Hurricane Katrina and counting our blessings

Dragon Mood? -- appreciative

On a whim, I called S and said, "Let's go to lunch. I'll pick you up."

We sat at a family diner, new to us, near Twelve Mile and Van Dyke. We caught up on each other's morning, and suddenly S said, "Look!" Behind me, up near the ceiling was a television, with CNN showing footage from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Neither of us had seen any television since Sunday evening, before the hurricane made landfall.

We were appalled, horrified and dumbstruck at what we were seeing on the broadcast. These people in New Orleans and Mississippi are going through hell while we sit comfortably, being waited upon, eating our hot food and cold drinks.

S said, "You know, we have a lot to be thankful for. We have two houses, three cars, jobs we can go back to, food on the table. We have so much!"

And so, instead of kvetching about this person or that job, we took a moment and said our silent thanks for all the many blessings we have, those we notice and those we don't.

Eroding women's rights to self-determination

Dragon Mood? -- mad

I spotted this article on MSNBC. It probably is getting lost in all the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf coast.

This makes me mad. Read this and see if it doesn't make you mad too:

Director of Women's Health Office resigns in protest over agency's delay


WASHINGTON - A high-ranking Food and Drug Administration official resigned Wednesday in protest over the agency’s refusal to allow over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception.

Susan Wood, director of FDA’s Office of Women’s Health, announced her resignation in an e-mail to colleagues at the agency. The e-mail was released by contraception advocates.

The FDA last Friday postponed indefinitely its decision on whether to allow the morning-after pill, called Plan B, to be sold without a prescription.

The agency said it was safe for adults to use without a doctor’s guidance but was unable to decide how to keep it out of the hands of young teenagers without a prescription — a decision contrary to the advice of its own scientific advisers.

“I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled,” wrote Wood, who also was assistant commissioner for women’s health.

“The recent decision announced by the Commissioner about emergency contraception, which continues to limit women’s access to a product that would reduce unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions, is contrary to my core commitment to improving and advancing women’s health.”

I hope women hear about this, pass it along to their friends, and get hoppin' mad at how this administration deviously erodes women's rights to self-determination.

aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

This was taken today, Tuesday, August 30th. It's an aerial photo of downtown New Orleans, taken by David J. Phillip. I got the image here.

I think the image speaks for itself. Recovery from this hurricane is going to take more than a few days or a few weeks.

Here's another one. The photographer claims these people are looters. The photo is from the same source.

Spotlighting blog changes

Dragon Mood? -- this dragon LOVES change

Since I have posted more this week than in the past six weeks(!), I thought I'd finish out the week with one more post.

I wanted to spotlight for all the hundreds and hundreds of readers (are you listening, Lina?) some changes to my blog:

• I have a new CalypsoDragon13 image replacing my Dragon-Mood Unkymood until www.unkymood.com reappears. Perhaps Mr. Unky is on hiatus?
• I added a new quote at the top of the left sidebar from, who-woulda-thunk-it?, Victoria Principal (an aging model) on choices in life. I heard her speak on Oprah's show one day about Epictetus and found her comments thought-provoking.
• Further down on the left sidebar, is a new, cropped image from algo at flickr. I thought this one was particularly lovely, cropped it for use in the sidebar and voila, there it is!
• Even further down on the left sidebar is an in-process list of what I am reading, say over the past three months. I didn't realize that I had read that many books. I guess playing Jawbreaker on my iPAQ hasn't cut into my spare time as much as I thought. I suspect that my reading time has cut into my knitting time!
• Oh yes, I am still monkeying around with the appearance of blockquotes and excerpts. The calypso green dotted side lines are a bit new. Still not sure if I like them or not. What do you think?
  

I guess that's all for now!

About Backpack

Dragon Mood? -- will a backpack ruffle my dragon scales? Hmm??

Once upon a time . . . there was a technology start-up called 37 Signals.

37 Signals is named after the number of radio waves we've received from space that scientists consider potential signals of intelligent life. Its creators build the kind of applications you didn't know you needed until you use them for the first time, at which point you wonder how you ever did without....

More recently, 37 Signals launched Backpack, a program that does just what its name suggests -- it gives users an easy, casual storage location on the Web, a place to scratch down important notes, draw up to-do lists, and store important files organized around specific tasks (say, all the stuff you need for a business trip).

You know, I started one of their free accounts about 3-and-a-half months ago. (Duh, read my posting here.) Then I got so darn busy at work I didn't have time to access it. Then I forgot. Does this mean I don't need Backpack? Can YOU look at my Backpack account if I want you to?

Adventurers and gypsy musicians in South Dakota

Dragon Mood? -- doing a gypsy jig as only a dragon can do!

...and since I'm in the excerpting mode, I found this quote from a Salon article by Garrison Keillor that I love. There's a quality of big-heartedness and hey-we-can-make-room-for-you that feels as true as true can be when I think of America:

...There are plenty of old grumblers in Mitchell [South Dakota] (and anywhere else) but deep down, we're all in favor of people living their lives as they choose and we are fond of true independents and adventurers and gypsy musicians. Red or blue, we agree that freedom is at the heart of American life and it's a big country and there's room for everybody. We all know that life is short and quickly ebbs to a close, so you should go ahead and take that ride down the rapids, fly to Australia, dye your hair, go in the Peace Corps, follow your star, so that when you must sit in the nursing home eating your corn mush and watching stupid TV shows, you have some vivid memories of big adventures. Everyone in this parking lot is in favor of this, even if they don't say so....

Yeah, you tell 'em, Garrison!

an exception to every rule

Dragon Mood? -- snorting fireballs of exposure

okay, I don't usually DO these, but in this case, I'll make an exception . . .

1. What is your occupation? designer and instructional developer
2. What color is your underwear? Peach-colored
3. What are you listening to right now? Meshell Ndegeocello (had to look up how to spell her last name)
4. What was the last thing you ate? a boring green salad with grilled chicken breast
5. Do you wish on stars? Yes
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? definitely the reddest red I could be!
7. How is the weather right now? cool and cloudy
8. Last person you spoke to on the phone. a friend's daughter about getting some physical therapy
9. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Absolutely! We've had some great times together!
10. Favorite drink? Iced green tea but at happy hour, bloody marys or wine
11. Favorite sport to watch? Are you kidding? MSU Spartan basketball!
12. Have you ever dyed your hair? Not in a long time -- all that gray is ALL mine!
13. Do you wear contacts or glasses? glasses since I pushing 40.
14. Favorite month? December -- it's me & Jesus' birthday
15. What was the last movie you watched? The Thomas Crown Affair (on DVD)
16. Favorite day of the year? Halloween -- when all our inner "childs" emerge!
17. What do you do to vent anger? fold laundry
18. What was your favorite toy as a child? ummm, maybe tinkertoys?
19. Fall or Spring? enjoy 'em both
20. Hugs or kisses? love hugs, adore kisses
21. Cherry or Blueberry? love blueberries
22. Do you want your friends to email you back? Sure
23. Who is most likely to respond? I'm a hopeful person -- both?
24. Who is least likely to respond? not applicable
25. Living arrangements? in 2 houses with my partner of almost 19 years and one very furry dog
26. When was the last time you cried? Sunday night watching the last episode of "Six Feet Under"
27. What is on the floor in your closet? dust bunnies?
28. Who is the friend you have had the longest? My sister
29. What did you do last night? S and I put out loads and loads of trash; then we drank a beer with our neighbors, Jan and Tom, and talked about weddings
30. What inspires you? beautiful images and photography (like flickr); Thomas Newman's music
31. What are you afraid of? having a stroke and not being able to play the piano - OR - dying before I EVER get to see even one damn grandchild!
32. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Spicy, please
33. Favorite vehicle? mini-Cooper
34. Favorite dog breed? in theory, a Scottish terrier, but I haven't had to clean up after one yet
35. Number of keys on your key ring? oh geez, about six or seven on one end and two on the other, detachable end
36. How many years at your current job? 2-and-a-half
37. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
38. How many states have you lived in? four
39. How many cities/towns have you lived in? seven, maybe eight depending on how I count
40. Chocolate or vanilla? if it's ice cream, vanilla, please, with Spanish peanuts on top
41. What is your favorite food? usually stuff that's not good for me, darn it! Ethnically, I'd also say Lebanese.
42. French Fries or chips? salt & vinegar chips, thanks to S
43. Chicken or Beef? Chicken
44. Morning person or night person? Night
45. Sneakers or sandals? sandals, preferably Birks
46. What kind of music is on your car radio? Jazz/classical
48. Beach or mountains? Beach
49. Favorite place to travel? I love to visit Oceana County. And... I'd love to visit Provence and nothern Italy
50. How many people will you send this to? just two ... at least for now
51. Favorite Movie? just one? How about Thelma & Louise? and don't forget those Wendish puppeteers in "The Sound of Music!"
52. Pet Peeve? People who belch and/or spit in public
54. Saddest Day(s)? The day I realized that I was truly alone in this world
55. Happiest Day? Many of them -- usually surrounded by people I love and who love me
56. Best gift you ever received. Be tolding I don't have to be perfect, just "good enough"

Time and our understanding of evolution

Dragon Mood? -- don't forget that dragons are much younger and cuter than dinosaurs!

In my early days of blogging, I quoted many different newspaper and magazine articles ... at length, because I actually don't like the practice of linking to other sites. I have poked on too many links that ended up as "page could not display," "check your link again" or some other derivation of dead-link-ness.
Hence, my practice of quoting an entire article or some portion of it right in my blog.

Lately, I've gotten away from that practice, not because my attitude has changed, but simply because I've been trying to incorporate more of ME into the blog.

But today, I simply must revert to my earlier practice and put this whole, damn article in here because I think it is well thought out, eloquent in places and even heartfelt (for a New York Times editorial opinion). It's on our understanding of time and evolution:

Grasping the Depth of Time as a First Step in Understanding Evolution
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Last month a team of paleontologists announced that it had found several fossilized dinosaur embryos that were 190 million years old - some 90 million years older than any dinosaur embryos found so far. Those kinds of numbers are always a little daunting. Ever since I was a boy in a public elementary school in Iowa, I've been learning to face the eons and eons that are embedded in the universe around us.

I know the numbers as they stand at present, and I know what they mean, in a roughly comparative way. The universe is perhaps 14 billion years old. Earth is some 4.5 billion years old. The oldest hominid fossils are between 6 million and 7 million years old. The oldest distinctly modern human fossils are about 160,000 years old.

The truth of these numbers has the same effect on me as watching the night sky in the high desert. It fills me with a sense of nonspecific immensity. I don't think I'm alone in this. [I completely agree with those words!]

One of the most powerful limits to the human imagination is our inability to grasp, in a truly intuitive way, the depths of terrestrial and cosmological time. That inability is hardly surprising because our own lives are so very short in comparison. It's hard enough to come to terms with the brief scale of human history. But the difficulty of comprehending what time is on an evolutionary scale, I think, is a major impediment to understanding evolution.

It's been approximately 3.5 billion years since primeval life first originated on this planet. That is not an unimaginable number in itself, if you're thinking of simple, discrete units like dollars or grains of sand. But 3.5 billion years of biological history is different. All those years have really passed, moment by moment, one by one. They encompass an actual, already lived reality, encompassing all the lives of all the organisms that have come and gone in that time. That expanse of time defines the realm of biological possibility in which life in its extraordinary diversity has evolved. It is time that has allowed the making of us.

The idea of such quantities of time is extremely new. Humans began to understand the true scale of geological time in the early 19th century. The probable depth of cosmological time and the extent of the history of the human species have come to light only within our own lifetimes.

That is a lot to absorb and, not surprisingly, many people refuse to absorb it. Nearly every attack on evolution - whether it is called intelligent design or plain creationism, synonyms for the same faith-based rejection of evolution - ultimately requires a foreshortening of cosmological, geological and biological time.

Humans feel much more content imagining a world of more human proportions, with a shorter time scale and a simple narrative sense of cause and effect. But what we prefer to believe makes no difference. The fact that life on Earth has arrived at a point where it is possible for humans to have beliefs is due to the steady ticking away of eons and the trial and error of natural selection.

Evolution is a robust theory, in the scientific sense, that has been tested and confirmed again and again. Intelligent design is not a theory at all, as scientists understand the word, but a well-financed political and religious campaign to muddy science. Its basic proposition - the intervention of a designer, a k a God - cannot be tested. It has no evidence to offer, and its assumptions that humans were divinely created are the same as its conclusions. Its objections to evolution are based on syllogistic reasoning and a highly selective treatment of the physical evidence.

Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education.

The purpose of the campaign for intelligent design is to deepen that failure. To present the arguments of intelligent design as part of a debate over evolution is nonsense. From the scientific perspective, there is no debate. But even the illusion of a debate is a sorry victory for antievolutionists, a public relations victory based, as so many have been in recent years, on ignorance and obfuscation.

The essential, but often well-disguised, purpose of intelligent design, is to preserve the myth of a separate, divine creation for humans in the belief that only that can explain who we are. But there is a destructive hubris, a fearful arrogance, in that myth. It sets us apart from nature, except to dominate it. It misses both the grace and the moral depth of knowing that humans have only the same stake, the same right, in the Earth as every other creature that has ever lived here. There is a righteousness - a responsibility - in the deep, ancestral origins we share with all of life.

August is slipping away ...

Dragon Mood? -- feeling a bit guarded

I am at lunch.

I think to myself, "I'll post something on Calypso."

I open the (Blogger) Dashboard. What!?!... I haven't posted since August 10th! Where have the past two weeks gone? Where is the month going?

Which all reinforces the notion that life is flying by me, we're on the fast track, S and me, and it's gonna get worse before it gets better!

Twin A, Mark, is now a married daddy and we survived a rehearsal dinner, wedding and reception with thunder clouds of homophobia hanging over them. We can't pinpoint the source of the sudden emphasis on "tradition" and "family-values" language, but it was there; it was definitely there. And we do have our suspicions. Even S's ex-husband came to our defense as a couple. That was a lovely, unexpected silver lining in those clouds.

This past weekend, we attended a bridal shower for Sarah, #1 son's fiancee. Their wedding is happening in about five weeks. (Sigh!) The shower was a large, noisy, diverse affair and while some people were strangely silent, most everyone was warm and welcoming. It was a lovely contrast to the other family and thank goodness for that!

Then, yesterday, we met with Sarah again at the restaurant where their rehearsal dinner will be held. We had a drink, met with the manager and talked about entrees, desserts, booze and number of guests. It was all rather tiresome, but necessary attention to the details of their wedding.

S has really been struggling internally with what her responsibility is, as the mother of the groom, for paying for/contribuing to the liquor tab at the reception. I think she has finally come to peace with that and I hope she can "stay the course" (oh, geez, a #1 Bush-ism!) on this issue.

We also had an impromptu dinner with J & J and Kevin last night. Kevin fixed a tasty pork tenderloin and Jeanne fixed her mother's potato salad. It was a rather brief gathering, but I enjoyed talking with them all and catching up on what their summers have been like. Of course, we gave them the whole lowdown on Mark & Lindsey's wedding and all the trauma/drama inherent to that.

We didn't see our elderly neighbor, Mr. Browder, this weekend and I'm feeling a bit badly about that. We just didn't make him a priority because of all the other demands on our time.

We got home last night in time to videotape and watch the last episode of Six Feet Under on HBO. Things were moving fast, with lots of changes, closures and a dreamy, into-the-future ending for the show. I liked the ending. It felt rather peaceful and hopeful, which I appreciated. That show feels to close to life, with all its messiness and ugliness and hardness. The ending was almost like a gift.

Thank you, Alan Ball!

Random and important connections

Dragon Mood? -- nonplussed

• This morning I got a surprise phone call from Ruthie. She was on her way to a job interview! Good luck, Ruth!

• At lunch today, in a moment of spontaneous hilarity, Maria, the cashier lady in the cafeteria told me I was bunless . . . and we both busted out laughing. And I replied, "I have never been told I was bunless! I wish!"
  
  Maybe in my next life!

• And then I got a call from my sweet hijita, Lina, cycling around out in Spearfish, South Dakota. Thanks for the call, motorcycles roaring and all!

• But, where is my Honeybuns? my Sweetpea? my Snookums? Methinks she is enjoying her first day of vacation . . . I'm jealous!

Howling with laughter!!

Dragon Mood? -- apopletic with dragon-laughs



I don't know why this struck me so funny, but it did!

Absent-mindedness, cauliflower brains, "your insurance doesn't cover anesthesia," and the best line of all:

How'd your brain transplant work out?

Many, many kudos to Scott Adams and these funny comics. They can be accessed here, here and finally here.

Multiplying, we are .... (channeling Yoda)

Dragon Mood? -- dragon-wowed!

According to Technorati, as reported by the BBC, there is a blog created every second.

In its latest State of the Blogosphere report, it said the number of blogs it was tracking now stood at more than 14.2m blogs, up from 7.8m in March.

It suggests, on average, the number of blogs is doubling every five months.

Wow! That is some exponential growth! Read on:

Thirteen percent of all blogs that Technorati tracks are updated weekly or more, said the report, and 55% of all new bloggers are still posting three months after they started.

It also pointed to the growth in moblogs, blogs to which people with camera phones automatically send pictures and text.

Other services, such as the Google toolbar and the Flickr photo sharing website, have implemented "blog this" buttons, which also make it easier for people to post content they like on the web straight to their blogs.

The voices in the blogosphere are also sounding less US-centric, with blog growth spotted in Japan, Korea, China, UK, France, and Brazil.

I am simply amazed. And yet I'm not. Read Stewart Brand's book, The Clock of the Long Now, and neither will you.

a blogger named Fiona

Dragon Mood? -- recalling meeting a dragon named Fiona once

Still on my lunch hour, I happened upon a blogger named Fiona. I've seen her succintly-named blog listed many times before but never checked it out.

Today, I did. And this posting, quoted in part here, matches my odd and darkly dispirited mood:

You already think I'm weird, anyway

I don't think anybody can run away from the troubles that have befallen us any more, and I think that soon we're all going to be feeling the same pain. If you're thinking about moving to the northern wilds of Canada to become an organic farmer, forget it. What's wrong here is wrong everywhere, and it's all bleeding together so fast there's no point in moving. We're going to have to deal with the challenges from wherever we are, however we can. It's sort of like somebody walked in on humanity while it was in the john with its pants down. There may not even be time to wipe, people. We're deer in the headlights.

I've been ranting about how I hate religion since I started this damn blog nearly three years ago. But lately it just seems like my suspicions are confirmed. ALL of mankind's traditional religions are brainwashing schemes. They are all designed to instill fear and/or diminish critical thinking skills and increase obedient, subservient behavior. All of them, yes, even dear Buddhism. If it didn't start out that way, it's become corrupt. Now it's not about questioning or killing the Buddha any more. It's about romantic allegiances to self-proclaimed enlightened gurus, based purely on faith. . . . The scales have fallen from my eyes when it comes to modern American Buddhism. It has the same odor to it as Evangelical Christianity, in some cases. Time to wake up, yuppie Boulder Buddhists. Ye are being manipulated. Pacified. Conditioned to accept whatever.

Wow! Sounds like my kind of pissed-off person. I will definitely be looking in on Fiona again.

What would it take?

Dragon Mood? -- idly scuffing her dragon toes in the dirt

It's Monday, it's my lunch hour and I'm sitting here in my Dilbert-esque cubicle, longing to somehow purge whatever is troubling me out of my brain and onto this page.

I am feeling alone, lonely and disconnected. I talked with S about this, again, yesterday. She listened, responded with understanding and concern, and treated me especially kindly for the rest of the day. That felt so good.

I can't even tell what would help me feel better. Quiet? Noisy activity? Walking? Playing the piano? Drawing? Knitting?

I don't know.

But I'm here on this earth, God graces us with a warm, shining sun and it's a beautiful summer day. I am thankful for all those things.