Keep your eye on the ball

Though the wording is frequently different this is a key piece of advice given to nearly every American.  I heard it over and over again, in baseball, tennis, football, rugby, and, later, in business strategy sessions where it often appeared as: stay focused and close the deal, and so on.

It’s amazing how difficult over many years it has been for me to apply this advice.  Yesterday while writing checks for monthly household bills I came to a bill I especially hate.  When writing the first check I made a couple of mistakes, on the second try I made some more.  Also, my handwriting in both efforts had become in nearly unreadable slash and scribble.  I paused for a moment, realizing how much my anger had thrown me off my checking writing game.  It reminded me of trying to hit a golf on a day was one thing or another had me anxious or pissed off. Inevitably the result was a day of infuriating chunks, slices, hooks and topping that had bright red with rage, sullen, short with old friend playing partners and just plain miserable and miserable to be around.

I don’t know if I’m unusually sensitive or if most of us are so easily distracted and that the main difference between the ordinary and the star performer has a lot to do with ability to concentrate; focus; and the ability to keep an on the ball.

It seems simple enough and we all should be able to do it                                                            
 When playing little league baseball one season, on opening day, I hit back to back over the fence home runs. I was startled realizing how easy it was. I was hardly trying, it seemed to me.  Next game I tried, harder and harder to do the same and was afraid I would not be able to live up to teammates expectations.  I doubled my efforts and kept trying to do what was expected of me.  I didn’t hit another homer the entire year.  I had similar, self conscious related year long melt downs in wrestling and football.  My success in rugby was likely related to being usually drunk and ripped on one or other drugs during the matches.

It gets complicated when I recognize not keeping my eye on the ball is the problem.  Then I try hard to keep my eye on the ball and judge as I’m doing it whether or not I am actually focused.  That of course wrecks the process.

It gets simpler when you accept how hard it is. Read Zen in the Art of Archery, for example. Or try to apply (without thinking about it) the advice I read from Suzuki:  “Do what you’re doing while you’re doing it.”

Fact is, I can write accurate, readable checks if I get calm as I can and plan for a tranquil moment and detach myself from the results, the impact on my bank account, how much money is going out the door, and realize how much easier it is if I use a favorite pen and enjoy the process as calligraphy. 

Fact is, also, that rarely happens and I have accepted the truth that for us ordinaries learning to keep our eye on the ball is a lifelong practice offering momentary  rewards, passing awareness that in the last moment we actually did it and it was easy.

Lariam

Mefloquine malaria drug used by the military that may induce psychotic behavior.

Whores and gangsters

Here's a good story about whores and gangsters posted today.  Many are more interesting than politicians and no worse. 

Crazy days and nights. Really.

I'm worn out by politics for the moment anyway. Can't stand the Anderson Cooper political panels. Gergen is worse than a glass of warm milk. It is only interesting to watch is his creative sliding in his conservative talking points under cover of being the wise old voice of reason. Erick Erickson is a robot, held erect by a steel rod going through his skull and out his  ass. Worst of all is Ari Fleischer. Unbearable to watch. Relentless at getting his talking points across. Can't stand, also, Cooper's beating to death the tabloid story of the day. Just awful.

I like Chris Hayes on MSNBC but it's mostly a confirmation of what I already know. Like watching reruns it is not very exciting.

So, instead, I'm reading gossip websites.  It's a step up from politics. If you have been following Entertainment Lawyer's Crazy Days and Nights for even a short while, especially the "blind" items you can find enough craziness to make your head spin. Some of  CD&N filters  (laterally I think) over to Gawker , especially the blind items.

So, why is gossip better than politics?  1.More entertaining.  2. Better writing. 3. More interesting. 4.Less threatening. 5. Does not foster delusions that there is something you should and can do. 6. Easier to detach. 7. Refreshed daily, often hourly.

Happy days. Next comes reading and writing about dogs.

The issue is not the issue

 The Repubican agenda is not to reduce spending through reasonable (or any other) compromise with Democrats; their agenda is to destroy Obama.  Likely this single mindedness fueled by a catalog of resentments, including but not limited to, racism. Their destructive goal is simple, easily understood, easily followed--in short, an effective rallying point.  So, when we think the old approach to government through reasonable compromise is still operative, we are delusional.  No amount of give, on the part of Democrats will ever be enough and will always be rejected. Republicans will sacrifice the well being of middle and lower class Americans because they believe a failed government, at any cost, will rid the country of Obama.

The issue is not ever about what is best for us, best for the country, and to think it is is delusional.  All the noise about deficit reduction, small government and protection of individual liberties is a false sales pitch aimed at energizing the dissatisfied middle Americans. It is the same stuff: abortion, gun owner rights, and welfare abuse that has always been used to trick average and poorer Americans into voting against their own interests.

That is the great achievement of modern Republicans:  Manipulating working people into voting against their own interests.  

Picture this (global warming)

Is it going to be so hot in Chicago this Summer that there will blackouts and people will crowd into the lake and stand there shoulder to shoulder, chest deep, holding umbrellas to block the sun?

Hats

Every street scene photo from the 1940's and 50's shows men wearing fedoras and other brimmed hats. Why did they stop?

Men in the northeast don't wear brimmed hats because they are always in automobiles and with headrests and high backed seats  there's no room for brims.  Baseball hats, however, do work. Those that do wear brimmed hats are often cowboys, or cowboy imitators, or outdoors people from Maine or wish to appear to be any of the former.

Truth is, as a dedicated dog walker, rain or shine, I've come to admire how well my fedoras keep off the sun and guide the rain and snow safely beyond my collar. The fedoras make sense. From time to time I've heard the fedoras referred to as "old man hats".  When it comes to being an old man, I'm the genuine article. There's no sense trying to look like something I'm not.

When I was in a boatman's local of the Longshoreman's union I was already a Socialist sympathizer, if not actually a member.  I sometimes wore a white cap, something like a canvas version of the Irish style wool tweed caps with small front peak and panel sewed top, that (mostly in my imagination) identified me as a Harry Bridges man, a lefty union radical. Though of course, by then (70's and 80's) almost no one in the east coast ILA knew who the hell Harry Bridges was.  Some out west did and still do.

In a New York City strike in 1988 I was fired along with the other tug boat captains that would not cross the picket lines. In that sense, in my scheme of things, I legitimized my little white hat and stood comfortably with a couple of others who treasured their knowledge of labor history, Harry Bridges, and the clear eyed  ideals of solidarity with other workers  in the face of the inevitable greed, corruption and  exploitation.

Near Earth Asteroid to take another shot

This little gem could blow all our cares away. There's so many of them we can't expect them to always miss.

Damage estimates based on asteroid sizes.  

Property taxes

Schools here are funded mostly by property taxes.  Here, is East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.  Main problem is that for a few years this was a boom area. People came because cheaper houses allowed New Jersey and New York residents to upgrade.  Property taxes here were lower than in New York and New Jersey. It was a gold rush. At first the long commute to higher jobs seemed worth it because of woods, big yards, deer, and bears that could be fed doughnuts. Then gas prices went up. Expanding schools required higher property taxes.  Many moved back to where they lived before because it was now cheaper and the long commute proved more taxing than first believed. There are now many empty houses here. There are three on my short road.  Empty houses do not deliver taxes but big school buildings with swimming pools, have long, large mortgages and extra teachers are protected by tenure and unions.  Property taxes go up, catastrophically for many, leading to more empty houses and yet higher taxes.  No one wants to buy a house in a heavily taxed area so there is almost no construction, for many years the main industry here, and unemployed builders and their unemployed workers are losing homes to foreclosure.  No one wants to close schools in their neighborhood and no one wants to fire their children's teachers but many believe it is ok to fire administrators. 

A good solution might be to change the tax support structure. The fairest, of course, would be to increase graduated income taxes but no one wants higher income taxes.  Lots want a sales tax because they think visitors and other outsiders could be made to pay for a good part of our schools. Those that believe this do not realize that this would be a tax less fair to lower and middle income people than an income tax.  They think it would be less painful.  Maybe so. 

It is easy to blame the administrators who stupidly believed that the boom would continue forever.  But, most people are delusional in the same way.  Many of us believe we will live forever, or at least act as if we believe that.  The hindsight approach would be to build flexible schools, schools that expanded and contracted painlessly in sync with  population fluctuations.  But we're not that smart. Yet.  Flexibility in architecture, and likely in all ways of being, would be a good way to go.

For now, there is no way to avoid the pain of past stupidity and greed and a desire to construct monumental schools named after local luminaries.  When there is not enough to go around people get very nasty and concentrate more on fixing blame than on fixing situations. So, school board meetings are packed and people are very vulnerable to solutions that readily translate into slogans. The extreme Right thrives.  This is the kind of environment that breeds racism and other more inclusive forms of fascism. That's where we are today. Here, nationally and perhaps worldwide.

Volatile.

Abdulelah Haider Shaye

Obama keeps Yemeni journalist locked up according to The Nation.

Here's Gawker's take on the same story: "...beaten, tortured and imprisoned for two years..."

And the Huffington Post with videos

Different president, same shit.

Senior confusion

I'm  beginning to wonder if it is not everyone else that is turning into Professor Irwin Corey, but it is me who is losing the ability to make sense of things.  The world seems garbled. Santorum, Rush, Fox, Haley's pardons, David Gergen's endless drone, earnest Anderson--a world of wackadoodles.

Road Kill

Yesterday's count from here to post office (5 miles) : one opossum, two racoons (one blonde), several squirrels and a deer.

Another wonderful day brought to us by global warming.  Thanks Detroit and makers of oil burning engines, coal and oil power plants, clear cutting lumber companies, and thanks also to me and my wood burning stove.

Bring it on.  June in January and toasted in July.

There is no honor...

http://gawker.com/5893188/goldman-exec-ping-pong-star-quits-with-brutal-rant-in-the-new-york-times

CNN's John King confuses me

While on the topic of frightening funny things, I come to John King who everyday now reminds me more and more of Professor Irwin Corey. King's mouthful of marbles garbled nonsense is quickly moving from the incoherent to the hilarious.

More Professor Corey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxtN0xxzfsw

Men wearing wigs

I have a problem with men who wear wigs; not so much with entertainers who do so, but very much so with politicians and businessmen and others who want to be taken seriously.  I sometimes think half the men in congress wear wigs.  It bothers me because choosing to wear a wig indicates a fundamental dishonesty. It also suggests that the wig wearer is uncomfortable with the truth of who he is.  A person who would lie about his hair would lie about anything.  And, most men's wigs are so bad and so obviously fake hair that they make the wearer look like a clown.  Don't wig wearing politicians have mirrors? Or, are the completely dependent on others' willingness to suspend disbelief? Or, do they actually believe that perception is reality?

Anyway, I think the current clown prince of politics, Rick Santorum, is a wig wearing fool who, if elected will satisfy the most cynical, darkest, most perverse side of my sense of humor.  In that sense, electing George Bush II was hilarious but Santorum will be an absolute wig wearing gut buster.  (I would give anything for a reporter who went around asking politicians if their hair was real or a wig.  Makes me yearn for the genius of Stuttering  John .)

The few remaining honest bald guys among us will have little option but to hold our sides and roar ourselves into oblivion as America becomes a clown festival featuring delusional, wrinkled old guys wearing young hair while spitting out a slush of hate tinged racism, sexism, homophobia, anti sex, fear mongering fundamental christian inspired slogans.

One more threat to keep your gut in a knot

Oceans going sour

Washington culture? This about covers it.

Below is a quote from Chris Hayes that I found on The Huffington Post

HAYES: It means that the culture of Washington is totally and completely corrupt. And that the country is ruled -- and I know this sounds radical, but true -- by a very intense financial oligarchy, that basically has purchase on both parties. I mean, what you see here -- and I don't want to downplay the import of the derivatives bill that passed out of the Ag Committee and the financial regulations, some of the measures of which are quite strong and built because of this public anger -- but the fact of the matter is, drawing these lines between who's on the side of Wall Street and who isn't, every single one of these members is talking to Wall Street every day, and raising money from them, and having them whisper in their ear. And over the years, we have seen finance metastasize so that it's 40 or 50 percent of corporate profits, and funneling that money back into purchasing the assent of elected representatives in a way that brought us to this crisis point. So we can make technical fixes to regulation, but what we have to do is break the political/economic power of the banks, and that I don't see on the horizon.

The terroists next door

Turns out the gunman shot down at the Pentagon was a Right Wing terrorist in the Timothy McVeigh,Joseph Stack tradition. Lots of these nutcases are out there.

link

Killer Whales: Let them go

Keeping large wild animals in small enclosures for no reason but entertainment is a disgusting practice. Turning them into dancing clowns even more perverse. Better to either let them go or, if they can't survive in the wild, keep them cared for in areas open to the sea in a way that allows them to come and go.

Link to Deep Ecology