music junkie

i'm a music junkie and thought it had been too long since i've posted a list of bands i'm listening to at the moment. Since the moment is constantly changing this list will not be indicative of my future tastes.

But for now you might want to check out:

Amadou and Mariam.....Welcome to Mali
Muse....The Resistance
Monsters of Folk....Monsters of Folk
David Grey.....Draw the Line
The xx.....xx
MGMT......Oracular Spactacular
Mason Jennings.....Blood of Man
Three Days Grace....Life Starts Now
The Rural Alberta Advantage....Hometowns

I don't like all the songs on all the albums...but find a way through, there is lots of good there. Lala.com is a fun place to listen to music.

i'm also a book junkie and although i haven't been reading much lately these were good.

Breakfast with Buddha...Roland Merullo
My Stroke of Insight....Jill Bolte Taylor
The Sparrow....Mary Doria Russell
I Am A Strange Loop....Douglas Hofstadter

The Century Plant is going through a metamorphosis. Most of the little plantlets that grew on the cut down stalk have spread out and fallen off. The shoot that came out a while ago had a partner that joined it. They both grew straight up with slight curves and then bent over to the west together. They have flowered together and i'm still watching them to see what is next. They are beautiful. The stalk is dying off and it will be interesting to see what is left in its place. All the little followers i imagine

Hope the bird is most amazing. Her flight of 3,500 continuous miles is a record for Whimbrels. She is still here, 46 days and counting. She has stayed longer than the researchers in Virginia thought she would. There was another Whimbrel that landed in the Dominican Republic but she only stayed two weeks and flew on to South America. She was released in Virginia in September and came straight to the Caribbean so hasn't been traveling as long as Hope.

My friend and i are the only ones to have seen Hope on St. Croix. We have seen her 3 times now and every time its as if it never happened. She is very skittish, has a lovely loud cry and i imagine because of that transmitter she is carrying she won't let us get too close. We also had a flagged Ruddy Turnstone that we are trying to find out where it came from. This time of year is a wonderful time for birding. i'm constantly amazed at how far these small creatures travel just to survive.

As most of you know i'm a believer in defensive war only, i don't believe in Just Wars there is no such thing. i think Guantanamo should be closed, we should be out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and those responsible for creating an environment where torture was tolerated and even condoned should be held accountable. i believe in universal health care and think we as a nation can do much better for those living within our borders.

Andrew Sullivan in the October issue of Atlantic Monthly has a four page letter that he wrote to President Bush. It is one of the most eloquent pieces i have read in a long, long time. He comes from a conservative background and expounds on those things he agreed with during the Bush administration. Many things i don't agree with but that is beside the point. He speaks to Bush in a respectful manner which many have lost the capacity to do in this day and age, and he speaks truth.

A very dear friend put me on to this piece and i'm putting the link here because everyone should read it. Please set aside some time from your hectic lives as this is very important.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/bush-torture


And finally aren't clouds the most pretty, handsome, good looking, alluring, prepossessing, delightful, bewitching, elegant, drop-dead gorgeous, easy on the eyes creations to look upon. All the color changes they go through as the sun rises and sets just makes my heart glow. My mother lives in Southern California and once said she was sick and tired of blue skies. "Blue, blue, blue" she said, "I've had enough." She longed for a billowy white cloud to look at. Well we have loads of them here taking all shapes and sizes. Hiding all sorts of messages. Look up and enjoy them. If you double click on the cloud pic you will find two rainbows.

e.e.cummings once said:
"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."

mass observations

i've been reading a bit about a woman called Nella who participated in a civilian writing project in Great Britain during and after WWII. The idea behind the writing project was to enlist ordinary citizens to keep a diary. A written record so to speak of how they were experiencing every day events in their part of Great Britain.

Nella was a housewife and began writing in 1939 as part of a larger group of diarists. Her diaries covered everything we all encounter during the course of our lives and one reviewer of a book that was later published by her said, "it's about tiny domestic difficulties and lumpy custard." But it wasn't just about tiny difficulties, it was about everything happening in a neighborhood during War.

The project she was involved with was called the Mass Observation project. A term, that at least to me, smacks of surveillance. Too bad it wasn't called something else more palatable because the idea is actually a very good method to include personal ordinary histories in the greater scheme of the major aspects of historical accounts. The original aim was "to create an "anthropology of ourselves".

There is a web site dedicated to making available testimonies that were collected during that time and two of Nella Lasts books are available at Amazon. Many of the diarists wrote about "the coronation of George VI to peoples drinking habits in Bolton pubs, to sex and boredom, the themes covered are quite diverse." The project continued into the 1950's but was then disbanded, it started up again in the 1980's. If you want more information you can find it here:
http://www.massobs.org.uk/index.htm

Having majored in Anthropology this whole exercise in writing by large groups of people spread out over a nation is fascinating. Just the idea of pulling so many stories together into an archive that can be accessed far into the future is wonderful. Imagine the cultural historians, anthropologists, and scientists looking for information on numerous topics from that time period. No longer do they have to guess or unearth deposits...they have it available on the net.

i've been wondering if something like this could be started in the Virgin Islands?

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i'm still on the health reform conversation and probably won't be able to let it go. There are a number of objections that seem to always rear their ugly heads during this debate. Taxes which i addressed in my other piece still grabs everyone so here is a bit more on that subject.

i want to ask you politely, is it our priority to place the funding of our military industrial complex over the values of the American people? Are we really a Christian nation?

"The U.S. military is unmatched. Since 2001, total U.S. defense spending has increased by nearly 80 Percent. Furthermore, we are spending more on defense than all of the other countries of the world combined. Combined. 56 percent of the entire discretionary budget for fiscal year 2010 will be used to fund the defense department."

"The global reach of the US military today is unprecedented and unparalleled. Officially, more than 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in approximately 900 military facilities in 46 countries and territories (the unofficial figure is far greater). The US military owns or rents 795,000 acres of land, with 26,000 buildings and structures, valued at $146bn. The bases bristle with an inventory of weapons whose worth is measured in the trillions and whose killing power could wipe out all life on earth several times over. These figures do not include Iraq and Afghanistan." Thom Hartman

Really check out this web site to see where your taxes go....to me it looks like there is lots of room for a public option without breaking the bank if we re-evaluate who we are as a nation.
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

And finally, i don't understand why we would rather spend $4 on insurance premiums to save $1 on taxes? Because you know the premiums will go up if nothing is done.

Another big issue is Malpractice and Tort Reform. An article up yesterday titled "Medical Mal Practice Breeds More Waste" stated that:

The direct costs of malpractice lawsuits — jury awards, settlements and the like — are such a minuscule part of health spending that they barely merit discussion, economists say. But that doesn't mean the malpractice system is working.

There is a lot of good stuff in this article about tort reform and malpractice
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/business/economy/23leonhardt.html?em if this debate does interest you get educated.

And finally that issue of government can't run anything but all those failing industries can.

Consider this:
The health insurance industry has a 30% administrative overhead compared to 3% government's(Medicare/Medicaid)? Simplistically we could assume that the health industry is 27 % less efficient than the Government. The Government is actually the solution because they are better managed than the private insurance cartels.

And what about the personal health bankruptcy's? Sick people made a choice to run up all those bills in order to retain their health or life, right? Getting sick, that's a choice, right?

And so i end with a quote by Maurice Maeterlinck:
"At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past."

bird banding

For the past three mornings i have been helping to band birds. We use mist nets that we set up in areas known to have a variety of indigenous and migrating birds. This time we set the nets up at the Sandy Point Refuge.

Birds fly into the nets which are strung up between aluminum poles. (Double click on the image to the left for a better view) Once a bird gets stuck in the net they become frantic trying to get out, so every 15 minutes we do a pass by and collect whomever has had the misfortune to get caught. We put them in bags to calm them down and take them back to the data tent. Here we put a band on their leg, measure their beak, wing and tail, check the brood patch and whether they are molting or not. Then we release them back into the wild.

Doing this type of work with people who challenge, encourage and teach one another to reach a higher level of expertise is wonderful. All along the way we have to cooperate and include each other to protect the birds and get the job done as quickly and painlessly as possible.

If there had been any one of us that didn't try to be inclusive, speak kindly, or acknowledge the others it could have been a miserable three days.

Lucky for us we worked well together.

Although this is my second time banding i was thinking about how the teaching was done without criticism. Teaching without criticism reinforced the lessons learned and kept the environment calm and productive. Everyone reached out to help any one else that was having a problem removing a bird from the net, trying to get a band on a squirmy leg, or just doing the simple measurements and jotting down data. All of us changed roles and participated in every aspect of the banding job.

If any one of us had been self absorbed, or thinking they didn't need help it would have been a nightmare. Which brings me to my point today.

Those that believe the individual is solely responsible for eventual outcomes are deluding themselves. Team work gets the job done quicker and more efficiently. Even if a leader sets out achievable goals they may not meet those goals if the group can't work together.

Which brings me to children. Raising children to think only of themselves and that they are self sufficient and only responsible for themselves makes for difficult adults later in life. People avoid them and it impacts the final product. Incivility does have tangible costs in the workplace and can be a major deterrent to getting anything done.

Peggy Tabor Millin wrote a short piece on interacting that I found in a book about civility. The image of the raindrops remains with me and may with you after you read this.

"I was on a train on a rainy day. The train was slowing down to pull into a station. For some reason I became intent on watching the raindrops on the window. Two separate drops, pushed by the wind, merged into one for a moment and then divided again--each carrying with it a part of the other. Simply by that momentary touching, neither was what it had been before. And as each one went to touch other raindrops, it shared not only itself, but what it had gleaned from the other. I saw this metaphor many years ago and it is one of my most vivid memories. I realized then that we never touch people so lightly that we do not leave a trace. Our state of being matters to those around us, so we need to become conscious of what we unintentionally share so we can learn to share with intention."

How can any one of us ignore the amount of interacting we do on a daily basis? If we are civil to each other the possibility of misunderstanding is reduced when we have a clear sense of our impact. Do not go mindlessly about your business, stay present and try to understand how you affect others.





PS Hope is still here on St. Croix. She is still at Great Pond, moving around, eating and sleeping. It has been a month now and maybe she will stay with us until she returns to the mainland. We have seen her since the first time with another Whimbrel and are glad to see she has company.
i will let you know if anything changes.

bounded rationality

According to Herbert Simon most people are only partly rational and are in fact emotional/irrational in the remaining parts of their lives. Most of us can't process or compute the results of every alternative action and find ourselves coping with the limited information available to make decisions.

When the decisions seem too large to solve we shut down. We stop thinking about it and go on about our lives. This is happening all across America as citizens shut down their minds when contemplating government involvement in health insurance.

So since this topic concerns all members of American society and i'm pro government involvement. Here is part of a case for endorsement of a public option.

Taxes....Insurance companies have the power to tax and they tax the public mightily. When 20% - 30% of payments do not go to health care, but to denying care and profiting from it, that constitutes a tax on the 96% of voters that have health care. But the tax does not go to benefit those who are taxed; it benefits managers and investors. And the people taxed have no representation. Insurance company health care is a huge example of taxation without representation. And you can't vote out the people who have taxed you. The American Plan offers an alternative to private taxation.

Doctors care; insurance companies don't. An American plan aims to put care back into the hands of doctors.

Economics....we are losing our competitive advantage. Our corporations and small business are saddled with astronomical health insurance costs and as a consequence make our products and services more expensive and less competitive. The capacity to innovate, having a sophisticated business culture, effective public services, excellent infrastructure and well-functioning goods markets are key indicators of a thriving economy. Why is it Europe and Asia are increasing their employment roles while we are falling behind, they all have universal health care? Could the ridiculously high cost of health care in American have anything to do with why American firms are not hiring?

Government has two moral missions: protection (of consumers, workers, the environment, the old, the sick, the powerless; and empowerment( through public works; communication, energy, and water systems; education; banks that work; a court system: and so on.) Without them, no one makes it in America. Taxes are what you pay for protection and empowerment by the government, and the more you make the greater your responsibility to maintain the system.

When you fight against a public option you are not fighting for freedom of medical choice you are fighting for insurance company profits. The CEO's of the major insurance companies said in the congressional hearings recently that they would continue to deny care. They will deny you care that you believe you have paid for, why would anyone support this?

Countries with universal care admit there are problems...we admit there are huge problems here in the US.......nothing is ever perfect...but they would never dismantle their universal care.......they would improve it. Unlike us who want the same dysfunctional system to continue just so government doesn't have a hand in it. Crazy logic when there are other countries all over the world experiencing better care, better economies, higher standards of living etc. than we get.

Constitution
Art. I, Section 8 states:

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."

That means that Congress can tax and spend for whatever it chooses, including health care, highways, and bridges, unless another part of the constitution forbids it (for example, the 1st amendment bars Congress from spending money for religious activities). So the question really should be, where does the constitution forbid Congress from passing health care reform?
We are already adversely impacted by our "insurance company free enterprise". Here are a few adverse impacts.
1) We spend more on healthcare than any other industrialized nation. If we don't reverse this trend, 20% of our GDP will go to healthcare within the next 10 years.

(2) The US healthcare system ranks 37th in overall performance, and 72nd based on health outcomes.

(3) The Center for American Progress forecasts the cost of the average family insurance policy will skyrocket from $13,000 today to over $22,000 by 2019.

(4) Our businesses - yes, American businesses - cannot compete globally because they are burdened by the high cost of providing healthcare to employees.

(5) Medical debt is the principal cause of bankruptcy in the United States.

(6) People are literally dying, either because they can't afford healthcare, or, because their insurers are denying coverage.

(7) The current healthcare system is economically unsustainable and will lead to the financial ruin of us all.

Status quo: If you oppose health care reform don't think you don't support a health care plan. You do. It's called the status quo. To help you understand what you support let's look at the status quo as if it were an actual bill.
Under the ‘status quo' plan a few for profit conglomerates will squeeze out all competition and run the most expensive and least efficient health care system in the world. As a nation we will spend $2.5 trillion dollars a year to receive health care worth $912 billion dollars. The cost per family for insurance will average $22,000 a year as compared to less than $2000 a year in Canada. This plan will rank 37th in outcomes and 24th in life expectancy. It will gobble up 20% of the GDP but in the coming years will rise at 3 times the rate of inflation sending the nation into bankruptcy. It will leave 45 to 50 million people uninsured and drop 15,000 people a day from its roles. 18,000 people will die from this insurance program each year (or 50 a day) because they can't afford health insurance and can't get the treatment they need. Under this program 2/3 of all personal bankruptcies will be health cost related. If you have paid your premiums on time all your life, you are as likely to be dropped by your private insurance company when you need life-saving care as you are to get treated.

The most important asset for a country is a healthy population. i don't understand why we don't want to invest in that?

And finally.......... Christianity demands more from those fortunate enough to be wealthy, and it demands social justice(affordable health care). Social justice does not mean tax cuts for the wealthy, who can then CHOOSE to give to the poor. It means that we take care of our poorest first. If we give money to the poor, they spend it, all of it, and it trickles up to the wealthy.

We want SMART government that will be there for those who need it. – NOT for those who take advantage of it, regardless of whether the one taking advantage is rich or poor.

clean that dirty water

Human Beings get pretty raunchy if we go days or even a week without cleaning our body. Today, if you didn't wash, friends and enemies would smell you coming and get out of the way so as not to assault their olfactory glands. In fact, if you aren't clean the chances of being shunned by those around you rises exponentially.

We all have active odor receptive genes that kick into high gear when something is not hosed down or emits a rank odor. Smells that are offensive explain our dedication to trying to keep a modicum of cleanliness. We enjoy clean bodies, hair and surroundings.

We spend large sums of money annually cleaning up our lives after making messes.

We don't all do ritual cleaning but it is a mainstay in many religions and typically involves the use of water in some manner. Sweat lodges, standing under waterfalls, bathing in rivers, washing the feet, hands and face, pouring water over the heads of babies and full ritual immersion before interacting with a god of any sort are part and parcel of religious traditions world wide.

Cleaning goes on in nature as well. Mother Nature uses snow, hurricanes, tornados, fire, floods, wind and rain to clean out debris and let new life begin. Animals, reptiles, birds and insects all perform some type of cleaning ritual, be it on their bodies or in their homes. Everything on this earth gets cleansed in some manner during its lifetime.

We here in the Virgin Islands are in for some annual cleaning out. It is hurricane season. Historically September and October bring on the rains and the hurricanes and it cleans things out to say the least.

This is going to be short...but i want you all to think about cleaning out your minds. Clean out all the pre-conceived notions you have been packed with since child birth. Clear the slate and look at your fellow human beings, as equals first............... Equals................Greet everyone as an equal.

Practice looking at everyone you encounter through out the day with no added baggage concerning their dress, their manner of speech, their intellectual level, their wealth or lack of wealth, their weight, their skin, their hair, their eyes, their color, their affectations and on and on.

Practice seeing them first as equals, clean out your mind, and relate to them as a human being first.

Thank you ahead of time to all of you that try this.

Hope does have feathers!

"Hope" is the thing with feathers, was the title of a piece i wrote here back on June 11, 2008..... it has blown my mind to say the least and today i'm revisiting that topic for Hope has dropped in on my life and she has feathers.

Researchers determined in the 1990's that the Delmarva Peninsula in Virginia was an important fueling stop for Whimbrel's during their seasonal migration. The area has an abundance of fiddler crabs that the birds would use to build up reserves to get them to their arctic breeding grounds. Scientists wanted to track the migration because Whimbrels have been experiencing dramatic declines in their populations for decades. The focus of this research was to identify the traditional summer breeding areas in the arctic.

The first Whimbrels released with satellite transmitters in Virgina left in 2008. After tracking those original Whimbrels last year, scientists realized their understanding of Atlantic Whimbrels breeding in the south and west sides of the Hudson Bay and Pacific Whimbrels breeding in Alaska and the Northwest Territories had to be revised. Winnie, who was released in 2008, was a western bird taking an eastern route, which no one expected. Hope is also a western bird taking an eastern route.

May 19, 2009.......... Hope was released in Virginia after having been outfitted with a satellite transmitter that is powered by the sun...... by the 28th of May she was detected in Canada heading north. By late June she had already skirted along the southern shore of the Hudson Bay across Northern Canada(Northwest Territories) and over to the edge of the Beaufort sea on the border between Alaska and Canada. It appears she was around Mackenzie Bay. Here she turned around followed almost the same track back across the Northwest Territories but made a northern turn and ended up on the island of Southampton in the Hudson Bay. It looks like she may have spent a few days around Southampton before flying straight south across the Hudson Bay and into James Bay. Here she hit land and went across towards Montreal and Quebec where she popped back out along the Atlantic somewhere in Maine.

From here she went back out to sea on the 10th of August and made an incredible journey over the Atlantic to the West Indies where she landed on St. Croix around the 15th of August. We found her August 21st at Great Pond and to say the least felt like we had won the birder's lottery.
http://www.ccb-wm.org/programs/migration/Whimbrel/whimbrel.htm

Map of travel

i think Hope dropped in here for more than one reason. Hope came to establish the migratory pattern of these birds and to reinforce the need for all of us on St. Croix to work towards protecting the migratory habitat of these world travelers. We are part and parcel of a pathway that supplies traveling birds with the fuel they need to carry them on their journeys to their winter grounds. St. Croix serve's as a stop over(staging area) after traveling thousands of miles across the Atlantic. They need area's that can supply them with nourishment and if we continue to degrade their habitats they will become extinct. Great Pond, where Hope has been for the past 8 days, is one of the largest and most important wetlands in the US Virgin Islands, many shorebirds and warblers aside from Whimbrels stop in here on their migrations. Unfortunately, Great Pond is not receiving adequate protection.
Hope, is by far more potent than many of the evils Pandora let out of the box. When Pandora revisited that box after releasing lying, slander, vanity, greed, pinning and envy she released Hope to give individuals freedom to change the social circumstances of their lives and others.

Fighting to realize those challenges is what i'm doing here, whether the topic is violence, how to get along, habitat protection or health care, Hope the bird has dropped in to remind me to revisit an important theme.


i think Hope impacted my life in order to reinforce the need for social change. Nature and man go together but we argue over it. We need to provide for both. There is more than simple synchronicity or coincidence going on here. How in the world did i know i would actually meet a bird called Hope, a bird that has traveled far and wide, when i wrote about the topic of hope a year ago and titled it " Hope is the thing with feathers?"

Jesus spread his word while also impacting the citizenry of his time through healing. i've looked over the list of miracles. i list them here so you can review them.

* Turning water into wine (John 2:1-11)
* Healing of a nobleman's son (John 4:46-54)
* Delivering a man in the synagogue from demonic spirits (Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:31-37)
* Healing Peter's mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-31; Luke 4:38-39; Matthew 8:14-15)
* The first of two nets of fish and the calling of His first disciples (Luke 5:1-11)
* Cleansing a leper (Mark 1:40-45; Matthew 8:1-4)
* Healing a paralytic (Mark 2:1-12; Matthew 9:2-8; Luke 5:17-26)
* Healing of the man at Bethesda (John 5:1-15)
* Healing a man with a withered hand (Luke 6:6-11; Matthew 12:9-13; Mark 3:1-5)
* Healing the Centurion's servant (Luke 7: 1-10; Matthew 8:5-13)
* Raising the widow's son (Luke 7:11-16)
* Casting out a dumb and blind spirit (Luke 11:14-26; Matthew 12:22-32; Mark 3:22-30)
* Calming a storm (Mark 4:35-41; Matthew 8:18-27; Luke 8:22-25)
* Healing a man possessed by demons at Gadara (Mark 5:1-20; Matthew 8:28; Luke 8:26)
* Healing a woman with an issue of blood (Mark 5:25-34; Matthew 9:18-26; Luke 8:40-56)
* Raising Jairus' daughter (Mark 5:21-43)
* Healing of two blind men (Matthew 9:27-31
* Casting out a spirit (Matthew 9:32-34)
* Feeding 5,000 with five loaves and two fish (John 6:1-14; Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:32-44; Luke 9:10-17)
* Walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33; John 6:15-21; Mark 6:45-52)
* Delivering the Syrophoenician's daughter (Matthew 15:21-28)
* Healing a deaf and dumb man (Mark 7:31-37)
* Feeding another 4,000-plus (Mark 8:1-10; Matthew 15:32)
* Healing the blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26)
* Casting demons out of a lunatic boy (Mark 9:14-29; Matthew 17:14-21; Luke 9:37-42)
* Pulling a coin from the mouth of a fish (Matthew 17:24-27)
* Healing a man born blind (John 9:1-41)
* Healing a woman with an 18-year infirmity (Luke 13:10-17)
* Healing a man with dropsy (or edema) (Luke 14:1-6)
* Raising Lazarus (John 11:1-46)
* Cleansing of ten lepers (Luke 17:11-19)
* Healing blind Bartimeaus (Mark 10:46-52)
* Cursing the fig tree (Mark 11:12-26)
* Healing of Malchus' ear (Luke 22:49-51)
* A second net of fish (John 21:1-12)

Out of 35 miracles 24 revolved around healing the sick. That is a lot of miracles for healing! Jesus had compassion which is more than many so called "Conservative's" have today. Doesn't he teach us to care for the sick in his place?

Some will say, "Why don't you ask how your neighbors are doing and offer to help them?" Well, we ask how they are doing and they tell us, "Fine". American culture at this point is not conducive to helping your neighbors. We don't even know what's really going on with them. Let alone be able to supply them with enough money to get an operation.

This antiquated notion that government helps the most by getting out of the way of progress is an insult to fair-minded people everywhere. Is this great nation called the USA unable and unwilling to act humanely towards humans or nature? We can spend more money on our military than any other nation, in fact more than all the other nations in the world combined, money for weapons and war but health care must be self supported and self supporting?

How about we kick every single government-hating republican out of government! Because, at the end of the day, if you hate government enough to declare that it is ineffective and useless...perhaps you shouldn't be trying to steer the damn ship, seeing as you'd rather sink it! Imagine.......just really try to imagine a business hiring an employee that was out to destroy it?

Just a thought.

We claim to be a Christian Nation first.........what better way to move Jesus' work forward in the USA than by creating an environment where all resident human beings have equal access to affordable health care? It's the nation's deeds, not their words that broadcast our humanity and set the stage for others to emulate. Government can work for all if it is supported by people that believe in it.

Do your part for Jesus if nothing else and support an American Health Plan, one that includes an American public option. Hope is here...she has stopped in and she wants us to fight for what is right for nature and for man.

Think about it!

i have a great set of cards that was given to me as a gift years ago. They are 2.5x4.5 about the size of a deck of Tarot cards. They come in a box with a small book. It is called the "Observation Deck" and was put together by Naomi Epel.

The idea behind this deck of cards is to shuffle them up and pick one. i don't think i have looked at this set of cards for about 3 or 4 years. i move it around the house, dusting it off, putting it away in the book shelf, but never opening it up to use. It was given to me by a great friend that thought it could help on days i couldn't think of anything to write. Until today i've never actually used it to inspire me.

But this was a different day and i was having trouble thinking about what to write so i Googled "Writer's Block." i quickly realized i wasn't having writer's block in its pure sense as i had been writing earlier on a different subject. What i was needing was inspiration.

i left the computer, sat down on the couch, looked across at the bookshelf and it glared back at me, screaming....... pick a card....pick any card....just do it!

i got up, got the deck of cards and sat back down. i opened up the box, took out the cards, shuffled them up and picked one that was sticking out farther than any of the others. When i read what was on it i gasped. This, could not be for me i immediately thought and almost shuffled up the deck to draw another card.

Instead, after contemplating the two words i had in my hand, i got out the little book that comes with it....turned to page 88 and read the instructions.

"Sometimes we get so overwhelmed by the things we think we need to accomplish that we become frantic and get nothing done at all. Today, instead of speeding up, slow yourself down. Don't think about all the things you have to do, just focus on what you are doing at this very moment."

i read the rest of it....two pages worth concerning how to slow down...and realized it was time to linger.

Slow down it said. Isn't it something we all need to practice in order to accomplish those goals we set for ourselves? Slowing down and focusing on one thing instead of multi-tasking and doing a mediocre job with all of them. We get so caught up trying to do too much that none of it gets done properly. If we slow down and concentrate we actually do a much better job.

So slow down....linger here.......look at the pictures.......read some of the other posts you haven't read....stroll through the archives.........take an extra minute to really observe in all parts of your life. Slow down and listen to that co-worker, slow down and listen to your friend, your wife, your husband. Slow down, sit in your car before you go tearing off to that next thing that just has to get done and take a minute. Look around, savor things, slow down.

Today just try to slow one thing down.


Update on the Century Plant!
As you can see it is still going strong. One year has passed since it sent out the big C and almost to the day it started sending out a new shoot. If you want to see the original...look back in the 2008 August and September archives.

Now a typical century plant is not supposed to send out a shoot except once in its lifetime, but this is not your typical plant. This new shoot also has curves but not as spectacular as the original.
i continue to be mesmerized by its growth and resilience.

Update on the underwater growth

Update on the Cyanobacteria. i had a lot of responses to last weeks piece that went to my e-mail address not on the blog. One poster here had an alarming comment that would be true if what we collected had been the stuff referenced, it wasn't.

Many people from all over helped out by directing me to links that may have had the answer. One picture that was closest to our sample material may be it but we still aren't sure. The explanation details a defensive mechanism by the coral. Apparently corals can secret a mucous that is used to clean debris and sediment off the coral. In other words the coral creates this substance to clean itself. Quite an ingenious method and would explain why it came off so easily. It doesn't explain why it felt so spongy. Unfortunately this answer is also one which can be an indicator of stress and a precursor to more coral bleaching.

As i said last week, the material disappeared in two days. Very, very odd and we are still keeping our eye out for more. Fish and Wildlife is taking the dead black piece i still have...they may be able to glean something from it. Thank you all for the great links and responses.

Next up is the Peace Index, the total number of countries covered is 144, encompassing almost 99% of the world's population and over 87% of the planet's land mass. So often all we focus on is conflict, agonizing about localities around the world that remain dangerous. One thing overlooked is that even those dangerous places have large pockets of stability.

Last year(2008) Iceland topped the list in the number one(1) spot with Denmark a close second(2), Canada placed eleventh(11), the US placed Ninety-Seventh(97), Israel came in One Hundred and Thirty Sixth(136) and Iraq was last at One Hundred and Forty(140). Iraq is still last but four more countries were added so Iraq is now One Hundred and Forty Four(144). Israel is One Hundred and Forty One (141), Canada moved up and is now eight (8), New Zealand is first(1) Denmark is still second(2) and zooming right up the ladder the US has moved to Eight Third place(83) Whew!

Political Anger

1992-1999. Years of the "Angry White Man." Anger: GOOD Thing!!

2002-2008: Years of the "Angry Left" denounced in chorus by the so called "responsible" mainstream voices; EVIL AND NASTY, UNPATRIOTIC!!

2009. Year of the "Angry White Man. Anger:" GOOD Thing!


Buzz words to make you FEARFUL about health insurance reform.
communism
socialism
Marxism
Nazis
euthanasia
death panel
rationing
government take over
government doesn't work

Writers that use those words in their pieces don't want you to think about the real issues. They want to cloud your mind with visions of takeover and evil.
Skip those.

A Public Option Insurance Plan

A public plan could offer the same benefits as a private plan at less cost because it would not have the high administrative costs—which include sales, marketing, and underwriting expenses—associated with most private plans. It would not be under constant pressure from Wall Street to reward shareholders by constantly keeping an eye on the medical loss ratio and earnings per share, and it would not have to make a profit.

We should be comparing what insurers, drug companies, and organized medicine said during earlier reform efforts, and then report on how well they've delivered on those promises. The evidence shows they haven't delivered. Insurance companies would rather fight you in court and pay a fine than follow the regulations. So why believe any reform has a chance with out a public option?

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FREE MARKET HEALTH CARE HAS WORKED FOR THE PATIENT, there is lots of evidence to show it works for insurance companies.

Personally, i think some things in this world should not be controlled by profits, illness is one of them.

And finally, i have been thinking about religion mixing with politics in the United States:

Some immature people use religion to destroy each others freedom, create bondage and make church's holding pens for intolerance. Mature people, that don't use religion as a crutch, can help each other create more accepting environments, they can help each other to reduce violence and destroy the bondage, they can create a world where the flow of information is not controlled by fear. When love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness.

Some immature people also use religion to excuse bad behavior. They make decisions in favor of bad behavior, knowing they will be forgiven. Mature people, that don't use religion as a crutch, do not make decisions expecting to be excused or forgiven in some afterlife, they understand they need the integrity to stand alone here today in this life and be judged today for what they have done.

Cyanobacteria?

Another water piece that takes place at Cane Bay, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Two days ago, while swimming, we noticed this stuff attached to the coral. At first look i thought it was a shredded white plastic bag billowing in the water. It was too far down to retrieve so i kept swimming.

A few strokes later i saw some more of it looking more stringy and wondered what it was. i stopped for a longer look but again thought it was more plastic and kept going. The other swimmers had noticed it by now too and when we reached the first buoy we had seen so much of the stuff that when our heads came out of the water we all said "What iiisssss that stuff?"

Remember, we have been swimming out here three times a week for years. We have watched all sorts of changes and have a real feel for anything out of the ordinary. In 2005 we noticed the brain coral turning this lovely lavender color and then watched in horror as coral bleaching turned the floor of the ocean into a white bone yard. We didn't understand at the time that the beautiful shade of lavender was the corals last gasp.
So that day, when we started discussing it, we were in about 40-50 feet of water. We tried studying this new oddity from the surface. We floated around, looking down, looking up, talking about it. We determined that the material looked completely alien and was definitely not plastic. The more we looked the more we saw.

We couldn't dive down that far so the rest of the swim was spent noting how much of it there was and the area it took up over the live coral. On the way back to shore we agreed one of us needed to go down and get some because it was just too mysterious. We had to wait until we were in about 15 feet of water so we would have enough air to actually scope it out while underwater and collect some.

Two of us dove down and grabbed it off the coral, it came off pretty easily. We brought the samples up to the surface in our fists. It was like nothing we had ever felt before. Rubbery and spongy, stringy and globular and two different colors. One batch was pale pink and the other was pale yellow.

Each of us stuck the stuff between our cap and mask on the backs of our heads so we could swim in without really having to handle it too much. We had no idea if it was harmful so we tried to be cautious.

It was agreed that i would take the stuff home, photograph it and send it off. i did that and soon responses started coming in. Cyanobacteria seemed to be the prevailing answer except the pictures i was sent to look at didn't look like what i had. One scientist said it could possibly be a precursor to more coral bleaching which put me in a terrible mood. i sure hope not...we don't have much coral left.

i left the stuff outside and by mid afternoon it had turned a dark ugly black mess.

Now two days later, after notifying the dive shop and Fish and Wildlife, the stuff is gone. Completely gone, not a bit of it is around. The coral is clear except for the usual algae. We searched everywhere and are completely mystified as to how this unusual growth could have vanished so quickly.

My friend says i should keep the sample i have just in case someone wants to do a chemical analysis. i'm thinking it is too far gone but i've stored it outside just in case.

i'm putting the pictures up on line so if anyone can identify it conclusively let me know. If you double click on the images you will get a larger view.

It is definitely one of those mysteries of nature that we would like to have more answers about.

Friendship!

I'm a Natator!

Have you ever spent time just floating? Using as little effort as possible to stay on top of the water with out sinking? If you are one of the unlucky ones that plummet like a rock, that has no buoyancy don't read any further. No! I'm kidding, keep reading.

Anyone that spends a lot of time in the water be it fresh or salt eventually arrives at a place of contentment and connection with everything. Not everyone can do it but those that can enjoy a oneness with the aquatic environment that is every bit as valuable as that gained from a session of quiet meditation or a trip to temple,church or the mosque. Even those that use aids to keep them afloat experience that same feeling of oneness at times.

I'm not suggesting that only those with a connection to water are somehow blessed with an extra ability. Water folks connect through water while people that aren't comfortable in water but that love the mountains or deserts connect through the earth. For others it is the connection they get through their religious affiliations. It is those that can connect where ever they are and in whatever medium they are experiencing, here and now, in the present, that are truly blessed.

Today's topic is not really about floating on top of the water or hiking in the mountains or camping in the desert, or going to temple, church or the mosque, it is about friendship. It is about connection, it is about how we hold those people who have impacted our lives in some manner close to our hearts whether we see them or not, whether we talk to them or not, whether we are interacting with them now or whether we will interact with them in the future.

A few days ago a friend who used to live here came back to visit for a week. This person is a water-baby and has made a name for herself internationally.....but to us...she is just our friend, she fit in to island life and bonded with us. She is someone we enjoy swimming with, someone we love talking to, someone we have fun showing things to, someone we love to entertain when she comes to visit, and someone we exchange funny haiku's with over the distance that separates us.

But she is not alone, she is just one of many who have left the island for a different life and for reasons so varied i can't go into them here. But they all share one thing in common, they became our friends and we never forget them. We love having them come to visit. We are proud of our homes and get great pleasure from their enjoyment.

This morning our friend came to swim with us but it wasn't like the usual work out swim it was more like doing intervals then stopping because " OH MY GOSH did you seeeeee that huge turtle?" " i think he gets the prize for the longest tail ever," said one swimmer. "No, no, no that last one was bigger," says someone else. Or, "Hey, did i tell you about bla, bla," which moves into all sorts of conversational tangents, books, politics, religion while we are out there floating over the abyss.......saving the world....... while not thinking about the fact that we are in shark territory and they have been a bit too aggressive of late and we should be wary..... when someone takes our mind off the shark and says," What do you think of those waves?" I'm having trouble swimming, my stroke sucks in these, i'm getting airborne off the swells, how about you? Or, over here, over here look at this school of squid....are they cuttlefish?

i had to look this one up because i had this feeling i had been wrong with my answer and although they are from the same class.... cephalopod..... its a different order they belong to. But this was a minor thing because this morning we could care less about time or even reality........our friend was visiting........and we were all enjoying her excitement at just being here. It always amazes me the ease at which one falls right back into the same way of communicating, almost as if they never left.

There are forces all around us drawing some together and repelling others. Repulsion happens when something is placed between the two attracting forces, figure out what that is and how to remove that something and most friendships can be repaired. i believe that we never loose our connections even when they have been adverse because that initial joy just doesn't go away. Those people pop into our heads, throughout our lives, at the oddest moments and re-acquaint us with the things we liked about them, even over the anger.

It is the totality of intra molecular forces, those of atoms, molecules and their surfaces that continues to draw us together, especially over vast distances. We are all composed of the same stuff and maybe it is the water, maybe it is the earth, for some it may be that dedication to doing something regularly, whatever it is we all experience connection in our own special ways, cherish it. When that memory of a friend pops in, savor it, or contact them cause life is short and you may have missed out on something really wonderful.

what would you do if?

Do you ever wonder what would or could have happened if you had only done something differently? That play that keeps repeating itself in your mind, what if I had only done B instead of A maybe C would have happened instead of D.

Many claim that if it weren't for the liberalism of the 60's, society would have been more moral and stable, we would see more responsibility, lower divorce rates etc., but maybe the consequences of this alternate reality would have been less innovation as a result of a lack of creative individualism. Life today might have had fewer people resisting authority, even more pollution than we are experiencing now, more poverty, poisoned food sources, malfunctioning medicinal remedies, no Ipods, cell phones or WiFi and a host of other things i can't come up with at the moment. The imagining of that moral, stable "better" world might have left us at a place we really didn't want to live in.

For some it is easier to reside in the what might have been world rather than harmonizing with the what is. When we imagine that only a single incident like liberalism of the 60's can be enough to change our present, we indulge in what might have been. This single element did not and could not create all the change we experience today. It is not the sole determining factor.

The 60's brought in a renewed focus on love as a result of the war they were watching being waged in their names. For many of the participants the time spent trying to educate the nation was filled with failures and yet, here, today, they are being credited for the lack of morality in present society.

All of us on some level indulge in what if's. But when we indulge in what if's we leave out other options for why the world and our way of living is functioning as is. We fail to stay present, we live in the past for all of us can only work with what we have not with some fantasy alternate reality.

Consider this..........maybe, the lack of morality today is a result of self-interest rather than liberalism and the result of choices rather than mistakes.

Just look at the laws of nature some say for it explains mankind.

Natural law as described in the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences had stoics being indifferent to the divine or natural source of the law: "the Stoics asserted the existence of a rational and purposeful order to the universe (a divine or eternal law), and the means by which a rational being lived in accordance with this order was the natural law, which spelled out action that accorded with virtue. Stoics emphasized the universal ideas of individual worth, moral duty, and universal brotherhood."

The Christians on the other hand had the Fall and according to Wikipedia

"some Christians believe the Fall corrupted the entire natural world, including human nature, causing people to be born into original sin, a state from which they cannot attain eternal life without the gracious intervention of God. Protestants hold that Jesus' death was a "ransom" by which man was made forever free from the sin acquired at the Fall, and other denominations believe that this act made it possible for man to be free without necessarily ensuring it. In other religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and Gnosticism no term "The Fall" is recognized and varying interpretations of the Eden narrative are presented. Natural Law still plays a role in all these."

"Prelapsarian" refers to the sin-free state of humanity prior to the Fall. It is sometimes used in reference to sentimental recollections of a past time when conditions stood in sharp contrast to the present." It demonstrates the what if mankind could have had if only they had followed orders.

Many philosophers, modern and ancient both, have used the term "Natural Law" to argue and dissect the human condition. Philosophers added to the catalog of man made discourse and man made "laws" concerning "Natural Law," our "rational" participation in what if scenarios encouraged the acceptance of "Natural Law".

My question concerns "Natural Law," can we consider it an invention by man? Nature has never once insisted upon or commanded us to use any "natural laws" that we must follow, but many men have insisted that according to nature this or that is so and mankind must adhere to that law.
Again we aren't following orders.

So...........just to throw this out there, can you consider that there is no such thing as a Natural Law?

Eons may pass until mankind completely penetrates to the core meanings of our existence and then there may be no meaning at all. We have become deaf to each other in the present while our belief's from the past try to conquer all. We may just be here along with every thing else living and dying as part of our earth's cycle. Why is it that modern researchers who delve deeper into the chemical makeups of everything on earth continue to find symbiotic relationships dominating? Where is this conversation?

Some of us can spend too much time in the substrate, learning the lessons, filling in the slots, and thinking about what if"s. We can't look ahead the way you do in chess, we can plan but we can't know absolutely or see the end result until after it has happened.

Consider this....maybe if we step back, take a look around and go on a longer journey in the present maybe more will reach that goal of "happiness in this life" faster. If you are indulging in what might have happened or what if ‘s, you may have forgotten a piece of knowledge that has been stored in your unconscious, something left there which had no rule for handling. Access to it was lost but it never left storage, it is still there waiting to be opened on a different level.

Choose to examine it.
Take it out of storage.
Work with it and use it to divest of the what if's.
Take action now. Don't wait for tomorrow.

swimming the currents of the intertubes

Has anyone noticed while swimming along the currents of the intertubes a trend with numbers?
Daily on Yahoo, AOL, Digg, MSNBC, and all the other similar story aggregations the one getting the most hits has a number in it.




Top 10 ways to please your lover.
Top 5 things that happened at the hearings
7 Key Genes predict brain cancer survival
14 Regrettable professional sports promotions
8 things your contractor won't tell you
6 ways to swear effectively
10 surprising sex statistics
9 Inspirational Presidential speeches
15 Rites of Passage
4 reasons why something sucks
10 things you might not know about socialized medicine

i'll bet you want to read one of those don't you?
i only put one link in...the one to socialized medicine the rest you can google and find on your own.

Here is another frequent set of articles. They start with a question.

Do you drink too much?
Can you keep a secret?
Do you really want to live forever?
What does she/he really want you to do in the bedroom?
Do you have a white roof, learn how to fight global warming?
Did you know scientist's found the worlds oldest wily?
Why did squid wash up on a California beach?
Bush's CIA: Who deserves the assassin's bullet?
Which Bruno outfits are your favorites?

i thought about putting the links in for all of these in case you wanted to follow up but it is just as easy to Google them. Are you a statistic......... do these types of stories sucker you in? Writers understand how to grab your attention and by the looks of things on line numbers and questions get the most hits.

Moving on i have also been thinking about idioms. Idioms are phrases that have meanings different than the actual words. i wanted to play with them to see what kind of a piece i could put together. Unfortunately i'm not a comedian, if only i knew how to do humor i'll bet this could be really funny and fun. But in researching idioms i've learned that they tend to be pretty serious. Teaching us lessons and all that.

i put this little piece together....tried to keep it light.......see how many idioms you can find....the answer will be at the end.

The calm before the storm, as luck would have it.....is that period of serenity before it all hits the fan...usually happens when two people or the circumstances are at an impasse. One person hangs the other out to dry but maybe the shoe is on the other foot and these circumstances have gone from positive to negative. It may be the person who has turned off the spigot was making other people experience their ill will and now they are experiencing it also. The bad karma they left behind came back to bite them.

Too many try to reinvent the wheel when they are arguing. Things are easier said than done and remember when you are in the midst of a battle if you are given lemons make lemonade. You can make something great out of something that could have gone sour cause all's well that ends well and really.......... its better to try and understand the devil you know rather than the devil you don't.

Why do some people turn on those that have supported them? Why do they repay kindness with a wrong? They get a chip on their shoulder and they can't get it off. They can't understand if you give them a taste of their own medicine because that only works one way and they don't see the bad karma biting them back. Sometimes the easiest way to resolve it is to cut to the chase. Don't waste time beating around the bush because drastic times call for drastic measures.

The saying "don't bite the hand that feeds you because you may need it someday" is one to keep close to your heart. You don't want to bite off more than you can chew when repaying those who supported you when you needed them. But remember that old adage...casting pearls before swine is all about wasting good deeds on someone who does not appreciate them. Don't put something in front of those that don't value them. We all have axe's to grind but it is better to let the water flow under the bridge.

If you are crying over spilt milk you have already lost something, you can't move on, and you can't remain upset over it. Stop going up a blind alley, set the wheels in motion and get started. Sometimes you have to go back to square one because you are stuck between a rock an a hard place.
We can all get stuck in some frame of mind that does nothing for our future. Putting your tail between your legs is unnecessary.
We all know that every cloud has a silver lining, so drop the cock and bull story, and stop being so fixed in your ways.

You know how it is....when it rains it pours because a lot of things can go wrong...i can
foam at the mouth all i want.....but you should just wake up and smell the coffee. Go out on a limb, go the extra mile, stop with the knee jerk reactions and let bygones be bygones. The ball is in your court, pick it up because then you will have the best of both worlds and its better late than never.

Remember, no matter the consequences those who are honest with themselves get farther in life.

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