Cannibalism 101 (5/16/2022)

The hope was high that with the election of President Biden the political climate would calm down and for one we could hang up our protest or marching shoes and become ordinary citizens again. Boy, were we proven wrong. In addition to this weekend’s pro-choice rally, we came home to the news of another mass shooting by a white supremacist.

During the rule of the short fingered dictator named tRump, we joined the Women’s march in Washington; a mothers for gun control march in Williamsburg; the March for Science in Norfolk; and a march against Global Warming in Newport News. However, when it came out that the Supreme Court might want to decide against the expressed will (or opinion) of something like over 60% of the US public on abortion, we started digging in our closet for our marching shoes. It was time to attend the rally planned for May 14 in Williamsburg.

Just sitting here with a few random thoughts about politics, abortion, the rally, and in general what has been going on, but not necessarily in that order.

1. There were probably 3 to 400 folks at the rally this Saturday. I was disappointed by the number, but encouraged by the number of vehicles driving by that gave their thumbs up and honked in approval. There were approximately 4 or 5 Jesus freaks across the street as counter protesters. One was very vocal, with a bull horn and at times offensive, yelling things like “your body, my choice.” We tried to drown out his yelling and it worked well at times.
2. There were a great number of signs, some were fairly regular and some were clever. I am posting the best one here which read, “If abortion is murder, a blow job is cannibalism!” Now that gives you something to think about, although as a biologist it does not make complete sense. Sperm and eggs are 1N and you combine them to fertilize the egg and make an embryo, which is 2N, oh well.
3. Outlawing any form of abortion would mean murdering women including my wife, who had an ectopic or tubal pregnancy. These type of pregnancies are often fatal to the women and definitely nonviable.
4. When she lived in Cuba, my wife’s grandmother preformed two self-abortions with the famous coat hangers, sometime in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It makes you wonder how many other grandmothers did the same.
5. I am wondering if by chance the only judge whose mind could be changed by all the protest is judge Kavanaugh. He seems to be the least religiously principled; however, he was the most severely bitten by the liberals and this may be his sweet spot to get even with them. We will see, won’t we? I really hope I can write a post where I write “I told you so.”
6. One thing that occurred to me again was that we liberals need to become less tolerant and more extreme! I once mentioned that in our Unitarian Church as well. The Unitarians have a principle which talks about “the inherent dignity of every person” (Principle 1) and the “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregation” (Principle 3). I am getting to the point of wondering whether we need to become more in your face and stronger instead of accepting and tolerant of everyone. I believe there are people that have no dignity! This was somewhat acknowledged by an editorial I read in the Washington Post this Sunday. The right wing in our society goes around shooting up black grocery stores, and then calls for more guns and blames Antifa or Biden for all this. No, the blame rests with the Republican politicians, pundits and talk show hosts who pay lip service to these folks, whip them up, whether it is about abortion, racism, or the word du jour cancel culture. They need to be canceled out.

My favorite sign for the protest rally in Williamsburg.  This lady was so darn serious and standing very close to the Jesus freak with his bullhorn!  

Sorry guys, just some random thoughts. Maybe some more happier writings later on, where I can talk about my bonsai, my nature walks, and happy feelings. Hopefully you get a chuckle from the picture. Till soon.

Our County Politics (10/28/2021)

OK gang, if you do not like my politics, or when I write about my political, educational and sociological opinions, now is your time to close or skip this post, because I have something on my mind that I need to vent.

So here I go!

On Sunday, our local newspaper published an article on how our county was worried about its tax base. We are having a lot of lots and buildings in our county that are vacant. Previously, I read an article how a large grocery chain (Kroger) relocated with the promise that they would like to attract some good business into their old, vacated store. But no, a church renovated it; result being, they were nonprofit and tax exempt. In other words, a loss of tax revenue to our county. This has been an epidemic in our very conservative county; empty store fronts or invading churches. Our county officials are truly worried about it, and I can understand why, loss of voters, salary cuts?

Now it gets better. Like every good conservative county in Virginia, we need to be against what they call critical race theory, evolution, global warming, and all those other science things. Let’s not talk about vaccinations. So, the county officials are introducing an ordinance outlawing all this “crap” in order to dumb down our schools and ignore (whitewash) history, science and social justice and what really happened in our country’s past. Slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation, it never happened! The Civil War was either just a little disagreement among friends or aggression from the northern states. Who cares if half the county will be underwater 100 years from now? As long as we make money now and cut taxes (get votes); we will not be alive, and our greatgrandchildren be damned!

Now I am not necessarily anti-religious as most of you know, but I do trend liberal. But these short-sighted folks do not understand that the wealthiest counties and cities have the best, most well-rounded education systems in the world, have a gig-economy, can bike or walk to their grocery stores that have a great supply of foods, and have great non-chain funky restaurants and coffee shops. Limiting education causes wealthy educated folk to migrate out of these localities, only to be replaced by less educated poorer folks that commute to work and to these nice areas. Not that this is bad, we need them too. However, this generally will lead to lower property values, dollar general stores and Wallmarts, a lower tax base and a slow economic spiral downwards towards a new status quo.

No, I am not elitist, racist or whatever, far from it. We need a combination of people, everybody has value, whether you are an airplane pilot, a university professor, a teacher, or a garbage man. However, I am just living in a county where I am observing something disturbing: the complete contempt for a well-rounded education. Folks appear anti-education and want to tell educators what to teach their children. If so, why don’t they educate their children themselves, homeschool your kids damn it?

But again, education brings wealth. So does a livable community, including parks, greenspace, sidewalks, bike paths, funky restaurants and coffee shops as opposed to chains, and maybe even some limited public transportation. That will bring in the young, affluent, tax paying folks, the gig-economy that will pay the salary of the county supervisors. Something our board of supervisors apparently refuse to see and acknowledge.

Yes, it is nice to live here and wake up and find something like this guy in your back or front yard.  Or maybe not.  It is difficult to grow a nice yard without building a fence, and that is just a metaphor for what is happening in society including here in this county.  The conservatives trying to keep the liberals out.  

Hippies unite (8/20/2019)

This past week it was the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. Sirius XM celebrated this with broadcasting the old restored archived recorded music from the concert. It seems that 99% of the music was recorded, and only part of it made it on the record or the movie. While I did not attend the concert, I was 16 and I had just recently move to the Netherlands from an island in the Caribbean, it was the music from my youth and fun to listen to all that familiar music.

It was good to reminisce about the time that music was evolving, flower power, peace, love and ideals. Yes, we protested against the war, Joan Baez’s husband was in jail at that time for draft dodging and Country Joe McDonald sang his “Fixing to Die Rag”: give me an F, give me a U, …. (you can fill in the rest). One of my favorite tunes from that era is “I’d Love to Change the World” by Ten Years After, although I do not think they played that at Woodstock. They did play one of the best rock and roll tunes that weekend (I’m Going Home).

I wonder what has happened to all this idealism of those days. It seemed to all have gone out of the window with the election of Ronald Regan. We probably should not blame Regan; however, the hippies, the idealist, flower people of those days; grew up, got married and started raising families. They became middle-class. I have a friend or two who never changed; more power to them! 

Thinking back on my last post, where I mentioned existentialism, another friend asked during that same meeting where we discussed the spider what existentialism really meant. One of my answer was that the hippies of those days, the flower children, were considered the ultimate existentialists. In essence, it seems that most religions and philosophies have this belief that human life as some higher or deeper meaning (heaven, hell and other things). Existentialists do not agree, they say that there is no meaning to human life, unless we give meaning to it ourselves. Jean Paul Sartre, one of the fathers of modern existentialism wrote: “We are condemned to be free.” That was what the folks at Woodstock did, they were free and decided to adopt peace, love and happiness. 

The classic existentialist dilemma!

It seems that the hippie culture was a reaction the consumerism of the 50s and 60s and the pursuit of the “American Dream.” But, people started rebelling against it and they echoed Jean-Paul Sartre who said “You might think that there’s some authority you could look to for answers, but all of the authorities you can think of are fake.”

Fifty years later here we are again; we are living in a country which is going to hell. This country has a fake president who was elected by a minority of the population, who mismanaged his own fortune and was bailed out by his daddy and now explodes this country’s deficit and his daddy cannot bail him out any longer. He is a president who cuddles up to dictators wanting to be one himself, definitely not someone to look to for answers; he lies when it suits him.  It seems that we really are condemned to be free and to repeat the same mistakes. When Sartre mentioned that, he meant that you could not complain about getting lung cancer when you smoke, since you it was you free decision, choice or will to do so. Little did he know at the time that the tobacco companies stacked the deck against the smokers, but so be it. However, what Sartre is saying that if we just sit on our hands and do not do anything about what is going on around us, that is our choice; we should not complain. 

The old hippies tried to do something about it and spread love, peace, and happiness; they fought against the war in Viet-Nam. I am not sure if it worked; however, we need to become existentialists again! We “new hippies” of today need to spread love, peace and happiness as well, but also spread tolerance of other cultures, other races, different sexual orientations, a woman's right to choose, fight against global warming, work for the environment and save this world for future generations.

I wrote part of this blog with the help of this web page: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Existentialism-Explained

Guilt? (5/1/2019)

I was listening to a program where they interviewed a lady (doctor/psychiatrist) who had written a book about her experience after accidentally killing someone. It was part of a car accident; she was 22, and was cleared by the police. A 6 year-old boy ran out from behind a set of mailboxes along a country road and she hit him. However, she never received any support or counselling, was devastated for more than a half year, could hardly move out of her apartment and attend classes . Even after that it stayed with her for life. Now at the age of 45 she had written a book about it and gives counselling to folks to whom this has happened as well.

The story brought me back to my own experience, something that is never really far removed from my mind, and will always stay with me.

It was 1978. It was the second day in Uganda and the medical superintendent of the leprosy hospital, where we I was going to work as the manager of a 2500 acre dairy farm, thought it was time to introduce us to the powers in Kumi, the town near where our center was located.  One of the persons on our list was the police commissioner.

At the time, Uganda was under the rule of a brutal dictator (Idi Amin) who had instilled fear and whipped up the masses to a frenzy. It was strange, there was a police state (or an army state), but at the same time there was a form of anarchy in the land and he had allowed people to pass justice like this by themselves, without proper hearings and trials (you could only hope that village councils or elders were impartial when it cam to passing judgement, if you could get that far). You could not trust anyone, not your neighbor and maybe not even you relatives. They could rat you out and before you knew it you could end up in a cardboard box in a banana plantation. We always joked about the crocodiles in the Nile that they were very well fed, because that's where a lot of the bodies of the assassinated folks ended up. On the other hand being in the village (or in the rural part of the country) was great. People were nice and extremely hospitable; however, as you could understand everyone was very guarded. You did not end up in those cardboard boxes in one piece, playing hide-and-seek, and lets not talk about what you looked like when you ended up as alligator bait.

Soon after our arrival at the police station, a riot broke out; a group of what I would estimate to be at least 100 people was running towards the building chasing a man. The man entered the building and the mob stayed outside; we noticed the man had torn clothes, was sweating, and had a noose around his neck.  He was standing very close to my wife, as in the hope that the proximity to her would give him some protection. When she moved, he would move with her, like her shadow.

The commissioner eventually explained that the man was accused to have stolen a banana on the market. Idi Amin had proclaimed that anyone caught stealing; however small an item, must be executed on the spot and that was exactly what the mob was trying to do. He had escaped the mob that was trying to kill him and made it to the station in the hope that the police would save him, and send to jail.

So how did this tie in with the program I heard over the radio?

While not completely correct, in Uganda it was the first time I somewhat came in contact with being a privileged person. As a 24 and 25 year old white guy I was treated as an important person, while the local folks were treated like dirt. We were sitting on stage next to the minister, the governor, the police chief, the director of the bank, the bishop, all the dignitaries when they came to visit. I was called the Swahili word "Mzee" which can be loosely translated to "wise old man." How is that for a 24 year old guy. When visiting a local village we were the center of attention, we were given gifts, it was ridiculous, a chicken, even a goat. People were poor and still we received gifts.

Well, a few days after our visit to the police station, I was the only European (or manager) at the hospital and got a call to come immediately. The medical superintendent, the anesthesiologist (who was the fixer, but that's another story) and the accountant had gone to Kampala on business. In the middle of our campus were a group of local folks from one of the surrounding villages. These villagers that were holding what looked like a 16-year-old boy.  The boy had a rope around his waist and a pig tied to the other end. Long story short, they accused the boy of stealing the pig and asked me what to do with him and pass judgement. Remembering my experience and the police station a few days earlier, I told them that I would take him to the police. However, after extensive negotiations, I was told that the boy wanted to be tried by his elders. I did everything I could to convince him that he was better off going to the police, but to no avail. My discussion with the crowd and the boy through a translator (both language and cultural translation) took close to an hour. Finally, being new in the country (I was there for about a week) and only 24 years old, I felt I had little authority and eventually gave up.

A few hours later, I was told the boy was dead.  He was stoned, just outside the gate of the hospital.  It seemed that he had been escorted off the property of the leprosy center and that was it! My assistant farm manager Mr. Opuno (I was the farm manager) and I drove to the place where people told us the body was located. The pig that was still attached to his body and actually had started to nibble on the boy's body. We had to untie the pig and after discussing the issue with Opuno we decided to inform the police what had happened. Later that evening the parents of the boy came and removed the body.

It is an amazing horrifying experience to see and touch a dead body at the young age of 24, especially when it is someone that young and someone you had tried to protect. I can only imagine what folks go through when their children die or get murdered.

To this day, I feel somewhat guilty for this boy’s death, or that I could have avoided it. I did not want to rock the cultural boat at the time, I was only there for one week.  My inexperience, my age and probably lack of persistence lead to his premature death. I think about this event frequently, if not daily.

Forgiveness anyone? (11/10/2018)

Having to drive for four hours in the afternoon you eventually hit that spot when the news on NPR starts repeating itself. I forgot to download a podcast, so there was nothing better to do than to hit the browse button on the car radio. Not being interested in sport, and music putting you to sleep, I end up listening to talk radio stations as I mention before in this blog. At time I hit an AM Religious Station that are so plentiful of in the western part of our state. I often linger at these stations and as a Unitarian Universalist, but somehow raised in a religious community by non-religious parents, I love to listen to what dogma they are spouting this time. This is mostly for entertainment purposes and partially for education. However, this time, the discussion got my interest. The part about God lost my interest; but thank God that came at the end. 

The talk was about forgiveness. There were no Bible parables or whatever, but just a fairly good and frank discussion. I am not sure if I remember all of it, but it came down to the concept that we need to be able to forgive for society to function at its best. Even better, on a personal level, that forgiveness is good for your own mental and even physical health.

Clinical research seems to support that forgiveness is good for your mental and physical health. It seems that forgiveness is good for your coronary (hearth or vascular) health, the immune system and overall stress. Amazing isn’t it?

This discussion on forgiveness hit home on so many levels. After the past weeks where we have been through a mid-term election; all the racially charged crap about caravans that were ready to invade us, but all the sudden evaporated after the elections; a bomber being arrested; a number of murderous shooters: one of two African Americans in Louisville, regretfully somewhat ignored, the killing at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, and most recently at a western bar in California. We desperately need a lot of empathy and maybe even some forgiveness. Empathy for the victims and their family. Forgiveness of some of those anti-Semites and gun tooters who saw the national reaction after what happened and saw light. Forgiveness for those who gave lip service to the demagogue leader of our country who told us after what happened in Charlottesville that neo-Nazi anit-Semites were nice people too, or maybe that some of the people who opposed the Nazis were evil. Forgiveness for others who have hate in their hearts and now understand that this is going to threaten humanity as we know it.

The radio program hit me on a personal level, as well. The inability to forgive seems to be a genetic affliction that plagues my family; both on my mother’s and my father’s side. It goes back for generations and it is not only in my direct family and siblings, but it also plagues the brothers of my father and my mother and their direct family. It is absolutely amazing. On a personal level, I have tried to make my siblings aware of this fact and proposed to them to bury the ax; I made my overtures, but to no avail (an interesting side note, none of the siblings talk with each other). I have told them we are repeating the mistakes of our parents (but then, history repeats itself); that we have a chance to break with family “tradition.” I have been laughed at, ridiculed, belittled, gotten angry responses, and been blamed. It was affecting my physical and mental health, and my marriage. So, I have decided that they don’t exist any longer; I no longer have siblings in my mind. It does not mean that I have not forgiven them in my heart, but as I’ll explain later forgiving does not mean forgetting or reconciling. I am not saying that the relation can never be “born again,” but it for right now it would need to come from them; I am done from my side.

So yes, as you can see, the talk got me thinking. What exactly is forgiveness? Doing some research, I found that it is very easy to confuse forgiveness with terms or words like: condoning, excusing, forgetting, pardoning, and reconciling. Forgiving is when you let go of the negative emotion, feelings or attitude, including vengefulness, combined with your ability to wish your offender well, regardless the offense or the emotions it brings up in you. The person that was offended might be justifiably offended but he or she has evolved and grown past it. So, forgiving does not mean reconciling and being friends again, it just means no longer being bothered by what ever happened and going on in life. As the saying in my mother language says: “you are trying not make your heart a killing zone (or a murder pit).”

Being close to a Buddhist, I looked in to what they said about forgiveness or the lack of it. In Buddhism the lack of forgiveness causes havoc in one’s mental well-being. Feelings of ill-will seem to have lasting effect on one’s karma. It seems that resentment and hatred or the lack of forgiveness forces us to be reborn around this issue of pain and we will never be able to move on in generations (lives) to come. Doesn’t that sound familiar, history repeating itself? At least in both branches of my family it does.

Try to forgive in your life and see the end of the trail of hate, resentment and vengefulness.  It is bad for your health and general well-being!  

It is just interesting to see how a religious program on an AM radio station got me thinking and my relationship with my siblings; the relationship of my parents with their siblings; my uncles with each other and with my parent; and my cousins with their siblings (from different branches of the family and different uncles). I have forgiven them all, but again, reconciliation is a different thing. However, at least I am trying my best to maintain a relationship with my cousins, nephews and nieces, regardless of what my brother and sister think or say about me; and that is heartfelt. Hopefully we can do that as a society as well, stay civil and talk, regardless what and who we are as a society, what our political or social believes are, and how desperately our political leaders are trying to divide us.

Gaslighting (8/3/2018)

Wow, one of those verbs I never thought I would write a blog post about. But is seems to become a more commonly used word. So common that my wife told me the other day: “You are trying to gaslight me.” Thanks goodness she was using it more tongue in cheek, but boy we have come a long way, that we use this in our common intercourse between people.  (Warning for those of you expecting one of my regular blog posts, this one is a bit more political than others, so be forewarned! )

Where does the term come from? Gaslighting comes from a play “Gas Light” which was made into the 1944 movie “Gaslight.” In this movie a husband tries to convince his wife that she is insane by trying to change little things around her and trying to convince her she is just imagining it. He did this trying to save his ass after murdering the lady in the upstairs apartment. Not that I am that old, but I remember watching it. It seems that “gaslighting” came into vogue as a term in the 1960s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's perception of reality. 

From the movie "Gaslight"

And here we are today. The term gaslighting is so commonplace now, it is scary. But let’s look at it in more detail. This is what an online article in Psychology Today that was posted on January 22, 2017, says about people who gaslight:

1. They tell blatant lies,
2. They deny they ever said something, although you have proof,
3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition,
4. They wear you down over time,
5. Their actions do not match their words,
6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you,
7. They know confusion weakens people,
8. They project,
9. They try to align people against you,
10. They tell others that you are crazy, and
11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.

That is a lot to digest isn’t it?  It is usually something one person does to another, but I have a feeling we have reached a point where one person can do this to a nation.  Scary, in particular since we just witnessed the use of the majority of these bullets after the meeting of our president with the president of Russia. Truthfully, it is not the first time I have felt gaslighted in the current political climate. For example, terms like fake news and fake press fit in bullets 4, 7, 8, 9 10, and 11.

Some additional observation about gaslighting, (I borrowed the bullets and some of the discussion from this article):

1. Gaslighting does not necessarily has to be deliberate. We see this all the time. For example, when an African American person (read male) was killed by a police man. In the past nobody seemed to care, except his family of course. He was either armed, on drugs, had a record, was deranged, reached for a gun; and society blindly accepted it. We were gaslighted by stereotype. It was the killing of Trayvon Martin and the Black Lives Matter Movement that changed this or at least is trying to change it. It is about time that we are wondering and fighting this apathy when it comes to all those police killing (yes some might have been justified, but a lot of them were not).  The problem is that we are now experiencing push back from people who have been thoroughly gaslighted.  However, remember, as we saw in the Psychology Today list; gaslighting is most often done deliberately. 
2. Gaslighting aims to changes a person character, the trust in them self and experience of reality; while simple manipulation just only changes self-esteem. Scary isn’t it? I am sorry, but you have to look at some of the most recent political rallies and the vicious attacks on what they call the “fake press” or the killing in Charlottesville to see how the character of a group of people has been changed by a gaslighter. 
3. Gaslighting does not always involve anger or intimidation; it can be and often is much subtler. It seems that some gaslighters will shower their victims with special attention but never give them all the attention they need. In bullet 6 of the Psychology Today article the describe it as keeping the victim off-kilter. Other gaslighters will act like they are the victim. Whatever is their modus operando, gaslighters are able to change their victim’s memory, perception of reality and truth (bullets 2, 4, 5 and 7 from above). 
4. It is normal to forget things and gaslighters can easily manipulate your memory. This is what I teach in my classes; I tell my students to “document, document, document.” I tell them I don’t remember what I had for dinner two or three days ago. 
5. There may be three (3) stages to the gaslighting process: 
• You know they are ridiculous, 
• You consider their view, and then 
• You consider their view as normal and lose your ability to make your own judgement.
• Boy, this gets interesting these politically charged days. There was a tweet from our President the other day, telling the attorney general to stop the Russia investigation. This is a direct order and any jury would consider this obstruction of justice. In the past we all thought his tweets were ridiculous, his allies then considered his views, and now his allies don’t even question what he tweeted or even defend him. This is a pure case of gaslighting in my eyes.
• Now I just learned that he told a rally that Putin did not want him to win, while during the press conference Putin said he did (bullets 1 and 2; the first two steps in the process of gaslighting us on a new item or lie isn't it?).
6. Concluding, gaslighters do not give a crap about you, they do not see you. Gaslighters are pure narcissists. 

So what do we do about being gaslighted on a personal level or as a nation?  On a personal level it seems that you don’t win by confrontation; however, you win by ignoring a gaslighter.  Naturally, you need to be strong enough not to be influenced by that person, or not allow him or her to influence you.  

I enjoy watching Morning Joe in MSNBC in the morning  (that is when I have the time).  However, I wonder if Joe and Mika have the right approach.   Naturally they partially sell entertainment, but they desperately try to get under the president's skin.  I wonder what would happen of they completely ignore him for a week and not mention him?  I wonder what would happen if we would do that as a country?  If all the reporters and news networks would not cover him for a week, would he self-destruct?  That would be one way of allowing him not to gaslight us, even only for a week.

Agree to disagree (2/14/2018)

Our local newspaper had an article that had a saying that was attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.” I am not really sure if Napoleon was really the first one who said it, but that quote got me thinking. 

A good healthy fight at work never hurt anyone, or did it?

The article was about workplace arguments. It made me wonder who has not been in one, or at least seen one. I've had my share, and I want to bet that when I ask anyone who reads this blog to raise their hand who has experienced a workplace disagreement, probably 80% of you will do so. But who has said afterwards: Thanks for disagreeing with me, it has made my project stronger being able to argue with you about it. As Napoleon put it, the worst is when someone goes behind your back and tries to sow doubt about your capabilities with your colleagues or superiors without your knowledge and ability to defend yourself. A long time ago I read a book written by Stephen Covey in which he wrote that one of the thing you absolutely should try to avoid is, to “confess someone else’s sins.” That phrase has stayed with me ever since I read it; doing such a thing should really lower your stature in people’s eyes.

Truthfully, I have sinned and have been sinned against. It is so difficult not to talk about others and to confess their sins. I like to argue in my mind that I have been sinned against more than I have sinned, but is that really true?  Who am I to cast the first stone? I have been guilty as well. There is a guy at work we call Lucifer. I know he deserves it, but still. Also, when an ex-supervisor of mine heard that a certain individual was coming to work with us he warned me: “this guy is going to make everybody do his work for him; he is lazy SOB, watch out!” Well, I told my colleagues and have felt guilty ever since. They ignored me, and guess what? They are now doing his work for him and our boss is finally seeing the light and slowly putting the brakes on, after 4 years. Do I feel vindicated? No, still guilty for telling on him, and every time I get together with him I feel like embarrassed. 

But some people thrive on it. They actually get ahead in the workplace and still sleep soundly at night. Oh well.

During my international development career of the late 1970s and in the first two thirds of the 1980s, I worked in three countries with totalitarian regimes. If you are a somewhat regular reader of my posts, you know I talk about Uganda, Nepal and (North) Yemen. Of all three countries, I worked in Uganda stood out as totalitarian. It had a ruthless ruler: Idi Amin, who I wrote about before. However, Nepal and Yemen were somewhat similar. In my days a king, who called himself the reincarnation of God, ruled Nepal. We did not experience him as being too bad, but there was a communist uprising and in general, the people of Nepal were miserable under the King. There was corruption and he was also funneling a lot of money into his coffers. The president of Yemen was known to be a dictator as well and we know how Yemen turned (or is turning) out. In these three countries I saw how dangerous it was to talk behind people’s back, both in the workplace but in particular in the private life of people.

The one thing that all three countries had in common and many other authoritarian countries as well was poverty; corruption; a ruling upper class that was funneling money off society for themselves and only looking out for themselves; lack of education and literacy; suppression of free press; the development of a tremendous propaganda apparatus in support of the ruler; and a buildup of the military and police. One of the scariest things I saw in these societies was how people were divided against each other. They were encouraged to spy on each other, to tell the government about it and be rewarded for it. You were potentially even afraid of your family. Even your children, brothers, sisters or relatives that were further removed could turn you into the police or local security agency for anything you said. They would get rewarded and in the worst case it cost you your head. Just a joke about the leader could cost you your life and you could end up cut up in a cardboard box in a sugarcane plantation or being fed to the crocodiles in the Nile as regularly happened in Uganda at the time. Everybody was afraid of each other.

What I will be showing you here are three photographs taken in the countries that I worked that show the opposite of arguments.   The first one here is from Uganda when we visited the home of friends in the village.

This picture was taken in Nepal of our firend Warren and me at a tea shop on the trail during one of our treks.

An nice idyllic picture of us camping with friends at the beach on the Red sea in Yemen.  The weather was always nice and the water was always warm (almost too warm).  We just hung mosquito netting between two palm trees and that's how we slept.

In these three or other totalitarian countries Napoleon’s words really ring true. It is better to argue with people about life, politics etc. and then part either as friends or agree to disagree, than to run to a higher authority or someone else and tell on them. Or maybe it is better not to talk about these issues at all. The results in some cases can be deadly. Actually it was better to shut up and keep all those thoughts to yourself and not say anything. Beware, when talking to your spouse, there may be someone sitting outside the door or window listening in (as we experienced in Nepal but that is a different story).

2017, so be it! (12/29/2017)

Trying to keep up with my annual tradition of looking back at the past year and forward to the new, I like to reflect it was an interesting one behind me.  Whether it was just from a personal side, my political outlook on things or social.

Kind of my up-your's world photograph.  This branch obviously died but hung on and is slowly being encapsulated by the tree.  We can all criticize our life, the world, etc, but we are here and this is our only life.  We might as well enjoy it and make the best of it.  

Readers of my blog know I am a liberal, I attend a liberal church and most of my friends on my social networking sites are liberal.  A lot of those friends (or acquaintances) are very vocal and my wife and I joke sometimes that at times the stuff they post on their walls must be fake news.  I tend the shy away from expressing myself too strongly on my walls, or even here on my blog.  For a lot of my friends the sky is falling.  For me the glass is still half full, but as I mentioned in my blog, we need to be vigilant.  I am an environmentalist, a forest bather, and a lover of water.  As someone who has lived in Africa, Asia and the Middle East in countries ruled by dictators, I have seen what could happen if the press gets censored by demagogues.  My father fought the Nazis and had PTSD for life.  We need to protect what we have! So be it!

So how was 2017.  Hey, I grew older.  At work I taught more than 55 odd workshops during the past year.  That is more than one a week on average.  I usually do two per week, which means I was on the road, teaching somewhere almost every other week.  I really enjoy teaching, so it is OK.  A male colleague once told me that a successful day of teaching is like having good sex: "you are exhausted after it, but you feel oh-so satisfied."  The growing older comes in with the recovery time after a day of solo teaching and traveling, it takes a lot longer.  A perk is all the hotel points that I am accumulating, that is a nice fringe benefit.  So be it!

2018 does not look much different.  More teaching, but first getting used to cubicle life.  My office moved and I am going from an office with a door into a cubicle.  Which is why I got headphones, Amazon Prime music and Google Music to drown them all out.  But I get a desk that can be turned into a standing desk with a switch, and we learned last year that sitting is the new smoking.   The new location will also impact my lunch walks, but I'll adapt, so be it!

Environmentally we have taking a few steps back this past year.  But that is only as a country.  I learned that other countries are trying to step up to compensate for our regression.  I also know that a lot of individuals are stepping up to the plate.  I for one learned about forest bathing, and if you want to experience that then you'll have to be spiritual but also environmental.  In 2016 I championed the term "Nature Deficit Disorder."  This term encompasses forest bathing, or one way to address the disorder is by getting out there in nature.  We just need to take care of our little piece of nature since our elected government does want to do it right now.  All I can do is try to learn and grow.  So be it!

On the subject of learning.  I discovered a great website.  Aeon.co is a great site with essays about a variety of subjects and even some short video presentations.   I find in refreshing and fun.  I am also listening to a fair number of podcasts.  I know I am scratching the surface here, but it is a great learning experience.  So much better than television or radio.  I particularly enjoy: The Hidden Brain and Reply All.  For the rest my Kindle App is a godsend, I read and write.  I will never stop learning and that will hold true for 2018.  So be it!

I have also really gotten back into my bonsai trees.  Some of them are almost 30 years old and have been ignored for some time.  Getting back into it has been really relaxing for me and it does wonders for my brain.  However, I hate to report that I have not sailed or biked enough.  There is just not enough time in the weekend to get all my hobbies in and mow the lawn.  I live a full life, I hardly have time to watch TV.  So be it!

In my study of trees, I was struck to see how this vine strangled this tree.  In bonsai we use wire to bend branches and we are always concerned about leaving wire marks.  Well this is the ultimate wire mark.  To me it also shows that too much training or restriction is not always the best, we need to go with the flow.  Don't let you preconceived ideas restrict you!

Even politically things are looking up.  I think people are seeing and understanding that civility is important in public discourse.  After a year of twitter barrages many of the voters are saying enough is enough.   I don't care if it is left or right, what I would like to see is compromise and dialogue.  If we need to do that through the ballot box in 2018, so be it!

Finally, at home.  We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary this year with a trip to Newfoundland.  I wrote a few posts about it in late June and July.  Celebrating those achievements and our friends will be an important item in the future. That is what will keep us young and alive.  So be it!

I do not often show pictures of me and my family on my blog, but this is the happy 40-year married couple at the terracotta warrior exhibit in Richmond this week.

As you can see, my glass is half full.  Yes, it can be better, but I appreciate what I have, and look forward to what is ahead.  So be it!

These are the 9 pictures on my Instagram site that got the most likes in 2017.  As I mentioned in my post 7 had to do with nature,  two with water and boating, two with Newfoundland,  and 6 were taken in the woods behind our home.

On Islamophobia (11/3/2017)

So here I was planning to write my next blog post about spiders and the fear of spiders; however, you all will need to wait.  I feel the need to write about the need for another fear, Islamophobia.

I was teaching one of my workshops in Northern Virginia, this week.  It was two days after this 29-year-old nut from Uzbekistan drove a Home Depot truck over a bike path in New York City, killing eight and wounding more than a dozen.  My workshop is for inspectors that go on construction sites to make sure that the contractors follow the federal and state environmental laws and regulations; and local codes and ordinances.  I teach my students a module on situational awareness, as part of the class.  This ranges from a tripping hazards to aggressive people.

Northern Virginia is very diverse.  During breaks in my workshop I had a fun talk with a lady from Iran who works from one of the counties in the region, and with two guys from Nepal who had heard that I had lived and worked in Nepal and wanted to know more about me and my stay there.  My classes up there are always a fun multicultural mish-mash of people as opposed to other regions in Virginia where it is ethnically pretty boring.

My class had ended and I was approached by a middle-aged (50-ish) Arabic looking gentleman who wanted to ask me a question.  He spoke very softly and I had to ask him three times to repeat himself.  The first two times I understood that it had something to do about his arm.  Finally, the fourth time it came out: “are weapons allowed on a building site.”  So it was not about his arm but about the other definition of arms or weapons.

My “friend” had a building site that he was inspecting where the contractor was openly carrying a gun (yes we in Virginia have an open and a concealed carrying law).  The contractor would of course need to accompany the inspector on his round showing his gun and also inspect the most remote corners of the project.  You get my drift, the inspector felt very intimidated.  Being a Muslim, looking and sounding obviously Arabic, even in when dressed in western clothing, just having had the killing in New York, and having a Fox News and other conservative media whipping up the masses against Muslims and immigration (and people who carry can be assumed to be conservative), he was scared.  My heart broke!

Regular readers of my blog may know I worked in international development.  I took this picture during a wedding in a village in Yemen to which we were invited when I worked there in the mid 1980s.  Just before the ceremony the men went out to the border of the village to do a shooting competition/target practice.  It is all friendly, but everyone there was armed to the teeth (even during a friendly wedding).  To tell you the truth no one from the Arab world should be afraid of weapons, that makes this case I write about so remarkable.

When we arrived at the weeding we were welcomed by this sight.  We had an absolutely great time that day.  We were made welcome and there was no discrimination.

I had a long talk with him, gave him some solutions, and hopefully set him at ease, but obviously it kept bugging and eating at me.  I am just amazed that some of us still have to live in fear because of our ethnicity.  I realize that this is why we have the black lives matter movement and we still need to worry about civil rights.  There are still fringe groups in society that think they are better than others and they are the reason why we had gatherings like in Charlottesville that even the guy in our Whitehouse does not dare to condemn.  I see that today’s people in power are trying to erode our civil rights and try to silence us with terms like “fake news.”  Don’t let them do it, a lot of the news is real, my inspector friend made me realize that again this week.

Just a miscellaneous picture of a Yemeni village (town) somewhare in the desert.  My heart breaks again thinking about the civil war they have gone through in the past years.

Education is for weaklings, really? (9/26/2017)

As I have written about before, I spend a lot of time in cars while traveling throughout the state.  I have started to listen to podcasts in order to avoid having to be totally disgusted or angry by the time I get out of the car.  There are so many holes where there is no reasonable radio to keep me awake during my drives and I am forced to listen to extreme right-wing radio or even some religious stations.  I have written about this before (see my post <here>) and those podcasts are a great antidote for that.  I did not go in too much detail when I wrote my post on March 3, 2015, but here it is one and a half year later and I think things have gotten worse rather than better.  There are a lot of triumphant right-wingers now that try to whip up there base even more.  No wonder what is happening in our country lately.  

You may counter that this photograph has little to do with this blog post, but it was taken on my most recent trips to give two stormwater workshops out in the western part of Virginia.  I always take time out to take a walk or a bike ride on one of the rail to trail parks.  It is a great way to de-stress, relax, and blow off steam after the ridiculous statements on right-wing radio.  This one was on the New River Trail.

I am not really talking about what I encountered in the western part of Virginia.  Absolutely not!  I am really thinking about life in the U.S. in general.  Since March 2015 we have gone through an election.  Little did we know where that would lead us.  I reported about one of those incidents when I wrote about my visit to Charlottesville after the riots, something I could not have predicted back then.  In addition, we have had a travel ban that is being renewed, a war on poor people, on healthcare, on the uninsured, on the elderly, on Muslims, on blacks, on transgender people, on marriage equality, on education, on the environment, on the climate, I can go on!  

On my way back home the other day, my podcast ended and I did not want to stop to look up a new one.  I was between good radio stations so I got to a local “Family Radio Station”.  Family stands euphemistically for religious and ultra-right wing.   At the top of the hour a pastor came on to talk about Paul’s visit to Athens.  He described how Athens was the center of education, architecture, wisdom and philosophy, but how horrible it was because there was a temple on every corner that was dedicated to a different god or deity.  It was a city full of educated scum.  He went on telling the audience that it was just like here where the educated people, and in particular those from Harvard and Stanford, are the scum of the earth and cannot be trusted because they are godless heathens (he mentioned those two institutions by name).  A (university) education is the root to all evil.  Here I am driving thinking “and my daughter goes to Harvard Divinity School studying religion, and I have a Ph.D. and am an educator?” 

There seems to be such a fight or push against intellectuals, against education, for the common lowest denominator.  I think that is what Twitter has started and is so successful.  You really cannot have an intelligent discussion on Twitter, with 140 (or so) characters, which just fits fine with some well-known individuals; we can come out with statements like “fake news”, “poor rating” and that’s it. 

Another rails to trail visit, this photograph was taken during my walk on the Virginia Creeper Trail in Abingdon, VA.

Discussing this in church this weekend my friends and I wished we could tell this pastor that next time he is sick not to consult an educated person (doctor) to get better.  Maybe he should just have a snake bite him in the hope to get cured.  When he wants to cross a river with his car he should not to use a bridge that is built by an educated engineer, but build one himself with a few boards and rocks.

In the Swahili language of East Africa, they have a word called Mzee.   The literal translation is “respected old person”, or “title of respect to anyone older than oneself.”  When I worked there, I learned Mzee was also used to show respect for wise (educated) people.  I was called Mzee when I worked in East Africa.  I was 25 years old and the people that called me Mzee were double my age.  It showed their respect for me and for the education I had; and yes I called them Mzee as well.  Education was treasured in those countries; children would walk hours to go to school.  The story goes, that’s why they are so good at running marathons.

Folks, whatever your believe is: conservative or liberal, religious or atheist, show some tolerance for your fellow human being, be they from a different ethnic background, education, religion or sexuality!  Secondly, I have lived in countries where people have died to get educated.  It is a great privilege.  Education brought our society where we are right now, it allowed us to question things, out culture and our standard of living.  The day we start crucifying our educated people like we did in the middle ages will be the day that we will loose our civilization and our status in the world. 

This week I am giving lectures in Virginia Beach while hurricane Maria is skirting by.  It is nice and windy, and having a walrus mustache, it is definitively a bad (hair) mustache day.  It is the 3rd category 4 or higher storm in the Atlantic in one year.  Now who said there is no such thing as climate change?  Damn those educated people.

It's a matter of perception and reaction (8/8/2017)

I was watching Morning Joe the other day when Tom Brokaw mentioned how he had been working on a documentary in Wyoming on the Japanese internment during World War II.  It was in this small town, I don’t remember the name, but that does not matter.  He mentioned that during the past elections 70% of the town voted for Trump and now, a half year in, he walked around town interviewing and talking to people, his estimate is that 69% of the inhabitants are still pro-Trump.  When asked why this was, he said that the local people in this town felt that no one in Washington really looked like them, acted like them, spoke like them, or represented them, especially not the Washington elite, but that Trump came the closest.

This reminded me of an article that I wrote in 1994, entitled: Viewpoint: Perception of the Western Rangelands by the Media, Environmentalists, and the Public.  It was published in Rangelands.  It’s not the most scholarly article ever written, and not my best writing (my English was still fairly new), but I meant well.  I was a student of the naturalist literature, in addition to just having finished my Ph.D.  I had read a lot.  Muir, Leopold, and Ehrlich were some of my favorite writers about the western culture; McPhee, Hubbel, and Hoagland touched on it somewhat, Hubbel on living in rural Missouri and McPhee and Hoagland was just a traveler and all out great writer.  I was in love with Powell’s account of his trip down the Colorado River.  

We lived in Gallup, New Mexico at the time where I helped with the management of a public radio station.  We just had the outbreak of the hantavirus and the CDC was all over the place and so were reporters.  Our little volunteer run radio station was hosting reporters from NPR.  In addition, as a family, we also had connections back on the east coast and could live in both worlds and read east coast naturalists (McPhee and Hoagland) who visited the west with their personal biases as well.  So, in 1993 I was invited to give a talk on this intersection of natural resources, literature, and the " East Coast" attitude towards the western culture at a conference in Colorado Springs and this resulted in my article.

In my article I described how I saw that there was this divide between the ranching community and the people on the east coast; and recommended the we tried to bridge that gap.  We could do that be reacting rapidly to any negative information.  Being in radio and in teaching, I suggested that the reaction should be positive and educational.  But then I got job offer in the mid-west and we moved to the east in 1994.

Now twenty-three years later, after moving to the east coast, I am amazed that nothing seems to have changed, or maybe the differences have become even larger.  The ranching side seemed to have dug in even more and it still is "us against them."  I honestly did not think this would ever stay this way.  In the time of the internet and free information flow you would think we would open our mind and gotten closer, but it seems that the divides have deepened (politically, socially, and economically).

I am not a good enough philosopher or political scientist to be able to tell you why that is.  All I know is that when we dig in and close ourselves off, we can just blame them.  Keeping a dialogue going and educating our fellow human beings would be so much better but would take so much effort, and you can get disappointed.  The only thing I hoped was that dialogue and education could prevent it at least for the ranching community.  But, it seems to be a lot like in real life (here I am assuming that that town that Brokaw visited depends for a large part on ranching).  

But it is not unique to the ranching community, or the west.  There are times when I briefly talk about evolution or about climate change in my classes and there are always one or two persons who accuse me of spouting my "liberal bias."  I have learned to get a thick skin and to go on.  As I mentioned before, hopefully it will rub off on one or two in every class I teach.

I agree this picture does not represent the western U.S., so why do I show it here?
Well, this past weekend the family and I did some exploring along the eastern shore of the Northern Neck, the northern peninsula in Virginia.  I took this picture in the Hughlett Point Natural Area Preserve.  My daughter wanted to know what these grasses were doing out there in the water.  Teaching moment: A nice time to talk about sea-level rise; how the peat that is visible between the shore where we are standing and the grass once was also covered with the smooth cord grass, but the sea-level rise killed (drowned) the grass and the exposed peat is now eroding away and eventually so is the shoreline.  It is so important to be educated and to disseminate that information and to teach and educate.That is how we change the world.    

This is the philosophy we all need to have.  Keep that dialogue going, be tolerant of the other side and don't close yourself off and hope your attitude will rub off.  Terms "fake news" shut all chances for a dialogue, all the sudden we don't listen anymore and the divide opens wider.  Let's not be like that frog in that pot with water that is slowly being brought to a boil.  It will notice until it is too late.  We need to try to educate each other even when and if you get push back or accused of things you really not intent to do.  Hopefully something will stick and the opposite sides will come together if only a few inches,  

Protest demonstrations, our new way of life (2/16/2017)

We went to the Woman’s March on Washington a few weekends ago and I spent a half day with our 500,000 closest friends.  Close having two meanings here: we were packed in like sardines, but in addition to that we were all philosophically and politically pretty darn close there on the mall.  We had an amazing time and came back tired, but charged.  

The last time I joined a demonstration was a long time ago.  It was in 1973 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.  I was 20 years old and the protest was against the U.S. involvement in the military coup in Chile that overthrew President Salvador Allende.  It was a Nixon thing and being anti Vietnam war anyway, nothing better than a good anti-US protest demonstration downtown Rotterdam, as they did everywhere else in Europe.

So you can imagine, it was kind of exciting more than 43 years later; shorter hair, a little less hair, a little grayer hair, and a little pudgier around the middle, we were ready to get on the bus to restart our career as protesters.  Being a guy, I was glad to be in the minority and I absolutely do not wish to hijack the movement or what happened that Saturday.  It was a beautiful thing.  Our estimate was that approximately 30% of the attendants were male, some of them holding signs in support of their sisters or mothers who could not come; of their wife, or one sign the said “I support her” with arrows pointing in all directions.  

Most of the signs I saw address the following seven common issues:

1. Women's rights
2. Support of Planned Parenthood
3. Support of a woman's right to choose (which is different from the support of Planned Parenthood)
4. Trump's treatment of women
5. The Republican threat to the environment
6. Black lives matter
7. LGBTQ issues

There were other signs as well, but these made up the majority.  Then you hear some of the conservatives complaining about some of the obscene messages on the signs and honestly for two or three racy ones that I saw; however, I thought they were entertaining and did not think they were that bad. One involved Donald Trump grabbing the statue of liberty by the crotch, and some may interpret the one below a bit off color.

I still like this sign; although some might think it is a bit off color.

You must be living under a rock if you did not notice the demonstrations during the next weekend.  The major cause for those were the famous Muslim ban that was instated by the President under the motto: "Let's make American lives unsafe again," or at least that is what most experts called it.  At least the demonstrations showed there is still a core of civil, tolerant people out there.  But it really makes you wonder what is next?

A hug anyone?

The question remains, "Is this what democracy is all about."  Many people from the right call the demonstrators sore losers and tell them to get with the program, their guy won and respect what he's doing; give him a chance.  Others tell me he is violating The Constitution in some cases and that is the reason why they are demonstrating.  Boy, four weeks in and ethics violations abound already.  I like to make the argument that this is what democracy is all about, we need to make sure that a lot of the progress that has been made during the past 8 years is preserved.  The problem is that we cannot change the president's mind, but maybe we can change the mind of our elected officials by way of the relentless demonstrations; show them that their heads will roll if they just roll over and do what the president want them to do and look the other way when unethical thing happen.

Hopefully congress will understand that there will be dangerous curves ahead if they just bend over and don't question things or listen to the will of the people

From what it looks like, my demonstration days will not be over.  I'll be walking for science and for the environment in the next few months.  They will all be peaceful and I am sure that again I will be accused of being a sore loser.  But all I can say is that I am vigilant; I do not want to go back to the Middle Ages where scientists are persecuted and the environment is an afterthought.  I have lived in third world countries, witnessed the persecution of free thinkers, seen the pollution and tyranny of dictators.  This is why people try to escape the tyranny they are living in and want to move here to the U.S. and live in freedom.  In their own country they are trying their best to emulate our way of living, but that way of living seems to be rapidly changing and I am not sure if it is for the best.  We need to maintain our ability to be critical observers and thinkers and not just take everything as it is given to us; let's please protect what we have and keep the movement going!