Individual vs Society (HR 3962)

          Although I don’t think everything can be divided into two camps I do think there are a finite number of greys.  Democrats want to improve society and Republicans want to improve the individual, is a statement both camps are comfortable with.

          Acceptance of this adage is due to combining desired improvement with words (society, individual) which present differing meanings to different people.

          Republicans think positively about individual; to them, an individual is:  a leader, a stalwart, a trail-blazer or a commander.  In the mind’s-eye of a Republican, an individual is always self-sufficient.  On the other hand, Democrats have difficulty detaching the silent and invisible adjective selfish which always seems to precede individual in their mind's-eye.

          Not so with society.  Democrats hear society and think about the large group they’re part of, which includes many who are less fortunate than they are.  Republicans hear society and see the slothful looking for hand-outs, welfare abusers, and human parasites.

          During a recent lengthy discussion with my sister (economic-free market-pessimist / social-conservative / professional-successful businesswoman) she used the term Obama care.  So, I asked her why she was against 2009's health care bill.  She mistook my question as a statement of protest, and I needed to repeat myself a few times before my clarification “just because I voted for him doesn’t mean I support everything he does,” got heard.

          I didn’t know much about the health care bill before today (and still don't know much).  I knew it was almost 2,000 pages big and was supposed to improve health care in the US (there's that word again improve, now it’s appended to health care...which hits the mind’s-eye just like society, and not like individual.)

          Since my sister is an adjunct to the medical, legal, and insurance professions I thought she'd have a rational, fact-based, explanation for dismissing it.  She does not.  Instead, she fell into an all too familiar rant-rut:  government...bad...social security...fail... Medicaid...broken...goes without saying...blah...new health care...ditto.

          I assumed she’s too close to the issue (the forest-from-the-trees analogy) but she says she sees the issue better than most because of her perspective, which is why she is amazingly confident in her ability to forecast the future failure of the 2009 heath care bill, which gradually becomes law over the next four years.

          So I found it and skimmed it.  Bill HR 3962.  It delineates (repetitively and in legal jargon) the new law, while it also updates previous laws, describes new responsibilities, outlines oversight, enrollment, and fines, as well as updates the Native American health care laws, and revises some Medicaid laws.

          In a nutshell, all US taxpayers (with exceptions) will be required, by 2014, to purchase health insurance or pay healthcare bills with cash.  No more county clinic walk-ins claiming 'too poor to pay'; failure to do so will mean facing an annual fine (like a tax) which will be assessed by the IRS.

          I have not paid much attention to this bill because I (retired military) and my fiancée (Native American) are two exceptions.  Reading portions of the bill did not clarify, for me, why it's expected to reduce health care costs, although I do see how it'll improve coverages and close loop holes.   I don’t know why my sister says it's all total bullshit.  I suspect, though, that in the next few years there will be a dramatic increase in US taxpayers joining the Christian Science Church because, after 2014, the IRS can't fine you for refusing to own health insurance if you are a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist.  Which begs the question:  Are we sure we want the separation of church and state to be negated by an organization that advocates the creation of zombies on their registered logo?

Quadrantid Meteor Shower Tonight

The shower could peak at almost a meteor-every-30-seconds before 10pm PST (1am EST).

I read in 2010:

Only one more book than last year (48 this year); my tastes and favorites (larger) gravitated in-and-around the Fantasy genre this year.

2010 Charted

Compared to last year - golfing supplanted hiking, vacations (including scuba) and camping trips resumed this year, creativity suffered, and house-stuff (cleaning, driving, food prep, etc) was done more by my wonderful fiancée and, therefore, less by me.

Solstice Lunar Eclipse Tomorrow Night (North America)

The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portland

Oh yes it is so alive. Here. That's where. (sleep 'til eleven.) New IFC series airs in a month. I intend to giggle at people like myself (and my homeboyzngirlz).

Zodiac Shit

Don't Know Why - Yes I Do

and really you know like

An I’d hoped to come visiting again sooner.  And you—of all people—know how they get.  And, well, I just can’t borrow a horse to go gallivanting whenever I desire.

I intended to write you, really.  But my folks really keep tabs on their stamps and I really hardly ever get any privacy.   Really.

I’z gonna, you know, call.  But my parents were—yaknow—home an-all, you know.  An I still ain’t got a phone in my room yet ya know.

I was like gonna text, but, like my parents were all—like—‘too many minutes’ and like took away my cell.  So, I was like, whatever.

armistice day

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month we remember the end of a war, veterans who served, soldiers who still serve and, essomenically, the little children yet-to-be who'll serve and die (or live to remember) their defense of our country or their acts of aggression against citizens of other countries, in all-the-many future American wars, insurrections, police actions, peace-keeping missions, and acts of imperialism—legitimate and illegitimate (the wars that-is, not the children; nobody calls children illegitimate anymore...we're all bastards, we Americans who begin a new conflict, on average, every five years).

treat

2nd monthly metaphor

monthly metaphor

tired of all the negative shit

anger avalanche

          In 1983, I received orders.  I was to be stationed the entire next year in Korea, separated from my wife and infant son.  We decided to find an apartment for the two of them, where she could work during my year overseas.  Fortuitously (I thought when I learned of it) my step-father and mother were planning a two-week vacation without my 15 year-old half-sister (because she'd be in school).  I asked my mother if my immediate family could stay in the guest room during their vacation, in order to apartment hunt (I assumed my parents would welcome an adult and car for errands and emergencies).  

          "No," I was told. "Your sister has been promised unsupervised-use of the house.  Her boyfriend has a car."

          Wow.  Unexpected financial stress (paying for a motel in my hometown while four bedrooms sit empty in my family's house) combined with parental favoritism (always visible, rarely this overt) and jealousy (rarely an unsupervised hour when I was in high school...but she's permitted a fortnight) became anger.  Sticky anger.

          Over the next several years I didn't reply to the handful of letters sent by my mother or step-father—all I recall of them were that they ruminated on my lack of religion and never contained an apology.  During those years I divorced my first wife, my sons were adopted by her second husband, I married a Korean woman, and completed a few more overseas and stateside tours.  Eventually, I wrote my mother and step-father and asked to visit and introduce my wife.

          Using racist verbiage, the gist of my mother's answer:  'You are welcome.  She is not'.

          Which cased my anger to avalanche.

          Many years later, after realizing my mother's bigotry only explained the last few years of our estrangement, I chuckled over the memory of that long-forgotten sticky anger and pondered how those years may have been different if I hadn't stopped communicating with them.

          Had I only been angry because my immediate family members were never welcome in my parents home, or did I hold my anger because my mother and step-father never apologized...would one have occurred without the other?  If I'd never expressed anger and, therefore, never expected apologies, would those decades have been estrangement-less?

          Is the party who causes someone else to be angry always responsible for an apology?  Is someone else getting angry at you sufficient reason to be angry back?  If so, who should apologize first?  How do insincere apologies fit-in here?  Does just blurting the word 'sorry' (like a bed-wetting preschooler) ever suffice for anything more serious than accidentally stepping on someone's toes?  If not (most have a keen eye for hollow apologies) how does one clearly and concisely communicate one's contrition?       

          Over the decades I've come to realize that, for my mother, it's always others who are unreasonable and always those same others who express unwarranted anger—while she never has reason for apologies.

          Which has taught me I'm not so much my mother's son—I can, and do, say I'm sorry.

*Updated/re-posted Feb 2020

To sorrow I bade good-morrow, and thought to leave her far away behind; but cheerily, cheerily, she loves me dearly...she is so constant to me, and so kind. — John Keats

cept x cit

The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate. — John Keats

Must a bellydancer driving a pink truck be female?

          Julie from Scientific Chick wrote an essay (A Pink Truck is Still a Truck) attempting to explain (to non-science people, like me) some recently published research which, as she put it, 'left her with more questions than she started with.'  She cites a study by a couple of University of Cambridge researcher's, which attempts to explain that, while very young children have no gender-based color preferences, little boys prefer to look at images of trucks cars and little girls prefer to look at images of dolls.

         Although the researcher's published abstract initially states: "...Girls looked at dolls significantly more than boys did and boys looked at cars significantly more than girls did, irrespective of color ... These outcomes did not vary with age..." they later contradict themselves by saying, "...both boys and girls preferred dolls to cars at age 12-months...".

          Which is probably why Scientific Chick decided to simplify things when she wrote, "...The researchers found that boys preferred cars and girls preferred dolls.  No big surprise there ... "  I thank Julie for eliminating the confusion, and although facts were left on the cutting room floor, it seems the researchers themselves drew first blood on those facts.

          But—more important—Julie's larger unanswered question:  Why do we buy pink for girls and blue for boys?

            A few years ago, Cecil Adam's The Straight Dope answered the question:  Was Pink Originally the Color for Boys and Blue for Girls?   Cecil answered in the affirmative, with "some thought so" and a "century ago some old magazine printed it," but his lengthy explanation still splashed solidly into the vague non-answer range of:  "Nobody really knows (where blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls comes from)".

          I propose the reason was—and still is—homophobia.  The pink-blue "switch" occurred following WWII when the Nazi's required homosexuals to wear a pink triangle sewn or pinned to their clothing. 

          I recall old pictures and paintings of children who (as detailed by the above Straight Dope answer) all wore white dresses.  Rare for The Straight Dope, they included a rhetorical question in the middle of their pink-or-blue article:

Why no attempt to discriminate further? ... Perhaps mothers decking out their little boys in dresses thought: They’ll get to be manly soon enough.

          There.  Right there.  Passive aggressive homophobia, written large in 2008, by Cecil Adams.  Unusual for The Straight Dope (unless...it's both a font of arcane trivia and, literally, staffed by straight dopes).

          Since I'm pointing out the prejudice and factlessness of others, I'll give-a-go at including some truthiness:  With zippers (1930), snaps (1885), and velcro (1955) decades or centuries away, can anyone use deductive reasoning to explain why mothers of yesteryear clothed their infants and toddlers in dresses and skirts regardless of gender?  If you are stumped because deductive reasoning is predominantly outsourced to some form of Wiki, consider the diaper and toilet-training in the button-n-pin era...without stretchy cloth or rubber pants or indoor plumbing.  If it was me, my entire brood of little shatters would have been restricted to the lawn from dawn to dusk; bare bottomed year-round, barefoot with skirts in the summer, leather footwear under long dresses in the snow.

          The researcher's concluded (and Julie summarized that conclusion in layman's terms) that they, "could not draw any conclusions on whether this behavior was learned or innate".

          This discourages me in an abject, why-am-I-not-surprised, kinda way.  And not just because their published results clearly suggests—at least to this layman—that the behavior of looking longer at cars (boys over 12 months) and at dolls (all girls) is learned.  Because when every year old infant prefers to look at dolls and then most of the boys between 18 to 24-months old changed their preference and looked longer at cars...that quacks and walks like a learned behavior duck.

          But the biggest reason I'm discouraged by all this, is because real doing-science researchers couldn't find a group of children, in the entire world, who hadn't already been gender-role tainted.  Because...there are no 12-24 month old children who've not already watched television or played with plastic never-important-toys?  No Nigerian or Brazilian or Alaskan or Native American or Aboriginal group—anywhere—which hadn't already tainted every one of their toddlers with Tonka-Barbie (I originally included "Amish", in this off-the-cuff list but deleted it during proofreading because 'homophobic Amish' is redundantly redundant.  Amish fathers probably spank their six-month old sons when they look at a broom).  Nor, most surprisingly, could these researchers locate any alt-lifestyle-neohippy-Americans who've intentionally raised their young progeny without exposure to TV, gender specific toys, or commercialized society.

          Oh and the A to my titular Q:  No, he could have once been a toddler who's preference for images of dolls, over cars, never flagged.  (I include this because, even I have gender role prejudices.)

Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid. —  John Keats

if ya can't get a kylie minogue outta yer head

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.  Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; not to the sensual ear, but—more endeared—pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.  —  John Keats

DIVE · TASK · STICK

          I have created a recreational diver’s multi-tool and will custom build one, for you, for approximately $200 - $220 US**.  If you are interested in purchasing a dive·task·stick, e-mail veachglines@gmail.com.

          This waterproof tool enables scuba divers to communicate with—and point out items of interest to—dive partners.

          The middle portion contains pellets which (when shaken) act as a signaling device.  One end has a waterproof laser pointer, operated by spring-button, and powerful enough to see in clear, shallow, bright-daylight dives or even snorkeling.  The other end has a wide angle (43 degree) waterproof flashlight (torch) to improve visibility during daytime dives, (looking under ledges, diving on cloudy days, seeing the "true color" of deep marine life, etc.)—and powerful enough to be used as your primary light source on night dives.  The dive·task·stick has a no-slip rubber cover in the middle with a sliding wrist lanyard.

          Obviously, these items could be purchased separately and kept in a pocket of your BCD.  In my diving experience, however, items in your pocket are rarely used.

          The dive·task·stick is constructed from:

          · Wide-beam LED flashlight by Intova (10 hr burn time)

         · Green laser pointer by Beam of Light Technologies

         · Custom made aluminum tube “Shaker style” signaling device

         · Wrist lanyard and rubber cover

         · Three CR123 lithium batteries

         · 57.2 cm × 2.5 to 3.6 cm × .90 kg  (22.5 in × 1 to 1.4 in × 2.0 lbs)

         · Safe to a depth of 40 meters (130 feet)*

         NOTE:  This dive·task·stick is not a "touch-tool;" the glass end-lenses would be scratched and damaged if this pointer were misused to brace against underwater objects or touch marine life. 

*  Although the laser company attests it will survive above depths of 200 feet (61 meters) and the flashlight company attests it will survive above depths of 400 feet (122 meters), I can not attest to the dive task stick surviving below the recreational diving maximum depth.

** This price depends on retail purchase prices (with shipping) of three items as well as the cost of shipping the insured tool to you.  As of August 2010—the laser was $88; the flashlight was $47; the center pipe, pellets, rubber cover, epoxy, and labor were $45; I profit $20; and shipping varies.

          Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom. — Benjamin Franklin

Wondering what to do with ten dollars?

Give it to the director and cast of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

If you enjoyed last year's comedy Zombieland, you will be more entertained by this film.  You don't have to like Michael Cera (I never need to act because I play my expressionless self just fine.)—he holds the center of a typhoon of actors who keep all the hilarity swirling around him.

You also don't have to prefer Edgar Wright.  This is funnier, tighter, and more over-the-top than all the movies he has previously directed, combined.

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. — Benjamin Franklin

Accumulonimbus

Originality is the art of concealing your sources. — Benjamin Franklin

Progress, as predicted

          I believe that as California goes, so—eventually—will the country.  Twenty-one months ago, I wrote an essay decrying the bigotry of our age and pointing out the need for: 

...California...Judges...to do, after the fact, what the mentally infirm majority of Californian voters were incapable of doing: enforce equality under the law...

          California's Proposition 8 law banning same-sex marriage has been repealed.  Continued appeals by both religious bigots as well as generic non-religious haters will be made to higher courts, and in a year or two the US Supreme Court will (hopefully) enforce equality under the law for the entire United States.

          But think how great a proportion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women...who have need of the motives of religion. ... If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be if without it? — Benjamin Franklin

jury duty

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. — Benjamin Franklin

I know you are, but what am I?

          While eating at the very best German Restaurant in Portland, we asked the waitress about a large bag of water hanging eye-level over a window box of flowers just outside the front entrance. 

          Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.  —  Benjamin Franklin

Going to hell in a handbasket for the last 100,000 years

          People always want to recall the past events, that they were part of, as bigger and better.  One way we bolster our memories of ourselves is by looking with pity at the young preparing to take our place.
  
          I, too, am guilty of participating in this form or self-aggrandizement.

          For sixteen weeks of infantry basic training my unit exercised and ran in combat uniform and boots.  The Army soon changed its policy.  Trainees began wearing running shoes and a temperature-specific training uniform when they exercised.  I recall disparaging comments I made about these new recruits—they would, obviously, not be as tough as I.

          I later learned, from soldiers who'd entered the military a decade before me, that they thought similarly about me; back then, (in the days of the draft) drill sergeants used beatings and the threat of beatings to motivate trainees and since my drill instructors weren't permitted to touch trainees, I was—obviously—not as tough as they were.

          It’s human nature—the need to feel superior through negative comparison.

          A nomadic tribesman crossing the frozen bearing strait once said, ‘Kids today...they’ve got no respect...they're too soft.’  That hunter-gatherer was only repeating something he'd heard his grandfather say.  Without being asked to, these derogatory sentiments have left every adult mouth for as long as human mouths have formed words.  (Strangely, some have forgotten they are echoing their ancestors words...spoken, about them, a generation ago.) 

          Parents should worry if their children haven’t been arrested by the time they turn sixteen.  Being a juvenile delinquent is a birthright and as much a part of healthy adolescence as smoking cigarettes or getting pimples. — John Waters

Lilac Wine

Without obsession, life is nothing. — John Waters

Camping Clatsop State Forest

Cheer up. You never know—maybe something awful will happen tomorrow. — John Waters

vacation

As far as socially redeeming value, I hope I don`t have any. — John Waters

Older not smarter - Zonkey 2010

          Zonkey and my seasonal cat hikes resumed two months ago, but—so far—this year's wetter weather has resulted in less trail-time because he complains (loudly and persistently) when I attempt to take him where he'll get muddy paws.

          To show how much he has changed, I took a picture in front of the same fence as last year and adjusted it until the fence-boards were the same size.  He has gained over 4 pounds, his cream colored sides have almost disappeared (along with his svelte physique) and his namesake stripes are now much more apparent.

         I think his pictures nicely capture the maturation of his personality and attitude as well.  He was timid but curious last year; today he is proud and assertive.  The only thing that hasn't changed—he was never very smart... and still isn't.  He's still not vocal.  He enjoys drinking from a running faucet, sleeping on the back of furniture and is pervasively affectionate to anyone and everyone without exception.

Strive for art in reverse. — John Waters

Firewürks (with vestigal umlaüt)

I also hate those holidays that fall on a Monday where you don't get mail—those fake holidays like Columbus Day.  What did Christopher Columbus do...discover America?  If he hadn't, somebody else would have and we'd still be here.  Big deal. — John Waters (writer, film director)