10.4.2024 – he wrote we have proved

he wrote we have proved
ourselves inept fools on so
many mortal fronts

I suspect that it’s inappropriate to strand myself on a high horse when it comes to what people eat. We have proved ourselves inept fools on so many mortal fronts — from our utter disregard of the natural world to our notions of ethnic virtue to the hellish marriage of politics and war — that perhaps we should be allowed to pick at garbage like happy crows. When I was growing up in the Calvinist Midwest, the assumption that we eat to live, not live to eat, was part of the Gospels. (With the exception, of course, of holiday feasts. Certain women were famous for their pie-making abilities, while certain men, like my father, were admired for being able to barbecue two hundred chickens at once for a church picnic.) I recall that working in the fields for ten hours a day required an ample breakfast and three big sandwiches for lunch. At the time, I don’t think I believed I was all that different from the other farm animals.

Jim Harrison in A Really Big Lunch published in the New Yorker, Aug 29, 2004.

Garrison Keillor wrote in his 1991 book, WLT: A Radio Romance, “Don’t concern yourself with things you can’t change, I say. It’s more important to make a very good cup of coffee in the morning and a very good piece of toast than it is to worry about Josef Stalin, because I can do something about breakfast and I can’t do anything about Stalin, and I’m sure he’s having a wonderful breakfast.”

There seems to a synergy here.

10.3.2024 – back at it again

back at it again
early to rise drive in dark
low country commute

I woke up this morning and looked at the clock about 5 minutes before the alarm went off.

Resigned to what it is, I reached over and clicked off the alarm before it went off, got up, started the coffee, showered, dressed and drove off to work, all in the dark.

Driving in the early dark again to avoid being stuck in my car for too long lengths of time.

For 12 years I commuted into downtown Atlanta.

It was a drive you could make in 30 minutes … if you left early enough and all the 1,000s of drivers cooperated.

If you left later, the time it took to travel grew exponentially.

Now I work for a resort that is on an island on the Atlantic Coast of South Carolina.

The thing is that if you work for a living you most likely cannot afford to live on the island.

So all of us who work on the island have to commute to work from somewhere in the low country so we can provide the amenities of resort island life to those who can afford to be on the island.

I understand this is new, that as recent as 4 years ago, there was affordable housing on the island.

Once equity driven real estate management took over, affordable rental property for housing disappeared as it was purchased and turned into short term vacation rentals.

I also understand this is happening across the country from Long Island to Jackson Hole.

Here in the low country, we all have to be at work between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. in the morning.

It is called the trade parade.

Toss in the traffic created by getting kids to school and add in that there is only one bridge to get on to the island and you get a commute worthy of Atlanta.

If I leave early enough my drive takes about 20 minutes.

If I leave later, the time it takes to travel grows exponentially.

Like my drive in Atlanta, if I had to choose, I would rather leave early and have some quiet time at my desk rather than leave later and have a lot less quiet but a lot more time in my car.

There are some benefits to where I work.

I do get to see the coast for a few seconds and often some wonderful sunrises.

Interesting to note that I hit a sunrise window for about 2 weeks in the spring and fall and then another two weeks with the time change.

I am not commuting in Atlanta where my angst over my drive was compounded by the angst that the nasty people I worked for required me to be in the office while allowing other people who were part of the team I was on, to work remotely. (Looking back, I had a great job in ATL, that was a lot of fun and I worked WITH some great people, but I worked FOR others who made it their business to make my job as awful as possible.)

And I can review my life on my drive to work and wonder what I did to deserve such a life – then I go all over the reasons why I got the life I deserve.

And I can walk the beach on my lunch break if I am a mind too. That alone puts me in a very very select minority of the world’s work force.

Employee Survey: Question #11) Are you able to access the beach on your lunch hour?

I bet that puts me in a the .001% of those who answered yes, of anyone working today.

Happy to say I work a hybrid schedule which means Monday and Friday, I get to work remote.

Which means that tomorrow, at this time, I will still be in bed.

10.2.2024 – can’t change that, I mean …

can’t change that, I mean …
even if I wanted to
it is what it is

The Detroit Lions played the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday Night.

The Detroit Lions had a 15 point lead with just over 2 minutes to go in the game.

The Detroit Lions had a 15 point lead with just over 2 minutes to go in the game but the other team had the ball and if there was a Lions fan who hadn’t worked how the Lions were going to give up a quick score, a 2 point conversion, an onside kick, another quick score and another 2 point conversion and lose the game, that person is not a real Lions fan.

Lets be clear.

I am not in any way trying to disparage the Lions.

I am telling you how, after 60 years of following the Lions, Lions fans could feel what was going to happen.

And …

And it didn’t.

Throughout the game, an area of concern was the amount of penalties, 12 by the whole team, 7 on cornerbacks Carlton Davis III and Terrion Arnold.

With that in mind, I really enjoyed Mr. Davis III’s explanation of what was going on during the game.

According to the article in the Detroit Free Press, Detroit Lions CB Carlton Davis III: ‘I felt as if (refs) were just on the Seahawks side’ by Dave Birkett, Mr. Davis III said:

“I lost my cool, I did. But it was rightfully so cause not about to — I just can’t control it. It’s an emotional game, and the stakes are high. They’re driving down the field and these PI’s are keeping them in the game. It’s extending these drives. So that’s where the passion is coming from. Like, come on man, let us play ball and if they can’t get open then it is what it is, you know what I mean?”

“I don’t want to get fined because they are sensitive about this, but honestly bro, I can’t say what I want to say, but honestly it’s just like I felt as if they were just on the Seahawks’ side today. I don’t know what I did. Maybe I should take them to dinner or something, I don’t know. Follow them on Instagram, I don’t know. But today was not my day. They were just calling PIs that’s like not even, I’m not even grabbing. It’s not even like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It was just like touch-touch, bang-bang stuff, which is football, which is battling. And D.K. is a physical receiver, so that’s going to happen when you get a physical (corner) and a physical receiver, you got to let us play ball.”

“I mean that’s just who I am, bro, I can’t change that (expletive). I mean, even if I wanted to, but what the (expletive)? I’m not about to do that. I’m about to play my game, about to keep playing and it is what it is.”

Is this not fabulous?

I remember back in high school, my sister Lisa had to read the book, “The Caine Mutiny”.

I asked her if she liked it and she said she had some concerns.

She said there was this part where the sailors described what they did aboard a minesweeper and Lisa said she didn’t understand a word of what they said.

She said she read the passage over and over trying understand it all and finally gave up and moved on.

The next sentence in the book was about how one officer looked and another and said, “I didn’t understand a word of what they said.”

Lisa said she felt much better after that.

I can read the words of this interview.

And I understand that the reporter had a voice recorder running and that Mr. Davis III was answering questions just minutes after performing in a very high pressure environment.

But I am not sure I understand what he is saying … but there is that one word there.

Passion.

Again, is this not fabulous?

So that’s where the passion is coming from.

I’m about to play my game.

I’m about to keep playing.

It is what it is.

Go Lions!

Just for fun, click here for another video of a Carlton Davis III interview.

10.1.2024 – if did not want to

if did not want to
go to Minneapolis …
why get on the train?

Garrison Keillor wrote that Father Emil, the Catholic Priest in Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, would say ” “… If you didn’t want to go to Minneapolis, why did you get on the train?”

This quote was on my mind as I thought about people I know who plan to vote for a certain candidate for President but say, “I don’t agree with or support a lot of what he says or plans to do, but I will vote for him.”

That’s nice.

But if you vote for him, you get him and all that he says, all that he stands for, all that he plans to do and all that will come about if he is elected.

Sure I can say the same thing about voting the other way.

I don’t agree with all that she says, all that she stands for and all that she plans to do, but I will vote for her.

In the main, because she is not him.

You get the whole package.

If you don’t want to go to Minneapolis, don’t get on the train.

As Bret Stephens, New York Times Conservative Columnist says, Voting one way in this election will make me sick. Voting the other way will kill me.

As Mr. Lincoln said in his 1862 Message to Congress:

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.

We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

We say we are for the Union.

The world will not forget that we say this.

We know how to save the Union.

The world knows we do know how to save it.

We – even we here – hold the power, and bear the responsibility.

Say this again to yourself as you decide to make your choice.

We cannot escape history.

We will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

We hold the power, and bear the responsibility.

Vote one way and you will have to overlook or accept some things you don’t like.

Vote the other way and you will have to overlook or accept some things don’t like.

It is a question of personal integrity only you can answer.

Do the yellow pad test.

Take a yellow pad and draw a line down the middle and write these things down.

One side may compromise your principles.

One side may ask for your soul.

You hold the power, and bear the responsibility.

9.30.2024 – might reasonably

might reasonably
be expected in questions
with great eagerness

The book, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume, is (according to https://standardebooks.org/) “A foundational text in empiricism and skepticism”

It was published in English in 1748 under the title Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding until a 1757 edition came up with the now-familiar name.

Mr. Hume’s section Of Liberty and Necessity starts with the sentence, “It might reasonably be expected in questions which have been canvassed and disputed with great eagerness, since the first origin of science and philosophy, that the meaning of all the terms, at least, should have been agreed upon among the disputants; and our enquiries, in the course of two thousand years, been able to pass from words to the true and real subject of the controversy.”

One sentence.

66 words.

97 syllables.

Graded out at a 14.4 on the Flesch-Kincaid readability scale.

And some countless words later, ends with “…if the definition above mentioned be admitted; liberty, when opposed to necessity, not to constraint, is the same thing with chance; which is universally allowed to have no existence.”

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I value liberty.

So, by necessity, I am voting for Harris.

Lots of words to the true and real subject of the controversy.