Category Archives: General

General, News of the Strange, Politics

Which is More of A Health Threat: Al-Qaeda or Homeland Security?

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1  64%  25%  1mph WNW  bar29.97  windchill-1  Winter

            Waxing Gibbous Crescent Moon

OK.  This is interesting.

 Which is more of a threat to your health: Al Qaeda or the Department of Homeland Security?

“An intriguing new study suggests the answer is not so clear-cut. Although it’s impossible to calculate the pain that terrorist attacks inflict on victims and society, when statisticians look at cold numbers, they have variously estimated the chances of the average person dying in America at the hands of international terrorists to be comparable to the risk of dying from eating peanuts, being struck by an asteroid or drowning in a toilet.

But worrying about terrorism could be taking a toll on the hearts of millions of Americans. The evidence, published last week in the Archives of General Psychiatry, comes from researchers who began tracking the health of a representative sample of more than 2,700 Americans before September 2001. After the attacks of Sept. 11, the scientists monitored people’s fears of terrorism over the next several years and found that the most fearful people were three to five times more likely than the rest to receive diagnoses of new cardiovascular ailments.”

The article goes to identify roughly 10 million people affected by the, what else to call it, fear-mongering of the Department of Homeland Security.  Can anyone say Committee of Public Safety?  I agree with the article and the physicians that the health consequences to individuals are significant and in themselves alarming; but, I believe the larger health problem is that of the body politic.  10 million voters with a fear of terrorism so significant that it affects their personal health represent a voting bloc, a demagogues paradise.  Now let me see, have we had anyone playing the terrorism card in recent elections?

Going to the Walker Art Center tonight to see the TEAM, a group of performance artists who have a work called, Heartland.  I’ll let you know how it was. 

Faith and Spirituality, Family, General

I’m Feeling Born Again!

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20  65%  23%  1mph WNW bar30.04 steep rise  windchill 19  Winter

                    Waxing Gibbous Winter Moon

The truck had to go in today for repairs to its CV boots.  Which were leaking.  And its sway bar linkage.  And some plug somewhere on the differential. But it’s all better now.  Carlson Toyota has some more cash.

Kate and I went to the grocery store together for the second time in a month or so.  I do the grocery shopping, almost always alone, so it feels strange when we’re there together.  OK, but strange.  She likes to drive the grocery cart, so my role changes.  I know the store better than she does so I go find things while she forages among the vegetables and fruits.

Back home I worked on an article for the Docent Muse, trying with some frustration to find objects with poems translated.  I didn’t write down the label copy on Monday when I did my research since I thought I could find it online.  Not so easy.  There’s plenty of material for another article on poetry.

If we accept prevailing health notions as a secular form of salvation (Latin root word, salve, to heal or make whole), then I’m feeling born again.  My weight is down.  My exercise schedule continues to work.  My eating patterns have become downright healthy.  I have interesting intellectual work and creative work.  The relationships in my life are at an all time calm.  Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!

Family, General

Between the Legs

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29  85%  31%  1mph WNW bar29.64 windchill27  Winter

                New Moon

The new grandchild is a boy.  Here’s a poem composed by the proud parents for the occasion.   

What is it?

We went to the doc for the ultrasound
And what we saw was quite profound.
There was the heart, the brain, the spine and all
And between the legs was a penis and balls.

IT’S A BOY!!!!!!!!!

Sheepshead this evening.  If you don’t know what sheepshead is, there’s a link on the right.  Two consecutive times now I  have hit the positive column.  These are a great bunch of guys.  We had a lot of fun tonight.  Jokes, pro-Packer football talk (I listen.), analysis of doing in the Roman Catholic Church and events in each others lives.

General, Politics

Is Obama the Liberal Reagan?

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33 90%  31%  1mph  NNW  bar29.75  falls windchill31  Winter

                     New Moon

The speakers first, then the short story.  Then my Asia tour.  May take until Tuesday with the Woollies tonight at the Istanbul Cafe and my workout.  Made a decision last night to shift the resistance and flexibility work to T/Th/Sat which will put aerobics only on Monday and Friday, the days I have the most conflicts with working out.  The aerobics are easier to time.

This chilly, humid weather I left Indiana to avoid.  I feel about this in-between weather the same as Martin Luther did about sin.  He said, “If you’re going to sin, sin boldly.”  I say, “If it’s going to be cold, let it be cold.  And snowy.  And all the other appropriate winter stuff, not this melty coldish yuck.”

Tomorrow New Hampshire.  A Gallup poll release yesterday showed Obama out in front of Clinton 41% to 29%.  He will probably do well in South Carolina, the next primary.  I can feel the optimism of the African-American community viscerally.  The analysis I’ve read, however, says even wins in all 3 races may not be enough.  The SuperTuesday primaries are states where the Clinton organization has built solid leads, according to reporters on the ground.  We’ll see. 

David Brooks, of all people, suggested what might happen.  If enough independents find Obama to be the liberal Reagan, an optimistic voice helping to redefine America in a time of shattered national confidence, and African-Americans and young people do, too, then it will become Obama with the sense of inevitability, knocking the dull, hack-type politics of Hilary out of the race.  As far as issues go, I’m a Kucinich guy, and in the three way race, Edwards gives voice to what I believe, but the prospect of electing an African-American or a woman moves me, too.  Feels good to have legitimate choices for a change.

Speaker wire here I come, awake and opposable thumbs in the right places. 

GeekWorld, General

Lashed to the Mast

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31  91%  29%  omph WSW bar29.75 rises windchill31  Winter

                             New Moon

There is something seductive about the large screen TV experience, seductive in an Ulysses lashed to the mast sense.  The visual image is close to movies in a theatre, though not the same.  Hard to describe, but it makes me want to keep watching.  I don’t like this part of it and will have to pay attention so I don’t fade into the couch and become one with the fabric.

On the other hand the picture is fantastic.  The set has so many different bells and whistles that it can accomodate different formats with ease and its easy to use.   Well, sort of easy.  I’ve still got the manual to read.  RTFM as my cello playing significant other in law likes to say.  The HD DVD player upconverts and it does make non-HD DVD’s look great, not HD great, but crisp and clear.  Since DVD’s are my main interest in the large screen, not sports (though I do watch football if the Vikings co-operate and win games), this set will take my interest in cinema to a different level.

I’ve gone down two belt notches since the middle of December when Kate and I started Nutrisystem.  I’m already scanning for maintenance after we finish with it at the end of January.  At the end of twenty-eight days I’ll get on the scale and take my blood glucose.  I expect both will show positive trends.  It’s the blood glucose level I really want to manage; so if it’s down, it will be a great reinforcer for maintaining a lower weight.

The New Year has begun well: some weight loss, workouts going well, writing in the AM underway with a good story happening, the new TV, the video calls with the kids and plenty of snow.  That last, unfortunately, has melted some over the last couple of days.  I hope we get some more snow soon. 

 Asia tour work tomorrow, finish the speaker setup, work some more on the Gunflint Faeries.  Good night and good luck.

                       -30-

Art and Culture, General

The Learning Curve(s)

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28  75% 25% 2mph SSE  bar 29.78 falls windchill 27 Yuletide

            Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon

A day with two tours.  Nice kids from Island Elementary in Shoreview.  Once again my questions and preparation left me as I got on the floor.  Guess I’m gonna need to prepare cheat sheets for the questions–to review just before the tour.  I tend to remember the details about the piece, but not the questions I planned to ask. All part of the learning curve.

Listening to Tom Wolfe’s new book, I Am Charlotte Simmons. It’s about college life today.  If it’s accurate, and I don’t have any reason to doubt it is, it must be an intimidating time to be a college student.  So much sex and pressure for grades.  Oh, wait.  Wasn’t that the same college I experienced?  All kidding aside the picture it presents is drastically different in some ways, yet so familiar in others.  I’m enjoying listening to it, but I liked the Alan Greenspan book, too.

Family, General

One Day Down, 364 To Go

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0  72% 23% 0mph WNW bar 30.64 steep rise  windchill -2  Yuletide  New Year’s Day

                              Waning Crescent of the Cold Moon 

A day almost gone in the New Year. 

Kate and I now have a weekly Skype call with Jon and Jen and Ruth+.  + being the one who comes.  This is weird because it means we have a video phone call, our picture and voice shows up there and their picture and voice shows up here, all in real time…well, almost real time.  Ruth says, “All Right.”  “Ma.” (grandma)  No. (snow) Bye. and so on.  All delightful and all wonderful, as if done for the very first time ever in the history of child development.  She’s a cutie, a blond Jewish Norwegian who lives in Colorado.  The mixing pot stirs on.

Worked out, watched a Japanese movie and an Arctic Tale and the Descent.  Three movies.  A holiday.  All pretty different.  Samurai and Shogun, sword and kimono.  A poignant tale of Arctic babies:  a walrus and two polar bears affected by the warming of the Arctic Ocean.  The Descent is a horror movie and a good one.  It left me squirming and wincing.   Made by the director of Dog Soldiers.

The morning I spent exegeting, then interpreting Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  What a tale.  Important for our time, yet hundreds of years old.  

Happy New Year.

General

The Beauty of Folded Metal Blades

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20  87%  27%  omph  ESE  bar29.95 falls windchill 20 Yuletide

                Waning Gibbous Cold Moon

Kate and I bought ourselves a new knife set for the holidays, Japanese knives made of beautiful folded metal.  Boy, are they sharp.  My fingers bear the proof.  The slightest contact with skin and these knives cut.  Of course, that is the point (or the edge); still, I wonder how long it’s going to take for me to learn how to use them well?

Watched the Patriots beat the Giants.  A battle down to the end.  Randy Moss looked great, just as I remembered him.  He floats up, puts out his hands and the ball gravitates toward him.  I should say, almost as I remembered him.  In this game he blocked.

A quiet time now, meditative.  The windows which during the day show me 7 oaks now reflect back the rooms interior.   The night can bring us to our inner selves, reflected back in the mirror of a calmed soul, a soul often too busy in daylight busyness, focused on the world outside the window.

Family, General

The Stomach Has Its Desires

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 22  85%  26%  0mph  NNE  bar 29.97 falls  YuleTide

          Waning Gibbous Cold Moon

 Excerpt of a poem by William Stafford, Choosing A Dog

Your good dogs, some things that they hear
they don’t really want you to know —
it’s too grim or ethereal.

And sometimes when they look in the fire
they see time going on and someone alone,
but they don’t say anything.

Bill Schmidt sent this poem along from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.  It is a touching work, especially for those who live their lives in the company of dogs.

A morning filled with errands.  Took packages for New Years to the Anoka Post Office.  It’s sure easier to mail stuff now than it was a week ago.  Geez.  Practically walked right up to the postal clerk.  One clerk, on the other end of the counter, bald head and heroic biker beard, helped a man set up a General Delivery account.  I looked at the man, fiftyish with black hair laid flat on his head.  His used trench coat sagged with the bow of his shoulders.  His pants looked polished from wear and the boots old.  What had happened in his life?

At the library I donated several Teaching Company courses on audio tape.  As I walked in with the sacks, I began to think about libraries, how important they’ve been to me at each stage of my life: a refuge in an Indiana small town, a place of scholarship during college and my two post-grad degrees, sources of reading material when my funds were low and most recently a source of audio books.  There are two places in this world where I’ve always felt comfortable:  Catholic churches and libraries. 

Donating these courses made me consider charity.  Charity always makes me think of Frank Broderick who seems to incarnate charity.  I always feel less than in the presence of his generosity to others, less than because that’s not what I do.  Then I thought, wait a minute.  I’m not Frank Broderick; I’m Charlie.  Charlie’s generosity focuses on his passions:  art, libraries, dogs, gardens and, for some reason I can’t quite define, water.  These are the places where my volunteer energy, cash and other resources go.  And that’s just fine.

After this, groceries, where my stomach spoke to me down each aisle.  Each time I saw an old food friend like cheese or chips or Kashi cereal my stomach growled and I felt deprived.  The stomach has its desires, its attachments and communicates them; but, those are attachments learned over years of a certain kind of eating.  The process I’m in now is one I’ve gone through before, reeducation.  I’m reeducating my stomach to growl for lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes.  To speak to me of yogurt, right-sized portions and sourdough bread.

A morning full of errands, and, of learning more about myself.  A good morning.

General

Minneapolis and St. Paul and Seattle, the Northern Sunrise for Literacy

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24 81%  26%  0mph  N  bar30.22 rises  windchill23  Yuletide

          Waning Gibbous Cold Moon

Allison found this good news about reading, at least here in the Twin Cities.  The twilight’s pall hangs over the rest of the land, but not in these places according to Jack Miller.

Residents of Minneapolis and Seattle are the most bookish and well-read, according to results from a new survey released today of the most literate American cities. 

The survey focused on 69 U.S. cities with populations of 250,000 or above. Jack Miller of Central Connecticut State University chose six key indicators to rank literacy. These included newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.

Overall, the top 10 most literate (and wired) cities included:

1—Minneapolis, Minn.
2—Seattle, Wash.
3—St. Paul, Minn.
4—Denver, Colo.
5—Washington, D.C.
6—St. Louis, Mo.
7—San Francisco, Calif.
8—Atlanta, Ga.
9—Pittsburgh, Pa.
10—Boston, Mass.

Minneapolis, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Denver and Washington, D.C., have made the top 10 every year since 2003, when the survey first launched.