Babbleocity 36: Dive! Ride!

You mustn't neglect your therapy ...

Dive! Dive! - Spend more than a few months away from salt water and SCUBA skills begin, perversely, to rust. Getting back in the drink takes equal amounts of cautious preparation and 'damn the torpedoes' charging ahead. But it's worth it, when you find the gear going on as smoothly as you remember - even the makeshift fix to your dive knife sheath is still holding strong. The regulator still regulates and the computers compute, and down you go, ear-popping your way to the bottom. Blowing bubbles among your friends the calico bass, the kelpfish, the sheepshead, and, of course, the garrulous garibaldi. There's not much better a way of spending a summer day ... unless ...

Ride! Ride! - A motorcycle is a living thing. No, really. A bike will mechanically sadden if left alone. It's true, I swear. You can tell by how absolutely thrilled the machine feels when lit up and roaring you along your favorite back roads after too long silent in a darkened garage. Or, maybe, that's just an impression that comes from your own spirit flaring into light when reunited with your two-wheeled partner after too long a separation. But don't think about it, just let the engine sing and the tires read you the story of the road. Dance your way along twisting ribbons the designers must have made just for moments like this. As close to nirvana as you are likely to get (above water) ...

Therapy is easy, when it's this much fun ...

Iran, Iraq, and a Very Hard Place

Tonight President Obama declared the 'war' in Iraq over (sort of ... mostly). Our combat troops are coming home.

Well, not quite home, not all of them. There's still Afghanistan - and the 'good' battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Quite a few will be heading east to the inhabited rubble of Kabul or Kandahar.

A lot of people who helped vote Mr. Obama into office are wondering why we are still fighting anywhere in that part of the world. They are wondering why the President is so adamant and intent about steering the course entered by George W. Bush. I'd wondered too, until I glanced at a world map, where the answer was obvious ...

And the answer has little to do with Afghanistan, or Iraq, but everything to do with what lies between them - Iran. Once an ally of the West, a Persian bulwark against a semi-cohesive Arab Union, Iran then moved through revolution to become our strident enemy, eventually morphing again during the first Gulf War to inhabit the uncomfortable dual role of our enemy and erstwhile friend-in-arms against Saddam. Now, despite the cooperation required to calm the Shiite extremists in post-invasion Iraq, Iran is largely just an avowed enemy. More accurately the government is, through President-by-decree Ahmadinejad and his theocratic handlers.

And our enemy Iran is rushing to build 'peaceful' nuclear capacity that could also give them the 'bomb'. And the thought of a fundamentalist Shia Iran unleashing its own genie from the atomic bottle is unthinkable to most countries, but especially so for Israel, Turkey, and also the Sunni led Arab nations we call our 'friends' in the region.

That's why Afghanistan remains a battlefied. The powers-that-be want a sympathetic government in firm control there, to serve as a friendly bookend to a firmly-controlled and friendly Iraq.

To use a groan-worthy cliché/metaphor, we want Iran to be caught between 'Iraq and a Hard Place'. Afghanistan is a very hard place, indeed.

Live Long ... and Prosper?

How would you like to live to be 500, perhaps celebrate a millennium?

Silly question, right? Nuts really, because no one, biblically famous forefathers aside, lives much beyond that famous three score and ten, do they?

The good folks behind 'Life Extended', as seen on the Documentary Channel, beg to differ. They feel we might be able to live essentially forever. One day we will figure out how to stop aging in it's tracks, and then it will be just a matter of avoiding accidents and violence, and we can each be a modern day Methuselah. A span of a million years was mentioned, and not in jest. (At least I think not in jest. The film is Swedish and I can't detect Swedish humor. Are there Swedish comedians? But I digress ..)

The show did reveal a few downsides to life extension, the main one being overpopulation. After all, if no one is dying, then we'd better not have too many being born or else - disaster.

Another worry is worry itself. If we lick aging, and control disease, leaving only accident and violent attacks to fear, won't we become a bunch of paranoid shut-ins? The show's writers seem to believe we will become adept at avoiding mayhem, but it seems all too likely we will avoid it by just not getting out of bed.

One the documentary didn't mention, but comes readily to mind is - boredom. Will there be anything on TV 1000 years from now? And will we immortals even care? What will excite us after even a piddling 200 years of life? And if a smidgeon of interest is still left by then, how about when we reach 5oo? It's hard to imagine being surprised, interested, pleased, or moved by anything after 1000 years, and impossible after a million.

Of course, one thing bored people do to pass the time is have sex. Which will make solving overpopulation more difficult. Unless after 1000 years even sex is boring. (Nah ...)

And there's another problem: living forever means living with yourself forever - with how you look, how smart you are, how talented (or talentless) - you get the drift. What if you aren't really your cup of tea? Will body remodeling and genetic re-jiggering become an essential part of life? If so, will we all become homogenized and boring? One thing for sure - there's no way I want to spend a million years as Me. (A couple hundred, maybe ...)

Luckily, science moves too slowly for me to ever face the problem of immortality. From what the documentary insinuates, though, our grandchildren might lead active lives into their mid-100's, and their grandchildren just might make the double-century.

Will they be happy with their long lives? Or will they be miserable, self-loathing, agoraphobics, living in mirror-less houses and playing endless games of solitaire; surprised by nothing, moved by nothing?

The folks behind 'Life Extended' harbor no real fears. They - or rather the characters they introduce to us, believe we will make it. And we'll all be better off with an end to the scourge of aging.

On the off-chance they are right, maybe I'll have myself frozen. Spend a few hundred years head down in a vat of liquid nitrogen, until the methuselah technology is perfected. Then they will thaw me out, fix me up, and off to a thousand years of motorcycle rides and scuba dives I'll go.

Wait, that's risky stuff. An immortal could die doing those things.

Better stay in and do something less dangerous: Maybe they'll have surrogates by then, or at least some really cool video games...

Retrogression Blues

'One step forward, Two steps back', is a familiar cliche of complaint. I'd say it was apropos of our political leaders, except it's too mild to apply. Our guys and gals in Washington appear to live by 'One step forward, Two steps back, and while we're at it, let's take another Two backward.'

How does this manifest itself in our lives? Figuring out the labyrinthian processes in Washington are beyond me, but I can hazard a guess, and here it goes:

A bill gets passed - say one that will allow stem cell research to move forward, benefiting throngs of victims to a sadly wide and expanding menu of afflictions. Let's postulate this bill has been opposed by a certain segment of the population on some grounds or other - in this case we can posit fundamentalist religious beliefs as the motivating factor.

The opposition organizes successfully enough to pay for legal challenges to the new rule. They achieve an injunction against implementation of the rule. That will give them time to twist the arms (figuratively speaking) of vulnerable politicians(included elected judges) and build support for overturning, or drastically modifying the rule.

Now, faced with this opposition, what do the originators of the bill do? They compromise. In addition to the compromises already made in the passing of the bill. This is done through the process of mapping out how the rule will be administered. Rest assured by the time they are done, stem cells will only be available under circumstances that are rare at best.

What's worse, during this process of tinkering and 'tweaking', measures may be introduced through legal action that weren't even there in the first place. New interpretations of general passages that will now be refined into legal action. This may be taken so far that the bill will now allow less research into stem cells than before the bill was even passed. The modified rule may actually prohibit actions that weren't specifically prohibited before.

So, here's what we have: as far as the general voting public is aware, they have approved a bill that will stimulate stem cell research, ultimately benefitting the health and welfare of all citizens. But what they actually get is a bill that does very little, or at worse, undermines the whole concept.

Voters may never know until they see another bill up for a vote which does the same thing the old bill was supposed to do. They may wonder why another rule was needed. After all, isn't this fixed already?

Then again, given the persistence of voter memory in this country, they may never notice. Sort of a national, political, Alzheimer's. The kind of disease that no amount of stem cell research will ever solve ...

Flight of the Doh-Dohs

I know I've been flying too much when I begin to expect people to behave intelligently on a plane. Maybe it's the millionth hearing of those pre-flight instructions that makes me so sure others have heard them and understand too.

I couldn't be more deluded.

On both legs of my flight today, my fellow denizens of the air shoved bulging bags plus every other personal item they were carting into the overheard, despite the attendants' repeated instructions to put the smaller items UNDER THEIR SEATS.

While bag-stuffing, my aerial compatriots plugged up the aisles in exactly the way the crew were saying fervently not to.

Then, getting comfortable, they reclined their seat backs and dropped their tray tables. Some began furiously texting as if their lives depended on it. Maybe they did.

The obviously experienced (and borderline exasperated) crew were savvy and persistent enough to clean up the mess and button us up for takeoff, but the going was tough. As the wheels left the ground I reflected on what it must be like to repeat the same instructions, and witness the same acts of misunderstanding, obliviousness, or rebellion, time and again.

I had time enough to appreciate the lot of the attendant before the first Doh-Dohs got up from their seats in a beeline for the toilet, and my reverie was broken by the loudspeaker refrain, "the Captain has not turned off the seat-belt sign - please remain in your seats ..."

I guess I can understand why one of the crew might grab a beer and slide away from the mess, from time to time ...

Inerttainment

There may be a reason why the economy is in the doldrums. We are just passing MidSummer, a time historically known for doldrums, economic or otherwise.

This time of year, whenever I am not working, I tend to sit and watch. It's not that I don't enjoy active hobbies, I just seem to have less energy to devote to them, so sitting seems the best option.

And today's technology makes it easy. The world of news and entertainment comes to your TV, your computer, or your smart phone (aka 'mobile personal media center'). You can get shows and movies that aren't currently running through direct internet streams. If all else fails you can browse You Tube.

If you miss someone, there's no need to actually walk, drive, or fly to meet them, just adjust the scenery and lighting to best effect and engage Skype or video iChat. If your someone isn't living in the dark ages (i.e., the 1990s), they can engage too and it will be just like being there. Mostly.

In fact, there are very few activities you can't do, or wants and desires you can't fill, by just staying at home and texting, emailing, channeling, chatting, or browsing.

And maybe that's what modern Big Corporate wants: when we are not working, we should be browsing and ordering, or at least noticing the adds and banners blinking and sliding on the periphery of our internet lives. That may be the strategy to fill their coffers.

But I feel I must rebel against this impulse to sit.

After all, movement has its own pleasures, and much of our local economies depend on us getting out and shopping in physically-real stores, eating at restaurants not run by screaming megalomaniacs, and seeing movies, plays, and musical performances in local venues.

I would add 'attending sporting events', and this may be true where you live, but MidSummer heat can be cruel in Los Angeles, if the event is inland and outdoors. In which case, watching the event on TV is an acceptable option and no penalties will be accrued.

Yes, the webs of economic and social life that are our communities depend on us getting up and getting out and about. But man, the doldrums are tough, and I have the entire original 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' BBC TV series queued up on Netflix, ready to stream to my living room at the touch of a button.

Maybe I'll rebel tomorrow ...

Car on Mars, Revisited

Once upon a time, I likened attempts to 'fix' our economy to 'driving a car on Mars'. Every input has a delayed reaction, so you must be careful not to give it too much 'gas' (read: 'stimulus') too quickly, and you'd better be ready with the 'brakes' (read:'the Fed raising interest rates') if the pace gets too hot.

What was I thinking? If our leaders are to be believed, we've shot so much fuel into that car on Mars that it ought to be ricocheting between the frozen carbon dioxide drenched poles. Yet the reality seems the car is stuck in the Martian dust, and if it's moving, we can't see it from here.

Perhaps the economy isn't like a car on Mars but like a car sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Giving it gas just moves it around the bottom, but it'll never reach the surface and see the sun, no matter how fast it goes.

Or maybe it IS like that car on Mars, but the fuel hasn't been getting to it. We've been madly pumping it in, but there's a leak, maybe a blow-out, and the fuel has never reached our stranded car.

Or it could be the people we've hired to control the car and get the fuel to it just don't know what they are doing.

I do hope we can recover that car someday, don't you?