In Flanders Fields - - -

In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below...
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields...
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields... (1)

And so another memorial day approaches. I was at Publix today and an old submariner was at a folding table handing out paper poppies. No charge. Just take one and be damn glad men and women were willing to go to war to save your ass. But nobody stopped while I watched, first from the truck and then from the store.
Have we all forgotten what the Poppy represents? Blood red poppy? Flanders Fields? Well if you have you had better look it up and learn it. And if you haven’t already done so, go out today or tomorrow and find one of these vets, take a poppy and say “thank you for your service”. If you can spare a buck or two, drop it in the jar. If not, don’t be worried. They didn’t serve and die for your dollar. They served and died for you.

Poem: Lt. Col. John McCray quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae
Image: cornsss.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html

deixe o bom rolo das épocas!!!!

Looking forward or looking back?
It occurred to me just now that with all the looking back I do in these essays (this will be the 190th since I began) that what I really think is important is looking forward. Sure, I think that there is benefit to me to clarify my thoughts about things past, and yes, I think there may be something for others to consider in a few. And yes again I have fun going over some of the really fun and meaningful times from the past.
But what I really like to do is think forward. And look forward. Time to compartmentalize. Looking forward with world view in mind is sobering (although like my father-in-law, I think that drinking a bit now and then is good for the soul). Sobering? Downright scary sometimes. But looking forward with a me-and-mine view is much better. We are all doing well physically and as far as I can tell mentally. Sure, a few extra pounds here and there, and a few wrinkles now and then are in sight, but on balance our futures are pretty bright.
Experiencing new places and people, food, wine and cultures is ahead for Sal and me. Hiking in the foothills of the Oregon and Blue Ridge mountains is there along with fishing in the (hopefully) clear waters of the Gulf, playing with the orchids, cooking some kickass meals and chilling with Sally. And so much more.
My point? Look back from time to time to get a fix on where you are, but spend more time looking forward. I wrote an essay a while ago about remembering the future. Part of that idea revolves around picturing something as it will be and then remembering the picture. This enables you to actually experience the future in a way that isn’t completely reactive. You get a chance to mold the future by imagining how it could be and then making it so.
Look forward. The future is just there in front of you.
Image: parenting.leehansen.com/.../good-times-oval.jpg
Portugese translation: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt

Sun Bunnies

Time for the annual skin cancer warning. Research is piling up on the long term effects of tanning beds (1) and sun bathing. No contest really. You tan, you get skin cancer. The only question is what kind of cancer will you get? The picture is a young man with the least dangerous form of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma. Doesn’t usually kill you, but we will all agree that it can be quite disfiguring.
Now melanoma is a different story. At the same time you are getting your tan (and basal cell carcinoma) you may also be triggering melanoma. This cancer caused 8600 deaths in the US in 2009. Mostly avoidable by NOT TANNING.

OK. Suppose you have tough cancer-resistant genes and you don’t have to worry about skin cancer? (You don’t but go along with me a minute here). The other effect of getting a tan is the destruction of the collagen under the skin that supports it and gives it the resilience you feel when you pull or press on your skin. Tanning radiation ALWAYS damages this material, resulting in the condition known as “wrinkles”. Straight line function: the more you tan, the more you wrinkle (add smoking and the wrinkles are deeper and sooner).
So do yourself a favor and protect your skin, your beauty and your life.

(1) http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/59753/title/Tanning_bed_use_linked_to_melanoma_risk
Image (cancer): http://www.nature.com/nrclinonc/journal/v4/n8/fig_tab/ncponc0883_F4.html
Image (wrinkles) :

Reflections on turning 70. (A Card of Thanks)

Well, here I am (I originally wrote “here we are”, but the “we” part might be confusing so I’ll go back to “I” for now.): three score and ten. Never thought I’d make it. Lots of stupid stuff as a teen and twenty-something. Lots of booze of one kind or another. Little sleep. Lots of fatty foods: fried, grilled, bar-b-cued, boiled, and nuked. Lots of processed food. Lots of junk food. And I smoked. Never did drugs though. Totally missed the 60’s that everybody thinks was so cool. I was too busy getting drunk and fishing. (OK and being a pretty good grad student for 8 years too.)
But here I am. Jesus, if I’da known then that I would make it this far I might have changed something. Maybe not eaten that last fried shrimp at the Dala Horse in Miami in 1961. Naw.
Life has some funny old turns, though. Hopefully one of the things that accumulates in addition to arterial cholesterol is something called “wisdom”. I don’t know what that is exactly, but maybe it relates to the decisions you make when you survive into later years. All that crap that I ate and drank for example. I hardly ever overdo on those things. No more 20oz steaks or piles of pork chops (fat on please). Moderation. Can. Be. Boring. But. You. May. Live. Longer.
I did learn one thing worth telling: don’t ever, ever wish that you could go back and change something. Even something awful. You change one thing and everything changes. I could go back to some pretty awful times and wish they weren’t there. For instance: I was arrested for burglary at 15. Just a stupid teenage prank. It was not fun. It was horrible in fact. Changed my life and direction though. We all have lots of those kinds of things in our past that seem shameful or stupid (and probably are). They make you who you are. Change them and you change. Maybe for the better and maybe for the worst.
I’ll take Woody 7.0 as is thank you. Flawed but OK. And I’ll take my family, friends and wonderful wife “as is” as well. I love you all just the way you are. Thanks for being part of my life. You make it rich beyond my wildest dreams.
Image: www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/1461779812/

Woody 7.0 Released This Morning!!!

News Flash!

The much anticipated “Woody 7.0” was released this morning at 12:01 am. While not a totally new platform, many bugs have been corrected and some features have been modified for improvement. The debugging process uncovered problems in the following clusters: Motivation, attitude and common sense. Unfortunately the new release will only work within the existing hardware, leading to some limitations. For example, memory and processor upgrades could not be included because the existing architecture has no expansion slots, and upgrade boards are not available for the existing aging slots. Likewise, ports for external inputs such as audio and video are limited by existing pass-through speed and cannot be reconfigured.
Motivation: Flagging motivation in the areas of physical fitness, diet and proactive initiation of various activities has been improved by the addition of a module that tweaks the conscience when levels drop below the preset levels. Improved performance in these vital areas will generally impact the operations of other sections of Woody 7.0 by clearing choke points in hardware architecture and the processing system.
Attitude: Analysis of the attitude code indicated a general trend toward realistic analysis of input, a situation which leads to the diminishing of positive response. Additional code has been added that filters inputs to soften the downside and focus more attention on the upside. For example, where yesterday the Gulf oil spill was viewed as totally FUBAR, this morning the vast number of jobs created by the unfortunate accident overcomes the angst, and positive attitude results.
Common Sense: This module has been reconfigured to be more robust. Reliance on internal experience and knowledge has once again been give priority over reliance on external opinion. An example of this would be a simple engine repair that went spectacularly wrong when so-called expert opinion was allowed to trump instinct.
Significant gains can be found in wisdom and new knowledge, although processor limitations sometimes make accessing these somewhat slow. Recognition of falsehood and truth routines have been modified to reduce the “gray” area in between, and significantly increase the bullshit alarm sensitivity.
A final surprising (to some) strengthening can be found in the spiritual sector, where new investigations into the spirit world are gaining over skepticism. Religion is still a null value, however, and should not be confused with spiritualism.
Continued work on Woody7.0 will result in culmination of the spectacular and now anticipated Woody 8.0 release.

Image: wcoomdpublications.org/online-db/hs-database....

Lies, damn lies and ---- white lies.

OK, we all know lies are bad. They tend to be self-perpetuating. That is once a lie is told often more are needed to cover the first. When I was a kid, my mother told my brother and me that we had a “little red light” in our eyes that only parents could see, and it came on when we told a lie. Naturally we both looked away when we lied, and she would say “I see that little red light!” Caught. Once I looked directly at her, told a lie, and bingo, no light. Another parental lie uncovered.
White lies are different though. You don’t go up to somebody and say “boy, are you fat!” If asked how you feel, you mostly answer “OK” when in fact you feel like crap. Or when you deny that you have cooked up something for a birthday or other event that will be a surprise to someone. You get a free pass on those kinds of lies because the intent is to obfuscate to please someone, not to deceive them for harm.
I tell white lies all the time and so should everyone. Who wants to know they are getting fat, or look 10 years older than they really are? Not me.

Image: www.rabbitholemusic.com/best/2009/whitelies.jpg

"Who Cares?" (Hull Carr)

I doubt if anyone that reads this (very small subset of humanity) knew Hull Carr, but he pissed me off many times by saying “Who Cares?” as a response to almost everything. Hull is dead now, but I think that his oft uttered phrase was really prophetic. I wanted to scream “I CARE” most of the time when he said it. I want to scream “I REALLY CARE” now, but I am getting beaten down by the vast current of ignorance and denial and lying and disinformation. I wonder sometimes how anyone with a brain can go on without being terminally upset at what we have become both environmentally and politically. We are on the brink of a precipice so deep that only imagination can fill in the fall (or have we already fallen?). Fast action and hard choices might make a difference in time, but no action and no hard choices will surely accelerate the disaster.
So we default to the Flanders and Swann character of the ostrich the lived in an atom bomb testing range. When asked if he worried about the future he replied “I’ll just bury me head”.
Buried heads get blow up with everyone else. Maybe it is just that most humans don’t want to see it coming. (Read "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" to get a feel for what I mean here.)

Flanders and Swann: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpXnOpSEJX0
Image: www.khanya.co.za/blogs/index.php?m=03&y=08
Image: riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/maroon/

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Occurrence_at_Owl_Creek_Bridge

"God is an absent landlord"

"God gave us the forest so that we could take what we need. My ancestors are not angry. There are still many trees in the forest."FRANCEL, a villager in Madagascar, on widespread poaching of rare rosewood trees.

And so, once again, humans condone or even encourage the total destruction of a rare resource by invoking “God”. The idea of stewardship is totally missing from God’s equation apparently. The forests of Madagascar are already more than 90% gone, the most valuable species of tree, rosewood, is more difficult than ever to find, and the wood hungry Chinese are demanding more and more trees.
In an unrelated article this morning the opinions of Britons are reported to be moving quickly to the skeptical side of global climate change. Are these two news reports really unrelated? Let’s look more closely.
A disinformation campaign about climate change has been waged since the early 2000’s, when the Bush Whitehouse began the systematic dumbing down of science. The worlds industrial giants would lose big time if real measures to address climate change were adopted, so a worldwide media effort has been underway to minimize the impact of scientific reports and to bolster the ideas that big businesses were socially concerned and would do the right thing by us. And in the UK it has worked. And in the USA it has worked. And in China it has worked. Many people around the world no longer think of the climate “wierding” as unusual or threatening.
And that leads to apathy when Madagascar allows the raping of its last rainforests. Madagascar is already one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita income of around $2.50 a day. A growing population on a deforested landscape filled with incredibly poor people governed by corrupt officials who are corrupted by industrial players. Just change the name to “Haiti” and you get the picture.
But we don’t have to worry, do we? See, Francel, the villager quoted above, is sure that God is behind him and his ancestors aren’t angry. Well I got news for Francel. His ancestors are really pissed, and God is an absent landlord.
Image and reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/africa/25madagascar.html?scp=1&sq=rosewood&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25climate.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/opinion/17friedman.html

The Oil Spill (What, more?)

Well, weeks into it and there is more oil than ever in the Gulf, in marshes, on beaches, on birds and other sea-going creatures. There is also enough blame to go around. I get so tires of everyone taking “full responsibility” and then blaming someone else. The BP people, the Halliburton people (the same ones that are still ripping us off in the desert?), the Obama people (we will do everything in our power to get this mess stopped and cleaned up). Where the hell is responsibility? Why can’t everyone just say “God, this is the worst mess we have ever seen and we will join forces to fight it?” While the price of oil booms (the floating things that hold back the river of oil) doubled in price (surprised?) the “dome” was failing and congress was asking questions. While the Gulf was suffering the worst catastrophe in our history the “drill baby drill” crowd was saying in so many words “drilling is NOT the problem, the government is the problem” The government is always the problem until it is the solution. My old friend Rich says watch out when you hear “somebody has to do something about this”, because the “somebody” is the government, and that is US (paying the bill or carrying the debt). Well SOMEBODY has to do SOMETHING, don’t you think?
I know. Pray. Funnily enough the Florida crowd that prayed away hurricanes (to hit New Orleans?) prays that the spill doesn’t hit Florida beaches. Why not pray for the leak to stop? Why not pray for the leak never to have happened? Why not pray for, oh, what’s the use? Pray baby pray. Can’t hurt.
Image: www.zianet.com/relo-lan/1Portfolio.html

Image: http://www.examiner.com/x-43075-Bird-Examiner~y2010m5d11-Where-are-all-the-oil-soaked-birds-in-the-Gulf-of-Mexico-oil-spill

Finding a Twin (of sorts)

I decided for who knows why to look myself up on Google. I used my official name and got 2 hits. The first Richard Search is from Leeds, UK. I never got to the others. He is the managing director for William G Search, Ltd. in Leeds.He is on Facebook. He has a daughter named Sophie.The coincidences are really remarkable: my name is also Richard Search; my middle name is William; my English wife was born a stones throw from the other Leeds, in Kent and I am on Facebook. And I have three sons, none named Sophie. Now don’t go all squishy on me here. I don’t have any interest in paranormal connections or the like. I just think it’s interesting to find someone with the same name, especially when the name is not very common. The rest is just interesting.
But, if I find out that he is a West Ham fan, then you can roll out the Twilight Zone theme.

Twilight Zone Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y

Image (Twilight Zone): rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com/.../

Image (Leeds castle): http://www.flickr.com/photos/tracylee/1557981/

Las Vegas Five: What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas

Don’t you believe it for a New York minute (1). What stays in Vegas is money. What follows you around are memories. A few readers have wondered out loud when the next chapter of “Las Vegas” was coming. Here is the last chapter, with no revelations (to speak of). We had a great time, saw wonderful sights (see LV one and two), ate at a really funky Italian place (not L.V. plastic), got high (see LV three) and just enjoyed the scene. On the last trip to Vegas I heard a young wife say to her husband whilst walking through the faux Eiffel Tower “Now we don’t have to go to Paris”. Or Egypt or New York or anywhere else. She sounded serious, but I hope not.
We on the other hand are off to Portugal in 2 weeks and will eat, drink and be very, very merry. We will see the mountains, the rivers, the castles, the churches, the ---- everything there is to see. We will leave money behind and bring memories home. Not so different from Las Vegas really. We could have gone to Disney World instead, and left some money behind and brought some memories home, but why not go for the real thing? Along the lines of “Drink the Wine Now”, I suggest going to the places you have on your list as soon as possible. Why wait for the dollar to crash?
1. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=New%20York%20Minute.
Image: members.virtualtourist.com/m/c470b/cc416/

“For God’s Sake Put That Damn Thing Down!!”

My old guitar.
I picked up my old Harmony classic guitar the other day and plucked. God. So out of tune I couldn't get close. Then I picked up my old electronic tuner. In a few minutes it was tight and tuned. Wait 5 minutes and sour again. Retune. Wait. Retune. Wait. Play (euphemism for making not so good noises). Retune. Play. Retune. Put down with sigh.
I last played with the “axe” about 10 years ago. New strings. Electronic tuner. Sore finger tips for a week. Then on to other things. My old college roommate, Charlie, will vouch for the hours of “The Sloop John B.” to get some semblance of finger placement. Then on to bar cords and moving up and down the neck. Then playing around with a blonde (dirty minds) solid body electric. What fun. Finger calluses and strong fingers. Interspersed with fishing and drinking, that was the life. Charlie was a good sport about all this, learning the words to the “Sloop” and never once yelling “For God’s Sake Put That Damn Thing Down!!”.

Image: hubpages.com/hub/vintage-harmony-guitar

Haiti: Leading Indicator?

NPR again. This time an essay that really makes you wonder. Since the earthquake in Haiti (hear much about Haiti lately?) attention has been directed to their overpopulation, the deforestation of their mountains, the political corruption that leads to a very rich class and a very poor class and other problems like lack of health care, crumbling infrastructure, fiscal disaster and no regulation of anything. The natural reaction to this portrait is “poor Haiti, they are Sooo (1) backward”. But are they really? It looked to the writer of the essay, and to me, that Haiti may just be a leading indicator of where the rest of the world is headed. If you read back to the second sentence and think about it a minute you will find some frightening parallels to much of the rest of the world. Combined, these and other problems that are all manifest in Haiti are plaguing the world (and the U.S. too).
Is Haiti backward or a leading indicator? Scary to contemplate.
1. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sooo
Image: http://www.nasaimages.org (Haiti left, Dominican Republic right)

Drink the Wine Now.

NPR yesterday aired an essay about a couple that saved a good bottle of wine and two glasses for a “special occasion”. She died 20 years later, the wine undrunk (1), and, when opened, the wine was spoiled. Given the urgency of all the problems facing us in the immediate future, I recommend like the writer of that piece that you drink the wine now. Don’t wait for a special occasion to celebrate. Every day you wake up alive is a special occasion that calls for celebration. Remember that one day you or someone you love will not wake up. That is also a special occasion, and you can celebrate their life with the bottle that should have been shared. Bittersweet celebration, though.



1. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/undrunk
Image: American bittersweet at home.howstuffworks.com/american-bittersweet.htm