Against the Wind

Just another photo today.  I’ve spent the first part of the week with a guy here doing some handy man sorts of jobs.  All my doors now open and close.  Closet doors are hung again.  It really does help the look of the place.

After the walk through the gardens of the Alhambra, groups of folks gather at the gate, and wait for their group’s number to come up.  To keep the place from being wall to wall  people, there is a lot of queueing.  This photo is on the plaza outside the gate that is the main tourist entrance into the Alhambra.  The amazing thing is that the entire area was getting to crumbling ruins status until Washington Irving wrote stories of the Alhambra.  The stories started the tourists coming by, and the Spanish government saw a way to collect fees and start doing some preservation and renovation of the place.  It undergoes near constant repair.

The photos will be from the Alhambra for a long time to come, though if I get close to Miranda, I’ll include one of her, as she’s the infant that is growing and changing.  T– & B–, Miranda’s parents, are off to Washington and NYC here shortly.  Bartley’s brother is getting married.  It may be a while before I’m close enough to get a photo.

Meanwhile for today, it’s bridge at the club and then quilt bee at my house.  Last time after a series of fits and starts we just had to cancel because D– was suddenly called to California as her father died, C– said we could use her house.  Then her A/C died.  No need of even trying without A/C in this weather.  I offered my house on last minute notice, but I think they gave up at that point.  I’ve missed the ladies of the evening, so I’ll be glad to see them.

With the house reconstruction going on, I missed Monday bee in the library and yesterday, I skipped a church dinner because D–, the workman, wasn’t finished cleaning up.

On toward the weekend.  I’m about finished with a few blocks on the accidental quilt top, and can go on to another project here soon.

What’s knocking about in your life?

Father Abraham has many sons.
Many sons has Father Abraham.
I am one of them and so are you.
We are sons of Father Abraham.
Right FOOT.

The kids sang that little ditty to the group assembled for a pot luck supper at church a couple of weeks ago. Cute, but kinda silly, yes?

Yesterday I ran into a similar thought, “We are all descendants of Confucius.” I would tell you that I notice the source of items that catch my attention, but I cannot relocate to link this one this morning.

Anyway, the argument goes thus. If you follow your family tree back 10 generations, you have 2^10 ancestors. Ah, crud, the calculator has gone missing too. Forward, anyway. That’s 1024 fore bearers on your family tree. Now go back 100 generations, something like 2000 years, (figuring 20 years for a generation) and you have 2^100 = 1.26 x 10^30 ancestors, which is a very big number. The population then of the entire world is estimated at 170,000,000. That is so much smaller than your predicted number of ancestors, that you can say with probability approaching 1 that everyone of those 170 million people living 2000 years ago who have a line of offspring living to this day and time is an ancestor of yours.

Father Abraham has many sons…

I personally am in a direct line from several of Jesus’s disciples, as well as Caesar Augustus. How about you? Who would you like to claim as an ancestor?

________

Hmmmm It’s 8 am and no boys yet. Did Darryl forget to bring them by? Quentin would be her chomping at the bit to go play in the school yard if he were here. Marianne was planning to come by to pick them up a bit later. We do have communication issues in this family! The staff is ill informed as to what the day’s plan is!

Part of the plan is a celebration of Darryl’s birthday. The pseudo son in law is turning 27 or so? I lose track.
_________

Now for a photo of the day. I’m still digesting the cruise. I cannot believe I went and did that. But it was an opportunity that probably wasn’t coming around again anytime soon. So here is a picture of an exhausted Betsi, as we reboarded the Gem.

Lisbon was the second port of call that we did on our own. We had some hits and some misses. I’m a great believer in following leads that the “natives” offer, and on the cruise ship, the computer support guy was Portuguese, though his address was in Cape Town. He said the place to see to get a taste Portugal was the Museo du Fado. That is something of a folk style of music particular to Portugal, and as I like world music, and enjoy folk culture, I think that would have been right up my alley. BUT getting to the Museo du Traje taking the subway and then walking a few blocks was more than Betsi could do. So, we were pulled in two directions, I wanted to go more, though I’d about hit my limit as well.

Anyway, you travel great distances on a big boat with an acquaintance, and sometimes your interests are not going to mesh. No great surprise there. Mostly we’re both able to compromise, take turns and enjoy whatever adventure we ended up upon.

_________

This article caught my eye because I vividly recall while working the polls for the presidential election a young man with a severe spinal injury coming in to vote. He was particularly interested in seeing Obama elected because he wanted to see stem cell research opened back up, after the Bush rules slowed progress. Now the FDA is standing in the way. How is that big government thing working for you these days, guys? Politico

Why do I write?

Why do I breathe? The impulse is there, and it’s tough to stop!
Why do I write?

To swat down stray bees bothering my bonnet.
Or to locate them for dissection.

Why do I write?
Someday I may have something to say. It would indeed be nice to have the pen sharpened and at the ready, should an idea come flitting by.

Why do I write?
What is the chief end of man? To Glorify God. As a shard made in His image, I can only hope to find what He intends by chasing my bees, swatting my butterflies. Any creative impulses have long been muted, if not squashed by denial. But somehow writing seems easier than actually doing creative work.

It’s not fair you know. #1 brother knew who he was…his compass was embedded and pointing to his true north from the time he could first express his will. My other brother and I are much less directed. #2 brother has found his path. He’s working hard at keeping the Air Force’s planes flying, properly repaired, and keeping Tinker AFB on track. I’ve raised my family, done what was needful so I could retire. But I still have no idea what God intended me to be. I’d say I was intended to analyze and reflect, but I’m really not that strong a thinker.

Why do I write?

Dunno. Maybe I should take up photography? Wait… that requires some work too. Sigh.

It’s 8:15 ayem, and I’ve already had a long day. Tara called last night as I was playing online bridge to ask me to go pick up Q in the morning and take him to school, paying her water bill on the way. I suppose there were three stinky guys in that house last night, as they came home to find the water turned off. Seems Tara in the crush of to do’s overlooked the water bill.

So I woke before 5 dreaming that I’d gotten home from bridge today, had forgotten Quentin and that he was home alone all day in the house with no water and no phone. When I told him of that dream, he thought it was a great symbol of his increasing maturity and independence. I think it’s more like my sense of dancing always on the edge of some monumental screw up. What could be simpler than going to pay the water? I dreamed I just forgot it. Like I forgot that I needed to get the label I made on Monday onto the quilt project. Just ignored that to do. There’s something sick going on there and the dream was a clue. I just tried to google “boundary issues” to see if that fit the bill. I’m still as in my youth trying to self diagnose!

But the early to dos got done. Quentin and I had a nice visit as I drove him through town and to school.

Enough of my silly life.

Government in our lives? Sure bring on some more! Q & O is a libertarian site that I find some nuggets in. Yesterday there was this about the overreach of the “insurance reform” bill.

Of all people, Chuck Norris brings that point home with a vengeance. Unlike our lawmakers, he’s apparently actually read the House bill and found another nugget that is not only costly and none of the government’s business, but has nothing to do with health insurance reform.

It’s outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading “home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children.” The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

The bill says that the government agents, “well-trained and competent staff,” would “provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains … modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices,” and “skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development.”

You can read Norris’ fisking of the provision for yourself. He, of course, wants to know why a government agency is being legislated into existence to provide parents with “knowledge of age-appropriate child development” tools and wants to know whose principles and values would drive such teaching – the government’s or the parents. Uh, well, I don’t think you really have to ask, because there’s no reason to send out agents if they’re just going to teach the parent’s values.

The more imporant points are A) this is none of the government’s business and B) it has nothing to do with reforming health care insurance.

And in the Wall Street Journal, the realization that some of the sweetness of life may soon be in short supply.

Some of America’s biggest food companies say the U.S. could “virtually run out of sugar” if the Obama administration doesn’t ease import restrictions amid soaring prices for the key commodity.

In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, the big brands — including Kraft Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., Hershey Co. and Mars Inc. — bluntly raised the prospect of a severe shortage of sugar used in chocolate bars, breakfast cereal, cookies, chewing gum and thousands of other products.

Sounded like an investment opportunity to me. So I went back to my youth and the Great Western sugar beet refinery in Sterling. I sure couldn’t find much about it online. I was trying to see who owns it…and if it’s an investment opportunity. Something about commodities being a great hedge against the coming inflation. But I sure didn’t find easily the information that I was looking for. I’m not even sure the refinery is still in business. But I found a collection online of photos from Sterling. Pixels are so cheap, that anywhere people walk, there must be a photo online! What’s ever to become of all this photography? Nothing for me to do but contribute to the clutter.

Last photo from the swim day. Almost exactly a month ago. I may go fiddle with the saturation, because in life, he really looked like the Coppertone ad as his swim trunks migrated south. Yup, a little touch moves it closer to what I was hoping to take a photo of…

First, thanks Nita. Nita sent a quick, “Hey you have an expectation problem.” I do, indeed. I’ve got a princess problem. I’ve always felt that I deserved to be treated like a princess, and the rest of the world just doesn’t get it!

I did, by the by, have a very nice Mother’s Day. Tara and Marianne came over and hung out a bit. They brought a couple of plants… pretty yellow flowers. One is an orchid, and one is a small pot of daisy mums. I handed Marianne the cake mix while I tried to figure out how to get a decent dinner together. I bought a WW cookbook last week, so I was wanting to try one of the recipes.

Darryl and the grandboys came over later and we had dinner on the table, followed by a game…one of the old bookshelf games Mother and Daddy bought. Quentin has discovered games and hates to lose. So he and I tied, leading the field playing Baazar.

This little news item from the Middle East is a bit unnerving. One level of my thought processes say, “Ok, they think swine flu is an act of biological warfare from the US. Crazy man, just crazy.” But whenever someone starts talking about cheats at the bridge table, I watch them very closely. In psychology the phenomenon is called projection. We as humans deny parts of ourselves, and insist it’s someone else’s problem. “THEY’RE cheating” is in my little world really saying, “and I haven’t been caught yet. Is Syria cooking some nasty stuff in hidden laboratories?

In his May 4, 2009 column in the Syrian government daily Teshreen, Charles Kamleh explains how “‘the swine conspiracy’ may be - according to one of the theories accompanying the spread of the disease - the product of one of the American laboratories specializing in developing viruses.”

Following is an excerpt from his column: [1]

“These days, the world is witnessing an unprecedented situation of loss of principles and lack of confidence, within an obscured vision of most of the traditional, accepted foundations of international politics…

“This new situation of the collapse of international foundations and criteria coincided with the most dangerous global economic crisis, and the ‘crisis of the swine flu’ doubled the influential and decisive implications of that global economic crisis.

“That crisis - known as the ’swine conspiracy,’ may be - according to one of the theories that accompany the spread of the disease - the product of one of the American laboratories specializing in developing viruses.

I hope those who can watch this are keeping a very close eye on the Syrians.

Get your kicks on Route 66

Driving from Robert’s house in Norman to Mother’s room in nursing care took me up and down route 66 between OKC and Tulsa many times. Is this oilfield equipment company in Stroud? Imperial or some such… acres and acres of big mechanical stuff. All that collection of equipment was sitting out in a field idle. One time past I stopped and took several photos. It was all fairly recently painted, lots of color.

Quite a collection of links I’ve gathered while not blogging. The one that brought tears to my eyes was this from Peggy Noonan on the editorial pages of the WSJ.

Noble. Constructive. Admirable.

When was the last time anyone thought of Wall Street like that?

There was a moment, a very public one well within memory, that was all of those things. And it might help the coming generation of business leaders to keep its lessons in mind.

It had to do with the last time Wall Street was in ashes—literally. It had to do with how they brought it back.

We’re being bombarded with anticapitalistic propaganda, so this is a little antidote. It’s a good read, and a reminder.

The photo is of scenes on the drive. This photo is from the trip to Tulsa to move furniture from the assisted living room to storage, as Mother was never going back to assisted living. She died and we had a memorial service before I got home from that trip. When I’m just about to go around the bend with worry and distraction about something, I love to grab the camera and focus as if I could pull an image out of the ether. This image is emblematic of the whole journey. There is not one tree pointed quite in the same direction. Where is UP? What’s horizontal. No directions are quite true. An emotional “fun house mirror” situation.

I’m finally on something of the “other side” of the grief thing. It took me a long time to get past numb and sort of feel the loss of my mother. It’s not something I can readily accept even yet. I have urges to call her, now and again. But I’m letting go, accepting the change in status, reluctantly.

I’m still blogging the Proverbs now and again. Proverbs 8 is titled “The Excellence of Wisdom” in the New King James version of the bible. This is the older KJV.
Proverbs 8:32-36

Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.
Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.
Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.
For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.
But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.

Reminds me much of Job’s wife’s injunction… “Curse God and Die.”

ManCub

I’m going to hope Sara sees this soon enough for me to get a name attached to the photo. 

Cousin Jim, who has probably had more than his fair share of bumps and bruises in his years, decided that getting close to retirement, having the sons mostly grown, he’s entitled to a new hobby.  He thought he’d like to take up photography, and asked me about cameras when I went to Tulsa for Mother’s last hospitalization.  So, I told him I don’t even know about the camera that I have, except that it is capable of more than I ask of it!  I don’t know whether more pixels is what you need (are you going to make  large prints?  you need lots of pixels.)  or heavy duty lenses?  (as long as it does a good job on auto focus… yeah as good a lens as you can affort)  Anyway, my non advice was, “here… try out my Nikkon and see what you see.  He bought a nice Cannon.   But from the photos he took, here is a picture of one of his grandsons.  

They boys were at his house, a bit off their feed, and the baby, fell fast asleep on the floor.  I call the shot “The Man Cub”   Sara is this Rylan?  I’ve forgotten the child’s name!  But they are some cute boys.  Jim fears he will end up supporting them as his son doesn’t look like manning up to the job.  Maybe he’ll see the light… maybe he already has.  I don’t know.  But the babies are to be loved in any case.   Jim (the patron saint of perpetual responsibility) will likely see to it they do alright.  Jim took the photo.  I cropped heavily.  Nita may have made the quilt.  I’m thinking with photo shop I can change the light source appearance, and get rid of the “flash effect” of dark background.  

For now, it’s off to Marianne’s.  She’s promised to trade me a good lunch for help figuring out the math and formulas from economics.  Sounds like math teacher fun to me.  

Semester is almost over.   Yeah!

After I’d take a set of photos I really liked of “Kansiana” I was showing one that I printed up to R– U– who as an editor, wanted to know what I was taking a picture of? What was the point of the photo? Mostly it was to record the state of a small silo on a rail siding in Kansas… wheat transport system in microcosm. And because it was there and I was there. It seems most of my photos are just a sort of personal journal, and getting back to them three months later makes them even more so.

This was a wonderful winter afternoon, Dec 29 when Tara and A– wanted to run around the track at Heritage Park. So I was invited to “join them” so I could watch the boys. Mothers can be handy like that. Usually I decline, but I enjoyed the late afternoon of perfect sunshine with a camera. The boys dedicated some time to trying to fill the canal with stones.

The weather has been great today. Out walking for a bit.. at least 2.5 miles, and had great fun teaching. I also have had fun looking at the stock accounts that Mother left.
I’ve done every bit was well with my own accounts without the assistance of a finance professional. But an afternoon messing about with spread sheets is not all unpleasantness. At threeish Tara and boys pass through… Q is using my address to attend the school he’s going to. Rides the bus home. Still left over from Katrina madness, but it seems to be working.

One sunny December afternoon, Tara invited me to meet them in the park. She and Andrea were walking the perimeter and I trained my camera on the boys. So we’re in a siege of grandboy shots. They’re photogenic tykes, so I have lots of photos. For some reason my file uploader isn’t acting right. I’ll try again later.

A comment by tigerhawk on how we all become pigs at the trough when there are a few trillion dollars floating about. I don’t think it helps our moral character any more than too much allowance and not enough responsibility helps a teenager.

The most dispiriting thing about the event was that virtually all of the questions from the audience were directed at the Trenton dude and were variations on “how can I get my hands on some of that there stimulus money?” This being New Jersey it should not have surprised me…

Shrinkwrapped writes longish articles, but I find her psychotherapist’s take on politics and group psychology to be informative.

The question of whether or not Iran can be treated as an opponent with whom to work out a modus vivendi versus an enemy who must be fought revolves around an assessment of whether or not they are trapped in the paranoid projective dynamic. Roger Cohen makes the case for those who desire nothing more than talk:

… the hawks’ case against Iran depends on a vision of an apocalyptic regime — with no sense of its limitations — so frenziedly anti-Semitic that it would accept inevitable nuclear annihilation if it could destroy Israel first.

The presence of these Jews [the 25,000 remianing Iranian Jews-SW] undermines that vision. It blunts the hawks’ case; hence the rage.

This is just part of her discursive argument, but she rather destroys the Cohen argument I think.

And just for grins, from the New York Post

Dear Mainstream Media:

I’m a conservative who believes that other conservatives are fat, drug-stuffed, money-grubbing warthogs like Rush Limbaugh, or scary inbred backwoods retards like Sarah Palin.

So can I please be your go-to guy whenever you need a conservative viewpoint?

When you assemble an op-ed page or a panel discussion that has three or four liberal commentators - plus a liberal moderator (if this is TV) or a liberal news section (if this is print) - I volunteer to be the one voice you allow to speak for the loyal opposition.

I am available to write cover stories for Newsweek, hold down the other side of the New York Times op-ed seesaw against Paul Krugman and Co., or fill in whenever David Gergen is unavailable to supply analysis of President Obama’s next magnifiquent speech for CNN.

And this link from the BBC, a reminder that we live in a dangerous world, and wishing it away isn’t going to work. Hopey change? This is not what I hoped for.

Russia will spend nearly $140bn (£94.5bn) on buying arms up until 2011.

Higher oil revenues in recent years have allowed the Kremlin to increase the military budget, analysts say. But prices have averaged $40 a barrel in 2009 compared with $100 last year.

Outdated equipment

In his first address to a defence ministry meeting in his capacity as supreme commander, Mr Medvedev said considerable sums are being channelled towards developing and purchasing modern military equipment.

“Despite the financial problems we have to cope with today, the size of these sums has remained virtually the same as planned.”

Analysts say the brief war in Georgia exposed problems with outdated equipment and practices within Russia’s armed forces and led to calls for military modernisation.

President Medvedev’s remarks also appear significant for what they say about the diplomatic game between Moscow and the new administration in the United States, says the BBC’s James Rodgers in Moscow.

So with the world spinning out of control, do you buy a bunker? Or just keep on hoping for the best? I vote for the later.

Here’s the other face that makes my heart sing. Quentin is entering those awkward years when the teeth are a bit too big for the rest of him. But unprejudiced Grandmas think the duckling will be a swan in the end.

Went to church today. No huge surprise there. The readings were, from the old testament, the bit of Exodus the part Christians refer to as the ten commandments, and from the gospel, the story from John, of Jesus in the temple tossing asside the money changers. Then he asserts that the should the temple be destroyed, he will rebuild in three days.

My review of the sermon/homily is that it was weakish on a point that cannot be made poorly or too often. The life and death of Jesus changed everything… the Jews were in a covenent relationship with God based on law. But we can never get the legal/moral thing completely correct. Sacrifices were required, unblemished sheep, oxen, birds for the temple fires. In Christ’s sacrifice and “rebuilding”, resurrection, which turned a total defeat into a victory that we can never explain away.

I try to hear my Grandfather’s sonorous voice saying grace, “Thank you Father for the blessings of the day, our family, the forgiveness of sin, and the life everlasting. In Jesus name, Amen” He prayed some variant of those words every time I broke bread with him, which was quite a few times. I try to remember to offer grace with meals. I’m not doing too well at establishing a habit at this old age. But the thankful heart is a glad heart. I need to remember to be thankful.

It’s a very few link day… a single one will do. Andrew Breithbart tells of his experience as the token conservative on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” It’s a well written account of why he counts the experience as worthy…He concludes with this paragragh.

We must plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the groupthink liberals in our dumbed-down and activist media culture. Yes, “Real Time With Bill Maher” is a hostile work environment for conservatives. But so is Hollywood - writ large. When conservatives withdraw from media and the entertainment business because they are intimidated or don’t want to get down and dirty, we lose even more, valuable political ground.

Even though Mr. Dyson filibustered in a poetic jargon only a linguistics student could decipher, and Mr. Maher glared at me in his trademark smirk, and the audience booed my every utterance, I left knowing I won the rigged bout simply by showing up.

It gets late faster and faster these nights. I walked a bit more than four miles today. And I feel sanctimonious for having done it.. and found it not very difficult. BUT after I make these long walks, I don’t want to move for the rest of the day!