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I Might Be Wrong

I would never die for my beliefs 
because I might be wrong. -- Bertrand Russell


There is a difference between coming to the conclusion that you are wrong and conceding that "the other" is right. I have postulated recently that in a war both sides are dying for their beliefs. Often neither side is completely right nor wholly wrong. No, you do not get to cite the Nazis.




About the only belief I would be willing to risk my life for would be the belief that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. To live by those beliefs and practice whatever lifestyle those beliefs require. Of course the rub is that an overwhelming number of "big beliefs" rest on the premise that other people with other beliefs are wrong, evil, infidels, in need of saving or killing. Clearly not new news to any of my readers. So, let me ask - Any beliefs you might have recently considered letting go of?

I believe a regular review and purging of beliefs is a healthful thing. It helps if you start small, here are a few of my tiny beliefs. By mine I mean either I am willing to let them go or I fervently wish others around me would.

--NPR is valuable, productive, worthwhile and therefore deserving of public funding;
--Congress is ineffective and should all be voted out of office, except our local guy because he has seniority and has done so much for the local economy;
--adults have the right to do certain things, have certain habits, enjoy certain pleasures; even though by allowing them to do so will mean that children might have access to these same activities;
--animal testing is evil and cruel but it saves human lives;

Got any you want to toss on the bonfire? Bring your own kerosene.
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Detroit - On a Positive Couple of Notes

I have been harsh if not apocalyptic in some recent posts about the future of Detroit. The national media has taken on Detroit as the poster child of urban decay and urban renewal. Decay is certainly an apt moniker for the city but renewal - not hardly. However, recently suggestions have been made of a revisioned form of urban recovery. Even Mayor Dave Bing has suggested that saving parts of the city is a better plan than attempting to save it all. Indeed, almost no one still holds to the idea that Detroit can be restored to what it once was.

Current thinking includes urban gardens, urban forests and urban green belts. In Detroit this has been encouraged by perhaps the one city program that has worked well in the past decade - the removal of burnt out and falling down houses. Now there is an adopt-a-lot program which allows taking over abandoned lots with no cost, to plant an orchard or a garden; perhaps even to save an entire block once the abandoned structures have been removed. One or two houses are restored on their own mini-estate in formerly side-by-side-by-side neighbors.

The belief is that Detroit as it once was is gone. The large industrial base is not only not coming back - they don't want it back. The population may continue to fall for the near future but less is more seems to be a welcome future. The new Detroit motto is "We can do better than this." In fact, I suggest renaming the city, if only calling it - New Detroit. 

Two excellent articles cover these smaller is better options in a newer, greener Detroit. A New York Times piece focuses on the greening of Detroit through local food production, while the Atlantic did a profile of what they are calling the Upper-middle-class survivalists. 

I hold to my view that attempts to restore Detroit are doomed but this idea of New Detroit emerging phoenix-like from the well deserved ashes of Old Detroit, that I find interesting as an urban model for all of the midwest rust belt.





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Happy 4th of July

Should there be a law against furring the flag?
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Saturation Saturday: Gold

gold

edible gold & cocoa

gold pills for what ails you

golden eagle

golden Charlize

social commentary

more social commentary
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July Weekends


This month has five full weekends; meaning five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays. Contrary to internet gibberish this does not happen only once every 823 years. In fact, on average it occurs once every 7 years, because of leap year it can happen a bit more or less frequently in a particular short term timeframe. The actual repeating pattern for any 31 day month to have five weekends is: 6 years, 5 years, 6 years, 11 years.

But back to the point, there are definitely five full weekends this month, which means precisely and exactly nothing since nearly no one plans their weekends based on whether the weekend includes only one month or is split between two.

Now there are certain OCD humanoids who have certain calendaric idiosyncrasies but I don't know of any that require weekends to fall within the same month. I am open to hearing about any phobia or compulsion around months and/or calendars in general. But specifically - July has five full weekends this year - make the most or the least of them, your choice.

I did attempt to find if there are any phenomenon that cycle every 823 years. Unfortunately the net search was clogged with all of the websites reporting this hoax about the five weekends. I myself will be doing the barbeque thing up in Sonoma for the first (American & Canadian holiday) weekend and perhaps taking to the highway during the final July weekend, more on that later.

Finally a July Blog Promise - based on feedback from the readers of this here blog. I promise, at least for one month, to have one serious and one not-so-serious post each and every week. I know the light-hearted faire troubles some of my long-time friends; just as the dense academic fodder turns off my more casual readers. In an attempt to satisfy all at least some of the time - one of each, every week this month because I have five full weekends to pull it off.
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Elixir of Nepenthe

Nepenthe (pronounced [nə-ˈpen(t)-thē]) is a medicine for sorrow, literally an anti-depressant – a "drug of forgetfulness" mentioned in literature and mythology. 


Imagine what that would be like, a drug of forgetfulness. My first thought was that it would inevitably be abused. Who would take it? How severe must the trauma be to demand forgetting? Would their be psychological gatekeepers of the nepenthe?


Would a bad break-up be sufficient distress to prescribe the drug? I think not.


The loss of a child. Perhaps, yes. Direct, immediate psychic trauma would meet my criteria. War experiences, torture, physical abuse. But "a medicine for sorrow," we learn so much from our experiences, particularly from death. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, an elderly neighbor; don't these losses prepare us for the truly painful losses. We all have different attachments to friends and relatives, but what if we never learned about death, about how it feels. Yes, we become callous; we call it experience, wisdom; we call it life, the measure of being human.


No, I think nepenthe would have to be saved for those really awful experiences, those that carry such sorrow, such trauma that forgetfulness would be the humane course to recovery.


Surely nepenthe would come in a gilded chalice and possess a bitter yet forgetful taste.
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Rest In Peace Gator

A good friend died this week. He took his own life. We are all shocked and saddened by his passing and we are all asking ourselves - why? Which is to say, we are having the normal human reaction to such an unnecessary loss.

I am not going to praise him here, most of you did not know him. For those who did, we will find the time and place to share our memories. Today I am going to do something in his honor.

This is for our lost friend.

If you read this blog and you have my phone number then I ask should you ever feel so lost, so alone that you consider leaving us, I beg you to use that number and call me. If you read this blog and you don't have my phone number then I ask that you call that person today, the one who you talk to when times are darkest. Call them today and agree that should you ever walk too close to the edge, you will reach out to them. You make that promise in the light of day; promise you will cry out past the darkness. Make the promise, make it today.

My friend called me at times when he brushed against his demons and we would look at the world in ways only two friends in conversation could, I believe it helped. This time he didn't call and all of us are left to ask - why.

Rest in Peace Randy, we will miss you for a long, long time.
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