The Joys (Perils) of Detail

I'm reading a book (actually, skimming it) for a reading group I'm in. It's The Bible After Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age by John Collins. This is one of those highly technical books of which about 87.5% goes over my head. And the remaining 12.5% gets me really thinking!

I've read several particle physics books that had the same effect.

In this book, the author spends enormous amounts of time looking at how Bible scholars interpret the Bible. Suffice it to say, they argue about issues I didn't know existed. The primary focus is "Does my (your) agenda when reading the Bible provide sufficient bias that I (you) can never be sure that what you're reading or interpreting really means what (I) you think it means?"

If you find that last sentence confusing, welcome to The Bible After Babel!

But here is what got me thinking. As I begins to look at how beliefs affect my life (not just Bible interpretation) I can take two directions. I can focus on dissecting beliefs down to the smallest non-divisible parts and deciding if they are right or wrong.

Or I can begin zooming out, for lack of a better analogy, and looking at the outcomes in my life and how they may be generated by the beliefs I hold.

I've had experience with both. My exercise with organized religion consisted of a deeper and deeper analysis of what I believed, a constant struggle with how to determine the truth or error of those beliefs and finally wrestling with a number of techniques to "get it right." This focus on "rightness" was ultimately useless, painful and damaging to me and those around me.

It came to head in my marriage and in my relationships with my sons. I determined to find another way.

Over some time, and with help from many kind and patience souls, I did.

This approach was a "zoomed out" approach and the fundamental question was, "Are my beliefs creating the results that I want in my life?" In my case, at that time, the answer was a resounding "NO!"

This led to a ten year long process of learning how to look at the results I was getting in my life, whether I determined them to be good or bad, and then exploring the beliefs that lead to these results.

This was at times a terrifying quest. The bedrock beliefs and ideals that I had held and defended for years turned out to be extremely counter productive. As an example, the belief that there was a right way and a wrong way led me overlook all kinds of rotten behavior because the results of that behavior were deemed right by some religious authority. And conversely, behavior that had been deemed wrong or evil by those same authorities, frequently created results that led to my being more compassionate, caring and in integrity with myself and others.

Yoiks!

In my view, the beauty of this zoomed out approach are numerous and here are several.

First, my sense of self is not tied to any belief. I am free to explore other ways of thinking, feeling and experiencing life without guilt or fear.

Second, surprisingly, since one of the beliefs I've discovered to have great benefit in my life is to treat others as I would like to be treated. But truly embracing this belief, my moral compass seems far more finely tuned than I ever remember it being before. No longer do I have to consult some highly detailed rule set to determine my behaviour, I can simple ask myself the question, "How would I feel if someone did what I am considering to me?"

Third, in those moments when overwhelmed by some other influence (usually my sense of "rightness") , I violate the above principle, the question becomes, "How would I want someone to deal with it if what I did to this person what was done to me?" Then my apology is quick and sincere.

Finally, and this part is really interesting, by adopting this highly introspective and selfish approach (what feels the best to me), I end up offending and hurting people far less often than I used to. And my level of honest and integrity is much higher to boot! When it is necessary, I can use whatever tool I need to get outcome I want. However, most of the time, the tools I use are far softer and safer than the cruel, uncaring, manipulative tools I used to use.

Upon reflection, this is explanation is not complete. But it is a start.

Here, I guess, is a summary. Analyzing the results of my actions for their effect is a far better tool for living a fulfilled life than constantly referencing a set of rules.

Any comments?

Ya Don't Know Wether to Laugh or Cry?

It's happened again. Another high-profile evangelical has hit the skids. And, I don't know how to feel.

Haggard is apparently a very effective guy. He had James Dobson in his pocket (more on that in a sec) and conference called with the White House weekly. And he was for the environment but against gay marriage but hadn't opposed a civil union law.

And yet out of the gate he tries to save his butt with the "I didn't inhale" defense. I don't understand that approach. It certainly didn't work for Bill Clinton nor anyone else who's tried it.

I do feel sorry for the guy. I've had some personal 2X4's catch me square between the eyes, but then again, he had all the tools he needed to keep on the straight and narrow. But it appears he intentionally sidestepped the very important checks and balances that accountability provides.

But here is what really dings me. All those 14,000 parishioners and who knows how many thousands more that have been held to an impossibly high standard (at least it was impossible for Haggard) and have wrestled with guilt and shame. What about them?

And now back to Dobson. I understand defending a friend. But his initial defense was a knee-jerk accusation of "election politics by Democrats." Once he got the word on Haggard, that defense fell quickly by the wayside. I'm willing to bet we will never see a retraction on the accusation of election politics.

Here is what I don't get about Dobson, how many times can he get it complete wrong and still have any credibility with his followers?

Ok, enough rummaging in the mud.

Carolyn and I watched "What the Bleep Do We Know?" last night. What a fun breath of fresh air that was. I wasn't all that impressed with JZ channelling Ramtha, but Dr. Joe Dispenza was pretty impressive!

I highly recommend the movie. Parts of it are a little woo woo, but generally, the idea that "reality" is a creation of my thoughts held together very well.

Hey, it's almost the holiday season! This will be fun!

Staying the Course

It has felt like the president and his cohorts have taken every opportunity to bend, twist, fold, mutilate and generally mess with the language we all share. They have used it to attack those who legitimately disagree with them and to support those of their allies who actions had no justification.

But finally, abusing language and insisting on acting like we are a country of idiots is backfiring.

In an op-ed this morning. George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley hits the nail on the head in his essay entitled, Staying the Course Right Over a Cliff.

THE Bush administration has finally been caught in its own language trap.

“That is not a stay-the-course policy,” Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, declared on Monday.

The first rule of using negatives is that negating a frame activates the frame. If you tell someone not to think of an elephant, he’ll think of an elephant. When Richard Nixon said, “I am not a crook” during Watergate, the nation thought of him as a crook.

“Listen, we’ve never been stay the course, George,” President Bush told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News a day earlier. Saying that just reminds us of all the times he said “stay the course.”

What the president is discovering is that it’s not so easy to rewrite linguistic history. The laws of language are hard to defy.

The whole essay is well worth the time to read. Click here to read it all. You may have to register with the NY Times Online but its worth, I think!

The Meaning of Friendship

I've had the opportunity to ponder the meaning of friendship in the last few months. I won't go into all the gory details but in broad strokes, it is very interesting to discover who is willing to take your back when the chips are down. The results are surprising and uneven, but it sure is a great argument for investing in a lot of friends.

During my morning perusal of Web, I came across this article by Lore Sjöberg, a columnist for Wired. After much resistance, he decided to set up a MySpace account. Here is the link to the article.

The article is funny, but I found this paragraph especially poignant:

"Clicking through, I find I already have a friend named Tom. He works for MySpace and he's willing to answer questions as long as I've read the FAQ first. I can't say that I know what makes someone a true friend, but I'd say one of the major qualifications is that they're willing to answer questions without making you read a FAQ."

So, I get to spend the rest of the day working with friends! It's true. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Back Again!

Starting with a laptop that wnet kablooey (at least I've broken the "stolen out of my car" jinx!) and then heroic efforts by Andy to help me get a working laptop by salvaging parts, we finally threw in the towel and got a new laptop.

Fortunately for me, laptops seem to be complying with Moore's Law! They get faster, prettier, more powerful and more fun while at the same time getting cheaper.

What doesn't get a whole lot easier is transferring your life from one laptop to another. However, once again, Andrew to the rescue. In a matter of a few hours, he had my new HP DV2050US up and running!

So, once I get my pix library back here and my music library loaded, life will be good! The new laptop is fast, light and fun to use.

More later!

Perspective

It's 9/11 and you can't encounter a media outlet that isn't in a feeding frenzy of . . . what? Fear? Sorrow? Ad revenue? It makes me want to crawl in a hole and not come out til tomorrow!

Yes, 9/11 was sad, tragic, all of that. But, in the grand scheme of things?

Well, it is a tiny fraction of the death and suffering in a single day, let alone five years. Places like Irag, Darfur, and just plain ol' life in the Congo, it's barely a day's worth of suffering.

Wired was the one set of links on my Google page that made any sense.

A Million Ways to Die gives us "color alert" to what will really kill us! And guess what is at the bottom of the list? You guessed it, terrorism.

Give Me Honor, or Give Me Death also helps explain why our government, Dick Chaney, Don Rumsfeld and our puppet president keep hauling us down the road of fear and chaos. Far from eschewing the "honor killing" culture of some of the environments we find ourselves embroiled in as a country, they are "fighting fire with fire" and from that wretched viewpoint, they see us as winning. Good grief!

Ok, now that I've got that off my chest, on the bright side, I'm reading a book I highly recommend, Joy at Work by Dennis Bakke. It is a refreshing view of what it takes to run a company the people want to work for.

Finally, one of the reasons for a lack of blogging in my life has been my crippled computer. Using a laptop with half a screen is an interesting exercise in minimalism (and minimizing). However, Andy helped me buy a salvage laptop whose fully functioning we will combine with another functioning laptop with broken screen and create a whole computer! Can't wait!

The Zen of Berry Picking

There have been many discussions about the power of smell to trigger memories. This morning I was on my walk to Starbucks and passed a patch of blackberries and the smell was amazing!

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve picking blackberries. Our extended family, frequently including 2/3s of the 16 cousins on my mom's side of the family, would meet at the family ranch in Northern California on Redwood Creek.

Usually this involved the family cooking for summer camps that rented the facility. Everyone, grandma and grandpa, aunts, occasionally uncles and all of us kids did everything from baking bread to washing pots. But the highlight was the occasional trip to one of the acres of Himalayan blackberry patches that are the curse/blessing of unforested land on the West Coast north of San Francisco.

These trips were frequently organized by Daryl, the oldest male cousin of the clan, and usually happened prior to breakfast being prepared. The valley where the ranch was located was frequently very warm during the day, but at 6:30am, it could be very damp and chilly. The berry picking outings were highly ritualized and upon reflection, I've found that lessons I learned were really quite profound. Here are several:

If you don't pick you don't eat--Since the berry patches were not cultivated but wild, tangled, prickly patches of vines that often grew 8 or 10 feet high and the vines were covered with thorns that frequently were 1/2 an inch or more long, it required some motivational effort to get the troops productive. So Daryl would frequently prod the sleepy or just uninterested to action by pointing out that they would be cut out of the berry toast (berries cooked to a syrup consistency with sugar and cornstarch), the berry cobbler or berry pie.

Since these were family delicacies, this was usually enough to get most recalcitrant cousin trundling across the acres of fields to the berry patch.

What was interesting is that I never remember anybody actually being denied the berry delicacies in the end. While the exhortations were long and often loud, once the berries were picked, everybody got to eat. . . and interesting exercise in motivation and compassion.

If you pick berries, you're going to get stuck--You can't pick wild blackberries without encountering the thorns. It is just not possible. And, because of the remarkable engineering of these thorns, once you are hooked, getting loose is an exercise in patience and non-resistance.

What you quickly learn is that once you are hooked, not amount of tugging, pulling or yanking will extricate you from the prickly clutches of the vines. You must notice the direction the vine is growing, then slowly and careful move with the vine and one by one the thorns release. Jerking away simply imbedded the thorns more and more securely.

You can dress in long sleeved shirts and tough jeans and reduce the pain of the stickers slightly, but if you are going to be productive at picking, getting stuck is part of the deal. You learn to live with the pricking and sticking and notice that the pain they create is far less of you just keep picking and gently work your way free.

If the berries resist, let them go--One of the big challenges of picking wild berries is that the biggest, juicest looking berries are frequently not ready to pick. It seems that the threshold between ripe and sour with these berries is binary. They don't slowly get less sour and more sweet as they mature. The seem to go from sour to sweet like the throw of a switch.

And the only reliable measure of ripeness is whether the berry is ready to release from the stem. If gentle pressure from thumb and forefinger don't cause the berry to drop into your hand, the berry isn't ready.

In reality, you don't pick blackberries, you tickle them off the vine. Pulling and tugging leave you with a bucket full of berries very quickly, but no amount of sugar will make them taste like a bucket of ripe berries.

Sometimes you just have to leave the biggest and the best--We developed all kinds of strategies, often with very painful consequences to get at those "perfect" berries we couldn't reach. The berries that grow in the "strike zone" between your waist and shoulder are always the easiest to pick and so in a frequently picked patch, the ripe berries go quickly.

As kids, we would haul long planks that we would lean into the huge tangle of vines. These planks would crush the vines, kind of, and allow us access to the berries that no one else could reach. However, the potential for disaster was great! One slip or loss of balance and one could tumble into the vines. Then getting out was a major operation that frequently resulted in multiple deep scratches and even blood flow.

As we matured, we learned that many berries were missed by the casual picker at knee level. Picking these berries required us to get a little muddy or dusty, as one had to kneel to get at them, but the berries were often bigger and riper than any we might get struggling to get the elusive "high" berry.

The last half of the bucket fills much slower than the first half--Inspired by the motivational efforts of Daryl, we would of announce in advance that we would "fill our buckets" before we quit. I'm not at all sure what the principle involved here is, but inevitably, the first half of the bucket would fill quickly. The last half seemed to take forever.

What was interesting was how satisfying it was to return with the bucket really full! I don't understand it, but it felt really good to lug that gallon can or mixing bowl back to the cookhouse brimming, rather than just kind of full.

Eating berries is key to picking berries--Some berry pickers think that every berry you eat is one less berry that goes to filling up the bucket. Hence, eating berries while you pick is counter-productive.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Eating berries while you pick makes the process truly fulfilling! From vine to vine, from location to location, the kind of berry that is ripe can only be determined by eating berries while you pick. The amount of pressure to apply to tickle the really ripe berries off the vines can only be calibrated by constant feedback.

The natural tendency is to start tugging berries to fill your bucket. Constantly sampling berries keeps your pressure sensors properly calibrated. All it takes is one big, juicy berry pulled off the vine that leaves you puckered up worse than lemon and your fingers start letting berries drop instead pulling. It is remarkable.

In addition, the flavor of a ripe, just picked berry can't be described. You have to experience it. And while eating these fresh, ripe berries, you're reminded of the wonderful dishes to come! It is probably the most powerful picking motivation available.

So, what does this all mean? Well, some of the lessons are obvious. Some are much more zen-like. I'll tackle the lessons I've been able to apply in other posts.

More Updates

Several months ago I talked to Andy about some gallery software that would allow me to post the thousands of family photos I've scanned to the web. Friday he asked if there was something I would like him to work on as he was tired of his current task.

I mentioned the photo gallery software and twenty minutes later he had it up and running. It took him the better part of the afternoon to get it configured, but it is remarkable! It is an open source product called "Gallery" and it has all the functionality I imagined plus a bunch more!

I haven't been this excited about a piece of tech in a long time! Not only is it a neat piece of software but I can export directly from Picasa2, which I have been using for a year to manage all these pix.

Also, this week, I got my Treo 650 cellphone. I've wanted one of these for a long while but the price was prohibitive ($600+). Recently Palm released a new version with more web functionality which I don't need and I was able to pick a nearly new phone for a lot less! I can use all the Palm software I currently own from my long list of past Palms. So there has been lots of software and hardware configging going on this week!

While walking the other morning I came across this scene. I'm not sure why I found it so funny, but here is a stack of totally useless stuff offered for "FREE!" Amazing!



















Also, this weekend, the lovely Katelyn met her great grandparents on the Matson side. The Nelson great grandparents met the first day she was born, so now she's been introduced to full range of the tribe!
Katelyn Meets the Matsons!















Katelyn Meets the Nelsons!

















Well, that's it for today!

An Update

The last few weeks have been a bit on the chaotic side! Good grieft, I'm even sitting in a different Starbucks than I'm used to! So here's a bit of what's going on.

1. Lamont beats Leiberman--It is about time! I don't have much faith that this will change much but I sure hope somebody is listening. The US is in the biggest mess it has been in since the sixties and nobody seems to get it. Let's hope this spills over to the rest of the country. It may not solve our current problems but at least we may get some new, more reasonable viewpoints in the political mix.

2. Mangosteens!--My favorite fruit is now being imported into the US! If you're not a subscriber to the NY Times free email headline system, you may be asked to register to read this article. Even if you're not a mangosteen fan, this service is worth registering for. When I was in Indonesia, mangosteens season was absolutely heaven. When they are ripe, they tasted like a combination of a grape and a marshmallow. Sounds weird, but it is wonderful!

3. Katelyn Marie--She is doing great! I'll have some new pix shortly.

4. Treo 650--This is one of the coolest toys ever! I managed to get one for a song and it has already become an essential tool. Despite some still unresolved synchro problems to Outlook, it is so easy to use!

5. My dad's 80th birthday--It's been week since my dad's birthday. For a present I did an album of pictures from his slide collection. Here one of my favorites.














More later!

Hope in the World!

There are days when you watch the news or listen to the radio and you wonder "What the @#$% is going on in world?"

We can't seem to stop killing, smashing, wrecking, slandering and slashing some more! And to top it off, we seem to have a world full of leaders with masculinity issues! "My (you name it) is bigger than your (whatever) and to prove it I'm going to smack you as hard as I can and then be horribly offended when you smash me back!" What is up with that?

Then out of the blue, a new life.


And, life looks pretty darned good!

This is Katelyn Marie Nelson, my first grandchild. And here is the deal with her.

From the time we knew she was gonna happen, there have been dozens of people who couldn't wait! In a world that seems to value selfishness and self-centeredness, a whole crowd of people couldn't wait to meet her and take care of her!

She is so helpless that she wouldn't last more than a few hours on her own. And yet, a whole constellation of people have committed themselves to her well-being. Already, they orbit around her, eager to hold her, talk to her, take pictures of her and generally make sure she has everything she needs all time!

You can't be in her presence without grinning. Those little squinty eyes squeeze open and look around like she can't quite believe it! She is loved, adored, wanted and generally just about the biggest celebrity in her world!

And she has done nothing but begin to exist! She can't earn our love and goodness knows she's done nothing to deserve it. But it is hers, as much as she ever could want, no questions asked.

Imagine a world where that attitude was the operating viewpoint. What a wonderful world that would be!

Thanks, little Katelyn, for reminding us that there hope and love out there. And with a little effort there is enough for everyone!

Life Is Interesting!

The last few days have been interesting. Not particularly nasty, but enough weirdness to keep the edge on, I guess.

And then I was gassing my car, looked across the street and saw this sign.


I spoke briefly with the owner and told him how wonderful and courageous I thought his sign was. He reply, "Great, come buy a set of tires from me!"

And here is the deal. The next time I need tires I will! The store is at the corner of 39th St. and Main in Vancouver, just off the I-5 freeway. If you need tires, let's support this guy.

I've spent the last six or eight months scanning family slides and now have hundreds scanned and I'm only really getting started. But here is the fun part. As a result of getting the Mac for the office, I now have access to Photoshop. And, I've been playing with the photo restoration and retouching tools in Photoshop and what a kick!

My video training with RGB color control is finally paying off! Below is my second effort at color correction.

BEFORE













AFTER












So, it's a start. I found a great book called Photoshop: Restoration and Retouching by Katrin Eisman. It is hugely helpful and I can't wait to dig into it and start turning out some fun pix of the family.

Maybe This Is It

I spent a couple of hours this morning escaping the heat (it is 77 at 6am) at Starbucks and watching movie trailers on my laptop.

Give the rather confusing state of the world, both personal and private, the last few weeks, I was looking for something amusing to watch this weekend at the local cinema.

I came across this trailer.

The US vs. John Lennon

This week we have Lebanon being "bombed back to the stone age" and Condoleeza Rice not going for a ceasefire because she "isn't interested in temporary solutions" and the NY Times pointing out that we are accelerating our delivery of precision bombs to Isreal and on and on.

I missed out on the peace movement in the 60's because I was very well indoctrinated. I've spent a lot of time getting unindoctrinated. Maybe now is time.

We'll see.

Another Day in Paradise!

Here is a fantasy of mine. . . I finally figure it out. I spent most of Wednesday in turmoil and most of the evening apologizing.

First, my lack of bookkeeping skills (shared by a couple of others in the group) led to a rather significant misunderstanding of the financial realities of a little business I am working in.

That led to a heated conference call with several of key folks in the business, which led to a rather heated exchange between me and one of the key people in the deal. It felt to me like the point I was making was being dismissed without being at least examined, so I used a communication tool which I don't use often but that I had seen used in several situations with the group. I just "went off!"

To my chagrin, the next evening, I discovered that I had missed a very significant rule involved with using this "tool." You NEVER use it on a "family member." Sigh.

So after an hour of to'ing and fro'ing and several versions of apologies on my part, we finally reached a truce, at least.

I learned several important lessons, I think.

First, don't assume you understand the rules of the game or culture until you have played for a while.

Second, it is a given that you will break rules in the learning process. If you don't have the stomach for the occasional grovel session, don't get into the game.

Third, if you are operating in an unfamiliar "culture/game," it is possible you can screw up badly enough to permanently alter your relationships in the game. Then you have to decide if the payoff for playing still exists. Sometimes you are done and it is best to cut your losses and move on. But, most times, if you can get over yourself and the nearly universal addiction we all share to "being right," the goof and its disorienting condition it is temporary.

Finally, developing the stomach for these inevitable faux pas and goofs and general stupid mistakes is probably what separates the grownups from the kids. It is very easy to slip into a paroxysm self-pity and victimhood because you have been soooo misunderstood and your intentions were soooo pure.

But, in my experience, the reality is that you chose to get in the game or engage the new culture and if you goofed, you goofed.

Hurt feelings and embarrassment, even hurt and embarrassment on a galatic scale, won't kill you. In fact, that level of feeling, if you pay attention, can contain majorly useful information about what you need to do personally to get better at "playing the game."

Ok, enough pontification for today.

The shot below I took last weekend just south of Lincoln City. I can't wait to get a little beefier camera. This one is only 4 megapixels and it leaves a bit to be desired when you get into high contrast situations. But even with its limitations, I like this shot.

The Long Weekend!

It is so rare in this day and age to find and hold true friends!

This weekend was the 3rd Annual Reunion of Boys' Club. We started meeting every Tuesday night many years ago and then as time and geography took its toll, we stopped.

After about ten years (I think) of not meeting, Paul Richardson helped co-ordinate a Reunion. It was an instant hit and it has become an annual event.

It is remarkable that after years of separation, the depth of our connection during the years we were meeting, allowed us to pick up nearly where we left off.

For me, this weekend had two highlights. First, the First Annual Boys' Club Golf Tournament. We played at Chinook Winds in Lincoln City, an eccentric little course. The tourney consisted of Paul Richardson, a first time golfer, Glen Davis and me. Paul, due in no small part to the superior coaching he got, scored his first par in his first round of golf! Remarkable!

Glen succumbed to the treacherous (and way too numerous!) Par Three holes on the back nine and yours truly picked up the win. Glen, generous soul that he is, purchased a remarkable piece of art which will serve as our tournament trophy. This will be a highly antipicated part of our yearly reunion. Well, to be honest, some of us will anticipate it highly.

The second highlight came as part of an extended conversation on Saturday morning. It was a wide ranging conversation that dealt primarily with the impact of our actions, good and bad, on ourselves, the world and ultimately, the universe!

During the years that we met weekly, Greg Leno and I found ourselves frequently bogged down in discussions that we frequently simply had to abandon. As we dug around again, he finally insisted that I listen and accept that he understood my position, which I repeatedly asserted that he did not understand. It was one of those "the light came on" moments for me. It lead to another very powerful (for me) exchange regarding my value in the world.

I have an idea that very few people in the world ever get to experience this kind of depth and intent in a relationship. It is truly a gift!

Thanks guys, for a great weekend!

The Politics of Hope

I've reference this book several times in the last week, but here goes an other quote!

In this section, Lerner is descibing the rather sad situation of the first few months of the Clinton adminstration. They got hammered, especially Hillary, for a "hopeful" viewpoint. He describes their gradual and ultimate retreat to poll reading and the politics of realism. Here is part of his conclusion.

"I am not writing this history in order to pass judgement on the Clintons. They acted the way most other Democratic Party politicians have acted for the past forty-five years, letting their own perceived self-interest trump their vision of the good. Democrats attempt to be 'realists,' assessing the political forces and acting as though politics is 'the art of the possible.'

"What the Democrats have consistently failed to recognize is that 'the possible' is shaped by our choices. You don't actually know what is possible until you struggle for it. (Italics are mine.)

"When we choose to believe that everyone else is stuck in narrow self-interest, this perception leads us to believe that there is no alternative and hence we ourselves must be careful about our own self-interest.

"When this paradigm of fear becomes dominant, politics moves to the Right, toward those who are most articulate about the need for narrow self-interest, and the voices of idealism begin to recede. Vision becomes authoritarian and is all about recreating an imaginary past that was safe and free of the interference of some Other.

"If you are on the Left--whether Democrat or Green, liberal or progressive--the strategy of realism is a huge mistake. When you stop asking, 'What do I really believe in?' and substitute instead a focus on asking, 'What is realistic?' you are on a slippery slope toward the values of materialism and selfishness that receive much clearer statement by the Republicans and the Right. When the question is 'What is realistic?' it is only the Republicans who look like they have the answer. When you believe you must always put 'me first' and play the power game, the Republicans will always appear less hypocritical, because they have been fighting for selfishness without apology."

Whew!

So the question for me becomes, "How does this apply in my personal life and my business life?" Can I survive in a marketplace that seems to be short on nearly everything?

I think the key is to look at that last belief. Is the marketplace, my life, my business, the world short of everything I need to survive?

When you are staring at red numbers in every business you are involved in and then in your own checkbook and when business partners are scared and clients are looking at you with raised eyebrows at every invoice you deliver and on and on and on, yea, it feels tough.

But, somewhere, deep in my gut, the politics of caring resonates deeply. It is how I would like to be treated. I here is my ideal world. . . someone looks at me and says, "Are you ok? Can I help?"

And so, here is my goal today for today. . . looking at everybody I meet and saying, "Are you ok? Can I help?"

The Learning Curve

Ok, so I guess it is inevitable. If I want to play on the Web, I'd better learn the language. I thought I might be able to use a WYSIWYG editor and make it happen, but that is looking less and less attractive.

So, it is off to Powell's for a "how-to" on web site construction.

In the meantime, I've have learned that I am not very skillful at creating "consensus." A four hour management meeting last night got us to a "kind of consensus" on one topic. Then we went on to the rest of the business.

I understand the need for consensus in some situations. And this was probably one of them. But what a painful process. Dredging through everybody's "stuff" to get to an action step seems painfully slow and awkward.

I'm used to the process in the creative environment. The consensus process in the creative environment usually tends to be time limited, in other words, there is a deadline. You have X amount of time to get to a solution and then you have to execute. Only then do you find out if you are right or wrong. And right or wrong is defined by "did the client like it and will they hire us again."

It seems that when you begin these kinds of discussions in the business/legal world, there is far more weight put on being right before you start! Since "mistakes cost money" and business is about making money, in the current environment, the "worst case" scenario, the scariest scenario, the most painful scenario is the one that takes precedence in planning. AND, the person who can come up with the most scary, painful scenario to plan against is deemed the most insightful! Thus hours are spent gaming the worst case scenario and the time spent exploring a best case scenario and planning that are deemed "wishful thinking."

It seems, as I write, that this might be a useful area for more exploration. I keep finding myself in groups of "worst case" experts. Fortunately, the leader of this group ultimately gets quite quickly to an action step. He is definitely inclined to act. This will save the group.

He is quite conscientious about the attempt to develop consensus. But his bias to action keeps the process from grinding to the inevitable outcome of worst case gaming, the viewpoint that we are doomed no matter where we turn.

Ok, I'm still working on how efficiently get pictures into this blog. The shot below was today's experiment. It's the main wine production facility of Beran Winery. It was shot about a month ago at wine tasting tour Andy put together.

Pix for the Day

Well, technology is great, but for reasons unknown to me, I couldn't add this pix to the previous post. But here it is!

This is a tow plane and glider over the Napa Valley in 1974. I got to ride in one these as class project and it was truly amazing!

Genius and Fear

Alright, you ask, how does one connect those two concepts? Well, this is one of those times when the only relation between the two are that ideas that I've toyed with for a long time have been very powerfully articulated in print!

First, what is genius? I won't try to rewrite the article linked below, but I would highly recommend it for us "late bloomers." I remember feeling very let down that by the time I had turned 45, I hadn't really done anything great. (Now keeping a marriage together, raising a couple of very interesting young men and several other rather interesting accomplishments don't count, because they are personal and private. I'll discuss that in more detail in another post.)

David Galenson wrestled with the same viewpoint in the academic world. 24 year-old geniuses make a huge splash, but are they the only real geniuses? Galenson used sophisticated economics data analysis tools and came to a very interesting conclusion. Those of us approaching 60? Well, we still may have it in us!

What Kind of Genius Are You?

Ok, on to the next. . . FEAR!

Previously I mentioned that I was reading "The Left Hand of God" by Michael Learner. The deeper I've gotten into the book, the more I'm liking the way this guy thinks.

His viewpoint of how fears drives so much of our culture and world view is extremely compelling.

"There is a powerful tendency inside us all toward fear. When our consciousness moves in that direction, we believe that the Other is a serious threat that needs to be dominated and controlled before it does likewise to us. The Bible describes Pharoah's fear of the Isrealites in these terms--they had to be enslaved lest they potentially ally with the enemy. His next step was to attempt to kill every firstborn Jewish male. So the genocidal tendency was there at the very beginning of Jewish history--and yet the thrust of biblical religions is a countermessage that we don't have to act out of fear. There is a different and more powerful possiblity: to respond to the voice of God who commands us to 'love your neighbor as yourself'and to not 'oppress the stranger' but to 'remember that you were strangers in the land of Egypt.'

"Understandably overwhelmed by the level of carnage during the twentieth century, religious leaders all too often abandoned the hope that love and kindness and generosity and nonviolence could ultimately triumph."

In another powerful discussion, he looks at the remarkable inconsistency of anti-abortion, pro-lifers who support capital punishment and the militaristic, imperialistic world view that seeks to make the world safe by dominating it!

"Part of the energy of the antiabortion movement. . . comes from its ability to symbolically address this desire (My Note: This desire is the deep need for human connection so missing in this culture.) The fetus is a symbol of an idealized, innocent being, actually the little child within us who is not being adequately loved and accepted in our daily experience. The desire to be loved and accepted as human beings--a completely rational desire--is split off by these antiabortionists, in part because they themselves (like so many of the rest of us in this society) have been taught to view that part of themselves as scary, unobtainable, and narcissitic. . . So. . . we project this desire onto the fetus. . .Those who felt conflicted about standing up for themselves when, as children, they did not receive the love and affection they badly needed, and deeply wounded because no one stood up for them when they were vulnerable as children, can now stand up for the beautiful part of themselves, which was underappreciated, by standing up for the fetus.

"It may have been a similar dynamic that made possible in the spring of 2005 a sudden explosion of concern to save the life of Terri Schiavo, a woman who had been in a vegetative state for fifteen years and hence could be experienced as both pure and helpless, by people who had shown no similar interest in saving the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed over the previous six months as "collateral damage" during the American invasion and occupation. . ."

Well, enough quoting. Hopefully this wets your appetite because his arguments are powerful and persuasive.



Finally, the picture for the day is interesting. It's an oldy but goody.

Last Week's Posts

I'm transferring all my blogging to this location for now. So here is what I wrote last week!

The Joys of Adversity?

July 4, 2006

Adversity is highly over-rated, I think. One usually hears about adversity after someone has endured it and gone on to success. Being in the midst of it provides very little in the way of rewards or comfort.

The environment we live in tends to equate business and financial success with value and virtue and it merely looks like whining or "bookkeeping slight-of-hand" to point out "success" in other areas of life when bills aren't paid and businesses are hemorrhaging cash.

So, since today is the 4th of July, I guess one can look at George Washington and all his cohorts who endured through years of stress, deprivation and pain to success at the great American experiment. It really does seeem that very little that is great succeeds or happens quickly.

But how does one measure time in theses circumstances? Is a couple of decades or a life of struggle enough or many lives or years or decades? How long is one expected to "keep the dream alive?"

One of my favorite T-shirt slogans says something like "Losers quit when they get tired, winners quit when they've won!" Sounds good. Feels crappy.

So, looking at expectations and results? Frequently a painful situation.

But who knows. Tomorrow may look differently.

On to something that involves less navel-gazing!

I'm down the last role of slides in the my "Indonesia file." Here are couple that show a bit of what I hooked me about Indonesia. Age has taken its toll on them, but the beauty is still there, in my eyes, anyway.

This is a major thoroughfare near the compound where we stayed when visiting Jakarata. It was hot and dusty when it wasn't hot and muddy!

I shot this from the train on my last trip from Bandung to Jakarta. This was like most villages outside the big cities. Notice the complete lack of motor vehicles. These pix were shot in November of 1973.

This is one of my favorite shots. The light near the equator is unique. I managed to tweak this old slide to look a bit like what I remember the picture looking like.

Bad Theology and Bad Politics

July 3, 2006

I have been meeting about once a month for the last year with a group of guys who formed book discussion group. This group's stated focus is religion and its effect on culture. We've read a number of good books. Last month we read "Misquoting Jesus," a remarkable book on the "assembly" of the books of the Bible. Despite the rather attention getting title, it was remarkably helpful in looking at how the Bible books and text were affected by the skills (or lack thereof) of the scribes who were responsible for the care and tranmission of the documents that make up the Bible.

This month we are reading "The Left Hand of God" by Michael Lerner. Lerner is a rabbi with left of center politics who is looking at the reasons why right-wing politics and the Religious Right have become such a powerful influence in the country.

Despite a rather dense writing style, I have found his reasoning very persuasive. I've post several paragraphs below:

"It is a powerful deal that the Religious Right offers: affirmation for the parts of our psyche that yearn for the love, caring, and generosity that most people cling to even though they have been taught that these values are “unrealistic” for building an economy or society, coupled with the acceptance of the materialism and selfishness, the need for power over others and war, as the accommodation to “the real world” So every where in the world you will find some version of this Religious Right, whatever the religion in question, with this dichotomy. The right wing-churches, synagogues, mosques, ashrams, etc. can retain the voice of love, sing praises to a God or a prophet or a great teacher a or Jesus figure who embodies or preaches gentleness and caring for the poor, even while they align with a harsh, militaristic, and self-interested politics that is based on the (unstated) assumption that all that “love, kindness, and generosity” talk has no real world application outside of that church or religious institution . . ."

"The essence of idolatry lies precisely in denying the possibility of change and then accommodating to evil—whether this be the hatred and cruelty perpetrated by others or one’s own hurtfulness and indifference to the world’s suffering—as though there were no alternative. To believe that no alternative exists to evil is the essence of believing there is no God. So, from the standpoint of at least some of us on the religious Left, the problem with the Religious Right is not only bad politics and bad economics but bad theology.

This bad theology has been able to flourish in part because the political Left has given little attention to its own religious Left, presenting itself instead primarily as a secular force. Unfortunately, the Left at times seems virtually tone-deaf to the spiritual crisis of capitalist society. Lacking categories within its intellectual apparatus tha might allow it to comprehend and address that crisis. the Left is prone instead to dismiss the whole spiritual crisis as a right-wing fabrication."

I spent a chunk of the day yesterday cataloguing nearly 80 years worth of 16mm movies my Grandpa Nelson shot during his life. My sister Connie and I are working on generating the cash to get these films transfered to digital media so we can all explore them. Once we get this process started I'll be sharing some of them online.

The process of scanning slides continues. Below are a couple from my work this weekend.

This was the guy I bought my tofu from. The yellow stuff was particularly nice. It had a more chewy texture and was very good!

And this next one probably needs no explanation.

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What does it take?

July 2, 2006

Today Wired published the text of a document that apparently shows that AT&T was helping the NSA monitor email and phone messages long before 9/11.

Sigh.

I think it is time that the Bush administration got a clue. You can fool some of the people all the time, you can fool all the people some of the time, etc.

On to more fun stuff!

I've been scanning slides from my youth and here are couple recent scans that I find mildly amusing.

This is me on graduation day at the college where I taught English. It is circa 1973. The gentleman on my right (I'm still working on remembering his name!) was a great badminton player.

I don't know why, but I have always loved the shot below. This is in the fish section of Central Market (Pasar Baru) in Bandung, Indonesia. These folk just seem to be having fun!