Terrorism in Mumbai: Is blame the answer?

It is sad, but predictable, that some people of Mumbai have taken to the streets to protest that the government failed to protect them as it should have against the recent terrorist attacks. The home minister has resigned, perhaps realizing that someone has to.

As a species, we are especially vulnerable. We don't have a tough hide or really good claws. Most of us can't sprint nearly as fast as a cheetah, climb a tree, or fly away. Some of us (me) can't see without our glasses. Our protections have to be constructed. Walls, locks, security systems, lights.

But we can only do so much to protect ourselves, and we don't want to believe that. We feel that if we actually thought about how we might die any moment, might have an undiagnosed cancer even now, might be killed in a random mugging on our way to the store, we would be paralyzed by fear. It seems unlucky to even admit the possibility.

It often takes something like a home invasion, an unexpected diagnosis, a tragic accident - and a spiritual practice - to wake us up to our vulnerability. There is a benefit to becoming aware; we are then better able to protect ourselves. I am reminded of a friend, a martial artist, who taught me how to walk safely to my car when I am alone, especially at night.

"Always know what's going on around you," he said. "And have an attitude of readiness. Be willing to start screaming." You can only do that if you really understand that there are dangerous people in the world.

Once over their shock, some of the people of Mumbai, a very small percentage, really, have taken to transforming their fear into anger, and acting it out in the streets, blaming the politicians and the government, convinced that someone could have prevented this. But history tells us that it doesn't take very many people to do a lot of damage; they just have to be serious about it and have guns.

Where does the solution lie? Far back. In the work many people are constantly doing to create a world whose abundance is shared, a world in which people are not goaded by hunger and hopelessness and disenfranchisement into violence. Blame is not the first step on that road.

Terrorism in Mumbai: Is Bollywood the answer?

What a striking example of delusion in today’s New York Times, “What They Hate About Mumbai.” The author, Suketu Mehta, argues that Mumbai “stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.” It is “a mass dream” comparable to Bollywood, and hated by religious extremists, “a pleasure-loving city, a sensual city.” His solution is to defy the extremists by flying to Mumbai, where he intends to enjoy food and drink and watch a movie. He will Show Them that we will not be deterred from our pursuit of pleasure.

I was struck by the dualism of this response. Just like the “religious extremists” Mehta sees the world as divided into two camps, them and us. They hate pleasure, we love it. And by God, they’re not going to stop us. How can we not be reminded of the drunk who staggers about insisting on more?

It is remarkably like the issue the Buddha addressed in his first sermon. His old friends, the ascetics, were appalled that he had abandoned their lifestyle and eaten a gift of rice pudding that is sometimes described as very luxurious, made with heavy cream. From their point of view, he has gone over to the other side. They are sure enlightenment is found in extreme self-denial.

The Buddha explains a wholly different way. This is not, according to professor Jeff Shore, a way that steers between two extremes. Following the “Middle way” does not mean walking a boundary line between wretched excess and self-denial; it means living from our centers. It is a way that deals with actual reality, in which action proceeds from our core, not from abstract ideas of purity, and not from childish revolt against those ideas.

This is not just an issue for governments, but one that we are constantly faced with in our daily lives. The Western tradition represents it in the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. Live for today or abandon all joy and live for tomorrow. Wrong. That there is drunkenness doesn’t mean we should not enjoy a glass of wine. That there is gluttony does not mean we have to eat stark, unappetizing food merely to fuel the body. Working for a peaceful, secure future does not have to be joyless.

And the fact that there is a huge banquet laid out does not mean we have to gorge ourselves to the point of feeling ill, and ignore the hungry people knocking on the door. Just because there is a mass dream, represented by the opulent Indian cinema called Bollywood, doesn’t mean we have to live in a dream.

Blame it on the cat

The fact is, it probably is the cat's fault at least half the time. Who else would eat the peace plant and then throw it up on the comforter?

I blame the loss of my magnificent schefflera on our previous cat, Greylin. I do have a good picture of him sitting in it looking out the window. He loved that plant, and arranged its foliage to suit his needs. Unfortunately, the picture was taken with film, and you know how that goes. This cell-cam picture of Sherlock is less than perfect, but serves to document the truth.

What would you do without a scapecat in the house? Why am I sneezing? Who spilled water on the kitchen floor? Who chewed the edge of this magazine? How did my pen get under the hutch? Where are my keys? Lacking a cat, you would have to wonder if you or the spouse did it, and it is better to scapegoat the cat than the spouse. Really.

The chorus of the song is sung to the tune of the old hymn, "Bringing in the sheaves."

Blame it on the cat,
blame it on the cat.
He's a handy scapegoat
and doesn't give a damn.

I apologize for the profanity in the last line, but it's as close as I could get to a rhyme. And you know it's the truth. That utter inability to feel shame, even to pretend to feel shame, is a sure sign that what you have running around the house snagging the drapes is definitely not a dog.

The Hard Way

The attacks going on right now on Mumbai's luxury hotels are unpleasantly resonant of the attack on the World Trade Towers - in both cases, symbols of wealth. You might say, of wretched excess.

I've been thinking about tomorrow, which is being called Black Friday. The meaning is that it is the day when consumer purchases put retailers "in the black." I'm afraid it's going to have another meaning when this is over, though retailers have pulled out all the stops, delivering pounds of advertising with my morning paper.

In the face of the drastic slowdown in consumer spending, with all sorts of retailers going bankrupt, it almost seems weird that there are still people advocating observing Black Friday as Buy Nothing Day, but there are. Here is a quote from the Adbusters' press release:

“If you dig a little past the surface you’ll see that this financial meltdown is not about liquidity, toxic derivatives or unregulated markets, it’s really about culture,” says the co-founder of Adbusters Media Foundation, Kalle Lasn. “It’s our culture of excess and meaningless consumption — the glorified spending and borrowing of the past decade that’s at the root of the crisis we now find ourselves in.”

That's the way we talked during the past years of frenzied consumption. I recall the first year I observed Buy Nothing Day, maybe ten years ago. I was nervous about making sure I had the food I needed for dinner. If I run out of something, I'll have to borrow it from a neighbor. Had to make sure the car had gas. Honestly, pledging to not buy anything for one day seemed novel and difficult.

There were never very many of us who thought that way. Our neighbors saw us as taking all the fun out of life. I understand. I remember when I thought shopping was fun, back in the seventies, when I had my first professional job, and a lot of illusions. I went to a shiny new mall the day after Thanksgiving and ran the stores like a commando. I remember buying a $50 blouse on impulse; I can't remember if that was the original price or the sale price. Either way, it was a lot of money for a blouse. (I did love that garment, too.)

We humans seem mostly to learn the hard way, by disaster. You could logic it out, you could see from your own experience that things never made you happy. You could see that having more than your neighbors just made them jealous. Over and over these humble truths are evident, but we don't want to pay attention. No wonder, with that flood of advertising promising the giddy thrill of the new.

When terrorists struck the Twin Towers, there were plenty of people who stood outside the mainstream of nationalistic fervor and desire for retaliation, who thought we could learn something instead. Maybe it showed that the rest of the world was getting tired of living with hunger and poverty, and watching American excess. If we had seen that, we might have have come up with a radically different alternative to declaring an unwinnable war, like making sure every child in Africa has a mosquito net to sleep under. That would have cost a lot less than the price we're paying now.

Where happiness is

More thoughts this morning on positive attitudes. Looking for joy is like knowing what you really, really hope is inside that Christmas package. If you do get it, there comes that moment when you feel let down.

Thinking about another way to say the Buddha's basic teaching.

1. You have a subtle, constant craving for a sense of absolute security* and constant pleasure** that, in the very nature of things, can never be satisfied.***
*impossible. Earthquakes, melanoma.
**impossible. Ask any alcoholic.
***you are a carbon-based life form that ages, gets sick, and dies, and so do the other life forms. No sooner do you get things exactly how you like them than something changes.

2. Your insistence on trying to fulfill your impossible dream leads to frustration and disappointment, and doing stupid things. You are like a child busy digging with a little tin shovel for buried treasure that doesn’t exist, and ignoring the beach and sea and sky.

3. You don’t have to keep acting like this.

4. You can change your purpose. You can decide to stop digging and experience actual reality, think straight, and live decently.
Then the legend tells us how; the Eightfold Path, which still makes a lot of sense.

Alright. So, experience Thanksgiving.

A Different Kind of Blessing

A Blessing
 by James Wright

Just off the Highway to Rochester, Minnesota
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain
  their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love
 each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring
  in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one
    in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her
  long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's
   wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would
   break
Into blossom.

Live Really is a Bowl of Cherries

Every so often I get something in my inbox from Positive Ron, PositRon for short, about how having “a positive attitude” is the key to happiness. This isn’t something he debates. He just knows it’s true.

Maybe I should say "she," PositRonni, because these cheerful, upbeat missives usually come from women. Yet, they express belief in that weird uncombed male relative, Will. Remember him? PositRonni and Will believe we can choose to be happy, choose to see only what we like, look on the bright side of the mountain, not the shade. Ronni and Will are joined at the hip, both of them sure, pretty sure, anyway, that you can boss yourself into happiness.

Now, we do have many opportunities to affect our lives, most of them daily and boring. Like this: if I always put my car keys in the basket by the door, I am more likely to be able to find them than if I throw them down wherever. A little habit that makes life a bit less stressful. Fewer frantic occasions trying to find the keys, running late, anxious. We can impact our experience in bigger ways. Think before we say yes to something that’s going to crowd the calendar. Quit smoking. Take up painting. Figure out how to drop that grudge.

But Ronni isn’t sending me posts about working toward a better life. She is telling me, with hope in her voice, to just block out what I don’t like. Pain, sadness, discouragement, frustration, those things are undesirable, so let’s not let them in. Cool, as long as it works.

My most urgent positive thoughts come in little notes from the most determinedly cheerful lady I know. Her daughter recalls the time she pushed her mother to acknowledge a painful truth. “Well,” the woman said, with finality, “that might be the way it is, but that doesn’t mean I have to think about it.”

The deceptively pretty bowl of fruit on that woman’s dining room table is actually a ceramic piece. The artificial cherries are not nourishing, but they will never go bad. Real cherries have pits, and sometimes a faintly rotten taste, or a tiny worm. Some look ripe but are sour and hard, and you can’t necessarily pick out the sweetest one. I don't think that's what the song means by "Life is just a bowl of cherries." But in fact, that’s what cherries are like.

All that will survive me: The Fifth Remembrance

Equanimity by Rev. Nonin Chowaney. His work can be found at
http://www.prairiewindzen.org/calligraphy/select.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~

By and large, the odd behaviors we call mental illness are only exaggerations of natural tendencies or, you might say, common mistakes that we enshrine as strategies for dealing with life.

I am thinking of a lovely woman I know who is somewhere on “the autistic spectrum,” and somewhat OCD. These two personality patterns fit together nicely, in the way that makes me think about the inadequacy of labels. My friend feels protected by packing a dozen pens lined up in a certain order in her briefcase; by her meticulous log of every mile she drives. She got very frightened once when I casually deviated from a recipe. I don’t think she ever throws anything away; not a magazine or a rag.

If you walked into her house, you’d think her very strange, living tunneled into walls of boxes and head-high columns of old newspapers. But really, her habits are just an exaggeration of normal. We all tend to feel safe with the familiar, to seek security in routines. “Normal” people are just not quite as obvious in our attachments.

This morning my thinking is circling around the last of The Five Remembrances —

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

It is very unsettling when something happens that shows us everything we own can be swept away in one breathtaking moment. Hurricane, fire, a drunk driver, the stock market crash. Even our very self with its precious uniqueness can be swept away by one little blood clot in the brain. Then all that is left of us is the continuation of our influence in the world. I’d say that influence is not very much about fame, but about the impact of our everyday actions.

When I think of losing everything with equanimity, I remember a couple I knew socially in the late sixties. Bill and Ruth were young people, in their thirties, who had been missionaries in an African country where a civil war broke out. The violence kept creeping closer to their village, so they put everything they really valued, like family photographs, in a barrel and buried it in the dirt floor of the basement of the mission house.

One day their home church radioed in a panic. The violence was sweeping their way, and a bush plane was on the way to get them. It would touch down and take off. They could bring only what they could wear on their backs and what Ruth could carry in her purse, which was basically, their passports.

I met them not long after they got back to this country. They told their story calmly, and Bill commented, “We thought we’d get back there some day to get our stuff, but we learned that the mission house was burned to the ground. Now we know we’ll never be back.”

Ruth was the kind of quiet person you pay attention to when she speaks. She said, “There is a certain sense of freedom. Now we have nothing left to lose.”

These two were Christians, in what denomination I don’t remember. But the example of their lives taught me a central tenet of Buddhism, and apparently of Christianity, too. We find our freedom in letting go. In relinquishing. All Bill and Ruth had left was life itself, and they were grateful.

Our paths didn’t cross again after that, and they were older than me, so they might be dead by now. I can’t recall their last name, hard as I try, memory being one of the little things I keep losing. But the essential memory of their actions has stayed with me all those years. It is not the courage of their missionary work, either; I can hardly fathom that kind of physical courage. What has survived them in my mind is the memory of their acceptance of loss, their ability to learn from it, their serene knowledge that being alive and having each other was what counted.
~~~~~~~~
[note: The full text of The Five Remembrances is at the bottom of the page.]

Sherlock proves the truth of biorhythm

Maybe it was during the early eighties that I and many others were briefly interested in the phenomenon of biorhythm. I seem to recall making a graph that charted my physical energy, mental alertness, mood, and maybe the phases of the moon. I was gratified to see that when I bottomed out it was because all these things had bottomed out at once; not my fault, then.

As a culture we don't pay enough attention to influences other than our individual Will, whom I see as a sort of not-too-bright fellow with untidy hair. But all things have their rhythms. I need look no further than Sherlock the cat at 2:00 in the afternoon, when he will almost always be found in the posture shown in the photograph.

Once night falls, Sherlock can perform on command as well as any human performing artist I know. In fact, he commands the performance, and will run to the accustomed spot on the living room rug, motivated by nothing but his own inner Will. The sequence of actions is not nothing. In fact, it is pretty spectacular for a cat. Whole cat circuses have been built on little more.

It begins with Roll Over and roll back (one Dentabite cat treat). Then there is Round and Round (my ankles). Then a major stretch for Big Tall Cat, and at last the one that visitors always think is kind of wierd: Sherlock, Go to the library and pick out a book. In this unique trick, Sherlock walks smartly over to the basket we keep our library books in and retrieves a treat placed on the lid.

Four treats then, a pretty good payday and one he likes to bring off several times a day. But he just can't.

He tries. After all, we are up, and he doesn't want to miss an opportunity. So after I get up from lunch, he runs to his place on the carpet, lies down, and emits either the silent miaow, or the almost inaudible mawr that is his signature speech. I am always willing to believe him, so I rub his spine and start saying in a stupid voice, like you do when you talk to animals, "Then roll over."

He blinks. Rubs his nose. At last, frowning, he rolls over in a tentative way. Looks at me. I prompt him, I'm such a softy. Maybe he rolls back. I give him a treat and, ever hopeful, step back and make the motion for Round-and-round. And he just can't get figure it out. The best he can do is roll over again and look up at me hopefully. So I give him a treat. After all, to him it is the middle of the night. I doubt that I could do much better at 2:00 a.m. myself.

OMG, vampire phenomenon totally explained

I did not spend 23 years getting educated without learning how to talk about books I won't read and movies I refuse to see. The latest such movie is Twilight, which has not only teen-age girls, but some Moms (as distinguished from Mothers) lining up at midnight in matching tee-shirts and squealing with glee when the clerk takes the tarp off the stack of novels.

What is surprising about this? The vampire novels of Anne Rice have been solid bestsellers for many years. In general, the vampire myth falls in line with the romance novel: an innocent girl is swept away by the allure of a clearly dangerous guy. Recognize Wuthering Heights? An anthropologist studying the culture would suggest that these stories mirror the submission expected of women, and make it much more glamorous than actual ordinary oppression and domestic abuse.

It gets worse. These stories train girls to see masochism (danger, getting hurt) as sexy. I really recommend your kids stick with Harry Potter. Or is that old economy? The question unfolds another line of enquiry -- is this phenomenon in some oblique way actually about what the wealthy have done to the rest of us?

The picture (from the film) suggests that he is longing to see her bare neck. Maybe the neck (modestly concealed) will be the next erotic zone. A refreshing idea. I, for one, have lots of scarves.

Bail Out Gm! (Grandma, that is)

The poll is closed, the results are in. 57% of us voted to bail me out, and the rest wanted The Fed to bail them out, too. I'm waiting.

I hope nobody missed the news clip showing the CEOs of the Three Not-So-Big-As-We-Were-Before-the-Japanese-Lost-WWII being grilled (sorry) by our worthy legislators. One said to them something much like this:

It does seem ironic that you flew here in corporate jets with tin cups in your hands.

You could see the executives wishing they had not worn their very best yellow silk ties.

And here's a rhetorical question: Why did it take everyone else so long to get mad at the rich?

Post No. 100

from "Comic Strip" by Chris Ware, The New Yorker, Nov. 24, 2008. The character has been thinking about how she hates to talk about food, and then breaks out into intelligent thought, ruining the dinner party.

PERSONALLY I think aestheticizing the sense of taste is a classist, morally indefensible notion, a function of privilege rather than of necessity, especially when it comes at such expense . . .

Isn't the economy collapsing precisely because the means of human subsistence have metastasized into abstract, tradable commodities, removed from the reality of daily life except as tools of finance?

Why, yes.

You won't need your kidneys in heaven

It is not front-page news to everyone - doctors have successfully grown a woman's own stem cells to coat cadaveric windpipe cartilage, and transplanted it with good results. She has not had to take anti-rejection medications. You can read about it where I did, on
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/19/do1916.xml&posted=true&_requestid=122177

Who cares? I do. This research is not an abstraction to some of us. Here is my letter to the Telegraph.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someone like me should comment.

I am an otherwise healthy person with drastically damaged kidneys. I have been on a transplant waiting list for almost a year, and am told the average wait is three years. I have no miraculous immediate family able to donate a kidney, and would be very slow to accept it, for I am not convinced it benefits someone to suddenly have 50% of full kidney function.

Everything in me rebels against everything involved in cadaveric transplant, but especially against the need for anti-rejection drugs and the awful consequences of deliberately lowering your natural immune response.

But I may come to the point in life where I will die without transplant or the equally brutal and inadequate treatment of dialysis (which costs my government, US, about $80,000 a year). I make that choice mentally often, especially when I get sick.

This research holds out hope for me. One day someone might be able to encourage my scarred kidneys to begin growing healthy, useful tissue.

I thank the doctors and researchers.

Almost Human, Unfortunately

A guy I know, a real photographer named Tony Mendoza, has done very well publishing pictures of a cat named Ernie who was not cute. Sherlock is not cute either, but even this picture cannot make me think of him as "just a cat." (The close reader will observe that one canine tooth is not there. That happened before we knew him. Psychic investigation has led me to think that somewhere there is a raccoon with a cat tooth imbedded in his shoulder, a raccoon who is lucky to be alive.)

Years of living in forced seclusion with us has made Sherlock all too human. Last night Tom was sitting on the couch watching the news, idly scratching the cat's ears. I wasn't watching until I heard Tom yelp, but I know he was not being rough with the cat; that would be foolish.

"What happened?" I asked.

"He bit me," Tom said, without rancor.

"Why?" I recalled how on election night Sherlock turned his head and bit our friend Hap on the arm. Hap hadn't done a thing. But Sherlock, sitting beside him, had apparently been thinking about the fact that Hap was sitting where he usually lies curled up when we watch TV. Every cat knows you can't just let people take over your territory. This is not being macho, just instinct.

But Tom was not sitting in Sherlock's place, so what was the problem?

"I wasn't giving him my full, undivided attention," Tom said. I understood.

Sherlock was being touched casually. Energy was being directed somewhere else. I thought of only children I have known, and said, "That cat's practically human." It was not a compliment.

The new normal

The picture: Jizo in the Zen garden, unconcerned about the change of seasons.
~~~~~~~~
"You know, poverty isn't so bad." I can imagine a character in an off-Broadway production saying it to a friend, with a lilt of surprise in her voice. The play wouldn't be about real poverty, of course, the grind of hunger and bad sanitation, unsafe neighborhoods, no medical care, no hope. It would be about the new poverty many middle-class Americans are facing. You could call it the same old simplicity. We are getting down to basics.

Sales of paper towels have fallen off, I see, 11%, not as much as sales of women's fragrances (47%). It is fairly obvious that perfume is a luxury, maybe not so obvious that paper towels are not one of life's necessities. In fact - here comes some reminiscence - I believe they didn't even exist when I was born, though I don't feel inclined to research the history of the paper towel on this lovely, slow rainy day.

How did you wipe up spills? With a dishrag. With rags, which were torn out of old, old unmendable white sheets, sheets from the day before sheets had pattern and color and lace, yet were functional, and felt wonderful when they were freshly washed and had hung in the sun to dry.

You wiped up spills with dishtowels. I recall my shock the day I noticed in my aged parents' garage a neat package of store-bought rags. My parents were born poor in 1920, and they were thrifty. I'd never thought I'd see the day when they would waste money like that, but I guess neatness at last trumped thrift.

Many thoughtful people have always lived on the sceptical edge of the consumer society, being careful about consuming trees, for instance, using cloth napkins and discussing whether that is really a savings. It might depend on how often you wash them. I recall reading somewhere once that the Duke of Windsor was quite surprised when someone explained to him that napkin rings were used to keep the person's napkin in place from one meal to the next. "You mean they don't get a fresh napkin with every meal?" He really couldn't imagine.

So much of what we are now giving up was unsatisfying, and often experienced as stress. I think of family dinners at cheap sit-down restaurants, because Mom's too tired to cook; hectic travel; all that Christmas. Keeping up that big house, and the cottage on the lake, and the boat, and the cars.

When Tom went into pulmonary rehab several years ago, his class was taught to learn "your new normal." It's hard to adjust to being dis-abled. We had once been able, able to do what we felt like doing, and we resented the loss. There is truth to the grief, fear, frustration we feel in any loss, and we need to acknowledge it. It will pop up its ugly little troll-like head now and again.

It's also true that for many of us the present moment is pretty much alright, warm and dry, the larder stocked. Oatmeal is delicious in this weather. The library has some excellent DVDs, and if you don't buy books you don't need to dust them. The grandson has always preferred macaroni and cheese to just about anything else, and enjoyed learning to play Parcheesi, a viable alternative to his Gameboy. It's amazing how well he remembers the rules, and the outcome of every game.

Bail Grandma Out!

Imagine my surprise when I found myself agreeing with Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee. Today’s NY Times (“Chances Dwindle on Bailout Plan for Automakers”) says Henserling believes American automakers should bear responsibility for their failed operations. ‘"They are producing high-cost products that consumers don’t want to buy." He goes on to oversimplify, so I’ll stop here. Anyway, like everyone, I’m more interested in myself.

About myself: I am really, actually a Poet, a Vocation I didn’t choose and never would have chosen, given that, as the song goes, “Ain’t no money in poetry.” I capitalized Vocation to distinguish it from career, a word that always reminds me of careen, as when, “The car went careening off the cliff.”

I can’t help writing poetry. I have also written a great deal of fiction. Not one page of it involves the big D luxuries - diamonds, drug abuse, decadence. My stories are hardly even stories sometimes, since they are explorations of life itself, which does not have any discernible plot except the line drawn from “you’re born” to “you die.” They certainly are not entertainments.

It’s not that the arts communities have not recognized me; it’s just that there really ain’t hardly no money in art, unless you are really good at self-marketing, wheedle your way into the tight circles of nepotism, and get hit by a lightning stroke of sheer good luck

So I find myself here near life’s end without quite enough money to indulge my modest desires: a digital SLR camera, a new pair of sweats, weekly acupuncture treatments, the ability to go out for dinner with a friend and not worry about every dollar. Every penny. And it’s not my fault. I did work when I could, the kind of work a female English major can do. Unfortunately, my pension is based on the kind of salary a woman could make.

GM made stupid products out of sheer stubbornness and disregard for the health of the planet. They thought they could eternally trick consumers, even as Honda and Toyota were ascending stars. Gm (Grandma), on the other hand, has made unsaleable products because, well, I couldn’t help it. We artists are at least as helpless in the grip of our impulses as any frontier capitalist. Probably more.

Therefore it makes perfect sense that if anyone is bailed out, it should be me. And I’m a bargain. I can be bailed out with a single payment far less than the annual salary of one auto executive. And I promise, I will use the money to stimulate the local economy. That’s how generous I am.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love

Now that I am feeling a little better, I have enough detachment to begin talking about the fourth line of The Five Remembrances. (The complete text is at the bottom of this page.)

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

In a talk, Jack Kornfield tells of two friends who run into each other at a funeral home, where they are paying respects to a wealthy man.

One asks, “What did he leave behind?”

The other says, “Why, everything.”

Yes, that's what we leave behind.

Last night network news ran a story about people “losing their homes.” No, wait! I said. You’re talking about losing a house. It’s a pile of sticks and concrete and rebars. If we think it’s our one safe place, that our shelter is somehow us, we grasp it with everything we’ve got.

This does not just apply to younger people in foreclosure. Many of my friends have been worried by elderly parents whose mantra is, “I want to stay in my home. I love my house.” Sometimes everyone else can see that, on a realistic level, the house is not very lovable. It has gone from being a good shelter for an active young family to being a burden for people too infirm to maintain it. Reason tells us they are in constant danger using stairs, they don’t eat well. It would make sense to move somewhere suitable to their actual present life, somewhere where they could get a hot meal once a day, and have the security of a bellpull by the bed and in the bathroom. This is actually what we mean by "living in the moment" - being in touch with reality, without the filters of attachment and illusion.

Believe me, I have felt the intensity of an elder’s passion to “stay in my home,” and learned that sometimes you can't fight it. It has to end with a catastrophic health event that might have been avoided by more realistic choices.

The intensity of an emotion does not make it a good guideline for action, more so when the emotion is about maintaining an illusion. In fact, acting on impulse and passion is a good way to ruin your life, and take others down with you. One of the effects of meditation practice is to show us time after time that if we just sit still and allow emotions to come and go, that's what they do. Yes, they're my emotions, and I might have to dance with them; but I don't have to marry them.

There is an old song that straightforwardly compares a house to our own self, our own body. It was one of the first songs I ever learned; I have a feeling it was printed on the back of a Kellogg’s cornflakes box. I still like the song as an example of accepting change and death with good humor. The chorus is -

Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer
Ain't a-gonna need this house no more
Ain't got time to fix the shingles
Ain't got time to fix the floor
Ain't got time to oil the hinges
Nor to mend the windowpane
Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer
I’m a-gettin' ready to meet the saints.

(Not that I personally am ready, you know.)

Mental disorders and the fallacy of the single cause

Yesterday's NY Times ran an article on a sweeping new theory of mental illness ("In a Novel Theory of Mental Disorders, Parents' Genes are in Competition.") In summary, the theory is that "disorders" from autism to the mood/thought distortions found in the "psychotic spectrum," are caused by an imbalance between a mother's and a father's genes. Autism is said to be the overly-masculine side, as anyone might guess who has ever known a man who hand-rubbed seventeen coats of lacquer on a classic car.

I could write a book about the inherent assumptions in all this; that's why I put some words in quotes. But for now, I just want to comment on this example of single-cause thinking.

Over and over, I am fascinated by how dedicated Western medical research is to the idea of the single cause, even as researchers find it almost impossible to make it work, reminding you of the elaborate theory of epicycles that supported the conviction that the sun revolved around the world. In fact, trying to "control" for "other factors" is a major headache for those who design studies of human behavior and wellness. For example, does your health really improve just because you exercise? What is the role of other factors, like the socialization of the health club; walking out in nature; just getting out of the house; your will to live; your belief, and your doctor's?

Obviously, there is cause and effect, but we claim to have a handle on it at our peril. Here is where we stand to learn from the simple common-sense of basic Buddhist teachings about karma. As I understand it, karma does not simplistically mean "fate" or "what has to happen." Instead, it refers to the inexorable (and observable) fact that every one of our actions springs from an elaborate braid of causation, and also gives rise to our future. Nothing is without cause. No action fails to give rise to effects.

For this reason, spiritually advanced people are more likely to ask you questions than to give advice. I believe this caution is the result of genuine insight into the complex nature of human behavior. It contrasts to the behavior of the less enlightened who, unfortunately, sometimes think they know the answer. Friends tell a woman who is endangered by her alliance with a violent man, "You need to get your locks changed." It seems obvious to her friends. But her reality is more complex than anyone can know. She has made it through life by being strong, never vulnerable. Her self-esteem is built on her compassion, on never putting her own needs first. Telling her what she ought to do has not changed things.

A different understanding of "mental disorders" is overdue. As one who has met a crack baby, I welcome the insights not only of genetics, but also of the importance of the environment of the womb. Taking genetic balance into account sounds like a useful framework, a break from the American conviction that our minds are machines we can fix with chemicals and discussion. We need to give more thought to other influences on our mental well-being, such as the real impact of childhood experiences, and of our everyday environment.

I'm going to help you

It is never necessary to cue Sherlock that it is time for one of his favorite products. He knows what happens when the mail comes in - he gets his daily Petromalt. ( Cat people know what it is.) On Sunday (note the funnies under his dominating paw), no mail, so the Petromalt can come out anytime someone opens that drawer in the kitchen.

I thought about this the other day as I read an old New York Times article ("Warning - Habits May be Good for You") about how advertising agencies work to change viewers' habits. An example given was trying to get people to use the product Febreze, a spray deodorizer whose sales were languishing. People bought it once, but then forgot to use it. The psychologists advised the agency to tie the use of the product to the regular weekly housecleaning that, apparently, someone actually does. The idea was to make spraying the clean room with this perfumed water a habitual final step in cleaning.

It is somewhat consoling to think that this is another product that will be increasingly seen as an unnecessary luxury in these days of new attention to our spending. (Have you seen what happened to Starbucks' stock?) At the same time, it is a little scary to remind ourselves how marketers think:

“OUR products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.” [my italics]

The thought that there exists an academic specialty called "consumer psychology" strikes fear in those of us who used to teach books like Brave New World. The fact that there are people who believe that manipulating others to buy something improves their lives, that should not surprise us. It should sadden us, and help us remember to be skeptical.

I remember my dismay when my mother talked about a course in advertising she took in college, which she attended in middle age. She did not see advertising as manipulation, but explained to me what she was taught: "Advertising is all about giving information." She was of a generation unable to question the powerful white man who stood in front of the class, and who wrote the textbook.

The crash of the global economy is related to its basis in the constant purchase and discarding of luxury products. Well before the crash, it had become obvious that this was an unsatisfying lifestyle, so obvious that psychologists began to study happiness. Their findings about what makes people contented with their lives are so much like those of the Buddha, you sometimes have to smile. It is a conclusion many people had already come to: once you have the necessities of life (which do not include a Swarovski rhinoceros), more doesn't make you any happier.

This could lead me to a whole discourse on how I escaped buying a robot vacuum cleaner. I'll save that for another time. Suffice it to say now, Sherlock would not have approved.

My new blog

It's called What Grandma's Watching, after the idea that what keeps a neighborhood safe is Grandmas watching from the front porch (and also named after finding out that the best titles are taken). What it's for is commentary on the arts and culture. I hope that moving that kind of thing there will help me figure out what it is I do here.

http://grandmaswatching.blogspot.com

Hair!

(style by Damien Carney)

As I sat watching the news tonight and inveighing against the too-old-to-be-so-silly woman with hair styled to fall over one eye, I was suddenly inspired. Yes, as I said, "You don't see Morley Safer wearing his hair like that!" I realized the profound truth of it. There is a vast divide between the sexes, especially in the precincts of power. It is marked by, well, a lot of things, but basically, men look serious and women -- have this hair.

We all saw this week, change is possible, but it has to come from the bottom up. What I propose is simple, a campaign every American can join in and be counted. Gentlemen, grow your forelocks so they fall into or completely over one eye. If you like, you can emulate Sarah's do on her acceptance speech at the Republican convention. Every time she blinked, the carefully arranged strands of bangs brushing her eyelashes blinked along with her. It would have driven a lesser woman nuts. That's all we ask of you. If a vice-presidential candidate can do it in front of a million people, you can do it too.

You say everyone would think you looked silly. That's interesting.

As for the women, I'm not asking you to shave your heads; that's a lot of trouble, and winter is coming, besides. I'm not suggesting you stop dunking your scalp in dyes whose long-term impact on the nearbye brain has not been tested with giant longitudinal studies. Just cut your bangs so they don't fall in your eyes.

I know, it's a daunting prospect, but look at it this way -- I gave the men the hard assignment.

Taking a sabbath

Adena Brook this time of year.

I don't know when I began to think taking Sunday off was a good idea. I remember the years we would go to church and then, I'm guessing, out to lunch, and then to Border's and buy easily $50 worth of stuff. Books, magazines, impulse purchases. Who were we to stand outside the consumer economy? We joked about it. Somehow, when you're young you think your excesses are cute.

Now I really do take Sunday off from the flow of responsibilities. I don't do anything I don't want to do. This seems to prevent me from doing anything that feels like "work" or "should," though sometimes I'll do laundry or cook, and enjoy it. I seldom do anything special.

I've gotten used to having this sometimes boring day. An interesting subject, boredom, whose opposite is excitement I guess; I seem to have gotten bored with excitement these days.

On Sunday, the burdens drop to the floor. I don't work problems. I am usually energized Monday, write a lot, make out frisky lists of things to do, and get to the health club. Monday actually feels good, something I could never say about Monday on any of the jobs I had. At the same time, I often felt disappointed that my weekend had not yielded more fun. Fun is a big subject at one point in your life.

Work. The problem with being paid to do something is, it is almost never something you would do if nobody paid you. My daughter Cassie told me reasonably, "That's why they call it work." Well, poets don't necessarily know these things.

I am of the nature to die.

It is the day eleven for the flu and day two for a fibromyalgia flareup. The barometer keeps falling as a major rotating windstorm passes by us, and I am easily annoyed. This morning I am annoyed by an admiring story about a woman who died "after a long, courageous battle with cancer."

It is not possible to talk about this without exposing yourself to the wrath of millions of sick people and their relatives. But you know, if Barack could take what McCain-Palin dished out, I can take that. Because I know what I'm talking about.

Over eleven years ago I was diagnosed with invasive ductile breast cancer. I was only 54 years old. Unnecessarily extensive surgery was done on me at a famous cancer center. Then I spent many weeks with a lymphatic infection that flourished under inept care. Once over that, I did the overly extensive radiation therapy prescribed at the time -- one of those treatments that is very, very expensive -- and then spent weeks recovering from the huge blisters the treatments caused. I did the five years of tamoxifen without dying of a blood clot. And I did the cancer support groups.

I came up with lymphedema in the arm they took the lymph glands out of, without warning me of the probable side effects of this step. The lymphedema was manageable, even when I had to wear huge compression bandages around the clock, until two years ago, when a hospital elevator door (there's irony) struck it. Since then the arm is much more swollen, and yes, I have a lymphedema therapist and I wear a sleeve, and I have a pump, and you know what? No one can fix what the surgeons did to me. The ordinary everyday frustrations of this include that I have had to go to Goodwill and buy a new wardrobe because almost nothing I owned will fit over this arm, including my coats. So maybe all this, and the endless flu, has something to do with my annoyance over this talk about fighting illness. Courageously.

How abstract to get on this? Well, as a credentialed student of language, and specifically of metaphor, I note that "battle" is a masculine metaphor. Generally, it is men who wage war; and physical courage is traditionally a masculine virtue, though many women cultivate it in the effort to prove they are people deserving of respect. (There is also an interesting admiration of ferocity in defense of one's children. I've known very dominated women who are proud to say "I'm a mother tiger," or "the mother from hell" in defense of their children. Or"a pitbull with lipstick.")

When I think about courage, I remember a scene from The Fellowship of the Ring. The King's best friend has just died in his arms. But the Orcs are steadily coming over the hill. He picks up his sword and begins to methodically kill them, one by one, in an endless line.

I was moved by this scene. It is a version of courage, almost a quiet kind of courage, to take a deep breath and do what you have to do to stay alive. None of us likes to be around its polar opposite for long, the person who wilts and whines; it is too much like begging us to somehow do it for them.

But somewhere between these poles of King and Coward is a vast gray territory containing what may be the right choice for a given individual. I am thinking of one who took it not long ago, the columnist Art Buchwald. He'd had acute kidney failure, apparently after a partial amputation, and been put on hemodialysis. After a dozen treatments he said, Enough. I'm going to die in peace.

It was big news to me, hovering as I was on the edge of the same cliff. Yes, I had been told that I didn't have to undergo these often-difficult treatments, I could choose to die when my kidneys finally let go. But nobody meant it. Not the first kidney doctor, not the second one. Only my minister gave me the dignity of choice.

I am still on the tx list, as we insiders call it. I am still suffering pain from the emergency surgery that had to be done when the short dialysis I did caused a rupture. I still wander the dialysis e-list now and then, observing the horrendous medical problems and asking myself, Do I want to revise my living will to say No dialysis, never?

But in trying to think for myself and live my own life, I am beset by a medical establishment that makes an enormous amount of money off these dangerous and often inadequate treatments. And more than that, I am discouraged by a culture that sees death as one more thing to fight. That believes in fighting. Fighting the inevitable. Standing up to death. When I think of that, I think of the dialogue in the film The Seventh Seal, where the knight looks up from the chessboard and says to Death, "You're going to win, aren't you?"

"I always do," Death says calmly.
~~~~~
note: The text of The Five Remembrances is included in my post of November 6, 2008, titled "I am of the nature to grow old."

Reality is not all nice

As I watched Sarah Palin complain about "the media" on the news tonight, how they made a big deal out of the clothes the Republican National Committee bought her, I thought about Hunter Thompson's book, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. When this book came out in 1966, you were not likely to see in your downhome neighborhood restaurant, as I did today, a Dad in a Harley tee-shirt feeding a baby girl with a spoon. The Hell's Angels were greatly feared, with reason.

Thompson hung out with them for a year. I vaguely recall reading this book, a college-student housewife fascinated by the unfolding New Journalism, all the barriers that were breaking down in the arts and the society just then. Later, Susan Brownmiller's book, Against Our Will, would criticize Thompson's flippant acceptance of the Angel custom of gang-rape. I recall reading one particular scene in disbelief. Until feminism emerged, rape was not a subject of open discussion. I wonder now that I read the damn thing through. It had the fascination of a horror movie, and it was real.

Nothing had prepared me for Thompson's postscript to the book. It tells how a group of Angels suddenly turned on him and "stomped" him, might have killed him. He compares the event to sharks in a feeding frenzy. He ended the book quoting from Joseph Conrad, "The horror! Exterminate the brutes!" I had the impression that it was all interesting until then, that he'd never realized that he might be a victim. He was fond of his own violence, bragged to them that he settled quarrels with a shotgun. He didn't have it with him that night.

I sat there tonight feeling like I have lived too long and read too much, and watched Sarah Palin do the kind of thing she has still not learned to avoid, an impromptu press conference. Her voice has become more strident, with an overtone of a whine. People made a big deal about her makeup artist, she said, but what about his? Someone powdered his nose, too. (Her makeup artist had been paid $23,000 the first month, as I recall.) And she didn't get to take home those clothes. I wondered what the RNC will do with them. They would probably sell well on eBay to those conservative men who "fell in love" with her. An uncomfortable thought.

Sarah knew how to swim in Alaskan waters. With all her experience in the competitions of both women and men, she has learned to present a strength and confidence that seem to be bone-deep. But that's no preparation for swimming with sharks. Now, like so many beautiful women who outlive their usefulness, she has been discarded.

I am of the nature to have ill health

Last night I went to bed discouraged, thinking I might have pneumonia; this bounce up from the flu and then back down could indicate that. This morning, another new day, a beautiful day, looks like the last day of Indian Summer. We seem to cherish these days more than spring, because we know it is not June that is coming, but winter.

I knew I was somewhat better this morning as I looked over the paper and found myself having little thoughts and ideas. A certain liveliness of mind. When I am sick, I go flat, uninspired, not caring to stir myself to do much of anything. This state can be mistaken for “depression,” that analytic term we have learned to use to describe our lack of joy and engagement with life.

This flatness of spirit is what I personally dislike most about being sick. It occurs to me, though, that it is the natural and right response of the body/mind, turning all its resources toward healing, trying to put you on the couch where you belong. This is one reason I don’t like medications that manage symptoms enough to enable us to keep plugging along, going to work and the grocery store, foggily spreading the virus, not letting it stop us. Come on folks, I want to say when I see the commercials for miraculous cold medications (which often contain stimulants), let it slow you down. It's okay to slow down.

It is interesting to think about how sickness shines a spotlight on our attachment to our preferences—the way we ourselves like to be, the way we think things are supposed to be. We like to function at our peak, however modest that might be. We like some things, many things actually, to stay the same. We want to go on doing things the way we’ve gotten used to doing them, having every bit of capacity we once had. So it is not really separate from the issues of aging.

I think our impatience with illness also goes to the way we flinch from recognizing our vulnerability. It is curious how The Five Remembrances pushes that mud pie in our faces: “I am of the nature to have ill health; there is no way to escape ill health.” What, no way? I won't accept that!

I recall fondly the time I presented the chant to a study group, and was met by a long moment of dead silence. Then Marianne expressed what others were thinking. She said fervently into the silence “I hate that.”

It does take some getting used to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
note: The text of The Five Remembrances is given in my November 5, 2008 post.

I am of the nature to grow old

It’s a new world today, very beautiful. But for me, same old flu. After two days of rising wellness, I have returned to the fever and lassitude, which took me to bed last night before NBC had predicted results. Now, that’s pathetic.

Flu is a different story when you’re old. It can lead to stubborn pneumonia and other infections. Even so, I had thought that since the Mayo Clinic website said the flu lasted a minimum of five days, then I should get better after five days. Not to be. This is day eight, and I’ve had to cancel tonight’s meeting of my course on healing. (So this is not really the post-ironic age.)

I asked myself what I know about how to be happy with this kind of thing going on, keeping me from walking in the Whetstone Prairie during these last days of Indian Summer. What came to mind was the chant called “The Five Remembrances,” which some Buddhists say every day. The facts it presents are central realities. This is the translation Thich Nhat Hanh uses:

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Today I thought about the first of these. There is no way to escape growing old. That’s certainly been my experience.

Recently I came across a web ad for PerriconeMD cosmeceuticals that said the opposite: Aging is Optional. Not-aging costs $195 for the “package,” which the ad described as “A prescription for looking your best and living a healthy and independent life.” Ah, you get the whole thing with your face creams: beauty, health, independence. Everything you want.

Many readers have been through what Tom and I have, trying to care for elderly parents who do not want to admit to old age. Sometimes they are puzzled, bemused: an 85-year-old man telling how he couldn’t lift the extension ladder up to the house. How strange, he insists. I always used to be able to. Sometimes it is defiant, an 80-year-old woman insisting “I’m not going to go live with old people.” These are people of a generation that believed fiercely in the power of individual will.

Buddhists call this kind of thinking “ignorance” or “delusion,” by which we mean not understanding reality, and we consider it an innate human tendency. But aging is the universal reality we share with other carbon-based lifeforms: we are born, mature, age, and die—and that’s the optimal scenario. That’s what I used to say I wanted, to be active, vital, and healthy, and die all at once, say with a not-too-painful heart attack, after my ninetieth birthday party. I seem to have forgotten to sign up.

What if I really accept growing old? The whole thing, not just the parts I like, grandchild, birthday dinner, more self-confidence; hah, being retired, no alarm clock. If I accept who I am, I can discard my ideas of youth and age, put aside my desires—parasailing, Paris, being a young mother again—and just live within today’s reality.

This is the deeper side of “living in the moment.” It doesn’t just involve paying attention to what we’re doing. It goes beyond to seeing the present moment, the reality we’re in, living fully in that reality, not fighting, denying, hating it. There is lots to be experienced here, some of it enjoyable, some of it interesting, and much of it inevitable.

No contrast dyes!

The internet thinks Mark Twain originated the saying: "I've seen many troubles in my time, only half of which ever came true." Or maybe Josh Billings or Alfred North Whitehead. I thought it came from a Native American and began, "I'm an old woman, and I've seen many troubles, most of which never happened. "

In teaching meditation, many of us like to say, "Try it for six months or a year, see how it works for you." This is so unAmerican, isn't it? We want to be happy now! And the truth is, ten years is a better trial period. Then the change in you begins to show up at odd moments.

This morning I had an odd moment, registering for a CT scan at 7:30 a.m. I was given the usual multipage form to fill out, which led my mind idly down the path of One-of-these-days they're going to get this computerized. All this information about my surgeries and medications and allergies is in fact in the OSU computer system, from the extensive workup for the transplant list. But radiology can't get there.

Filling out forms is repetitive, inefficient. I remember how I used to get mad - frustrated, really- but I didn't this morning. However, my ears went up at the questions about the use of contrast dye.

There it is on the medical info sheet I carry with me, No Contrast Dyes, highlighted in yellow. This is because these dyes could further harm my kidneys, and there's not much left to lose. Hmm, I thought. Well, they're going to have to talk to my kidney doctor before I take a contrast dye. I might have to reschedule. That didn't make me mad, either. Waste of my time, I would have once thought. I used to feel so overloaded, so stressed, to have to go without my morning coffee like this, to waste two hours, that would make me crazy. Now I'm in touch with reality: if you are going to deal with a big western medical system, you are going to run into inefficiencies. That doesn't have to mean people are careless or stupid.

I took the form up to the receptionist, who told me the technician would talk to me about the contrast dye. He came for me in a few moments, and assured me we weren't planning to use one. It's just that everyone gets the same form. In a few moments, I had been scanned, having made the required joke, the one he hears 40 times a day, "Where's the cat?" ("They run around in the machine") and was on my way home to a really satisfying cup of coffee.

What was equally satisfying was thinking how different I am from the person who got practically hysterical just four years ago, when I happened to have a nuclear stress test scheduled on election morning. In fact, I got so frustrated waiting for that test in a cold, inefficient office that I walked out, which turned out to be a good idea; anger can sometimes lead to useful action.

But you can walk out quietly, without hysterics, as I was contemplating this morning.

I still have anxiety about medical procedures, going all the way back to a couple of gruesome childhood experiences. I'd had a little nightmare in the night, and slept fitfully after that. (Maybe if I live to meditate another eleven years, I won't have that.) But this anxiety is nowhere near the level it once was, even for a quick, noninvasive test like this.

My first thought was to credit meditation and Buddhist thought. I can think of myriad ways it has impacted my reactions, mostly by teaching me that they're just my reactions. Emotions brought forth by thoughts and memories, which are mental emissions that will pass if you let them. Sitting quite still in retreat, we learn not to scratch an itch, to watch our impulses pass.

Then there's the Buddhist emphasis on "skillful means," which is not usually whirling in a frenzy of rage like the Tasmanian Devil. Ah yes, he used to be one of my favorite cartoon characters. It's only fairly recently that I took him off my bookshelves, but I didn't throw him away. You never know when he might be just the skillful means you need.

Was it just meditation that turned a nightmare into an errand this pleasant morning? Not at all. These last years I have worked to cultivate a low-stress, nourishing life, and done intensive therapy regarding those childhood issues. Truly taking ownership of your body and your feelings is not just a spiritual matter, but involves psychological growth as well. Well, that's as abstract as I want to get today.

If you are an American, enjoy voting. We are privileged.

Freedom does not come cheap

Last night I talked to my friend Gini, who went to the Columbus rally yesterday, and stood in line four hours to vote. Among other things, we talked about the protections in place. She told me about the wide green space that separated people who had gone through security check from every one else, a space constantly patrolled by the Secret Service. There were people on the surrounding rooftops. She worried about one building that rimmed the statehouse lawn, which looked like it had old windows that might open.

I told her how TV viewers could see Obama exit the platform in a box of agents with black sunglasses and curly wires going down from their ears.

There was a big guy right behind him whose movements echoed his, whose arm went up every time Obama reached up to shake someone's hand over the heads of the crowd. Tom said, "That guy's job is to throw himself on Obama if anything happens." Later he added, "The reason that guy raises his arm like that, if someone grabs Obama's arm and tries to pull him down, that guy is ready to pull back." I told him the thrillers I've read make it plain that Secret Service agents are expected to be instantly willing to risk their lives to protect the candidate or official. It doesn't matter who it is or whether they like him. It's their job.

Oh, the lessons of history must have haunted my dreams, because this morning I wanted to hear Dion's "Abraham, Martin, and John." If you click on the title of this post, it should take you to a very moving visual rendering of the song on YouTube by M. D. Reiger.

I think the Obamas know history very well. His daring to appear in the open air like this - daring to even run for office - is the act of a warrior willing to lead the battle. He and Michelle and all those agents know very well how dangerous it is. All of us who lived through the assassination of one voice of hope after another, all of us know and hope, or pray, for his continued safety.

Obama's sword of wisdom

Still a little feverish with flu, I stayed home today and watched Barack Obama's Columbus, Ohio rally on C-span. I was more impressed than ever, in part by the faces in the crowd. It was wonderful to see so many young black men lit up with, well, hope. Joy, perhaps mixed with amazement. Remembering events in Selma, Alabama in the mid-sixties, I too am amazed.

I found myself noticing how, again and again, Obama said things you might hear from a dharma teacher. He stepped aside from the dualism the media relentlessly propound in their forecasts: It's not about red state, blue state, he said, but about The United States.

He stepped aside from the human tendency to divide and blame. It's not about erecting a boundary around America to stop outsourcing of jobs, he said, but about seeing to it that trade is fair and equal, and learning to make fuel-efficient automobiles right here in Ohio. That got cheers. You can't erect boundaries, really. This really is one world, as the weather keeps demonstrating. The climate is everyone's problem. Barack pointed out that energy efficiency was also everyone's responsibility.

There he made me happy, talking about individual responsibility like a true Grandma. In education, the government cannot do it all, he said; you parents have to turn off the TV and make their kids do homework. He talked about people working hard and saving, so their kids could have it better than they did - there's old-fashioned values.

The first presidential election I voted in was Goldwater-Johnson, so you can imagine how many years of political rhetoric I've heard. None of it began to make sense the way this did. Is it just me that's changed? I don't think so. I think Obama has a common-sense, problem-solving approach such as I have never seen before. It's visionary, but the vision grows right out of the common experience.

The sword of wisdom referenced in my title today is said to be held by a Buddha named Manjushri. From Wikipedia--

. . . he is depicted wielding a flaming sword in his right hand, representing his realisation of wisdom which cuts through ignorance and wrong views.

In Buddhist thought, when we cut through ignorance, we end our suffering. This is really the benefit of living in the present moment, that is, in reality. When we see clearly, we can act in useful ways. You don't have to subscribe to any particular religion to do that, though many have found meditation practice indispensable.

Recent American economic policy has favored the greedy to a devastating degree, as if we were not all connected, as if the continued exploitation of the ordinary person wouldn't ultimately bring down the house of cards. I thought of Manjushri as I watched Obama talk. I see Obama cutting through economic delusion, telling us we can be united in common pursuit of a decent life and opportunity for all, which was, after all, the stated American Dream.

Herding Cats: Study Results

More study is needed. That's how we ended reports at the research center I worked at in the 1980s. Maybe this is not inevitable in other fields, but educational research just gave rise to a lot more questions. Especially if it led to conclusions you didn't want to find, that is, the funding agency didn't want to find. All research is paid for by someone. Except my UU cat poll, whose results are posted in the upper right. This poll was undertaken with no funding at all. In that sense, and only that sense, it is free of bias, unlike drug studies, which someone (probably a drug company) has to pay for, after all. And that funder usually wants certain results.

Other than that, how should we evaluate this independent poll?

Well, the n, or number of respondents, is small. This is not that unusual. I've seen studies of whether mental illness can be cured that made important, sweeping conclusions on the basis of studying 35 people, people who were hospitalized for mental illness.

Then there's self-selection bias. This is always big when you just poll whoever comes in the door and feels like taking part in a poll. They have selected themselves to be respondents, first by just coming in the door - and my blog is more likely to attract cat people than dog people. Second, they have agreed to be the people who respond. Why? You never know.

The qualification of respondents kind of slipped. We don't have any concrete evidence to begin with that they were Unitarians, the subject under study. They implied they were by taking the poll. But nobody checked their wallet to see if they were carrying a copy of the Seven Principles. They could just be cat lovers who will do anything to forward the cause. (But we didn't check them for cat hair, either.)

There's the design of the questionnaire itself. This one was designed in haste by a panel of one, no meetings involved, and had to adhere to the rigid grid available. Did it really logically lead to any conclusion about Unitarians being highly individualistic? Maybe we like cats because we're well-behaved people and they act out for us.

Now. We have just skimmed over the first part of every research report, except that most will discusse issues of statistical significance that it is possible no one really understands. This part is called The Limitations of the Study, and you have to get it out of the way. I suppose that was the most valuable thing I learned working there - every study has its limitations, just as every novel has a hole in the plot you could drive a truck through. The other thing I learned was that that needn't stop you from proclaiming you learned something valuable. It was usually what the study "suggested."

This study may suggest (notice the cautious language) that Unitarian Universalists are more likely to own cats than dogs. From there, to the question of what that could mean is a huge leap. But it validates my intuition to my personal satisfaction, and I'm the one writing the report. That's the way research goes.

Furthermore, certain questions point the way for future research, like, What is that one "other" pet somebody owns? An iguana? A hissing cockroach? One of those tiny cute horses? And is it possible that all Unitarians own a pet, or to put it another way, that there is no Unitarian who does not own a pet? I don't think so. Certain friends come to mind. They know who they are.

credits:
The photo is one of many taken at a special cat shelter. You should be able to get to the website by clicking on the title of this post.

And thanks to all who participated. I'm sorry I told you you could vote as many times as you wanted. I have been informed that isn't true. I hope the same holds next Tuesday, as well, because they only let me vote once.