Category Archives: Current Affairs

Ask for Adenium obesum; Google will give you about 12,600 results in 0.12 seconds

Americana, Current Affairs, Evolution, Psychological Musings, Science

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Or Dorstenia foedita in 0.17 seconds with about 7,830 results*. We truly live in an an age of wonder.

My grandmother was born in the late 1880s – about 16 years, give or take 5, before Wilbur and Orville first flew the Flyer – and she died after John Glen orbited the earth.  I used to marvel at the change she went though, but it is nothing compared to the change we are going through.

True, from horse and buggy to orbit seems like a big jump.  But very, very, few people will ever go into orbit; it just isn't part of our life. But everybody – OK, maybe not everybody, but everybody with a small rounding error – has a computer and access to the World Wide Web. Really, access to an almost infinite well of knowledge.

With a smart phone – and we will all have smart phones soon – we have access everywhere, anytime. All the time.  Astounding! A huge percentage of the world's knowledge – maybe not knowledge, but facts, at least –  is at our fingertips. Literally, as Joe Biden would say. What do walruses eat? When was Hypatia murdered by religious fanatics? How far is the airport from a hotel – any hotel you want – in the downtown section of the capital of Paraguay?

We are living in a time of wonders that were inconceivable 20 years ago.

 * somehow I find it very amusing that Google can come up with results in 0.17 seconds but – apparently – doesn't have time to count the exact number of results

Red Rock Wilderness Act

Americana, Camping, Current Affairs, Politics

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I love Utah. Especially southern Utah. The hiking around Escalante is other-worldly beautiful.  In Coyote Gulch, there are places you can wander down the stream barefoot. There are natural arches, wildflowers in the spring, Native American ruins, cottonwoods turning yellow in the fall. It is a paradise.

But I don’t live there. I live in California – for a lot of reasons. Today, I got an email from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (AUWA) promoting the Red Rock Wilderness Act. While looking at the map of proposed wilderness lands,

Utah Map
I was shocked at how much area the new Wilderness Act will put aside. I am sure it is all ravishing country – at least every place on the map, marked for wilderness, that I have been to is ravishing – and that is part of Utah’s problem. Everyplace in southern Utah – east of, say, Beaver – is stop the car knockout. Really, everyplace. Even places that are no place.

Arch Cyn 2

Hyway 24 senset

In looking to insure my Congress persons had co-signed the bill – Eshoo did, Boxer did, Fienstien did not – I noticed that not one Utah Congress person had. I didn’t expect Orin Hatch or Bob Bennett to have signed, but not one Utah representative has signed. Not the Demo from downtown Salt, Lake City, not one. It got me thinking; Just how much National open space do we jam down a states throat.

I love this area. I love hiking in it. I love camping in it. Just not enought to live there. And that is the rub.

 

 

 

Juan Williams, NPR, and the risk of telling the truth

Americana, Current Affairs, Psychological Musings

There is something about the public psyche of the united States – and probably every where else too – that loves an obvious, agreed upon, lie.  And punishes anybody who has the nerve – or momentary lapse of caution – to not tell it. I notice this all the time and now – unfortunately – I can't recall very many examples. Jimmy Carter saying he had lusted in his heart was one. Juan Williams saying when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried is another.

  Fulla-doll

Who doesn't.

When Michele and I flew back from Italy just after 9/11, we were waiting for the flight with a group of Orthodox Jews wearing – if that is the right word – Tefillin (Hebrew: תפילין‎) (shown here on Barbie[s]).

Tefillin_barbies

Just as they started to load the plane, the Orthodox guy next to us, dressed completely in black,    wrapped a leather strap around his arm and started praying in Hebrew while rocking back and forth. Michele leaned over and said Now, this really creeps me out. Me, too, it was very disconcerting. 

I'm not saying that either one of us was proud of our reaction but I am totally certain that we were not the only ones. And Juan Williams is far from the only one nervous when a Muslim in full regalia – or, for that matter, in mufti – gets on a plane. That is just reality. It's not logical, duh! But why do we have to pretend it isn't true?       

The New Canon.

Americana, Current Affairs, Film, Psychological Musings

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In the comments section on my post on being in the Oakland Museum  – and the New York Times – Tracy Grubbs wrote Your layout reminds me of that scene in Blade Runner. If you keep zooming in you'll find those fake snake scales on her sweater, really. About two weeks ago, an economist from the Obama Whitehouse referenced the Matrix.

Both comments sort of surprised me. And neither one should have. Blade Runner and Matrix are part of the New Canon.  They have become larger than they were when they were just movies. They are part of our culture, like Casablanca or Anne Hall. They somehow exemplify the new zeitgeist.

 

Why isn’t this photo on the front page of the papers ?

Americana, Current Affairs, Psychological Musings, Religion, ,

Prayer
 

Three weeks ago, eight prominent American imams went to Dachau to pray for and commemorate the six million Jewish dead.   It was obviously done, at least partially, for publicity – that isn't bad just like Obama making a speech at a green factory isn't bad – but almost nobody seemed to pay any attention.

One thing we hear over and over again is the meme Why don't moderate Muslims protest extremist Muslims? It turns out that they do, but it just doesn't get reported in very much.

Right after 9-11, a prominent Muslim cleric said Attacking innocent people is not courageous, it is stupid and will be punished on the day of judgment. Another one said Terrorists are not Muslims. And there has been a steady and continuous litany of Muslims condemning violence. But we don't hear much about it.

I don't think it is a conspiracy or laziness. The heading of this post is a real question. I just don't understand why.