Kevin Gamble - Red Colored Glasses

Winter running

2008-02-06T22:21:00.000-08:00

When I first started running about five and a half years ago, I never expected that it would become such a part of my weekly life and that I'd still be doing it years later. I never enjoyed it in school and figured I'd never do it again afterward, but thanks to a little inspiration from someone close to me, I tried it in the confines of a gym, then took it outside, and never looked back. I've had my ups and downs as a runner since then, but have seen it through and have been richly rewarded for it in mind, body, and spirit.

One thing I certainly never envisioned in those early days was willingly waking up early and going out in freezing temperatures to run around in cold winds and snow. Winter's always been the most difficult time for me to be consistent about running; after a long day at work or a too-short night's sleep, the idea of such discomfort can be daunting. It's been far and away the most irregular time of year for my running, and will probably always be so.

But after a break over the holidays, I've been getting back to it and have been pretty regular about it, despite the roller-coaster weather we've been having. (Finding some great thinly-woven wool layers to wear has helped.) And, as I do with each other season, I find something magical about the experience that makes the rigmarole worthwhile.

Last Friday was an excellent example. We'd had a snowfall the night before, just enough to blanket the landscape with a few inches but not enough to require, say, snowshoes, grappling hooks, or flare guns. After leaving work, I headed out to the trail as the sun was starting to settle into the horizon. The trail was deserted and quiet in the way that's only possible with snow--a gently muffled hush. Under my feet, the snow was soft yet supportive, a firm bed that felt luxurious to move across even as it required a bit more from legs to move through it.

That wonderful paradox continued throughout the run, as my eyes were dazzled by the rolling, snowy cloud-covered bluffs and forests around me and my mind and imagination fired by the alternating audiobook and music filtering through my rigged-up earmuff/headphone combo. Initial chill turned to internal warmth as the miles slowly slipped by, and the added difficulty of breathing the cold air was a wonderfully alive feeling. As I progressed, all these components merged into one experience of striving, heaving, frolicking, exploring, and just being.

Toward the end of my run, rather than wearing down, I felt a delicious surge of energy and strength in my legs--a thank-you of sorts for the forgiving snowy running surface, perhaps--and finished at a good, strong pace. Though a shorter run than what I might peak at in warm weather, the feeling of satisfaction after navigating those wintry elements is second to none, and what at first seemed like adversarial conditions soon became friendly, generous, and awakening.

I'm grateful for these moments, and the ready availability of a different physical, emotional, and spiritual journey every time I look over at those running shoes and decide that okay, it's time to pull them on and go.

Endangered Species 5K

2007-10-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I ran my second-ever competitive race, the Endangered Species Walk/Run 5K, described thusly: "co-hosted by the Department of Conservation, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Health and Senior Services, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Jefferson City Parks, Recreation, and Forestry Department. The event raises funds to help restore habitat, conduct research and support education projects for endangered animals and plants in Missouri."

I've always been more of a meditative runner than a competitive one; for me, there's nothing better than a long, empty trail under a brooding sky with an intriguing mix on my MP3 player, and no one else in sight. Racing was fun when I was a kid--I was pretty darn good at the 50-yard dash back in the day--but has never interested me since. But once in a while I suffer from the temporary insanity of wanting to do it, maybe as a barometer of whether I'm as healthy as I think I am. The availability of an event nearby that benefitted something important to me made it the right choice.

It turned out to be a great time, and despite the lack of any focused training on my part (I'd been running a couple days a week and biking 3 or more days a week over the last few months), went like clockwork, almost surprisingly so. I think it was a combination of just enough good choices leading up to and during the race:

I typically run on the Hinkson trail, which has no distance markers--which is good for a distraction-free run, but bad for having any idea how well I'm running, speed-wise. Earlier this week I did an extra run back on my old stomping grounds of the MKT trail, and timed my miles in a simulated 5K. My first mile was terrible--I was dragging badly--my second mile was great, and my third was somewhere in between. This run gave me something to beat and told me where my biggest weakness was: in the early stages.
Made an effort to eat nutritionally and heartily and get good nights' sleep in the few days before the race. Mixed success, but good overall.
I hardly ever drink coffee, but I decided to follow some advice I read on Runnersworld.com to drink a bit of coffee 30-60 minutes before a race, based on the idea that caffeine prepares the nervous system for exercise.
I asked Ann Marie, herself a cross-country star in high school, what her pre-race prep was in her racing days. She emphasized a long warm-up, even to the extent of running the whole race course before the real race. While I didn't think I was up for quite that much, her advice made immediate sense with what I had experienced just a few days earlier--hitting a wall in my first mile that mentally dragged me down for the rest of the run. So when we got to the race site, in addition to my usual alternating 1-minute-jog/1-minute-walk warmup repeats, I ran a good six minutes non-stop at just below race pace. During that run I hit that draggy, breathing-hard wall, but did not hit it during the actual race, so this turned out to be critical and I'm now sold on the longer-warmup approach.
I ended up being in a surprisingly good, practical frame of mind during the race itself. I'd thought through a few things ahead of time to avoid getting surprised, and switched between multiple mindsets throughout the race: checking in on myself to make sure I was at a comfortable pace, and then bumping it up a notch; looking around at the lovely morning sky and countryside; thinking about things I'm working on outside of the race; checking out the cute girl in front of me and then passing her (hey, motivation is motivation); and even zoning out altogether at a few points. The first mindset, which I kept coming back to regularly, was the most important; I think I underestimated myself a little early on, and was able to steadily increase my pace through the race, ending with the last 100 meters or so in a sprint.

Overall, it was just a really nice experience in a very positive setting. The running group was relaxed, easy-going, and good-natured, and the course was great (half asphalt and half Katy Trail, in a wide-open grassy/woodsy setting). For anyone masochistic enough to enjoy racing who's also concerned about protecting the natural world, I highly recommend it.

See a few photos documenting my race-day experience.

Which Star Wars character?

2007-10-06T22:17:00.000-07:00

These little quizzes can get addictive. But this one was too 'me' to pass up. #1 surprises me a little, even though it was my favorite character as a kid. But then again, all of these are spot-on in their way.

Which Star Wars Character Are You?

You are Boba Fett

Because of your dark past you don't say much, and you don't have many close friends, but man do you look cool!

Boba Fett: 66%
Chewbacca: 64%
Han Solo: 63%
Qui-Gon Jinn: 62%
Lando Calrissian: 62%
Obi-Wan Kenobi: 61%
Darth Maul: 60%
Mace Windu: 60%
Count Dooku: 59%
Princess Leia: 55%

(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)

Take the Star Wars Personality Test

2007 Women's World Cup

2007-10-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

For the most part, there are only three sports I care about and keep up with: NFL football, pro tennis, and international soccer. The latter can be especially captivating, as World Cups are great opportunities to see a true world contest where distinct national styles counter each other, as opposed to most sports in which the teams are all variations on the same theme.

This year's Women's World Cup soccer tournament was no exception. Catching as many matches as I could spare the time for (on tape, due to the time difference with host nation China), I really enjoyed what I saw. The women's came has come a long way toward parity, with the days of unquestioned U.S. dominance long gone. And in contrast to the men's game, which can at times be frustratingly defense-heavy--with many matches consisting mostly of lots of quickly-scuttled attempts to move the ball a little--the woman's game seems crisper, with the element of surprise intact. Sometimes, that can mean poor play--I saw many own goals and some absurdly lopsided scores--but a lot of the time it just means an action-packed match.

For the last several Cups, I've followed and been enthused about the U.S. women's team. That was true in this tournament, too; despite their generally lackluster play and the dismal coaching of Greg Ryan, I was still pulling for them. That is, sadly, until their semifinal match against Brazil.

By now the story's familiar, having been beamed all over the news: Ryan benched starting goalkeeper Hope Solo just before the match in favor of 36-year-old veteran Brianna Scurry, claiming her quick reflexes and experience against Brazil would be the best thing for the team. From there, things began to go wring quickly, with controversy erupting, the team being dominated by Brazil, and then an embarrassing and awkward situation where Solo spoke out against the coach (and, many claimed, Scurry) and was essentially exiled for the rest of the tournament, even being prevented from housing or eating with the team she'd helped carry through the tournament.

Having followed the team in the tournament to this point, I was at first miffed at the coach for his ongoing baffling moves (which previously included playing leading starters for too long and ignoring his young bench) and the decision to exile Solo.

But with a few days' perspective on the issue, my focus has shifted a bit. Ryan looks like a bad coach, plan and simple--he made bad choices, everyone knows it, and that's that.

What's still troubling me, though, is how the team handled the situation. Ryan defended his leaving Solo out of the team's final match (the third-place contest against Norway) by resorting to vague statements about going with the 20 players who stood together during the difficult times. This strikes me as something of a cou-out, as none of those 20 players had their starting positions taken away just before the biggest game of the tournament. Sticking together is easy, and no achievement, when you're not dealing with that.

But the problem is, they didn't stick together. They abandoned their teammate. They ditched the keeper who'd been compensating for their struggling, low-scoring offense throughout the tournament. Rather than work through the difficulties, they seemed to turn into a junior-high-clique and played the ignoring game with their teammate, who incidentally had just lost her father earlier in the summer.

By all accounts so far, this decision was engineered by Ryan along with senior team members Kristine Lilly and Scurry. Word is that the team was split between six older players and 12 younger players over how to handle Solo, with the younger players in support of her. But, with the Olympics next year and starting positions in the hands of the coach and senior members, it's not hard to guess how difficult any dissent would be.

So whether you support or decry Solo's right to be critical of her coach and imply criticism of a teammate (words which, incidentally, almost exactly mirror words spoken by Scurry a few years ago about her own predecessor), it's appalling how quickly and completely she was frozen out--how immature and petty that seems, how insecure that makes all the other players look. It couldn't have been summed up better than by the embarrassing words of leading team scorer Abby Wambach--"I'd like to think I'd like to forgive her." How sad.

The other aspect of this that's bothering me is how strongly Solo was attacked by many people for her remarks. Everyone understands the concepts of teamwork and the importance of supporting each other. But everyone breaks down from time to time--everyone gets emotional and says something they don't mean. Can we expect an emotional, competitive, and mourning 26-year-old to be perfect? Of course not. And we can be constructively critical of her statements without being hateful and derogatory toward her. The outcry over her statements reminds me a lot of the irrationally defensive reactions I often see directed at anyone who criticizes the Iraq war or the president--a sort of mob-rule where dissent is shouted down. And the critique has been much sharper in her case than in comparable cases involving male athletes (such as this week's story of an NFL player who, after a loss, claimed his teammates have "no heart"--what's that, you haven't heard about it? Exactly. And he hasn't been cut from the team, either.)

In my opinion, the solution is simple: the team should move away from its senior players immediately, and focus on the youth of this team and the up-and-comers in the college system. Go with Lindsay Tarpley and Natasha Kai upfront, exciting players who can make things happen. Go with Solo or one of the promising college goalkeepers out there. Sever ties with anyone from the last couple U.S. World Cup teams. Find a qualified, progressive woman coach with no connection to the last generation of U.S. national players. And then give it everything you've got.

The current in-between, starry-eyed-nostalgia approach seems to be killing this team, and perhaps worse still, splitting their own country over whether to support them or be disgusted by them. Women's soccer in the U.S. is at a crucial turning point; it can't afford to poison itself, and if this keeps up, that's exactly what it will do. I've been a fan of this team for many years, but I feel on the verge of moving on and not supporting them, and that's not what I want.

To end on a positive note, however, I'll just briefly say what a great ending to the tournament the final was. Germany vs. Brazil was everything it should have been, with the Brazilians showing off their grace and fire, but the greater experience and team strategy of the Germans winning out in the end. The Brazilians' individual play was creative and delightful, but you could see the frustration growing on their faces as the Germans' patient, organized approach gradually disrupted the Brazilians' flow and avoided playing to their strengths. In the end, it was the same result we've seen on the men's side, with Brazil's "beautiful game" falling just a bit short of teams with better group discipline. But there's so much talent and youth on that team, I'd be surprised if they don't win the next one.

Arcade Fire

2007-10-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

This past Friday, Ann Marie and I went to go see Arcade Fire play at the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City. After missing a chance to see them back in November '04, in a small club in Columbia just before they took off to massive acclaim, seeing them in a big venue seemed like a letdown to me--big shows always seem more impersonal, more detached, and of course more logistically annoying.

However, this show turned all those expectations on their head. The sound was great, the venue was great (open-air on a lovely night), and the band was phenomenal.

After a solid opening set by LCD Soundsystem (which was terrific for the first few songs, then became repetitious), Arcade Fire took the stage with stirring drama and never let up 'til the final note. I haven't listened to them as extensively as Ann Marie has, and the impression I had of them was a mostly melancholy and darkly-Gothic group.

However, what I saw that night was anything but--it was emotionally powerful music played with sheer ecstasy. Ten people on stage, throwing themselves into it with all they had. Running around the stage, switching instruments between most every song, trading roles with what seemed like controlled chaos. Singing their hearts out song after song, whether they were at a mic or not. It was inspiring to see such commitment and synchronicity, where no one was just providing backdrop--every member was alert and aware and engaged in each word, each moment of the songs. The playing and singing was tight and faithful to the original recordings; in Ann Marie's words the songs were just like they were on record, but more so--more intense, more expressive and emotional.

It's been a long while since I've seen a show that all-around successful, and a band so fully on one wavelength and executing in such passionate unison. Hard to think of a better band playing right now--they really convinced me.

See a few photos I took at the show, and below is a brief video clip I recorded of the rousing finale, "Wake Up".

Hero or Villain?

2007-08-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I would have guessed that I was the #2 character in each of these results. I must know myself pretty well... and yes, I'm a geek. So, without further ado, here are my results in the unquestionably official "Which Superhero Are You?" and "Which Supervillain Are You?" quizzes.

First up, hero. I'm a little surprised, but this does fit the grumpy-hermit thing.

You are Hulk
You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

My matches:

Hulk: 80%
Spider-Man: 70%
Catwoman: 70%
Green Lantern: 60%
Superman: 45%
The Flash: 45%
Robin: 42%
Iron Man: 40%
Batman: 35%
Supergirl: 35%
Wonder Woman: 35%

(Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test)

... And for the villain, a bit of a dark horse. I admit, I was hoping for Doctor Doom, which I think is still more accurate. But this one does have some flair.

You are Apocalypse
You believe in survival of the fittest and you believe that you are the fittest.

My matches:

Apocalypse: 69%
Dr. Doom: 67%
Mystique: 65%
Venom: 64%
Mr. Freeze: 64%
Magneto: 62%
Dark Phoenix: 62%
Lex Luthor: 57%
Juggernaut: 53%
Catwoman: 45%
The Joker: 44%
Two-Face: 37%
Green Goblin: 33%
Kingpin: 33%
Riddler: 28%

(Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test)

Intelligent Design, Unwise Use

2007-08-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

There's been much public debate over the ideas of intelligent design and creationism, but much less discussion about the implications of those concepts in the real world.

If the presence of interconnectedness at all levels in the world--from parallels in shapes and functions of natural objects to the harmonious, perfectly balanced ways in which animals, plants, and environment all complement each other and naturally produce what the others need--implies a being of perfect wisdom and grace behind it;

Then what does the casual disregard for the small things, willful destruction of the natural creatures that are in such perfect balance, and the ongoing, large-scale disruption of the natural ecology for the sake of material gain imply about those who are behind it? Perhaps the opposite of wisdom and grace? By choosing selfishness and greed and violence over the divine that's all around us, do the religious of this world show willful ignorance of and disregard toward the purpose of this designed world?

According to most modern religion, humankind was given dominion over the world and its contents. But does it make any kind of sense at all that such a meticulously crafted, carefully balanced, nuanced and interrelated system of organisms would be created, with that level of care and harmony, simply for the purpose of being pushed aside, lumped together in an indistinguishable mass, and used as raw fuel for human consumption? Does it make any sense at all that the divine purpose of, say, a forest--with its immense richness of life and diversity of natural functions--would be to simply be bulldozed and paved over, a use which in no way acknowledges or uses its complex structure and design?

In what type of rational thought does "dominion" mean utter destruction? What would be the divine wisdom in creating natural systems of such profoundly complex functioning and potential if their purpose is to simply be clubbed, cut, or mown down and turned into pure energy for human wants that far exceed our needs for survival? What type of religious thought can put forth, for example, that the spectacularly, overwhelmingly complex construction and relationship with its environment of a large mammal suggests its use as a leather seat in a luxury SUV?

I've long wondered if this concept of "dominion" is not the blank check that many religious people seem to think it is--a license to behave in any way they like toward Nature--but rather a test, a challenge to see if mankind can be wise and reverent enough to truly care for the natural world, to use what it needs to in order to survive, but also to live in harmony with the beauty and inherent, separate purposes of everything around us.

The notion of dominion that has taken hold over the centuries is a blunt, barbaric, willfully ignorant sort. If your best friend gave you their dog, would you treat it the way animals are treated in the meat industry, and then devour it? Then why devour such a greater gift as the Earth for so little reason, for the establishment of a great Man-Empire, with its myriad temples of avarice and sweeping fields of concrete, its command to consume and purchase instead of caring for what we've been given? In the guise of divine instruction, we've built Babel to worship Mammon--our actions prove it, regardless of our words.

Intelligent design and creationism expressly put the hand of the divine into the smallest detail and nuanced interrelation of the natural world. That humanity is so willing to carelessly destroy such wonderfully complex things without caring to think about or understand that balance, or to even consider its purpose and the danger of such destruction, suggests a monstrous greed and savagery in this supposed most-favored, enlightened creation.

Freedom*

2007-08-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

Reading recently about the book The Trap and the film Sicko got me thinking about the kind of freedom we have in this country, and some of the small and large manifestations of it I've been noting lately.

There's an enormous amount of wealth being generated in this country, an unprecedented amount. And at the root of it is not the much-vaunted wealthy investors and entrepreneurs, but the incredible sum total of productivity by average workers. And with all this productivity and wealth, where is the average American left? Spending their lives in fear and doubt about being able to live into old age without starving or not being cared for. Wondering whether they'll be able to afford proper care and education for their children. Hoping they or their loved ones don't get sick or hurt, because they don't have insurance or the right insurance. Working for years just to pay off debt from their own education.

Is this the America we want?

I'm not talking about an alternative such as pure socialism or communism. Obviously, capitalism creates a great deal of money and possibilities. But instead of raising the overall level of society, it seems that too much of that energy is simply turned into more fuel for reaching ever-higher peaks of wealth for the benefit of a shrinking few. Our society has given itself to the capitalist system, but capitalism is forgotting to give back to the vast majority of citizens.

The point isn't that everyone should be equally rich, that no one should have to work, that no one should have less than anyone else. That's a fantasy. The point is that in this country, which is supposed to be based on ideals of freedom and Christianity, it's simply wrong for the majority of the country to live in fear and doubt about the most basic of human needs--health, education, and shelter. In the long term, the economy wouldn't skip a beat if we as a nation decided that health care and education should be free. If anything, the shock to the economy would be a healthy, reality-based adjustment. And the resulting workers would be happier, healthier, and better able to realize the liberty and pursuit of happiness we like to believe is our ideal, furthering the independent, inventive spirit that we like to hold as a uniquely American trait.

(Could it be that this is not the actual ideal aspired to by those running our economic machine?)

So if someone wants to be wealthy and avaricious at the expense of others, so be it. But let it be within an overall civic system that puts the basic needs of people first--let it be after they help subsidize the basic necessities of the millions of people who are actually responsible for their wealth. Beyond those basic needs, let capitalism be the cold, winner-takes-all bloodsport that conservatives seem to revel in and defend so much. But let's just set aside enough, compel enough contribution from our overflowing coffers of wealth, to relieve that suffering and remove the obstacles to opportunity. We don't have to pay for anyone's dream or ideal life--we just have to be decent.

Now, as to our free society:

We can own .50 caliber tank-piercing rifles for personal use, but in many places (such as my own state) we can't choose how to birth our own children (with midwives), we can't buy or sell raw milk without navigating absurd legal tangles, we can't grow a fabulously versatile crop (hemp) that would create vast amounts of wealth for farmers, we can't breast-feed a child in public. Our notions of freedom are curiously skewed toward the big winners in the capitalist scheme, and curiously harsh toward the average individual. Advantages are piled upon advantages, freedoms upon freedoms, so that if you can't climb the initial rungs of the greed ladder, you're left out.

Corporations can pollute every body of water in the country to the point that most water found in nature is dangerous to drink, and they can manufacture plastic products which leave chemicals of unknown safety in every single citizen's body, and they can genetically modify seed and food in ways whose safety is unknown and market it to the public, all without accountability. But if someone wants to sell the milk from their cow to their next-door neighbor without a permit, they're a criminal.

Something is very wrong, and very askew, with how our notions of freedom have evolved in this country. The good news is that we have all the elements in place for a tremendously healthy society. The bad news is that those elements are horribly out of whack and have become a monstrous, gluttonous machine, existing for its own abstract sake instead of the sakes of the real, living people who give it life.

Phosphorus: The living end?

2007-07-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

Hovering in the back of my mind for some time now has been a quietly monumental idea that I read in Isaac Asimov's 1962 book Fact And Fancy. In the book's first essay, "Life's Bottleneck", Asimov lays out an astounding but logical notion: that the ultimate limiting factor for the amount of life on Earth is phosphorus, and that our supply is rapidly diminishing, thus constantly lowering the ceiling on the amount of life that the world can sustain.

In a nutshell, phosphorus is one of the most critical elements in the biological building blocks and processes in all life, and the amount required for plant & animal life to exist vs. the concentration of usable phosphorus in water and soil is the limiting factor in life's development on earth.

The issue that we face is the availability of that usable phosphorus. Asimov explains that, in effect, the world's phosphorus is steadily falling down to the bottom of the sea, where it is no longer usable and is not being recovered at a rate to balance out its loss.

The reason for this is that the movement of phosphorus is largely one-way. Asimov explains the example of phosphorus in soil:

The rain comes down, dissolves tiny quantities of soil, and on this solution, plants grow until all the phosphorus they can grab has been incorporated into their substance. Animals eat the plants and, in the process of living, excrete phosphorus-containing wastes upon which plant life can feed, grow, and replace the amount of itself which animals have eaten...

And just as there is a drizzle out of the euphotic zone of the ocean, so there is a drizzle out of the land. Some of the dissolved materials in the soil inevitably escape the waiting rootlets and are carried by the seeping soil water to brooks and rivers and eventually to the sea.

That might not sound like a dramatic process, but Asimov continues:

...it is estimated that 3,500,000 tons of phosphorus are washed from the land into the sea by the rivers each year. Since phosphorus makes up roughly 1 per cent of living matter, that means that the potential maximum amount of land-based protoplasm decreases each year by 350,000,000 tons.

Phosphorus is steadily being transferred from land to sea (through transmission into rivers, which in turn carry it to the sea), and from the upper parts of the ocean to the ocean floor. Once it reaches the ocean floor, which is already saturated with more phosphorus than can be used by the life present at that depth, it is essentially out of the reach of land-based life.

A point made by Asimov, and again this past week on the Treehugger web site, is that humans are literally flushing away vast amounts of phosphorus every day, through our modern plumbing and sewage systems. In the quote above, Asimov points out the natural flow of phosphorus from the soil through plant life to animal life and back to the soil. But our modern sewage systems take the phosphorus present in our own waste matter and send it directly into the sea--in essence, pouring our world's capacity for life on land literally down the drain.

What must be done about this and what can be done about this is a topic for another time (and some suggestions are noted in the previous paragraph's link). But the gravity of this idea is worth pondering--what other fundamental aspects of life on Earth are we affecting, completely unawares, through simple scale and seemingly unconnected behaviors?

Speak

2007-06-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

I headed out with my story tucked into my hand
But the wind in the leaves told me I didn't need it
So I left my headphones behind
And chose instead the dialogue between the panoramic hissing of tree-walls
(is a cathedral anything more than a forest-replica of stone?)
birds, bugs, humans, dogs
and my own breath, crunching of limestone under feet, heartbeat.

The path, so tranquil
yet swarmed with a crashing wave of life
The turtle making its way up to the edge of the trail
only the closest herald of millions of strugglings all around me
In sound and movement, all around me the successes
in stillness and silence the inevitable failings.

Along a north-facing tree-wall on the edge of a clearing,
a part of the forest made into a regular home by the bright blue buntings
In my short time spent getting to know this place,
they've become a welcome part of the landscape, a seasonal visitor
(more likely I'm the visitor to their home)
I wonder how they regard me,
this great, red-capped, blue-clad creature
like some bluebird-god who walks the edges of their land
with no flight, no song.

Out here I'm no trouble.
Out here my empty hand wants to be sought out, but
is happy to not be holding anyone
where they don't want to be.
Out here there's no one to disappoint.

An older man and woman,
he thin and careful of movement, tanned, balding, bespectacled, quiet of voice
she heavier, a shock of white curls crowning her head, yet bright in eye
and clear and ringing in voice
spend the time I run more than three miles
walking slowly, carefully, methodically within a circle of a dozen yards.
They move carefully, respectfully, agog
pausing at bloom, leaf, stem,
considering, sharing, smelling, relishing
finding joy in things as they are.

A simple, plain white canvas bag is slung over his shoulder
It looks old but cared for
cut like a backpack, with thin straps and a one-button flap over the top opening
only the words "Save a tree" printed on the back of it.
In that small thing is a simplicity, an innocence, a clarity
it strikes me as a landmark of an earlier part of the journey
when we knew enough.

We know too much now.
We are spoiled, cynical, ruined.
Across our digital threshold are infinite possibilities
and no humanity.
We struggled with our heavy plastic boxes, flickering displays, tape reels
We cobbled together life out of voltages and filters
And finally achieved our goal when our creation could do anything
without moving at all.
I can do anything with these tools, yet none of it feels real anymore.

There is no place for this in this world.
And so I keep going back to the cathedral
and hope I'll understand
what its voice is telling me.

Smalling out

2007-04-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

There are few things that bring me more peace than the sight of a deserted trail stretching in front of me. Every step I take out onto it becomes such an intimate thing--a soft, hushed application of my weight, muted to silence by the awe of sprawling life all around me. I cross the bridge, emerge from the first canopy and breathe in the vast, open expanse of field beyond, and suddenly it's as though the teeming acquirocracy I left only minutes before no longer exists, and never did.

Then there's thudding breath, a beat of footfalls, entwining muscles clenching and releasing, body chemicals coursing, rushing, stories and songs rolling through my head, struggle and freedom at the same time.

Occasionally I crouch and pluck a fat, squirming worm from its spot in the dusty, gravelly trail—the poor inchoate sensor having stranded itself in the powdery suffocation from which it wouldn't escape—and place it gently down on a nearby spot of bare, damp, cool ground. Then I straighten up and go back to the joyous struggle.

At the end, I almost don't but then do pick up some cast-off filth from near my car—the random debris that only careless humans can create, the kind that poisons while being made and poisons after being discarded. And only because of that extra few seconds' work am I still there when you arrive, and though I came for silent, solitary meditation, I am glad to see you and speaking with you makes me happy. And I leave thinking that somewhere in these few simple moments is most everything I need to know about life. I know I'll forget it soon. And remember it again sometime after that. And so it goes.

Bush blocked on weaker forest rules

2007-04-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

Good news for our national forests: this past Friday a federal judge threw out new rules enacted by the Bush administration that would have allowed commercial use of forests without lengthy environmental reviews.

According to this story, "when government officials announced in December 2004 the first new rules since the 1970s, they said changes would allow forest managers to respond more quickly to wildfires and other threats such as invasive species."

But this looks like little more than a smoke screen for what amounts to a federal subsidy for logging and mining industries--in other words, corporate welfare for industries which are rapidly burning through their supply of private lands to use as fuel. This is only one example of such corporate welfare, used to prop up inherently unsustainable industries for the sake of an artificial standard of economic growth.

With real agriculture and manufacturing capacity on a long and steady decline in this country, we're trading an economic focus on industries that could keep us competitive in the international arena for short-sighted, destructive, polluting industries like coal, timber, and oil, which will only drain our resources, pollute our ecology, and turn us further into consumers--rather than producers--than we already are. Add this to our already astounding trade deficits, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture for the economic future.

As I see it, this attempt at a rule change by the Bush administration is also part of a larger effort to turn over our public resources to private interests. Bush has drastically cut funding for our national land management, requiring huge cuts in national park budgets and staffing, and forcing our national lands to rely more on private oversight, with the expected disastrous results.

This ideological distortion of the purpose and protection of our public lands shames me as a citizen and someone who cares about the natural world, and it makes me further ashamed of the President. But if you're in favor of government-approved books that claim the Grand Canyon is 6,000 years old and was created by Noah's flood, then maybe this all makes sense somehow.

For more on the state of our public forest lands, efforts by the Bush administration to undermine their protection, and citizen efforts to defend them, see the American Lands Alliance. (Note: the image above is from an ALA mailer I received a while back.)

It's green, but is it good?

2007-03-31T13:04:00.000-07:00

A recent issue of Fast Company magazine featured its annual "Fast 50" leaders in business innovation, and this year's focus was on concepts and products that address environmental, social, and health issues around the world--in other words, "green" business ideas that show concern for the world rather than obliviousness to it.

At first, I was really impressed with what they chose to highlight--there area lot of great innovations going on out there, including biodegradable plastic that comes from plant cellulose, the ingenious concepts used by Polyface Farms, peer-networking systems that work around government-imposed Internet censorship (as in China), reemerging electric car technology, some great ideas for cleaner energy sources.

But as I read and considered further, along with all the great ideas for replacing wasteful or toxic technology and practices with healthier substitutes, there was an unsettling thread running through many of the other featured items. The best way I can describe it is a type of business approach that addresses serious problems by adding something to them rather than by trying to truly solve them.

A few examples might explain this best. One featured item involved GAIN, a global partnership between social organizations, the UN, and big agriculture corporations. Their goal is to improve the nutrition of the poor around the world. An extremely important issue, no doubt. But the example the magazine chose to highlight was NutriSip, a nutrition-fortified drink that's distributed in juice-box-style plastic bags to Nigerian schoolchildren. It's even made with local ingredients, so how could that be troubling?

Well, call me picky, but it just seems wrong somehow that the children of Nigeria, with nutritious local food ingredients already available, will become reliant on a Swedish company to provide their nutrition for them, in a plastic-packaged liquid form. Children plagued by poverty are in dire need of nutrition, but "solutions" like this not only trade empowerment for reliance on outsiders, but base their very business model on a lack of self-sufficiency in the customers. If the Nigerian people become more self-sufficient and develop better ways to feed themselves, it will hurt this business venture. Never good to have capitalism blocking your way. It seems to me that it would be better for Nigeria if entrepreneurs found ways to help the people develop their own nutritionally-balanced food production that keeps everything local and removes reliance on outside manufacturing, packaging, and distribution. But where's the money in that?

Another featured item was GE's Water division and its new water-filtering technologies. GE is in the midst of acquiring many new water-purification companies and products, one of which is ZeeWeed, which is "powerful enough to transform Singapore's raw sewage into clean water". Brilliant, from a technological standpoint. What's troubling, though, is that same concept of adding something to a problem instead of truly solving its root cause. The immediate problem, of course, is that there's too much dirty water and not enough clean water. The approach taken here is, "how can we make the dirty water clean?" What seems to be ignored in the process is what seems to me the better question: "how can we prevent the water from getting dirty in the first place?"

Again, it might sound curmudgeonly, but this is troubling to me. We have a situation where industry and overpopulation are creating a massive problem of water pollution and scarcity. Clean water is perhaps the most essential and precious substance on earth (try living off diamonds, baby), and it's under the greatest threat it's ever been. But rather than looking for ways to protect it in the first place, GE's basing a massive corporate venture on ways to profit from polluted water. In other words, its business model relies on the existence of polluted, unusable water.

Now, so long as there are people, there will be polluted water. It's impossible to escape that altogether. But this scenario depends on the continuation of unsustainable polluting behavior by masses of people. Corporate success isn't about mere profit--it's about continuously growing profits, reaching greater and greater heights every quarter, forever. Because of that, only huge-scale pollution will sustain this huge-scale venture. And anything that reduces pollution works against the success of GE.

Think about that. Reducing pollution will weaken GE's business.

It's situations like that which should make us all tremble at the Frankensteinian implications or large-scale capitalism.

Do we really want to rely on distant corporations for our nutrition? Do we really want to rely on massive corporate juggernauts like GE for the most basic elements of life? Almost everywhere in the world, the ingredients for healthy, nutritious, clean, sustaining lifestyles are readily at hand. Corporate control of these resources has created a market where there doesn't need to be a market, and has created need where there doesn't have to be need. This has worked to distance all of us from our own self-sufficiency and virtually obliterated the practice of community self-sufficiency in the developed world.

A great example of a more positive direction is the much-heralded zeer pot, invented by Nigerian professor Muhammed Bah Abba. This simple, ingenious device nests one earthenware pot inside another, separated by an insulating layer of wet sand. It's simple, clean to make, uses readily available ingredients, and can be made, sold, and used locally, without reliance on any outsiders. The results not only improve health, through increased shelf-life for vegetables, but have cultural and local-economic benefits as well:

Traders use desert coolers in the weekly Dutse market which attracts 100,000 people. Farmers and their wives store vegetables in the coolers at home and sell from there or at the market at a good price, instead of sending out their daughters to hawk them at a poor one. This means the girls can go to school, while young men can earn a living in the village instead of going off to Kano. "Aubergines," says Muhammed Bah Abba, "can last for 21 days." Without a desert cooler, they last only a day and a half.

One of his aims is to improve the situation of married women who, traditionally, cannot leave their village. He runs education centres for them and has found that his desert coolers help them earn the money to buy soap and other things they need. They make soft drinks called kunu, zobo and lamurje and sell them from the coolers. They trade in fruit and vegetables, either grown by their husbands or bought from other farmers.

To me, this is real innovation. Something that integrates into and preserves existing cultures, improves quality of life, and creates economic opportunities that produce secondary benefits rather than more waste and pollution.

There's green, and then there's greed. While the new wave of concerned corporate ventures will produce many wonderful things, we must be careful that we don't lose more of our humanity in the process, and must keep "voting with our money" in the best ways we can.

Google homepage: a great gadget

2007-03-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

I don't normally write about technical or web topics, but as someone who's prone to information overload, this is one I thought was worth sharing.

I just recently started using the personalized home page option on Google. This allows anyone to customize the standard Google home page with all manner of information, news feeds, and miscellaneous gadgets and handy tools.

I normally try and keep up with a lot of different news sources--local news, some of the major progressive news sites, music news, all kinds of things. My most recent forays into audio blogs (more on that in a later post, probably) finally tipped the scales and pushed me to seek a better way to keep track of it all without having to take a long time to browse a ton of sites.

Enter the new Google home page. In just a few minutes of customizing, I now have quick access to a vast amount of information all on one page, with a layout that makes it easy to track and not get overwhelmed by. To give you an idea, my home page includes:

News feeds from the Huffington Post, Alternet, Democracy Now, the New York Times, Pitchfork (music news), Ain't It Cool News (movie-geek news), and the Columbia Daily Tribune
Updates on about a dozen audio blogs I subscribe to via RSS
The latest messages in my Gmail account
A three-day weather forecast
A to-do list that automatically sorts by priority
A 'sticky note' notes-to-self area
A photo of the day from National Geographic
A daily set of brain teasers and math puzzles
A Buddhist 'thought of the day'
A free font of the day
A virtual guitar neck that can identify and play any chord

(There are also some very handy-looking iTunes widgets you can add, but since I don't have access to it at work, I haven't added them yet.) On a second tab--one click away--I have several more items on top of that, but this allows me to keep all of my most frequently accessed content all in one place and scan it so much more quickly than ever before. Sometimes I'll catch myself thinking, "okay, where do I need to go next?"--and then realizing that I'm already caught up on everything I need to be. It's been a great time saver so far, and is highly recommended.

U.S. sponsoring attacks inside Iran

2007-03-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

Depending on your view of things, this is either shocking or sadly familiar, or both. According to a report on Democracy Now, the U.S. and Israel are sponsoring terrorist attacks inside Iran by a Kurdish guerrilla group.

Apparently, both of these governments are working in a clandestine way with at least two different groups, classified as terrorist organizations by the State Department, to carry out terrorist activity throughout Iran. The primary group, called the PKK, is an ethnic Kurdish group that is responding to discrimination against ethnic Kurds in Iran with violence.

We have a history of getting involved with groups like this in the Middle East when it's served our political purposes--an involvement that's had dire consequences for us:

...On the one hand, the United States is very much opposes to the P.K.K.'s actions in Turkey. On the other hand they're supporting P.K.K.'s attack on Iran. This is kind of typical of the clandestine efforts by the United States when we saw the U.S. support for the Mujahadeen against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They sided with some pretty nefarious characters who ended up forming al Qaeda and bombing New York.

So once again, the U.S. is allying with one faction of this party, but not with the other, playing a very dangerous game and they're playing a very similar game with the Mujahadeen al-Halb, another Iranian group and with groups in Baluchestan which is near the Pakistan Iranian boarder where some revolutionary guard buses were blown up. It's a very very dangerous, duplicitous game that the United States is playing.

And news of this comes just shortly after the U.S. has very publicly chastised Iran on the world stage for supposedly sponsoring terrorist activity in Iraq (something for which good evidence has still not been found). Another lesson that when the Bush administration accuses another country of doing something wrong, we should start looking for evidence that we're in fact doing it ourselves.

Is this the way we uphold the noble ideals of freedom and democracy around the world? Is this the example we wish to set for other countries? Can you fight a "war on terror" with terror as your weapon? How tragic, and how sad.

Guns don't make us free

2007-02-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

I read a story yesterday that encapsulated a lot of what I despise about gun culture in modern America.

Jim Zumbo, a famous outdoorsman/hunter/gun advocate, has been vilified and basically sent into hiding after daring to suggest, in a blog post while on a hunt in Wyoming, that assault rifles have no place in the hunting community:

"Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity," Zumbo wrote in his blog on the Outdoor Life Web site. "As hunters, we don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them ... I'll go so far as to call them 'terrorist' rifles."

As a result of expressing his personal opinions, this man has now lost his position with Outdoor Life magazine, the Outdoor Channel, and his corporate sponsorships. He's been publicly berated by the NRA and thousands of assault-rifle owners.

Zumbo is a 40-year member of the NRA, and has long been a public advocate for the organization and the gun-ownership rights it champions. It's obvious to anyone with a shred of intelligence that all he's saying is that these weapons made for war are grotesquely out of place in what should be a pursuit that's based on respect, dignity, and tradition. Further, he seems to be cautioning that gun owners as a group risk being lumped in with terrorists if they use the same weapons that terrorists use.

It's a pretty simple and obviously valid point. An example he singled out was the use of assault rifles when hunting prairie dogs. Doing that is comparable to a teenager playing a gory first-person video game, except unlike those video games which are so widely pilloried in society, this is actual violence committed against helpless creatures for sport and perverted amusement.

Zumbo was trying to draw the line between this unsportsmanlike behavior and the nobler hunting tradition in which hunters observe restraint and respect for their environment and their quarry. He was pointing out how the presence of weapons created to kill humans in the desperate setting of war--and indeed, these very same rifles are being used to kill our soldiers in Iraq as we speak--is not appropriate in a hunting setting.

And for this, his livelihood has been decimated, his character destroyed by his supposed friends and supporters. The NRA has gone a step further by turning his character assassination into something comparable to a mob hit, 'sending a message' over his figurative corpse:

The NRA--a well-financed gun lobby that for decades has fought attempts to regulate assault weapons--noted that the new Congress should pay careful attention to the outdoors writer's fate.

"Our folks fully understand that their rights are at stake," the NRA statement said. It warned that the "grassroots" passion that brought down Zumbo shows that millions of people would "resist with an immense singular political will any attempts to create a new ban on semi-automatic firearms."

All very noble-sounding, but Jim Zumbo isn't a politician. He's a gun advocate who dared to speak a warning to his friends, who dared have an opinion about the proper, dignified use of guns. And for this, all that he's worked for has been stripped from him.

And so it becomes clear, once again, that guns don't make us free. We see from this case, as with so many others, that the only real power of guns is fear. The same power that creates fear in anyone a gun is directed at also poisons the gun owner with fear, paranoia, and eroding character.

Like any other power, it can be used responsibly. My father is a member of possibly the last generation of dignified hunters in this country--he owns several hunting rifles, used to be an avid hunter, and is a lifelong conservationist. That's the type of gun ownership that I respect--one based in moderation, dignity, and a tradition informed with humility. What the NRA has sown in modern America, however, is nothing short of fanaticism, a distorted intolerance and hatred that is based in an irrational fear.

By continuing along this fanatical path, groups like the NRA are starting to undermine their own cause. They're showing that all our other freedoms are meaningless and can be extinguished at will in the pursuit of being able to own and use any type of weapon in any context, no questions asked. But without the context of our other freedoms and a higher, noble purpose, gun ownership becomes a perverse, thuggish, slavish addiction to power and unquestioned behavior. And as any theologian or psychologist will tell you, that will produce monsters.

In fact, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the type of behavior demonstrated by Zumbo's attackers is representative of a larger sickening of the American character that is responsible for the disgust and fear with which our country is widely viewed around the world. Increasingly, as a culture we seem to want to be able to do whatever we want, so matter how destructive or consumptive, and not be questioned or resisted in any way. It's like a reversion to a childish state, in which we have transcended any notion of not being able to have everything what we want, however grotesque.

No matter how much the NRA and its more fanatical members want to believe it, there's no such thing as freedom without limits. The limits to our freedom, especially those which we impose on ourselves, are the source of our nobility and higher purpose as a country and as individuals. Freedom without any limits is, by definition, anarchy, and a perversion of the ideals of this country.

The 2008 presidential debacle

2007-02-25T15:07:00.000-08:00

In an effort to console myself about the ongoing idiocy, shallowness, and short-sightedness of our current president's policies, I sometimes think, "no matter who it is, Republican or Democrat, our next president will be better." Admittedly it sounds like a jinx, but after six years of Bush failure, it seems inevitable.

And yet, it's only February of 2007 and I'm already ashamed and appalled with the gaggle of two-faced, pandering fools who are clustering hungrily around the beginnings of the 2008 presidential race.

First of all, the mass media deserves a rebuke for so intensely focusing on this race which isn't even a race yet. Day in and day out, there's coverage that amounts to gossip-column, he-said-she-said reporting of every comment and incident involving every candidate or potential candidate. Barack Obama or Mitt Romney announcing they're running for president is news. Every single thing they say or do on every day since then is not news. Not yet.

But the ridiculous amount of coverage has had one benefit: it's revealed almost all the current crop of contenders to be shallow, insincere panderers who are leaving all dignity and genuineness behind in a grab for power.

It's a syndrome that crosses party lines and falls into all-too-familiar cliches. On the Republican side, we have a group of men so lustful for power that they're reinventing themselves, hurriedly papering over their previous lives and beliefs in a frenzied effort to seem the most God-fearing, socially conservative candidate. Of course, it's painfully transparent that this is insincere and only designed to woo the religious-right base, but the last couple elections shows that this works--millions of conservative Christians fell into a rapturously hypnotic state over Bush's Bible-talk, and are still buying it years later.

Thus, previously moderate John McCain, current moderate Rudy Giuliani, and former liberal Mitt Romney are stumbling over each other in an effort to seem like a cross between Jesus and Ronald Reagan, for the support of a powerful crowd who don't seem to be able to distinguish the two. This week John McCain went so far as to say, literally, "what's wrong with sucking up to everybody?" While one could give him the credit to think he was making an oblique point about a politician deferring to the needs of his constituents, in light of his recent actions, it's a painfully telling, ironic statement.

On the Democratic side, there's a similar pursuit of practicality over ideals. The party is still being chastised for a "slick Willie" pursuit of image over character, but again, Democrats see that it worked--Clinton, like Bush, was a two-term president. (Though I have to assert that, while a philanderer in his personal life, Clinton was a vastly superior politician and thinker.) So we have a race to the middle, a bland, position-free collection of sound-bites that resists real bravery or strength. The black candidate, the woman candidate, the Southern candidate--their names aren't important, as they're little more than a collection of carefully-sculpted poll-friendly message points and soft-focus images--don't get too close, or examine who we really are! You'll find there's sadly little there. The three groups listed above, and all of us, deserve better.

And these are the current front-runners to lead the most powerful nation in the world. (Hold your horses, China, you'll be there soon.)

Just as with most elections, the smaller-time, lesser-known candidates will likely be more sincere and stronger advocates of actual positions. I already have more respect for Huckabee and Richardson and Vilsack than the panderers in the media spotlight. That very spotlight will once again be resistant to anyone who doesn't look the part, anyone without that star quality.

We've seen what years of politics-as-usual has done to our country. The last congressional election has given us a chance to start turning it around. But so far, the presidential race is looking depressingly cynical and familiar. Is there any hope left that there's something more important in this country than gargantuan amounts of money, shallow feel-good platitudes, and a TV-ready smile?

We'll find out in 21 months.

Return of The Police

2007-02-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

It's a rare rock reunion that catches my attention, let alone interests me. But I was genuinely excited when I heard that The Police are reuniting for a tour, and even more excited when I watched their mini-set/press conference. They sounded terrific--like they'd never left.

The Police are a band who've been woven through the fabric of much of my life. I can still remember being a kid and seeing the huge Zenyatta Mondatta poster on the wall of my best friend's older brother's room. I remember wearing out my Ghost In The Machine cassette, almost as fascinated by the design of its package as the music itself (though I admit I didn't realize for a while that the symbols on the front were the band members). And I vividly remember the palpable, electric excitement that was in the air when the band's final album, Synchronicity, was close to release. To this day it's still the most excited I can remember, well, seemingly the whole world being about a new album--television, magazines, newspapers, all abuzz about this coming event. And later in life, after I'd left them behind to an extent, I found them all over again due to my dear friend Tris cluing me in to parts of their catalog I'd overlooked.

While I've rarely thought about them when I consider my greatest influences or "favorite bands ever", this reunion has helped crystallize the impact they've had on me for over 25 years. My well-worn Message In A Box box set has been getting a workout, and its unearthed memories, associations, and admiration for their work has woken me up to the strength of their influence on me.

Looking back at them after all these years, I'm almost baffled by how iconoclastic they were. Incredibly tight and accomplished as musicians, with a sound that was extraordinarily dark and brooding for a popular act and lyrics that ranged from offbeat to outlandish, they forged a unique sound. Like the best artists known for synthesizing existing genres into something new--from Elvis to Led Zeppelin--The Police made their punk & reggae starting point a launch pad into territory that only they could explore.

In light of all that, I thought I'd share my favorite Police tracks. For those who know them well, it's a comparison of sorts, and for those who may only know the most familiar singles, maybe a chance to find something new.

By album, chronologically (with iTunes song links and Wikipedia album links):

Outlandos d'Amour (1978). This album is a fun, tight, punk-influenced rock album, though very raw and unformed compared to what lay ahead. Big hit 'Roxanne' was here, though my faves are the straight-ahead rock of 'Truth Hits Everybody' (probably the hardest they rocked until the much later 'Synchronicity II'), the suicidally desperate 'Can't Stand Losing You', and 'Be My Girl-Sally', worthwhile for its great chorus, which alternates with a truly cracked ode by Andy Summers to his, er, inflatable girlfriend.

Regatta de Blanc (1979). Here's where the real sound of the band emerges. 'Message In A Bottle' is probably their second-most-iconic song and is still brilliant. Along with the edgily yearning 'The Bed's Too Big Without You', it features the sort of hypnotic, off-kilter, almost backwards-sounding bass guitar riff that Sting was such a genius at. This distinctive technique of his has been a huge influence on my approach to bass playing and has informed some of the most successful bass parts I've written over the years.

Zenyatta Mondatta (1980). To me, this is the first classic Police album. Their sound became smoother, more expansive, and more graceful, and a sort of unsettling quality crept in between the seams. My favorite song on this album, 'When The World Is Running Down, You Make The Best Of What's Still Around', exemplifies this with a spare, hypnotic rhythm, rich guitar echoes from Andy Summers, and bleak post-modern/apolocalyptic lyrics from Sting. 'Canary In A Coalmine' and 'Man In A Suitcase' are also expertly crafted pop songs that contrast a sort of bleak despair in the lyrics with a bright, engaging melodic sound.

Ghost In The Machine (1981). Here is what I consider the Police's masterpiece. It's a departure from their first three records, and the wiry, raw strength of the individual band members starts to get sublimated to the song. But there's an absolutely unique sound and feel to this album that the trio plus producer Hugh Padgham created which has never been seen again. A rich, dark, smooth texture pervades this record, a sound at once futuristic, alien, and dreamlike, yet which can still engage at a grooving, visceral level. It starts off with the remarkable 'Spirits In The Material World'--one of the most subtly unusual pop songs ever, again with that trademark backwards/descending/off-beat bass line of Sting's. 'Hungry For You (J'Aurais Toujours Faim De Toi)' is a gripping, lustful song, and 'Too Much Information' is a cycling, hypnotizing, irresistible beat, one of my faves to simply listen to and dig. The album gets a bit more strange and almost sci-fi toward the end, where two of my favorites, the propulsive rush of 'Omegaman' and the dark dream of 'Secret Journey', send it off in style.

Synchronicity (1983). Seemingly seen by many as the band's peak, to me this is an album of contradictions. It's a mix of absolute brilliance and simple filler, alternating breathtakingly accomplished songwriting with flimsy, thin throwaway numbers. This probably represents the increasingly un-democratic dynamic within the band at this time, but ironically enough, the album's signature tune (and probably that of the band as a whole), 'Every Breath You Take', is the most evenly-balanced song on the album, relying only on simple, restrained, and equal contributions from each band member for its effect. It's almost hard to listen to this massively iconic tune now with any objectivity, but when I do, I marvel at its understated magnificence. What restraint, what economy--not a note or moment wasted, not anything added needlessly, just the soft, urgent proddings of all three musicians that perfectly captures a mood of love, loneliness, loss, and menace all at once. After making a song like this, any band could reasonably decide that there was nowhere else for them to go. But other excellent songs accompany it here. 'Synchronicity II' is surely one of the most bizarre songs ever to be a big hit, with its doomy grandiosity and lyrics that connect rush-hour stress to a sort of Loch Ness monster, and the heartbreaking 'King Of Pain' packs an intensely sad, emotional lyric into an edgy, unsettled rock song. I can't think of a more dark and bleak album that's found such mainstream success.

So here's to The Police--a band that carved a path all their own, who created genuine excitement and power through raw musical and lyrical accomplishment, and who should rightly go down as one of the best rock bands of all time. I really dig 'em.

Why we need electric cars--now!

2007-01-14T21:09:00.000-08:00

The story of the electric car is a long and tortured one, which I won't go into here, but it's worth learning about. Here's a teaser from the link above: "most popular roadworthy battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have been withdrawn from the market and have been destroyed by their manufacturers. The major US automobile manufacturers have been accused of deliberately sabotaging their electric vehicle production efforts. Oil companies have used patent protection to keep modern battery technology from use in BEVs."

If that doesn't pique your interest, nothing will. (And it would surprise me, as most of the people who I know have read this blog are the type to be concerned about such things.)

Anyway, it occurred to me in simplest terms today why we positively, urgently need to have electric cars available to us right now: because it would give us true energy independence.

Now, wait a minute, you might say. Electric cars still require lots of energy. We still have to generate all that electricity, and most of our supply comes from environmentally nasty things like coal, which is devastating to mine and poisonous to burn. That's true, and an ugly choice to have to initially make.

But what sets electricity apart from gasoline is that there are lots of ways to get it. If we keep driving gas-powered cars, even gas hybrids, we're still dependent on one unique fuel. We're still handcuffed to petroleum. It's the bottleneck on so many of our cultural advances. It ties us down economically, and it also keeps us tied uncomfortably close to Middle East politics and power struggles. Without our current great dependence on oil, we'd have had so much less contact with and involvement in the Arab world, and it's not a stretch to say that things like 9/11/01 could have been prevented, and certainly our current war too. Most likely, the Middle East would also be happier for our reduced meddling.

With electricity, we would control how it's produced. Coal would generate most of it at first, but all manner of alternative energies will grow and take on more of the load. Wind, water, solar--all of these things have been proven to be sufficient to keep electric cars charged. The result, whether with dirty coal or clean fuels, would be that our country would be independent in the area of our single biggest energy consumption. We'd be able to manufacture both our own cars and our own power. Oil consumption would drop steeply, and we'd be much less beholden to Saudi Arabia and OPEC. The powers in our own government with destructive ties to Big Oil--like the Bush family--would have less influence and less ability to get us into conflicts like our current quagmire.

Don't be fooled by counter-arguments--whatever limitations these cars might have, the opportunities they'd create for us would be immensely greater. The technology is out there right now, and has been for years. Toyota's electric RAV4 dates back to 1997 and the cost to run it was equivalent to getting mileage of 165 miles per gallon.

At the end of the day, we should have the choice. Behind-the-scenes forces in the oil and auto industries have made the choice for us, withholding this technology artificially and against the demand in the free market. Our current type of consumption is getting us into danger, involving us in wars, eating away at our paychecks, and leaving us beholden to foreign interests. In one easy fell swoop, we could turn the tables.

If you agree and want to share that opinion with the auto companies, here are direct links to contact information for some big ones:

Ford
Toyota
GM
Honda
Subaru

NFL Division Playoffs

2007-01-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

I haven't written as much about football this year as before, and that's partially because I've watched a lot less of it this season, due to being distracted by other things. I regret that to an extent, but have tuned back in in time to catch the last part of the season and playoffs. And while not on par with the classic seasons of the previous couple years, it's been interesting.

This week, the division playoffs set the stage for next week's "final four", which should be a doozy of a weekend. In the NFC, the expected contenders came out on top, while in the AFC, the expected changing of the guard was put down in dramatic fashion.

Indianapolis 15, Baltimore 6
I hadn't seen much of the Ravens this year, but had heard all the hype. While it's hard to argue with the number-one defense in the league, I had a feeling this game would go this way. I felt that the Colts simply have too much exceptional capability, and that it would find a way to overcome the opposition. I was really impressed with the Colts' defense last week against the hapless Chiefs. They weren't so much pushing Kansas City around as they were outsmarting them, playing in just the right way. And that seems to be what this team has changed into this year. Their stats are down, they're scoring much less, Payton Manning's had a mundane year, but they're finding a way--they're doing whatever it takes to win. This game is a great example--Manning had no touchdowns and 2 interceptions, yet they win. On both sides of the ball, they've become more resourceful and more responsive to adversity. So despite stumbling late in the season, they're suddenly looking very hard to beat.

New Orleans 27, Philadelphia 24
For all the talk of the miraculous Saints, I found myself rooting for Philadelphia in this game. Unlike division-mates such as the pathetic Cowboys and self-destructive Giants, the Eagles have been playing the kind of football you can get behind: tough, disciplined, scrappy, and clever. Oft-maligned backup quarterback Jeff Garcia saved the season for the team and came close to winning here, but the Saints just slipped out of reach. These two teams are probably the only ones left in the NFC who really deserve to be here--on merit alone, this should have been the conference championship game. The Saints worked hard and got some lucky breaks, and are playing a dynamic, fun style of football that should send them into the Super Bowl.

Chicago 27, Seattle 24
Chicago played a pretty good game, but I still think they're much worse than their record and their playoff position. All they really had to do to get home-field advantage in the troubled NFC was win the weakest division in the NFL. They've been spotty on offense, they backed into the playoffs with some embarrassing late-season games, and their only obstacle to the conference championship game was the injury-riddled Seahawks. I've had low expectations for Seattle, but have been impressed with how they've stepped up in the playoffs.

They made me groan, however, with what looked to me like a series of bad play calls late in the game that, in my opinion, handed the game to Chicago. Late in regulation, they were moving the ball and threatening to get into field-goal range for what would likely be a game-winning kick. Then, in one series of downs, it all fell apart. First, after a great first down, they let time roll off the clock and instead of calling a time out, when they had some to spare, they spike the ball and lose a down. Needing less than 10 yards to get into field-goal range, they take a long pass downfield on the next play, which fell incomplete. Why they did this baffles me--time's running out, all they need is a field goal, and they're needlessly shooting for the end zone. That leaves them with 3rd and 10, out of field goal range. Next, a bobbled snap by quarterback Matt Hasselbeck results in a loss of yardage, leaving them with 4th and 19, on which they fail to convert. To me this sequence sabotaged the game for them. They were playing like a team that needed to get into the end zone, when all they needed to do was pick up 10 yards. They could have run and thrown a couple short passes, but instead they squandered a down with a spike, overreached by going long downfield, and then muffed a couple plays. All I could think was, "those damned Bears get lucky again", and they did.

New England 24, San Diego 21
If any game was supposed to represent a changing of the guard, this was it. The multi-Super Bowl champion Patriots, aging and depleted in key positions, were set to hand the mantle over to the surging Chargers--winners of 10 games in a row, best record in the NFL, playing at home, with record-breaking MVP running back LaDainian Tomlinson. One of the brilliant things about the Patriots has always been how well they're able to figure out the other team, and then take them apart. I knew they'd be able to figure out San Diego, but wasn't sure if they still had the talent in key positions to pull it off. That's been their challenge this season. And for a lot of the game, it looked like they were a step behind the Chargers. But somehow, they managed to hang close, and the Chargers never really took off. This was a game the Chargers needed to not be close, because to leave the door open for the Patriots is disastrous. San Diego now has 8 months to ponder that lesson.

Predictions for next week:

New Orleans at Chicago
This should be quite a game. If Chicago's inconsistent QB Rex Grossman doesn't play well, this will be over quickly--the Bears' defense will not win this alone. If he does play well, it could be interesting. The Saints have some great offensive weapons, but this weekend the Eagles exposed some weaknesses that the Bears will try to exploit (look for how many times the Saints' new star Reggie Bush is taken down in the backfield, before he can break out, as a measure of their success). Overall I see this one going a similar way to the Colts-Ravens matchup (albeit with more scoring)--in the end, the Saints will have too many weapons for the Bears defense to handle, and their capability to create big plays will be the difference. The Bears are a good team, but not a great one, and their luck runs out here.

New England at Indianapolis
Who'd have thought that with the super-defensive Ravens and super-offensive Chargers standing in the way, we'd see this classic matchup again. But somehow this just feels like the right two teams to be left playing. This one is really hard for me to call. I still feel like the Colts have figured something out that gives them the edge on any given day, but Payton Manning cannot make the kinds of errors he's been making the last few weeks. The one advantage of his mundane play is how the rest of his team has stepped up to fill in the gap--that will be required here, too.

Since they did exactly what they needed to to ground the Chargers, it's also hard to pick against the Patriots--the Colts haven't been paying as well as the Chargers, and the Pats will have some great momentum and can-do belief coming in here. Home field favors the Colts, but it won't suffice in this game. If Manning has a good day and doesn't turn the ball over, the Colts will win--it'll be just a little too much for the Pats to handle. If he struggles, the Pats will ultimately have the edge by being able to keep it close and win on strategy. One interesting wrinkle this time around is kicker Adam Vinatieri, who won many close games for the Patriots but who's now with the Colts. Something tells me this will be a close one that may come down to his foot again.

My brain says the Patriots will win, but my heart is saying the Colts have what it takes this time.

Death of Saddam

2007-01-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

In another chapter in our deepening, chaotic mess of a campaign in Iraq, we hurriedly pushed the execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein. What the hurry was, I'm still not sure, but it certainly managed to get the job done before Democrats took over control of Congress.

I'm sure there was much celebrating among those formerly oppressed by the man, as well as those neoconservative elements in our country who have long seen him as an obstacle to their idealized plans for the Middle East (all of which involve someone else's children fighting and dying).

But, no matter how many horrible things he's done or ordered others to do, when I saw him weep at the verdict of death in court, when I saw a photo of the execution scene itself--with him being roughly handled by masked thugs, taunted, and hanged in a dingy, dark room--I felt sick.

And I felt sadness for the suffering of this man--no matter how much of it he's caused, is it not the causing of suffering which is his crime, and yet we're doing it in turn to punish him? His crimes include killing thousands of innocent citizens, imprisoning opponents without just cause or trials, and torturing his enemies. Our country has done all of those things, on a grand scale, in the holy quest to unseat him. We've killed over 100,000 innocent civilians in Iraq during these almost four years of war. We've imprisoned thousands of men without any proof of cause, without any trials or due process. We've tortured many of these same men, for information or just for fun, humiliating them, defiling their religion, threatening or even harming their loved ones, sometimes in front of them.

In short, in an attempt to show the world how bad this man and his reign have been, we've done all the same things that made him a criminal in the first place.

But, unlike him, we're not forced to take any responsibility for it.

And let's not forget an equally important factor: that we created Saddam Hussein. I've detailed the sordid history already, but in a nutshell, we pulled Saddam out of relative obscurity as a young man, supported his ambitions to achieve our own ends, and then kept doing so all the way up to his fateful invasion of Kuwait. And that includes his infamous use of poison gas--we funded him and provided him with military intelligence, knowing full well that he would use the illegal chemical weapons against our enemies at the time, the Iranians. It's all true.

(And, in another nice touch, the Shiites we were so worried about back in the Iran-Iraq war days are in charge not only in Iran, but now also in Iraq, where they were elected democratically--replacing a secular dictator with a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy.)

So, in the end, the execution of Hussein is little more than a mafia hit--a boss taking out a loyal lackey who was getting out of hand, getting too violent. We pulled his strings right from the start, we helped build him up and shielded him from accountability. That infamous photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam? It's from one of two diplomatic visits in late 1983/early 1984, and the second one came after Saddam used his poison gas. That's right, after he committed that heinous crime, we declared the way open for diplomatic ties with Iraq.

It was his reward for doing our dirty work. And now, after his usefulness is ended, he's being cast off, as so many others were during his reign.

He's another casualty, like all our dead soldiers, like all the many times more dead civilians, in a game of power controlled by rich white men in expensive suits who never have to take responsibility, who never have to get their hands dirty, who never have to care.

So that's why, when I saw the pathetic figure of Saddam just before death, I cared.

Attention, bad winter drivers!

2006-12-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

Now, most of the readers of this blog that I know of are sensible, capable individuals who don't need advice on routine matters such as driving in snow. But perhaps the little bit of advice contained herein will somehow find its way out to that chorus of "other people" who fill our days with the sonorous tones of engines gunning and tires skidding.

(Warning: For those who aren't in the mood for a long exploration of minutia, you might want to log off, go get some coffee, and get on with your day.)

Since our big snowfall a couple days ago, I've seen or heard literally dozens of people who seem to revert to a different state when driving in snow, something akin to Frankenstein's monster, the Hulk, an angry Homer Simpson, or a frustrated child. Seemingly never having really paid much attention to the dynamics of how their car moves and interacts with its environment, they not only rely completely on the controls of their car, but use them like a video-game controller--as a series of buttons or on/off switches with no subtlety.

The prime example of this, of course, is the type who guns their engine, floors it, when they start getting stuck in snow. Like the instinctive dumbing-down that happens when you're playing a video game and keep hitting the "fire" button in a desperate attempt to get out of the bind you're in, these people seem to view their gas pedal as a "go" button. Car not go? Hit button. Hit button again. Hit button harder. Harder! Hulk smash!

I wonder how many of these people notice that when they're cruising along and jam on the gas, the result is actually a braking effect? That the action is actually digging their car in?

The truth is, cars are big and heavy, and once you get them rolling, they tend to keep rolling unless stopped by a barrier. And a snowy road isn't much of a barrier to something that big and heavy. The tires, under the weight of the car, will tend to roll pretty easily at the natural speed of the car's body. It's when we change the forces operating on the tires and the body that the overall equation changes and crazy things start happening.

Step on the brakes, and you're adding resistance to the natural rolling of the tires against the packed-snow road. Do this too hard or too fast, and you set up a competition between the energy of the moving weight of the car and the ability of the tires to grip the road--and the weight of the car will usually win. Thus, the wheels lock and the car slides--the weight of the car has won the battle, and that momentum-energy is flowing freely in two dimensions, without the controlling factor of the tires' directed friction.

Similarly, step on the gas, and you're also setting two energies against the other--in this case, it's the opposite scenario, as you're trying to overcome the weight of the car with the force of the wheels' rotation and their traction with the ground. This is, of course, how cars move--the force channeled into the rotating of the wheels overcomes the downward weight of the car, making it move. But in this case, there's an unsure connection between the tires and the road, and so the energy doesn't translate into the normal traction. Without that traction, the force of the wheels turning overwhelms the limited resistance available and "breaks free", and the tires spin, unimpeded by the road surface.

The connection between these two conditions is an imbalance of forces--the overwhelming of one force by another, throwing things out of whack. The same things can happen on everyday dry roads under clear and warm conditions. People "peeling out" on dry pavement overwhelm their traction on the road with an application of immense wheel-spinning force, and the result is tires that spin out of proportion with the car's movement, resulting in the tires grinding against the road like a belt sander, tearing them up and leaving those black marks. The same thing happens when you make a brake-locking emergency stop on dry pavement and your car skids--the traction of your tires falls to the great energy of the car's moving weight, and you skid and leave scraped-off tire in your wake.

So in a sense, we're really always driving under the same physical conditions. It's just that normally, there's such a large safety margin that we're never aware of the boundaries where we can lose control. The speeds we normally drive at, the friction of the tires on the road, the materials in the roads themselves, and the amount of power we have available in our engines and brakes are all in pretty good balance--they're designed to work together to produce predictable, easily manageable results. Stopping and starting are routine affairs as a result.

This can, however, lull us into complacency, into thinking of the controls on the car as simple "stop" and "go" buttons. When, in fact, they're more like "application of force" dials, or flasks of different chemicals that can combine into either a stable or unstable compound when mixed in different measures. All the elements are part of a system that is designed to work flawlessly within certain typical boundaries, but which--through a change in the external conditions, or a change in the forces we have control over--can be upset.

And if that happens, suddenly it's you and a few thousand pounds of metal and you're floating freely in a mix of very powerful forces--just like that, it's Physics 101, and if you had as much trouble as I did with physics in high school, that can be daunting.

In those moments, the best success I've had is with a combination of Douglas Adams and the Buddha--don't panic, accept your situation, and let go of what you can't control. It's amazing how smoothly things can go, for example, if you just coast through the slippery spot. It's scary to not be able to stop or speed up, to just let go of those controls, hold the steering wheel, and ride it out, but it's also the best way to balance the forces at work and not either get stuck in a rut or slide out of control. Then, in that moderated, controlled state, apply those forces in a gentle and patient way, and most of the time the result is better than any application of overwhelming force can be.

Well, somehow I've managed to go from humor to amateur-hour physics to philosophy in a post about driving in snow, so I think I'd better get out of my own head for a bit and stop now. For more tips on driving in snow and ice, see the following:

(Note: as I've been writing this, I've heard at least four drivers outside my window struggling and/or getting stuck by gunning their engines in the snow.)

Poem: Dusk

2006-11-28T23:19:00.000-08:00

The twilight quietly gives out
And crosses the fold into dusk
The cloak of darkness opens,
and gives up the moon,
and the trail ahead lights up like a glow-worm,
phosphorescent.

Hush.
Only the muffled crunch of rocks in dirt
and the wind buffets the caves of your ears.

I am both things,
the fireplace and the wildfire,
the wine and the nectar,
the strum and the scream,
the stay and the leave,
the comfort and the cold,
the holding and the setting free.

And in being both,
I am neither.

limbo

dusk.

Columbia Visioning update

2006-11-28T22:24:00.000-08:00

After a quick twilight run on the trail, tonight I went to the latest step in the city visioning project, the "BIG (Big Idea Gathering) meeting". It was an accurately named meeting, for it was little else than simply transcribing a few hundred ideas for ways to improve the quality of the city. I admit that I was a little let down at the lack of opportunity for discussing ideas--it made the two-hour meeting seem a little empty--but the turnout for the meeting was very good, many good ideas were proposed by the attendees, and it gave me a good look at what's on people's minds around town.

While the ideas proposed in my sub-group were all over the map--everything from building rail transportation between neighboring towns, to the city taking a more active approach in reintroducing those who've been released from prison back into society, to providing more affordable housing options in all new housing developments--when the top ideas from each discussion group were read out at the end of the meeting, it was interesting to see what themes emerged.

The most common themes, in terms of the number of groups who reported making them a high priority, included:

Environmental issues--protecting wild areas, preserving trees, etc.
Renewable energy--using more of it, energy efficiency
Controlling growth--better planning of infrastructure, better quality developments
Attracting business--drawing high-quality companies and jobs to the area
Education--providing consistently high-quality education to children in all areas of town
Looking out for the economically disadvantaged--providing loans for business development, making affordable housing and services available

It was notable that no strong pro-developer voice was heard, as far as I could tell. Even the obviously better-off members of my group, for example, were more concerned about quality-of-life issues like better airport services and a more vibrant downtown.

When I listened to the common themes being read to the overall group, I thought about what it all added up to in the end. It seemed that overall, the concern was about quality. Preserving natural beauty, using clean energy, reducing reliance on cars, attracting high-quality business to town (such as high-tech companies), and creating opportunities in the lower-income sectors. Not welfare, but opportunities--good housing, ways to develop economic self-reliance.

And it dawned on me that quality is precisely what has been lacking from Columbia's major growth and development projects lately. Nobody at the meeting seemed to be against growth and economic development. But they wanted good development--well-paying jobs, fewer franchises and more local businesses, more attractive and better-built buildings, and less environmentally-destructive developments.

Instead, what we've seen in the last few years in Columbia is an explosion of what amounts to junk-food developments. Large wild areas are clear-cut and leveled, and what goes in are cheap-looking strip malls and shopping centers, filled almost entirely with chain stores. Most of the jobs created are low-end, low-paying, part-time, with few benefits. Most of the money from such developments go to very few people, who already have money, and part of it gets sucked out of the community altogether, going to parent companies of the franchises. Housing developments are just as bad--builders come in, quickly slap together a neighborhood full of particle-board homes based on a few repeated designs, and leave in their wake something with no well-planned connection to city infrastructure, which often requires the city to fill in the gaps. On top of everything else, these commercial and housing developments are unattractive and often cheaply built.

And that's what's increasingly rubbing people in this town the wrong way--there's a lot of building going on, lots of new roads and new business, but in the end, what are we getting? Poor-quality jobs, unneeded goods and services, highly expensive housing, ugly concrete and neon landscapes, escalating burdens on city infrastructure, and little economic benefit for the majority of citizens.

This is a message that the developer and builder groups in the area would be well-advised to listen to. There's a growing wave of frustration and resistance to what developers have been doing. They can either change their ways and develop in ways that actually make the people of this town proud, or they can continue painting themselves into a corner. They can either be the engine of high-quality growth in town, or the biggest obstacle to it. What is the legacy they want to leave?

The visioning process is a long way from producing any tangible results, but a community voice is slowly starting to emerge. And it wants something better than what we're currently being given.

Poem: Outside the pattern

2006-11-21T22:28:00.000-08:00

The pattern

Is what else Leonardo was doing on that day,
when he wasn't working on the Mona Lisa.

No one remembers now,
"What a day that was, when old Leonardo was
washing his sandals!"

We remember the days when they risked their safety for beauty,
When they risked their hearts for no guarantee of love.

For all the time I spend trying to dodge hurt
the story of my life won't be the days I avoided complication
won't be the tales I already knew the endings to

but instead

the times I stormed the barricades, unarmed
the times I let go of the railing and fell
the times I held my wounded heart in my hands and told it:

Our story is not going to be
about the one that got away.

Sometimes the hurt feels like too high a price for what I found.
But through that hurt is depth
And beyond it are joy, tears, laughter, and a new kind of trust
not based on the impossibility of failure
but instead on the movement through failure
where the restraints have been broken
and the persistence, the bond becomes a choice--
a willing, living, caring, believing phoenix of a choice
as alive and unprotected and risky as our lives really are

instead of

the pattern.