Dar Kush

Staying on the downshift

2008-05-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

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Oh. O.K., I get it. Watching Sean Hannity yesterday saying Obama offered "negotiations without preconditions" made a little light go on. Fox is engaged in a game of "Telephone"-change the message just a little bit, and put the meme out there. And Obama saying "talks" turns to "negotiations" turns to "appeasement" in the public consciousness. Very clever. But MAN they have contempt for their viewers.

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The same thing with Michelle Obama. So far as I've been able to see, her "more proud than I've been in my adult life" has been flattened to "first time I've ever been proud" for public consumption. Clearly, this kind of lying works just great. I'm sure that this is the way the game has been played since the beginning of time. Loathsome.

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It does make me wonder about the psychology of people who feel that talking is the same as yielding. Wow. Do they live their relationships like that? Their business negotiations? I suggest that this ONLY makes sense if you believe your "enemies" to be sub-human. Less than. And while ultra-protective (and controlling) this is also the exact same thought process that leads to racism, sexism and so forth. On the other hand, it is certainly possible to go too far in the other direction, believing that "we're all just the same" or "we can't judge the cultural customs of other peoples" and so forth. To be frank, I consider either end of the spectrum to be operating on emotion without real engagement with their intellect.

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Question of the day: who's excited about "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"? I know I am. Will it be "Raiders"? Heck, no. But I think it's going to be great fun. And I dig the idea of a 65-year old Harrison Ford going for it. I completely understand Connery not wanting to do it...I suspect that he no longer likes the way he looks onscreen. Like Cary Grant, I suspect that he wants to preserve his cinematic legacy by not appearing at less than his best. This age-related judgment definitely hits women harder than men...on the other hand, I think women get a bit of advantage on the other end: young women are praised in about the same intensity that older women are criticized, so advantage still remains within the set called "women" even though the power gradient shifts. Was it Greta Garbo who retired similarly, just not wanting to spoil her legacy?

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I think that there is a bit of double-talk regarding Michelle Obama. If you put your wife out as a surrogate, it is reasonable to criticize her public pronouncements. But it's fun watching Barack use "chivalry" to justify "anger" at "attacks" on his wife. Sigh. I do wish that a political contest had more room for nuance. I would read her comments as, simply, "I am prouder than I've ever been of America--politically and socially we are moving in exactly the right direction, and people are more involved than I've ever seen them."

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If you meditate in the morning, note where your breathing is by the end of your session: probably deep and slow. Take that same breath into your Tibetans, yoga, Tai Chi or whatever you use to wake your body up in the morning. If you run, lift weights, or whatever, remain conscious of your breathing even as you place yourself under escalating pressure. The physiological pressure of exercise stress has many similarities to pure emotional life stress. If five times a day you will stop, whatever you are doing, and breathe with grace and power, you are creating an important link between exercise and meditation and life itself. A very strange thing happens when you learn to control your breathing in a stressful situation: you actually observe your own fight/flight response trying to upshift to anger, fear, frustration...but you remain separate from it. It's similar to my experience in a sweat lodge: if you remain calm, you can feel the heat without being broiled by it. I remember touching my own shoulder and burning my fingers. Stranger than hell. There are numerous disciplines that aim to shift you out of your ordinary relationship with your body, and they all start here, with control of breathing, then linking breath and life.

What Books Have Changed Your Life?

2008-05-19T12:05:00.001-07:00

John McCain was quite funny on SNL Saturday. And the Clinton-Obama piece was great: Obama played as an empty cipher, Clinton as quasi-demonic. Ah, SNL is starting to feel familiar again. Welcome back!

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In your daily Tibetans exercises (those of you trying them) remember that if you can't do three reps, there is nothing wrong with changing the leverage. Have stairs in your home? Experiment with putting either your hands or feet on the first or second stair. Takes weight off, and can make them much easier.

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Then, of course, there's the matter that strength is not, primarily a matter of the body. It is more a matter the mind: how many muscle fibers fire, in what relation, how the skeletal structure is aligned, etc. There is a phenomenon called "Sensory Motor Amnesia" in which we literally forget how to communicate with our own bodies. From this perspective, most exercise is a matter of LEARNING HOW TO DO IT more than your body becoming "stronger." Every day, you should be concentrating on HOW to do it--make the assumption, if you cannot perform three of each, that there is a lack of understanding, rather than a lack of strength.

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We are working on the CONNECTION between mind and body, not either mind or body alone.

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"Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Went to see that on Saturday, and it felt like a kiddie version of "Lord of the Rings." Fun, but nothing mind-blowing. I never got that far into C.S. Lewis, except for "That Hideous Strength" and "Peralandra." Actually, I never read "Lord of the Rings" either. High fantasy just never appealed to me too much. I wonder how much of that is because it's all about white people, and the only dark-skinned folk are evil. Yeah, I bet there's some of that.

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Jo Anne was right to remind me that it doesn't matter how little Tananarive and I interact during the day. It matters where we go to sleep at night, and awaken in the morning. I complain because I want what I want, darn it. We are working our hearts out right now, and it's bearing fruit. I just don't want to hurt our relationship in the process. No, there's not really any strain there, but having blown one marriage, I really really don' t want to risk this one as well.

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I now have my Kindle righteously loaded. I couple of contemporary novels, but that's not the point. I have the complete Shakespeare, Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mark Twain. Complete. Every word. Total cost of the works? Thirty bucks. Now THAT is entertainment: a lifetime of reading in my backpack. This is incredible fun.

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Thinking back over the books that have made a difference in my life, one that stands out clearly is a minor novel by Martin Caidan, who wrote the novel that birthed "The Six Million Dollar Man." It was called "The God Machine" and dealt with that hokey old device, the super-computer that takes over the world. But the computer made one mistake: it based its defense system on the assumption that no human being would deliberately sacrifice his life to stop the machine. I remember a great scene where the hero is playing poker and an old-timer explains the real rules of life: that a man who is willing to die can do anything. That sentiment, even though it is ultimately waffled-upon by the unreasonably upbeat ending of the book, changed my life.

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The question of the day is: have any of you ever read a book that changed your life? What, how, and why?

Thoughts for a new week

2008-05-18T10:38:00.001-07:00

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So if I look into the campaigns right now (or the news cycle allowing surrogates to speak for the different campaigns) the things that leap out at me are:

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1) Obama claiming never to have heard the Reverend Wright rhetoric. Yeah, right. And simultaneously, he was ready to leave the church if Wright didn't retire. Arrrgh. My take: he wanted to serve the people of the community, and had heard sentiments like Wright's for years. They are sentiments for those who lack Barack's intellectual skills and philosophical perspective. To separate himself from all those who say such things would have left him without a constituancy...let alone a community. I get it. I've dealt with this my whole life. Doesn't mean I believe his answer, though...

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2) Hillary saying that she and McCain are ready for office, and Obama isn't. That line was over the line politically. It was honorable if she truly believed it. But it probably cost her the Vice Presidential slot. Can't see how she comes back from that one, or spins it.

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3) My favorite recent news item: in the same 24 hour news cycle, Bush makes a comment about "appeasers" which was widely considered to be a slam at Obama (I can see why, since he's said he will speak to our enemies. A large percentage of human beings see this as weakness. Personally, I see it as wisdom.) Now here's where it gets interesting. When Huckabee made the "duck and cover" joke, he was revealing his own unconscious tensions. Humor is a release of tension. Was he calling Obama a coward? Was he expressing a bit of wish fulfillment? Here's a fun game: if we consider that comments from members of a group express, in the aggregate, the unconscious wishes of that group, combining these two comments gives us something fairly disturbing: a message to "shoot him...he's an appeaser." You can count on the fact that this meme will be entering the public discourse A LOT over the next months. Always plausibly denied, and probably rarely by someone who has a specific conscious thought about doing him harm.

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But any organization will fight for its survival, and its members are human, with a messy combination of conscious and unconscious wishes. Racists, for instance, DO have reason to be concerned about integration, multi-culturalism, and so forth. It DOES mean the death of the white race. And the black race. And the Asian race. It is dead to the concept of "race" across the board, and to those who are strongly coupled to race as a concept (what? Ten percent of the population?) the ascendancy of a Obama is a nightmare, a view of a future in which some of their most precious assumptions and definitions are blown totally out of the water.

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I would call these two comments cultural Freudian slips. They will be discussed. Huckabee will make the talk show circuit apologizing. And every time, the meme re-enters the public arena. No matter how he disowns his "joke" remember: you can't not think of a purple cow. And from the perspective of the part of the human consciousness that clings to racial tribe, it was a plea for someone to do violence. This is pretty ugly stuff...and I've heard at least ten comments like it for every whisper of violence to be done to Hillary on the basis of her gender.

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If you don't factor little things like death into the equation then sure, Obama could seem to have an advantage based on race. Personally, I find it unfortunate that Hillary supporters can't deal with the fact that as smart and tenacious as she has been, it is possible for her to be out-thought and out-fought. The fact that they leap for gender and race as answers is unfortunate. As I've said, I'm sure plenty of black Americans would have used a Clinton victory to claim that race relations are poisonous. And I would have considered them just as blind and self-serving. As some men would have grumbled that Hillary was swept into the White House on a wave of reverse discrimination or political correctness. As you'll hear some propaganda that Obama is being bouyed by secret Saudi money: he's a secret Muslim, after all. As you'll hear whites complain that "a white man doesn't stand a chance in this country..." and other brain-damaged comments. Pretty sad stuff.

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But that's the heat of the battle. The blogs are filled with Hillary supporters swearing they'll support McCain. I think that that's on the level of "I hate you daddy!" when you ground your teenager (and Obama supporters would have been about as bad, I'm sure.) Be interesting to see how many of them actually vote their values, and not their hurt feelings. Unless of course, they ARE voting their values...which is another, interesting conversation.

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The Moonview presentation last Saturday has led to an invitation to work with a high-powered company this week. The company seems to use Aikido as a teaching, team/building tool. I like that idea very much, and will be speaking with the CEO tomorrow to clarify things. I've spent hours this weekend trying to figure out how to relate the short version of how my teaching pedagogy evolved. It's been a long, long, odd road...

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If I assume that Bush's comment was sincere, it suggests a typical Yang view that communication equals appeasement. Pardon me, but it seems to me that vast and complex systems of diplomatic etiquette have evolved over the centuries precisely because countless rulers and generals found that communication with their enemies was VITAL. The other end of the spectrum is someone who thinks that conversations and communication can solve everything. Both ends are rigid and naive.

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Especially when dealing with a diffuse network (as world terrorism seems to be) such that the multi-billion dollar war machine cannot capture or even directly engage with the leader of the opposition, the idea that brute force could conceivably handle this just isn't a winner. But clearly, if one forgets for an instant that you are dealing with people willing to kill and die to accomplish their aims, that would be an equal error. The number of times I've heard Right-wingers talking about terrorists having no logical aims, not having human emotions, being cowards, or worshiping a demonic god tells me something: add up all the people who feel that way. What percentage of the Right do they compose? All right, cut off that percentage, then cut an equal percentage from the edge of the Far Left.

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The attitudes of the people in the middle will be the ones I consider to be rational enough to actually solve the problem. Everyone else is frozen. There are people who are total predators, or completely insane, and cannot be reasoned with at all. The tendency for people to think that members of Group X are fanatical, insane, stupid, animalistic, etc. is normal and a survival trait in certain instances. But what is hard for them to grasp is that it is no more efficient than talking and communicating. Violence and communication have to operate in a cycle. I suspect that, deep inside, almost everyone agrees with this: the only real question is the percentage of each.

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Of course, that's my perspective, based on fifty-six years of life and dealing with stress and challenge. Your experience may be different, and that experience would shape your attitudes. I honestly believe that we've been in a period of history where the more Male, hierarchical structure of worldwide power is going to yield to a more Feminine, non-hierarchical web-form. These are not "better or worse" approaches. They are different, and adherents of each approach tend to be afraid or dismissive of the other.

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The future belongs to those who can hold both possibilities.

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I think it comes down to what Sting said long ago: that there is nothing to fear from the Soviet Union, if the Russians love their children too. The same is true here. If the Arabs, the Muslims, and those among them who are radicalized love their own people, and their own children, then we can communicate with those among them who are sane. And I see no reason to believe that a higher percentage of US are sane than of "THEM."

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Trust me: if I can understand what white people, or men, or women, or black people have done over the years, I can understand every action of the Middle Eastern conflict with the same beliefs and observations of basic human nature. And I've kept myself and my family safe in some very hairy, potentially violent situations by assuming that most human beings are motivated not by "good" or "evil" but by fear and love. And noticed that those who think they are better, or that their enemies are worse, just seem to collect more enemies over time. Slowly, the world seems a more and more dangerous place.

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Of course, those who think the world is all lambs and butterflies are in for a serious awakening as well. No one becomes more cynical than the formerly open-hearted.

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Again, balance.

Stress and Strain

2008-05-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

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One of the things I hate about politics is the way opponents excoriate each other, then join hands and sing Kum-bah-Yah afterwards. The followers of the candidates seem to take it all much worse than the candidates themselves: note the blog comments by furious, heart-broken women pledging to work against Obama. I have no idea if equal percentages of Obama supporters would have been screaming if the percentages were reversed.

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But take a good look at this, if you want to understand something about human nature. And that is that when you look at a group that claims itself to be disadvantaged (and everybody belongs to one or another of such groups) as soon as they can identify their shared grievances, they begin to display the same self-destructive, name-calling, childish, self-centered, tunnel-visioned behavior that they often criticize in others. Blacks, gays, women, the obese, the poor, the rich (!), fringe political or religious groups, parties out of office...whatever the group, they say remarkably similar things. And I suspect that in one form or another, they often end up "burning down their own neighborhood." It's an interesting phenomenon, and as far as I can see, is wide-spread enough to feel universal.

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Jodie Foster just broke up with her girlfriend (supposedly). I kind of think that she came out of the closet, found out that it hurt her career, and ducked back in. I sense a similar pattern with Phillip Seymour Hoffman (about whom rumors were swirling, then he started making very public appearances with models on his arm) or Ann Heche. I think that we're very close to the place where people can simply be themselves in this sense...but not quite there. It's like Will Smith not having sex in movies--he is certainly big enough to say "I want it" but realizes it will hurt his box-office down the line. Gays in Hollywood are definitely disproportionate to the general population--they're actually making many of the decisions about what images will make it to the screen. The reason you don't see more gay stuff in movies is because it would hurt business, plain and simple. They're not crazy: they have to pay the bills. But the public isn't ready for that yet. Soon, though...

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But if gay men have sex in movies more often than blacks, I'm gonna be seriously pissed, I kid you not. Hell, they already have "Brokeback Mountain"...(although note the moral lesson embedded in the story line: have gay sex, and die. I've seen the same embedded lessons concerning interracial sex for forty years. Can't clearly remember a single movie with a black man having sex with a white woman, where one or the other didn't sustain tissue damage or SERIOUS emotional trauma during the film. Often, death.)

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Remember: stress isn't the problem. STRAIN is the problem: stress which has a negative effect on the organism. Before stress becomes strain, there are predictable physiological changes which occur. By learning to relax under stress (disciplines like martial arts, yoga, meditation, etc. do this) you are programming your nervous system with important, generative lessons. By selecting goals in the three major areas, you will run into whatever obstructions your unconscious mind uses to slow you down. Push forward, and you get stress. Keep the stress from becoming strain, and you get stronger. Eventually, you will find yourself on the other side of the barrier. The trick is consistent, flexible action: keeping the mountain in sight but trying this path, and then that one, asking native guides, consulting maps, forging rivers...trying again and again and again...until you reach your goal.

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Now, truth be told I know people who really don't need goals. They are already happy with where they are in all major life areas. These people have mastered an aspect of life: to simply do what you do, and still accomplish everything that needs to be done with a sense of grace, purpose, and joy. They are incredibly fortunate, and it is in modeling them that I'm reverse engineering the I.D.E.A. concept.

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The question of the day is: Have any of you known people who never really had specific goals, but just Zenned their way into a wonderful, satisfying, healthy life? What qualities did said people possess that seemed uncommon?

Victory for love...

2008-05-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

The California Supreme court just overturned the ban on gay marriage. Works for me.
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Thanks for the Mommies commenting on Libertarianism. The majority of people I've heard speak about it genuinely seemed to believe that if you can't afford to pay the fire department, it doesn't matter if your house burns down. I want the smallest possible government, the same as anyone else. I've never met a single human being who told me he wanted "the largest possible government." The only question seems to be what services should be part of the Commons. Not an argument I have expertise in, although I've opinions, just like anyone else...
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Notice with the Tibetans, people commenting about their resistance? Excellent. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT. When you have a physical pattern that provides genuine benefits (especially for the sedentary) and you can't find five minutes for them, something is very, very wrong. And frankly, I have never seen a human being who was genuinely that busy, unless they were emotionally disturbed. So you get a damned fine chance to examine your thoughts, feelings, and ask yourself what the hell is really going on.
Now note: I'm not saying that the Tibetans are better than yoga--but I do think that the specific benefits have a better payoff per minute for the first 15 minutes. Mighty fine. Concentrate on breathing, and you have a meditation that works body, mind, and emotions just dandy. And DON'T advance faster than adding two reps a week--that's another way your ego tries to keep you from changing, by pushing yourself too fast, so that you can get hurt and say "gee, I tried..."
If you want faster results, start walking up hills, or taking an aerobics class, or weight training, or something. But as for the Tibetans...slow and steady.

Libertarian Mommies?

2008-05-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Hillary on her victory yesterday. Anyone think it made a difference?

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I think we can all agree that intelligence isn't just what's tested on a piece of paper. Still, SOMETHING is being tested there, and I think it's valid to seek to quantify mental qualities. Still, without the emotional balance or leverage to actually power our life actions, intellect isn't close to enough. I've known too many people who created great complex models of the world, but didn't actually test their assumptions. Then they complain if the world doesn't behave as they predicted, and actually blame God for "errors." Cracks me up when I hear people who don't exercise intelligently suggest that design flaws are responsible for their bad backs. If they never changed their car's oil, and the engine died, they can hardly blame the design. This is one reason why I am so insistent on the Body-Mind-Emotions framework: it is simply too easy to bullshit yourself if you're not careful.

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And speaking of denial, I have a question for you guys. The vast majority of Libertarians I've ever heard discuss their philosophy have been men. Most of them single. Are there any Libertarian gals out there, especially with children? Love to hear your perspective: right now, I strongly suspect that the Libertarian position is the essence of "I've got mine, get yours if you can" and that childlessness tends to feed the sense that an individual human being is separate from the society around them. If equal percentages of mothers can be found here as among Democrats and Republicans, I sit corrected.

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Over on the discussion board, I mentioned some ways of making the Tibetans tougher. This is totally unnecessary for most people, just an option. Truth is, the Tibetans are a breathing meditation, with sufficient intensity to force you to focus. For the out-of-shape, by the time you can do 21 reps you will have made a serious impact on your health. But they are primarily concerned with longevity: stress reduction, joint integrity, balanced muscle tone and so forth. Those who want to play with the effects would probably find that if they want a higher level of fitness they can use the Tibetans just to warm-up, then do their workout.

The other thing to consider is that even if you are only doing three a day, most people will find it MURDER to do them daily. The strength of their body-mind connection just isn't strong enough.

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Working on "In the Night of the Heat" right now--to turn it in Friday. Keep your fingers crossed.

Keeping Your Word

2008-05-13T09:20:00.001-07:00

I worked with a group of execs last Saturday at Moonview, and for multiple reasons used the Tibetans to anchor the conversation, rather than FlowFit. I can teach FlowFit during one-on-one sessions, or if I have a continuing relationship. But what if the client is walking out the door in an hour, and I'll never see them again?

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I have to give them something to shift their breathing, which can have a massively powerful effect on stress levels. And the Tibetans seem my best bet for this, due to simplicity. A note: if you can keep your breathing low and slow, even under stress, you can keep it from devolving to strain. And if you can prevent stress from becoming strain, the organism responds by becoming stronger. Assuming you've chosen goals in all three arenas, and are moving toward them, stress will come at you fast and furious...but if you maintain your forward progress while staying centered, you will grow.

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Note please how much of this is related to keeping your word to yourself. Discipline. Honesty. If you want to increase your motivation to do something, come up with a dozen solid reasons for doing it. Invariably, when someone says they can't maintain a program of some kind, when you ask them their reasons for sticking to it, those reasons are weak and watery. There's no bedrock there. If you are serious about doing something you've never done, you have to have more reasons to DO it than to AVOID it. That requires digging deep.

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For instance: if you commit to I.F., or the Tibetans, or writing a thousand words a day, or meditating daily, or spending an hour a day in direct communication with your family...I promise you that if these things are not a part of your life already, you will devise countless "reasonable" reasons not to do them.

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And what it boils down to is: can you keep your word to yourself, or not? If you can, you can accomplish miracles. If you cannot, it simply doesn't matter how smart you are, or what skills you have. You will never accomplish all you could in life, for that single reason. Learning to tell yourself the truth, learning to keep focus, learning to calm the mind until the illusions peel away...these are core steps along the path to self discovery.

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If you cannot keep your word to yourself, I beg you not to pursue an artistic freelance career. Go after a job where someone will breathe down your neck, and force you to stay on-task. Otherwise, down the road, you will be in for serious pain. And I mean hitting-the-skids, can't-earn-a-living type pain.

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And the question of the day is: without naming names, who was the person you knew with the highest level of potential, who crashed and burned the worst due to their own actions/inactions? To what personality flaw would you attribute this?

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Speed Racer (2008)

2008-05-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

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In terms of results for the Five Tibetans:

1) Merely taking five minutes a day and dedicating it to yourself, if this has been difficult for you, would make a difference. Understand something: I believe that in 99.9% of cases, people who say they don't have time are lying to themselves. They mean "I don't make the time" or "I don't take the time" or "I don't want to deal with my body, and I use anything and everything as an excuse not to." So the single move to a position of ".5% of my life belongs to me..." is the beginning. Sometimes you have to fight to take your life back from the world.

2) If you are not in shape, you will definitely feel it by the time you have been on the program for six weeks.

3) If you concentrate on your breathing, and use the "be breathed" protocol, you should feel an increase in energy.

4) If you deal with any issues of joint integrity or stiffness, you will feel it strongly.

5) The more meditative aspects are difficult to speak of: but if you can stay with the breathing, and stay in a Flow state for the entire ritual, it becomes easier to access that Flow in other aspects of your life.

6) Remember--objects at rest stay at rest. Objects in motion tend to remain in motion. Taking ANY action regularly tends to motivate you to take other actions. If you develop the discipline to do the Tibetans daily, you will probably find it easier to take other actions, as well.

7) If you integrate the Five Minute Miracle approach (breathing for 60 second blocks several times during the day) you can reduce the negative effects of stress massively.

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I think people misunderstood my comment about the seating of Michigan and Florida. My perception is that people who twist the rules beyond a certain point can be trusted to do nothing except look out for their own self-interests. In other words, it doesn't matter what they've said, at all. I would rather deal with an honest person who voices views contrary to mine (within limits) than a dishonest one who talks the talk. Obviously, this is a tricky area. But it isn't just not wanting Hillary as the candidate--if she can convince the Superdelegates to vote for her, that might well be back-room dealing, but I can live with that.

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I DO really resent what I see as an all-out playing of both race and gender cards on her part. I have friends and family who are deeply offended by her recent comments. I am not, although I am wary of them...her comments suggesting that her supporters are racists are quite interesting: I'm not certain if she's saying that she understands them because she, personally, feels the same way...or that she understands them but considers them beneath her (not as evolved socially). I'm not entirely certain what the third option is. But regardless, I consider that to be ugly politics but not beyond the limits of what I've seen in that arena my whole life. So...I don't react to that one as strongly.

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But when I see her campaign manager suggesting that it doesn't matter that Obama's name wasn't on the ballot, I realize that our world views are different enough that I literally have NO idea who she really is. And that disturbs me deeply. If she gets the nomination through means I don't like? I'll sit down with Hillary supporters, or Democratic partisans, and hear what they have to say about the whole thing. I'm just being honest that that particular situation makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

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Suzanne asked me about balance in relationship to McCain. I don't see him as being any less balanced than Hillary, frankly. I do think he sold himself out for his political ambitions, but I see that tendency in politics in general--one of the reasons I like Obama is that I don't believe he's sold as much of himself.

But his stance on gay issues would disturb me--especially if he has actually voted to support those public attitudes. Looking into the gap between his words and his actions, especially if he has broken agreements, would be the line of investigation I would pursue in determining my vote.

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My guess? The Florida-Michigan thing would turn out to be politics as usual, and I'm just too ignorant to grasp how often this shit happens. Sigh. And I'd end up voting Hillary and holding my breath. Dammit, I hate politics. It's certainly preferable to open war, though.

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Any questions about the Tibetans should probably be left here on the blog, or over on the discussion group. Modifications, observations, anything at all. Remember: if you already have a physical practice that covers the basic spinal flexions, and focuses your breathing, you're not going to get a huge amount of change from adding a 10-minute practice. And the Tibetans aren't one of those "toast your ass in 15-minutes" programs (like, for instance, Hindu pushups-squats or Kettlebell C & J ladders or something) but health is more basic than fitness. And they really aren't "exercise" primarily, although they can be used for that effect. More than anything, they are a ritual of checking in with your bones, your flesh, and your breath. Every day. For the rest of your life.

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Or hey, for ten weeks, any way.

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People asked about getting feedback if you don't have professional level editors among your friends. I would suggest:

1) Find a writing partner and sharing your approach with her, and growing together.

2) Use the Lifewriting approach: take the Hero's Journey and the Chakras. Specifically have your readers criticize your work based upon their ability to discern the stages of the journey, or the clarity of characterization in relation to the chakras. Don't ask whether the story is "good" or "bad"--just look into the structure. Do similar exercises with other stories, books, movies. Watch and read them together, and then discuss--from the VERY specific POV of Lifewriting. Of course, you could use another writing structure as well. The point is to shift focus away from the subjective "good or bad" to the question "does the story's skeleton support its flesh?" Plot and Characterization.

3) The above approach would work with other forms of writing as well--get the focus off the subjective evaluation of quality, and onto whatever structures of form apply.

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Kind of interesting that part of the contrast between Obama and McCain is that Obama is more willing to speak to our enemies. My personal inclination is always toward more communication, but I suspect that this is more a matter of personal style and philosophy than any kind of strict superiority of one approach over another. It would be interesting to see if anyone has ever done a study evaluating the comparative efficacy of each approach.

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Saw "Speed Racer" over the weekend. Oh, it's fun, and unique visually. And bombing at the box office. So much for live-action anime. The acting is actually rather good, considering, and its story of a born race-car driver in a futuristic world is more of a family drama than one would expect. But it's also frenetic and eye-blistering, and unless you are in touch with your inner eight-year-old, I can't recommend it. A B-.

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And took Jason to see "Forbidden Kingdom" with Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Liked it better than I did the first time, and suspect it may be the best English-language martial film ever made. All the the critiques of it compare it to classic Chinese films. I don't think that's fair. While Sergio Leone DID make several classic Westerns, in general it's harder than hell for someone from one culture to make a serious contribution to the art forms of another. And I've heard several people complain that "it took Hollywood too long to get these titans together..." Excuse me? It was Hollywood that got them together at all. Where was the Chinese cinema on that matter? I mean, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly never starred in a movie together (Let's not count "That's Entertainment" or "Zigfield Follies") and if a Chinese filmmaker had done it, it wouldn't really be fair to criticize them for "taking so long" now, would it..?

##

And the question of the day is: what movies, or movie parings, do you wish had been made? What were you yearning to see that never happened?

ﾠI mean, I would LOVE to have seen Connery as Gandalf. It almost happened. On the other hand, he might have overpowered the role. Just...I would have given a lot for his last film role to have been a real capper. A bang, not a whimper. Ah, well...

New Toy

2008-05-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

ﾠ
Got myself a new toy, a "reflex bag"--one of those speed bags that sits on a stalk, Jason and I can both play with it, and it's great fun to integrate into the other stuff. I'm also picking the Tibetans back up, using them as my cool-down after the workout. Seemed to work fine yesterday.

##

The Kindle still seems to be one hell of a piece of equipment. There is a bit of reflection from the page, but that's easily compensated for. No problem. I suspect that I'll concentrate on classic texts I would refer to again and again more than books I'm only likely to read once, or more contemporary work. The Complete Dickens? The meditations of Marcus Aurelius? The possibilities are endless.

#

Had a great time with Guru Cliff Stewart last night. He didn't seem depressed about the Snipes situation, which was comforting. He loves Wes dearly, and had a hard time keeping his anger tamped down. Trust me: you don't want to get Cliff angry. Kind of a scary guy...

#

Watching the national election, I still think that an Obama-Clinton ticket would solve more problems than it caused. Even if she wrangled the superdelegates into line, I would vote for her...unless she gets those Michigan and Florida delegates seated in a way that feels like a cheat. That would feel like a subversion of the democratic process, and frankly, I might vote for McCain. I'd rather vote for someone who strikes me as being more honest--even if I disagree with him on many things. If she would get those delegates seated, I have no idea at all where her ethics really are, and that is simply too much of an unknown for me. So, Hillary...stay away from that one, but otherwise fight on to your heart's content.

Hell, I like a good scrap.
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I hear "Speed Racer" is pure cotton-candy. Probably take Jason this weekend.

##
Finishing "Night of the Heat" (the sequel to "Casanegra") will be followed by finishing the script of "Good House" for Fox. Busy, busy...and this year could be wonderful. I want that script to be as close to perfect as I can get it. This might be the best chance I ever get in Hollywood, and if it is, I want to know I brought my A-game. I can handle losing. I can't handle not feeling I did my best.

Intent of Education...

2008-05-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

ﾠI don't see the slightest problem with emphasizing that parents must prepare their students for school. But the part of my mind I was engaging here was the one that works backwards from the end goal: not a perfect or complete method, but useful. Like saying: I want to prepare a tasty, healthy meal that will both nourish and bond my family." The first step might well be cleaning the kitchen, but the clean kitchen in THIS context is a means rather than an end.
#

Thanks for the thoughts about education. Ethics, sex education, etc...all good. In terms of the "replace their parents" comment, and the skills required by an 18-year old...I say select the toughest set, and aim our kids at that. And yes, overall, a love of learning...and life itself...is critical.
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In terms of eating discipline and the Tibetans, a minimum of care would be that you don't DECREASE your quality and/or increase the quantity as you integrate your Tibetans. Remember: your ego will try to convince you you cannot change. One of the simplest ways to do this is to subtly increase the amount you eat as you start exercising.

Now, what would happen if someone combined the Tibetans and, say, Intermittent Fasting? I am seriously, seriously curious about this, and am going to experiment on myself.
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In terms of T and I spending so much time apart...I notice it when we're under stress, and I want to be cautious, to remember that you can't take intimacy and connectedness for granted. We absolutely have to function both separately and together. But I'd rather be too concerned than not concerned enough...
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Those who want to try the Tibetans for ten weeks, we'll track the results here. Start with three repetitions, and add two week (at most). One nice thing is that it is so easy to track the results.

When we know what level (3-21) you have reached, and what problems being experienced, we can begin to explore some of the connection between mind, and body, and life.

#
If you reach a plateau with one Tibetan, your best course is to perform that Tibetan multiple times during the day--use the principle of Synaptic Facilitation to help you. You can also change the leverage, placing the hands on a set of stairs, for instance, to make #5 easier. Obviously, if there are weight concerns, the discipline necessary to perform ANYTHING daily (and this is a 7-days-a-week commitment) gives you discipline in other areas as well.

#

Concentrate on breathing. Work to make the entire enterprise one long unbroken string of breath. If you can keep the emphasis there, you will multiply the results. In terms of the esoteric qualities of the exercise...you know, I have found it does little good to discuss those things directly. Most people who integrate a meditative or spiritual practice into their lives will start noticing some interesting things on their own. No need to lead the conversation...

#

I think I can agree that it was a miscue to try to get everyone to college. Trade schools would be just fine for large numbers of people. My problem is that I hear people coupling trade-school recommendations to I.Q tests, and I.Q. tests to race. In other words, I am sensitive to a classest argument here: people in favor of trade schools for some rarely believe that THEIR children are going there. It's always someone else's kids. Who aren't quite as smart. And whether this is legitimate or not, I cannot forget that environment can have a massive effect on school performance. That said, it would make sense for a couple of generations of trade school might create the family stability necessary to allow your grandchildren to walk confidently through the doors of a college.

I cannot but remain cautious, until I feel that the tests and decisions are being made by a better cross-section of the populous being judged. I am perfectly aware that this is a personal hot-button issue. But what the hell: we've all got them.
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The Question of the Day Is: Is there anything I haven't discussed in a while you'd like me to address?

Five Tibetans Challenge

2008-05-06T14:49:00.001-07:00

Mushtaq has gotten me interested in talking about the Tibetans again. You can find them at:
http://www.mkprojects.com/pf_TibetanRites.htm

I've been looking for the simplest way of communicating with students via internet, and the challenges people face in claiming ten minutes a day to take care of their bodies is a perfect microcosm of the total picture. I'm looking for people who have no real physical program now--especially those out of shape. If you're in shape, you're going to think they are calisthenics, and they are not (although they have a calisthenic effect). So if you've tried them already and not found them particularly useful, fine...this call isn't for you. But I'd like to open this conversation and see what results. I'm looking for people willing to do the Tibetans daily, seven days a week, starting at three repetitions per Tibetan. Takes five minutes or less to begin. Keep with it for ten weeks.

My guess? Anyone combining this with any kind of dietary discipline at ALL will have tremendous results...but I want to perform the experiment and see what happens.

And the question of the day is...is there anyone interested in trying this?

Leaving Des Moines

2008-05-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

ﾠ
Sitting in my hotel room in Des Moines, waiting for my airport ride. Had a great weekend. Got to have a few conversations about things that really matter to me, and that makes a good con...

##

I must be closer to a breakthrough somewhere in my life than I thought--I can feel my nafs (a Sufi term roughly equivalent to kinks in my wiring) heating up. I can also see where T and I have some matching, complementary weaknesses that we will have to work through if we're going to operate cleanly on the next level of our career goals--I can see how we each have a tendency to isolate ourselves from each other slightly. We can go a day working in the same house and barely interact, if we're busy enough. That will not do. We both deserve better.

##

I'm luring Larry Niven onto Buzzword. We'd reached a stall with the fourth Dream Park book, but we may have found an exciting way through it. I'll say more later, but right now I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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A number of you had worked with the Five Tibetans. Is there anyone who was out of shape who worked their way to twenty-one repetitions? What was your experience? How about someone who was already in shape? I'd love to hear it, because I'm listening to what Mushtaq has been doing with his students, and he's getting tremendous results. I'm leaning toward including them in the Seven Secrets (Gawd! What am I going to have to omit?) because if I tell people they can make a real, concrete change in their fitness in about an hour a week, I need to do more than supply hyperlinks to the info. I need to actually lay out one such program. The Tibetans are the best I've seen at combining the following advantages:

1) with slight modifications, anyone can do them.

2) They take no equipment

3) They take little time

4) They take little space

5) You can learn them from a book or video

6) They cover a wide range of basic health/fitness needs.

ﾠ
Now in truth, they were never designed or taught specifically for fitness--they clearly have to do with joint and endocrine health. But it is possible to tart 'em up to make them tougher, once you've reached 21 reps. Anyway...does anyone have an experience on the matter to share?
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The weekend box office for Iron Man was over 200 Million dollars worldwide, on a movie that cost 130 million. That's 3 1/2 days, folks. THAT'S why I'm willing to toil in the Hollywood vineyard (well, at least part of it.) IF I can get through the studio development process successfully, and create a profitable film, it might be possible to make enough money to last a lifetime (at the rate I spend it). That's worth the gamble. Artists have a very hard time living a middle-class lifestyle--unless they're married to non-artists who take mundane jobs to help balance out the cash flow. Generally, they are mostly poor as churchmice...with a few wealthy ones. Guess which one I'd prefer to be, all things being equal?
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Got into a conversation with a group of fen about what they saw as the sorry state of our education system. My thoughts, of course, go immediately to "all right, what would even a THEORETICAL fix be, quite separate from the question of political implementation. And that, to me, should start with the question: what should the end result of a 12-year public school education be? To my surprise, a clear definition was not forthcoming. More "umms" and "ahhhs" than answers. My definition is incomplete, but would include the following:
"By graduation, every student should be basically capable of replacing an average member of his parent's generation in terms of earning enough money to support him/herself and a family, and being culturally savvy enough to be an honest, voting citizen."
Whatever else should be aspired to, any system that does not seek to replicate itself is dead in a generation. Anyway, those are my partial thoughts on the subject. Yours?

I'm

KIndle First Impressions

2008-05-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with it for about a week. Thoughts:

1) No one would want a cell phone the size of a Kindle. However, once you've got a Kindle, it would be cool to add cell phone functionality.

2) The elastic strap on the carrying case is a little too wide. When used to hold the kindle in place, it obscures either the menu bar or a bit of text.

3) After a lifetime of reading, I'm adjusting to this thing FAST. There are kinesthetic cues to reading, that help us enter the trance state of reading. The Kindle lacks several of these (shape, weight, heft, feel, etc.) But I can read one-handed as I've never been able to with a book, and the ease of it makes slipping into a reading trance really sweet. It works.

4) I've purchased four books through the Amazon Store. Works perfectly. You shouldn't leave the wireless on when you're not using it. Wireless off, it goes thirty hours on a charge. Wireless on, about three. Two hours to charge it.

5) I've put five documents on it. You email the documents to your own personal kindle address. Costs a dime a shot. Bliss. Question: eventually, spammers will find this. I hope Amazon's spam filter is top-notch.

6) No eye strain.

7) Free internet. Yep. Hidden back a couple of menus is the web browser. You can set up a Google gmail account, and get free email, paid for by everybody else's purchases on Amazon. This is the future.

8) Overall, I'd say that they've exceeded the minimum threshold for an actually usable electronic book that will finally open that market up. Linking to the Amazon store for instant download is insane. Everyone else is going to have to measure up, but when they do...wow. And with volume, the price comes down. Classics for a dime, or free.

I look at iPhone, the Two Hundred Dollar computer, the Kindle, Buzzword...and I think I am living in the future I always believed in. Great to be alive. The Kindle is for real, and it's going to change things.

Iron Man (2008)

2008-05-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

Had a marvelous time. They're really, finally learning how to make comic-book movies. I'd put this in the top three or four, up with "Superman II", "Spiderman II", and "Batman Returns" (I would have put Blade, but there's that pesky Sambo factor going on there: no true humanity). The story of Tony Stark, gazillionare genius playboy who becomes enlightend to the way his family's arms business has damaged the world...and builds a syber-suit to undo some of the damage...is closely based on the 1964-ish comic book origin story (swapping Afghanistan for Viet Nam). It is getting truly spooky to see just how fertile the original Marvel Bullpin was. Stan Lee is a god, and Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Don Heck...all the guys who co-created (the Marvel creative technique was clearly quite collaborative, giving the artists much greater leeway than DC. There is controversy about what Stan did or didn't do...but one thing is certain: none of these artists were as creative anywhere else they worked. Stan was either the genuine creator, co-creator, or a stimulus/calalyst par excellence. For a Marvel geek like me, watching all of this happen is just too much fun for words. Final note: DO stick around for the full credits. As rumored, there is indeed a surprise. The actors are great, the effects are great, some of the best movie dialog in a comic book film ever ever ever. What incredible fun. An "A"
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I never insult people on my blog. Hopefully, when I accused Frank of "mischief" he knows that I mean I think he's engaging in a little political gamesmanship, kindly offering advice to those across the aisle. Wink wink. No offense meant. It's a clever tactic.
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I'm in Iowa for Demicon. Looking forward to it: haven't been in Iowa for a couple of decades. Jeeze...I'm beginning to forget which states I've been in! Maybe...thirty.
And the question of the day is: how many states have you visited?
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Oh--the "Obama's black advantage" thing came up again. I want to make it clear: it isn't that I don't think that, in some ways, being black hasn't been an advantage. It's that I believe that unless you understand and factor in the ways it has been a disadvantage you are only looking at one half of the equation. And up until this time, I have understood and anticipated every explanation for the "advantages", while the people who promote the idea of advantage seem to me to have little idea of the disadvantages (from my point of view.) Without enumerating, debating and weighing both advantages and disadvantages, it is difficult to come to a conclusion here. I would love to hear a convincing argument, but remember the "Will Smith can't have sex" thing that I'm obsessed with: I believe it demonstrates the "invisible hand of racism in the marketplace." I may be wrong, but so long as I believe that to be true, I hope you can see why it would be almost impossible for me to buy Obama's ethnicity being, overall, any kind of real advantage. It is also worthwhile to note that I've never met a white person who let themselves see this before I pointed it out to them. And about 90% of black people know it before I say it. My position is that there are lots of other factors, many of them trickier to prove (movie stats are easy to get, which makes this particular factoid a keeper) but just as indicative of a serious issue. While I believe that people believing Obama to have an advantage on the basis of race to be well-intended, experience also suggests to me that they want to believe white people are...well, are considerably nicer than I think human beings actually are, or that history suggests any of us to be. In potential? Sure. In practice? Wellll....

Self-Image and success

2008-04-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I take off for Iowa. Today is a mad dash, getting everything together for the trip. Included in what I have to do is talk to Jason's preschool teacher. Apparently, he was making reference to the karate games we play, talking about how he was "going to kick Daddy in the face and the back and the butt..." Needless to say, she was a bit disturbed.

#

I think that Nicki hit a node of insecurity about her future chances to be an actress. Self-doubt is a part of human existence, and for the artist...fuggitaboddit. In general, artists either have a drive to create that obliterates considerations, or an ego so huge that it overshadows their fears and doubts. What I have to do is help her craft another way...born of genuine Self-exploration. I may need to guide her toward more of a safety net, however. Say...a Masters, which would allow her to teach. But this Summer she will be serving an Internship at a small movie studio. That will give her some real-world experience, and hopefully, a taste of the real world.

ﾠ

I suspect her self-image is going to have to shift, and that will be a tough one. It requires either major life shifts or long hard work to shift our concepts of self. They form to protect us (or our society) and any break-up of these constructs can be traumatic.

ﾠ

The trouble is when your self-image is "A" and your conscious goals or values are "B." You can tear yourself to pieces, and destroy your self confidence battering into the limits of image as you strive to reach goals, lose weight, form healthier relationships, or whatever.

ﾠ

The "Psycho-Cybernetics" approach is to visualize (and emotionalize) the successful completion of your task. To see yourself vividly as the kind of person who can do it. This probably requires about...twenty minutes a day. That number keeps coming up.

ﾠ

A deeper approach is to clear the mental stage altogether, and then build upon that empty clarity. This requires more patience--it doesn't seem that anything is happening at first. The advantage is that progress, when made, seems more genuine. To visualize the goal without removing the rubble of past self-image and personal history can be like building a house over a cesspool without draining it.

ﾠ

From my perspective, the difference between art and craft is that art demands both craft (technique) and self-expression. The deeper your contact with your true self, the easier it is to eschew what others have done in your field, and make a genuine contribution to the cultural dialog, based upon clarity rather than imitation.

#

Jerimiah Wright is genuinely rat-fucking Obama's campaign, so far as I'm concerned. And this is where I think that the idea that Obama's race somehow works to his advantage is absurd. IF he could LOOK black without any of the load or damage, perhaps. That goes along with my observation that he has an advantage in his father being African, rather than African-American. He did not inherit certain aspects of slavery's legacy. On the other hand, in order to have a community, he had to associate with those who did and do suffer that legacy--the walking wounded. Unless he wanted to walk alone (or almost exclusively among whites) he probably had to look at himself as a doctor among patients. Wright's politically loaded sermons probably hit him as "wow. People are really, really hurt and frightened. I must find a way to help." When stuff started coming out on Utube, the politically expedient thing to do would have been to utterly reject. "Not "A", but rather "B". Instead he tried to resolve the duality, "Both A and B"--the comments were abhorrent, but represent an honest set of emotions that whites would feel were historical positions reversed.

ﾠ

The controversy was dying down until Wright started his traveling show. Now, regardless of what Obama says, one thing is true: he is constantly reminding America that he is black. Over and over again. Endlessly, in every news cycle. And that (I believe) is a losing position. In my own professional life, I've noticed that if I can keep people's attention on the project, I can get the job. But if race comes up in the conversation before the deal is sealed...I'm screwed. If he could have kept the conversation off race, he had a chance.

ﾠ

Like I've said: if Will Smith can't get laid, Obama can't get elected. And vice-versa. Just my take on it. But it looks to me like Jerimiah Wright's ego is out of control. He claims to be protecting "the black church" but most of his comments have been personal. Sadly, I don't buy it.

ﾠ

But if Obama doesn't win, the sad thing will be all the black folks who say: "see! Nothing has changed" without realizing the absurdity of that position. Massive change has occurred. A path has been marked out. A black man with zero baggage can make it now--that simply wasn't true a generation ago. A generation from now, he'll be able to have baggage, like a normal human being. I see nothing but ultimate positives in what has happened here, in the sense that an accurate diagnosis is ALWAYS better than having the doctor lie to you, or make a mistake. Unless I believe blacks are inferior, I know we'll work it out. The only way to do that is with clarity. I think Barack Obama is remarkable, really more of a philosopher than a politician, and it will be fascinating to see how this all plays out. I'm determined not to be too depressed or exalted, no matter what. And as long as Hillary fights (relatively) clean? I'll be happy to vote for her.

What, if anything, will we learn?

2008-04-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

ﾠIRON MAN is coming this weekend, and all the buzz seems to be spectacular. I'm GOH at a Con in Iowa this weekend, so I'll have to check it out with some fans in Des Moine...and can't wait. I certainly read Iron Man when I was a kid. He was a superhero in the Batman mode--he created himself. But I suspect that it is easier to imagine yourself as Ironman. If you could just get that damned flying suit...

Strange synchronicity this last weekend. I was embroiled in two different controversies, using the same modes of thought, ended up accused both times of having a closed mind. One was the whole question of whether men control the world to their benefit. The other was whether 9/11 was a conspiracy. The 9/11 question came from an old friend who is VERY convinced that a small cabal of truly evil people pretty much ran the whole thing with radio-controlled planes, demolition charges, etc. And she has a vast storehouse of video clips, web pages, etc. that she feels I have to sort my way through, answering every question, in order to have an opinion.

No, I don't. I take short cuts. If I have a single question that seems really pertinent, and I can't get an answer to it, I feel no obligation to go deeper down the rabbit hole. There are infinite rabbit holes, each of which will swallow your life with time and energy. Everybody takes short cuts. i take them about some controversial topics, in public. With 9/11 the stopper for me were two questions. One had to do with the fact that her theory, well fleshed out, demanded that a little group of Europeans is running the world. I pointed out that the Chinese would be amused to hear that theory, and told her that she had one hell of a lot more respect for white people than I did. The second is that her theory demands a conspiracy involving hundreds or thousands of people. I don't believe in such things, and unless she could show me how it could be carried out by fewer people, or make me believe in gigantic utterly silent conspiracies involving thousands of engineers, airline pilots, demolition experts, military personnel, intelligence officers and on and on...I just don't buy it, no matter how much data she has piled up.

And the same thing is true on the other issue. If I say there are flying saucers, and I think there's one behind the barn, until you look at what I have behind the barn and explain it, it literally doesn't matter how many experts you produce, or pages of official debunking. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT BEHIND MY BARN? Josh sent us a link to a paper he implies deals with some of the issues I mention (My belief is that if men were in charge, they'd actually shape life to their advantage. Since I don't believe that life operates to their advantage, I have a very hard time believing they're in charge. Part of my evidence for this is the death rate, both due to natural causes, disease, hazardous occupations, and violence. Without a context to understand how this is dealt with in an explanation of men's control of the world, I reserve the right to disagree)

It was a coincidence that both of these issues, similar in their expression of a particular mode of thought I have, would be stressed during the same 2-day period. Not sure if it means anything at all, but I can feel that I developed a real need to communicate my position without offense, but also without being intimidated. I only bring this up again because Suzanne was asking why I kept talking about it.

I grant that there's been massive amounts of intelligent and honorable feminist research. As there has been massive, intelligent and honorable amounts of racial/Afrocentric research. Never have I suggested that white people needed to be familiar with it to understand race relations. All I've ever said you needed was to actually know and talk to black people, and extend them the exact same humanity you extend to members of your family, and reserve for yourself. I fail to see how playing by the same rules in both contexts is in any way disrespectful or dismissive of women or those who love them.
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I've been writing on BUZZWORD for the last few weeks. Except for the moments in which my internet gets funky, it works almost perfectly. I understand that Adobe is developing an offline version that will meld with it seamlessly. Can't wait.
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Went to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire on Sunday, and could only stay for about three hours. It was blistering hot. It was also smaller and less well attended than in many years past. And the frozen ices, which I've loved for twenty-five years, were smaller and of a changed formulation--they've become commercialized. I swear I could taste preservatives. Sigh. I remember John D. MacDonald complaining that whenever a good thing is created, it is mass-marketed and made a little cheaper and tackier. That may be kicking in here...
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Jason is watching Curious George this morning, sitting next to me on the couch while I write this. I have to admit to liking the monkey quite a bit. No matter what kind of mess he makes, he always has the best of intentions, and usually ends up making the situation better.
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Thom Hartmann did an interesting survey on his radio show. He talked to Clinton or Obama supporters and asked them to give an "elevator talk" for the opposite candidate. And in most cases, they could not. The situation really has gotten bad. I don't remember whether in pat years, given similar acrimony, a party has healed sufficiently to defeat the opposition. It's going to be interesting to watch.
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The questions of race and gender in America regarding politics seems to me to miss something. When people look at Hillary and talk about her toughness and pugnacity, or at Obama and talk about his articulateness and transcendent nature, they are touching on this. And what I'm seeing is that the question of whether America is ready for a female president, or a black president, is missing something.

Because the people who say "yes" in both cases are, I think, actually saying
"America will vote for a man with a vagina and breasts. Or a white person with black skin." Hillary seems to believe--and she may be right--that she has to out-guy the guys to have a chance. And Obama's greatest problem relates directly to race--Reverend Wright. For comparison, if Hillary had a dear friend and mentor who had committed violence as an Abortion activist, and that association had become a major campaign issue, it would be reasonable to say that her gender had turned into a stumbling block.

In both cases, questions of her marriage, his ethnicity, etc. have dogged them. Underneath the questions, I think it's fair to say that so long as America can see her as a man with feminine genetics, or Obama as a white person who happens to have half-African features, that the fact of gender or race is irrelevant. But she isn't. And neither is he. A remarkable thing about both of them is that they DO fit the gender and/or race-neutral roles so well. The real question is: what happens when they have to deal directly with the issues that relate to these factors, and how does it affect their chances? Just a thought. I'm not sure whether it would be better for them, or the country, if the issues never came up, or if they were front-and-center from the beginning. Hey--the very same might be true for McCain and age. Three very important issues onstage simultaneously. What an election THIS is! Americans are about to learn a lot about themselves, if they pay attention.

And the question of the day is: what, if anything, do you think we'll learn?

Answering a request

2008-04-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

ﾠI was asked to try to prove my point about men not really being in control using a similar methodolgy to what I used with black men and sexuality. If this feels like torturous logic to some, all I can say is that I'm not screwing around with you: it's genuinely the way I think.

ﾠHere's how I reason:

ﾠ1) If someone is in control, they modify the situation so that it is either even, or to their advantage.

2) If the situation is to their advantage, the disadvantaged group should have a diminished life expectancy, and a diminished perceived quality of life.

3) There are very obvious and incontestable horrors perpetrated upon women by men, as well as a generalized oppression.

4) I believe that there is an evolutionary force, which prepares and creates males to fulfill a protective role that also involves increased aggression.

5) Both men and women are programmed to consider men's lives less important than women's. It is for this reason that the statistics for men's longevity or violent death don't enter into the discussion: they just don't matter as much.

6) Okay, here's where I use the same method: An evidence that men's lives are not as valuable as women's can be found in popular entertainment. Look at the movies that have earned over 100 million dollars--in other words, which have been totally embraced by our culture. On a list of almost 400 films, I can find only two (Fatal Attraction, and Chicago) in which more women die than men. There are several where whole cities go up (or a ship goes down), of course--these pretty much cancel out. But there are more than fifty where the death toll for men as opposed to women ranges from 10:1 (Maybe Forrest Gump?) to many hundreds to zero (300?). Who cares? They're drones. Men's lives don't count. In fact, millions of men and women (myself included) find it quite entertaining to watch men die. The closest equivilent is slasher movies--and even there plenty of men are slaughtered. It is possible that more women die in these films--I think it could go either way. But one thing is certain: they are nowhere near as indicative of a broad cultural mood, or programming. They typically make 20-40 million, no where near the level we're discussing.

We program little boys to think it glorious to get their balls shot off. We put glorious images of noble death in every medium known to man: story, song, poem, movies, television--there is not escaping it. I grasp what the negative effects have been, and are, but know that both men and women collaborate in the programming of boys and girls. The result is useful--but it isn't pretty. I'm not saying its evil to create the images (I've done plenty of it myself), I'm saying that you have to grasp that we are all playing parts in a game that doesn't much care about us as individuals.

While many--including many men--think men are in control, I disagree. I think our genes are both blessing and cluster-fucking both sides of the equation.

ﾠIf I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I'm not trying to make some kind of political point, and I have no agenda other than freedom and equality for all sentient beings. Any other conclusion you come to can be attributed to imperfect communication on my part, and I apologize. No offense was intended, at all.

Response to the recent comments

2008-04-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

1) I never said men don't control more executive positions and overstructure power. I said that that isn't the only form of power or control.
2) I have never denied a single fact that has been quoted or suggested about women being abused, under-compensated, denied the vote, or whatever. My only point has been that these statistics never take into account the factors that are to the detriment of men--like dying violent deaths.
3) Suzanne, was that link intended to be a gentle chide? If so, sure, I'm a man who talks about the way the world looks from my position. Like there are women who talk about the way it looks from theirs. I fail to see the difference.
4) I've listened to plenty of white people speak authoritatively about race relations. And every one knew black people, and none of them suggested blacks were less, or to blame for my circumstances. I had no problem. I never said I know more about women's lives than women do. I said that I seem to be considering the questions of men's lives more than they do. And that one cannot make a comparison--or come to conclusions about "who is in control" without factoring both in. I have the exact same right to discuss the male side of the issue that women have discussing the female side.
5) Show me the paper, or study, that attempts to create a hierarchy of human values accepted by people all over the world, at least half the respondants women. Then have people list where they think they are. My guess? Men have more money, political and military power. Women get to live longer, die more peacefully, spend more time with their families, and have more satisfying human relationships. My point is that when people think men are coming out ahead, they NEVER discuss both sides: they just give a list of the areas women have (admittedly real and important) problems in.
6) I can certainly start clipping specific comments from women or those commenting on women's issues that relate to the "men are running the world to the detriment of women" meme.
7) I've been in favor of every women's rights issue I know of, including aspects of affirmative action I don't support for black people. My only point is that I don't believe that men come out ahead--I think that they SEEM to if you buy into a male value structure. That that value structure is brain-washing to control young men, and that neither men OR women are in control of this game.
8) I've made equally controversial comments concerning race, especially the "black people are responsible for their lives" comment, which has triggered responses of "race traitor." In saying that men and women have created this world together, I seem to be treading on toes. In saying that the only way I'd believe that men were actually on top of this game is if they got more of what everyone wants--and they don't. They get more of SOME of what we as humans want. And women get more of others.
9) If women the world over thought their quality of life satisfaction was lower than men's, again I might agree that men were in control. But if men are in control, and women report satisfying lives in the same proportion as men...then where is this advantage? Only if you get hypnotized by looking at a few indices WAY up on Maslow's hierarchy, and ignore the lower-level, more basic stuff does this make sense to me.
If there are other studies that indicate that, on average, women report a lower level of life satisfaction, please show me.
10) Remember: quoting statistics that prove that women are bested by men in a variety of important indices is valuable, but not determinative. We would have to create some kind of system to measure all the advantages and disadvantags of being male and female, weight them against each other, and total up. I know of no one engaging in such a project. Do you? And if we don't have that information, then I have to agree that the women I've known who felt that "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" and other sayings that have to do with the comparative powers of men and women were right. I'm not ignoring them. I'm taking them seriously. Now I'm being told that if I look at men and women as being really, truly equal I'm being this typical condescending male. I honestly don't see that.
11) If at any time, in any way, I've ever suggested that women shouldn't go to any school they want, have any job they want, are in any way less intelligent than men, or worthy in any way...if I've implied that men have the right to hit or dominate women in any way, please point it out. I say that men have exactly the right to comment on male-female relations that women do--no more, and no less. And that women are going to tend to know more about what women's lives are, and men more about what men's lives are about. At no time did I say that what women are saying about their lives is factually wrong. I say only that they seem to omit data when they compare their lives to men's.
12) My basic point is that yes, men think they're running the world. And that they are wrong. No one is. Our biology, or God, or whatever, is running both games. If you buy into the illusion, it looks like men are sitting pretty. Until you add up the toll. At which point it is as impossible come to a useful conclusion as it is on the "are women more disadvantaged than black people" argument--you simply can't come to a conclusion without discounting someone's misery. And if men are in control...but things aren't any better for them...then excuse me, but I'm missing something here.
13) I think one of the problems is that people worry that what I'm saying might be used to justify abuse, or neglect. You know? You may be right, and if that's true I'm sorry. But the same is true of my saying that black people are responsible for the crime in their communities--true, they're not at fault, but they ARE responsible. As men are responsible for any behaviors that they instigate, even if those behaviors are triggered and motivated by social or biological forces beyond their conscious awareness.
14) If there is a feminist web site or article that DOES try to take the factors of male mortality and male-on-male violence into account in reference to the question of "who rules the world"--please tell me where it is. My only real point is that no one's really in control, no matter how much Men might like to think they are.

X vrs Y

2008-04-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

You will have noticed that I cling to the notion that human beings are basically good-or that their basic instincts mostly lead to actions and feelings we call "good." Liberals or Conservatives, black or white, men or women...I refuse to take the position that one is better, or better intentioned, than the other. But it is possible for things to sway out of control. For instance, I see a period of greater feminine energy coming...and I welcome it. Cool. But I won't stand by and make a politically correct agreement that men have controlled the world game to some extreme degree. While I KNOW that my attitude is probably going to be off-target at bit at times, I have found that I stay much closer to reality by STARTING with the assumption that we're about the same, and then adjusting, than by STARTING with the assumption that one side or the other is better, or superior, and modify from there.
#
Moving toward evolution, or enlightenment, is a matter of resolving dualities, not getting stuck in the "us-themism." It can be hard, and I have been pretty much called a race traitor (for instance) for refusing to believe whites are evil. And a race apologist who won't open his eyes for not admitting blacks must be intellectually inferior. And a political coward for not admitting conservatives are evil, or whatever. And I just don't buy any of it. I need ever ounce of my energy to keep moving forward, to burn away my own illusions. And every time I resolve a duality, it frees energy. Ah...I'm not white or black, I'm human. Now from that perspective, watch the war. Interesting. Ah...I'm not male or female, I'm human. From that perspective, look at the interesting games nature plays to keep the ball rolling. Interesting. Ah...I'm not human or animal...I am alive. Look a the way reality looks from that perspective. Ah...I'm not alive or inanimate. I AM. How does reality look from there? And most intriguing, "I neither Am nor Am Not." My conscious mind rebels, but I can catch the implication from the corner of my eye, and it is an absolute hoot.

So thank you for letting me air out my thoughts here. Anyone who knows me well knows I have sacrificed much time and money trying to make the world safer for women, and I have nothing but contempt for any man who hurts one. I have no agenda to keep the present power structure going, except insofar as it makes the world safer for children, and allows adults to mature to full capacity. I believe in the sanctity of the human soul, and that, beyond all the games, we are really quite remarkable. While I plan to vote for Hillary or Barack in the general election, I don't believe McCain would break us...humanity is stronger than its institutions. I don't like the political games I see Hillary playing, but in truth she is simply a master of the game she was presented with when she started walking this path decades ago. She didn't create it.
#
But on that subject...I wonder if Hillary really grasps how ugly the Impeachment stuff would be in the general election? I suspect that she is a bit in denial about that. She would have to be (in my mind) to stay married to Bill. Her choice will make sense to people who would do something similar. But to those of us who would not, dragging her sexual business into the light will be devastating. And then there is the whole matter of her husband's disbarment. Excuse me? If Michelle Obama had been disbarred for lying to Congress, I do believe that issue would have come up. Obama has been VERY cool not to go there...but I can't begin to believe it isn't going to turn into a nightmare in the General, something the Republicans have to be licking their chops over. This whole situation is WAY intense. Part of me is heartbroken, another part pops the popcorn and watches the fun.

Guess I'm just a sick puppy.

On the previous controvery about my attitudes..

2008-04-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

Regarding men and women: the exact same gate that bars any conclusion that whites are intrinsically evil for slavery and racism bars a conclusion that men are intrinsically evil for sexism and violence toward women. I just don't see human beings that way. I look for basic tendencies that manifest differently in different circumstances. I see advantages and disadvantages for both groups, different styles of power and manipulation and control in both groups. But male and female is a complementary whole, not a separate group--the rules are very different.

I have more reason to think whites are evil or lesser than that men are. And if they're not, then it makes sense of my contention that what's really going on here is a gigantic cooperative clusterfuck clouding the minds and hearts of both men and women in the service of producing maximum children. Insisting that men get more out of life than women, when women themselves seem to indicate this is not true (by life satisfaction index) implies to me that there is important wiring here that is protected by guilt, blame, and shame. And that nature doesn't want us to look at it. Which makes it all the more important that anyone seeking to surpass their basic programming MUST look at it.

Anyway, that's genuinely what goes through my mind. To more specifically relate this to slavery, I think that men and women, blacks and whites, are equal spirits. It took black people 400 years to move from total slavery to a situation where the gap is one of tricky statistics, and one of us is the front-runner for President. Women have been working at this for a thousand times as long. To believe that they couldn't have found a way to level the field more than some of you seem to think would imply actual incompetance and incapacity...and if I genuinely think women are equal, the advantage of physical strength alone doesn't cut it. Anyone willing to die can equalize that in a heartbeat--its the advantage that every oppressed people has always had. I can't disbelieve the women who say that their lives are as satisfying, or look at the grotesque damage to men connected to violence and aggression and not conclude that the things that drive us as a species takes about equal toll on either side...but the damage and goodies are different. If you make the mistake of buying into either the male or female world views, it will look like the other side is either lesser or greater. I say they're just different, and complementary.

Guillermo Del Toro is directing "The Hobbit"

2008-04-25T10:26:00.001-07:00

Now this is excellent, excellent news. Rewatched "Lord of the Rings" this week, and am even more convinced it is one of the high-marks in the history world cinema. And I'm not a "Rings" fan, and I resent the all-white cast with the only dark skin belonging to evildoers. So you know I MUST be impressed.

Interesting background. Robert Shaye at New Line brought in Peter Jackson to do "Rings" and then apparently used the standard wonky bookkeeping to deny him some of the profits. Jackson protested, and Shaye tried to embarass him publicly. Then Shaye made a mistake: he tried to prove he didn't need Jackson to make a smash, and made "Golden Compass" which tanked domestically. That and other mistakes led to the death of New Line as an independent entity. Now, then...New Line clears the legal rights for "Hobbit" with the Tolkien estate, and lures Jackson back to the fold--as executive producer. Shortly after this, Shaye leaves New Line.

My guess? Jackson said: "sure, I'll save your asses. The price is that you can Shaye. I'll never work with that bastard again." And they gave Shaye the boot, while letting him save face by leaving a few weeks later for unspecified reasons.

God, I love intrigue. Anyway, "Hobbit" will be two films. The first will tell the story of Bilbo, and the second will bridge the time between the Hobbit and "Fellowship of the Ring." I cannot wait.

9/11 Conspiracies...

2008-04-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

ﾠ

I've had an ongoing conversation with a friend who believes 9/11 was a total conspiracy. There are three things that leap out of her scenario that automatically trips the "bullshit" alarm.

1) her theory demands that BOTH the planes were auto-controlled into the towers, AND the towers were set to demolish. Since I believe that the plane-hits alone would be enough to trigger a war (which she believes was the point), the idea of setting the WTC for demolition in addition is overkill of a grotequely inefficient and dangerous kind. As far as I know, there would be no way of coordinating a demolition on two buildings that size without massive eveidence: stripped walls, thousands of pounds of explosives, hundreds of workmen preparing the building for weeks. No such activity was reported by survivors.

2) The sheer number of conspirators, including tens of thousands of physicists, structural engineer and demolition specialists who, by their published comments or massive silence are either fools or knaves.

3) If you want to trigger a war with Iraq...uh...wouldn't it make sense to have some Iraqis on the plane? Duh.

ﾠ

Just for the sake of argument, does anyone see any obvious flaws with my logic?

##

ﾠ

ﾠ

What do celebrities owe? Wesley Snipes has been sentenced to three years. Sigh. I'm not suggesting it was unfair--his co-conspirators got a lot more time. I'm suggesting that it is sad, and a waste. Celebrities definitely get a break in jury trials, and even the way they are often treated by the police. The downside is that they have so much light on them that they make great object examples. My grief comes from knowing the man, that's all.

##

This morning I did a little Googling on the matter of men and women in the world. I think it's a fertile arena, because I think that examining the relationships between men and women has a lovely parallel to the internal wars all human beings wage.

ﾠ

What I looked for was an answer to the question: "worldwide, what is the comparative life satisfaction of men and women?" If I make the basic assumption that men and women are equal in basic qualities of perception and honesty, then if, for instance, the average woman experienced less subjective life satisfaction than the average man worldwide (depending on the divide), it would be a powerful argument that women get the short end of the stick.

ﾠ

I only looked into it briefly, because I thought the best thing to do would be to throw the subject open, and let you guys educate me. But the first data I came across that seemed at all valuable seemed to be from a feminist-perspective study at a university (if I posted this some months ago, I'm sorry. I only got four hours of sleep last night, and I'm a little foggy)

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http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:KIwPU8ya_I8J:www.faculty.ucr.edu/~sonja/papers/SL2001.pdf+do+men+or+women+feel+more+life+satisfaction&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=11&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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"An apparently paradoxical finding in the literature is that women show

higher rates of depression than men, but also report higher levels of well-being.

At the same time, the majority of studies find no gender differences in life

Life satisfaction. These conflicting findings can be resolved by considering the range

of affect that men and women typically experience. Women report

experiencing affect -- both positive and negative -- with greater intensity and

frequency than do men. That is, women tend to experience greater joy and

deeper sadness -- and experience these emotions more often -- than do men.

Hence, measures of depression and subjective well-being, which include

affective components, appear to capture the extreme lows that leave women

vulnerable to depression, as well as the extreme highs that allow for greater

well-being. By contrast, men and women report similar rates of global life satisfaction, which is primarily a cognitive assessment.

Despite similar levels of life satisfaction across gender, women and men

appear to derive life satisfaction from different sources. For example, Ed

Diener and Frank Fujita (1995) found that social resources (i.e., family, friends,

access to social services) are predictive of life satisfaction or both men and

women, but they are more predictive of life satisfaction for women. Perhapsﾠ

women’s roles as the conservators of contact with friends and family -- both a

blessing and a burden -- lead to their relatively greater reliance on social

support. By contrast, factors that may be more relevant to men’s personal

goals, such as athleticism, influential connections, and authority, were found to

be related to life satisfaction for men, but not for women."

##

ﾠ

I found that interesting, and more or less in line with what I've observed. My feeling is this: men are high-performance short-lived worker/fighter drones. The EXACT same psychological tendencies and hormonal cocktails that make it possible to respond to aggression or predation with efficiency also burns us out, separates us from our emotions, and makes us trend more toward violence (than women) even in family situations.

ﾠ

This is horrible, and must cease. No argument that the rates of violence toward women by men are inexcusible. No excuse...but there ARE reasons. And the trend toward violence, and hierarchicalism, doesn't really serve men, although to (what I consider to be) a superficial level, it appears to.

ﾠ

For me to believe that men have this worldwide edge, at least one of two things would have to be true.

ﾠ

1) Men would have to direct more violence toward women than they address toward other men. They do not, by a long shot.

2) Women would have to routinely consider their lives to be less satisfying than men. I can't find this data. Perhaps you can.

ﾠ

And there is a third thing that is almost as important, but is too subjective and therefore vulnerable to being twisted by my own wishful thinking:

ﾠ

3) Men would have to get a higher percentage of those things considered most ultimately valuable in life. By my standards, they do not.

##

That #3 is tricky, and I admit it. But if you got a group of men and women together, especially mature men and women over 50, let's say, and ask them what the very most important values in their lives might be...

Or if you asked people on their death beds what they wish they'd spent more time doing...

Or listened to the great spiritual and moral leaders about what makes a good life

And considered those answers to be the real keys to the kingdom, I submit to you that men don't get more of that stuff at all.

ﾠ

What DO they get more of? The stuff teenaged boys dream about. Power, glory, wealth. In other words, fool's gold. In fact, to broaden that, men get more of the things men value. But then, women get more of the things WOMEN value.

ﾠ

Which means that if you make the mistake of thinking that the things immature men value are actually the most important thing in life, you'll make the further mistake of concluding that men are qualitatively better (or much better) off than women. Conversely, though, if you accepted WOMEN'S values as the most important things, women would come off better, with better relationships, more time with family, more honest expression of emotions, etc.

ﾠ

Looking at the quote from the academic paper above, one might explain women's reactions by stating that, although they are in greater pain than men, they have greater depths of strength to deal with it. Very interesting--so, then, not only are men brutal, but they are weak. I ask a question: is it possible to sustain the belief that women have it worse than men without taking the parallel position that women are superior to men? It seems to me that that might be a bit difficult.

##

If a poison gas rolled through a town, triggering men to kill 20% of the women and 40% of each other, despite the fact that it was men doing the killing, this situation hardly worked to the advantage of men. This is kind of how I look at testosterone poisoning. Nature decided upon this particular chemical cocktail to produce warriors and hunters. Societies formed afterward, reinforcing the glory of testosterone, and encouraging young men to march merrily into cannon fire. A side effect is explosive violence (especially when mixed with alcohol), stifled emotions, shortened lives.

Those boys bought the lie, a lie that is quite efficient at producing empires and acquiring resources to keep children alive. And women are definitely more controlled under such a system. The problem seems to be that, pre-technology, the systems where women are freest are also the most vulnerable to external predation.

Can you see the paradox and dilemma? Women are punished when they want to be Alphas. Men are punished if they want to be Betas. Women express their emotions more, so we hear about their pain. Men repress their emotions (no one cares!) and as a result suffer in silence.

This makes sense of the world to me. Remember that list of things that I wanted to see equal between blacks and whites?

1) Infant mortality rate

2) Incarceration rates

3) Life expectancy

4) Inherited Wealth

5) Net Worth

6) Death by violence

ﾠ

As far as I can see, it's a toss-up if I apply this same standard between men and women. Women have it better on life expectancy, incarceration rates, and death by violence. Infant mortality rate? Not sure how to measure that, since men don't have babies. Net worth? Men win. Inherited wealth? Well...I'm not checking my facts on this this morning, but some years back I heard that most inherited wealth was actually in the hands of women. Perhaps one of you could fact-check that for me.

Obviously, one could say that that list doesn't apply. But remember: this is the stuff that for about ten years, I've hoped and dreamed and prayed for concerning my ethnic group. White women trump black people on ALL of them, so I am skeptical about some feminist rhetoric. And women in general at LEAST equal men in these categories.

There are other categories, certainly. As I said, these may not be valid applied to gender. I am quite sure that some will say that, because so much violence is directed at women BY men, the fact that far more men than women are victims to violence is irrelevant. And as I said, I think that deep down inside such people believe women to be superior--are, in essence, female chauvinists. Which are morally equivalent in my book to male chauvinists. Or am I missing something?

Wesley Snipes gets three years

2008-04-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

Well, crap. This really sucks big time. The following link connects you to a page of character references. Scroll down.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/community/news/southofdowntown
/orl-snipes-references-pdfs-mg,0,3599195.gallery