Four Reflections on History

1. Last summer I taught a composition course for an IUSB program called the Leadership Academy. We studied Civil Rights history, mostly covering African American and Hispanic actions. The growth and empowerment of the African Americans and Hispanics seemed visible to the observer, but I also felt I could see all of us opening up and growing, moved and impressed by the beauty of this history.

2. I recently read a piece of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. While he was in prison, he became an avid reader. He discovered that black people had a history beyond slavery, and as he read history after history, his vision of his place in the world grew and grew.

3. Even in the final book in the Harry Potter series there is an interesting debate about how history is written. Hermione says, “Wizarding history often skates over what the wizards have done to other magical races.”

4. I have long been moved by this passage from Neil Postman which I think refers to the history of ideas more than the history of events: History…teaches…that the world is not created anew each day, that everyone stands on someone else’s shoulders.”

A Serious Pilgrimage

I have friends who are now recovering from serious illnesses. So I was taken by a line by Oliver Sachs in his book A Leg to Stand On where he describes his own recovery from a serious leg injury: “Uneventful recovery.” What damned utter nonsense! Recovery was a “pilgrimage,” a journey, in which one moved, if one moved, stage by stage, or by stations. Every stage, every station, was a completely new advent, requiring a new start, a new birth or beginning. One had to begin, to be born, again and again. Recovery was an exercise in nothing short of birth, for as mortal man grows sick, and dies by stages, so natal man grows well, and is quickened, by stages—radical stages, existence-stages, absolute and new: unexpected, unexpectable, incalculable and surprising. Recovery uneventful? It consists of events. (O.S.)

A demigod?

Language does not merely report the world...[it] creates worlds...Language creates, distorts, carries, discloses, hides, allows, oppresses, enriches, enthralls. For good or ill, language itself is something of a demigod. (Ken Wilber, The Marriage of Sense and Soul)

Barbie's Butt

You can study globalization and read Barbie’s butt at the same time. That is what Jennifer Tang reported today in a column appearing in the South Bend Tribune. The first Barbies had “Made in Japan” on their bottoms. Then it became “Made in Hong Kong,” then “Made in the Philippines” or Malaysia or Thailand. Now you know, it’s “Made in China.” Barbie kept moving. Tang cleverly says, “To see a developing nation disappear from Barbie’s rump is a reliable indicator that it is no longer “behind.” “Who knows,” she asks, “which country will appear next on Barbie’s butt? Would it be irony to find it saying “Made in USA”?

More Thoughts about the Path

I received some new pictures of the camino this week from Elena, pictures that clearly show it as a path. Once again, I was trying to figure out why it feels to good to have completed this walk (a second time). I think it cleared my mind of junk and left it clearer to see what I really value. I feel I'm a stronger person though maybe a little more eccentric as well. This walk made me happy. It made the world seem like a bigger place.

Here's a Woman Who Really Takes a Run

I saw a photo similar to this a few weeks ago in the South Bend Tribune (this from WNDU website). This is Rosie Swale Pope of Wales, and she is running around the world. In the last four years she has traveled 2,100 miles while pulling the cart that becomes her shelter at night. Her husband Clive died of cancer in 2002, and according to the Tribune, Pope "wanted to do something special to remember him. 'I looked at a map and thought... Hmm, I'll run across the world.'"

So, on July 5, she was in South Bend. A little later, she was at the Goshen Center for Cancer Care waiting for the results of a test for breast cancer (benign). Also, while in the Goshen area, she had some repairs done on her carriage by an Amish buggy maker. She plans to run from here to New York and then fly back home to finish in Wales. Go Rosie!

Cruz de Ferro/Letting Go

One of the spots on the Camino de Santiago is the Cruz de Ferro (Iron Cross). I had read about it beforehand and expected a larger cross. However, what I had read said bring a stone from home to put at the foot of the cross. This stone is to symbolize something you want to leave behind. I gather most people are like me; they forget to bring a stone and pick one up along the way to symbolize the stone from home that is to symbolize what they want to give up. I arrived at the cross, tossed my stone on the pile, and told it good bye. I was going to leave behind my habit of worrying what people think of me.

Obviously, an act like this is worthless unless you do it with a certain attitude. Symbolic rituals, I have discovered can be rather powerful when the act and the intention are just right for the time and place. This tossing of my stone has helped me when I find myself with some trivial worry about what others think. Today I have a disappointment at work. It feels like I threw away my stone and have received back an end-of-the-course test. What charming karma . Perfect I guess.

Camino Photos

I've been working on this online album: http://pictures.aol.com/galleries/mhardy6262. I've afraid I'm not clear as to how to do it. When I try to view slide show, it goes backward. Slide 54 is actually the first picture and slide 1 is the last. I still have a few more slides to add. Above is a view of the cathedral from a park outside the old tourist section. Even away from the Cathedral of St. James, it remains a visual anchor.

my infinite minutes of fame

Jamie, my yoga instructor, read this poem at the end of class last week. "It's my favorite," he said. My favorite too I believe.


Famous
By Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

“Famous” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used by permission of the author.
Naomi Shihab Nye’s (1952—) mixed heritage—her father is Palestinian, her mother is American—shapes the subjects of her poetry....

Peace

From "Practicing Peace in Times of War" by Pema Chödrön

We often complain about other people’s fundamentalism. But whenever we harden our hearts, what is going on with us? There’s an uneasiness and then a tightening, a shutting down, and then the next thing we know, the chain reaction begins and we become very righteous about our right to kill the mosquito or yell at the person in the car or whatever it might be. We ourselves become fundamentalists, which is to say we become very self-righteous about our personal point of view.

100 People in the World

I've seen something similar to this before but reading it today on "Ken Wilber Online," I was impressed again:

...calculations done by Dr. Phillip Harter of Stanford University School of Medicine [say] If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of only 100 people, it would look something like this:

There would be--
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 North and South Americans
8 Africans
30 white
70 nonwhite
6 people would possess 59% of the world's wealth,
and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer malnutrition
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer

It's an interesting perspective of the world though I'm not sure what it tells me.

Travel Blog/Reading Blog

I'm moving back to the reading blog though maybe, I'll need to make a few more comments about the camino and/or travel.

Thoughts after the Walk

I said to Brook, "The people making this walk seem so articulate."

¨They would need to be," she said, "to take a trip like this." She´s right. To make a trip like this, you need a story that imbues a 750k walk with meaning.

The camino is, literally, an extremely long path for walking. However, it also symbolizes a larger life path, and I think, because of the extreme physicality of the walk, it allows us to feel in our bodies what before was merely an unexamined thought.

One day I was resting on a bench at the side of the camino with Linda (from Canada), and as we sat, a number of pilgrims walked by. Linda made a comment about all of us being together on the path. For some reason, that rather cliched remark had a much deeper and more poignant meaning while sitting on such a very long path.

Insights about love, companionship, loneliness, hopefulness, and happiness also seem clearer and more visceral here. I have asked a few people here in Santiago what the walk has meant to them. One woman said, "Ask me in six months." Others have commented that it helped them understand themselves better (true for me as well). One woman told me she has left behind the last two years of suffering. I have realized that I complain too much about the ravages of war without doing enough for peace. When I get home, I want to do some work that contributes to peace.

¡We are here!

This is the focal point of the old part of the city of Santiago, and it is an amazing construction. We have a beautiful room nearby and our feet are enjoying the shock of being relatively unused today. It is a relaxing time, and I am looking forward to family, friends, and home.

Twenty More Kilometers

June 1, 2007

We have about 20 kilometers, and we will be in Santiago. It´s kind of an odd feeling. I have been walking to Santiago since May 1. I look forward to arriving, and I feel sad about ending the walk. Mostly, I guess I am ready to return to my South Bend life.

Camino Philosophy

Rory Stewart writes about walking through Afghanistan: "I was marking Afghanistan. I wanted to touch as much as possible of the country with my feet." I think what I want, in walking across Spain, is for the community, the energy, the culture, and the history of the camino to touch me.

No News Is?

May 30, 2007

I have not watched TV, listened to the radio, or read a newspaper during this whole month of May. I assume news continues to happen, but I don´t really know. It is an interesting feeling.

Los Pajaros/The Birds

Watching birds along the way has been an added pleasure though often, I don´t know what bird I´m looking at. Some of these birds seem to sing in English and other in Spanish. Storks, for me, are the most dramatic of the Spanish birds I´ve seen, though I haven´t seen one for a few days. My book says they migrate here from Africa to raise their young. That sounds kind of exotic to me, and when they fly, they are strikingly beautiful.

There is another strinking bird that I am told is a magpie. I don´t think I have ever seen one in the U.S. For awhile I was calling it a padre bird because it is black and white, but now I know better. Also, we see many swallows. I am not used to seeing them in town.

I have not seen a cuckoo, but I have heard them often. There is no mistaking their call; they sound just like a cuckoo clock. They always sound like they are a distance away, and I am told it is rare to see one.

Approaching Santiago

May 29, 2007

We are now in Galicia, the province of Santiago. There are concrete markers that measure each 1/2 kilometer of the distance to Santiago. Today we passed "100 km a Santiago.¨ Many people were taking pictures there, and we did too. (There are three of us now. Elena arrived last Friday.)

The terrain and energy level of the walk seems to be changing. Our goal is near, plus, I think the terrain is more exciting--ups and downs and incredible mountain vistas. Plus, it is very green! I continue to love it except when it rains. Today was very rural and we passed many small dairy farms and farm dogs sleeping on the path. We are in Portomarin tonight, a nice sized town with lots of shops. It is a "new town built when the old one was ´drained´by the waters of the new resevoir." The curch was "dismantled stone by stone and rebuilt in the new town. It is a lovely church and the town is very pleasant.

Two Memorable Meals

May 28, 2007

Last night we stayed in a small refugio. The host prepared dinner for about 20 of us, and we ate together at one long table. It was one of the better dinners of the trip--four courses--a delicious squash soup, a beautifully presented salad (ensalada mixta), pasta carbonara, and a traditional pudding for dessert.

The night before, we ate in a small, charming restaurant in Villafranca la Bierza. The restaurant, La Puete Perdon, served delicious food that was not quite the usual. We were eating our main dishes when suddently the woman at the next table began to sing. The room became silent except for her singing. The waiter stood still, and the cook came out to watch. She sang in French, so I´m not sure I understood the nuances of her performance, but she was good, and it added to my store of camino surprises.

High on Height

May 26, 2007

We have been doing mountain hiking, and it is very beautiful. We´re spending the night in a tiny town--Ruitelan. Beautiful! Not much else to say. As long as it doesn´t rain, it remains exhilerating and exciting. Tomorrow we will climb about 2,000 feet and reach, at the top of the climb, El Cebreiro, one of my most striking memories from the last time I did this.

Beautiful Day, Steep Price

Today´s walk has been fantastic. The guidebook says, most beautiful spot on the camino and the most difficult. True. We started out hiking in the clouds. After about an hour, the clouds lifted and we had the most incredible mountain views, wildflowers, butterflies, sunshine, cows, sheep, trees, and other nature chiches. We are spending the night in Ponferada. We arrived here around 5:00 PM, but we have seen this town, off and on, since 10:00 this morning.

Yesterday started out beautiful but then a drizzle turned into rain so strong we could see little but our feet, so we were forced to cut the hike short and stay in a small town that seemed to contain nothing but three refugios.

I feel very content tonight.

Oldest Bridge in Spain, Longest Walk so Far

May 21, 2007

This bridge is supposed to be the oldest bridge in Spain. It is how we arrived in the town of Hospital de Orbigo after covering more walking distance than ever before--30k. I read that this bridge was built by the Romans in the 13th century though I thought I had read that it was older even that that. It is odd when our lives overlap with the lives of people living in the 13th century. I´ve been thinking today about the cathedral in Leon. I find it mind-blowing. I´m trying to imagine how it appeared to people who had never seen a photograph or a movie or talked on a phone. They must have thought it proof of God´s existence.

¡Awesome!

May 20, 2007

Brook and I could see the spires of the Leon Cathedral from quite a distance away, but it was only when we came around a corner and saw it up close that we could see how impressive it is. The design is amazing.It was built in the 13th century and added to later. Our guildebook says, "stained glass is as magnificent as anything anywhere in Europe." The stained glass took my breath away.

We are staying in the flat of a couple who have a good view of the cathedral from the window of their flat. They are Servas hosts and we are enjoying their hospitality.

El Mundo es un Pañuelo

May 16, 2007

In Carrion de los Condes, I went shopping for a handkerchief. (Tissues are annoying for hiking.) The sales woman pulled down five flat boxes and showed me the selection. I chose a lovely white one with pink flowers. It was a satisfying little purchase. Later Brook siad she should have bought one too, so we can do this shopping again.

El Mundo es un pañuelo means "the world is a handkerchief¨;" the world is small. There is a sense of that here, especially the world of Europe, North, and South American. The other day there were five Americans in the refugio, a record number.

International Picnic

May 16, 2007

Todaya we walked 18k through the mesata, farmland that reminds me a little of southern Indiana. Usually, we don´t walk this far without a bar for coffee and snacks. We stopped at the one table at the side of the road for our snack and joined two Italian women, three Germans, and a man and his son-in-law from Brazil. Tonight we stay in Calzadilla de la Cueza, a very small town.

Quick News

May 15, 2007

Brook has been here since Friday and has walked with me for four days. She has probably walked about 86 kilometers on the path and then a few more as we stroll and tour in the evenings. On Sunday (4-13) we spnt the night in Cartrojeriz. On Monday we spent the night in Fromista, and tonight we are in Carrion de los Condes. On Sunday I had the best meal on the camino and we may just have had the second best today.

We only walked about 20K today yet both of us felt very tired. Me, especially in the feet; Brook in the legs. We probably should have rested more along the way. Today, in terms of scenery, the least dramatic day yet, still, lovely--mainly just walking past crops, lots of wheat (triga)--some very new corn I think.

There is a bit of worry sometimes that the refugios will be full. A Texas walker has warned us that we may have problems tomorrow. That is one unpleasant element of the path. Apparently, a German comedian has written a book about the camino which has motivated more Germans to come. This may have pushed facilities too much. They are more crowded than last time.

We walked today with a 19-year-old from France. He spent 2-3 weeks in the US helping with Katrina repair. It was odd meeting someone from another country who had done aid-work in the US.

Welcome Brook

May 12, 2007

Yesterday was a long rather ugly walk into Burgos. Kilometer after kilometer of industry and car dealershlips. Then we entered a more attractive downtown shopping and business area. Finally we entered the old part of the city built around a Gothic Cathedral (building started in 800 I think). There is a river through this part, beautiful trees, sculptures, plazas, and outdoor tables for eating and drinking. I went first to the municipal refugio because that was the place Brook and I were meeting. We arrived within 15 minutes of each other. She is struggling a bit with jet lag.

We walked 20k today and are staying in a small town called Hornillos del Camino. It feels like a combination of Southern Indiana farms and Spain--mainly wheat. We are entering a new region, more flat, more devoted to grain. I didn´t see a single vineyard today and maybe not the day before either.

¨Where is my car?

May 10, 2007

It has been a hard walking day. My blister made my foot tender and there was a lot of up-hill and down-hill. However, I am now on one of the most modern refugios on the camino and relaxing at the computer in the bar (which is under the sleeping quarters). We are in a small town called Ages (pronounced something like Ah-hays).

I walked with the Canadian couple today. At one part, after a tiring up hill climb, we met two people from Germany. After greetings, the German man (pack on his back, boots on his feet) looked around and said, ¨Where is my car? Where is my car?

Brook arrives tomorrow. I hope we meet up without too much trouble.

Step by Step

May 9, 2007

Tonight, I am, as I was last night, in a small refugio which will serve a dinner to all. It has been a relaxing afternoon here. I was resting in the yard when 5-6 men rode up on beautiful horses. I understand that they are going to do a week on the camino, starting at Roncesvalles and ending around Leon. By the time I went inside and came back with my camera, the horses were unsaddled and being hosed down. Now, from inside, I hear occasional horse noises. They also have a small RV and driver carrying supplies.

I walked the first couple of hours this morning alone and then a couple of hours with a Canadian couple. There are a fair number of Canadians on my path. In the last couple of days, I have seen one American (from Florida but born in East Chicago, IN). The Canadian woman doesn´t want to talk to him. She says he reminds her of George Bush. It is interesting to be a minority in this international group. No one has said how much they appreciate American foreign policy.

I have acquired a painful blister on a toe, so I have sucumbed to a traditional camino cure. You go through the blister with a needle and thread (like one stitch) and then leave the thread in to aid drainage. We´ll see if this works tomorrow.

¡Buen camino! Good path!

Sleeping in Church

May 9, 2007

I stayed in an interesting place last night in Groñon. The refuge is attached to a 14th century church. Since it was full, I slept on a mat on the floor of the church. The volunters at the rufuge fixed salad and pasta for around 60 of us. It was tasty and friendly.

By Foot

May 7, 2007

I spent last night in Logroño with a Servas family. It was a charming visit. I ate dinner in their house and walked around a park in their town as well as the plaza near their flat. Yesterday was a perfert day. I walked 29k, the weather was comfortable, the scenery was fantastic, and a Frenchman arraged for our packs to be sent ahead. Without a pack, my feet had wings.

Today was fine but a little more tiring--27k with the pack. Glamor note--I have blister on my big toe.

Small World Department

May 7, 2007

Two nights ago in Los Arcos, I met a married couple from St. Paul, Minnesota. I refrained from saying, "I know someone from St. Paul." Then, they told me they were Unitarian ministers, so I asked, "Do you know Lisa D.?" It turns out they know her very well. For some reason, this amazes me. It was odd to be asked in this small Spanish town "Did you know Joel?" (I did.)

Camino Map

From http://www.willemswebs.com/album/camino/trip4.htm

May 3, 2007

Today was the first real relaxing day since I left South Bend. I spent time drinking coffee (cafe con leche) and writing in my journal before starting to walk. I walked for an hour or so with a father and son from Brazil. Then I spent most of the rest of the day walking alone which I needed. Walking up mountains, walking down, looking out at vast vistas of mountains and fields and villages. Some highways and towns. Infinite shades of green.

I liked Pamplona a lot and had fantasies of moving there. Completely a fantasy. Now I am in Puenta de la Reina (Bridge of the Queen). I walked past many windmills today--very modern and a bit ominous like giant mechanical soldiers. Riding the bus from Madrid to the start of the walk and again today, I think I have seen hundreds of windmills. I wonder how much energy they provide Spain. It has been a beautiful and tiring day, and the refugios is full of an Irish walking group to keep me in touch with my heritage.

Nutters

May 5, 2007

Rory Stewart, in The Places in Between, tells of a freezing day walking in Afganistan. As he is walking a jeep passes him with British Special Forces men inside. He says,

"When they reached me, an electric window when down..."You,¨said the driver, "are a fucking nutter.¨

This passage from my camino reading was especially with me yesterday. After I crossed this beautiful 11th century bridge in the picture, I hiked for 5-7 kilometers through mud--slimy, slick, wet mud. I thought of the nutter comment and felt sympathy with the sentiment. Still, it was exhilerating after finding an alternative path and a bizarre feeling of accomplishment.

I told some of you I would try to post a few notes on this site and now find myself wondering what to say. Walking is an anachronistsic (sp?) way to travel--still, it is an intimate way to travel as well. I see fewer sights but I seem them slowly and close-up. I also have plenty of time, when walking with others, to talk, and when walking alone, to think. That´s another kind of intimacy. So, a record of this trip is an account of thoughts and travel.

I spent a lot of time with Liz from England, and we decided that much of camino time is either blissful or miserable. I hope more bliss than misery, but I am not attached to that balance. Today, for the most part, has been sweet, and a hospitable touch this morning was the fuente de vino--the wine fountatin. A winery we passed has a fountain on the side of the building (really a lovely faucet) that pours red wine. I had a small nip of wine there this morning around 8:00 A.M. I have heard more than one person talk about how alcohol can get one started in the morning, but I´m not sold on that perspective yet. Still, I was pleased at the generostiy the fountain represents.

After the fountain I passd many vineyards. Most of the grape plants have just a few leaves at this time of year, and I still want to walk for a couple of weeks here during the grape harvest. The bases of the grape plants look ancient. I also passed an orchard of olive trees, grain fields, and a few almond trees. The altitude of today´s walk went from 420 - 700 meters above sea level.

It appears that the number of walkers on the camino keeps going up. Last night we arrived five minutes too late to get a bed in the refugio. Liz and I shared a reasonably priced room.

So, the walk continues.

Pamplona

I am here. This is the old gate into Pamplona and it is quite a sight. I walked 22k today and yesterday. It´s a surprise to the system, but I´m doing pretty well. Yesterday was very mistly, sometimes rainy. It was very beautiful but some of the paths were muddy. I walked half the day yesterday with a woman from England and we have had fun together. We are both sitting in a cyber cafe right now. Last night she and I had dinner with a young man from Finland who spoke wonderful English but is full of anti-American attitudes which of course he has no more.

John and Mary gave me the book The Places in Between by Rory Steward, a Scot who did a very long walk in Afghanistan. He makes my little walk seems like a piece of cake. He walked through snow and cold in January. But it was fun to read it on the plane as preparation. I left SB at 8 AM Sunday and spent 29 hours as a parcel but I was reading about being a walker. I asked John if I could tear the pages out of the book after I read them because I don´t want to carry them. I´ve been doing that and it feels very wicked but also nice. "I´m through with that" I say to myself and rip it out.

This Site Now a Travel-Blog

Rebecca Solnit has written a book with the odd subtitle A History of Walking. She says we depend so much on our cars that “In a sense the car has become a prosthetic…” She also says, with so many conveyances available, we often are carried through space like parcels.

Tomorrow, I am going to be carried to Spain like a parcel. Then I will try to balance that extreme passivity by walking everyday. This short quotation from Solnit is the beginning of this site becoming a little space for me to record my travels instead of my reading. Tomorrow I will fly to Madrid. From Madrid I will take a bus to Roncesvalles which is just a few miles from the border of France. Then, mostly, I will walk to Santiago which is just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Today I’m feeling like this was a silly thing today. I assume I will change my mind soon. The path I will follow is the Camino de Santiago.

Just Passing Through

One day I noticed that I wasn't breathing--I was being breathed. Then I also noticed, to my amazement, that I wasn't thinking--that I was actually being thought and that thinking isn't personal...Thoughts just appear. They come out of nothing and go back to nothing, like clouds moving across the empty sky. They come to pass, not to stay...(from Bryon Katie, Loving What Is).

A Matter of Perspective

Lisa gave me a copy of this little reading which apparently was first published in the book Insight Meditation by Joseph Goldstein.

A friend’s son was in the first grade of school, and his teacher asked the class, “What is the color of apples?” Most of the children answered red. A few said green. Kevin, my friend’s son, raised his hand and said white. The teacher tried to explain that apples could be red, green, or sometimes golden, but never white. Kevin was quite insistent and finally said, “Look inside.” Perception without mindfulness keeps us on the surface of things, and we often miss other levels of reality.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been walking to work at least once a week. My perception of downtown has changed. I no longer drive past. I walk inside it. I like South Bend much more from the walker's perspective.

Thinking about Spain

These boots are almost like mine, and I'm getting ready to wear my boots on a hike through Spain. I was happy to find this poem by Billy Collins. He thinks about walking to Spain, I about walking through Spain, and both of us, a little bit, about magic. I just "discovered" Collins a few weeks ago when my yoga teacher read one of his poems during relaxation. You can hear him read others works here.

Walking across the Atlantic
By Billy Collins

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

Reality Rules

Counter-intuitive ideas from Byron Katie (author of Loving What Is): For me, reality is God, because it rules….I’m a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality….Thoughts aren’t personal. They just appear, like raindrops. Would you argue with a raindrop?... Why are you upset? You’re believing what you think. Want to get sane? Question what you believe.

The Right Questions

In today’s New York Times, Glenn Branca has a column “The 25 Questions.” Branca’s questions come from the perspective of a musician/composer, and he asks questions such as, “Why does the contemporary musical establishment remain so conservative when all other fields of the arts embrace new ideas?”

“I got the idea for this piece,” he says, “from mathematician David Hilbert’s well-known list of '23 Paris Problems’ (1900) that he hoped to see solved in the new century.” It’s a great reminder that a list can be a profound structure for thinking and writing about an issue. I don't, right off, have my ultimate list topic. However, the idea of listing important questions seems useful. For now, I’ll list the questions I’d like to answer in my life. I’ll revise it from time to time.

A Swift Boat a Day...

Wired magazine reports on, “a slick pro-Obama, anti-Clinton riff on Apple's 1984 Super Bowl commercial that's been the buzz of both the blogosphere and the media. By midweek, the Vote Different video had been viewed more than a million times, according to YouTube statistics.” Sarah Lai Stirland of Wired goes on to say, “The video's success has fired up a new round of debate about the impact of federal regulators' decision a year ago to exclude unpaid online political activity from the detailed disclosure requirements that apply to political advertising in traditional media.” This is an interesting development which means that political ads can now be even more dishonest and unethical--and entertaining. See the Wired article for links to some sample ads.

Fossil Fuel Walking

Every bushel of conventionally grown corn requires a half-gallon of fossil fuel to produce (nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides are made from fossil fuels). When you consider that about 60 percent of that corn goes to feed livestock, it’s possible to calculate…that a typical steer consumes about 284 gallons of oil in its lifetime. That’s enough fuel to drive an average car from New York to Los Angeles and back…[W]e could slow the rate of climate change more effectively if meat-eaters went vegan than if they traded their gas-guzzlers in for hybrids. (Amy Hassinger. “Ethical Eating.” UU World, Spring 2007.)

And Lethargy for All

Bob Herbert says this in todays New York Times:

There’s a hole in the American system where the leadership used to be. The country that led the miraculous rebuilding effort in the aftermath of World War II can’t even build an adequate system of levees on its own Gulf Coast.

The most effective answer to this leadership vacuum would be a new era of political activism by ordinary citizens. The biggest, most far-reaching changes of the past century — the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement — were not primarily the result of elective politics, but rather the hard work of committed citizen-activists fed up with the status quo.

It’s time for thoughtful citizens to turn off their TVs and step into the public arena. Protest. Attend meetings. Circulate petitions. Run for office. I suspect the public right now is way ahead of the politicians when it comes to ideas about creating a more peaceful, more equitable, more intelligent society ("Long on Rhetoric, Short on Sorrow").

This is a good perscription, but it will require that we have more guts and energy than our leaders.

An Unusual Election

I heard an interesting fact this week on the Diann Rehm Show. Not since 1952 have we had a presidential election where there was neither an incubant or a vice-president running for office.

Willie Loman?

Yesterday in the New York Times, Frank Rich wrote, "President Bush always had one asset he could fall back on: the self-confidence of a born salesman. Like Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” he knew how to roll out a new product, however deceptive or useless, with conviction and stagecraft. What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war" (“He’s in the Bunker Now”). That's a surprising and interesting image of our president.

Land of Disparity

In today's New York Times, David Brooks writes the following:

Income inequality is on the rise. The rich are getting better at passing their advantages on to their kids….Seymour Martin Lipset, the eminent sociologist who died at 84 on New Year’s Eve. Lipset, …was relentlessly empirical, and rested his conclusions [about inequality] on data as well as history and philosophy. He found that Americans have for centuries embraced individualistic, meritocratic, antistatist values, even at times when income inequality was greater than it is today.

Large majorities of Americans have always believed that individuals are responsible for their own success, Lipset reported, while people in other countries are much more likely to point to forces beyond individual control. Sixty-five percent of Americans believe hard work is the key to success; only 12 percent think luck plays a major role. In his “American Exceptionalism” (1996), Lipset pointed out that 78 percent of Americans endorse the view that “the strength of this country today is mostly based on the success of American business.” Fewer than a third of all Americans believe the state has a responsibility to reduce income disparities, compared with 82 percent of Italians. Over 70 percent of Americans believe “individuals should take more responsibility for providing for themselves” whereas most Japanese believe “the state should take more responsibility to ensure everyone is provided for.”…Political movements that run afoul of these individualistic, achievement-oriented values rarely prosper. (“The American Way of Equality")