I've been having so much fun as an older person that I am opening an aging spa. I can no longer in good conscience keep all the treasure and prestige to myself. Spend an afternoon with me and you will look 70 years old. You will immediately be offered the famous senior discounts. You will never be carded by those stores that card everyone who appears to be younger than 40. I can permanently crinkle your skin and age your posture. True, I am rather expensive but I'm the best if you want to be taken for older than you are.
It has been noted that a line of products that aim at something impossible may well produce the best income. So far, we have not found a way to reverse time so we all age steadily, if not sporadically. Therefore, the emphasis on the attractiveness of the young promotes many efforts to make ourselves look young and function as young people. That fact that doing so is impossible tends to be ignored and that sets the stage for repeated efforts.
I read the other day that even though the earth's human population has reached 7 billion, the current group of living humans is only 17% of all the humans who have lived, depending, of course, on the definition of "human". There are 5.88 seventeens in 100% so think of how the earth's crowdedness and evironment would be if we had 7 billion x 5.88 or 41.18 billion. You can see that mortality is wonderful and we can all be grateful to the earlier humans for not extending their lives too long. Do a good deed, then, and come to my aging clinic (when it opens).
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Filtered, personalized information
A bubble can be something short-lived and insubstantial. It can also be a plastic shield that encloses, as when someone is being protected from an alien atmosphere or threatening germs, the "boy in the bubble" situation. Some people have expressed a worry that so much information about me will be collected by Google, Microsoft, etc. that only very tailored information streams will be directed at me. Maybe I will never be exposed to views and ideas not in line with my search history and expressed tastes and convictions.
Having thought a little bit about this concept, I have decided I have more important things to worry about. I use Firefox for most web browsing and I have the options set to delete cookies and browsing history when I close the Firefox browser. When I do use Chrome, Google's browser, I delete all collected information it lists using the choice provided that says "from the beginning of time", which is really a long way back and well before my birth or computers.
However, I use Google's free email "Gmail" and their free blogging site, "Blogger", and their free web site creation and hosting service, "Google Sites". Google has advanced staff and thinkers and tons of money. I am sure they can hire programmers and private investigators and find out where I go and what I do quite easily. It seems that the alumni offices of various schools are themselves pretty darned good at tracking me down but they may not know I subscribe to the Discover magazine. Actually, Google and others may not care about me. Scary but true. They may have little interest in me.
As my businessman relative says, stop and think what demographic I am in. I am not between 25 and 45. I am not making babies or investments. I don't want a Porche or other enhancements to my "look". So, I am probably not worthwhile.
In these months of what many people feel are unusually uncivil, unmannerly arguments between various men who want to be elected to run the country, one does wonder if those who are passionately in favor of some idea and those who are passionately against it have heard much of the other side's point of view. I wonder if I have stumbled onto the underlying obstacle to more understanding of others: we all need to delete our cookies more often! Empty our caches so that we start each day from scratch.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Having thought a little bit about this concept, I have decided I have more important things to worry about. I use Firefox for most web browsing and I have the options set to delete cookies and browsing history when I close the Firefox browser. When I do use Chrome, Google's browser, I delete all collected information it lists using the choice provided that says "from the beginning of time", which is really a long way back and well before my birth or computers.
However, I use Google's free email "Gmail" and their free blogging site, "Blogger", and their free web site creation and hosting service, "Google Sites". Google has advanced staff and thinkers and tons of money. I am sure they can hire programmers and private investigators and find out where I go and what I do quite easily. It seems that the alumni offices of various schools are themselves pretty darned good at tracking me down but they may not know I subscribe to the Discover magazine. Actually, Google and others may not care about me. Scary but true. They may have little interest in me.
As my businessman relative says, stop and think what demographic I am in. I am not between 25 and 45. I am not making babies or investments. I don't want a Porche or other enhancements to my "look". So, I am probably not worthwhile.
In these months of what many people feel are unusually uncivil, unmannerly arguments between various men who want to be elected to run the country, one does wonder if those who are passionately in favor of some idea and those who are passionately against it have heard much of the other side's point of view. I wonder if I have stumbled onto the underlying obstacle to more understanding of others: we all need to delete our cookies more often! Empty our caches so that we start each day from scratch.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Monday, February 27, 2012
Two topics: computers, meditation
Circumstances have made me think that maybe a basic web page or two might help in discussions with people who want to make more use of their computers and related electronics. Similarly, I wanted to make an updated, better and more direct set of directions on meditation. Throughout today, I have added two pages to my kirbyvariety web site.
Basics of personal computing: https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/Home/basics-of-personal-computing
How to meditate: https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/meditation-1
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Basics of personal computing: https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/Home/basics-of-personal-computing
How to meditate: https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/meditation-1
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Discussing the book we have all read
Not easy to collect the marked passages of a book
All the student-marked passages constitute a great basis for comparison and contrast
It is quite possible to read a book, enjoy reading it, and learn from doing so without marking it, or copying any passage. It is surprisingly pleasant to just read each word with little additional effort. Just as much so to see afterwards that various passages and ideas are in your memory and mind. On the other hand, if you are planning to make a presentation or a blog post about a book, it relieves anxiety, though, to mark interesting passages on which to comment or question. Using a bright yellow or green highlighting pen makes the parts stand out and easily seen while paging through the book.
If the members of an interested class or group all do that independently, the books used might be set aside if the marked passages were all assembled. A list of them could be arranged in the order in which the passages come up in the book and the names or initials of the group members who selected a given passage could be placed at each passage. Paging through each copy to find each of the marked places would take time and might be both somewhat tedious and error-prone.
Not so much if all involved use a Kindle, the ereader from Amazon. That technology, using a Kindle, is fast, easy and accurate to mark a passage, transfer the file of all marked passages to a computer and print or display them. Amazon already does this on the web site kinde.amazon.com. There a Kindle user can see his own highlights and the popular highlights, sections cited by many readers.
Amazon Kindle ebooks can be read on smartphones and anywhere on the web and on any PC or Mac. The ability to highlight, correlate and copy or quote appears to differ from one sort of device to another.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
All the student-marked passages constitute a great basis for comparison and contrast
It is quite possible to read a book, enjoy reading it, and learn from doing so without marking it, or copying any passage. It is surprisingly pleasant to just read each word with little additional effort. Just as much so to see afterwards that various passages and ideas are in your memory and mind. On the other hand, if you are planning to make a presentation or a blog post about a book, it relieves anxiety, though, to mark interesting passages on which to comment or question. Using a bright yellow or green highlighting pen makes the parts stand out and easily seen while paging through the book.
If the members of an interested class or group all do that independently, the books used might be set aside if the marked passages were all assembled. A list of them could be arranged in the order in which the passages come up in the book and the names or initials of the group members who selected a given passage could be placed at each passage. Paging through each copy to find each of the marked places would take time and might be both somewhat tedious and error-prone.
Not so much if all involved use a Kindle, the ereader from Amazon. That technology, using a Kindle, is fast, easy and accurate to mark a passage, transfer the file of all marked passages to a computer and print or display them. Amazon already does this on the web site kinde.amazon.com. There a Kindle user can see his own highlights and the popular highlights, sections cited by many readers.
Amazon Kindle ebooks can be read on smartphones and anywhere on the web and on any PC or Mac. The ability to highlight, correlate and copy or quote appears to differ from one sort of device to another.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Saturday, February 25, 2012
1000 posts
The earliest post in this blog is dated March 29, 2008. Today is Feb. 25, 2012 so this blog has been around for 1428 days. This post today is the 1000th one. So, in a way, I am 428 posts behind. Whose way? Nobody knows. A little division shows that I have averaged .7 posts a day. As that first message says, this "Fear, Fun and Filoz" (ophy) blog is actually my 2nd one. In the first try, I was interested in writing down the idea of meditation in a form that could be understood and used. Over time, that got to be a somewhat limited topic. At the same time, I realized that many thoughts came to mind during day, from events and observations around me as well as ideas and reactions to books and movies and news events.
I meditate 10-13 minutes a day and I find I cannot convince myself that I don't have the time each day to do that. It has turned out to be a valuable addition to my life, one of the very most valuable ever. Similarly, writing a blog post each day has also turned out to be fun, inspiring, and literally eye-opening.
I read somewhere that the French author Guy de Maupassant said that any difficulty can be borne if a story can be told about it. I have or had a book on study skills translated from the French that said all generals fight their battles twice, once on the battlefield and once in the apartments of the ladies. Psychology and related disciplines in medicine are converging on idea that anything which distances pain, confusion, fear, and related threats and challenges, anything which gives us a chance to see our lives, actually both the good and not-as-good parts from a bit of a distance, anything like that increases our ability to accept problems and losses, bear pain and fear, and enjoy what comes. Writing and other arts do exactly that.
As Thich Nhat Hanh says, looking deeply can enrich our minds and lives. Asking myself "What's up with me right now?" gives me a chance to step back from the day and review. What stands out from recent moments? What gave me a lift? What was difficult?
I appreciate all readers, both intermittent and steady, and I thank you for your attention and comments.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
I meditate 10-13 minutes a day and I find I cannot convince myself that I don't have the time each day to do that. It has turned out to be a valuable addition to my life, one of the very most valuable ever. Similarly, writing a blog post each day has also turned out to be fun, inspiring, and literally eye-opening.
I read somewhere that the French author Guy de Maupassant said that any difficulty can be borne if a story can be told about it. I have or had a book on study skills translated from the French that said all generals fight their battles twice, once on the battlefield and once in the apartments of the ladies. Psychology and related disciplines in medicine are converging on idea that anything which distances pain, confusion, fear, and related threats and challenges, anything which gives us a chance to see our lives, actually both the good and not-as-good parts from a bit of a distance, anything like that increases our ability to accept problems and losses, bear pain and fear, and enjoy what comes. Writing and other arts do exactly that.
As Thich Nhat Hanh says, looking deeply can enrich our minds and lives. Asking myself "What's up with me right now?" gives me a chance to step back from the day and review. What stands out from recent moments? What gave me a lift? What was difficult?
I appreciate all readers, both intermittent and steady, and I thank you for your attention and comments.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Friday, February 24, 2012
"I will take the plunge"
A man I respect says that he will "take the plunge" and give meditation a try.
Counselors, healers and theoreticians wrestle with the best approach to get people to do what is good for them. Sometimes, people trying to stop drinking or losing their temper or buying too much or whatever verbalize an idea about what they should do about the problem and yet they don't follow up on their own idea.
One of the best insights I have heard is from Prochaska's "Changing for Good", where his team of researchers found that one good predictor of successfully giving up smoking (one of the toughest of addictions to break, I have heard) is that the person tried and failed to manage to give up smoking previously. I think most people would predict that a previous failure would predict that the person is a "loser" and would not ever be able to stop. But that is not what the data showed. It showed that later attempts were more successful. In other words, this was a case of trying repeatedly for pay-off.
Another approach that seems valuable to me is that of appraisal theory. The appraisal often takes place extremely rapidly. I look at a shirt and I decide I like it or I don't like it extremely quickly, in just a few seconds. Then, my mind cascades through its typical, habitual pathways into thinking how happy I would be if I had that shirt, which gets me to thinking how unhappy I am with my wardrobe, my whole life - bang! I'm in a bad mood. The whole chain begins with that appraisal of the shirt. The better we know our minds, the better we can question the appraisal.
A third is heuristics as described by Wray Herbert and David DiSalvo. These are thinking shortcuts that our brains can use without notice and that often speed up our decision-making but that may need us into errors. For instance, our familiarity with Earth's gravity makes us extrapolate its pace in other areas such as waxing and waning fashions.
Some things are good for us but are easy. Meditation is an example. It is difficult to fail at meditation since you are only looking at where your mind is. It is an easy thing to do for 30 seconds or 1 minute. We are rarely unable to spare that much time out of a day. Try it again tomorrow or in a day or two. Avoid judging whether you like it or if you do it well.
You can plunge in or just put a toe in.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
(If it is good for me, I must TRY HARD.
Anything worth doing is worth doing right.
If it is to be valuable, it must be difficult.)
These are common ideas about life and are often true. But the trick is such a stance does not always apply.Counselors, healers and theoreticians wrestle with the best approach to get people to do what is good for them. Sometimes, people trying to stop drinking or losing their temper or buying too much or whatever verbalize an idea about what they should do about the problem and yet they don't follow up on their own idea.
One of the best insights I have heard is from Prochaska's "Changing for Good", where his team of researchers found that one good predictor of successfully giving up smoking (one of the toughest of addictions to break, I have heard) is that the person tried and failed to manage to give up smoking previously. I think most people would predict that a previous failure would predict that the person is a "loser" and would not ever be able to stop. But that is not what the data showed. It showed that later attempts were more successful. In other words, this was a case of trying repeatedly for pay-off.
Another approach that seems valuable to me is that of appraisal theory. The appraisal often takes place extremely rapidly. I look at a shirt and I decide I like it or I don't like it extremely quickly, in just a few seconds. Then, my mind cascades through its typical, habitual pathways into thinking how happy I would be if I had that shirt, which gets me to thinking how unhappy I am with my wardrobe, my whole life - bang! I'm in a bad mood. The whole chain begins with that appraisal of the shirt. The better we know our minds, the better we can question the appraisal.
A third is heuristics as described by Wray Herbert and David DiSalvo. These are thinking shortcuts that our brains can use without notice and that often speed up our decision-making but that may need us into errors. For instance, our familiarity with Earth's gravity makes us extrapolate its pace in other areas such as waxing and waning fashions.
Some things are good for us but are easy. Meditation is an example. It is difficult to fail at meditation since you are only looking at where your mind is. It is an easy thing to do for 30 seconds or 1 minute. We are rarely unable to spare that much time out of a day. Try it again tomorrow or in a day or two. Avoid judging whether you like it or if you do it well.
You can plunge in or just put a toe in.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Confess! Repent!
I am writing this on Shrove Tuesday, the last day of Carnival, also called "Mardi Gras", which is French for 'Tuesday Fat', meaning something like 'prosperous Tuesday'. Tomorrow, were I part of the right group and persuasion, I would begin a penitential fast. Well, just of meat. My advisor in graduate school regularly sacrificed for the 40 days of Lent but instead of giving up meat, promised to forgo "all candy from Egypt that comes in a bag." He had a French-sounding last name and may have been a little conscious of the meaning and tradition of Lent.
At the right time in history, I think people had many things to be afraid of. Not that we don't have our share, too, but just the invention and application since about 1937 of antibiotics has given us a sense of better understanding and less helplessness about disease. I can imagine that last days of winter, dreary and seemingly endless, being a very good time for religious authorities to try to lift peoples' energy with a challenge. Besides, by then, the supply of smoked meat was running low so it would be a good time to save.
If you are really going to do a good job of sacrificing, you need to cleanse yourself in preparation. It is a very strong rebuff to offer a sacrifice that is rejected as unworthy. One way to cleanse the mind is to confess. I'm sure you can think of sins, transgressions and trespasses, little unkindnesses and big, that you should admit to your confessor. If you can't, you can just sit there until you do! (You know the logic: you aren't perfect, are you? Of course not! If you aren't, you have flaws. Confess them and repent of them! Maybe they won't be held against you on the Last Day.)
"Shrove" is an old word, the Wikipedia says, that means 'confess'. All this confession, repentance and sacrifice is a bit scary so first let's have a party and a parade and a cotillion, a big dance, which will also give us a chance to have our son meet the daughter of our friends. It would be great for the estate if those two became a couple.
Yes, many different traditions and purposes, not to mention business and sales, are involved.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
At the right time in history, I think people had many things to be afraid of. Not that we don't have our share, too, but just the invention and application since about 1937 of antibiotics has given us a sense of better understanding and less helplessness about disease. I can imagine that last days of winter, dreary and seemingly endless, being a very good time for religious authorities to try to lift peoples' energy with a challenge. Besides, by then, the supply of smoked meat was running low so it would be a good time to save.
If you are really going to do a good job of sacrificing, you need to cleanse yourself in preparation. It is a very strong rebuff to offer a sacrifice that is rejected as unworthy. One way to cleanse the mind is to confess. I'm sure you can think of sins, transgressions and trespasses, little unkindnesses and big, that you should admit to your confessor. If you can't, you can just sit there until you do! (You know the logic: you aren't perfect, are you? Of course not! If you aren't, you have flaws. Confess them and repent of them! Maybe they won't be held against you on the Last Day.)
"Shrove" is an old word, the Wikipedia says, that means 'confess'. All this confession, repentance and sacrifice is a bit scary so first let's have a party and a parade and a cotillion, a big dance, which will also give us a chance to have our son meet the daughter of our friends. It would be great for the estate if those two became a couple.
Yes, many different traditions and purposes, not to mention business and sales, are involved.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Karen Maezen Miller makes one work!
I like to keep an eye on some blogs. The RSS feed arrangement allows me to 'subscribe' to a blog. What that does is allow the latest post to show up someplace I can look and see if that message is of interest to me. I generally subscribe a blog I want to track in my Google Reader and go through it every now and then to see what I have missed. But some of the more steadily interesting ones are posted in snippets on my main blog page where it is even more likely I will look them over. Just yesterday, Peter Duesterbeck, an interesting man who is retraining himself into a new career as a teacher posted a report on his latest student teacher experiences. His most recent post popped up on my blog page and I immediately checked out what was going on with him.
Karen Maezen Miller has written some of the very best words I have ever read and that's saying a lot. I've been reading nearly all my life. So I follow her lead pretty closely. So, this morning when my feeds showed me she had a new post, I read it. Typically Zen, quiet and stripped down, the file has a link at the bottom she advises readers to use to listen to a podcast (sound file, computer version of a CD). Since Miller is valuable and a little different from your average bear, I was primed to pay strict attention. I saw right away that the file plays for 30 minutes, a very long time for me to stand and listen before breakfast and all. It takes a long time for a nerd ex-academic to get through 30 minutes of a wonderfully rich sound file. In fact, it took me more than twice the recorded time to stop and check each new person introduced in the story. I simply must check to see what the internet through Google and printed books through Amazon have to say about this expert or that. All this with an iffy internet signal that requires re-signing on at random times.
It is a good Zen exercise in self-observation to listen to the whole thing from Miller's site or this link from its originators, NPR's Radio Lab. It definitely seems worthwhile and you needn't check all the references. It is a much broader subject than you might think.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Karen Maezen Miller has written some of the very best words I have ever read and that's saying a lot. I've been reading nearly all my life. So I follow her lead pretty closely. So, this morning when my feeds showed me she had a new post, I read it. Typically Zen, quiet and stripped down, the file has a link at the bottom she advises readers to use to listen to a podcast (sound file, computer version of a CD). Since Miller is valuable and a little different from your average bear, I was primed to pay strict attention. I saw right away that the file plays for 30 minutes, a very long time for me to stand and listen before breakfast and all. It takes a long time for a nerd ex-academic to get through 30 minutes of a wonderfully rich sound file. In fact, it took me more than twice the recorded time to stop and check each new person introduced in the story. I simply must check to see what the internet through Google and printed books through Amazon have to say about this expert or that. All this with an iffy internet signal that requires re-signing on at random times.
It is a good Zen exercise in self-observation to listen to the whole thing from Miller's site or this link from its originators, NPR's Radio Lab. It definitely seems worthwhile and you needn't check all the references. It is a much broader subject than you might think.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
"The Strange Case of Mr. Donnybrook's Boredom" by Ogden Nash
I am a big fan of Ogden Nash, who said different things in a different way. I admire a man who creates strange cases and characters who wind up scouring the globe in mad pursuit of boredom. This post is in honor of Prof. Peter Toohey, a native of Australia who is professor of Greek and Roman studies at the University of Calgary in Alberta. Prof.Toohey is the author of "Boredom: A Lively History". I am interested in boredom from all angles, including that of Eastern and Buddhist studies.
The Strange Case of Mr. Donnybrook's Boredom by Ogden Nash
http://treasuryoflaughter.blogspot.com/2011/03/ogden-nash-and-cs-lewis-spare-bedroom.html
Once upon a time there was a man named Mr. Donnybrook.
He was married to a woman named Mrs. Donnybrook.
Mr. and Mrs. Donnybrook dearly loved to be bored.
Sometimes they were bored at the ballet, other times at the cinema.
They were bored riding elephants in India and elevators in the Empire State Building.
They were bored in speakeasies during Prohibition and in cocktail lounges after Repeal.
They were bored by Grand Dukes and Garbagemen, debutantes and demimondaines, opera singers and Onassises.
They scoured the Five Continents and the Seven Seas in their mad pursuit of boredom.
This went on for years and years.
One day, Mr. Donnybrook turned to Mrs. Donnybrook,
My dear, he said, we have reached the end of our rope.
We have exhausted every yawn.
The world holds nothing more to jade our titillated palates.
Well, said Mrs. Donnybrook, we might try insomnia.
So they tried insomnia.
About two o'clock the next moring Mr. Donnybrook said, My, insomnia is certainly quite boring, isn't it?
Mrs. Donnybrook said it certainly was, wasn't it?
Mr. Donnybrook said it certainly was.
Pretty soon he began to count sheep.
Mrs. Donnybrook began to count sheep, too.
After a while, Mr. Donnybrook said, Hey, you're counting my sheep!
Stop counting my sheep, said Mr. Donnybrook.
Why, the very idea, said Mrs. Donnybrook.
I guess I know my sheep, don't I?
How? Said Mr. Donnybrook.
They're cattle, said Mrs. Donnybrook.
They're cattle, and longhorns at that.
Furthermore, said Mrs. Donnybrook, us cattle ranchers is shore tired o' you sheepmen plumb ruinin' our water.
I give yuh fair warnin', said Mrs. Donnybrook, yuh better git them wooly Gila monsters o' yourn back across the Rio Grande afore mornin' or I'm a-goin' to string yhuh up on the nearest cottonwood.
Carramba! Sneered Mr. Donnybrook. Thees ees free range, no?
No, said Mrs. Donnybrook, not for sheepmen.
She strung him up on the nearest cottonwood.
Mr. Donnybrook had never been so bored in his life.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
The Strange Case of Mr. Donnybrook's Boredom by Ogden Nash
http://treasuryoflaughter.blogspot.com/2011/03/ogden-nash-and-cs-lewis-spare-bedroom.html
Once upon a time there was a man named Mr. Donnybrook.
He was married to a woman named Mrs. Donnybrook.
Mr. and Mrs. Donnybrook dearly loved to be bored.
Sometimes they were bored at the ballet, other times at the cinema.
They were bored riding elephants in India and elevators in the Empire State Building.
They were bored in speakeasies during Prohibition and in cocktail lounges after Repeal.
They were bored by Grand Dukes and Garbagemen, debutantes and demimondaines, opera singers and Onassises.
They scoured the Five Continents and the Seven Seas in their mad pursuit of boredom.
This went on for years and years.
One day, Mr. Donnybrook turned to Mrs. Donnybrook,
My dear, he said, we have reached the end of our rope.
We have exhausted every yawn.
The world holds nothing more to jade our titillated palates.
Well, said Mrs. Donnybrook, we might try insomnia.
So they tried insomnia.
About two o'clock the next moring Mr. Donnybrook said, My, insomnia is certainly quite boring, isn't it?
Mrs. Donnybrook said it certainly was, wasn't it?
Mr. Donnybrook said it certainly was.
Pretty soon he began to count sheep.
Mrs. Donnybrook began to count sheep, too.
After a while, Mr. Donnybrook said, Hey, you're counting my sheep!
Stop counting my sheep, said Mr. Donnybrook.
Why, the very idea, said Mrs. Donnybrook.
I guess I know my sheep, don't I?
How? Said Mr. Donnybrook.
They're cattle, said Mrs. Donnybrook.
They're cattle, and longhorns at that.
Furthermore, said Mrs. Donnybrook, us cattle ranchers is shore tired o' you sheepmen plumb ruinin' our water.
I give yuh fair warnin', said Mrs. Donnybrook, yuh better git them wooly Gila monsters o' yourn back across the Rio Grande afore mornin' or I'm a-goin' to string yhuh up on the nearest cottonwood.
Carramba! Sneered Mr. Donnybrook. Thees ees free range, no?
No, said Mrs. Donnybrook, not for sheepmen.
She strung him up on the nearest cottonwood.
Mr. Donnybrook had never been so bored in his life.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Monday, February 20, 2012
"The Young Victoria"
We watched "The Young Victoria" the other night on a Netflix DVD. It was surprisingly moving. Imagine being an 11 year old girl and being shown charts and given explanations to make clear why you live and are treated the way you are. Not only are you an heir to the throne of Britain but you are related to nearly every royal family in Europe. So, that's why you are required to hold an adult's hand every single time you descent a staircase. Falls must be prevented because you are so valuable.
That same value makes you a natural target for all sorts of adult and complicated conspiracies. The most bothersome of these is pushed by your mother's private secretary, depicted as an ambitious man of high energy and limited intelligence. The idea was that during Victoria's child and teen years, she might become queen, were the right deaths and cases of childlessness to occur. As a child and young teen, Victoria's mother would be regent, overseeing her daughter. The mother's private secretary would be in the perfect position to wield power and influence. As things turned out, the private secretary lost influence and position and Victoria became a queen in her own right at the age of 18.
Imagine what would happen if the US suddenly chose an 18 year old very sheltered girl, not allowed to read novels or attend the theater except for operas, to head the country. People were not stupid then, as now, and used all sorts of controls and ideas to make things work out. The royal power was limited and Parliament did most of the governing but as far as the mass of people were concerned, the Queen was a somewhat sacred person, the honor, force and continuity of the nation incarnate. The Queen had limited knowledge of people, power, economics, politics and nearly everything else.
With luck and pluck and some good support from her first cousin, soon to be her husband, Albert, this woman became the longest reigning British monarch (the current Queen, Elizabeth II, may surpass this record) and the longest reigning female monarch in history. She was born in 1819 and died in 1901, a period covering a great many important events and innovations in our lives.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
That same value makes you a natural target for all sorts of adult and complicated conspiracies. The most bothersome of these is pushed by your mother's private secretary, depicted as an ambitious man of high energy and limited intelligence. The idea was that during Victoria's child and teen years, she might become queen, were the right deaths and cases of childlessness to occur. As a child and young teen, Victoria's mother would be regent, overseeing her daughter. The mother's private secretary would be in the perfect position to wield power and influence. As things turned out, the private secretary lost influence and position and Victoria became a queen in her own right at the age of 18.
Imagine what would happen if the US suddenly chose an 18 year old very sheltered girl, not allowed to read novels or attend the theater except for operas, to head the country. People were not stupid then, as now, and used all sorts of controls and ideas to make things work out. The royal power was limited and Parliament did most of the governing but as far as the mass of people were concerned, the Queen was a somewhat sacred person, the honor, force and continuity of the nation incarnate. The Queen had limited knowledge of people, power, economics, politics and nearly everything else.
With luck and pluck and some good support from her first cousin, soon to be her husband, Albert, this woman became the longest reigning British monarch (the current Queen, Elizabeth II, may surpass this record) and the longest reigning female monarch in history. She was born in 1819 and died in 1901, a period covering a great many important events and innovations in our lives.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Horrors - Yum!
I'm not sure why they do it. I ought to be because I do it, too. I get in the mood for a little vegging in front to the set and turn on something. I'm not a fan of unreality shows and there are several comedies that haven't appealed so I bet on The Goods vs.The Bads. You know, the show where all the hard-bitten guys are both heroic and stoic but models of male beauty. They have a couple of female colleagues who are experts at karate and shooting guns and bazookas. There aren't many women who have devoted time and energy to mastering such skills and there are only these two who are also ex-models for lingerie, which they still wear while catching baddies. Helps distract low-level criminals who eye the bosoms and thighs instead of tending to business.
So far, not good but ok. Things heat up and a team is sent to a crime scene. This is the part I have trouble with. The crime scene writers, make-up artists, sound men and related contributors are in a competition with similar members of the casts of other shows. Whoever makes more of the audience vomit or seek psychiatric relief from nightmares wins the industry prize and gains enormous prestige. Therefore, the crime scene turns out to be especially gruesome, shocking, bloody, sick, horrible, upsetting, and other industry-sought adjectives. It is never just a victim stabbed or shot. It is much worse than that. In fact, you won't believe it is so bad. Here, let us show you. See how, in the background there, the young inexperienced agent who hasn't see that much make-up and stagecraft before is sitting on the curb with his head in his hands. Isn't it delicious how horrified he is?
There are times when I have the fortitude to turn the set off and just sit or let the notes of The Elixir of Love wash out my brain. But sometimes I keep viewing. Why do I do it? Why expose my frail mind to depictions of horror as a pastime? I guess I am glad I am not (yet) the victim and haven't experienced the pain and horror that the victim did. I guess grasping the extra care the bad guy put into being bad and evil and malevolent and cruel helps me feel even happier when he is captured and put away on the frying hallway until later in the decade. I do understand that I am wired, actually evolved for difficulties and challenges. I've tried the knitting channel and it doesn't hold my interest. As I age and my experience with crime scene writing and photography and sound effects grows, I am more able and willing to sit quietly in a corner doing nothing. I always pick a well-lit corner.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
So far, not good but ok. Things heat up and a team is sent to a crime scene. This is the part I have trouble with. The crime scene writers, make-up artists, sound men and related contributors are in a competition with similar members of the casts of other shows. Whoever makes more of the audience vomit or seek psychiatric relief from nightmares wins the industry prize and gains enormous prestige. Therefore, the crime scene turns out to be especially gruesome, shocking, bloody, sick, horrible, upsetting, and other industry-sought adjectives. It is never just a victim stabbed or shot. It is much worse than that. In fact, you won't believe it is so bad. Here, let us show you. See how, in the background there, the young inexperienced agent who hasn't see that much make-up and stagecraft before is sitting on the curb with his head in his hands. Isn't it delicious how horrified he is?
There are times when I have the fortitude to turn the set off and just sit or let the notes of The Elixir of Love wash out my brain. But sometimes I keep viewing. Why do I do it? Why expose my frail mind to depictions of horror as a pastime? I guess I am glad I am not (yet) the victim and haven't experienced the pain and horror that the victim did. I guess grasping the extra care the bad guy put into being bad and evil and malevolent and cruel helps me feel even happier when he is captured and put away on the frying hallway until later in the decade. I do understand that I am wired, actually evolved for difficulties and challenges. I've tried the knitting channel and it doesn't hold my interest. As I age and my experience with crime scene writing and photography and sound effects grows, I am more able and willing to sit quietly in a corner doing nothing. I always pick a well-lit corner.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Mental illness is murky
This morning I read a wide-ranging article on schizophrenia and related diseases. It was mentioned on the Mind Hacks blog, headlines of which appear on my blog page. Robin Murray is a British psychiatrist and researcher and discusses in an interview his views and experiences with research and patients. Since our daughter Jill was debilitated by mental illness for decades before her death, we have an interest in the subject.
One of shocking things that emerges when a relative is struck by serious delusions is how little can be done about the problem. When a bright young woman informs her parents that she has a new boyfriend named Adam and she means the famous male founder of the human race, the one from the Garden of Eden, at first the parents have difficulty comprehending her statement. Once they understand her, they doubt her, naturally. They tend to have questions. These can be handled in a variety of ways, no doubt. Her way was to be dismissive, with pity for such mundane matters from such primitive thinkers. Over time, the parents learn that acceptance of the statement without further ado tended to get the item off the conversational table more quickly. Not accepting the literal truth of her assertions, which would be impossible, just moving on to something else to talk about.
One of the most surreal parts of my experience was the speed and seeming comfort with which this intelligent young woman accepted our acceptance and readily moved on to discussing the weather we had been having of late. I am pretty sure if you were really going to be awarded a special Nobel prize for contributions to humanity, you would want to mention quite a few details of your work, the thrill of being contacted by the prize committee, etc. You wouldn't be comfortable or happy with me too quickly asking you to discuss the recent high humidity.
Dr. Murray makes clear that the voices schizophrenics hear are internal signals that arise in Broca's area of the brain just like normal thoughts that seem to be internal speech but that some brains send the signals through the very nerve channels used by external sounds coming in the ear. He notes that families of such people find it very helpful to learn that the afflicted actually cannot distinguish between "the voices" that speak to them and voices they hear from other speakers.
Trying to understand what we could of our daughter's condition, we found her diagnosis would vary. Murray says that he has sometimes met with a patient who was a very clear example of a schizophrenic. "Who were the idiots that labeled this person bipolar?" he would ask his assistant. The assistant would page through some notes and look at the psychiatrist and smile. Murray found he himself had made the earlier diagnosis.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
One of shocking things that emerges when a relative is struck by serious delusions is how little can be done about the problem. When a bright young woman informs her parents that she has a new boyfriend named Adam and she means the famous male founder of the human race, the one from the Garden of Eden, at first the parents have difficulty comprehending her statement. Once they understand her, they doubt her, naturally. They tend to have questions. These can be handled in a variety of ways, no doubt. Her way was to be dismissive, with pity for such mundane matters from such primitive thinkers. Over time, the parents learn that acceptance of the statement without further ado tended to get the item off the conversational table more quickly. Not accepting the literal truth of her assertions, which would be impossible, just moving on to something else to talk about.
One of the most surreal parts of my experience was the speed and seeming comfort with which this intelligent young woman accepted our acceptance and readily moved on to discussing the weather we had been having of late. I am pretty sure if you were really going to be awarded a special Nobel prize for contributions to humanity, you would want to mention quite a few details of your work, the thrill of being contacted by the prize committee, etc. You wouldn't be comfortable or happy with me too quickly asking you to discuss the recent high humidity.
Dr. Murray makes clear that the voices schizophrenics hear are internal signals that arise in Broca's area of the brain just like normal thoughts that seem to be internal speech but that some brains send the signals through the very nerve channels used by external sounds coming in the ear. He notes that families of such people find it very helpful to learn that the afflicted actually cannot distinguish between "the voices" that speak to them and voices they hear from other speakers.
Trying to understand what we could of our daughter's condition, we found her diagnosis would vary. Murray says that he has sometimes met with a patient who was a very clear example of a schizophrenic. "Who were the idiots that labeled this person bipolar?" he would ask his assistant. The assistant would page through some notes and look at the psychiatrist and smile. Murray found he himself had made the earlier diagnosis.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Friday, February 17, 2012
Rah! Rah! Phooey!
It seems to me that a big strong country like America might be able to select the head of its government with more insight and less hoopla. News organizations use about the same language for elections as they do for football games and boxing matches. When I think of the trials and contradictions the president must face, I feel confident that a "hard-hitter" who can gain yardage is not the leader most needed. I understand that good speaking ability, not just delivery but sensitivity to timing and audience tone matter, too. Good thinking and a good memory have got to be important. I know that intelligence is difficult to gauge and there are different sorts of intelligence. Yes, physical, emotional and social endurance have to be important, too, for the first lady as well as the president.
But the macho, the thrill, the exciting pulse-pounding contest are distractions and invitations to the very stubbornness and narrowminded rigidity that are in turn complained about. We could do better with more calmness and less thrill. You would think that clever writers could come up with quieter metaphors. How about "Vote for our guy because he is a champion gardener"? Something along the lines of he lets no weeds pass him by and he won't let wasteful projects stay in the budget. He keeps his projects properly watered, neither drowning nor parching them.
Maybe cooking metaphors, where we picture the great man masterfully combining ingredients and seasonings with just the tantalizing amount of pepper. Properly constructed, his skill would appeal to men, his facility to women, his seasonings to Hispanics and others usually not satisfied with blandness. "Our guy will satisfy your appetite for variety while raising issues to the right temperature, not burning, not serving them cold."
You may remember that Cyrano de Bergerac was a man of passion, an excellent writer and poet and the best swordsman in France. His enemies hire an athletic sword-wield-er to challenge him publicly and demolish his body. The poor guy is no poet and approaches the Count at the opera. "Sir, your nose is very...It is very big!" Our guy is dismayed. "That's it? That's your idea of an insult?" He goes on to list 19 categories of possible metaphor, including ornithological ("I see you love the little birdies and provide them with a perch.") Let's get off the gridiron and into the parlors, the gardens, the labs, the classrooms, the concerts. With a little effort, we could be both more civilized and more colorful.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
But the macho, the thrill, the exciting pulse-pounding contest are distractions and invitations to the very stubbornness and narrowminded rigidity that are in turn complained about. We could do better with more calmness and less thrill. You would think that clever writers could come up with quieter metaphors. How about "Vote for our guy because he is a champion gardener"? Something along the lines of he lets no weeds pass him by and he won't let wasteful projects stay in the budget. He keeps his projects properly watered, neither drowning nor parching them.
Maybe cooking metaphors, where we picture the great man masterfully combining ingredients and seasonings with just the tantalizing amount of pepper. Properly constructed, his skill would appeal to men, his facility to women, his seasonings to Hispanics and others usually not satisfied with blandness. "Our guy will satisfy your appetite for variety while raising issues to the right temperature, not burning, not serving them cold."
You may remember that Cyrano de Bergerac was a man of passion, an excellent writer and poet and the best swordsman in France. His enemies hire an athletic sword-wield-er to challenge him publicly and demolish his body. The poor guy is no poet and approaches the Count at the opera. "Sir, your nose is very...It is very big!" Our guy is dismayed. "That's it? That's your idea of an insult?" He goes on to list 19 categories of possible metaphor, including ornithological ("I see you love the little birdies and provide them with a perch.") Let's get off the gridiron and into the parlors, the gardens, the labs, the classrooms, the concerts. With a little effort, we could be both more civilized and more colorful.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Hot in Cleveland
A couple of decades ago, I was alternating daily between two good-sized mid-western cities. I was very taken with the difference in atmosphere and tone from one to the other. Admittedly, I didn't meet most of the residents of either place but what I did meet showed a sharp contrast between optimism and pessimism. I was never able to see any good reason for the difference. I guess it was just tradition but one town offered a we-can-do-it spirit while the other radiated a feeling of we-better-not-try-and-tomorrow-looks-worse-than-today.
We like the choices of movies and tv shows available on Amazon and Netflix. We can watch them on a computer, which after all does have a bigger viewing screen than the 10-inch tv which was our first set ever. Still, there are a number of connection and cable possibilities that enable the computer screen to be duplicated on a television set. If I had known we would have Vizio sets here, I would have brought the Roku player, which provides a very good connection to Amazon and Netflix. Still, the Vizio set enables a computer connection and the transmission signal here is strong enough that we can stream shows.
We are getting so that some tv shows fit our schedules better than movies. They are shorter and sometimes two episodes will fit comfortably in an evening. Last night we tried "Hot in Cleveland" and thought it was pretty good. We hadn't heard of the show before. We often find out about some show about the time it goes into reruns. I guess this one hasn't gotten to that point yet. It was the premise that got us interested: three sophisticated actresses are flying to Paris for a holiday when their plane needs to put down in Cleveland. At first, they are completely sure that the city is not worth bothering with but within hours and certainly days, differences from their normal California existence penetrates their consciousness.
The three enter a bar for a drink. "Look! Everyone in here is eating and nobody is ashamed!" "I'm ordering cheese fries and three beers. Not light beers!" "Gasp!" "Gasp!"
I am an easterner and have lived in the mid-west for more than 40 years. There is not a big cultural difference but some stand out. In my childhood, I never saw a dead deer splayed out across a car roof. Travel is often enlightening and this series focuses on that fact.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
We like the choices of movies and tv shows available on Amazon and Netflix. We can watch them on a computer, which after all does have a bigger viewing screen than the 10-inch tv which was our first set ever. Still, there are a number of connection and cable possibilities that enable the computer screen to be duplicated on a television set. If I had known we would have Vizio sets here, I would have brought the Roku player, which provides a very good connection to Amazon and Netflix. Still, the Vizio set enables a computer connection and the transmission signal here is strong enough that we can stream shows.
We are getting so that some tv shows fit our schedules better than movies. They are shorter and sometimes two episodes will fit comfortably in an evening. Last night we tried "Hot in Cleveland" and thought it was pretty good. We hadn't heard of the show before. We often find out about some show about the time it goes into reruns. I guess this one hasn't gotten to that point yet. It was the premise that got us interested: three sophisticated actresses are flying to Paris for a holiday when their plane needs to put down in Cleveland. At first, they are completely sure that the city is not worth bothering with but within hours and certainly days, differences from their normal California existence penetrates their consciousness.
The three enter a bar for a drink. "Look! Everyone in here is eating and nobody is ashamed!" "I'm ordering cheese fries and three beers. Not light beers!" "Gasp!" "Gasp!"
I am an easterner and have lived in the mid-west for more than 40 years. There is not a big cultural difference but some stand out. In my childhood, I never saw a dead deer splayed out across a car roof. Travel is often enlightening and this series focuses on that fact.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
no-brainer
A good friend who knew me in college wrote passionately that she strongly advised me not to think so much. Her advice sounded very much like the typical advice for retiring: relax and enjoy the experience. She was so strong and clear in her message that I have switched off my brain for a while. I actually leave it switched off quite a bit. In fact, I write daily just to spend some time with it switched on.
I realize that much of what passes through my mind is just chatter, just the wind blowing through the trees, not all that significant. One reminder of the lightness of being is the daily hour. I tend to feel sleepy at night whether my brain tells me to or not. We want coffee within 15 minutes or so after waking up. About the same time each morning, I start feeling the need for some breakfast. I go through the days and the years without actually paying much attention to my thoughts. I like to think that my genius brain stimulates, encourages and inspires me but the truth is that life flows along like earth's water cycle, up and down rhythmically with or without my thoughts.
The truly basic stuff, eating and sleeping, seems to flow on very well without examination, despite Socrates' famous advice about the worth of the unexamined life. Often examination is fun but like all fun, it is not something you want to do all the time.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
I realize that much of what passes through my mind is just chatter, just the wind blowing through the trees, not all that significant. One reminder of the lightness of being is the daily hour. I tend to feel sleepy at night whether my brain tells me to or not. We want coffee within 15 minutes or so after waking up. About the same time each morning, I start feeling the need for some breakfast. I go through the days and the years without actually paying much attention to my thoughts. I like to think that my genius brain stimulates, encourages and inspires me but the truth is that life flows along like earth's water cycle, up and down rhythmically with or without my thoughts.
The truly basic stuff, eating and sleeping, seems to flow on very well without examination, despite Socrates' famous advice about the worth of the unexamined life. Often examination is fun but like all fun, it is not something you want to do all the time.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
New eyes
Sitting on the 7th floor above the Gulf of Mexico, I sat in almost the same spot 3 years ago. Then, I was entranced by the ocean, its changing mood, big waves sometimes, lake-like at others. Pelicans and sea gulls constantly troll for food. Dolphins arc their backs out of the water every now and them. Those features beguile me again, now, since I wasn't here last year.
I read aloud to Lynn often and we like stories the most, although "The Willpower Instinct" and "Confessions of a GP" are good, too. We read a story of a Swedish woman detective by Helen Thursten. We read a Myron Bolitar story and Wife of the Gods by Dr. Kwei Quartey. So, to be ready with further stories when we finish what we are reading now, I downloaded another Thursten, Bolitar by Coben* and Quartey stories. Four years ago, tired of the space and bookshelf problems of books, I switched to Kindle ebooks.
A few minutes ago, with the sun trying to warm us past the 30 degree mark, I downloaded the three new books into my Kindle. Four years ago, I was so beguiled by getting books through the atmosphere that I did it for fun. I couldn't get over it. Now, it is old-hat, yesterday's news, in the words of a current commercial, "so 17 seconds ago".
I am interested in differences and similarities between meditation and hypnosis. I asked a hypnotist friend to give me a session since I had never been officially hypnotized. (She always says that when you come out of a movie and need a little time to stop being a medieval knight, you experienced hypnosis then. She asked what I wanted to get out of the session. I didn't need to stop smoking. I said I'd like to see my life, surroundings, friends and relatives with new eyes.
I think that animals need their circuits, their senses, which are wired for novelty. What is new can be dangerous. It might be a threat. That means that we, too, are oriented toward the new and hence, away from what we have already experienced. Even though we don't, we think we know our mate, our house, our neighborhood. Because a book has been on that shelf for years, we think we know it but we don't. Because those pictures have been in a box in the garage for years, we think we know which ones we have but we don't. We often need to renew our ideas, our eyes. To get back some of the fun, re-view, re-see, re-experience, re-remember.
*tried some it a little bit ago and it's not so good
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
I read aloud to Lynn often and we like stories the most, although "The Willpower Instinct" and "Confessions of a GP" are good, too. We read a story of a Swedish woman detective by Helen Thursten. We read a Myron Bolitar story and Wife of the Gods by Dr. Kwei Quartey. So, to be ready with further stories when we finish what we are reading now, I downloaded another Thursten, Bolitar by Coben* and Quartey stories. Four years ago, tired of the space and bookshelf problems of books, I switched to Kindle ebooks.
A few minutes ago, with the sun trying to warm us past the 30 degree mark, I downloaded the three new books into my Kindle. Four years ago, I was so beguiled by getting books through the atmosphere that I did it for fun. I couldn't get over it. Now, it is old-hat, yesterday's news, in the words of a current commercial, "so 17 seconds ago".
I am interested in differences and similarities between meditation and hypnosis. I asked a hypnotist friend to give me a session since I had never been officially hypnotized. (She always says that when you come out of a movie and need a little time to stop being a medieval knight, you experienced hypnosis then. She asked what I wanted to get out of the session. I didn't need to stop smoking. I said I'd like to see my life, surroundings, friends and relatives with new eyes.
I think that animals need their circuits, their senses, which are wired for novelty. What is new can be dangerous. It might be a threat. That means that we, too, are oriented toward the new and hence, away from what we have already experienced. Even though we don't, we think we know our mate, our house, our neighborhood. Because a book has been on that shelf for years, we think we know it but we don't. Because those pictures have been in a box in the garage for years, we think we know which ones we have but we don't. We often need to renew our ideas, our eyes. To get back some of the fun, re-view, re-see, re-experience, re-remember.
*tried some it a little bit ago and it's not so good
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Monday, February 13, 2012
Mr. Backup
I just found out last night that my friend of more than 30 years was sometimes called "Mr. Backup" by his wife. That is impressive because my wife often calls me the same thing. He and I share many characteristics, even though he comes from a Great Plains ranching family and I come from a mixed bag of farmers and urban workers from the east coast. We are both interested in good communication and we both see the potential for big enhancements for education and communication in modern technologies.
For more than 30 years, he taught college students preparing teachers how to use instructional technology in their classrooms. I taught courses having to do with research methods, including statistics, which can be said to be a major force in the development of modern American personal computing. We both like technology but from the human use side, not the deeply technical electrons and amps side.
He did his dissertation on use of visual technology in an emotional/persuasive project against smoking. I did mine on a game setting that could be used for studying and training workers in slippery executive positions, such as school principals. I had trouble getting published and so had trouble getting promoted but when I made a series of tv programs on basic statistics that was, and still is, broadcast over the whole state, that was enough to merit promotion. I was impressed when he sought promotion because he had a wire, two-wheeled shopping cart full of educational materials: tapes, slide presentations he had written, created, narrated. As an education undergraduate major, I was very disappointed by the poverty of real information in my teaching courses. As a lifelong reader of all sorts of writings, I knew that many books by, say, C.S. Lewis, and movies about, say, Lassie, were many times as evocative as the journals I learned to examine in grad school. So, when his cart full of carefully designed educational audio-visual materials puzzled and flummoxed campus administrators, I felt I was once again seeing formality and tradition win over brains and imagination.
He has spent his whole life working with computers and introducing people to their potential. When I got my first job as an assistant professor of education, I was asked by the administration to be the part-time director of academic computing. The campus had an expensive computer for the professors to use but very few people knew what to do with it. After 18 months, too much of the electron/amps side made me withdraw back into teacher training alone.
We both like back-ups because we know that modern, speedy, internet communication is fragile and depends on the cooperation and interaction of many people and technical systems. It is easy for nature to disrupt our production and distribution of electricity, low-error communication codes or the bodies, eyes, hands, brains, muscles, bones that compose, send, receive and appreciate our messages.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
For more than 30 years, he taught college students preparing teachers how to use instructional technology in their classrooms. I taught courses having to do with research methods, including statistics, which can be said to be a major force in the development of modern American personal computing. We both like technology but from the human use side, not the deeply technical electrons and amps side.
He did his dissertation on use of visual technology in an emotional/persuasive project against smoking. I did mine on a game setting that could be used for studying and training workers in slippery executive positions, such as school principals. I had trouble getting published and so had trouble getting promoted but when I made a series of tv programs on basic statistics that was, and still is, broadcast over the whole state, that was enough to merit promotion. I was impressed when he sought promotion because he had a wire, two-wheeled shopping cart full of educational materials: tapes, slide presentations he had written, created, narrated. As an education undergraduate major, I was very disappointed by the poverty of real information in my teaching courses. As a lifelong reader of all sorts of writings, I knew that many books by, say, C.S. Lewis, and movies about, say, Lassie, were many times as evocative as the journals I learned to examine in grad school. So, when his cart full of carefully designed educational audio-visual materials puzzled and flummoxed campus administrators, I felt I was once again seeing formality and tradition win over brains and imagination.
He has spent his whole life working with computers and introducing people to their potential. When I got my first job as an assistant professor of education, I was asked by the administration to be the part-time director of academic computing. The campus had an expensive computer for the professors to use but very few people knew what to do with it. After 18 months, too much of the electron/amps side made me withdraw back into teacher training alone.
We both like back-ups because we know that modern, speedy, internet communication is fragile and depends on the cooperation and interaction of many people and technical systems. It is easy for nature to disrupt our production and distribution of electricity, low-error communication codes or the bodies, eyes, hands, brains, muscles, bones that compose, send, receive and appreciate our messages.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Philosophical treatise on wanting to complain
Sometimes people who are working, pause to think about what retirement must be like. Why, it must be wonderful: not going to work each day! Similarly, people in the northern places look at the local temperatures, say 15 degrees vs. 50 degrees and think that too would be wonderful. Just imagine such bliss!
Well, I am retired and in a southern place and I am here to tell you that bliss has some holes in it. For one thing, as benefits retired people, I am older. That means shakier health and fitness and more delicate muscles and robustness. For another thing, as all sorts of people have said for centuries, many things in life are relative, not absolute. That means that when you have had the good fortune to experience temperatures of 75 and warmer, genuine shorts and t-shirt weather, 50 feels skimpy, as Lynn wrote, fraudulent.
I grew up in an atmosphere that has been described as "lawyer-like", where assertions and feelings were wrong or inferior unless they could be justified to the point where a reasonably prudent and objective person would accept them as justified. Given even a cursory inventory of my blessings, I am confident that I have no "right" to be in a down mood. I am too well-off, too healthy, too fortunate, too well-situated.
This temporary state (it's temporary since I will find circumstances, views and activities out of it) makes me think of the book of Job. That poor fellow was minding his own business and doing so rather well when the Devil taunted God into torturing him just to see how long it would take before Job cursed God and his life. Now I see that the story could be modified along the lines of "survivor guilt", the feeling of shame and guilt that one survived a death camp or a tsunami when other, wonderful and upright people didn't. The test of Job could have been to improve his situation to the most satisfying possible but at the same time, drop a pile of grumps on him, letting find fault with his past, his present, his future, his fortune, his achievements, his looks, his pets, etc., putting him in a pressure situation. He would want to complain, would be in an inexplicable and unjustified mood to complain but simply couldn't. It would be too mortifying.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Well, I am retired and in a southern place and I am here to tell you that bliss has some holes in it. For one thing, as benefits retired people, I am older. That means shakier health and fitness and more delicate muscles and robustness. For another thing, as all sorts of people have said for centuries, many things in life are relative, not absolute. That means that when you have had the good fortune to experience temperatures of 75 and warmer, genuine shorts and t-shirt weather, 50 feels skimpy, as Lynn wrote, fraudulent.
I grew up in an atmosphere that has been described as "lawyer-like", where assertions and feelings were wrong or inferior unless they could be justified to the point where a reasonably prudent and objective person would accept them as justified. Given even a cursory inventory of my blessings, I am confident that I have no "right" to be in a down mood. I am too well-off, too healthy, too fortunate, too well-situated.
This temporary state (it's temporary since I will find circumstances, views and activities out of it) makes me think of the book of Job. That poor fellow was minding his own business and doing so rather well when the Devil taunted God into torturing him just to see how long it would take before Job cursed God and his life. Now I see that the story could be modified along the lines of "survivor guilt", the feeling of shame and guilt that one survived a death camp or a tsunami when other, wonderful and upright people didn't. The test of Job could have been to improve his situation to the most satisfying possible but at the same time, drop a pile of grumps on him, letting find fault with his past, his present, his future, his fortune, his achievements, his looks, his pets, etc., putting him in a pressure situation. He would want to complain, would be in an inexplicable and unjustified mood to complain but simply couldn't. It would be too mortifying.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Saturday, February 11, 2012
unable to dismount
My friend thought it odd that I am on vacation in a vacation spot and write about what there is to do. Others wrote about recurring needs, such as the laundry and the dishes, that we can't get rid of and continue to stalk us.
I have thought a lot about the Buddha's idea that our suffering comes from our desires. Mark Epstein's "Open to Desire" is a wise and full look at the tendency to try to stifle desire, eliminate it. He introduces the book with this tale
It is easy to laugh at Nasruddin but we are like him. I have noticed Lynn and I like to be in the center of a good book (Wife of the Gods) or show (Season 2, episode 4 of Foyle's War) but we don't like the feeling of being lost in the desert looking for another book or show that is good. We often ask each other as we move into a new book (The Man in Wooden Hat) what we think of it. Basically, we are asking whether the book is good enough to take shelter in or must we continue to plod on, searching and searching for a harbor?
Epstein makes clear that for us, for you, for his patients, for Freud, for the Buddha, there is no getting away from desire, from wanting comfort, ease, security, love, etc., etc. Before he reached his enlightenment, the Buddha-to-be followed a Hindu path of extreme deprivation and punishment of the body, in an attempt to burn away those bothersome and recurrent desires for an endless stream of wants and goals and achievements. He was young and strong and very determined but he found that he would kill himself before he would be able to eliminate all desires. We as living, breathing, eating, loving, fearing animals are astride the horse of desire with our feet tied in the stirrups. Might as well enjoy the ride.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
I have thought a lot about the Buddha's idea that our suffering comes from our desires. Mark Epstein's "Open to Desire" is a wise and full look at the tendency to try to stifle desire, eliminate it. He introduces the book with this tale
One of my favorite stories comes from the Sufi tradition of mystical Islam. It is a tale that tells us exactly what we will have to face if we endeavor to walk the path of desire. A man sits in the center of a Middle Eastern marketplace crying his eyes out, a platter of peppers spilled out on the ground before him. Steadily and methodically, he reaches for pepper after pepper, popping them into his mouth and chewing deliberately, at the same time wailing uncontrollably. "What's wrong, Nasruddin?" his friends wonder, gathering around the extraordinary sight. "What's the matter with you?" Tears stream down Nasruddin's face as he sputters an answer. "I'm looking for a sweet one," he gasps.
Epstein, Mark (2006-01-05). Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught (Kindle Locations 77-83). Gotham Books. Kindle Edition.
It is easy to laugh at Nasruddin but we are like him. I have noticed Lynn and I like to be in the center of a good book (Wife of the Gods) or show (Season 2, episode 4 of Foyle's War) but we don't like the feeling of being lost in the desert looking for another book or show that is good. We often ask each other as we move into a new book (The Man in Wooden Hat) what we think of it. Basically, we are asking whether the book is good enough to take shelter in or must we continue to plod on, searching and searching for a harbor?
Epstein makes clear that for us, for you, for his patients, for Freud, for the Buddha, there is no getting away from desire, from wanting comfort, ease, security, love, etc., etc. Before he reached his enlightenment, the Buddha-to-be followed a Hindu path of extreme deprivation and punishment of the body, in an attempt to burn away those bothersome and recurrent desires for an endless stream of wants and goals and achievements. He was young and strong and very determined but he found that he would kill himself before he would be able to eliminate all desires. We as living, breathing, eating, loving, fearing animals are astride the horse of desire with our feet tied in the stirrups. Might as well enjoy the ride.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
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