Finding Hope

We watched this video as part of a priesthood lesson today, and I thought it worth sharing around. I like that they don't dwell on the tragedy, but concentrate instead on how this family recovered and became the better for what happened. Too often, commemorations of such events as 9/11 are either maudlin or pessimistic. This one hits the right sentiment.

Ludditism and Wall-E

We watched Wall-E again tonight, perhaps the first time we've watched it together as a family in at least a year. The message of the movie really struck me harder this time around, as I've had a little context added in my head on our society's tendency to over-rely on technology, in reading books by Max Hastings and William Langeweische.

It's not consumerism that led to the desecration of Earth in the society Wall-E describes -- it's a mere overreliance on technology. People became too accustomed to having some new gadget be just the thing to fix whatever ailed them. Many of the gadgets they bought did just fine in fixing problems. So effect became cause: Is there a problem? Make up some kind of fancy gew-gaw and voila, problem solved. Yeah, sure, they wear out. But it's just as easy to buy a new gadget to keep fixing that problem. Multiply that my billions, aided and abetted by the BuyNLarge government willing to keep shoveling gadgets people's way, and ka-boom, you've got a trashed Earth. But notice how they try to fix things. They had their windmills, creating power. They had their Waste Allocation Load Lifters, Earth Class, trying to clean things up, while they had their spaceliners and their virtual golf and their meals in a cup. To fix the problem, they depended on technology, while using technology to escape from their problems. That's the problem.

The captain realizes that when, as he's commanding one of his robots to do something, he pauses and then says, "No, I should do it." And he does. Without gadgets.

But note this: I"m not suddenly turning Luddite, nor suggesting that anti-technology is the way to go. Notice how the "Earthlings" go about fixing things: They use technology to help them, but they're not completely reliant on their gadgets any more.

We're not at the Wall-E stage yet. But we're moving further from the technology-as-assistant age into the technology-as-cure-all age. And it's not just technology that's the danger. Overreliance on any one thing -- government, money, technology, religion, reason, science -- whatever you want to call your overindulgence, that's the problem.

But there's nothing that can't be solved by listening to this:

I Have Parts Left Over

So. I've learned today that if you take a bicycle hub apart to replace the axle, it's a good idea to remember where all the parts go so you can put the thing back together again. I really should have bought a new rim, rather than just the axle.

Oh well.

I'll figure it out eventually. Probably by taking apart another axle assembly (on a non-functioning bicycle) so I can figure out where all the parts go. With my luck, however, the one I take apart to learn how to put the other together will be different than the one I've taken apart so taking it apart won't be helpful at all. And then the second one will fall apart and I'll have to figure out how to put it together as well.

And once again, the Internet is no help. Oh, there are plenty of people out there willing to show you how to put one together, but it's never quite the same one that you've got in pieces on the concrete outside. There are forums, of course, but they're populated with know-nothings like me and the snot of the Internet, that being the people who might know how to fix the problem you've got but would rather lord over your ignorance than actually help you out.

It is kinda fun to get my fingers greasy, though.

Google and Gumby

There are many things you should not do when you write a personal blog. First of all, not too personal, or else everyone in the world will know how much ear wax you have. (In my case, a lot, with the right ear producing much more than the left.)

But among the top things you shouldn't do on a personal blog is install Google Analytics. It's all so depressing.

Bounce rate: High. Maybe it'll get better. But I doubt it.

But the bigger question: Should I worry? Long ago when I started this blog, it was for self-expression. If others found this blog and occasionally found it entertaining, so much the better.

I didn't install Google Analytics, obviously, to find out how unpopular I am. I want a one-stop service that'll show me where the folks who visit this blog (and the Cokesbury Party Blog) are coming from and why they might be coming. Google Analytics seems to fit the bill, better than ClustrMaps and Site Meter. And I like the thought that if I see what people are interested in, I might write more in that vein. or not. Because this is my place, after all, and if I want to post a link to a Mystery Science Theater 3000 riff on a Gumby claymation short, so be it:

Will You Please Insure Now!

I missed Obama's speech last night because, ironically, my wife fell down half a flight of stairs and hurt her back, so I had a few extra things to do around the house in order to keep her off her feet. She seems to be doing okay now, albeit a bit sore.

I skimmed his speech this morning, and, well, Dr. Seuss' book, shown above, came to mind. Sure, the time is now. But the time for what?

I still maintain what Obama is proposing doesn't go far enough in reforming the health care/health insurance realm. Until we have costs under control, I don't really care where the money is coming from that keeps getting thrown into that bottomless pit we call a health care system. And until I know what form the "public option" will take and how much it might cost me, premium-wise, I can't get all that excited about it. I don't get a big thrill when I hear a for-profit health insurance company is offering some new whizzbanger of a plan until I know what I get and how much it costs. I mean, sure, it's exciting when Kohl's comes to town, bringing more competition to the likes of Target and Dillards and Macys, but until you know how much the stuff in Kohl's costs, you can't get all that excited about its presence in the neighborhood.

So I'm asking, show me the specifics. Show me the Amigo Money. No Dough, No Show.

What's being proposed may fix some problems. I like what I'm hearing about tort reform. i like what I'm hearing about insurers being reigned in on when they can cancel policies. But I'm still not hearing what'll help me to keep costs down.

Earlier this year, our insurance carrier wanted to shove our rates through the roof. We hadn't had a claim in two years. All we'd done is faithfully sent them money every month for two years. Their excuse: "Health care costs have gone up." I had to ask: For whom? Y'all haven't had to spend a penny on us. We sent you money and did not get a thing in return, not even a wall calendar or something like that. And our insurance rates go up? How does that work? So we told them to pound sand and found a new policy. Which will do the same thing to us in two years: the lock we ahve on price will dissolve, and the premium will go up. And all without making a single solitary claim on the policy. Show me where that is going to be fixed in Obama's proposed reforms, and I'll have something to get excited about.

POV Overload

It's great to hear what everyone has to say. But still, once and a while, I wish people would just shut up. And not because I don't like hearing their point of view. It's just that I get to POV overload, you know?

Writers as Intimidators

Once and a while I'll read a really good book. And I mean a really good book, one that's so full of color and character and detail and emotion and plot and pacing that I don't put it down and I read it from cover to cover.

And then it makes me sick.

There are talented writers out there. The John Steinbecks. The Robert C. O'Briens. the Lois Lowrys. The Ray Bradburys.

And then there's little ol' me.

I take comfort in the Bradbury Defense for Mediocre Writers: He claims that 90 percent of the stuff he wrote is drivel, and that only the last ten percent was worthwile. To write well, he says, you have to write a lot, just, in so many words, to get the crap out of your system. So I hold out hope. When I get to despairing, I pull out The Secret of NIMH or Tortilla Flat or The Giver and just hold out against hope (and the accumulated evidence of my own trash writing) that someday, soemthing might just turn out readable.

Through the Looking Glass

Went through the looking glass today, in search of, all things, the bathroom.

I wrote about our odd little building situation earlier this year. At the time, i wimped out and did not go through into the other building. Oh, I did a few days later, but it was just a few cursory steps into the unknown before a few years of government indoctrination kicked in and i got that eerie feeling that maybe I shouldn't be where I was. Not that i't secret over there, it's just been off-limits for so long.

So today there are maintenance workers repairing the vestibule that is our ordinary link to the outside world. They've got, in other words, our exit blocked off. So I had to go into the other building. Walking into it was weird. Then finding the bathroom was even weirder, because the bathroom is in the portion of the building still owned by the other contractor, so I felt like there was going to be a Donald Sutherland pod-person screeching moment when someone from "the other side" noticed an alien intruder in their midst. Or at least in their bathroom. Thankfully, one of our engineers was in the bathroom when I went in, so I figured if I heard the shreiking, I could at least try to outrun him.

Canning

It's canning season again.

Fortunately, it appears this year that we don't have everything hitting at once, as we did last year. Green beans are done. Zucchini relish is done (it tastes a lot better than it sounds). A fungus brought the raspberries to an end, but not until after many jars of jam. The peaches are here, but apparently they're not quite ripe yet. The apples are still on the trees, the tomatoes are still growing and the carrots can wait in the garden for at least another three weeks yet.

Still, canning season is here.

I like that we grow things to preserve. It's healthier for us, less expensive, and helps us add to that food storage. I just wish it weren't so much work. I know: Folks long beore us had to process all of their food in this way so they'd have food through the winter months. They couldn't go to the store to buy cans of such and whichy, blah blah. I know all that. It's still hard work.

At least wer'e getting tomatoes this year. Every year for the past several years we've grown tomatoes and gotten poor crops. It's gotten to the point that when spring rolls around, I try to talk Michelle out of planting tomatoes at all. Still, she persists. This year, same deal. Spring came. I talked. We planted tomatoes anyway. And we're getting a bumper crop. I did nothing to them this year. Only one round of fertilizer when we planted, and only one run through clipping runners. Only tented them for a few weeks. They grew like crazy and never picked up the fungus from the raspberries next door. Weird. So we'll make salsa and tomato soup, if they keep coming on. That's good.

Canning season does mean one good thing: The end of gardening season. Once all the fruits and vegetables are picked, the garden can lie fallow, buried in carrot greens and grass clippings, festooned with apples that have fallen from the trees and rotted, waiting for next year.

I wonder if the turkey poop did the trick this year with the garden. Everything is very lush out there, and this is the first year we did the turkey poop. That's what the garden center recommended, obviously with some reason. Who knew turkey poop was so rich. And who knew I'd be so excited to see turkey poop turned into carrots and tomatoes? It's a good thing Petey Otterloop doesn't know anything about this.

I don't remember that we canned this much when I was a kid. Of course, I was a kid back then and oblivious to a lot of the things that went on in the adult world. Most of the things that went on in the kitchen, aside from eating, homework, and occasionally doing the dishes, went on without me knowing it. Well, there was that time Maaike's friend Melissa couldn't figure otu how to get the spout off the milk bottle and ended up caromming the bottle, her bowl of Wheaties and a few other things off the kitchen ceiling and just about any other surface there, but aside from that, nothing too memorable went on in that room.

I guess we take our oblivion for granted as kids. Some day soon, I'd like once again to be oblivious to the canning of carrots and the making of applesauce.

A Bizarre Bazaar

Of the things I've seen on sale at the local Dollar Tree, William Langewiesche's The Atomic Bazaar is probably one of the strangest finds I've seen. And the store had an aboslute ton of these books, too. Maybe somebody figured they'd be good sellers in this nuclear territory. Maybe they just wanted to dump the books. But I bought a copy.

It's somewhat a good read. Most of it I've heard or read before, certainly the stuff about A. Q. Kahn and this Pakistani's ability to sell complete nuclear weapons production packages to any willing buyers. There are also echoes of what Max Hastings writes in Nemesis about the United States' overreliance on technology, rather than street smarts, in controlling what needs to be controlled. Langewiesche's description of technolgy-heavy installations in Russia and former Soviet republics, paid for by the Americans, is almost comical in how the money has been wasted -- trick is, the cameras and computers are there, but nobody seems to be using them. What's more disturbing, as he reports, is that the general attitude of Europe and European companies when nonproliferation issues come up is that if America wants nonproliferation, it's so they can corner the market in nuclear fuel production, not because of the altruistic motive of, say, nonproliferation.

Langewiesche's book is a collection of articles he's written for other publications, and it shows. While they're on the same subject, there's nothing completely writerly about merging them into a whole. And his journalistic profile of another journalist is bland to the point I skimmed most of it.

The book also details one of the most overblown friendly-author back cover blurbs I've seen in recent memory: "One-stop shopping for the future where nations you fear will have weapons you dread. And there is little you can do about it except to read this excellent book and face the facts your government keeps secret and your leaders fail to comprehend," says Charles Bowden, who gets his own book hyped thanks to the quote.