put on rubber gloves and patted me down. But he explained how he was doing it and where he was doing it on my body in case I couldn't feel his groping hands. "I'm doing your buttocks," Now I'm doing the inside of your legs," "now I'm running my hand around your waist band," etc. Thankfully I don't have to wear adult diapers yet!

Testing the security risk of my new hips

Early this morning I flew to Las Vegas to meet another consultant on the Topoc Remediation Project. I've been working on this project since December of 2010 and he's been on it for a bit longer. The issue is an Erin Brokovitch Jr. Same issue--dumping of toxins that get into the aquifer--same company; different location. Topoc has a toxic plume of Chromium 6 in an aquifer that is about 300 or 400 meters from the Colorado River. CR 6 is lethal!
This case is not far enough along to report on and besides, even though it's a very serious environmental issue on the Colorado River, I really wanted to write about my first post-new hips airplane ride.

I thought I should get to the airport well before an hour prior to lift-off in case I got pulled out of line for the "full enchilada" security check. My flight was at 7 am, I got there at 545 and into the queue that would take me through the full body x-ray scan that Representative Chaffetz says invades his privacy. [what does he know?  He's the half brother of John Dukakis (ex actor)  and was the Utah Democratic co-chair in 1988 when his stepfather Michael Dukakis ran for president. Jason has since became a Republican won't talk about his past, and has been, prior to being voted in as Representative, the spokesperson for one of many multi-level marketing schemes that thrive in Utah County.] As I held my arms up and spread my legs inside of the x-ray capsule I wondered two things: Why does Jason protest so much (hiding something or,  maybe, almost nothing?) and who is the person looking at my naked ass on the screen? I really don't care. If they get a thrill out of my x-ray they need serious therapy!

I thought I would trip every alarm in the building when I stepped in to the machine. Because I've been profiled so often when I fly I thought maybe I should have come to the airport even earlier once I saw the long line extending down the hallway. The guy in front of me, who was indignant when they asked him to take off his belt, got my full body pat down and was led off to what I hope was just an interview and not a full body cavity search. After my x-rayI stood outside of the machine waiting patiently for TSA to direct me to the "full enchilada" station. When the TSA person growled at me to move along and pick up my belongings I felt confused and felt a keen sense of loss. No invasive pat down? No being pulled out of line and asked repeatedly what country I was from? No being asked humiliating questions?

So the only thing I can complain about are the morons who wear their day pack strapped to their back and forget that every time they turn in the aisle someone gets smacked by the pack. The other breed of morons are those who bring on a bag clearly to large to fit in the overhead bins but insist on cramming it in.

I would like to see my x-ray. I'd like to see how my prosthesis are doing. Has the bone grown over them like its supposed to?  Did the doctor really install titanium parts?  My hips are feeling better each day. Recovery from spinning takes less time and fewer Ibuprofen. I think my goal of being on my bicycle by the end of March may be reachable. Yes!!!

A Visit with my Therapist and other Doctors

"Old age is, so to speak, the sanctuary of ills: they all take refuge in it." Antiphanes

I read in a tongue-in-cheek editorial that: "Aging is like weight gain, it creeps up on you." Getting older is not analogous to gaining weight, because you can always lose weight! Age adds complications like a tree adds rings. The distant past seems recent until you do the math.  But I find the aging process to be fascinating in spite of the aches, pains, and more invasive and humiliating doctor's visits. After having my hips replaced I've felt younger, walked more upright, I'm less bow-legged, and I'm about an inch taller. The surgery and my recovery process was interesting but not nearly as interesting as what seems to have followed, the strange side effects, presumably from the anesthesia.

A Visit to My Therapist
"Sometimes, it seems like I can smell a wet campfire," I said. "You know that smell just after you pour water on a camp fire?"
My therapist looked at me warily. I think he had been wondering about me since I had the bout of temporary amnesia, just after my hip surgery. I exacerbated his unease when I jokingly asked  if all DSM manuals had cameras in the book spine. Now he makes sure I'm not between him and the office door.
"Where are you when it happens?"
"In the car, at a restaurant, the gym, even comes on when I'm laying awake in the middle of the night," I said.
"Have you been taking your meds?"
"Sure," I said. "Do you think I'm hallucinating?"
"You mean an olfactory hallucination?"
"And I've had a raspy throat and last week I had an inflamed larynx," I said.

He rubbed his eyes. My therapist looked like had aged in the hour we shared.  He suggested that I might want to see an ear,throat, nose specialist. I didn't tell my therapist that I already had an appointment, that I had been on-line looking up the symptoms for throat cancer, that in the night when I have my nightly anxiety attack, I was worried. And I didn't, nor would I ever, ask him who do therapist go see? Is is like in Lord of the Rings where a common wizard reports to a mid-level wizard, who then reports, presumable, to a higher authority?

Doctors must take a class in how to engage the patient in innocuous conversation while they tap, squeeze, look into various body openings, and collect samples of stools, urine, blood, spit, and other fluids and secretions.  It's an art form. "How do you stay fit?" the E/N/T doctor said. He was holding my nose open with what looked like Captain Hook's hook and peering into my nostril like a spelunker mapping a cave route.

I told him I rode a bicycle every chance I got. And I told him that I've been spinning two and three times a week plus my regular work out at my gym. "That's interesting," he said while he was greasing a fiber optic device and testing its focus.
I'm curious, I like learning something new every day. But even though the device was only about two or three millimeters in diameter it was making me uneasy.
"What's that for?" I asked pointing at the small tube.
He held my nostril open with the hook and squirted something into my nose that smelled and tasted like lizard bile.
"I'm going to run it into your nose and take a look at the inside of your larynx. Oh, I forgot to tell you that the spray smells and tastes awful. But it should numb everything all the way into your throat. Tilt your head back."he said.
It didn't hurt and was only a bit uncomfortable but it felt weird twisting around looking at the inside of my larynx.
I have acid reflux he told me. I'd had it for some time and it had caused some irritation of the larynx.
"Especially at night," he said. "It leaks out of your stomach and works its way up the esophagus."
"So, I don't have cancer?"
He told me that "we" would look down my throat again in three months to make sure. Then we talked about bicycles. He asked about my road trip last summer, where I started, how far I had ridden, was I by myself, was I going to do it again.
I think I will continue my road trip probably starting in late June. I want to ride the part through Glacier National Park.
"It helps keep you young," the Doctor said.