Hide the clocks - link to today's post

Today's blog post is about hiding clocks before going to sleep at night.  It contains several links and that is the sort of message that gets bounced and rejected by Google and other mail systems.  So I am just writing these sentences and giving you the link to the post for today on a page of my blog site.

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Sex and violence

Trying to be just bad enough to appeal to girls, and I must admit to allow my own tendencies some satisfaction without getting arrested or hurting people, I got to thinking about domestic violence, my experience of my feelings, what I see in shows and books, and what I read in "50 Shades of Grey."  I used to notice that sometimes when my father wrestled with me or my sister, his face would take on a bit of a savage look, lips parted and drawn back a little.  He looked a little tense and as though he had a slight tendency to bite someone.

I have had devilish desires : tickling somebody or poking them lightly.  Sometimes, during playful or romantic scuffles, I find the same expression on my face as I saw on my dad's.

Both as a kid in elementary school and now as a senior citizen, I saw girls sometimes challenge boys to catch them.  If they were caught, they might scream, or wiggle or giggle but they did not effectively resist capture.

From Dr. Eric Berne's discussion of the famous F-word's history

Oddly enough, it is not, as is commonly supposed, an Anglo-Saxon word. It got into English from Scotland in the 1500's and most probably came from an old Dutch or German word, ficken, which means to beat, very much like the Arabic dok, which means to pound like a pestle in a mortar. Thrusting or pounding is one of the most important elements in sexual intercourse, as we shall see. Equally important is what Arabic sexologists call hez, which means an exhilarating, lascivious, free-swinging movement of the female pelvis. It is just because cuff means dok and hez that it has such a thrust and swing. Cuffing is something two people do together, where swerking is a more one-sided word. A very wise girl named Amaryllis once said to me, "I like cuffing, but I don't want a boy who will swerk me just for the glory of it." Balling is something people do together too.*

Berne, Eric (2011-07-13). Sex in Human Loving (Kindle Locations 189-195). Tantor eBooks. Kindle Edition.

I see that October is Domestic Violence Awareness month.  I have read a few items about domestic violence and it appears to be a complex matter.  But I wonder if part of the problem might not be inadequate sex education.  

It seems to me that sexual passion can transport both men and women into states where pain, common sense and safety are not perceived very accurately, at least for a time.  I wonder if there could be, in schools or churches or the YMCA or YWCA or YMHA or someplace, discussions, lessons, instruction on satisfying one's own passions and one's partner's without damage, physical or psychological.  Looking up the well-known "The Joy of Sex", a book that seemed somewhat able to help along these lines, I see that work has been updated and includes more from typically "women's point of view" and many other related works.  I have no idea of the yearly loss in life, love and health due to loving that needs improving but I bet there is plenty and I bet we could improve.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Custom and other social glues

Most days, we read a little of Huston Smith's The World's Religions.  We have read through the wonderful Hindu and Buddhist sections and are now reading about Confucianism.  Sometimes, Confucius is said to be the greatest of all teachers, since his influence has touched so many people for so long a time.  Smith explains that during his lifetime, Confucius (551–479 BCE) wanted to be a government official since he felt that he understood how people should behave and how government should be constructed and used.  He had a little success but not much.  He did have students and followers who listened to him and read his writings.

Smith explains that Confucius lived in the Period of Warring States, a very chaotic and murderous time of strife and social disintegration.  Smith is a marvelous writer and an astute observer of people and life.  He walks through animal instinct, to tribal custom and tradition, to modern life, built on individual education and responsibility, law, a legal system of courts and jails in a system more and more dedicated to innovation and change, much of it propelled by aspects of the system that can enrich individuals and groups for successful inventions, new fashions and ideas.  For the last 300 years, various Westerners have observed calm tribal life somewhere and noted that those people managed without sheriffs , patents, and lawyers, and seemed happy.  Such tributes to that simple and relaxed-seeming life never seem to mention the grip tradition and custom have on such people.  The grip seems to have both benefits and costs, as most things do.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Experience counts

There is plenty of research that most of us are not all that good at predicting how we will feel at some future time.  Actually, we aren't too good according to similar research at remembering our emotional state at a previous time, either.  If I am in a positive mood, I will have a tendency to predict that I will have such a mood at tomorrow's dinner and the same with a currently negative mood being my basis for my prediction for tomorrow.  I have difficulty escaping the feeling I have now and I tend to be influenced by it in remembering and in predicting.

Daniel Gilbert (one of the three Daniels of Harvard's psychology department, Gilbert, Schacter and Wegner) has written a book called "Stumbling on Happiness".  He reviews research he and others have performed on various aspects of enjoying and being satisfied with life.  

We all know that our initial impression of some activity or experience may be quite different from what we feel after we become habituated.  I have been listening to Frank Muller's narration of Martin Cruz Smith's "Polar Star", in which Moscow detective Arkady Renko, banished from the Party for "political instability", works as a fish gutter on a Russian fishing ship in the Bering Sea.  The author and narrator work hard to give a feel of the cold, the fish guts and blood, the gray sky.  I am confident that my first year on such a ship would be a big adjustment.  So, to get an estimate of whether I should hire on to such a ship, I might ask a seasoned worker how he likes it, how long it took for him to feel comfortable, etc.  

Still, my lifelong experience has been that my tastes and my kicks and joys are of a rare type. What I like to do, most people don't.  What most people naturally enjoy, I don't.  I am interested in the experiences of others and I may ask about them but I am not sure that hip hop, bodice-rippers, survivor or talent shows on tv will ever appeal to me.  I feel that there is good evidence that what appeals to many Russian fishermen is not my cup of tea.  That type of experience counts, too.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Aging brain laughs

Once when my mommy and daddy got together, the result was that I started growing inside my mommy.  After leaving the protection and services of her body, I came out.  I was very immature but I began to develop the equipment, strength and size to function.  My friend tells me that one of the organs in my head that grew was my amygdala (a-mig-da-la), a small part of my brain that assesses dangers and alerts me to serious ones.  Maybe a young amygdala is sensitive to finer degrees of danger.  If an amygdala is as old as mine is, it might not alert me very much, even to severe dangers that do have the potential to do plenty of harm.

My friend attributes my relaxed attitude to my aging brain part.  

I would like to feel that I see that evil, pestilence, starvation and earthquakes, while real, are only able to threaten basically death, pain and loss.  Right now, I don't welcome any of these three but I feel clear that I will have pain on and off, maybe more and more, on.  I lose steadily: acuity, strength, alertness.  My future prospects steadily shorten.  All this is the result of the same processes that produced me and my life.  They are part of the world and not hilarious.  But why not enjoy the fortunes I still have?  Why not foreswear fear, which only lessens the taste of the days I still have?  

If this is my amygdala losing function, it feels pretty good.

On the other hand, it is dangerous to understand.  The more fully I comprehend the situation of humans living on this ball, the sharper the choice.  I seem to have two choices: to laugh (or at least snicker) nearly continuously at myself and others, at chance, probability, happenstance and coincidence or become enraged.  My difficulty with rage is that it keeps mounting and mounting.  I can see myself approaching the situation where the tigers of rage chase me faster and faster until I liquefy into butter.  Besides, rage makes me less aware of what I do currently have, what I still enjoy.  Seeing clearly is better.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

What's the cost, benefit of electronic devices?

A friend asks if all that electronic stuff is harmful.  Is a family bent over a tablet any better, even as good as, lawn games, Scrabble, group games and activities such as charades?  Since my family is using a fair amount of electronic games, video and computer, Wii and iPad, I am interested in the question and any good answers.  However, another related question is how much handicap does a person carry if they have no access to computers and related devices?  Will my child be forever behind if I can't afford such equipment for him?

The book "Everything Bad is Good for You" by Steven Johnson, an excellent science writer, is a good one for exploring parts of the games good or game bad question.  That book and the fact that many universities are finding a way to open departments or collaborations between departments that work on games may help an interested inquirer to see that games can be useful as a hobby, as a serious pursuit, and even as an aid in learning nearly anything.  

You may have heard the expression "There's an app for that".  These days, there may well be a small program that runs on your computer, tablet like iPad or Kindle Fire or other tablet, or smartphone for nearly any purpose.  True, games for amusement are getting all the headlines, such as the Angry Birds series sold by a Finnish company.  However, there are thousands and thousands of apps for nearly any purpose. Researchers are working hard to find ways to monitor blood pressure, keep tabs on the stock market, assist in learning a foreign language, cook a new dish and assist with many other activities.

But what about the other worry?  If my child has not had a chance to use a computer or other currently stylish device, will that mean a handicap, a loss in school and maybe even in later life? I don't think so.  I do hope that through school, church, the local public library or some other way, children get a chance to try all the devices.  Possibly the most interesting statement of children learning electronic devices without instruction is the "Beyond the Hole in the Wall" in which Sugata Mitra has shown what motivated kids age 10-12 can learn by relying on each other and experimenting.

From the introduction by Nicolaus Negroponte, famous MIT educator:

He offers a very different view of learning, one which involves the collective learning of mixed ages, achieved without a teacher. He has shown that a critical mass of illiterate 10- to 12-year-olds can conduct exercises of a level of difficulty that would otherwise require an eighth- to 10th-grade education. He lets these children teach each other, self-organize and explore in a manner more akin to the organization of a sports team than of a classroom.    There is a great deal to learn from Sugata's 12 years of experience with the Hole in the Wall project. To me, the most notable idea is that children are far better at organizing themselves than we assume. Much of the world is discoverable, which is how we all learned from the time we were born until around age 5, when our more formal education began. We interacted with our environments to acquire language and common sense. We acquired so much knowledge during those years that we learned many things about manipulating the world and even some about manipulating

Mitra, Sugata (2012-01-24). Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning (Kindle Single) (TED Books) (Kindle Locations 47-55). TED Books. Kindle Edition.

Yes, my kid may be pitied if he doesn't have a cellphone.  Of course, he may be pitied if he doesn't wear Calvin Klein jeans.  However, if he wants to learn to use the modern devices, it will take him a very short time to master them.  That is also true of Aunt Jeanette, although, in truth, she may not be as motivated as he will be.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Variations in meditative practice

From Chade-Meng Tan "Search Inside Yourself" - Consciously, deliberately, faithfully take one slow conscious breath a day.  That's all you need to get started on a simple practice that helps mind, body and spirit.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

What do I remember?

Can I tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday?  If I do, will what I say be correct?  How about dinner the previous night?  When did we last see each other?

Lately, research has been showing the holes in our memory.  A man bursts into a lecture hall and fires (blank) shots at the speaker who falls down.  The man runs out.  How tall was he?  Was he left handed?  What sort of shoes did he wear?  That is just perception and acquisition of information but at that step, errors can definitely be made.

We went on our second date years ago.  I remember the white jeans she wore.  What do I remember of the top?  What did we have for dinner?  Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold remember with fondness that evening long ago, except for the time, the month, what color dress she wore.  "Ah, yes, I remember it well".  

Ok, but what about school?  How to extract a square root is my fallback example.  Some people didn't learn any algorithm for finding what number times itself equals 7 but others learned to use a radical sign, √, while others learned to simply try a likely number and keep trying larger and smaller numbers to the desired accuracy.  

But that was math and these days we all use calculators or computers anyhow.  Let's switch to geography: where is Egypt?  Where is Botswana, where women were first allowed to inherit property just last week?  Didn't ever study that?  How about the US, which is the more northern, Massachusetts or Rhode Island?

We spent all that time, did all that homework and we don't remember now?!  Yikes!  Sister Edith, a Benedictine sociologist on Twitter, reports just finishing a MOOC (mass open online course) and wonders how much she will retain, despite having passed the tests.  There are probably some other fine works on adult retention of schooling but the one I refer to is The Unschooled Mind by Howard Gardner, a well-known professor of education.  

Since knowledge is changing so fast, the concept of schooling being an engraving of truth in the brain that will serve over a lifetime is getting silly.  It seems that schooling is more of an exploration and a developing familiarity with exploring and one's self as an explorer.  I may know that I once knew about Egypt, having done a report in the 4th grade or a paper in college.  I may know a cousin who traveled there and remember her reaction and her pictures.  Those experiences may help me feel closer to Egypt than to Fiji, if I have had little to do with that island.  Still, the experience of having learned some about Egypt may give me some confidence that I can learn about Fiji, too.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Story of iPad

My daughter likes to play games and put puzzles together, just like her mother.  I have made it into sudoku but no crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, crostics, or other such challenges.  Meanwhile, our greatgrandson has mastered two or three Angry Birds, Bring Me Sandwiches, Where's My Water?, Bad Piggies, Fruit Ninja and other video games.  My granddaughter had a Kindle but expressed strong interest in a Kindle Fire.  I had one and rarely used it, finding the Kindle Touch more than adequate and quite convenient.  As I gave her my Kindle Fire, I asked her why she wanted one.  She immediately said,"I want to play Angry Birds."

Games!  With color and sound and on a touch sensitive screen!  That's the difference.  Of course.  So, when my frugal  daughter mentioned that she was interested in the new tablets, I got her an iPad.  My tech guru said there wasn't much difference between iPad 2 and 3. The latter one has more pixels in the display and being more recent, will probably be supported and updated longer than the iPad2.  

I got my daughter an iPad3 and she is using it more and more.  Well, I should say that it is getting good use.  Not only my son-in-law and greatgrandson, but both greatgranddaughters are quite interested in it, too.  One of the girls is 4 years old and the other is 3 but they are experienced game players.  The older one gets to use an iPad in her 4 year old kindergarten and has assisted the family adults with some of the finer points of exploding a missile into shrapnel parts to knock down those nasty pigs' tower.  The three year old is precocious and determined to participate in as much that her 12 year old brother does as she possibly can.

Even the athletic youngest greatgrandchild, 2 and a half years old, has used the iPad a little, even though his whole body is in continuous motion.  We have friends who have found that their 22 month old grandson is best quieted and kept amused with an iPad, which he can use to his satisfaction very well.

Lynn and I found years ago that mastering some software simultaneously and discussing what each of us was able to do and where we were frustrated was fun.  Exploring technology together can definitely bring people together.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Attention!

This bounced to many people.  I have removed the links (by Google to Google stuff!) and I am trying again.

Bill

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: W Kirby <olderkirby@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 6:24 AM
Subject: Attention!
To:


We both went through the 40 hours of training to complete the Brain Fitness Program, a product of Posit Science.  Dr. Michael Merzenich, PhD and others emphasize during the computer exercises for the brain that practice matters, especially what is done with full attention. It is that conscious, deliberate attention that can make a big difference.

When I first read "The Inner Game of Tennis", "The Relaxation Response", "Superlearning" and related books, I became convinced that what I then thought of as deliberate relaxation practice was important for students of all ages to do.  I delivered a paper at the American Educational Research Association in 1985 which included deliberate relaxation as a candidate for future inclusion in school curricula.  About ten years later, I listened to Deepak Chopra's "The Higher Self" and got enthused about doing meditation regularly.  

Jack Kornfield is one of the leading American teachers of meditative and mindful practice.  Near the end of "Bringing Home the Dharma", he says there are over 100 types of meditative practices and I doubt if that includes the various sorts of meditation, concentration and contemplation discussed or practiced in the literature of all the world's religions.  The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Protestant churches have many, all by themselves.

Recently, a commenter in the Mindfulness in Education Google Group objected to trying to teach meditation without also teaching some Buddhism.  I guess it is fair to say that fixed-point attention while sitting still is indeed a fundamental part of Buddhist practice.  But, anything that is a religion, rumored to be a religion or seems like a religion, cannot be adopted by the secular American school system, however much some people find that sad.  

I am interested in what aspects of meditation can be learned by children or anyone and be beneficial without reference to religion, since meditation and being aware of what one is giving attention to, has been showing itself so important in ever-widening parts of our society.  Medicine, business, athletics, religion, art and creative work and even the military are finding the value of a few minutes of meditation a day.

The situation currently looks like this to me:

1. Practice fixing the attention on any target while sitting in a comfortable but not too relaxed position for about 10 minutesa day.  One's breath or a spot in the visual field are common targets.
2. Expect to find attention has wandered off the target.  
3. When you become aware attention has wandered, return it to the target without judgment.

Do this most days for 6 months.  By that time, you become more aware of what it is that you are attending to at any and all times of the day.  You develop an increased ability to decide if you are attending to what you most want to pay attention to at any given time.

Over time, you develop increased sensitivity to noticing your own emotional states.  Observing them without judgment leads to increased respect for the intelligent mind, most of which is unconscious, that drives your body and life.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Five strands

1) I read the other day of a bra for women that was supposed to be able to detect the beginnings of breast cancer.  The link in Twitter didn't work well for either of us and I suspected maybe a hoax or a fraud.  I have heard of smarter clothes for years and I thought this might be an example.  I used "cancer detecting bra" in Google search and got these results.

2) Linnea Soderburg (@LinneaSaid) retweeted this from Funny Tweets! (@ComedyAndTruth)

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can't see.

Funny Tweets! uses a picture of Spongebob's buddy Patrick, the loopy starfish, as its ID picture.  Very appropriate.

3) We recently heard Peter Greene of InfoStar.com who regularly talks on the Wisconsin Public Radio show of Larry Meillor on the subject of computers.  He recommends using two virus protection programs simultaneously and finds he has a good experience that way.

4) Slowly, change comes along, changes you can sometimes notice and sometimes not.  Today, we retrieved the last few items from the house where Lynn's mother and stepdad lived.  We may never go there again.  

5) Sometimes, when I read to Lynn, the text is so funny, I can't enunciate clearly.  Too much giggling and chortling (chortle = "chuckle gleefully").  I admire standup comics and actors who can deliver the funniest lines clearly and reasonably solemnly, leaving the audience to do the deep laughing, with tears of delight.  We have been reading "Three Cheers for Me" by Donald Jack, very funny in places but very sober in many others as a young Canadian gets into the fighting in World War I.  So, "Aftermirth", by Hillary Jordan sounded intriguing.  I read it and don't think she quite succeeded in her goal, but it is a noble one that will no doubt re-emerge.  She wanted to explore the possibility of losing a loved one suddenly and very painfully but in such a way that it is difficult for others not to laugh at.  I always thought that Maxwell Smart using a phone booth might asphyxiate himself with anal gaseous emissions of a truly deadly type, maybe brought on by food designed by an enemy to accomplish such a dastardly event.  If you were Mrs.Smart or Maxwell's mommy, you would be tearful and torn and would be not appreciate the laughter that emerged from friends as you explained your loss.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Political truths, Thai citizenship

Our local weekly paper, the Portage County Gazette, is respected and useful.  It recently had two articles that got my attention: what you won't heard a politician say near election time and information on The Thailand Project.

George Rogers wrote that candidates for office would basically say two things if they could and were more honest:

• "I have little control over events and little knowledge about what will happen during my term if I am elected".
• "Despite the nasty things we are saying about him, that other guy is a good man."

I agree that both of these are true and unmentionable, at least so far.  But for my politically distraught friends, absorbing these ideas might drop the blood pressure and lighten the day.

Two art students from our local university, Univ. of Wis. - Stevens Point, took a trip to Thailand.  While there, they became interested in sex trafficking. Work to help some young women involved with trying to avoid getting caught up in that mess eventually led the two students, Joseph Quinnell and Susan Perri, to become interested in statelessness.  The two students began a project to assist one young woman who was officially stateless in Thailand to come to the US to study.  Stateless people, estimated to number 3.5 million in Thailand alone, have no rights, no legal protection and no access to education.  Srinuan Saokhamnuan received her Thai citizenship in July of this year after 7 years of struggle by the young woman and the two UWSP students, now graduates.  

People like me are sometimes said to be ignorant of the way most of the way the world works.  Asking what might be considered pesky or impertinent questions about something like "the procedure to obtain citizenship" can be a very tiring business, if not actually risky.  I recently read an account of an Englishman, married to an Iranian, who had spent much of his professional life in Iran, at various translation and diplomatic jobs.  He applied for citizenship in Iran.  Various workers and officials expressed delight with his application and assured him that it was an honor to receive such an application.  He was told to return to the office in Iran where he had submitted his application in a couple of weeks.  He did.  He was received with good humor and was offered tea and conversation but was eventually told that things had turned out that he should again return in two weeks.  That same procedure was repeated over and over, always with smiles and evident good spirits and always with nothing else.  

The story of Srinuan and Joseph and Susan was very similar, except that a new administrator was employed in the key office, a man who grasped the idea of the value to his country to getting the stateless into citizenship.  Srinuan is now a citizen and that same regional office is working on moving some 400 stateless individuals into citizenship and has intents to assist more after that.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Novogratz and her Acumen Fund

One day, Audible.com suggested I might like "The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World" by Jacqueline Novogratz.  They were completely correct.  I liked it very much.  I listened to the audio book and so did Lynn, and I also bought it in print.  

Novogratz tells her own story of joining a banking firm out of college, moving into philanthropic banking and finance in developing parts of Africa and India.  She has had many adventures, actual movie stuff as well as conceptual ones as she learned the ropes of actually making a difference in people's lives.  After some 20 years of such work, she founded her own philanthropic Acumen Fund. The web site states 10 basic principles her organization learned.

The first one is
"Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth."

"Poverty" is not just about money. What keeps people from realizing their full potential is lack of choice and opportunity. It is this choice - this dignity - that human beings crave. Over the last ten years we have learned that working towards this fundamental idea of dignity is inherently more difficult, complex, and messy than working on solving a single technical problem. It demands letting go of the notion of solving problems for poor people. It requires listening to the poor as agents who want to change their own lives. Most importantly, it requires that we unfailingly, uncompromisingly address people's full humanity. This is where dignity starts for us all."

Novogratz has had plenty of experience of new gadgets or plans that were supposed to work miracles for people which did not make a difference, often because of limited understanding of the people and their culture

Principle #6 says:

Great technology alone is not the answer. We often say, "build it and they won't come."

Our office is littered with "the next great technology" - water filters, cookstoves, you name it - that have gone nowhere. Occasionally a new product-like the Rotavirus vaccine or the long-lasting anti-malarial bednet-can truly move the needle, especially for large-scale problems that require a single, public intervention. Usually, though, technology isn't enough.…

Just as we are slowly mapping how to raise people's spirits and lower our stress, we are slowly finding ways for all humans to have the basics of a good life.  One of the lessons Novogratz had to learn was that accountability matters.  Income flows, reputation, inventories and agreements have to be checked and validated consciously and responsibly, not haphazardly.  Teachers, officers and administrators contribute to lives by showing they care enough to track funds, hours and contracts and enforce the rules.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Used to be sour but now

I have become Tweeter!  You know some of the facts of Twitter

• Free
• Max of 140 characters, including spaces
• Links that are taking too much of your precious Tweet can be shortened. I like the Google shortener but many people use Bitly.com.

Basically, you get to read tweets of people you decide to "follow".  Since Oct.4, I have found 105 people I want to follow.  At least 90 of them are people I knew about from reading.  In that time, I have written 60 Tweets.

The fun part has been being able to connect with Toni Bernhard, most of the meditation/mindfulness people I have enjoyed, and many authors, such as Stephanie Bond of "Our Husband" and Kathryn Schulz of "Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error" and Hannah Holmes of "The Secret Life of Dust".  Here I am in a small Wisconsin city and I get to talk to people like that, like Gay Hendricks and Rebecca Skloot.  Way cool!

I suspect that some shapely, scantily clad young ladies have chosen to follow me because I seem to be male.  Since I am not interested in young female bodies nor in pictures of them, they may be cozying up to the wrong tree.

The Tweet stream is pretty steady and it can occupy lots of time, reading, exploring, checking, etc.  Good thing the tweets are short.  So far, no one has said I seem to be too stupid to live, which I take to be a positive sign.

You can find out what the whole deal is about by trying Twitter or just ask me from time to time how it is going.  The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein is $5.  It has been a help in giving me some info on what else is involved beyond what I have learned about so far.

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Good perspective on US health costs and services

Interesting statement on health care costs from retired hospital executive via a Tweet from Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Radar and Publishing.  It's a post on "Not Running a Hospital", a blog by Paul Levy.  Helpful longer-range perspective.  I am a fan of W. Edwards Deming, the statistical guru who helped the world get better quality in production of goods and services.  Deming saw a steady rise in health costs and Levy explains several good, logical reasons for that to be true worldwide, not just in the U.S.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Toni Bernhard, JD: Thanks! Five cool things you have done

Thanks to Toni Bernhard, J.D.

1. Toni was the first person to reply to one of my Tweets.  Without such recognition by SOMEBODY, a person can fear he doesn't really exist. 
2. Not only that, but she is the author of the intelligent and inspiring book  How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers by Toni Bernhard and Sylvia Boorstein. She herself has dealt with a debilitating chronic disease for years and knows the problems personally.
   
3. Not only that, she runs a blog on Psychology Today (if you have never seen the list prepare to be impressed), Turning Straw into Gold.
4. Not only that, she wrote about one of her blog posts yesterday in which she explains the value of a short session of meditation (5 minutes) when fighting restlessness and boredom.
5. Not only that, but that blog post fits neatly into my collection of time recommendations for meditation sessions.

Thanks very much to Dr. Prof. Bernhard!
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Learn the business to run the firm

I am a fan of duration, especially successful shortening of time required to do something.  If the something is as good or better when done in a shorter time, that may well be an improvement.  I think people all over the world are put off by American efforts to live rapidly, have fast food, speed read, grow crops faster, etc.  The Adam Sandler movie "Click" is a good reminder of the sad end to which one comes too soon if one fast-forwards through life.

Still, as a senior citizen becoming more senior each day, I realize my years left to live are fewer.  So, speeding here and reaching goals faster there may be worth the effort.  The single most valuable practice I have learned besides exercise is meditation.  We just read today of Zen priests in Japan in Huston Smith's "The World's Religions" sitting facing a wall, day after day, year after year, cleaning their minds and improving their grasp of reality.  

Visitors to these are struck by the seemingly endless hours the monks devote to sitting silently on two long, raised platforms that extend the length of the hall on either side, their faces toward the center (or to the walls, depending on which of the two main lineages of Zen the monastery is attached to). Their position is the lotus posture, adopted from India. Their eyes are half closed as their gaze falls unfocused on the tawny straw mats they are sitting on. Thus they sit, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, seeking to waken the Buddha-mind so they may later relate it to their daily lives.

Smith, Huston (2004-05-10). The World's Religions, Revised and Updated (Plus) (Kindle Locations 2874-2880). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

"Hour after hour,...year after year"?  May be silly of me but I seek evidence that good awareness of my mind can be achieved more quickly.  Maybe that last year, that last month, could be omitted successfully.

B. Alan Wallace says somewhere that some ancient authorities somehow worked out that 24 minute sessions were optimal.  Herbert Benson in "The Relaxation Response" says 10-20 minutes once or twice a day.  Victor Davich says 8 and Toni Bernhard says 5 will do.  The professionally jovial Chinese engineer at Google has the suggested time down to 2 minutes.

Most evenings, before we sleep, my young daughter and I sit in mindfulness together for two minutes. I like to joke that two minutes is optimal for us because that is the attention span of a child and of an engineer. For two minutes a day, we quietly enjoy being alive and being together. More fundamentally, for two minutes a day, we enjoy being. Just being. To just be is simultaneously the most ordinary and the most precious experience in life.

Goleman, Daniel; Kabat-Zinn, Jon; Tan, Chade-Meng (2012-04-24). Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) (Kindle Locations 585-588). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

If you are interested, you might want to note that Daniel Goleman and Jon Kabat-Zinn are two of the main leaders in getting people aware of the value of meditation.  

Meditation helps you learn the business of your mind and feelings.  After that, you will run the firm of yourself much better.

--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety