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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| The traditional protocol for writing POV is that the Central Character is the only one who is supposed to use interior dialog. At least that is the way I learned it. The rationale was that to do otherwise was to confuse the reader. Anybody who is doing much reading these days must realize that such old school thinking has gone right out the window. Another tradition is that successful writers only write in third person. That too has gone by the boards. It seems almost the norm these days to find a different POV emerging with each new chapter. Further there is plenty of good stuff being written that is full of I,I,I. Once a reader catches on it isn't all that confusing. At least it isn't to me. When I finished writing my Romantica final exam here at WDC, I wanted to stress the POV's of both the Male and Female characters. There wasn't really a single central character. The course was designed to show the POV's of both the man and the woman. When you're a student you are trying to learn something new and so I went with what the class was trying to teach. I learned more than I bargained for. I'm a heterosexual male and it comes as not surprise that I prefer writing from a POV that I know something about. However, most romance novels are written by women who have to write with their female constituents in mind. That doesn't mean that female writers avoid writing in a male POV. Most are married and have a pretty good idea how the male mind works. Some have male central characters who are pretty convincing, however, they do cater to those female customers who buy most of the novels in this genre. So what I wound up doing was taking the allowable word count and dividing it among the two. It was like one chapter in a novel written from a guys POV and the next from a gals. The Divergent series is written in that manner, as well as in first person. In writing the final I wanted to show both POVs but wound up doing it in another way. I used the same time line and alternated short paragraphs showing what one was thinking and then how the other thought in response. It was like writing dialog where you don't need labels for the interchanges because its obvious to the reader who is being referred to. It made sense to me and it turned out to be powerful and momentum building. The exam is called the Vow, and I'll be providing a link when I get through editing it. Be advised its rated GC. |
| I can only imagine the resources being devoted to finding the South East Asia Airliner. All this talk that it crashed into the ocean sounds a bit absurd. The course was deliberately altered shortly before the Copilot said "Goodnight." If you think about it there were a heck of a lot of links in the chain that had to happen to make the hijacking successful. If any one of those was not anticipated by the hijacker, there is a good chance we know where the airplane set down. If we don't I can only ask what we've been doing in the years since 9/11. I think we know more that we're letting on. Everything I see in the media comes from a Malaysian source. We need to stay on our toes until we learn what happened to that airplane. |
| This morning I went to Marshfield and did some indoor electric flying. They have a nice gym. I have two Embers. One is nearing the end of its service life and the other flies like a dream. Roger and I got to talk on the way up there and back. That was fun. I met a retired doctor who is interested in trying it. Angelo sent me an e-mail and offered to help out in the Exploratory Writing Workshop this Spring. That was nice of him and I'll definitely take him up on the offer. Linda has gone off to Branson with her friend Louise leaving me home alone for the next few days. So there you have it regarding my recent life. I got home at noon feeling bone tired. I took a nap and when I woke up it was 3:30. I dreamed I was talking to Vladimir Putin. He showed me an accounting model and I looked at it and said I couldn't read his handwriting. I asked his wife if she could read it. She said he never wrote her. The dialog in the dream was like the movie Nebraska. Linda and I watched it the other day. It had some great lines. One set went something like this. Son: "Did you ever think about having kids, Dad?" Father: "No, why would I ever do that?" Son: (Puzzled look) Father: "I knew if I screwed her enough, we'd have some." It reminded me of a line my grandmother told me in a nursing home. "I had nine kids... would have had more if my husband wasn't always on the road." I remember walking into her room and seeing her look closely at me before exclaiming... "OMG, the old Devil's back!" I must have had a resemblance to my grandfather in his younger days. I know! I know! it sounds cold and insensitive but it fit nicely into the theme of "Blunt honesty," "Simple Truths" or maybe... "Naive innocence or unthinking trust." It left a bitter sweet taste in my mouth and has hung with me the past couple of days. |
| Like many others I have been following with interest the mystery of the vanished airliner over South East Asia. This morning it was finally announced that the airplane had been hijacked ... Duh! When the aircraft drops off the radar and the engines keep sending out an electronic "Ping" for another eight hours what else is there to conclude? The next question will be, was the hijacking motivated by a potential ransom demand or was it to get a delivery platform for a Weapon of Mass Destruction? 1. Ransom: If this was the reason it is not unreasonable to conclude that the passengers have been dispersed, so when the ultimatum is eventually delivered a commando like rescue will be next to impossible. It is likely that the logistics and excecution of the dispersal would take some time. A month is not an unreasonable period before hearing about it. 2. Delivery System: If this is the purpose then the hackers made a huge error in timing by not making this action the final piece in the puzzle. Dragging this out will not play to their advantage. I would not be surprised to see the Israelis prohibit the entry of this type of aircraft into their airspace. Everybody, including (especially) the US needs to be preparing for a worst case scenario. Facts: Nobody is taking credit for the Hijacking. (An ominous sign) The airplane is big, numerous, ubiquitous and easy to fly. Some sophisticated tinkering was done to shut off the aircraft's electronic emitters. There are plenty of places the aircraft could have set down. We have had since 911 to prepare for this scenario. Assumption: Our President...? (Complete the statement in your own words.) Note: These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive. The first could be a cover for the second or a funding mechanism. If #2 we may never learn the fate of the passengers. Our Government's intelligence agencies are no doubt working overtime with plans for how to deal with the looming and inevitable crisis. |
| I have roughed out Charles' POV for the HSP final exam. (I mean really roughed out) It is more like a thread than a first draft. In order to write the two POVs I'll take the paragraphs and now write one beneath the other layering in Edith's POV, at the same instant as Charles. When I finish I'll separate the two and instead of alternating them give each a separate space. Anyway this is the plan. I have chores to do and Indoor flying tonight. I will be thinking about how this will work throughout the day and adding to the blog and Work in Progress as I find time. I'll also be carrying my notebook so I don't forget ideas as they come to mind. I want to have a rough draft by COB Sunday. That will give me a week for editing. It takes me as long to finish a piece as it does to do the first cut. Is that just me or do others have the same timeframe between draft and final product? The worst thing I can do is post too early. On WDC readers tend to only give you one look. As I write I'll keep repeating to myself.... a man sees it as a door, a woman a window. My goal is to show the reader my perceived notion of the difference in perspective. Since I'm a man with a heterosexual orientation I have first hand knowledge... however what a woman sees I can only speculate about. Still I have seen a few woman writers who could portray a convincing man and a few men who seemed to get it right regarding a woman. Is this confusing or what...? |
| This morning I had what might be a great idea but what could also be a great big flop. This was to tell the same exact story but from two different POV. For example the reader would get to read 2k words from Charles POV and then would get to go back and see the same 2k scenario from Edith's POV. In order to make this work there would have to be come common anchoring lines. Like the Storm symbolism would be the same in both. Then the backstory would be the same but show their differing perceptions. Most of us are familiar with the "Men are from Mars,"Woman are from Venus theme." While I think there are differences, men and women in my view, have more in common then they do at issue. After all we start off at conception with the same egg and of course there are changes, not just in plumbing but also chemically taking place. Having said that I think its safe to say that men see an act of intercourse more as a door that opens and closes and women see it more as a window that opens into the future. So the differences while they exist are not of a magnitude that put men and woman on different planets. We both get to walk the road through life one day at a time constrained by the earth's gravity. Sorry for the digression. Anyway, I think I'll try it and see what happens. Today Linda and I went to Wisconsin Rapids and Stephen's point. I told her about R Jones blog on everything going south when a husband goes off on business. She grimaced and said it's one of Mrs. Murphy's laws "If it can go wrong it will go wrong; (Once your husband is safely out of the area.)" I thought that was funny but I could see my wife was having flashbacks and wasn't all that amused. |
| Wednesday is always a busy day at the first of the month. On the first Wednesday of the week there is the meeting with the River Valley Flyers, and on the second is the one with Afterburner Aviation. These are in the evening and of course on every Wednesday morning is breakfast with the guys in Wisconsin Rapids. Around 3:00 PM I'll be leaving for Weyuwega. I'm continuing to work on my Final Exam for about an hour each day. Trying to cram, like I used to do in College, doesn't work well for me as a writer. I need to write a little every day whether I feel like it or not. Then comes the edits, where I read it over and over and tweak the "resonance," grammar and spelling. To understand the Exam maybe a link to the six vignettes I wrote would be helpful. This was a weekly requirement in the course. I compiled them all into one static item called "The Whole Shebang." Here it is. Again, be advised the content is rated GC. The language is restrained, but the subject matter still rates the GC classification. Don't say I didn't warn you.
At this point in the outline... see yesterday's blog. I have the vignettes, thus enough material to take a stab at an outline. I have the outline, which enables me to concentrate on writing in a limited scope. I have the components I want to make sure I include in the manuscript and I intend to layer these like a fine arts artist in a painting. Now it's time to start writing the prose, one bullet at a time in the outline.. When I finish I'll have a very rough draft that will take at least four days of editing. In graduate school a professor told me that "A task expands to fill the time available." I can certainly write faster when I have to, but given the two weeks allowed, I'm taking my time and doing just a little each day. I know for most of you this approach may seem unnecessarily complicated but it works well for me. Perhaps this is because my Brain (Bio-CPU) is small and writing a novel requires juggling a lot of balls. When I try and keep more then three in the air at the same time they soon all wind up on the ground--- or out the window or vanished like that South East Asia airliner. I think you get the picture. |
| Karen commented on yesterday's blog and said she had a cat who thought it was a dog. This cat liked the rain. I had a "Walk On" cat that was rejected by the two I already had. So this cat must have decided "The Heck with Them," that she was a dog instead. She hung out with the dogs and started acting like one. Last year in Westfield I watched as the fall migration of geese came flying in. In one of the flocks was a big white barnyard goose with a pronounced yellow bill. It made me think about my cat who thought she was a dog. I guess if you can't see yourself it's an easy mistake to make. We are after all a consequence of who we hang out with. For those who give a "Rats Petotti" and that number remains mercifully small, I've come to develop a methodology for writing here at WDC. The first thing I do is idly push the pencil waiting for a character to emerge. The character usually brings with them the glimmer of a story line. Once this starts to happen I keep pushing the noodle (pencil... you know those metaphors for pounding a keyboard) until I have about six vignettes of between 2k to 3k words. At that point its time to get serious and write an outline. In school we were taught to write an outline first, but how can a person do this if they don't know what they're going to be writing about? This first outline is crude to begin with. Once it is written I begin to layer into it the components of what a good story should contain.. Once that is completed I start writing in bite sized chunks knowing that when I finish I'll have a coherent manuscript with a beginning, middle and end. In the HSP class we wrote six vignettes with common characters and story line. I have applied this approach to the final exam I'm taking for the Romantica course. Please be advised that the content will be classified GC. Anyone interested is welcome to follow along and comment.
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| The reason my blogs are so bad lately is that my sequential brain has been focused on my HSP class. I can' t seem to write Romantica the way the genre calls for. I have decided to write an outline first that has all the items that I'm supposed to include. Then I will write the exam from the bullets. Is that a plan or what. Today it got up in the 50 degree F Range. Can you believe that? I couldn't. It seemed so balmy. The ice and snow began to melt and I can see patches of gravel on the driveway. No need to get excited however, because the cold weather is scheduled to return later in the week. Shucks! The cats have been walking around outdoors and shaking their paws to get the moisture off. Cat's don't like water if you haven't heard of that before. It's getting dark and I think I'll let them back into the garage. I'm back and just finished posting the link to my "Work in Progress." I promised two of the other students they could follow along as I do mine. The first step was the outline and I put that into the static item. It got me to thinking. I am sure that if four people used the same outline to write a vignette, the four would come out entirely different. It would be almost impossible to tell they all started with the same outline. This is because each would be using it to tell a different story, with different characters and using their own unique voice. Anyone trying to connect their vignettes with the outline would be hard pressed to do so. I'm not sure why I consider this something that merits thinking about but something tells me its a fact that might be useful to a writer. If anyone thinks it could be then let me know. |
| Today I finished my HSP Romantica class. I put all the six vignettes together in a sequence and read it to experience the cumulative effect of what I’d written. I was hoping it would suggest something more, like a springboard into the universe of a bigger and more interesting story. Unfortunately it didn’t. What it did show was an effort to experiment with some new ideas I got to try out. So it wasn’t everything I was hoping for but it was a useful exercise. My wife read it and gave me a Romance Novel with several chapters that accomplished much the same thing I was trying to achieve but with much skill and elegance. I finished the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. It had an ending I hadn’t anticipated. Given all the foreshadowing maybe I should have. I’m the first to tip my hat to and acknowledge the talent of other writers and who can argue with success. However, I simply don’t write quite like others do and that’s OK. I like the way I write and while I’m always seeking ways to improve they have to be ways that result in crafting something I like to read. I can’t imagine wanting to write like some of the other writers I read because it isn’t my voice. For better or worse I’m trapped in the voice I have and while I struggle to refine it and make it more effective I don’t want to change the fundamental tone of the writer I’ve become. |
| I have been reading the Allegiant Series by Veronica Roth. No doubt it will go on to be as popular as “The Hunger Games.” The story lines are similar in some ways but different in others. In both cases they are about societies where the hive mentality of Socialism has gone insane. As if we don’t know already that Socialism is a complete crock. Still the more we can show young people what a bogus form of government it is the better off we’ll be. Ms. Roth writes in first person. That takes some getting used to. All this I, I, I, gets a bit repetitive but she handles writing in the tense better than many I’ve read who took on the challenge. Another thing she does is frequently changing POVs from one chapter to the next. I won’t spoil the story by saying more except to recommend the series as a good read. The weather is starting to warm up a little. Today we had a high in the lower 30s. I’ve been racing to catch up and finish my last HSP assignment by Sunday. The class I’m taking uses the same approach as The Exploratory Writing Workshop. This is to say that it uses common characters and vignettes due each week that include the lesson objectives. The things I’ve learned most is about POV writing, interior dialog and showing emotion and senses as the characters interact. The reason I believe I’m deficient with emotion and senses is because I always felt that if the dialog is good the reader can fill in the blanks using their imagination. My wife agrees with Teresa, the instructor, that readers want the writer to make it easy for them to relate to what the characters are experiencing. Anyway I’m trying to get better at what the class is teaching. |
| Last night, after finishing with the chores, I came in, got cleaned up and reached for my laptop computer. It's cold outside but after crawling under the electric shawl blanket my wife got me, I felt all toasty. I worked for awhile on my class assignment and then Linda came in with her Kindle and crawled into bed next to me. Our Golden Doodle got in between us to make sure there was no opportunity for hanky-panky. "What are you thinking," Linda asked? "You have that pensive look." Actually I had been thinking about something far away, when I was stoking up the wood stove and feeding the cats. When I was in elementary school I was a "wee bit disruptive," and after visits to the office got old, the Principle, a truly remarkable old lady, talked the Librarian into taking me on as a "Hard Case." To make a long story short she got me interested in reading which was one of the few academic areas I seemed to have an aptitude for. After a short period I was reading a book or novel a day. It was a great escape mechanism and I always saw it as more of a reward than a punishment. So whenever I started acting up and the teacher said, "Go see Mrs Jones!" I'd hang my head and shuffle to the door... that is until I got into the hall and then smile, "Yes! Yes!" So there I was, ten years old, given a brief respite from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," that plagued my tender years. Getting on with the story, one day I read a science fiction book called "The Survivors." It was the most amazing piece of literature I had read to that point in my life and it excited an extreme sense of awe. Not only did the book hang with me in the next few days and weeks but it kindled a love for science fiction, fueled by Clark, Heinlein, and other great SI-Fi legends. As time passed the story would still flash back into my mind but try as I would, I could never find the book that first kindled my interest. I think you are beginning to realize where this blog is heading. It's been almost sixty years since reading that book and over the years I had tried repeatedly to find another copy. When Linda asked what I was thnking about I told her about this book I'd once read. "Who wrote it," she asked. After that long I was lucky to remember the title. "I don't remember." She went to Amazon and typed in the following key words. 1950 Science Fiction Novel The Survivors... (or something along those lines.) The book flashed on the screen. Space Prison (Formerly Titled "The Survivors.") Now I have told my "Army of Readers" on numerous occasions, that my wife is truly awesome. She ordered it (A free book) and within minutes it uploaded on my Kindle. I finished reading it by midnight. Sometimes I forget that what is hard for me can be ridiculously easy for others. Today as I did the chores that book churned around in my imagination creating the same sense of wonder it did many years ago. |
| Today I got up early and with my friend Ron went to Appleton for an RC Airplane swap meet. It was fun to see all the stuff people have to get rid of. I bought some servo screws and Ron sold his glider. It is still bitter cold outside and the outdoor wood stove is working overtime. Next week I’ll be talking to an alternative energy guy to see what I can do to supplement the wood heat. Did you know that 95 percent of the people on earth have immunity to leprosy? Did you know that armadillos are carriers of leprosy? Did you know it’s spread by air born droplets, like a respiratory disease? Anyway it occurred to me while reading about cholera, that I didn’t know very much about leprosy, except that in ancient times it was about the worst thing a person could catch. Then there was bubonic plague. I believe that was transmitted by fleas carried on rats. Several others include Malaria carried by mosquitos, Typhoid Fever and Tuberculosis. We are extremely fortunate in this day and age to have antibiotics and immunizations that spare us much of the suffering these diseases have historically visited upon humanity. If you’re ever bored, Google search these diseases. They are worth learning more about. This brings me back to the Neanderthals. Did you know it is believed that Type 2 diabetes and Crones disease are tied to the Neanderthal genome, which was passed on to modern man. The good news is that our hair and skin are largely attributed to the genes passed down by the Neanderthals that helped us cope with the cold weather, they were accustomed to. |
| If you want to read some interesting stuff search Cro Magnon/ Neanderthal/ chromosomes. What is being discovered is fascinating. So is the spin of speculation that's being offered. The central question seems to be, were they destroyed by modern man or were they absorbed into the gene pool? I don't think the answer to that requires a whole lot of heavy thinking. Look at what the Jews did when they entered the Promised Land. Look at what the Spaniards did upon entering the New World. Look what happened to the Native Americans in the United States and Canada. It doesn't take much of a stretch to figure out what happened to the Neanderthals. However, there is no single answer since most modern humans of today carry between 1 and 4 percent Neanderthal genes. Scientists seem to agree that when the two cultures collided about 60,000 years ago they were on the edge of being genetically incompatible. It was sort of like the horse and donkey producing a hybrid offspring... but not quite that severe. Male offspring tended to be sterile but not so much the female. Surprisingly what has been passed down to us appears to be the legacy of a Neanderthal man mating with a Cro Magnon female and the issue being raised in the Cro Magnon societies. Since the Neanderthal societies became extinct it makes sense, even though one might find it hard to reconcile a Neanderthal male being afforded the opportunity to mate with a modern female given that racial prejudice isn't exactly a new idea. If you read the biblical accounts having slaves from another culture was sometimes tolerated. This was not just in the Old Testament but more the norm in ancient cultures. So one can imagine, especially after three or four generations, a gradual acceptance of the progeny. The inescapable outcome of two unlike cultures coming together, is competition for resources, conflict and the taking hostage of women and children. Some of these captives reached maturity, mated and produced the viable legacy that continues on in today's gene pool. |
| Linda has gone off with her friend for the day leaving the dog and I to our own devices. One of those is woodcutting. With every load there are always a couple of humongous logs that I work around until I have no choice but to deal with them. Some are so large in diameter I have to cut them from both sides. Then I have to salami slice in order to manhandle them up to the splitter. Once you get that accomplished they yield plenty of firewood but the work can be a real pain in the you know what. When the chain saw is going Honey, my Golden Doodle puts as much distance between the loud noise as she can manage but when I cut if off she comes bounding up and begins running circles around the woodpile. I love to see her expend the energy rather than lying around sleeping all the time. That dog is one heck of a sleeper. The weather for the next week is more of the same deep chill. Highs are in the low teens and lows dip below zero. That’s not factoring in the wind chill that takes away much of my sap and energy. Still every day I resolve to bundle up and do something about the firewood. Maybe it’s only going out and blocking a single chainsaw tank of gas. Maybe its only splitting a half a trailer load of wood. At still other times it’s stacking a little of the surplus that accumulates around the shed. That’s the way it is with my woodcutting and it’s the same approach I take with my writing. I try and do a little every day. Over the years I’ve discovered that mood or frame of mind has little to do with the quality of my work. Sometimes the best stuff comes at times when I least want to be writing. It’s sort of like going to a social function you dread, only to discover once you get there, that it's enjoyable. At other times I’m all amped up to write but nothing very exciting gets dredged up from the creative well and I wind up with a product that makes me yawn. Still, I’ve learned that you have to keep at it, pecking away like a little chicken, and eventually you'll find the groove. In the Military I was required to read one of the seminal works on war. A fellow named Clausewitz wrote it and I have to say it was one of the most dragged out boring pieces of literature I’ve ever read. He seemed to drone on and on with an endless exposition of the boring and obvious. Then suddenly, like following a thin vein of gold, a pocket would open and the reader would strike the mother load. It didn’t happen often mind you, but often enough to make the effort worthwhile. Clausewitz was a Prussian general during the Napoleonic Wars who arrived late for the battle of Waterloo. His wife was a lady in waiting in the inner circle of the court. After the war was over a cholera epidemic broke out and he was sent by the King to establish a “Cordon Sanitaire.” He probably drank some water tainted by the bacteria. In any case he died. After his death his wife compiled his writing and got his book published. I’m not sure why I’m sharing this historical nugget of trivia, except to say that nothing ever turns out quite the way we imagine it. |
| I think the crowning achievement of social evolution was the invention of a distributed rather than a centralized form of government. By this I mean societies that allow individuals to choose their destiny rather than having it imposed by government. The operative word is a “Free” versus a “Fear” based society. When watching the hockey game between the Russian and US team in the recent Olympics I was struck by the collision of these two operative points of view. Putin made it clear that he expected nothing less than the gold medal. As it came time for the final shootout the camera panned on a grim faced team of Soviets. As it zoomed in on the American team, a smiling player stepped out of the box and skated onto the ice. What a contrast, I thought to myself. One of the teams was enjoying the competition and the hope of winning while the other was dreading the showdown and the possibility of losing. The outcome could have gone either way but I have to think that when all things are equal, a free society has the edge. In much of Europe and the United States the concept of “Freedom,” is understood and applied with various degrees of success. It’s a fragile blossom, for no sooner does it take root then the forces of Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Despotism and Terrorism seek to return it to the bleak and hopeless landscape from whence it sprang. For the rest of the world “Fear” is the norm, always has been but not necessarily always will be. Governments who live by repression will ultimately have to answer to the people rising up in protest. In a world vulnerable to weapons of mass destruction the mistakes of a government become more portentous than ever and the people are the ultimate bill payers of their government’s policies and decisions. American foreign policy needs to use the information age technology to show an alternative to those who live in a perpetual state of dread. |
I have to hand it to the Russians. They did a good job hosting the Winter Olympics. It was a first class effort. The biggest concern prior to the games startup was security. Everybody, including Putin, was worried about Terrorists. It’s ironic that it wasn’t terrorists the Soviets needed to worry about but the Ukrainians. Isn’t that the way life always is? You worry about one thing and something unanticipated bites you in the butt. This Wednesday the new season of the Americans will open. For those not familiar with the series it’s about a Russian and his wife who are agents, pretending to be a normal everyday American family. When I first started watching it I was reminded of the old TV show “I Led Three Lives.” It was about another imbedded Russian agent who was flipped by the FBI. While I was reading Robert Gates book, “Honor” he refers to an incident where an informant identified several family cells of Russian agents operating in the United States. President Obama was said to be incensed about the case feeling it would put his relationship with the Soviets in jeopardy. It turned out that the agents and their families were quietly whisked away to Moscow. The reporting of the incident in Gate’s book left me scratching my head. I don’t recall the incident being reported in the news, but it must have been. Anyway the true-life story became the basis for the hit TV series. |
To the best of my knowledge, sketchy as that is, I don’t have a Hebrew heritage, but how much does one really know of such things? I do know that I have a big nose, and that in my lifetime there have been a number of attempts to punch it.  . There is a quality about my persona that antagonizes others simply because its there. I don’t deliberately set out to be offensive but there is something rooted deep in my character that gives off a malice that incenses others, particularly those I’m meeting for the first time. Does any of this sound familiar?Hesiod, who I frequently refer to, said there are three types of minds: those who can raise the bar and conjure the optimal out of thin air, those who know it when they see it and those who can do neither. For me life is a quest for the “Optimal.” I like to think I know it when I see it and that, by the Hesiodic standard, this qualifies me as a tier two thinker. It is my contention that knowing the optimal solution when one sees it is not too shabby. The key is not so much discovering (inventing)“best,” but rather once defined, working tirelessly to exploit the possibilities. The person who "thinks it up" is to be commended but those who see its glimmer in the brighter lamp of another, deserve some small modicum of praise and support. So to my thinking it isn’t grabbing onto the coattail and pinning "best" down where the real importance lies, but rather in taking that notion and using it to promote the welfare of mankind. I submit to you that if there is a product-improved version of the human genome it's the Jews. Look at what this small fraction of humanity has produced in virtually every aspect of human excellence. The examples are so numerous I won’t even attempt to enumerate them. One day I suspect that a silhouette with a big nose will lead the chart showing mankind’s evolution upward from an ape. If this is true than think of the loss Europe suffered by the Holocaust. Think about what the United States gained. However, think most about a small nation, home of this unique culture, surrounded by hostile states hell bent upon its destruction. The stakes are enormous. The technology of weapons of mass destruction makes Israel more vulnerable with every passing day. Fanatical Islam, caught up in the euphoria of being a player in the End Game, will eventually have a capability to set in motion the apocalypse . Reason, which kept a lid on things through the Cold War, is not something the Middle East is long on. The seed of the planet’s future greatness is in jeopardy. The State of Israel needs to think less about an end game and more in terms of the best way to get their legacy and gene pool out of the line of fire. The old and the new paradigm are not mutually exclusive. |
| I got to reading more in Charles Krauthammer's book, "Things that Matter." I'm learning more and more about the Jewish (Hebrew) calculus than I knew before. Two things that jumped out at me are that Jews are being assimilated into the general population of the United States, and also in Europe (Those who are left) at a significant rate. In a few generations Krauthammer predicts that Jewish communities will become quaint remainders of the past like the Amish and Mennonites of today. While this is happening throughout the world it is not happening in the State of Israel. In Israel the Jews have changed the traditional paradigm. Instead of establishing settlements in foreign lands throughout the world they have established a nation, and taken on a national identity. One can hardly blame them considering what happened in the holocaust. The good part of this strategy is that they no longer have to fear the host government persecuting them. They are the host government. In Israel their population is increasing. The bad part is that they have put all their eggs in one basket surrounded by hostile neighbors. The geographical area is smaller than the state of Vermont and a war with even tactical weapons of mass destruction would have a catastrophic effect. Krauthammer writes, "The Gulf War reminded even the most wishful that in the age of nerve gas, missiles, and nukes, an age in which no country is safe from weapons of mass destruction, Israel with its compact population and tiny area is particularly vulnerable to extinction.... on Israel hangs the very existence and survival of the Jewish people... they cannot survive another destruction and exile." |
| We had quite a blizzard last night and this morning was dedicated to shoveling out. The good news was that the temperature got into the 30's. F. As the winter winds down I wait to hear the first announcement of 30s, 40's, 50's and 60's. When we get the first announcement of a 70 degree day that is a harbinger of Spring. Once the snow plow came through it was an opportunity to hit the main county road and do some grocery shopping. Our farm is 15 miles from the nearest town and 45 minutes from the nearest urban area. It is nice to get out. I've been putting off typing up the notes to a flying club meeting I was the secretary for last week. If I remind myself enough I'll get up some gumption and take on this simple task that needs doing. I've been watching the Olympics and gotten hooked on the hockey. My wife likes the figure skating. Some of the other events don't peg high on my interest meter but I've never been an outdoor winter sports type of person. |
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