I am upset (02/26/2022)

I am upset! Who wouldn’t be? As a lot of you, my readers know, I am politically opinionated when it comes to U.S. politics, but I usually stay quiet when it comes to international issues. But no longer!

This world has been plunged into a war that is completely unjustified and started to stroke someone’s bruised ego. Russia has invaded Ukraine under false pretexts. Supposedly, according to the Russian leader Ukraine is being led by neo-Nazis and that is a bizarre statement to claim of a Jewish president. I am sure there are much deeper reasons for the invasion, and there is no need to go into it in this blog. I just want to register my displeasure and anger with the situation.

I have been glued to the television and the news. I am extremely concerned about the situation in Ukraine. Now, since the publication of my blog, 2% of my readership has been from Ukraine, and they ranked 4th in countries of origin. My thoughts, prayers and solidarity are with you. I have to admit, 15% of my audience is from Russia (you guys ranked 2nd). My thoughts a, prayers and solidarity are with you who oppose this stupid war but are afraid to express yourself. We have heard the reports of arrests of protesters and opposers of the war. I realize you are being ruled by a ruthless dictator. May he rot in hell!!!

On the road again (Hotels 3: Virginia Beach) (2/22/22)

One year and eleven months ago after returning from a teaching gig in Lynchburg the then governor and the department I work for decided that we should temporarily shut the office, stop all traveling, and start teleworking. We were completely in la-la land about COVID or the Corona virus, and figured this would be temporary, maybe till June or at worse, September. Ah, little did we know.

So, after teleworking and teaching online we decided that 2022 was going to be the year that we were going back into the classroom. And there came Omicron: We had to cancel January classes. Again, email student the sorry emails and reschedule everything, from hotels to meeting rooms, etc.

One of the things I was looking forward to, was returning to real live teaching. Remarkable as that may be for an introvert like me, it is not a thing about being around people, but more about being able to read their facial expressions and get live feedback. These interactions are invaluable compared to talking to a Webcam.

Finally, live teaching started in February. I became the proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” I was going to try it out for the rest of us. Well, I now have taught four live classes and honestly these classes were exhausting but exhilarating. So maybe I am not an introvert? I really don’t know any more. I enjoyed the one on one so much more than the web-based classes. Maybe it’s just the format; colleagues of mine tell me that since our recent switch to Zoom things have gotten a lot better. Zoom allows you to turn on and view the webcam of your students and makes it more personable. That is of course if the students are willing to share their camera. However, the format that I had been using was not very personable and you have to rely on typed questions in a question box which do not allow for a free- flowing discussion. In addition, you don’t see people’s faces and really cannot have a good follow up discussion. During breaks you cannot have any personal interactions with folks.

Overall though I was good to be able to directly interact with folks. It was just much easier to respond to questions and to enter into fun deep discussions.

Then finally the travel. While somewhat scary to be on the road again; my father-in-law recently survived COVID and I do not need to be afraid of bringing it home. I assume I would survive an infection (knock on wood). Eating out is kind of fun again, although I need to watch out for my waistline again. I have been the main cook at home during these past two years of COVID and I am slowly running out of inspiration. I always told folks that I love to cook, I never thought it would get old, but somehow it does. It is nice to eat something different and sample different flavors to bring home and try them out here. Variety is the spice of life, or so they say.

I watch some different TV, drink a beer and just relax in my motel room. So, what’s not good about it? Maybe sleeping in a strange bed; loneliness, although I don’t mind eating alone; and the drive after teaching a whole day will get old after doing it a few times. Who knows?

My third photograph in the Hopper tradition (little did I know it would take such a long time for the third one).  This was taken in Virginia Beach at the Holiday Inn.  You can see the Atlantic Ocean in the background (Marocco or Portugal over the horizon).

Cruel to be Kind (2/4/2022)

Nick Lowe wrote the song with the same title of this post some time ago (1979) and somehow this week I was reminded of at least the title. Then came a poll from George Washington University that I saw on TV where one of the statistics was that Republicans’ (or conservatives) dearest value was freedom while for Democrats (or liberals) it was ethics (and civility). This hits home for me very hard after what transpired this past week, but let me explain.

First, let’s look at Lowe’s lyrics. It starts out with:

“Oh I can't take another heartache
Though you say you're my friend, I'm at my wit's end
You say your love is bonafide, but that don't coincide
With the things that you do
And when I ask you to be nice, you say

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you, baby”

These first few words of this love song are enough but the words “cruel to be kind“ are repeated over and over. What happened this week? Monday morning when walking my dog Jasper in the woods behind our home, I discovered that someone with 4-wheelers or ATVs had gone into the woods, driven the trails and torn through the Grafton pond that I have been following for the past 20 years, and probably shown you photographs of here in my blog. These ponds are habitat to the endangered Mabee’s salamander, barking tree frog, Harper’s fimbristylis and pond spice. Angrier and angrier looking at all the destruction I walked home. I called the game inspector for the park. She came to inspect the area and she later told me that the vandals destroyed four ponds. By the way, the area is posted; it tells visitors that no motorized vehicles are allowed and that we all need to stay on the trails.

At least the tracks were still visible in the snow that had fallen on Friday night.  You can see how high the water sometime is in the pond by the yellow pollen line near Jasper's tail in the bottom picture.

The inspector tell me that the culprits also went onto Federal (National Park Land) and this has become a Federal, State and local issue. She asked me who I thought it was that did this. Kids three houses down from us have been terrorizing the neighborhood with their ATVs and dirt bikes for the past weeks, I tell her. We were walking the woods on Sunday morning at 11, the woods were pristine, and just before we got home we heard the ATVs start up and the kids were leaving home on them. Around 4 pm when we took the dogs around the block the kids were pressure washing the ATVs in their driveway, the ATVs were covered with mud. I also told the inspector that this could all be circumstantial. She told me that law enforcement would definitely be on their way to check things out and talk to them and their parents.

I put a note with photographs on our development’s Facebook website about what had occured. I called the culprits vandals and called it vandalism. I mentioned that law enforcement was looking into the matter. I wanted to make sure that folks understood that the national park and the city park could easily deny us access to the area. I purposely never mentioned kids or what I told the inspector. I intended my note to be cruel to be kind and let the guilty or at least their parent soul search about what had transpired. I was also afraid that this incident would ruin it for us all and that we would be denied access to the woods. It brought out a few comments that wondered if it were the kids that were terrorizing the neighborhood with their ATVs, but mostly remarks about how terrible it was. But then it started, civility went out the window. Parents started to defend kids:

• They needed to be able to go outdoors
• We have all these natural areas behind our development but we can’t enjoy them (by the way, I enjoy it every day)
• They had no place to play with their ATVs around here
• Who are we to tell them what they can do and cannot do
• This is public land and should be open for all to us they see fit

Some folks became amazingly defensive of their kids, while in my post I deliberate did not accuse anyone and did not even hint at the fact that these kids were suspects. They became uncivil, abusive and in fact fighting for their freedom. This became particularly apparent when I asked the simple question: “so teach them (kids) they can get away with breaking the law and destroying the environment?” Here I saw exactly what I learned just now the difference between Republicans (65% of the electorate in our development) and Democrats (the other 35%), abusive and very vocal about freedom versus ethical, environmental and empathetic, respectively. You also saw whose kids did it; that the parent’s know it, they came out in a hurry and that they were trying to shelter them from the authorities.

At this point, I needed to stop all comments to my post and the administrator of our Facebook page had to remind folks of the rules of civility. Here I was trying to be protective of the environment and of people’s enjoyment of it; however, my post ended up to be too “cruel to be kind” (to some). That is why that song popped up in my head. It seems that we are increasingly loosing civility in our society and more polarized; another example of schismogenesis at work!

Schismogenesis (1/17/2022)

First a note, writing has been a bit more difficult these past few weeks. I broke my wrist, and typing is difficult (my way of breaking in the New Year). Even reading with one hand is tiring. So, I’ll be slowing down these two months but not stopping.

In all my reading, I learned a new word: “Schismogenesis.” The definition of schismogenesis is the creation of division. Interestingly, it was mentioned in a book I am reading where the authors are talking about things that went on in the 1700 and 1800s. But let me get back to the word. In sociolinguistics, a field I know absolutely nothing about, schismogenesis is defined as creating a split in a mutually aggravating way. Wow, isn’t that than the word that encapsule everything that the past year, maybe two, if not the past five years were all about?

How to explain schismogenesis. Let’s assume we are neighbors, and we compare our like and dislike of certain colors. I like blue and you like red. After a friendly discussion of our color preference the discussion gets that heated that we start accusing each other by the political parties that these colors represent, although the discussion was never started out that way, neither did we ever shared our political believe before. It got that bad that it eventually got to communist vs. fascist. The next day you paint the side of your house that faces me red and guess what? I paint my house blue. That is schismogenesis, a simple disagreement gone bad. 

In essence this is the story of our current political climate. We have gotten so polarized that no middle ground is possible. It is democrat against republican, red against blue, liberal against conservative. No compromise is possible any longer. It is disgusting and distressing. We can discuss who is to blame; and I am sure there we go again. In my liberal view it is the red-haired wannabe dictator/loser of the last elections. However, on his side, it is probably us the election stealers. Get the message? We need to ger back to civility and compromise and recognize schismogenisis when it is staring us in the face.

The proof is in the green cast.  I purposely choose a green one in solidarity with the environment and enxpress my concern about climate warming and the future direction that my state (Virginia) seems to be going in. 

Living in the moment (12/19/2021)

Each year, around this time of the year I seem to write a post where I review what happened in the world and in my life during the past year. I gave 2020 the proverbial middle finger for contributing COVID, my house arrest and tRump at his best. But what did 2021 bring us, or do I even want to write about it?

It is my understanding that the Buddhist are very strong believers of living in the moment. Living in the moment or not dwelling over the past and not being anxious over the future.

Dwelling over the past. My thesaurus tells me that the word dwell also means inhabit or live. This will age me, but it reminds me of one of my favorite Jethro Tull albums and associated tune “Living in the Past.” Part of the lyrics go like this:

Now there's revolution
But they don't know
What they're fighting
Let us close our eyes
Outside their lives
Go on much faster
Oh, we won't give in
We'll keep living in the past
Oh, we won't give in
Let's go living in the past
Oh no, no, we won't give in
Let's go living in the past

Damn, here I go again on a tangent, don’t I? Not really, the Album Living in the Past came out in 1969 and this part of the lyrics can apply to the much of the January 6th insurrection we saw. Those folks did not know what they were fighting for, and I am sure they still do not! They think they did, but was that really what was behind it all? A red-haired wannabe dictator who only cares about himself and maybe his rich cronies as long as they adore him, otherwise he’ll throw them under the bus. He somehow was able to whip up the masses with some popular ideas, but he doesn’t give a damn about them. The perfect demagogue, Mussolini, Stalin, Castro, etc. all in one person.

So yes, maybe it is better for me to live in the past, the times before we lost our innocence, and the country elected this red-haired wannabe dictator? Or should I focus on living in the moment? Boy what a conundrum.

This past year I have been very anxious about the future, my aging, and our environmental future as you can conclude from my blog posts. So, what remains? Yes, I better live in the moment, otherwise I’ll turn into a complete wreck!

But no, we can learn from the past and come to terms with it. I am still trying to do that in my personal life at times, although I think it is working most of the time. Regarding the future, I still need to plan, maybe try to lose those few pounds, my 2022 travel and teaching schedule, eventual retirement, and yes keep fighting for the environment and future generations. I wrote a post about bonsai work and how it is all based on long range planning (actually it was a political post, turned bonsai post, but as regular readers you know how my strange mind twists). So, living in the moment does not mean just sitting here staring at my belly button a.k.a. my computer. I want to try to make every moment count and live life to the fullest; enjoy it.

So maybe my next post will be a yearend review, although maybe not; I think I did a pretty good job at it here today.

I took this photo mid-November of my desk (top).  It is iconic for the year, I suppose.  Working from home and some of my (tropical) plants, inside for the winter months.  It is definitely not my Richmond office; they don't allow live plants there.