I’ve never been on a tour before.  I’ve always looked down on them for some reason.  However,  I’ll be leaving tomorrow night to meet my father in Houston where we will fly down and tour Costa Rica.  Not like the Panama trip a few years ago when we made up our own itinerary and travel plans, but a conducted tour which provides all the meals, lodging and travel arrangments.  It looks like it will be lots of fun and I am looking forward to it.  I have always had a hankering to go to Costa Rica ever since I turned down a chance to spend a year in that country studying lizards–and getting paid doing it.

    I hope to be reporting on the trip, if not as I go, at least when I get back.

   My father returned home from the hospital today!  He had open heart surgery last Monday (Jan 25) which went very well.  I guess they said that he could have gone home yesterday (Friday), but he said he wasn’t ready to leave yet!  Four days seems like a very short stay after such major surgery, but I guess that is the norm now if the patient is doing well.  He was in ICU until Wednesday.  He is at my sister’s place where he will stay for about the next two weeks as he recovers.  I sincerely thank everybody for their prayers and good wishes.

     Needless to say I am very relieved and overjoyed that he is doing so well.  He has never had any sort of major illness, no surgery, and as a child, I can’t remember him ever being sick.   His experience which seemed to come out of the blue with no warning (good cholesterol levels, blood pressure about 120/70, etc) makes me much more determined to live the sort of lifestyle that precludes such problems–exercise, proper diet, etc.

     Last Thursday (Jan 21)  my father had some chest pain after returning from the store.  It wouldn’t go away,  and soon my father realized that this wasn’t the normal discomfort that he sometimes felt from the acid reflux which he sometimes has.  Then he did something out of character–he asked his next door neighbor to call an ambulance.

    I understand how out of character this was for him, because I am just like my father in many ways.  We both would tend to ignore pain until it became overwhelming, and for him to ask for an ambulance shows that it was something out of the ordinary.   I am still surprised that he did this and didn’t try to drive to the emergency room by himself.  It just goes to show that he was experiencing something out of the ordinary and that he is much smarter than I am.

     The next morning he had an angiogram and instead of a stent which they thought he might need, they found he had two coronary arteries which showed some blockage.  He would need double bypass surgery.  The interesting thing is that they found that his EKG was normal.  A slight elevation of heart enzymes showed that he had a mild heart attack also.

    My father will be 86 in March and has always been extremely healthy.  The doctor, one of the best in the Dallas area, said that he doesn’t consider the patient’s age in considerating this procedure, but their health, and that my father was otherwise in excellent health.

     The operation will take place at 7:15 am CST tomorrow.  I’d appreciate any kind thoughts or prayers sent my father’s way.

     Recently I was going through my chest-of-drawers in a long-delayed effort to clean them out.   As I sorted through some of the clothes I realized that my entire way of thinking about clothes has changed over the years.  I have always kept any clothes that I had until they literally fell apart or were outgrown.  After I reached adulthood, I would go for years without a size change, so I ended up with some very old clothes.

   I found to my chagrin and horror that there were clothes here that I acquired back in another era of my life.   Here was a t-shirt that I bought for a dollar in a street fair on Massachusetts street in Lawrence, Kansas back in 1972!  And here was a t-shirt that I had bought at about the same time that had the “ecology flag” emblazoned on the front.  I remember wearing that shirt on a Mammalogy field trip to Dodge City, Kansas in ‘71.  In the back of the drawer I pulled out more relics of bygone times.

        One was a white undershirt with a picture of a duck riding a football and with the inscription “The Ducks Take to the Air” printed on it.  I remember somebody I knew who was leaving the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon in the summer of 1977 and was about to throw the shirt away and offered it to me.  I took it of course.   Here was a peculiar fuzzy sweater that I had received as a gift for Christmas in 1972.  And there in the back corner of the drawer was a t-shirt, stained with the smoke from an apartment fire that I had in ‘81 which I remember buying in the summer of 1965!

    I gathered all these past mementos up preparatory to throwing them away or giving them to Good Will.  I put them into a gym bag which my grandparents had given me in 1962.  To this I added an old pillow which I had never liked which I had acquired for green stamps in the fall of 1967.  I sat there looking at the pitiful pile of stuff that I would never use again.  I busied myself with newer clothes that I never wore.  Afterwards I came back to the pile of old stuff.

    I put these all away again, telling myself that perhaps I would throw them out during the next cleaning.  For some reason the longer I possess something, the harder it is to get rid of it.  My New Years resolution is to get rid of new clothes— less than fifteen years old or so.

     It is Christmas Eve, 11:55 pm, and I am alone at work, getting ready to go out into the frosty night.  Once again I think back on past times with my family as I have many times before.  I haven’t posted much lately because I have been working so many long hours, but soon it will be all back to normal.  Merry Christmas to All!

      I was wondering why people were staring at me at the Mississippi visitor’s center last summer after I had pulled off Interstate 10.  I checked my zipper, nope…wiped my nose, nope nothing there, then I realized that I was wearing two pairs of glasses, one low down on my nose and the other right above it. 

       I have always had excellent eyesight, never needing glasses…until a few years back.  More than a few years actually.  Presbyopia is an ailment that inflicts many people as the lens of the eye looses its flexibility and can no longer accomodate close vision.   When this condition got to the point that I could ignore it no longer, I bought two expensive pairs of glasses.  “Over a hundred dollars for the frames?” I almost shouted in disbelief to the clerk.  “I can get a pair of sunglasses for a few dollars that has perfectly good frames!”

     “Oh no!,” she said, horrified, “these glasses are much finer, much lighter and stronger.”  So I ended up spending several hundred dollars for two pairs of glasses.  Years later I realize that…I was absolutely right, and was foolish to have bought such thin frames that snapped the first time any pressure was put upon them, and I never did get used to the bifocals.

     Now I get my glasses at a place that has satisfied my needs in many ways, and I have never had second thoughts about the glasses that I buy there—the Dollar Tree.  I buy glasses for close work for one dollar with a diopter value of about 2.5.  I also found that recently I have problems seeing far away–especially when driving at night, and I found that these one dollar glasses with a diopter of about 1.25 are great for seeing far away.  I even found some sunglasses with a diopter value of 1.25 which are great on sunny days.  These glasses work wonderfully well and are durable.  I have some that I’ve had for years, and I usually never have any problems with them unless I sit on them.

      So that day as I was driving down I-10 I was wearing my “far away glasses” (1.25) and doing perfectly fine until I needed to look down at the speedometer or something else on the dash board like the radio controls, and then I needed my “close up” (2.5) glasses.  Both were hanging about my neck by cords, and I found that by placing the close up glasses low on my nose and my far away glasses up higher on my nose, I could switch back and forth with no problems.  However, I had neglected to pull one off my nose when I went into the visitor’s center.  

        I found that method works very well, but I haven’t quite overcome the attention I get when I do it, so I usually only do it at home.  However, I have left the diopter labels on the lenses in order to tell the glasses apart, and I always get comments such as:  “You still have the label on your glasses.”  “I know,” I reply,  “And I still have the label on this one,” pointing to the other one hanging about my neck.

When I reached the beach on my walk two Sundays ago, I saw a large black body out in the water, then a great fin protruding above the surface.  At first I was confused as to what I was seeing,  then everything clicked into place, and I realized that I was watching a pod of Orca or Killer Whales coursing north through the narrows of Puget Sound.  I immediately began shouting with excitement.  Not only was this the first time that I had ever seen these magnificent creatures, but they are rarely seen this far south in the sound.  They had just passed the park which I was in and were taking their time on their way north, their backs and fins protruding above the water.  I stood there watching them until they disappeared.  Then I realized that I had been the only one shouting, but I felt blessed and full of energy.

The Killer Whale got its name from the fact that it often was observed eating whales, but there are at least three different groups or Orcas which seem to have specialized in either fish and squid eating, and those which eat almost exclusively marine mammals.  I was tremendously excited after seeing the Orcas pass, and while musing on them I was curiously reminded of the end of the universe.

I was reminded of the death of the universe by the fact that Killer Whales occupy the top of their food chain, and thus their numbers and biomass are severely limited by the Second Law of Thermodynamics which basically says that energy tends to go from ordered states to disordered states, and during any transfer of energy some energy is lost to the system (converted to heat).  Thus every time a cow eats its supper (plants) roughly 90% of the energy in the plants is converted to heat and lost to the system (ecosystem in this case).  So consider the following marine food chain scenario:

phytoplankton (100%)—->zooplankton(10%)—->small fish(1%)—->larger fish(.1%)—->seals(.01%)—–>Killer Whales(.001%)

Suppose the phytoplankton by means of photosynthesis captures a certain amount of energy from the sun.  We’ll say this amount of energy is 100%.  This represents what we start out with in this food chain.  The zooplankton (small floating animals) eat the phytoplankton, but about 90% of the available energy is lost, so the zooplankton only ends up with 10% of what we started with.  Then the small fish eat the zooplankton and the same thing happens, 90% is lost and the small fish end up with 1% of the original amount.  And so on…until we end up with the Killer Whales which in this example will end up with only 1/100,000 of what we started with–all due primarily to the Second Law of Thermodynamics!   Not much energy is available to the top predators in food chains.

Or consider this alternate food chain:

phytoplankton (100%)—->zooplankton(10%)—->Great Blue Whales (1%)

The Great Blue Whales by eating much lower on the food chain (zooplankton: krill mostly), theoretically has 1% of the energy with which we started–a thousand times more potential energy than is available for the Killer Whales!  So theoretically the biomass of Great Blue Whales could be as much as the total biomass for the small fish in the first food chain…just concentrated in much bigger bodies, potentially much more biomass than in the Killer whales.  Two strategies exist in this case:  by eating at this level in this food chain, you can be small and extremely numerous or large and much less numerous–the biomass should be about the same.  I think there is a lesson here as the human population density soars above 6 billion people.  Can we continue to eat high on the food chain?

So why did all this make me ponder the end of the universe?  Because if energy continues to go from concentrated sources of energy to less concentrated sources (entropy), then eventually the universe will run down.  All the stars  and other energy systems will have dissipated their energy into heat, there will be no more people, spiders, planets, stars…nothing but a universe in which the energy is evenly distributed–the Heat Death of the Universe.

I was reading the paper today, and when I got to the funny papers (comics), I found an odd thing.  I kept seeing the same references to volunteerism and community service in many of the strips.  Below is a summary of what I found:

1. Garfield: “Today I volunteered to help clean up the city park.”
2. The Born Loser: girl volunteered to rake leaves for the born loser who had hurt his arm.
3. Stone Soup: woman building houses for charity in Thailand.  (I hate this strip and never read it…did this time for the survey).
4. Pickles: The old lady volunteered to read to schoolchildren.
5. Luann: A service “team” started at high school “Woohoo! Volunteers rule!”
6. Baby Blues: Children volunteered for too many projects.  “Ok, I got everything straightened out with your service coach.”
7. Pooch Cafe: Pooch volunteered to visit sick kid in hospital.
8. Dennis the Menace.  Dennis volunteered to wash the Wilson’s windows.  Sign read: “Volunteer to help others.”
9. Blondie:  Dagwood volunteered to help with a senior citizens’ project.
10. The Family Circus:  Kids helping out in the kitchen.  “Hi, Mommy!  Can I volunteer to be some ‘nother help?”
11. Marmuduke: He starts a homeless shelter for dogs in the house.

Eleven out of 22 comic strips dealt with volunteerism–50%!  “Ok,” I thought, “obviously it must be Volunteer Week or something like that.”  But no,  Volunteer Week was April 19-25.  What the heck is going on?  It must be something that has been in the news or perhaps being pushed by somebody…but for the life of me I have no idea what.  I have noticed this happening before–the comics suddenly dealing with a particular subject.

Ok, I just googled some more and may have found what is going on: “18 October: The media blitz has arrived.  As we reported, in June, the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) announced a commitment to incorporate volunteering and service into both news programming and ongoing fictional television series beginning the week of October 19.   EIF has branded this effort as “iParticipate” and opened a Web site at www.iparticipate.org.  There you can learn about the initiative, keep up with a blog about it, and view video clips of celebrities answering the question, “how do you serve?”” http://www.energizeinc.com/news.html

Ok…it’s some sort of media blitz by the Entertainment Industry Foundation.  I guess it even involves the funny papers.  How does this work?  Do the comic strip writers receive their subject du jour from somebody, and they dutifully accomodate their strips to  promulgate the subject?

Why am I not thrilled?   Volunteerism is a good cause isn’t it?  And the media has been influencing us for years to buy products, etc.  Brainwashing for a good cause is good isn’t it?  Why does this leave a bad taste in my mouth?  (making mental note of those strips who participated and those who didn’t)

     It has been a dry summer here in the Pacific Northwest.  On my walks the voice of the small brook has gradually gotten quieter and quieter as the summer progressed.  I love to listen to it as I have written before, but it has recently become a dim ghost of itself.  First it became a trickle, then a whisper, and then I had to strain to hear anything at all.  Finally there came the day when it was silent.  For the first time in my memory the little stream became mute.  I was surprised at how much I missed its cheerful voice which has always lifted my spirits on my walks.

        Today there came a long soaking rain.  I watched the rain come down as I drank hot black coffee at my favorite coffee shop.   At times the rain came down very hard and I even saw a flash of lightning which is always a cause for comment in this weird part of the world.  The drops of rain made little bubbles in the puddles that swirled, and I watched as the bubbles floated along the pavement and down the drain.

   I was immediately transported back to a time when I was about four years old.  We were living in this house at 501 N. 10th St. in Waco, Texas, and I was on the back steps watching a heavy rain as it ran off the roof.  As the runoff hit the ground it made  large puddles with bubbles foating about.  The bubbles moved about in a mad sort of swirl which fascinated me.

     My young mother came out and watched the bubbles with me. “Men and women dancing!” she laughed.  For some reason this memory has stayed with me almost buried, but resurrected today after so many years, as I watched the first heavy rain of the Autumn here in the Northwest.

   The Grey Wolf (Canis lupus), almost hunted to near extinction in the lower forty-eight states, once again can be legally killed.  This has come about after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the wolf off the endangered species list last May and will allow Idaho and Montana to reduce the wolf population down to 150 per state.  This will allow about two thirds of the areas wolves to be killed.  Over 11,000 tags  ($11.75 apiece) have been sold, but Tony McDermott, fish and game commisioner of the Panhandle area, estimated as many as 70,000 might be sold.  As of now two wolves have been killed today. 

     Listening to the reports on the radio and reading the accounts concerning this issue, I was struck by the vehemence exhibited by the hunters.  It was if they were on a holy mission.  Here are some of their remarks:

1.  Wolves kill elk wantonly and leave the meat to rot.  They are depleting the elk and deer herds. 

2.   Apparently some of these intense feelings against the wolves originate in fear.  Some fear that they need to be protected against a predator:  ”They’re running down the middle of the road in Lowman in the winter.”  Others indicate that now they won’t have to worry about their kids at the bus stop, or their pets, and that now they can go for a walk without carrying a gun.   

Are wolves really as dangerous as these people claim?  Are their fears justified?  Here’s the conclusion of two studies:

“The Linnell and McNay reports show that wolf attacks on people are very rare. The records they examined indicate that wolves have wounded and killed several hundreds of people, but given these attacks were over a period of centuries and throughout the northern hemisphere, wolf attacks are sparse and meagre. Only 17 cases of people killed by wolves were found in the last 50 or so years in the whole of North America, Europe and Russia - 17 people in a human population of roughly a billion people.”

Here is another person’s perspective commenting on these reports: 

“See this in perspective. About fifteen people are killed on average per year in horse riding accidents in England and Wales alone (Office for National Statistics). Horses are more dangerous than wolves.

Again, almost all the wolves in the US outside Alaska live in Minnesota. These 2,500 wolves have killed no one. Yet one or two people are killed each year in that state by the rarity of lightning strike (NOAA). Lightning is more dangerous than wolves.”   The writer goes on to claim that live stock depredation is greatly exaggerated, and that wolves can often live close to people with few problems.

Here is a conservationist’s viewpoint:

“The scheduled wolf hunts would cripple the regional wolf population by isolating wolves into disconnected subgroups incapable of genetic or ecological sustainability. The wolf hunts would also allow the killing of the breeding alpha male and female wolves, thereby disrupting the social group, leaving pups more vulnerable.”

No other endangered species has ever been delisted at such a low population level and then immediately hunted to even lower unsustainable levels.

The decision to hunt wolves comes as Yellowstone National Park wolves declined by 27 percent last year – one of the largest declines reported since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995. The northern Rockies wolf population also has not achieved a level of connectivity between the greater Yellowstone, central Idaho, and northwest Montana areas that is essential to wolves’ long-term survival.

Wolves are still under federal protection in Wyoming because a federal court previously ruled that Wyoming’s hostile wolf-management scheme leaves wolves in “serious jeopardy.” The Fish and Wildlife Service in the recent past held that a state-by-state approach to delisting wolves was not permitted under the Endangered Species Act, but the federal government flip flopped on its earlier position and this year took wolves in Idaho and Montana off the endangered species list while leaving those in Wyoming on the list.

In addition to Wyoming, the states of Idaho and Montana have refused to make enforceable commitments to maintain viable wolf populations within their borders.”

Lots of hysterical claims have been made by those advocating the wolf hunts.  Personally I believe that they need to present more hard data to support their claims.

    I was recently watching this TV program on black holes.  As usual when I contemplate such things, I became slightly depressed.

    When a star which is about three times or more the mass of our sun reaches the end of its life, it collapses and in the process blows out a great mass of matter and energy creating a supernova.  What is left behind is so incredibly dense that the gravitational field that it creates traps even light itself from escaping—the black hole.

     Black holes come in many sizes.  Sometimes they coalesce, creating even larger black holes.  The evidence is pretty conclusive that the center of most galaxies is occupied by massive black holes.

    The program showed computer simulations of galactic collisons and close encounters that spanned eons (see here for some simulations).  The billions of stars in each galaxy in these simulations resembled dust motes that swirled and rotated about each other creating fantastic shapes before settling down to some sort of stable configuration.  Here is one interesting quote concerning the movement of galaxies:

It is speculated that a feeding frenzy occurs when large galaxies collide resulting in even more massive black holes.   It is believed that hundreds of thousands of smaller stellar black holes swarm about the massive galactic black hole subjecting the nearby star systems to a destruction derby which causes some stars to leave the galaxy entirely or causes it to fall into the massive center.

     Although our own Milky Way Galaxy has probably not consumed any large galaxies (smaller ones, yes :burp:), in about two billion years, Andromeda, our nearest large galaxy, and ours will begin to collide.  The massive black holes of each galaxy will coalesce to form one large super black hole that will consume incredible amounts of matter, igniting a new quasar.

   Now the thought of all this is totally fascinating in some respects.  The idea of billions of galaxies  inexorably following the laws of physics…matter and energy interacting in such spectacular ways fascinates and enthralls one’s imagination.

   But then my imagination swerves off on a tangent.  I think of the crowded galactic center, probably having large numbers of older stars than what is found out near the rim.  Many of these older solar systems very likely have life forms on their planets.  A certain small percentage, amounting to thousands when we consider these large numbers, very possibly supports intelligent life forms.

    I think of these intelligent beings contemplating their fate, watching their own star system begin it’s inexorable slide toward the maw of the great ravening beast at the galactic center.  I think of the panic, the frantic plans to save the race, possibly sending out colony ships.  I think of those left behind perhaps having the time to develop a philosophy of resignation to prepare themselves for the inevitible end. 

    I think of this happening thousands of times over the millions and billions of years that is involved in the process.   I think of these civilizations, unique in their outlook and philosophies…lost forever.

     And if this isn’t bad enough, I think of the implications.  I think of sentient beings living on  infitesimal motes of dust, coming into being, surviving and ultimately wending their way to extinction in a blind, uncaring universe of interacting energy and matter.

      Sometimes this is disturbing when I ponder upon it.  

     Then I begin to think of the relative nature of it all.  The life of man compared to the 14 billion year age of our universe, the almost four billion years that have passed since the origins of life on earth, the gradual evolution of life eventually resulting in me pondering such things.  

     And then moments like this morning as I walked through fog and mist, my face upturned, feeling the cool droplets on my face, listening to the foghorns and the sound of small birds in the forest through which I passed. 

     Perhaps we create our own caring, our own warm little niche in this universal howling wilderness.

    Thank the good Lord for  small things, I think…to heck with the long view.

       I had an unusually uplifting experience yesterday–I was able to repair a defective coffee maker!   I purchased the Mr. Coffee back in June, and it has proved to be an excellent coffee brewer.  I have always had a favorable impression with this brand.  We have used it where I work for many years and have never had a single malfunction despite heavy use.  I also knew one person who always bought a Mr. Coffee brewer at Sears and who purchased the service contract at the same time.  He was a heavy coffee drinker and had the pot on just about every day all day.   With this heavy usage the heating element usually gave out after about a year or two, but he was always able to get a new coffee brewer from Sears for free because of the agreement.  He did this for many years.

     I just recently returned from my Texas hadj and tried brewing coffee last Friday for the first time.  I left the room and came back later to find that none of the coffee had gone into the pot!  Fortunately the coffee maker was in a wide tray and all the coffee had run out and collected in the tray.  Since I didn’t want to waste the coffee, and since I knew that I would spill the coffee if I attempted to lift the flexible plastic tray and pour it into the carafe, I got a straw and sucked the coffee up one straw full at a time and transferred it to the coffee pot until the level in the tray had gone down far enough so I could safely lift it without spilling it.

     Upon examination I found that there was a lever which was pushed back when the coffee pot was put onto the hot plate.  When pushed back, the lever pressed up against this valve which opened and allowed the coffee in the basket which contained the grounds to flow through.  The coffee flowed straight down which unfortunately caused it to flow down on the outside of the coffee pot instead of into it.

     After much experimentation I found that there was no way that the coffee could flow down into the pot.  It invariably flowed on the outside of the pot and then onto the countertop.    I found that coffee leaking out onto the counter top  seemed to be a common complaint with coffee brewers.  It was very frustrating since the coffee brewer had worked like a charm until it suddenly began to malfunction.

     Then I found this little plastic dohickey in the dish washer.  I couldn’t figure out where it had come from, until I finally figured out that it snapped up under the basket and the release valve.  It was a little plastic “chute” that directed the coffee into the center of the coffee pot as it was released from the basket holding the coffee grounds.  This was the reason that the coffee was running straight down along the side of the coffee pot; there was no chute that directed the coffee to the proper position!

     I snapped the chute into position and the Mr. Coffee brewer worked perfectly!  For some reason I felt unusually elated at this little triumph.  I had gone online the night before searching for a solution to no avail.  I had even dreamed about it, and almost dreaded getting up yesterday morning because I knew that I had to work on the danged thing and didn’t have a clue where to begin.

    I began to think of how small this little victory was compared to more significant achievements that might have been performed by my ancestors in the past:  “Hey look I made fire with a stick!”  “I scared the saber tooth away from the campfire last night!”  “I finished plowing the back forty with the old mule!”  “I skinned 14 buffalo yesterday!”   All this compared to: “I found the plastic dohickey that fixed the coffee maker!” 

    I don’t care…I still feel good about it!

P.S.  If you don’t understand what I said above perhaps this excerpt from Mr. Coffee, Inc. will clarify things: (http://www.patents.com/Mr-Coffee-Inc/Bedford-Heights/OH/1307733/company/).

     I am reading The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers for the second time and have been struck again by just how much I like and admire his novels.   I have read and re-read his books since discovering them years ago, and they never fail to entertain and enthrall me.

      Every time that I read one of his books I am tempted to sit down and devour it as soon as possible, but I try to strictly limit myself.  I try to stretch it out as long as possible, like a wonderful meal, savoring every aspect of it.  Anything really good in my opinion is worth taking one’s time with–and Tim Power’s books are very, very good.

     His books could be labeled fantasy I suppose, or science fiction, but these labels really don’t do his books justice.  Often his novels deal with historical events with the supernatural thrown in.  His history is exact, but it is interpreted in his own unique sort of way.

     It probably doesn’t matter in what order the books are read, but I would definitely read these three in order since they are sequels: Last Call, Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather.  These three books are a must read if you are interested in Tim Powers, although all of the others are very good.

     The Anubis Gates is such an incredible and disturbing book that I limit my reading of it because parts of it are actually painful to me.

    If you are interested in unique and strange stories, you must read the novels of Tim Powers.

     When mankind contemplates the infinite, and ponders upon origins, he is often led to the conclusion, or hope, that there is meaning in the interplay of the natural forces that he sees about himself.

     And the concept of a Creator of everything, while uplifting, can be intimidating also.  To whom does one direct one’s prayers and supplications in the hope that that great All is not entirely oblivious and uncaring to the goings on of conscious beings?  How can one presume upon such a high being?

     The Catholics seem to have decided to not importune the High Creator so much, but to call upon lesser deities such as angels and the saints which they have determined can intercede for people.  Other religions have populated the cosmos with small gods also.

    This can be seen in the beliefs of the ancient Greeks, Hinduism and Shinto, and Sumer and many others, with the beliefs in many gods.  Shinto for example populates natural objects with spirits or kami.  Such beliefs people the natural world with spirits and essences, the spirit of a spring, or a boulder, a valley, mountains, etc.

     Thus one can possibly achieve one’s needs by consulting a lesser deity without bothering the supreme being

     Unkind words once uttered can never be retrieved.  I’m sure that everybody has heard this before.  Everybody knows that words can leave lasting impressions.  I can remember unkind words stretching back to my childhood.  Likewise, I can remember words of kindness,  but it seems that harsh words somehow have more of an effect, although everybody has different sensitivities.

     Even when such harsh or kind words are forgotten, I believe that their effects can build up over the years, influencing the character of a person.  Imagine a young child given words of kindness and support, and then compare this child’s life to one who was exposed to harsh critical words.  Such words accumulate like the cement that binds one’s life together, permeating its essence and coloring the outlook and attitudes towards life.

     That’s one reason that I try so hard to not say hurtful words to other people.  Whenever I slip up and do this, as has just happened, such words come back at me with renewed force, and I always end up feeling perfectly awful about it.

Here’s some birds I saw in Panama.  The page and plate numbers refer to the Birds of Panama.

Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241)  is considered by many to be the preeminent Japanese poet.  As a poet, diarist and critic, his influence on premodern Japanese poetry is unsurpasssed.

His poetry specialized almost exclusively in the waka, the dominant lyrical form of the Japanese classical period, a five-line poem consisting of thirty-one syllables, arranged in measures of five syllables, then seven, five, seven, and seven.        

Touched by drizzling rain,
All around, the treetops
With their colours say
Autumn in evening is
A time of change, indeed.

                                     As I gaze out,
                                     Neither blossom nor Autumn leaves
                                     Are here;
                                     In a beachfront hut
                                     On an Autumn evening.

Fallen rain dripping
From the leaning eaves
So shallow that
Swiftly in pours
The moonlight.

                                Awaiting one whose
                                Path among the foothills
                                Has vanished, I think;
                                The cedar by my eaves
                                Is buried deep in snow.

Links:

A Prof studies this poet.

Various links and a good article.

His poems.

I have just begun reading a book called The Last Theorem (2009) by Arthur C. Clark and Poul Anderson, the famous science fiction writers.  It begins in Sri Lanka, where Clarke spent so many years of his life, and spends some time talking about the tensions between the various ethnic groups.

It got me to thinking about the problems that so many countries have with their ethnic and religious groups.  Here in our country, we try to celebrate our diversity and claim that it makes us stronger, but in some countries the conflict between the many factions makes me wonder if such diversity can go just so far before being counterproductive.  Sri Lanka seems to be a good example of this type of this type of conflict.

There are many ethnic and religious groups in Sri Lanka.  Some of these groups have been living in this area for many years, and instead of being assimilated, they still retain their identity.

The Veddah’s are the descendants of some of the ancient inhabitants of Sri Lanka.  These indigeneous hunter-gather people were gradually supplanted by the immigration of the Sinhalese people.  Human remains 18,000 years have been found in Sri Lanka that show genetic links with the present day Veddahs.  They have not preserved their own language which is related to Sinhalese, and are becoming less numerous as they become assimilated into the population.  Their religion is a mixture of animism and of Buddhism or of Hinduism depending upon the part of the country.

The Tamils are of two main groups, one group of Tamil speaking people has been in the area since ancient times (12.7% of the population), whereas other Tamils are of more recent immigration from India, coming as workers under the British Raj to work on plantations in the central highland area (5.5%).  They have never become assimilated and many are emigrating back to India.  Many of the Indian Tamils are of lower castes and looked down upon by some of the upper caste Sri Lankan Tamils.  Most of the Tamils are separated from the majority Sinhalese by their religion (Hinduism) and their language which is of Dravidian origin.

The Sinhalese are the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka (about 74%) probably migrating from northern India about 500 BC.  Their language, Sinhala, is of the Indo-European group, and most of the Sinhalese are Buddhists.  There is a difference between the low country Sinhalese which have been influenced by 400 years of European influence and the high country Sinhalese which remained independent (Kingdom of Kandy) until the early 1800s.

The Muslims (about 7% of the population) are comprised of three primary groups of Islamists: the Sri Lankan Moors who are mostly descendants of Arab traders which came to India between the 8th and 15th century (now speaking a dialect of Tamil but originally speaking Arwi) ; the Indian Moors who came to Sri Lanka during the colonial period looking for opportunities consisting of: the Memon (from Pakistan), and the Bohra and the Kohja (mostly from northwestern India); the Malays of south east Asia, many whom came with the Dutch and English as soldiers or convicts.

The Burghers are primarily descended from the union of male European colonists who imigrated to Sri Lanka beginning back in the 16th centuries and local Sri Lankan women.  Many of the Burghers have immersed themselves into the European culture and are mostly Christian, tending to concentrate in urban areas.   Recently their numbers have begun to diminish primarily because of emigration.

And as if all this mixture of groups, languages, religions, ethnicity and cultures wasn’t enough, many of the groups have a caste system, often differing between the groups.  In India, another fantastically diverse country, such diversity has more room to spread out resulting in fewer groups attaining political power to the point where it can destablize the national government, whereas in the much smaller Sri Lanka such diverse groups have become entrenched and contribute to the destabilizing of the national government.  Most people are aware of the civil war between the Tamils and the national government that now seems to be drawing to a resolution.  See this site for a wonderful description of Sri Lanka, it’s government, history and culture.

So what’s my point?  It is just a concern that these conflicts between various ethnic, racial and religious groups that have been going on for centuries and even millenia, and which have caused untold conflict and suffering, could conceivably destabilize our own country.  Yes, such diversity enriches our lives, but…how does a political system act to incorporate such diversity and at the same time preserving social order?

How does America preserve our political system while accomodating the beliefs of such diverse groups?    The American founding fathers had a horror of involving themselves in the conflicts of the old world.   Unfortunately sometimes new imigrants bring all the old hates and conflicts to the new beginning that is America.  There seems to be a fine line between oppression and anarchy.  Thus far our country has managed to maintain this balancing act.  As new imigrants flood into the country, I fear this accomodation may be upset, resulting in increased turmoil.

We are living in a hurricane of change.  Old verities are being swept away as the change accelerates.  At such times I think that we must hold to certain unassailable beliefs in order to prevent being swept away in chaos, while at the same time maintaining a flexibility of mind and belief that allows us to adapt to this change–an absoluteness of principles combined with suppleness of mind.  Is this possible?

I have a bad habit of buying books.  Really it is the only bad habit that of mine that I can think of –unless it is overweening modesty (cough).  The reason this is a problem is that I have no more room for books.  All my bookshelves are full, and I have boxes of books in the garage and under the bed.  My house in Texas has bookshelves full of books, rooms full of books.  Why have I kept them all these years?  I admit it…it is a vice.   I have never been able to rid myself of books…except once when I thought that I was going to move I gave away 19 boxes of books to Goodwill.  I have regretted this rash act ever since.

So I have tried to buy fewer books and check out more from the library.  This has worked somewhat.  Below is a list of books checked out from the library this year.  Looking at the list and how small it is reminds me that this is just a small number of the books that I am reading.  The rest I  have bought or reread from my personal library.  It is embarrassing to look at the list.  Obviously I am no highbrow.  I lean to science fiction and action books.  I have been reading more mysteries also.  The problem with the library is that sometimes I am forced to read a particular book.  They often don’t have the books that I am looking for, so out of a sense of desperation, I pick out something that normally I would never buy or read otherwise.  It’s hard, this habit of mine.  I know it is useless to complain though since I have always been this way, and I really don’t think that I can change.

      I just call it the City.  It is a place that I have dreamed about for many years.   Recently the dreams have increased in frequency.

     It is huge, and the central area is old and decaying with crumbling red brick buildings and dark alleys.  It is always night when I visit the decaying inner area, and the street lights, when present, are dim and yellow, except for some areas which have brilliant green halogen lamps.  I wander the dim streets and pass through the maze of hallways in the buildings, climbing down steep stairways with no rails, past stained walls dripping with moisture.  

    The people in the decaying area are furtive with shadowed faces.  They wander the passageways also on missions of their own.  They rarely speak.  Sometimes I pass dim rooms which are filled with their quiet presences.   I look in but can’t make out exactly what they are doing.  There is always a hint of forboding and danger mixed with a strange expectation.

   There are other more normal areas of the city.  The buildings are well kept and the people appear normal going about their business.  In my dreams I only visit these areas in the daytime.  Last night in my dream,  I was in an expensive looking area with upscale buildings and thick, milling crowds.  There was an amusement area and the crowds seemed in a light mood.  I heard two ladies talking, however, about something so bizarre that it changed the entire atmosphere in my dream…from light to very strange.

    Over the many years that I have been dreaming of this strange city, I have lived in several places, each in different neighborhoods.  I have also had several jobs, and I have attended different universities in the city. 

    I have only recently realized that all these dreams over the years have been about the same place…the same city.  I realized this as the frequency of these dreams increased.  That’s when I began just calling it the City.