The New Obama Fast-Food Insurance Bill

Now that the Health Care Bill has passed I would like to introduce you to the next program out of Washington. The Fast-Food Insurance Bill (FIB). As is well documented, eating fast foods can cause obesity, and put individuals at risk for heart related illnesses, and cause diabetes. This bill supplements the Health Care Bill by providing those with any of these conditions that can be shown to be caused by fast foods with access to Federally sponsored Health/Weight-Loss Spas. Spas are already prevalent in many areas such as Europe, where spa leave time is granted employees along with vacation and sick leave. It is time that the United States catch up, and take the lead again. With FIB if you are diagnosed with fast food related obesity, you can get paid time off, from 4-6 weeks, to go to an officially designated Federal Spa designed to change your eating habits. And furthermore, under the provisions of the this Bill, your employers can not fire you for taking time off. The same applies if your doctor diagnoses you with any kind of heart related symptoms or diabetic symptoms which he feels may be related to eating fast foods.

So, it’s a win-win situation, and everyone should be happy with this Bill. You can eat as much fast food as you want, and feel assured if you cross the line, you will be covered. Tired of that person sitting in the airplane taking up his seat and part of yours also? Chances are he or she will end up in a Federal Spa, and next trip they won’t be crowding anyone else out of their seat. Bosses, are you fed up with employees that seem to sag in the afternoon and never get anything done. Chances are they are suffering from Type II Diabetes and eat fast foods everyday for lunch. After a trip to the Spa, they will happily be productive up until quitting time.

I encourage everyone to write their Congressman and support this exciting new Legislation, and put the U.S. back on the fast track to health and vitality.

The Art of Observing

Definition
American Heritage Dictionary: To be or become aware of, especially through careful and directed attention; notice;from L. observare "watch over, look to, attend to" from ob "over" + servare "to watch”.

When one decides that it is desirable to seek Truth, then the first action is to become an Observer.  Of course one does not have to seek Truth.  One can merrily go about life playing the games presented to one, or creating ones own games, without ever stopping to consider what is illusion and what is not.  Perhaps that is enough for some.  But others at some point realize that there an things in the world that are illusion, and not true.  And after discovering a few of these items may find themselves irrevocably on the Path of Seeking Truth.  When this happens it behooves this person to know something about the Art of Observing.

First Principle
The first and most basic principle of observing is that the observer and that which is being observed are distinct, i.e., are not the same.  Thus, if you can observe something then you are not that thing.  I see a tree.  I am different than the tree, and I am not the tree.  I see my hand.  I am not my hand.  With physical objects this principle is obvious.  But it also applies to non-physical things.  I see a sad bit in a movie, and I observe that a sad feeling rushes over me.  I observe this emotion, so I am not this emotion.  My stomach grumbles (not me) and I see a picture of a hamburger.  I observe this picture, so it is not me.  I can further observe the process of how it occurred, and know that this working of the mind is not me.  So, much can be discovered by just applying this basic, simple principle.

Illusion
The Hindu call it Maya. Aborigines, and shaman from North, Central, and South America call it the Dream. Or the waking Dream. The Toltec wisdom and the Ancient Egyptians had teachings on the illusory world.  In fact, in almost every culture on earth, the deeper spiritual teachings from ‘men of knowledge’ talk of the Illusion of what we experience as the Real World.  So as a student of the Art of Observation, maybe this is something we should take notice of.  Although there are many levels to this perplex Illusion, maybe a good starting point would be perception.

What do we Really Perceive?
When we 'look' at something with our eyes, about 13 different electrical impulses cascade into a portion of the brain. The actual image is inverted in the retina. The various electrical impulses signal things like contrast, motion, color, etc. We then take this composite of signals with inverted image and create something like a holographic image out of it and decide this is what we are 'seeing'. Notice that for us to have what we call 'sight', rather than something akin to a bunch of meter readings from the signals we process, we have to creatively project an image out to view.  Just as the word is not the thing, this image we project is not the thing.  This is not reality or the world out there, but just our creation.  In addition, all our ‘vision’ depends on light.  All our signals come from light reflecting off of objects.  Even the reflections are not the things.  We seem to be far removed from directly sensing any objects or real world ‘things’.  And even that reflected light is only from one small range of electro-magnetic radiation.  If we had more adequate receptors would could sense reflected light from a hugely wider range.  But getting back to our created projections, we also screen the limited input we get.  At any one moment, it is estimated that we tune out over 90% of all sensory input.  For example, if you focus to your peripheral vision you will see much more.  Most likely you have filtered out background sound like street traffic, or the hum or your computer.  So, our created world view is very limited, and is by no means what is ‘really’ there.  It is a very personalized view.  Now add to this that we make errors in perception (no two people describe traffic accident the same way), and let emotions and fixed ideas change our created view and I think you being to get an idea, at least partially, of why what we think of as Reality can be called an Illusion.

I owe many of my insights and inspirations to write about Observing to the writings and teachings of Richard Rose.

A Dawn by Any Other Name

A Dawn by Any Other Name

The Sun busts a move on the Eastern Horizon and jingles my jangles, popping me out of my subterranean state of mind.

So with a great show of force I push that wrinkly portal skin to a position above my eyeballs exposing those scrawny windows that look out on the stereoscopic worldview I call reality.

I know it’s not much, but it’s all I have to operate with in this time and place. Especially at this time which is not my favorite, as I would as soon back this truck called ‘Consciousness’ up and head back to the dark side, as I would pull forward into the light of the day.

Good Fucking Morning Earth!

Fiesta Hermosa May 2009

Once again this Memorial Day I found myself migrating down to Hermosa for fun in the sun.  This time I had the pleasure of pedaling from Venice to Hermosa in the company of my good friend who also enjoys the live music and exercise.

We arrived in time to see the last 45 minutes of the The Long Run, an Eagles Tribute Band.

This is the first time I had seen this band.  I was impressed with the Don Henley vocals, and the Glenn Frey vocals where fairly good.  Overall the band was pretty tight.  The Joe Walsh vocals left a little to be desired but the band did a good job instrumentally on “Rocky Mountain High”.  They played the full range of Eagles sounds from Country to Rock.  Overall, an enjoyable performance.

After having our traditional lunch at Scottie’s and coffee and pastry at Cafe La Bonaparte we caught a bit of the Led Zepagain tribute band.

We had heard these guys a couple of times before, and know they are about the best around at what they do.  They even have Jimmy Page’s stamp of approval.  Swan’s uncanny resemblance to Robert Plant draws immediate attention, but Steve Zukowsky’s guitar work as Jimmy Page shows exceptional musicianship. 

Next we moved over the the Beer Garden to catch the Myron Barnett Band.

Immediately we were impressed by the smoking guitar work of Myron, and the spectrum of his diversified band.  Rooted heavily in the blues, the rock vein of the music was undeniable.  My favorite tune was a funked up version of “Mustang Sally”.

It seems every year in the Beer Garden the dance area in front of the stage attracts one or more aficionados who need to express their unique and eccentric dance moves.  Previously, one such person got removed by ‘The Man’ because his dance was too “different”.  This year a young 25ish gentleman with short hair and shades, and pretty good build, took center stage.  He proceeded to move his feet to some very delicate Celtic looking dance moves.  The whole thing would have seemed a bit gay but for the occasional pounding the ground with his fist during his entertaining performance.  Hard to say if dude was trippin or just having a good time, or both.

That’s if for the Memorial Day event.  Looking forward to the Labor Day Fiesta Hermosa.

et Two (Tangled Up in Two)

What a marvelous invention Two was.  Was there at one time One only?  Did we create the viewpoint that there was Two?  What would we do without Two?  There are Two opposites sides of most everything (every thing being One).

Black and White,

Short and Long,
Up and Down,
Right and Wrong.

Is There not the same as Here from the other side?  And both part of a whole?  Is the trickling stream always the same or always different?

Are we inexorably bound as creatures of Two?  Two eyes, Two ears, Two arms, Two legs.  One nose but Two nostrils.  Two breasts, One brain but Two hemispheres.  Two feet, Two hands.

First is Affinity,
Then comes Hate,
It takes One to Love,
It takes Two to Mate

It is said to differentiate is to understand, to show intelligence.  But how intelligent is it if One cannot see the Whole?

How could there be War if we did not see in Two.  If we were all One People, One Race, One Species.

Them and Us,
Good and Bad,
Weak and Strong,
Happy And Sad

Do I detect a Zeitgeist of pointing out why we are different?  Could there be Fights without Two?  Would we argue if we refused to be For or Against?

Why not point out how we are the same?  What common purposes, what goals do we share?  Could there be a movement toward Unity, and One?  Have we have InTwoViated Two long? 

Does it mean we are all clones? Is there is such a thing as individuality?  Or, perhaps in that very individuality we find what we have in common, in One.  Two, I embrace you.

So … What’s the Plan?

It has come to my attention that mankind as a whole has no real plan.  No goals really, or defined purposes as a whole.  Without this basic idea in place of what we should be doing, it is virtually impossible to define what mankind’s ideal scene is because there is nothing to judge our actions by so as to determine if that scene is being achieved.  It seems there are many group goals and purposes, and individual purposes (often related to financial or material success) but no overall goal or purpose, for humanity en masse.

Perhaps a more basic problem is the ability to even communicate or think as a whole to start with.  Perhaps mankind is too dispersed on the four quarters of the globe, and too individuated to agree on anything.  Yet it is such an important concept that I am reluctant to give up on it easily.  For example, did we not once have a goal to explore the stars, and colonize the universe?  It seems these collective thoughts were flying around much more in the 60’s and 70’s before our space program mysteriously stagnated.

Or what about all the thinkers and writers who have purposed various Utopian societies.  Plato, and Republic, The New Atlantics by Bacon, The City of the Sun by Campanella.  Should we factor in Machiavelli’s and Voltaire’s take on society?  Or from political/economic angles, Morris or Marx.  But with all these ideas, there is one thing abundantly clear.  We have not agreed upon any ideology and been successfully at it either on a local basis for more than a few centuries, or on a global basis ever.  It is also clear that humanity’s current course is not heading toward a positive goal but declining in a ethical and spiritual decay.

So it is time for a change.  Perhaps as Eisenstein wrote recently, we are as a civilization in our adolescence and hitting a late puberty crisis.  Perhaps our self-indulgent stage of growth is coming to an end and we are ready to mature to a new more adult responsible state to meet the future.  Perhaps we will stop behaving like teenage gangs at war with each other and become the guardians and custodians of the planet and instead of its destroyer.  But to do this we must think deeply about our values.  This crossing into adulthood may mean rethinking our basic beliefs about what is important.  Perhaps the very basis of our society, economies and exchange, must change to units of value not based on accumulations of goods and power, but of service and value to mankind.

But maybe I am just a dreamer, and you are just a dream.  Nevertheless, I hope there are other dreamers out there too.

A Paler Thaler

What does the Erzgebirge, or the Ore Mountains, have to do with us. Well, indirectly, just about everything. You see ... this low mountain range between Czechoslovakia and Germany was mined for iron in Medieval times, but in 1516 a silver load was found. The place it was discovered was called Joachimsthal (translated St. Joachim's Dale). This area was owned by Count Von Schlick, who claimed the mine as his own. In 1519 he commanded that silver coins be produced from the mined silver. The name for the new coins became Joachimsthaler. This name was then shortened to 'thaler'. As languages often do, this name by 1600 morphed into the English word 'dollar', and that is the origin of our dollars.

Now that would be interesting enough, but the story does not end here. It was later discovered that there was another material in Joachimsthal called pitchblende. This black, heavy, pitchy mineral was later to play almost as large a role in our lives as the thaler. In 1789, Martin Heinrich Klaproth extracted a grayish metal from the pitchblende (in 1810 he became the first Professor of Chemistry at the University of Berlin). He was searching for a name for the material. Eight years previously Sir William Herschel had discovered the a new planet and called it Uranus (I'll skip all the Greek God stories and reason why he chose this name). Klaproth thought he would sort of honor this discovery and named his new found metal Uranium.

At first, the only use for the metal and its derivatives was as a good coloring agent in ceramic glazes. With only .006% mixture it would produce a good yellow color in a ceramic. Stronger percentages would produce other colors, like orange, green, brown, and black. But of course, this is not the only use of uranium. Because it always has a process of radioactive decay going on part of the mineral is converted to radium. Later Madam Curie discovered radium in the pitchblende samples from Joachimsthal, and that was the beginning of research of radioactive materials.

So that is the story of Joachimsthal. You can bet the original thaler was worth a lot more than our dollar today. In fact, you could say the dollar has paled in comparison.

references:
1. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
2. Wikipedia - Uraninite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitchblende