Independence Day - Waiting For A Miracle

Today we are celebrating our country's independence from the colonial empire which spawned it; and from the taxation without representation that personified that rule.  That, and the goodness of an excellent barbecue with family and friends.

If, between bites of that barbecue, some of us reflect a moment on recent independence movements and their less-than-stellar outcomes, we might wonder why ours caught on.

Were we just lucky?  After all, we had the same elements back then that we suspect are causing problems today: religious extremism, big money politics, foreign intervention.  One thing we didn't have were the communications that could allow disparate factions to unite in protest almost instantly.  Horseback messengers and signal lanterns don't quite equate with cell phones, the internet, and Twitter.  But great communication might have helped as well as hurt.

We did have some things going for us, and those were ironically the British system of laws, courts, and  the colonial governments that had all been in operation for a century before Independence was declared.  So we had a framework backed by expectations based on long experience to help order our post-revolution society.

But those institutions could also have been used against us by unscrupulous power seekers.  We had a few of those, but they always seemed to be defeated at just the right moments.

And some of those parts of the world now experiencing a revolutionary desire for independence also have long civil traditions. Why aren't they working for them?

My best guess is that we were indeed lucky.  So much could have gone wrong that would have derailed our revolution and independence, that we have to consider ourselves the recipients of a Miracle of sorts.

We need to hope that a similar miracle happens in Egypt before civil war begins, and that something miraculous happens in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq as well.  Money isn't the miracle; and neither is foreign military intervention.  What miracle or miracles happen must come from within the people, and we must all hope they find some.

Father's Day

An imperative here to all Fathers, currently active or past duty: Seize The Day!

It's true that Mother's Day gets most of the Love, since who really doesn't love and cherish their Mother, but Father's Day should be a prime date on the family calendar too.

This is especially important to those of you still in the hectic years of your child's grade schooling, athletics, and general around-the-house antics.  You need this Day as a break.

For the rest of us whose active Fathering have resolved to giving sage advice and money as needed, this Day should be one of recognition, and if there is any justice, a little Thanks too.

And if you have completed your Fathering successfully and your kids have flown the coop and moved so far away you rarely see them; or they are the ones sending you sage advice and money, use today to pat yourself on the back for a fine job done.

If you are not a Father yet, then spend today appreciating your Dad (those Dad's whose kids are also Fathers should cut them a little slack).

Dads are a little harder than Moms for their kids to love so unreservedly, at least over the short term.  That may because we are still often the 'enforcers' in the family. Even if it may be us telling the kid's 'What Until Your Mother Gets Home', we end up meeting out most of the bad news, anyway.  Biological inertia of the species, I assume.

What you do with your time today isn't really important, except that it should be absolutely, positively free of required chores.  Even the slightest hint of a honey-do or daddy-please should be ignored like the breach of etiquette that it is.

As I write this, it is just after 1pm on the West Coast of the US.  Wherever you are, if you haven't seized this day yet, Get Cracking!

Memorial Winds

When we think of our yearly Day of Memorial, any winds that come to mind are the Winds of War.  After all, the veterans of wars and fallen warriors are who we are meant to remember.

This Memorial Day, and forever after, I will also remember other Winds and those taken by them.

Living as I do in California, which shakes and quakes and lights afire from time to time but rarely sees a thunderstorm, I don't know much about living with tornados.  So it was with a little trepidation that I traveled to Kansas - the dark heart of Tornado Alley, just one day after the tragic events in Moore, Oklahoma.  Driving away from the airport in Wichita and heading west, I missed the 'large funnel' that dropped out of the clouds near the airfield that evening, which luckily failed to touch ground and go off on a brutal tear.

Kansas - at least the central part of it I was in, is flat. Nothing is there to block the path of storms; no obstacle to break them up or sap their strength.  If a big wind comes rolling at you down out of the Northwest, you are stuck like pins on a bowling alley, with nowhere to hide.

Just 30 miles or so from where I was staying is Greensburg, which was wiped off the map in May 2007 by an EF5 - the same monster size as the Moore twister, and is famously being rebuilt around a green energy plan.  I can only imagine what the good citizens of Greensburg thought when that storm hit Moore; perhaps a brief moment of relief that the spinning wheel of fate stopped somewhere else in Tornado Alley this time around, but more likely a profound sense of the camaraderie of shared misfortune.  The folks in Greensburg know what the folks in Moore dealt with that day, and what they will continue to deal with for some time to come.

In practical fact, everyone living in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and most of the midwest, know all about living with Tornados.  And they don't spend their days nervously glancing at the latest doppler radar updates on their iPhones, like I did.  Good, solid, people not easily scared by something that would send the bravest, most earthquake-savvy Californian into whimpering fits.

Brave folks persevering stoically in the path of God's Reaping Wind; much like those soldiers who walked and flew and sailed into the Winds of War.  Memorial Day, for me, will now be a time to remember them all.

Just The Facts

The Rise of The Internet has created new levels of factualness for information.  Here are a few:

Reproducible, peer-reviewed, scientific research results. - this one's been around since the enlightenment, and is generally considered the gold standard of factualness.  The internet does report these, but they are frequently boring, so are given low priority in search engines, especially if the news is depressing but not fear-inducing.

The results of 'shocking new studies'. -  on any one of a number of attention-getting subjects, typically cancer, a pandemic flu, or how your breakfast cereal may be changing your gender.  These facts might be gold, but look closely fool.

Saw it on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube. - now the most common means of communicating 'facts', or their interpretation.  If your friends think it's real, or cool, or cute, or just plain awesome, then so must you.  Pass it on, and do so with a post that would make anyone not pressing 'Like' seem racist.

Note that I did not mention Wikipedia.  I like Wikipedia, even though referencing it is an act of faith in a humanity that doesn't really deserve it.  I always put on my special 'Wiki Glasses' when I surf to the Wiki.  They are rose-colored, and they make everything believable, and that's a fact.

Let The Hard Rain Fall

On one of my trips lately, I watched a local TV News anchor exclaiming what an exceptionally wet Winter they'd had.  Actually, that newsman was complaining about it.

It's true this Winter, and most especially the Spring that followed, has been wetter and snowier than typical, in some places more so than in any time since recording started in the 1890s.  But is that surprising?

Between the let's-not-call-it-Global-Warming and the self-inflicted human tragedies (Boston; West, Texas; collapsing sweatshops in Bangladesh; Newtown), there has been plenty of reason for the World to Cry, if you will.  Yes, I did just say that very unscientific thing:  there is something about this natural place we inhabit that picks up and reflects, and right now what it is reflecting is reason enough for lakes of tears, whether rained hard from the heavens or piled frozen in snowy drifts.  We have earned a blizzard of symbolic sorrow.

And then there is still the scientific argument of Let's-Call-It-Global Chaos. Today it is raining in Southern California not even a week after a blazing hot, dry, windy spell sparked wildfires.  When those fires broke out, Wisconsin was being blasted by a near-blizzard. Very Chaotic indeed.

But Unseasonable Rain sometimes is needed.  The rain today has put an end at least for a while, to fears of more fires; and helped extinguish what is left of the ones already burning. 

Rain also helps us mourn and reflect, perhaps leading to better decisions and behavior.  At times when we humans are behaving our worst, a big dousing may knock sense into us.

Let The Hard Rain Fall while it may.

Let It Bring You Down

There are times when Hope seems exhausted.

When Humanity seems a failed experiment.

The Boston Marathon Bombings are a quintessential example of one of those Times.

I'm not sure we will ever discover what motivated the horrific events that unfolded on Monday, April 15, 2013; and if we do I'm not hopeful we'll make good and appropriate use of that knowledge.  Would we be able to look into the mind of someone capable of such an act and discover anything but dark malevolence from which no good lesson could be learned?

Selfishly, Personally, this represents a real kick in the guts.  Just as I've become skeptical we will ever have a functional Congress again - or that Peace will ever find a home in the Middle East, this happens to sap what little optimism I have left.

If the idea of Little Kim Un waving a nuke in our faces and threatening to wipe us off the face of the Earth isn't enough to Bring You Down, then surely this modern Boston Massacre must be.

As it should.

There are some events for which stiff upper lips and stoic resolve aren't helpful.  There are some events for which the only healthy response is sadness and tears.

Think of the innocent lives lost and the lives forever changed.

Let It Bring You Down

Body Image: Our Lying Minds

It's hard enough to change yourself for the better.

Losing weight, muscling up, getting your cardio in the pink; all these things take the kinds of focus and persistence few of us are capable of scraping together for longer than a weekend.

So, it doesn't help that our Minds conspire against us, by lying to us through our own teeth.  It does this through something called 'Body Image'.

One of the most extreme examples of the mind playing tricks with Body Image is, of course, the medical syndrome called anorexia.  That's when people stop eating and become mere skeletal shadows of their formerly healthy selves, all the while still seeing themselves as overweight.  Their skewed Body Image tells them they are fat when they are on death's door from starvation. 

More common, and less immediately dangerous, is the flip side of anorexia; being overweight yet having your mind signal you are skinny as a rail, starving, and about to slip out of your clothes and slide down a crack in the floor.

This happens at the most inopportune times, like when you are trying to stick to a diet.  Sadly it never seems to happen when it might be useful; for example, when you will be the center of attention at an event and could use a morale boost.  Feeling skinnier than you are at those times would be nice, but no, your mind saves it up and lets loose when you need it least.

For many reasons, mostly vain and of no particular importance to anyone other than me, I decided to drop a few pounds this year.  These are pounds I spent a good deal of the past 4 years packing on, so deciding to shed such hard-won fat was not done lightly.  

With gritty resolve I began the task and was immediately rewarded with success.  And my Mind rebelled...

Unless I looked in a full-length mirror while standing naked on a groaning scale, I couldn't shake the certainty that I was fading away into nothingness; that I was starving myself.  My Mind kept telling me, "You look good enough; feel how loose your pants are, how baggy that shirt.  Enough is Enough.  Go eat a Pizza."

So far I've been able to resist these false advisements, but it hasn't been easy.  The vast difference between how blubbery I really am and how trim my Mind says I am, is a constant challenge to that aforementioned focus and persistence. 

(Side Note:  it was my mind that made me use the words 'advisements' and  'aforementioned' - see what I'm up against?)