#334 / Memes

My favorite columnist in the world, Jon Carroll, was talking about "memes" back in 2007. There are internet Know Your Meme sites that focus on nothing but what they call "memes," namely on the latest pieces of celebrity gossip. Progressive political commentators have incorporated "meme analysis" into their thinking, and you can click on this link, or on the image, to see a critique of "memes" from cartoonist Thad Guy.

As you might suspect, Wikipedia has a rather extensive article on "memes," and assigns the origin of the idea to Richard Dawkins, who wrote The Selfish Gene, and about whose ideas I have expressed some skepticism.

I am always concerned or skeptical about any purported explanation of the world that relies on the supposed existence of independent and autonomous processes, liberated from the workings of intentionality (that is, processes which are supposed to proceed in the absence of intentional choices, made by individual human beings).

My "model" of the world (our human world) assumes that "we" create it, precisely by thinking of what we would like to do, and then doing it. My model, of course, is quite "legalistic" in concept, at least in one way of looking at it. The "laws" we make (in our human world) represent our articulation of what we think we want to do. They are prescriptions of what we think would be good for us, as differentiated from the "laws" that govern the world of Nature, which are descriptions of what will and must happen. Human "laws" are quite different, in other words, from the law of gravity.

In my "model," if we follow the laws that we ourselves articulate and promulgate, the world we construct comes to reflect the realities that we have first posited as possibilities and then achieved through our actions.

The idea of self-propagating "memes" doesn't seem to fit in, in any natural way, with the way I have looked at the world. However, I note that the Wikipedia article, which I found quite helpful, quotes Dawkins as saying that the "meme," as he sees it, is a "unit of imitation."

I actually do like that. It does seem to me that we change the world as we "imitate" the behaviors (and sometimes the people) we believe are "right," who have the right "prescription" for our world, and for the kind of future we want to create.

In other words, to take advice from Gandhi, we need to "be the change we want to see in the world."

Inevitably, this means lot of "imitation." It also means, to refer to Gandhi once again, a lot of "experimentation with the truth."

#333 / Free Speech

I am not a fan of Debra J. Saunders, who claims to be the "token conservative" on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle. I did, however, very much appreciate a quotation contained in her column published on Sunday, November 27, 2011.

Saunders quoted U.S. District Judge Marsha Berzon as saying:

Throughout our nation's history, Americans have counted on the First Amendment to protect their right to ask their fellow citizens to change their mind.

I like that way of talking about the First Amendment. Admitting the possibility that we, and others, might "change our minds," is the sine qua non of democratic self-government.

First we change our minds. Then we change the world.

#332 / Reality And The Movies

Mick LaSalle writes movie reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle (among other things).

In an article in the Friday, November 25, 2011 edition of the Chronicle, LaSalle noted that "impersonating, not real acting," seems to be winning awards. LaSalle cited various major movies that are essentially biographical, and while agreeing that a number of them are really terrific movies, expressed his qualms that this "indicates a movement away from the imagination."

It strikes me that it is precisely our imagination that permits us to "dream up" the new realities that we subsequently create through our actions, and that this process of imagination/action is in fact the mechanism by which we create our human world.

If there is a "movement away from the imagination," and it is generalized, not just occurring with respect to the movies, that could be serious.

#331 / Melancholia

Lars von Trier is a filmmaker. His new movie, Melancholia, made an impression on me. I recommend it.

Is our sometimes experienced sense of depression and desolation really just an unrecognized "recognition" of the coming end of our world?

We may try to hide it from our understanding, and ignore its implications, but the truth is that there is no way that we can "save" our lives. There is no "magic cave" to insulate us from the reality of our situation.

In the movie, the world of Nature, our Earth, is a metaphor for the world that we in fact create ourselves: a world that is always coming to an end. A world that is always ready to begin.

#330 / Save Your Life

For whatever reason, I have been getting a lot of good advice in my email inbox: lots of information on how to "save your life." If you want to pursue the advice in the book pictured, click on the image. If if you want to find out how coffee can "save your life," click right here. I feel particularly positive and partial to the idea that I can save my life through coffee drinking!

Upon greater reflection, I have come to the conclusion that I should be devoting my time to "spending" my life, rather than trying to figure out how to "save" it. That's my Sunday sermon for this week, one day early. Check out the parable of the talents, to get some background on the concept.

#329 / Return To Innocence

A recently seen Facebook image of a woman putting on lipstick almost exactly duplicated one of my favorite images in the Return To Innocence video. Seeing that picture on Facebook induced me to watch the video again, which you can do, too, by clicking the link (and then suffering through an advertisement first).

If you are not familiar with Return To Innocence (Enigma, The Cross of Changes, 1994), I recommend it.

I was introduced to the video by my son, and the music and the lyrics have stuck with me. It is the images in the video, though, that have made the greatest impression. The video essentially revisits, with profound affection, the lives of a married couple. It is time recaptured; the broken bread restored. And I love the part with the lipstick! It's a powerful way, I think, to say "gracias a la vida."

Return To Innocence

That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence
Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence
If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny
Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and use the chance
To return to innocence
That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence
Don't care what people say
Follow just your own way Follow just your own way
Don't give up, don't give up
To return, to return to innocence.
If you want then laugh
If you must then cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny.

#328 / Gracias

This is a day
To say:
Gracias a la vida.
Thank you to life.

Thank you for the world of Nature, into which we come through no effort of our own, a world that sustains our life, and upon which we are utterly dependent.

And thank you for our ability to create a world of our own, the world most immediately apparent and present to us. This is "our" world, a world we can change.

#327 / I Gave At The Office

There is actually an online discussion forum that addresses the meaning of the phrase, "I gave at the office." And then there is that great "Sally Forth" cartoon book. You can click the link, or the image, to get the reference for that.

Typically, "I gave at the office" is a response provided to those who are soliciting donations of various kinds (including political donations), in an effort to dodge the donation request.

I have always had another, more idiosyncratic meaning for the phrase, used just for myself alone, and not part of the common parlance.

Particularly when I was an elected representative, and working for the public in that capacity, I told myself that requests or demands for my greater or additional civic engagement (some of these demands being self-created and some coming from the outside) were fairly answered by my claim that "I gave at the office." My response to a call for greater personal involvement was that my work was positively beneficial for the world at large, and involved me in the issues of the day, and that this was really all that was, or ought to be, demanded of me.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that many of us have something of a similar idea about what kind of role we ought to be playing in public life. We tell ourselves that we have "already given," at the office, at home, in our church, or in whatever civic organization with which we may be engaged; we might point to our monetary contributions or attendance at our children's soccer games. Whatever the example, the idea that we have "already given" is something we tell ourselves when someone asks us to do something more. It is something we tell ourselves when we think, ourselves, that we perhaps should do something more.

If "We are the 99%" is going to mean anything in the long run, many more of us are going to have to do something more.

Even though we already "gave at the office."

#326 / Gary-Old

My computer at home recently went defunct, so I bought a new one. I think I made a slight mistake, transferring my data and settings from my former computer to my new one. Apple says it's easy, and I've done it before, and it was easy. This time, not so much.

At any rate, my new main "Home" folder, the one with the little "Home" icon, is now titled "Gary-Old." I can't change that, either. I've tried, but I just can't get back to plain old "Gary." I don't love it, but I'm living with it.

#325 / Minecraft

I have never played Minecraft, a computer game that has apparently become a "global phenomenon." That's the claim, anyway, of technology reporter Chris O'Brien, who writes for the San Jose Mercury News. O'Brien self portrays as a non-computer game type person whose "every waking thought" is now dominated by Minecraft. Download and start playing the game at your own risk, I guess. I already have lots of "waking thoughts," and ones that I think should have priority over computer games.

I was most interested in O'Brien's explanation of why the game is so compelling: "The game has won legions of fans thanks to its deceptive simplicity. Rather than walking into a virtual world where all the spaces have been filled in by a developer, Minecraft introduces a world that is a blank canvass where players build just about everything...."

If we think about the reality of our human situation and history, as opposed to computer games, human beings originally walked into a world of Nature that was essentially a "blank canvass," and we have succeeded in building just about everything that now exists.

It is just as possible, in our world, in the human world that we create, to change the results of our past work into something different, and something new. I wonder if the same principle applies in Minecraft? Doing that, creating something genuinely new in the world we have already built, would not be "simple."

It would, however, be possible. Figuring out how to do that is where I am directing most of my "waking thoughts."

#324 / The Tree Of Life

I found The Tree of Life, a movie by Terrence Malick, to be profoundly affecting. It is an unusual film about families, and about being a young boy in post-World War II America, and about growing up. It's about fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and about the physical architecture of the world we create, and the world of Nature that encompasses all we do.

Malick and I are almost exactly the same age (he's got about a month on me), which is probably one reason that the movie resonated with me so strongly. Malick was also raised in the Episcopal Church, as I was. I would call the movie God-suffused.

Maybe the movie has some real lessons, for practical life. It certainly provides some cautionary instruction for fathers.

I recommend it.

#323 / Marathon

My daughter Sonya is a rather accomplished marathon runner. Among other things!

When I climbed Mount Whitney (which I did accomplish), I had an occasion to see Sonya running and leaping ahead of me. It was at a particularly difficult moment in the climb. I had been left behind by my companions, and I was thinking of turning back.

Sonya wasn't on the trip, but I swear I saw her.

We can do so much more than we think we can. I learned that from my daughter. Among other things!

Life is a marathon. Just keep on running!

#322 / Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi is is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates. It is located on the Persian Gulf, and had an estimated population of 896,800 in 2009. Fortune magazine has stated that Abu Dhabi is the richest city in the world.

The fabulous wealth of Abu Dhabi is based on the extraction of oil. It is, essentially, at least as I understand it, largely a "family" enterprise. The wealth, and the governmental power created by that wealth, is largely under the control of the Abu Dhabi Emiri Family.

An interesting fact that I gleaned from an article in the November 15, 2011 edition of The Wall Street Journal is that the government of Abu Dhabi is moving to become a major investor in the ownership of the EMI Group, which holds the publication rights to massive amounts of music.

Somehow, this story made me reflect upon the strangeness of a human-created reality that has allowed the the world of Nature to be transformed into money, controlled by an amazingly small number of individuals, who now claim not only physical territory as the spoils of their conquest of wealth, but what might also be called the "spiritual" legacy of our civilization. Listening to music is, in fact, how many of us connect to what could be called the "spiritual" dimension of our lives, taking us beyond the physical realities that constrain our existence.

In the future, to hear the music, we will be paying a toll to the Emirates.

All these human arrangements, of course, can actually be changed. I think that is what that 99% movement is all about.

#321 / Indoor-Outdoor #3

I have never played a computer war game. I think I am correct, however, that these games, which can become a very compelling "reality" for those who do play them, have many of the characteristics of modern movies. I have seen a lot of movies, and lots of the movies I have seen, whether war-themed movies or not, routinely include scenes of extreme violence.

I have noticed something about violence as depicted in the movies (and I am assuming that the same thing is true for the computer war games that I haven't ever experienced personally). In almost every case, the "results" of the violent acts pictured, which seem to be strikingly "realistic," as depicted in the movies, are in fact absolutely at odds with the reality of what such violence would be like in the truly "real" world.

For instance, long fight sequences go on, sometimes for minutes, in which people are hit with bottles, shot with guns, kicked in the stomach, or strangled and beaten. And....they keep on fighting. In fact, they quite often seem to survive all that violence just fine. If you were to believe what you "see" in the movies, you would think that human bodies and human beings can bear much more than they really can. The consequences of the violent acts depicted are not accurately recorded. Quite the opposite.

To the degree that we don't get outside the images that we ourselves produce, these images become more "real" than reality itself. We experience the actual "reality" of our lives outside, in the world of Nature. That is the world that is "real" because it is the world that we do not create, and the world that presents itself to us as a precondition of our existence, and as an absolute. Every other "reality" is one we determine for ourselves. Our human-created world is within our power. The "realities" we create there are ones we visualize first, and then make real. Just like the movies.

If we don't have a continuing and genuine contact with the world of Nature, which is the origin and foundation of our lives, and the true "reality" upon which we ultimately depend, we may be misled about what will happen if we do certain things.

We could, for instance, deduce that war, and violence, will produce good results.

I don't think that has been well borne out in the real world!

#320 / Indoor-Outdoor #2

The photos here are from the website of the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council. Having grown up in the Bay Area, I am naturally attracted to the trail-building ambitions of the Council. Plus, my son Philips is a trail-maker. He writes, produces videos, and studies Zen Buddhism, too (among other things). In one of his writings, I noted this claim: "I grew up in Santa Cruz, California. Now, I live in the woods."

However he reached this point (and I am not sure it was the result of any conscious intention), I am proud to say that my son has obviously understood the challenge to reality that I discussed in my posting yesterday. And he got there without any direction from me. Philips is not the kind of guy who does what his father says, just because his father says it. I was that kind of a guy, and it worked for me. Philips is making his own trail. That's working for him.

Philips started out deeply immersed in the world of computers, and computer games, and in fact published an Atari Magazine that he sent nationwide, long before he was in high school. He has ended up staking his life on the world Nature. As I say, that's working for him. I think it would work for all of us.

#319 / Indoor-Outdoor

According to news reports, a computer-based war game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, made $400 million dollars in the first 24 hours after its release for sale, based on the purchase of 6.5 million copies of the game during that 24-hour period.

"We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories," said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. An online columnist noted that this was a record not only for computer war games but for "any entertainment product ever released."

Meantime, last Saturday, at an event held at the Chaminde Conference Center to celebrate the amazing and lifelong contributions of Professor Robert Curry, I talked with an old friend from Carmel Valley, who happens to serve on the Board of Directors of the Monterey Regional Parks District. He mentioned that soccer coaching has become quite difficult, since the participating kids are ever more reluctant to come outside to practice. They much prefer exercising indoors, through their computer screens - and I guess some with the Call of Duty war games.

Aside from the problematic nature of teaching militarism through online war games, I think we may be constructing, without actually realizing it, a fundamentally new understanding of reality. For me (and my Carmel Valley friend) it is obvious that the most "real" world is the world of Nature, a world outside our own constructions, and a world upon which we are utterly dependent. It is a world less and less experienced directly, as we all immerse ourselves in a human world that is increasingly detached from Nature, and from the physical realities that can be found only in the natural world. The "real" world, in other words, has moved indoors, for many of us, and is internal to our consciousness, not external.

If the idea that our constructed and internal world is the "real" world is a mistaken and fundamentally false understanding, and so I would argue, we have a problem on our hands.

Getting outside is an antidote.

#318 / A New Deal

I don't really play cards. Therefore, I probably don't fully understand all the intricacies and implications of the "new deal" metaphor. I was an American history major in college, and so I understand the "New Deal" not from the card player's perspective, but as a watershed moment in the political history of the United States.

Thinking about our current moment in history, I tend to believe that a "new deal" is exactly what we need. To me, that means calling a halt to the game currently being played, and taking all the money on the table, and putting it in the center as a new pot, available to all of us at the table right now, and then reshuffling and redealing the cards, and going from there.

As I say, this is probably not be what a "new deal" really means, to a card player. But in terms of politics, and thinking about our collective wealth as a collective asset, this might be exactly how a "new deal" would work.

William Greider, whose economic analyses always appeal to me, has just written an article in The Nation magazine that proposes what I'd call the right kind of "new deal" for America right now. Click on the link, it's worth reading. Greider is calling for "debt forgiveness, American style."

Right now, Greider suggests, we are "in the reverse New Deal," and while I may not really understand cards, I do understand the significance of reversing the New Deal. That means that the current game is unfair, and that ordinary people are being taken for a ride by those who are in control of the deck.

#317 / Decency

Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle columnist, has what I think is a correct understanding of the Occupy Movement. Here are his observations, from a column published on November 2nd:

I've been trying to think of what the Occupy Movement reminded me of. It is, as others have noted, not a particularly common sort of protest - it's worldwide now, and there seems to be no formal operational plan, and it seems to have drawn many people who would not otherwise be protesting, even on behalf of causes they believed in.

It came to me finally. It's a reference from my childhood, when Boston attorney Joseph Welch confronted Sen. Joseph McCarthy over his hectoring of a young law partner of Welch's. "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

I think that is the root of it. We are accustomed to living in a capitalist system; we understand that there are winners and losers, rich people and poor people. But we did think, perhaps foolishly, that all Americans were on the same path and that a sense of common decency would restrain the banks and the brokerages and, yes, the U.S. government from destroying an at least marginally functional financial system.

But there was no decency; there was only the lust for profits. When people realized all the scams that had been perpetrated on them, whether their personal fortune or mortgage or retirement plan was at stake or not, they became embittered. The high unemployment rate, the profits that banks were still making - and their plans to bleed their customers even drier - and the willingness of the president of the people, oh please, to make the banks whole again after their obscene excesses - became the catalysts for the "at long last, have you left no sense of decency?" nationwide movement.

And it turns out: not really.

Listen to the political rhetoric. Jobs, jobs, jobs, they say. And how would these jobs be created? Tax breaks for the wealthy, a proven loser in the job creation category, but ever so attractive to the wealthy donors who make up the core constituency of both national parties. Even now, Barack Obama seems to be more interested in raising campaign funds than in confronting the malefactors.

We will have "a little decency around here" only when we insist upon that. Only when we refuse to permit the ordinary operations of the institutional apparatus that constitutes our system of government (both official and unofficial).

Our will to insist is what will be tested. If we "occupy" our nation, we can make it ours once more.

#316 / The Machine

Mario Savio, pictured on the steps of Sproul Hall, at UC Berkeley, in 1964, is probably best known for his passionate speech on the "operation of the machine." You can hear and see his speech by clicking the link.

Savio's words mobilized the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, and electrified the Stanford campus, too, where I was in my final year of college. Here are his memorable words:

We have an autocracy which runs this university. It's managed. We asked the following: if President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received -- from a well-meaning liberal -- was the following: He said, "Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?" That's the answer! Now, I ask you to consider: if this is a firm, and if the Board of Regents are the board of directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I'll tell you something: the faculty are a bunch of employees, and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw material[s] that don't mean to have any process upon us, don't mean to be made into any product, don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!

[Wild applause.]

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

[Prolonged applause.]

The Occupy Movement, it seems to me, speaks in a somewhat different tone, perhaps less strident, though plenty of anger is apparent. But what the 99% are really saying is that the 1%, those who have managed the machine for their own benefit, and who have treated ordinary people as though they were the raw material of a wealth producing system for those at the top, must not be permitted to continue in their "management" positions. We, the people, are in fact human beings, and not material, and must no longer allow ourselves to be picked up or discarded, and rewarded or dismissed, as the managers of the machine so choose.

The world we create should be built to benefit all of us.

#315 / EcoMind

Frances Moore Lappe will be speaking in Santa Cruz County this evening. She will be discussing her newest book, EcoMind.

Tickets are probably still available for what is likely to be a compelling presentation. The event is at the Crocker Theatre at Cabrillo College, and begins at 6:30.

I'd bet money that Lappe is in favor of ending the "infinite growth paradigm," but her book is concerned with "thought traps" that prevent us from taking effective action to surmount the environmental crises we face. The first one she mentions is "Thought Trap 1: No-Growth Is The Answer!"

"Focusing on growth as the problem - or as the solution," says Lappe, "keeps us from probing to the root of our global crises: the patterns of power over decision making that we ourselves choose, consciously or not... I'm suggesting that we can utterly shift our vision to the goal of aligning our practices with nature, including all we now know about human nature. Together we can then get on with creating the context - the social and ecological relationships - that enable all of us to flourish..."

"Aligning our practices with nature" sounds like good advice to me. And that means that the human world that we create must respect, above all, the world of nature and its limits, for our world is dependent on that one.

#314 / One Thousand Words

The world of Nature, upon which we ultimately depend, is definitely not "infinite." We are making a mistake if we think we can build our own world, which must inevitably reside within the world of Nature, on the assumption that "infinite growth" is possible.

Or desirable!

#313 / Powerful Government

State Senator Joe Simitian, mentioned in my posting on November 5th, is "termed out" of the California State Senate, as of the end of 2012. He announced last Sunday that he is now planning to run for what will be an open seat on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. He is expected to win. As the San Jose Mercury News noted, Simitian has been on the Board before.

One of my acquaintances, hearing of Senator Simitian's latest plans, thought that this would be a "step down" for the Senator. That evaluation is certainly in tune with conventional wisdom. Supposedly, the power and influence of an elected official becomes greater as he or she moves from the local, to the state, and ultimately to the federal level of government. There is, however, a different way of looking at it.

I used to tell the high school classes I addressed, when I made class visits as a member of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, that I was the "most powerful" government official that those in attendance were ever likely to meet. There are only five members of a Board of Supervisors, so each Supervisor wields 20% of the voting power of the entire Board. With your vote, and two others, you can succeed in having the Board do anything that a County government is legally entitled to do. Because local government has very ample, plenary police powers, that turns out to be a lot! A member of the State Senate has only 1/120th of the voting power of the State Legislature. A member of the House of Representatives, or even of the United States Senate, wields only 1/535th of the voting power of the Congress.

"Power" is defined in the dictionary as the "ability to do something."

In terms of getting things done through government, I am not convinced that Senator Simitian will be taking a "step down."

In terms of where we should focus most of our efforts, as citizens, to make our government do what we want it to do, I think the local level has many attractions!

#312 / Strike Another Match

I have had an "end of the era" feeling about our historical reality for a long time. Most of my life, in fact. My friends have always poked a bit of fun at me for this predisposition. Hey, it's not all gloom and doom. The end of what we know could be the start of something better. Maybe we could even do something about that, to make sure that's true.

Anyway, I continue to believe that things "can't go on like this."

And Bob Dylan's advice continues to be good: "Strike another match; go start anew."

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
All your reindeer armies, are all going home
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

#311 / Are We Or Aren't We "We"?

I think it is fair to characterize The Wall Street Journal as the "house organ" of the 1%. If we were asked to name one publication that reliably speaks for corporate America, and particularly for the financial services "industry," it would probably be The Wall Street Journal.

In a column published in the Thursday, November 8, 2011 edition, David Wessel, a Bureau Chief for the paper, pondered whether or not the U.S. was "ceding" its "creative edge."

I was struck by the internal inconsistency of the Journal's concern about our "collective" position in the world. The column addressed the question of how our nation was doing, as a nation, in terms of technological innovation and world economic leaderrship. For me, that does seem to be a legitimate inquiry. However, isn't it odd to hear about this concern from a newspaper that does not seem to believe that the "nation" has any obligation to the individuals who make it up (the 99%, to use the now current way of referring to ordinary people)?

I don't think we can have it both ways, actually.

Either we are, or we are not a collective "we" (a "nation" to use one way of talking about our collective existence). If we are not a collective "we," and are just a number of individual "persons" who happen to be residing, more or less, in the same geographical area (including, of course, those "corporate persons" that the United States Supreme Court has conjured into being) that leads to one way of handling public policy. In fact, it leads to the kind of public policy that The Wall Street Journal so routinely espouses.

On the other hand, if we are actually a collective "we" (and that is what I believe), then the question posed by David Wessel is totally legitimate, but so is the question whether our nation shouldn't provide health care, decent housing, and a good education for the individual persons who make up this collective, and even posing the question implies that the answer is "yes," and that we should be willing to mobilize our collective wealth to achieve collective goals.

It seems to me that The Wall Street Journal wants to have it both ways.

I don't think we should let either the paper, or our elected officials, get away with that.

#310 / Living Within Our Limits #3

The image in today's posting comes from a blog entry written by Sebastian Blanco, who was apparently prompted to write it after reading a Wendell Berry essay during Blanco's trip to Las Vegas.

In reflecting upon the irony of reading Wendell Berry in Las Vegas, Blanco well describes the feeling I had about the place when I visited Las Vegas some time ago:

It was odd to read an essay about learning to live within our limits in a city that tries to make you forget that there is any such thing. Whether we're talking about food, money, drinks, sex, fun or whatever else you want, Las Vegas is where limits go to die.

Berry's essay is called (as the graphic says) "Faustian Economics: Hell hath no limits." That essay is also something worth reading, and I particularly like the definition of Hell as "having no limits."

It has been my contention, in my postings on Living Within Our Limits, #1 and #2, that we need to create the world we inhabit by limiting our expansive tendencies. On this, I am following Wendell Berry's lead, and am proud to do so.

I started thinking again about the "living within our limits" theme after attending a "study session" held by the Santa Cruz City Council on Tuesday evening, November 1st. The Council focused on water supply planning, and the City staff was geared up with compelling facts and figures to say that the City needs to build a costly and environmentally damaging desalination plant, so that our water use wouldn't be excessively limited in multiple drought years.

The Desal Alternatives group, and specifically Rick Longinotti, who spoke for the group, made a compelling and fact-based presentation that outlined ways that we could effectively live within the limits of our current water resources, without the need to turn sea water into fresh water.

Not mentioned, really, was what seems to be the actual reason that the "living within our limits" approach has gained so little traction with the City Council. The City has promised the University of California that it will pursue the construction of a desalination plant, in multiple (unlimited) phases, which will provide water for future growth.

It's the commitment to growth (beyond the limits of our current resources) that is driving the desalination project.

Hell hath no limits.

#309 / There Oughta Be A Law

California State Senator Joe Simitian (pictured) represents a good bit of the San Francisco Peninsula, including my old home town of Palo Alto. He also represents the part of Santa Cruz County where I live.

Because of term limits, Senator Simitian is going to have to leave the State Senate at the end of next year, and the district lines are being changed, too, so that the State Senator representing Santa Cruz County will also represent other areas around the Monterey Bay, instead of parts of the San Francisco Peninsula. Frankly, those new district lines make more sense, but I will be sorry to lose Joe Simitian as my State Senator. I think he has done a great job.

Tomorrow, Sunday, November 6th, I am planning to attend Senator Simitian's annual fundraiser at the Lucie Stern Community Center in Palo Alto. His "fundraisers" are always a bit "different" from the fundraisers most politicians sponsor. They are not cocktail parties held in elegant restaurants or elegant homes. They are not chicken dinners in giant motel ballrooms. They are policy discussions on specific and important topics. Joe Simitian moderates, with invited guests who are experts in the field. The topics addressed are often rather sophisticated: things like how the state budget works, or competing plans for political reform. That's one of the reasons I like Joe Simitian. He is treating his constituents like they actually care about "government," and not just "politics." My observation is: they do!

Tomorrow, the policy discussion will focus on Senator Simitian's "There Oughta Be A Law" program. Each year, the Senator asks his constituents to suggest something that "oughta" be the law. He picks several good ideas, and then works with the constituents to get the laws passed. And these efforts are often (but not always) successful. We are going to hear some success stories tomorrow.

If you are interested, you can probably still attend. The event is a brunch (the food is always excellent, too), from 10:30 to 12:30; tickets are $50 apiece, or "donors choice," should you be moved to give more. You can call 650-289-9038 for a reservation.

For me, the whole "There Oughta Be A Law" concept is evidence that Senator Joe Simitian understands how government "oughta" work. We are able to change the realities of our human world by telling ourselves that we are going to do something new; in short, by passing a new law that sets new standards, or initiates new activities, or that terminates some activity which has outlived its usefulness.

We make the laws; we don't just follow them. If we decide that something "oughta" happen, then there "oughta" be a law to make it happen. That's what self-government is supposed to be all about.

My thanks to Senator Joe Simitian for reminding us of that fact - and for helping to make self government work!

#308 / In Time

I have recently seen the movie, In Time. It directly makes the connection: time = money. Of course, the observation that "time is money" is not a new thought. In fact, this observation is said to have originated with Benjamin Franklin. That makes it a particularly American notion.

The virtue of the movie (of course it has the seemingly obligatory car chases, too) is the wonderful way that In Time is able to dramatize what the saying, "time is money," really means. Because our life is nothing more than the time we have (see George Fox on that), when we run out time, we actually run out of life. The result of running out of time, and life (when time is counted as money) is what the movie calls "timing out," and what it has dramatized so well.

If money is equivalent to life itself, which is what the "time is money" statement actually seems to say (and what the movie dramatizes so strikingly), then it might make sense for us to be sure that there is some basic "equality" in the way that the money is distributed.

In Time is really exploring that 1% / 99% split, and poses the question whether that kind of differential should be permitted to continue.

In Time: at your movie theaters now. Recommended despite the car chases.

#307 / Robot Surgery

For those facing abdominal surgery, technology has some good news. The Da Vinci robot makes it all go better.

A friend recently sent me a clip from one of the TED conferences. In this clip, Dr. Catherine Mohr discusses "Surgery's past, present, and robotic future." Dr. Mohr is an Instructor in the Department of Surgery at the Stanford School of Medicine, and is a research physician with an extensive engineering background, working on evaluating emerging technologies for incorporation into surgical robots.

The video shots of actual surgeries aren't for the squeamish, but I did find this presentation helpful. It may be a "must see" for those facing abdominal surgery.

Near the end of her presentation, which pretty much says that "everything is getting better," and which could lead her audience to the conclusion that they can stop worrying now, Dr. Mohr does note that neither robots nor anything else will ever be able to eliminate our ultimate mortality. And finding out about our mortality isn't all that bad, according to Dr. Mohr. It can lead to a "reevaluation of priorities and a realignment of what your goals are in life, unlike anything else." Dr. Mohr doesn't want to deprive us of that "epiphany."

Once we realize that we are facing death, we often start figuring out what our life should be about. Dr. Mohr put it in a way that seemed "just right" to me. She said her aim was to leave her patients, post surgery, "whole, intact, and functional enough to go out and save the world, after you've decided you need to do it."

My only question: couldn't we could all decide to do it before we undergo abdominal surgery?

#306 / Homo Ludens

In connection with installing a new computer, I found that I could easily have my sister Nancy's blog download to my email program, which means that I will now be certain to keep up with what she and her family are doing.

Email is the main way I relate to the world, at least so it sometimes seems. My sister is an artist, and both her images and her insights are truly beautiful. Nonetheless, I have seldom tracked down her blog, since I get distracted by that ever present "inbox." Now that Nancy's postings will be coming to that inbox on a regular basis, I will be much more in touch.

I invite you to click one of the links, to see what I mean about my sister's artistic sensibilities. In addition, Nancy and her husband Rick maintain a beautiful bed and breakfast inn, which also does service as a printmaking studio. It's located in Montmirail, France. It really ought to be thought of as a destination resort. I invite you to check out Maison Conti, too.

The illustration for this posting, by the way, is not from my sister, but from Lina Skantze. It popped up when I typed "Homo Ludens" into my browser, looking for images. Click here, or on the image itself, to find the specific reference on the web.

Thinking about Nancy made me think about "Homo Ludens," which means "playful man," and is specifically the title of an important book by Johan Huizinga. In many ways, while Nancy works incredibly hard at the bed and breakfast, she does build her life around some of the insights that Huizinga has articulated very well in his book. I first read the book as part of the reading I did on "Utopia," as part of my Honors Program in Social Thought and Institutions. It suggests that "carefree playfulness" is what life should be all about.

#305 / Puzzler Solutions

Back on 1/11/11 I posed a calendar puzzler, asking this:

For the current century (just starting from 1-1-11) how many days will there be where the date can be expressed (in the calendar style I have employed here) by repetitions of the same number, no other number appearing in the date?

The answer, the way I count it, is 13.

Actually, I was hoping that some "numerate" friend would be able to provide a kind of "formula." I am not strong in what the British call "maths," though I guess I can count with the best of them.

And....speaking of the best of them, the winner is Pamela Flick. Here's her listing, provided almost immediately at 4:29 p.m. on 1/11/11:

1-1-11 / 1-11-11 / 11-1-11 / 11-11-11 / 2-2-22 / 2-22-22 / 3-3-33 / 4-4-44 / 5-5-55 / 6-6-66 / 7-7-77 / 8-8-88 / 9-9-99.

That does count up to 13. As Pamela said, and as I say, too: "What did I miss? :)"

Someone also sent me an email completely without reference to my "Puzzler" question, claiming that there is something particularly unusual about the year 2011. First, there are those "nothing but ones" dates, as already noted: 1/1/11; 1/11/11; 11/1/11; and 11/11/11.

Then, just to embellish the theme, if you take the last two digits of the year in which you were born, and add the age you will be this year, the result will be 111 for everyone! That's the claim, anyway, and it does work for me.

Finally, October had five Sundays this year; and five Mondays; and five Saturdays, too. That's unusual! According to the information I was sent, this only happens once every 823 years, with years like these being called "Moneybags." Are we feeling rich, now? Let's ask the good folks at Occupy Wall Street

Tim Goncharoff also responded to my puzzler question, but he came up with only 11 dates, and the listing above does have a couple more!!