So, there we were one sunny California spring afternoon, Mrs. Long’s fourth grade class playing baseball for P.E.  Miracle of miracles, I got a base hit ( I believe the first and only I have ever gotten) and ran to first base, where I was called safe having beaten the ball by the skin of my teeth.  Somehow, I end up on second, and the next hitter hits the ball way the heck over the heads of the fielders and I run for third, and then home.  Whereupon, I show up at home plate ecstatic beyond belief.  I had not been completely inept at a sport for the first time in my life.  I showed those kids who always picked me last.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Long is yelling at me, “Tag up, tag up!”  Well, what the hell does that mean?  I have no idea.  I say to Mrs. Long, “What do you mean?”  She again responds, “Tag up, tag up.”  Looking back, clearly “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”  I have no clue at all.  So while I kind of look around in a daze, she calls me out, and I am the goat instead of the hero.

All these many years later, after the discovery of sports that I enjoyed including dance, skiing, sailing, shooting, archery, and riding, mind you all individual rather than team sports, and ones that rely on something other than the ability to throw, catch or hit, after all those years of varied successes and the assuaging of my wounded fourth grade ego, it still irked me.  What had Mrs. Long meant by the mysterious invective “Tag up”?

Recently, while watching the Detroit Tigers lose their first playoff game to the New York Yankees, the tag up issue came to mind again.  At long last, thanks to google and to wikipedia, I had an answer.  Tag up addresses a runner to remaining on base, or retouching the base they are on until after the ball either lands in fair territory, or is touched by a fielder.  If I had lead off from the base, I was required to retouch it after the ball was touched, or on the ground in fair territory before running for the next base.  Mrs. Long has appropriately called me out.  At last, I knew the answer.

After all this time, does that bring me some form of closure, some peace of mind.  Hell no!!  What kind of teacher can’t be bothered to explain the rules of the game?  What kind of teacher just assumes we are all slavish devotees to the great American past time?  Well, as any of my equally out of step compatriots could tell you, most American teachers of the 60’s and 70’s.

Who knows, maybe I just wasn’t listening when she explained the intricacies of the game.

Initially, I was concerned, worried.  Berlimaute is one of the career agents at the Universtiy of Caille.  He had things to teach me.  Important military things that I needed to know if I wasn’t to forever suffer beneath the boot of the innumerable aggressors out there in the wide EVE universe.  How could the creators be so cruel?  How was I supposed to learn how to play this game if the agents who purport to be teachers have the patience of a hyperactive toddler. It would appear I may be doomed to wander the world completely lacking in military skill because the “real” world (oh yeah, that) came calling for an extended period of time.

I am assured, by my associates in the corporation, that it doesn’t matter.  Apparently there are endless numbers of Agents and one could make a career of careening from one to the next, pissing them off and moving on.  I do wonder if anyone has tried.  Although, I suspect that some basic skills acquired early on might assist one in staying alive for the venture.  Nonetheless, the antipathy of the agents furthers my previously expressed opinion that the EVE Universe is not place for the occasional player. Hard core only need apply.

So, life goes on in EVE.  Not trusting that in one sitting I can complete the training offered by one of these Agents, or, more accurately, petty tyrants.  I have moved off to commence mining, and hopefully to make some money.  It has been suggested, that I can try another University and complete my skills training, but I hesitate.  Who’s to say that these agents don’t talk to each other and that Berlimaute hasn’t already smeared my reputation among agents near and far.

Back to the mines.

Well, basically if you don’t have the latest in a high tech graphics card you aren’t particularly welcome in online games.  This sentiment isn’t particularly broadcast, but they have to dumb down the game for you.  If you are going to be playing an on-line game, it is assumed you have a graphics card worthy of the endeavor.  Basically, if you have to ask, you don’t have one.  So, impatient friend waiting in the wings, after much cursing and swearing and miscommunication, EVE finally loads.  It has taken hours.

Now, games always load full screen.  I tend to think that this is just an expression of their underlying egotistical belief that they are all that matters in any world, but I am told the graphics card just runs better full screen without other windows with which to contend.  I still think it is over-weening egotism, but I’ll leave that for future rants.

So, EVE is finally up and running, I have no clue as to where I am, or what to do.  It doesn’t run like other world based games.  You have to remember where you are, try to figure out how to bookmark your location so you can find it again, and how to control the damned ship ship which wants go in circles.  Although they have improved recently, the original tutorials weren’t worth a damn.  So, there you are, after about five minutes, completely frustrated, cursing your friend for wasting your time and wanting to exit the game.

G: How do I get out?

T: What do you mean?

G: How do I get out? I want to leave!!

You see, there is no quit icon.  No little computer icon or interface icon that gets you to the settings page, or a way to exit the game.  There is NO WAY OUT!!

T: Hit escape.

G: What do you mean, there is no escape icon.

T: The one on your keyboard (it’s obvious)

G: #@#$% (It damned well isn’t obvious that the escape key on the keyboard is the way out.  Most programs only need that option if the program screws up.  Most programs have a quit icon and a system for shutting down)

So, I escaped.  How appropriate I thought, escape, success at last.  Then, despite the five hours it had taken to load EVE, I deleted that sucker in less than five seconds.

Better luck next time.  WoW here I come.

There comes a time, in every woman’s life, when she realizes that if she wants roses, she should go and buy them herself.  The same is true for perfume, jewelry, expensive shoes ( ah, but I venture into the realm of fetish here), all those little luxuries, which we wait for someone else, some other, to provide as a token of affection.

Enough!  Break out of the cultural mold!!  Go buy your own roses!!

Especially, as they are such an inconsequential luxury and offer so much in the way of visual delight.  Sunshine for the soul, that debatable and debated entity.

Costco roses are as lovely as any others, as you can see.  As Shakespeare wrote, ” A rose by any other name…”.

The Heart of a Rose: studies in depth of field.

Deeper into the heart

Adrift in a sea of fog.

The fuel for late night ventures.

Earlier this year, sometime in February or March, I was finally nagged into taking pictures of the jewelry I make with the intent of putting it up on a website and finally giving my work some exposure out there on the world wide web.  Dutifully, as the nagging proceeded unabated, I spent a weekend taking pictures with my all purpose Canon digital point and shoot.  While the results were surprisingly good.  Well, at least they were sufficiently adequate to start posting pictures.  Nonetheless, the focus wasn’t particularly sharp and there wasn’t a decent was to get a very detailed close up.  Clearly I needed to venture forth into the more complex field of the DSLR and I needed a macro lens.  Happily, I have a friend who is a professional photographer who was willing to listen to my ruminations about what I might need, my whining about the cost, and ultimately directed me to his source at Adorama.  The lovely people at Adorama introduced me to the world of used and refurbished camera equipment.  And so it was that I came to own a new Nikon D90 and two used /refurbished lenses.  I would have gladly gone with a used D90 as well, but there simply weren’t any.

Spiral Necklace, the latest project.

The problem when acquiring a very fine piece of equipment is that one encounters the vertical learning curve, also known as banging ones head against a brick wall.  So, I settled in one weekend with the Nikon guide and better yet the “Magic Lantern Guide”, which in my humble opinion, and based on the advice of my photography friend, one cannot afford to be without.  After fumbling around with the Nikon guide for awhile and not being able to get the camera to work, I finally switched to the Magic Lantern Guide and found answers.  Although briefly cited here, the actual process took several angst filled days rife with emails back and forth to New York and complaints, on my part, regarding the general worthlessness of the Nikon manual.  (The Nikon manual is actually quite good, I was just missing or overlooking an essential piece of information regarding setting the aperture on the lenses that feed information to the camera.)  Basically, the lenses are smarter than I am and I need to play catch-up.  Sigh…sad, but true.

The unabated desktop clutter.

So, at long last, camera functioning, it is time to play with my lovely macro lens.

Rediscovering “depth of field.”

Higher aperture number, smaller aperture, greater depth of field - get lights and a tripod!!

The parts in parenthesis are my preferred changes or additions.  I never could leave well enough alone.

Picadillo

2 lbs. ground beef (1 lb. pork, 1 lb. turkey)
2 onions (3)
all of a bulb of garlic
3 green peppers
3 jalapenos
6 Roma tomatoes
2 small cans Contadina tomato paste
6 apples ( sometimes less depending on how full the pot is)
2 jars ripe olives (green olives)
2 handfuls raisins (or more, to taste)
2 tbsp. vinegar (more or less to taste)

Rough chop everything that can be chopped: onions, garlic, green peppers, Jalapenos, Roma tomatoes and apples.  Leave the olives and raisins whole.  Using a big stew pot, start by browning the meat.  Add the onions and garlic while the meat browns.  Add the rest of the ingredients more or less in the order given.  Cover the pot, reduce the heat so that the conglomeration burbles gently and let it stew for at least two hours.  Letting it cook longer does no harm and generally improves the flavor.  This freezes really well, so when I make it I have frozen leftovers for months.

There were two chocolate cakes actually.  One with a lovely raspberry sauce between the layers and the other, a darker chocolate, was laced with rum and frosted with Mocha frosting.  Both were delightful.

Sadly, the cake was not reciprocated at the appropriate date in April!!  Hmmm….or at any other date appropriate or not, now that I consider the matter.

So, it has been an odd year. A year sufficiently odd than I hesitate in contemplation of what to wish for. Wishes get twisted. So, here’s to the New Year, whatever it might come to be, and the opportunity to see it through.

Another possibility, I suppose, is that the people supporting Proposition 8 are just selfish.  They enjoy the benefits and responsibilities of a marriage and just don’t want to share the joy.  Well, that would be rather sad and despicable of them personally, but is certainly no reason to deprive other people of the joys, sorrows,and responsibilities of marriage.

Finally, I have heard that some people support Proposition 8 for religious reasons.  Well, it is perfectly acceptable to believe whatever you like religiously.  It is even encouraged.  However, one of the great things about this country is that just because you believe something to be true, you don’t then get to impose your beliefs on other people.  We all have the same rights and the rights are protected.  They include the freedom from having someone else’s religious beliefs imposed on us.  We, well, most of us, wouldn’t want it any other way.

So, let us all marry whomever we would choose and then let the divorce lawyers enjoy a windfall.

No on 8

I used to love this poem by Jenny Joseph.  It captured my rebellious side, captured my desire to be even odder than I truly am, then to flaunt that oddness in face of all those who worship fitting in.  Of which, as I live in Los Angeles, there are quite a few.  Alas, the Red Hat Lemmings (ladies) have ruined the poem for me.

 Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

by Jenny Joseph

I own a red hat.  I have owned it for far longer than the Red Hat Society has existed, but alas I have relegated it to the back of my closet.  If I wear my red hat I am asked “Are you one of them, those ladies with that poem.”  So, black hats with huge brims, white hats, bush hats, feathered hats are all worn with dash and aplomb, but the red hat carries too much baggage.  It no longer signals a certain verve, an intrepidly independent streak.  Instead red hats have degenerated to the status of a fashion cliché.  Red Hat Society teas, conventions, cruises, tours all filled with noxious ladies in red hats and purple dresses.  I cannot conceive of anything more antithetical to the sentiments expressed in Jenny Joseph’s “Warning” than to have it associated with a herd of women all doing the same thing, looking the same way.

I guess I am going to have to stick to wearing other hats, at least until all the Red Hat Lemmings have found their cliff.

Now, as I understand it, one of the fun things about picadillo is that no two people make it the same way.  There are regional variations based on the foods commonly available and well as personal and familial variations.  I suppose if you tried hard, you could conceivably make it wrong, but you would have to try very hard and it would only be an insensitive oaf who would bother to criticize.  Picadillo is a comfort food.  One of those foods your mother would make from your grandmother’s recipe.  Something heavenly that the house smelled of when you finally arrived home.

Now, as I said in the previous posting.  I am predominantly of some vaguely British ( English. Scottish, Irish, French Canadian) extraction and my culinary heritage tends toward rather bland meat and potatoes.  Well, we have all heard the jokes about British food.   The French part of the family might have contributed something of culinary interest, but it apparently was lost in the annals of history as apparently did my recipe for Picadillo.

I was initially introduced to Picadillo by a friend from Berkeley.  Thus this is yet another foray into the memory of my long lost youth, more specifically, the wild and wonderful college days at Berkeley.  However, as with many things from that time and earlier, somewhere along the way the details got lost and I was left with a vague idea of what went into the recipe: ground beef, a can of tomato sauce, a jar of green olives, a can of applesauce (one of the distinctive ingredients I was told), raisins (also distinctive), garlic, onions, vinegar.  I vaguely remember the “can of this and can of that” format that had made it reasonable easy for a college student to assemble, but no specifics.  I needed specifics!!  I need to get it right, to taste like Berkeley 1978.  Serious gastric memories were at stake.  Were there spices?  Was I leaving out some essential trans-formative ingredient?

So, I inquired of the source “Do you remember your Mom’s picadillo recipe from Berkeley?”  Alas, a dead end, nada, no interest.  So, as with most questions today, it was time to go surfing.  Typing picadillo into google yielded a host of responses the most interesting of which was a site called “cooks.com“.  A fabulous place, well worth exploring, which yielded several pages of picadillo recipes.  Well, none of them seemed to capture the memory quite perfectly.  However, there were enough of them that I could mix and match and patch together a recipe that more then adequately fed both my memories and my appetite with multiple opportunities for future experimentation.

So, here it is, Picadillo rediscovered and recorded for future use.

Picadillo

1 lb ground beef
1 large onion chopped
2-3 garlic cloves chopped
1 small can tomato sauce
1 6-0z can tomato paste
1 small jar Pimiento stuffed green olives
1/2 to 1 c Raisins
1 jar applesauce
1 tsp salt
2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp ground cumin
dash ground cloves
dash ground cinnamon
1-2 tsp vinegar

Brown the ground beef, onions and garlic together, pour off the excess fat.  Turn heat down to low.  Add the remainder of the ingredients and simmer until most of the liquid evaporates.  (or you give in to the heavenly smell and decide it is time to eat)

There are many, many variations.  You can use shredded beef, pork, chicken or beans instead of the ground beef.  You can leave out the applesauce, add green peppers, add nuts, change from green to black olives, change or leave out whatever spices you like.  Experiment.  Enjoy.

 My husband, when parked at a deli, is fond of inquiring of the compatriots then present “Who makes your favorite corned beef?”  Then, often before they have a chance to respond, he tells them “You favorite corned beef tastes like the stuff from the deli you went to when you were twelve.”  There is a truth in that, or a truth of sorts, believing as I do that truth is largely relative and maleable.

Perhaps much of who we are, of what feels right to us, is set by our experiences when we were young.  How much of our perception of well being as adults comes from how closely we can now approximate our youth?  No, not all of those insecurities and inadequacies that tormented ones childhood and teen years, but the good things.  The memories of food, security, health and youth. 

This all came to me, other than occasionally being queried about corned beef, when I noticed that I was no longer as limber as I had been, as I remembered being in that long past youth.  I had spent years in my youth during high school and college doing ballet and jazz dance.  Being limber, flexible and strong, was what feeling young meant to me.  Now, creeping past fifty, I was beginning to get stiff.  Oh, nothing major, I could still touch my toes, even in three inch heels, but clearly no longer the smooth ease of movement that characterized my decidedly un-wild youth.  Steps need to be taken.  The situation cried out for rectification. 

So, for the new year, Pilates is the answer.  Yoga would serve as well, but according to some Pilates is dance based, so the movements and language are more familiar.  However, the methodology is perhaps less important than the end result.  Means versus ends, ends versus means we shall see.  A different truth..  A question remains grammatically though as to what the verb would be, or perhaps it is the gerund.  My grammatical comprehension is failing also along with the vanishing flexilibity, but admittedly grammer was never a strong point.  I am Pilating, or am I Pilatesing.  I am confused, but that isn’t news either.

With regard to Corned Beef I am even more confused.  Corned Beef always came with cabbage in my family and was pretty much boiled to death.  Not much there that would explain my husband’s passion about it.  Although, admittedly, as with me his passion isn’t for Corned Beef, but rather for youth and that previously ingrained sense of well being.

So, yes, there are other Starbucks now.  They are spaced out along Ventura Boulevard at roughly half mile intervals, but I will miss this one.  It had a unique atmosphere, quirky enough to be interesting, a reasonably odd assemblage of patrons to make the people watching satisfying, yet nothing so outrageous as to feel unsafe.  Even the homeless guy who hung out in front trying to intimidate (he scowled, but then again why shouldn’t he) patrons into donating, seemed the right fit.  This Starbucks and I watched each other mature.  We saw each other through the rebuilding years after the earthquake and we watched each others families evolve.  My children into teenagers and then adults while I watched generations of baristas find their footing and move on to other careers, hopefully better or at least more interesting careers.

Yes, I hear you will be back in a couple of years when the building has been rebuilt into a modern commercial / retail / residential complex, the wave of the future.  The corporate Starbucks will return, this time in the preferred corner location, but the unique blend of character that emerged here will have dissipated, changed, moved on.  Everything changes, and I will miss you. 

Basic language is easily enough acquired, though that may not be sufficient for ones creative purposes, but what about creative disciplines that require other sources?  What is the equivalent in what ever creative paradigm one might engage in that letters and words are to language and writing?  I spent some time as an architect and after I had graduated with a degree in architecture, it seemed to me that my design teachers had left out an essential element, the acquisition of a visual vocabulary.  How could I play with ideas when my exposure to the visual environment was primarily tract houses and suburbs?  If it was not visually a wasteland, then it was certainly visually impoverished if only by its lack of variety.  It became apparent to me that the first thing someone should have relayed was that I needed to look at things, to study the visual world, to create a three dimensional vocabulary, a built vocabulary.  For architecture it was a blend of visual, seeing different possibilities and then technical mastery, what works and what doesn’t, gravity and structure, equating to grammar perhaps.  Until the whole thing comes together and builds and matures you don’t really begin to think creatively.  So, I have spent the years since then doing that, reading magazines, looking at the built world and observing critically.  Critical observation is crucial, but I don’t mean that in the sense that most art, theater or dining critics would.  I am not looking for any one thing to be better than another, but rather at how it comes together. How it fits or conversely contrasts with its context.  What were the design constraints and how were they resolved.  Eventually you start to develop a feel for the thing, for all the myriad details and changes in scale and how they all come together,  for the possibilities to be explored in the shaping of space while not losing track of the texture of the details. 

 So, in how many fields, or how diversely can one successfully be creative.  Even if success is measured only as the ability to sufficiently entertain oneself, which, clearly is mainly what I do.  The interesting thing is that I believe the same process holds true regardless of the particular area of endeavor.  In which case a question would be, how transferable is any of it?  Does having developed an expertise in one particular area mean one can shorten the process in another field, or must the field be somehow related.  Clearly some art related areas cross over well, but would an expertise in art enable one to learn to compose?  Possibly not, but it might depend on the acquisition of a basic vocabulary, or it may be, as with speech, that ones develops a vocabulary in the areas of ones interests naturally.  Thus you may have been acquiring a musical vocabulary over many years and then one day finally have the time to put it to use and discover that it is there waiting for you. 

It is the same process regardless of the discipline:  music, painting, fashion, jewelry, and the same issues of building a vocabulary, then learning to manipulate it pertains to them all.  Learn the vocabulary, learn the technique, and study the history and then …..Well, then we get to the next aspect of the problem, the process of creation.  How do you put yourself into a workable creative paradigm?  ED3 for those who might have been there. (Trusting a somewhat failing memory)  An interesting question as it was thirty years ago.  One of the answers, despite Nike co-opting the phrase, is to “just do it”, but that is a different discussion. 

Ah well, perambulating to no good purpose I suppose.

An ever popular sentiment, courtesy of “The Guess Who”

Nothing in particular against the Guess Who and their classic, but don’t you just love being stereotyped, being reduced to a caricature of yourself?  Race, religion, and politics what is going on when someone chooses to refer to you as a class rather than speaking directly to you, responding to you as the unique individual that you are.  It is a power play then, a way to trivialize what you are trying to say.  After all, if you can be reduced to a stereotype, then clearly you have nothing new to contribute, nothing to say that might require a thoughtful response.  The same old knee-jerk reaction will suffice.  Out of anger or fear, it is an easy response, but it doesn’t serve particularly well as a means of communication.

The Mistress had decided to expand the Sisterhood, Sisters of the Forsaken, across the many differing realms of this world and to that end had a foothold on disparate and varied realms, but had focused primarily on the Horde faction, being somewhat naturally inclined that direction. Now, the Mistress is very good at acquiring funds and in short order usually amasses a considerable amount despite being new to a realm. In considering the future of this sisterhood, she determined that the alliance was underrepresented. As there are only a limited number of RPPVP realms available, she was faced with the need to abandon a Horde presence in one realm in order to better balance the Sisterhood’s representation across these worlds. Faced with this possibility, it did not seem appropriate to just abandon her stash of cash and highly valued blue items, to leave them to be reabsorbed into Blizzard’s rapacious gullet. No, some other method was necessary. So, the Priestess Azzara relayed her experience with charity, when as a novice the gentle Knight Chaembal, had taken pity on her insignificance and had gifted her with green items and gold, enabling her to venture forth and explore with more joy. Ever after Priestess Azzara has indulged herself with acts of unexpected charity. The moral of this tale resonated with the Mistress Tzu and she set out to rid herself of her monetary burden so that she could start anew as an Alliance Tzu. The Mistress waited patiently in the throne room of the Undercity, awaiting someone who would further her goals in the game, someone upon whom she could sow her gifts and see them well used. So, she waited there seeking an individual who would address her in the language of the realm. When he came at last and offered her assistance, she blessed him with financial reward beyond his imagining and left the realm to start again as his opponent in ethical combat.So, what lesson lies here?

Be kind, offer assistance and you will always be blessed in return.

As it turns out, the pictures from my recent trip to Europe were on my camera.  Through the tumult of returning and getting through the next few months, I had put off, delayed, not bothered with the process of downloading them to my computer.  Now they were lost, with the camera.  Something irreplaceable, through my distraction and inattention was, potentially, gone forever.  In that moment, I knew that I valued them, that record of my life, of time with my daughter.  Gone.

 So, I started thinking about other things that get lost along the way.  Things that we value that through inattention, distraction, wanton destruction, get lost as we live.  When you see a “Lost Dog” sign posted somewhere, don’t you wonder “How did that happen?”  You know those people loved their dog.  How did it happen?  A moment’s distraction, a gate left unlocked, being torn between two obligations.  All it takes sometimes is an instant and objects, moments, people are lost.  Sometimes it takes longer. 

Sometimes it takes a concerted effort to achieve alienation and neglect, but eventually things are lost, people are lost, connections are lost and then we discover their true value.  The tragedy is that often in our haste and distraction we lose sight of the value of keepsakes, notions, emotions, memories, friends and family until they are gone, missing, lost.

I found the camera, eventually. 

In any event, the article prompted me to ponder why it is that people voted Republican in the first place. In so far that is that one votes for a party rather then a person, because clearly if one were voting for a person, Bush would have been far less likely to be elected. Then given that one is voting for a party, which particular myth, as there are many, of a party are you voting for. What would prompt any right-thinking person, or fantasy-enveloped person as may be more accurate to vote Republican as clearly about half the country did, approximately, more or less, depending on the day, the state, the person counting and the hang of the chad.

It sprang to mind, and I rather like these thoughts that spring to mind. I tend to think that they are inspired while others of my acquaintance see them as misbegotten and ill considered, but there you have it. It sprang to mind that the reason people who vote Republican do so is because they are dreamers. Democrats are pragmatists, but Republicans are dreamers, they believe. Republicans believe in the American Dream, or perhaps the American Myth. They believe that with a little skill, luck and possibly some hard work, they to can be the next Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs. They believe in the stories promulgated by Horatio Alger, who, as it turns out, according to Wikipedia, was most likely a pedophile, but maybe that is an interesting parallel in its own right with the Republican Party of today, although slightly off topic. However, the Horatio Alger stories, commonly held to be the genesis of the rags to riches notion of the American Dream are, in fact, usually misrepresented. In his stores, or so Wikipedia indicates, the best most characters attain is not great wealth, but rather through courage, character and the assistance of a wealthy elder gentleman, they are rewarded with a stable middle class existence. Interestingly, they do represent the factual reality of most people’s interaction with American society, the evolution of a middle class. Well, and the odd pedophilia thing. How does that fit in?

People who vote Republican believe that they to can become a success here in the USA and that further, if by some wild, weird twist of fate they are successful, then that success will be theirs. No one, governmental or private, will have the right to take their money or their ideas, or tell them what to do, or how to live. It is one of the purest motivations for immigrating here. I can go to the US. I can become a success and no one can take it away from me. It isn’t entirely true. It is, in large part a fantasy, a myth, but nonetheless it is what Republicans are voting for.

Does it sound like there is a quasi religious element to this? Yes, I think that there is, however, it isn’t organized religion in the sense that we typically perceive it when we think of conservation Republican politics. It is the politics of belief, the power of fantasy.

Democrats, on the other hand, are pragmatists. It is a necessary point of view, but a lot less colorful and thus much harder to seduce people into voting with you. Democrats recognize that most of us, maybe 99.9% of us are not going to be the next Bill Gates. The true percentage is probably even worse, but I am only guessing. Given that nearly all of us are going to spend our lives barely getting by, the Democrats figure it would be a good thing to have small things to assist in basic survival. Things like universal health care and enough money to nominally retire. Democrats care about the necessities of life although they are far less glamorous. People vote Democratic when they have given up, when they are worn down and frightened, but people who vote Republican, when they have nothing and have little prospect of ever having anything. These are the people voting on faith, voting for a possibility, for a fantasy.

I admit it, what some of you have always suspected and derided. From time to time I have voted Republican, to the consternation, dismay and contempt of those who think I should know better.

Yes, I am about to comment on myself. When I wrote the previous, the individual who had forwarded the Dowd article to me got irate. He had several issues, which I will try to state acurately in the follow on posting, but as I no longer have access to the discussion, I may, at best, only approximate them and even so cannot really claim to have ever understood what anyone was “really” thinking.

So, not wanting to leave those concerns unaddressed, the follow on posting is “The Politics of Compassion”

During the main part of the tourist season 50% of the water is diverted. At night and during the off season about 75% is diverted. The reasons for doing so are multiple; however, it appears to be an extraordinary waste to let all of that potential energy escape. Instead, they reroute it through the hydroelectric plants on both the Canadian and U.S. sides whose power is then shared, by virtue of international accord, between the interested parties, the US and Canada.

However, power isn’t the only reason for diverting the flow of water. Another major consideration is erosion. The falls are receding toward Lake Erie at a rate of about a couple of inches a year. The rate used to be a foot or so, but the diversion has slowed it down, along with some fix it work on the American Falls by the Army Corp of Engineers, yes, those of Katrina fame.

What is the problem here? Why not just let the falls erode, let nature do its thing? Several reasons, the tourism, shipping and hydroelectric industries all require that the location of the falls be somewhat stabile. Shifting the tourist hotels might be fairly easy, but re-cutting the Welland Ship Canal would be a problem. Another issue is that the bottom of Lake Erie is higher than the bottom of the falls. So, eventually, as the falls recede at whatever rate, the lake will drain.

So, why write this? Who really cares? I like the ironic juxtaposition that environmentalists have concerned themselves with restraining industry and development in the area, when to my way of thinking, they should be concerned with letting the falls return to their natural state. Let them erode. Free the Falls. I want to see the evolution, the change.

Nonetheless, even in their diminished capacity, it is an awesome sight.

PS: For serious fun, try the jet boat trip up the Niagara Gorge.

Now lobster should not, cannot be gobbled down one handedly, distractedly while nattering away on a cell phone. Lobster is to be savored, eaten slowly, bite by bite, to lovingly dip each morsel in drawn butter and then slowly savor its delicate taste and texture. Delighting in its sweetness and licking ones lips. Hmm…. maybe licking someone else’s lips, but I digress. Here before me is my unsolicited dining companion, the result of an unhappy conjunction of circumstance.  He is trying ineffectually to detach the tail meat, which he cannot do without a knife and fork, two hands and a chunk of focus. The best he can do is to roll the tail meat as if it were spaghetti into a huge ball on his fork, then he holds down the shell with the elbow of the cell phone hand and jerks the mass of tail meat away from the shell.

Okay, dip and nibble I think, that could work, but I have forgotten who I am dealing with here and I watch shocked as he shoves he whole ball of tail into his mouth. He is perplexed, what to do? Too much to chew, can’t swallow, worse, can’t talk! Alas, he is forced to hang up the cell phone and attempt to sort the situation out.

Consummate foolishness and a sad waste of a lovely lobster.

It turns out that recent polls indicate that most Americans are of the God-fearing type and if not God-fearing then at least God-conversant. Apparently the exact blend of percentages, which God, worshiped in what particular way, by how many, varies across the country, but it remains clear that upwards of seventy-five percent of us like to hear about God from our politicians. We like to hear that they look to a higher source for their inspiration and motivation. This appears to be true everywhere, but California, where the Godless heathens live. Who would have thought? Apparently Bush is on the right track, letting himself be guided by God. There are even those who feel that Bush doesn’t refer to God enough, that he should do it more often.

By this point I was pretty nauseated. I had always thought that my relationship to a God, assuming I could figure out which and why in the first place, was sort of a personal thing. I thought it a private matter between myself and whatever, whomever, but the best is yet to come. The parting segment is a short video of Hillary Clinton quoting the bible at a campaign speech. I had to turn the segment off before they could run it again. It was bad enough that I had to think that she had sacrificed the last shreds of her integrity to do this, to please the handlers and consultants who told her that this was what America wants in a president, but further, she doesn’t do it well. It comes across as an act and a bad one at that. And I had such high hopes for the woman.

Who knows, maybe it plays well outside of the land of the heathens.

William Gibson hypothecates that when you fly, your soul, not traveling as fast, trails behind you lost somewhere in the ether, struggling to catch up.

ash is falling
a silent rain
smothering reign
choking rain

ash to the horizon
ashes of was
ashes of is
ashes of might be

a legacy of mutual immolation
a joint conflagration
a foregone conclusion

ice burns as surely

waiting in ash
for a phoenix to rise