Changing Places

Darwin, Certified Therapy Pet!

Darwin can now bark on command. I call him my “Trained Annoyance Device” (TAD). He also has a quiet command, “Ninja”.

It’s fun!

Apelad, via Boing Boing.

What can I say about one of my favorite teachers of all time? Mr. Newcomer taught drama classes and filled us all with character, belief in ourselves, and imagination. We had fun, we worked hard, and we put on one helluva show every time we performed…

I love this man… link is to video at the dedication of the Eugene L. Hanson Auditorium, one of the other great mean to whom I owe so much for making me who I am today. Thanks so much to them and to all the other wonderful teachers I had at Coronado High School…

Part of a collage piece I made for a friend of mine this week for her birthday…

Here’s the whole piece:

LOLFED
Bailout - $700 billion.

Seeing an Internet meme come to life in front of the Senate Banking Committee - priceless.

Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and FAIL. (My friend Jess has a sign like this, but I know she is out of DC on business right now.) Found on NPR’s Planet Money.

With apologies to Dire Straits, which we are indeed about to be in….

Money for nothin

Now look at them yo-yos — that’s the way you do it
You play the market on the ltv..
That ain’t workin — that’s the way you do it
Money for nothin and checks for free
Now that ain’t workin — that’s the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain’t dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb

We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these colour tvs

See the little faggot with the earnings and the markup –
Yeah buddy that’s his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he’s a millionaire

We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchens deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these colour tvs

I shoulda learned to play the market
I shoulda learned to play the Fed
Look at that mama, she got it stickin in the camera
Man we could have some fun
And he’s up there, whats that? hawaiian noises?
Bangin on the Treasury like a chimpanzee…
That ain’t workin — thats the way you do it
Get your money for nothin get your checks for free

We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these colour tvs, lord

Now that ain’t workin that’s the way you do it
You play up Paulson and the Treasury
That ain’t workin that’s the way you do it
Money for nothin and your checks for free
Money for nothin and checks for free

I want my..
I want my..
I want my bailout free!

I want my…
I want my…
I want my bailout free!

urge everyone to call your congress creatures and let them know this bailout plan is absolutely unacceptable. Paulson is nuts if he thinks anyone with a brain is going to agree to this. We need reasoned, rational, LEGAL control over this banking crisis, not a Treasury Secretary who thinks he is above the law. This entire Bush administration seems to be guilty of this, and I for one am damned sick of it. PLease go to the link and read the entire post — well worth it.

naked capitalism: Why You Should Hate the Treasury Bailout Proposal

A mere two weeks ago, the Fannie/Freddie rescue was called the mother of all bailouts by some commentators. If the plans of the Administration come to fruition, it will shortly be surpassed by the $700 billion mortgage rescue plan proposed by Hank Paulson late last week.

The increase of the request from the initial $500 billion and the release of the shockingly short, sweeping text of the proposed legislation has lead to reactions of consternation among the knowledgeable, but whether this translates into enough popular ire fast enough to restrain this freight train remains to be seen.

First, let s focus on the aspect that should get the proposal dinged or renegotiated regardless of any possible merit, namely, that it gives the Treasury imperial power with respect to a simply huge amount of funds. $700 billion is comparable to the hard cost of the Iraq war, bigger than the annual Pentagon budget. And mind you, $700 billion is not the maximum that the Treasury may spend, it s the ceiling on the outstandings at any one time. It s a balance sheet number, not an expenditure limit.

But here is the truly offensive section of an overreaching piece of legislation:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

This puts the Treasury’s actions beyond the rule of law. This is a financial coup d etat, with the only limitation the $700 billion balance sheet figure. The measure already gives the Treasury the authority not simply to buy dud mortgage paper but other assets as it deems fit. There is no accountability beyond a report contents undefined to Congress three months into the program and semiannually thereafter. The Treasury could via incompetence or venality grossly overpay for assets and advisory services, and fail to exclude consultants with conflicts of interest, and there would be no recourse. Given the truly appalling track record of this Administration in its outsourcing, this is not an idle worry.

But far worse is the precedent it sets. This Administration has worked hard to escape any constraints on its actions, not to pursue noble causes, but to curtail civil liberties: Guantanamo, rendition, torture, warrantless wiretaps. It has used the threat of unseen terrorists and a seemingly perpetual war on radical Muslim to justify gutting the Constitution. The Supreme Court, which has been supine on many fronts, has finally started to push back, but would it challenge a bill that sweeps aside judicial review? Informed readers are encouraged to speak up.

And they wonder why we don’t bother reading them anymore. We can’t even express our own opinions if they’re longer than two hundred words.

No wonder people are so misinformed these days.

Thanks goodness I have a blog where I can be as verbose as I damn well please!

_________________

The Bush McCain economy

Watching the financial meltdown this week is an excellent preview of the economic disasters waiting for us if John McCain, Phil Gramm and company take charge of the White House and the financial world. Gramm’s policies have been one of the key drivers in setting this entire financial disaster into motion.

Barack Obama has a good plan to deal with the current situation, the best financial advisers and a good handle on what is happening in our economy, while McCain continues to claim as recently as yesterday that “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

My family’s income level puts us in the top five percent of American families, and I’m worried. Not only for our investments, which we see declining by the day, not only for our technical jobs, which are endangered by McCain’s lack of understand of technical innovation, but by the lack of concern for education, which has already forced us to move one child out of state, since California universities are too impacted to have a place for him thanks to Arnie’s cuts. The second child will most likely end up out of state as well.

But even when they graduate college, as so few are able to afford to do right now, what jobs will be waiting for them? Obama has a STEM plan — for science, technology, engineering and math education — that McCain couldn’t even envision putting into place. If we don’t regain our technology advantage and provide jobs for skilled workers, there is little hope for the rest of the economy, either.

Enough with obsessing over moose hunting and lipstick. Report on the issues that matter — economics, and how we can get our country moving forwards again after the backwards policies of the Bush administration that McCain will undoubtedly continue.

He and his friends making “over $5 million” — the rich, as he calls them — may be fine, but the rest of us are very, very worried right now. Even those of us next in line on the income ladder. And, by the way, I checked — Obama will not raise even OUR taxes, like I said, in the top five per cent of income. So stop spreading the lies of the McCain campaign.

Donna Woodka
Poway

Please read Barack Obama’s excellent speech on the economy today…. click on the link for full text.

Over the last few days, we have seen clearly what’s at stake in this election. The news from Wall Street has shaken the American people’s faith in our economy. The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that have generated tremendous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.

Since this turmoil began over a year ago, the housing market has collapsed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be effectively taken over by the government. Three of America’s five largest investment banks failed or have been sold off in distress. Yesterday, Wall Street suffered its worst losses since just after 9/11. We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations. Yet Senator McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

…So let’s be clear: what we’ve seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed. And I am running for President of the United States because the dreams of the American people must not be endangered any more. It’s time to put an end to a broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy. It’s time for change that makes a real difference in your lives.

…Make no mistake: my opponent is running for four more years of policies that will throw the economy further out of balance. His outrage at Wall Street would be more convincing if he wasn’t offering them more tax cuts. His call for fiscal responsibility would be believable if he wasn’t for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and more of a trillion dollar war in Iraq paid for with deficit spending and borrowing from foreign creditors like China. His newfound support for regulation bears no resemblance to his scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement. John McCain cannot be trusted to reestablish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason: he has shown time and again that he does not believe in it.

What has happened these last eight years is not some historical anomaly, so we know what to expect if we try these policies for another four. When lobbyists run your campaign, the special interests end up gaming the system. When the White House is hostile to any kind of oversight, corporations cut corners and consumers pay the price. When regulators are chosen for their disdain for regulation and we gut their ability to enforce the law, then the interests of the American people are not protected. It’s an ideology that intentionally breeds incompetence in Washington and irresponsibility on Wall Street, and it’s time to turn the page….

Destructo dog…

… is destructive.

Apparently Darwin thinks “toy” means “destroy”.

Apologies for the quiet lately — I’m moving into a period of contemplating my losses, with 9/11 and the five year anniversary of my mom’s death this month. It’s an emotional time of year for me and there’s just a lot going on internally. I should be back to my normal daily chatter soon enough.

Namaste….

(Following is a repost from February, 2005)

The more you dwell in the spirit,
The farther you are from common ways.
If you want to speak of Tao’s wonders,
Few will listen.

If you spend a long period of time in study and self-cultivation, you will enter Tao. By doing so, you also enter a world of extraordinary perceptions. You experience unimaginable things, receive thoughts and learning as if from nowhere, perceive things that could be classified as precedent. Yet if you try to communicate what you experience, there is no one to understand you, no one who will believe you. The more you walk this road, the farther you are from the ordinary ways of society. You may see the truth, but you will find that people would rather listen to politicians, performers, and charlatans.

If you are known as a follower of Tao, people may seek you out, but are seldom the ones who will truly understand Tao. To speak of the wonders you have seen is often to engage in a futile bout of miscommunication. That is why it is said that those who know do not speak.

Why not simply stay quiet? Enjoy Tao as you will. Let others think you are dumb. Inside yourself, you will know the joy of Tao’s mysteries. If you meet someone who can profit by your experience, you should share. But if you are merely a wanderer in a crowd of strangers, it is wisdom to be silent.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Nature says few words.
A whirlwind does not last all morning,
nor does a rainstorm last a whole day.
What causes them? Nature.

If even Nature’s utterances do not last long,
how much less should human beings’?

Tao Te Ching, 23

Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know.
Close the mouth; shut the doors.
Smooth the sharpness; untie the tangles.
Dim the glare; calm the turmoil.
This is mystical unity.
Those achieving it are detached from friends and enemies,
from benefit and harm, from honor and disgrace.
Therefore they are the most valuable people in the world.

Tao Te Ching, 56

When I was a teenager, before I ever even heard of Tao, I remember coming across the quote “If you do not understand my silence, you will not understand my words”. It struck a chord in me since I was sometimes criticized for being quiet, or people said it was hard to get to know me, or that I was “reserved”. It’s more that I might not take part in light conversation or gossip. I tend to know people very deeply, sometimes too deeply for their own comfort. But I sometimes avoid what is considered as polite conversation. I would rather know what someone truly thinks about things than discuss the weather, or a sports team, or your dental visits, or who is doing what to whom these days.

And people can be shallow. They may not think about anything very deeply. I observe them, and find their heart, and learn who they are. How they joke tells me their prejudices, how they talk about others tells me if they are a gossip or someone who truly cares for others. Even a casual mention of the weather tells me if they know and follow the changes or just react to them. “When is this rain going to stop?” can bring a response from me of “well, they say it will rain through tomorrow, and then be nice until next Monday”.

I am all about studying process and change. How things work and how they change over time. That is why the Tao appeals to me. And there are many things that speak to us in silence.

We had a California Towhee stuck in one we put down trying to get the rats out of the siding on our spa.

Never, ever again…. it’s so awful. These things are cruel.

Fortunately our neighbor does bat rescue and has managed to clean it up — the secret is to use a mild art wash cleaner. Hubby is taking it to Project Wildlife to take care of it and for rehab.

Meaning in life is arbitrary.
Why ruin the universe with rigidity?

Why do we make the choices we do? After all, we do not have unlimited freedom to do things. We find ourselves constrained by our gender, our race, our economic circumstances, our personalities that were shaped both by genetics and the random processes of life. Furthermore, we find that other people have their own ideas of what we should be doing, and they constrain us still further.

A person born into one culture will have entirely different options than one born into another. They may both lead valuable lives, but they will most certainly differ in many respects. The meaning that they find will come from different palettes. We cannot say that one person’s life is more valuable than another’s.

Of all the people who have lived, have any of them been truly “better” than another? We see in their lives only the exercise of preferences, not differences of inherent meaning.

All meaning in life is arbitrary. It is not tied to god, family, or self unless we define it as such. Nothing in life gives us meaning in and of itself. It is we who assign meaning to objects and relationships. We all try to make the structure of our meaning pretty, but in the end, there is no escape from the feeling that it is all arbitrary.

It might be better not to ruin the universe with our own patterns.

Deng Ming-dao, 365 Tao

arbitrary

1. Determined by impulse rather than reason; random; chosen for no reason

usage note: Something is arbitrary if its value is not determined by anything but choice.

Something mysteriously formed, born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void, standing alone and unchanging, ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.

Being great, it flows
It flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns.

Therefore, “Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great.”
These are the four great powers of the universe,
And the king is one of them.

Man follows Earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural.

– Tao Te Ching, 25

Even the name Tao is arbitrary, because we are trying to create meaning out of something that has no meaning. Tao simply is.

Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.
The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.

– Tao Te Ching, 29

Tao warns us against trying to “take over the universe”. I certainly learned that lesson when I tried too hard to tell friends what they should or shouldn’t do and ended up losing the friends instead, deservedly so. I’ve learned in my garden that some things simply aren’t going to grow, that this isn’t the right place to try and grow them. They may be beautiful plants in other places, but not here in these conditions. A good gardener learns to respect their climate and soil and grow what works.

These days I leave things alone as much as possible and let them be the way they want to be. Life is a lot easier that way. I think we would all be much happier and our lives would be far richer if we would let others simply be who they are, without trying to exert our own controls or societal pressures on them.

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place.”
– Margaret Mead

“It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.”
– Margaret Mead

“Be just and if you can’t be just, be arbitrary.”
– William S. Burroughs

“All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.”
– Marshall McLuhan

“To divide one’s life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.”
– Cliff Fadiman

“We surround ourselves with arbitrary and artificial limitations, and then blame them on the gods” — Anonymous

So much of what we allow to limit us are simply arbitrary choices, often ones made by other people for us when we were far too young to understand why those choices were made. At some point, we have to take the responsibility to look at those choices and see if they really fit with who we are, or not. There’s nothing wrong with living your life in a certain way, with whatever restrictions or limits you want to accept. Realizing why your life is the way it is, and the choices you made to make it that way is a lot more mature than just bemoaning the way things are.

(Reposted from September of 2005)