Anybody Out There?

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For the better part of three years, I have worked on this blog. Sometimes to be quite frank it feels like and may literally become an extension of my journal. Although I know there are some followers and a few other casual readers, I sit here and wonder if I reach anyone or do any good. Sometimes I feel wasted.

A few months ago, a friend of mine posted to her blog her own frustration that she has yet to influence a single person. I understand why she feels that way. If you look at the results of my endeavors, there are people in this town and from other parts of my history who, to look at them, you might think have never met me and should even though they know me very well. At one point, we had a Courageous Conversation, and they decided they would part ways with me and did so.

Sometimes I just think out loud on here because I don't know where else to do so. I know that my honest admissions have cost me friends and associations. I decided that if they aren't interested in the real me then they may not really want to be my friend. If you want someone who will validate your every choice, get a bobblehead.

It may very well be that when I shuffle off this mortal coil I may be entirely alone. It's not that I never had friends, but more that most people are fickle and use the term 'friend' too loosely.

Get Rid of Reid

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Harry Reid says he is not responsible for the problems of this nation. Oh yeah? Then who is? George Bush? Reid has been in Congress for 28 years and in politics since before I was born. If he had any good ideas he would have already applied them.

Politicians have villified Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Business in general. They take credit for all the good things and wash their hands of all the bad things, even if they had nothing to do with the former or everything to do with the latter. One of their heroes, Theodore Roosevelt, accurately said, "The blame will lie upon the men whose names appear upon the roll-calls of Congress on the wrong side of these great questions." Look at the voting records in Congress. They are the ones who pass the laws. They are the ones who are responsible.

Reid likes to blame Angle for things when Angle hasn't even been in elected office for the last two years. Reid assaults Angle for her position on Social Security. In reality, the blame is on those who refuse to remedy those evils long in advance of the day when the bill comes due. Reid assaults Angle saying she will gut Medicaire. With the passage of Obamacare, Reid has already done that. With rates scheduled to be cut 30%, no doctors will take new Medicaire patients, a decision in which Angle had no say. While they pat themselves on the back for it, they cut back its funding, all while promising we'll all be covered but never that we'll actually get treated.

Nevada leads the nation in every negative indicator and trails the nation in every positive one. If you like that, then by all means reelect Harry Reid. If Bush is responsible for problems, then so is Reid because the President cannot sign any bill unless it first passes the Congress. The best way to stop bad treatment is to remove the people who made the decisions from positions that empower them to create malignancies in your life.

Consider how the incumbent has made use of your time and money. If we elect Reid, he will assume he has a mandate, that we accept, not just tolerate, the things he has inflicted upon us. You may not like Angle, but the best way to send a message to the elites in either party is to vote for their opponents when they are grossly negligent of the responsibilities of elected office. You might not like Angle, but Reid openly mocks the things in which many of you believe. Of course, Angle is too extreme, but Reid is never too liberal.

Ask yourself if you're better off today than you were last time Reid was reelected. He has been senate majority leader for two years. that's plenty of time to get things done that will fix our problems, if politicians can actually do that simply by passing laws. It's as if simply by passage of a law, we'll all suddenly prosper magically.

Get rid of Reid. Otherwise, the rest of Theodore Roosevelt's criticism will be true and "upon you and the people of this country will lie the blame if you do not repudiate what these men have done." Remember that Harry Reid helped create the economy and that no amount of money spent on advertising to the contrary can change the facts.

Blatant Plagiarism: Life is Improv

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A friend of mine who does this kind of thing and hopes to go professional tipped me off to these rules of improv. After all, life is all improv. There are no scripts, no themes during dramatic moments, and no certainties. There are only opportunities to live. If I ever start my own college, I would be wise to teach an improv class to teach these rules, most of which I have learned but through other experiences. Credit to the original article and it's authors who did a good job simplifying the principles.

TEN PRINCIPLES OF IMPROV

Principle 1: Be prepared (Warm up!)
In my improv class we don’t rehearse scenes, but we do practice. We do train to learn and internalize certain structures and methods the way jazz improvisers learn scales. Before getting into scene work, we activate our minds and bodies by playing games; games that will help ground us physically and emotionally to characters we create in scenes. Sometimes we play 2 or 3 games at once to help sharpen our awareness and listening skills and get us out of our heads. Props to the Boy Scouts on this one.

Principle 2: Willingness
Willingness to do what you ask? A lot. We have to be willing to fail, and fail spectacularly. Since we don’t know what’s coming next, we have to accept that we may get knocked off balance. Therefore we have to be willing to mess up –and mess up big time.

Being willing to fail spectacularly means being willing to take risks. Lack of success is not due to trying and failing; it’s due to not trying, often out of a fear of failure. Being willing to fail means being willing to look foolish. It’s been said that we wouldn’t care so much about what people thought about us if we realized how seldom they do. If we’re not willing to look foolish doing improv then we won’t risk, we won’t commit, and the scenes will lack energy and direction. Being willing to risk reconnects us with the zest and energy of life. When we risk, our senses our heightened, our adrenaline is flowing. It’s a rush.

Finally, we have to be willing to make mistakes. The point is not that there are no consequences. Rather, it’s accepting that if we are truly risking there is no question that we WILL make mistakes. But we also realize that others are there to help dig us out of our mistakes. And ultimately it’s our mistakes that lead us to growth and improvement. We learn to choose better next time.

Principle 3: Stay in the Moment
In improv what is happening NOW is the key to discovery. I was at a Library Futures conference recently and heard someone say, "I’m very interested in the future because that’s where most of my life will happen." That got a big laugh. Well I’m very interested in this moment, because that’s where ALL of my life has happened. And I’m pretty sure that’s where most of the action is. (Coincidentally, it was at the library futures conference that Mary Catherine Bateson suggested that the best way to prepare for the future is to take an improv class...)

Principle 4: Shut up and Listen
Good improvisers are not necessarily more clever, or more quick-witted. They just listen better… Improv is about hearing what others are offering, and building off it. It’s hard to do that when your gums are flappin’.

Principle 5. Action beats inaction
Don’t talk about doing it, do it. Be specific. In Improv there is a "bias for action". I’ve also seen the term "bias for action" listed as a common trait of effective leaders. Why? Because active choices move things forward. The more specific the choice the better. Specific choices are committed choices. Specific choices move things forward and allow others to respond to and build off of your offers.

Principle 6. Be honest
In improv we are taught to express whatever is coming up in us at that moment. To do that we have to learn not to censor or judge our own thoughts, which requires some major rewiring of the brain… The only value we bring to the scene is our honest response to what’s happening.

Principle 7: Let go of (your need to) control
The only thing we can control are our own choices. Realizing that we are not in control of anything else is the key to de-stressing and getting into the flow. And the flow is where we are creative. The flow is where we are productive. The flow is where we are connected to others. The flow is where we are happy. [an aside] Interestingly… What happens when we stop focusing energy on things that we can’t control? That energy gets focused on things that we can control, and ironically, we end up exerting more influence.

Principle 8. There are no mistakes
Earlier I said that we have to be willing to make mistakes. But moving beyond that, we learn to not see choices as mistakes. In improv, there are no mistakes or bad ideas, there are only interesting choices. We respect all the choices (aka offers) made by others, and find ways to build off of them, no matter how challenging they may be. There are no mistakes because everything can be built upon. Everything that happens is an opportunity.

Principle 9: Trust
Learning improv we learn to trust ourselves. We trust our impulses and our choices (which we can do because there are no mistakes, and we are not alone.) And we learn to trust in others (to "justify" our "interesting choices", build off them, and weave them into the fabric of the scene.) When learning to trust our ideas, it helps to remember that ideas are infinite. So no matter what strange hole it seems we’ve dug ourselves into in a scene, there are an infinite number of ideas that can help dig us out.

Principle 10. Teamwork (row, row, row)
We’re all in this together. No one person is responsible for the success or failure of a scene. It succeeds, or not, based on our ability to work together. This requires strong individuals making strong choices, who trust each other and themselves. As a group, we learn to focus on solutions. As individuals we learn to focus on getting results (i.e. moving the scene forward) instead of being right, or angling for attention or credit. We rise, or fall, as one.

The Uber Principle: "Yes, and..."
So there are the big 10 principles of improv as seen by an improv newbie. But I’d like to conclude by mentioning one final improv principle. It’s a principle that runs through all the others and infuses improv with it’s spirit. This is the principle of "Yes, and". "Yes, and" means that we accept everything that happens as an offer, as a gift. It is our job to bring our unique perspective to bear, and build off of whatever is given to us. "Yes and" implies acceptance, but not acquiescence. "Yes and" acknowledges the reality of the moment, but also inspires us to create the future.

In the end, "Yes and" is a powerful attitude of affirmation. It is an attitude that affirms ourselves, and therefore gives courage. It is an attitude that affirms others, and therefore inspires trust. And it is an attitude that affirms what is and therefore inspires hope and excitement for the possibilities of what may be as we join together to create our shared future.

Car Repair

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For the last two weeks, I've been working to swap an engine/transmission from the 1995 Saturn SL1 in which I was in an accident to the 1995 Saturn SL1 I have driven since 2003. I have learned a lot about cars. I have learned alot about myself. I have been dirty and tired every night. I have also almost always had something to do.

Not that I look forward to working on my car almost every night per se, but I feel accomplished. This weekend, we managed to complete the arduous extrication of all the contaminated parts from Recipient car and the parts we want to use from Donor car. There have been some headaches. Fortunately, my dad has all the tools we needed or was at least able to fabricate something that worked. I will confess that he had some ingenious ideas I wasn't sure would work. My dad is a miracle worker.

The car will be redeemed in blood. I have cut myself three times and burned myself once. My father has cut himself more than that. There has been surprisingly little profanity, but we bled all the liquids from the vehicles, so even they lost everything. I did however learn that transmission fluid acts as a great solvent for grease.

I admit I'm excited. When the car is painted and all the pieces swapped I intend to keep, it will look pretty good. You know, I have a great deal of attachment to this car. He and I have been through a lot together. The only major part that ever failed was the part we always expected would, but far later than people thought. He should run for a great many years to come, and if I had possessed the talent and time and energy necessary, I probably could have done this in a few days. Fortunately, I have a few friends and a talented father who helped make this possible. So, it's been an adventure, and I have enjoyed the journey.

Trust Issues

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A friend of mine just postulated why everyone has trust issues. At first, I was tempted to deny this. Then I realized that there are people who have lost my trust in whom I cannot trust again. I have tried very hard not to project mistakes made by others onto people who have never harmed me, but we almost expect people to let us down. Just this morning, a friend, albeit happy about the birth of a grandson, described him as "one more human to break my heart". She expects he will disappoint her. Well, then he probably will.

I have great hope that someday, someone in whom I trust will hold true to their word. I have noticed that sometimes it comes down to what they mean by a word. I've been told by people that they love me who no longer speak to me.

As far as you and I are concerned, you have probably never let me down. I don't have great expectations about people even if I think I know of what they are capable. However, if you tell me you will do something, then I will hold you to it. When you don't, you have lost my trust, not I. You become the one who has the issue with trust because you cannot keep it.

It is not that I cannot trust others. I trust other people sometimes far more than they deserve, but in the end if they cannot keep it, then I will stop giving it to them. I'm not the one with the issue, and I venture to guess neither are you.

Prius and Pollution

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So the Huffington Post does a story on the nine worst polluted areas in the world. China’s coal region, the Niger delta for oil spills, London which is highly industrialized, two Russian sites where chemical or nuclear waste were dumped, a river in Indonesia where pollution floats on the surface like the Death Star’s trash compactor, and a mine in Peru round out the most infamous and dangerous suspects. Los Angeles and Phoenix are the only two American areas on the list, and they are there because of urban congestion caused by exorbitant prices that drive most employees to commute. The rest of the sites result from risky industries closely coupled to civilization. America doesn’t do that. Most of our mines, power plants, industry, and oil is located far from the populace, which is part of why we all drive cars, so that the pollution isn’t in our back yards or water basins.

Prius is a status symbol for most of those who drive it. Although they think they’re saving the planet, it doesn’t make a difference whether you drive a Prius or not. China will compensate with a coal power plant, Russia will dump Chemical or Nuclear waste, Nigerian oil will spil, and industries in European centers of manufacture will still churn out nitrates, sulfates, and oxides. It lets you feel good about yourself to drive a Prius, like you’re doing something to save the planet.

If you’re driving it for the energy efficiency, fine, but if that was really what it was about, what’s wrong with a Saturn? It’s all about image, which is why people buy cars that attract attention. I get a kick out of those who buy cars with amazing performance capability at the expense of economy. What is the point? It’s largely illegal in this nation to drive over 80mph, and even my Saturn will hit that (just not on a 6% incline), and so there’s no advantage other than aesthetic to own some kind of performance automobile. Add to that, the electric engine usually only operates at low speed, and how much time do people who drive the Prius spend at low speed? It’s great in town or stop and go traffic, but not any better on the freeway than my Saturn at 37-40mpg.

I know someone who drives a Prius. They’re not as cheap to maintain as people assume. Granted, I’m involved in a major engine overhaul, but I’m not sure a regular Joe could overhaul a Prius. At least my car is one on which I can do basic maintenance myself.

Racist Storm Names? Please

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Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee has complained about the anglo-centric conventions for naming storms. She is apparently completely ignorant about cultural and policy-driven reasons for the naming conventions. Although the storm names are chosen at random, the databank from which those names were drawn will not be truly random. It reflects the familiarity and experience of the person(s) who compiled it, and if certain names are foreign to them in space or in time, they would likely be omitted.

Her claim is that the names are racist. I disagree. I would not think of naming a storm with a Ugandan name, not because I hate Ugandans, but because I don't know any and don't have any idea what their names are. Furthermore, who would insert into the randomization matrix names from obscure or forgotten cultures like the Celts, the Incans, the Babylonians, the Goths and the like? What would you think if you saw Hurricane Aethelred or Hurricane Chichen-Itza or Hurricane Meshach? Likely, you would never think of those names because you have never heard them.

We view the world through the prism of our own experience, education, and exposure. I know people from Las Vegas who have NEVER LEFT THIS VALLEY. Granted, it's a 600 square mile area, but there's a much larger world out there. It isn't necessarily that we dislike or denigrate another culture; it's probably because we don't know anything about them. People sometimes name things based on phases of exposure. When I bred beagles, we named one litter of puppies after Norse mythology, another after the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and another after superhero names. It was fresh on our minds, and that's why we chose them. What is the likelihood that, if hurricanes were named by an organization of Sudanese, any of the storms would have names like Andrew, Earl or Katrina? They would choose things that were fresh on or easily recollected by their minds. The fact of the matter is that the storms as well as the agency that monitors them hail from a nation that has Anglo-Saxon cultural elements, which form the basis for a natural and passive bank from which to draw the names, however randomly they may be selected. I can't even write Aethelred or Joerge correctly on this keyboard because nobody in America makes a keyboard readily available to write the letters with which those names are usually spelled. Even a recent article I read yesterday said that China has forced a name change because the character for that name is so rare it cannot be typed.

This critique, on easy investigation, illustrates a woeful ignorance of the naming conventions. At the time the list was created (it is actually recycled) in 1953, it contained only female names. Male names were added in 1979. There are six lists that alternate every six years, and they pretty much remain the same with minor changes through each iteration of the cycle. The names were chosen because they were short, easily pronounced, and familiar to the individuals who communicate them, who communicate by and large in ENGLISH as that's the major international language.

Furthermore, outside the Atlantic, the lists are more 'diverse' already. I live out west, and I've heard polynesian sounding names of storms that slammed Hawai'i or Mexico before. Depending on where you are in the pacific, there are other lists, the majority of which names are not American in origin or sound even remotely Anglo-saxon off the tongue. Congressman Lee is an ignorant woman, who makes this argument largely because she herself is a bigot. In her mind, all names of white people are racist. Nomenclature is cultural.

See the full description at the NOAA Website here.

Furthermore, the list has other biases. It's alphabetical and focused on names. If they, God forbid, have more than 26 storms, they will use greek alphabet letters. Why not numbers or cuneiform or use dead fish to mark the storms? Someone will object no matter what convention we adopt. Everthing we do we do because it's a choice, a preference, and there is no way to make any choice void of preference except to eliminate alternatives. That means the elimination of choice and an end ultimately of freedom. Yet, you will not see Congressman Lee argue against these other biases. She has an agenda.

If Congressman Lee wants different names, perhaps she should resign from Congress and sign up at the NOAA. What global names did she give her children by way of example? She might have started with her own children who are named Erica and Jason respectively. The entire notion that naming of storms is racist is absurd and wasteful of further attention. Congressman Lee- sit down.

Odd Treasury Quote

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The US Treasury's website has this quote from Thomas Jefferson on its own website:

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

Some will argue the point on 'greed'. Do you really think that any society runs without greed? Capitalism, like every other fiscal philosophy, is only as good as the people who practice it. If you want to keep people from greed, you must teach them virtue. Stealing their money and giving it ot the lazy will not help the lazy. It only hurts the industrious. That kind of solution will not teach anyone virtue, but will rather illustrate that virtue has no rewards.

Some people criticize capitalism. Remember that people lump all meanings for any derivation of a theme under one word. Most of the people who clamour for free markets believe Capitalism to be the right way. Most of the people who clamour for more government intervention believe socialism to be the right way. What most of them actually want is to have enough for their needs without fear of financial bereftment. However, if I stand up and talk about 'entrepreneurship', most people's eyes glaze over. Yet, that's actually what they mean.

I discussed in a post earlier this week that Republicans really ought to endorse entrepreneurship. It is the frontier ideal, to go and make a life, to carve it out. Most of those people weren't 'rich', but they were happy. They had enough most of the time. When they had extra, they shared or sold it. They did not love money. Money was a means.

When money moves from a means to an end, that is the problem. Both ends of the political spectrum paint as the end whoever has the money. Liberals focus on money for the poor and say conservatives want the rich to have the money. We acquire it as a means to the things about which we actually care. That's when it becomes impossible to be a Christian and capitalist or Christian and communist.

Christianity, and God, are not concerned with money. Christ himself said, "Render to Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's..." while he encouraged his disciples to store up treasures in heaven. Why you seek and how you use the money makes the difference. The treasury, and those who generally control it regardless of power, steal it from some in order to give it to others. It is also however a tenant of Christianity to reap what we sow and enjoy the fruits of our labors. Sometimes, that is money.

The problem here is language. We argue on semantics, diction, and vocabulary when we actually mean the same things with different words. Argh. Language is a poor instrument, and the English Language compounds the problem.

Cars=Freedom

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I've been without a car basically for the last three weeks now. Although I've been able to borrow on the rare occasions I really needed one or catch rides to work with people headed in that same general direction, other than that I don't really do much. I live over a mile from the nearest bus stop, my bicycle has problems again, and even yesterday it was 104F in Vegas which means you walk only as far as necessary, so I haven't really done much in the past few weeks besides vegetate or work on my car.

At least for Westies, Cars are freedom. We live in sprawling metropolitan areas and commute sometimes 20 miles to work in areas with inefficient and inconvenient mass transit because there's nothing 'mass' about a valley even with 2 million people when they are spread over 600 square miles. Even with smaller cities, there are vast swaths of nothing between cities, and the cities are not laid out to make things convenient. Without a bike or car, it is basically at least a mile from my home to any place of interest, and with temperatures over 100F and nobody to accompany me, I'm not going shopping, to tennis, the movies or stargazing by myself if I have to go on foot.

Beyond that, Cars give us options. If I choose to take a few hours off early, I can take off and go up in the mountains on a whim or catch a flick or go out today for lunch even though I brought leftovers. I can shop on the way home or on the way to work, run errands for myself, visit a sick friend, take a road trip, grab flowers for a friend or familiar, or just get out. There is no way I'm going to walk a mile to a park, hit a tennis ball against a wall for an hour, and then walk home when it's over 100F outside, which is true until after sundown in the summers here. I'm not going to pop over to the store for a treat, drive to the edge of town to meet friends or watch meteors, or anything like that after work in the evening. I have a ride, but we go straight home. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

Whenever and wherever we want to go, if we have a car, we go. Nothing is convenient to us. Cars give us options. Cars give us choice. Cars, out west, are a very symbol of freedom. They give us the ability to move about at will, to see and do and experience whatever we choose at times, with people and in places that we chose. That's probably why Westies refuse to buy little put-put smart cars and opt for gas-guzzling SUVs. Our terrain is rough. The distances are great. Outside the confines of the city, it's a forboding landscape, full of adventure. Cars enable us to carry supplies and are themselves one of our survival implements.

Years ago, Chevrolet ran a campaign calling their cars the Heartbeat of America. Take away the car, the combustion engine, and the west as presently constituted will die, as well as many of the people in her. Cars enable us to travel in relative comfort. Cars are convenient. Cars are a privilege, and we will fight for them out west as vehemently as we fight for any other symbol of our freedom. They enable us to pursue happiness. They are part of our America.

Golf: Worse Than We Thought

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I played golf only once so far in my life- at a family reunion when I was 14 years old. However, I was bad at it, very bad, and I think my uncles regretted impressing on me to accompany them. Since that time, I have agreed with Mark Twain who said that golf is a good walk spoiled. Many people however like it. Perhaps they should rethink it.

Yesterday, a golf shot started a wildfire in California. If I were a reactionary liberal, I would jump to report that this proves that golf 1. causes global warming and 2. is a threat to public health and welfare. They won't say any such thing. That just applies to Big Oil.

The president has spent a lot of time on the golf course. Thank goodness his shots never started fires, or else he might be accused of contributing to the decline of the environment and reckless endangerment. Instead, we have to fund his favorite constituents and redistribute wealth. Nobody will blame the golf course or the golfer for anything because liberal reactionaries like to golf.