Monday, October 30th
Quote of the day
When God desires the torment of a nation He appoints their foolish as their governors, the ignorant as their judges, and the miserly as their wealthy. -Shaddad ibn Amr ibn Aus
Wednesday, October 25th
Starbucks vs. the rest of the World
I went to Starbucks in Clintonville today instead of Yeah, Me Too. I felt guilty all day, you know? But this has been a tough week and Yeah, Me Too doesn't have any place to sit. Sure, the coffee at Starbucks is not what it is at Yeah, Me Too. But sometimes the gap in quality is not the major consideration.
I'm sure that there are coffee snobs that would disagree, saying that Starbucks is barely good enough to water the plants with. But this kind of discrepancy between expert opinion and what the laymen believe exists in every area. Most of us don't think that the gap between a ten dollar bottle of wine and a hundred dollar bottle is worth the extra money. And who really can tell a $30,000 difference between a cheap imported mando and a top of the line vintage Gibson unless you are a mandolin snob?
But the area in which I find this most troubling is politics, where the polital snobs tout vast differences between the two parties. Your average Joe just doesn't see that much of a gap.
One fun thing about Starbucks was seeing a different set of friends there that I see at Yeah, Me Too. Two Delleskys, Matt Beckler, Jared Boyd were all there. Even though Matt was working he and I got to chat about Gorilla Snot for a while. What more could a guitar enthusiast ask for?
I also was able to grab a Dispatch, a paper not available at the other coffee shop. And I noticed an editorial that I thought was really fine by... Cal Thomas!?! That really surprised me. I'm a pretty long way from a strong conservative but I thought this part of the article was spot on:
Of all the pre-election polls, punditry, analysis and forecasts, one stands out. It is a new CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation that found 78 percent of Americans believe "our system of government is broken."
Democrats predictably blame Republicans for this as part of their strategy for returning to majority status in Congress. Just as predictably, Republicans blame Democrats for being "obstructionists" and not letting all that good legislation hatched by the GOP get through.
It isn't actually our "system" of government that is broken. [...] No, the system has worked quite well until recently. Rather, it is the way Republicans, now, and Democrats when they last had the majority, have made a mess of it. The system is crumbling under the weight of too many expectations.
Cal goes on to say some stuff that I agree with and stuff I don't, but the main point is very well taken. And what is the main cause of these unreasonable expectations we put on government? I don't think that it's too much to say that the mess we are in is because we all, whether conservative or progressive or something else have lost our trust in God. Not necessarily our faith in God and His goodness, but we have lost our belief that God will keep us safe from whichever bogeyman we fear. Probably many believe that God could keep us safe, but chooses not to because Government or The Church or some other human agency has that job.
The so called "War on Terror" really gets my goat. The government is going to eliminate terror? Puhleeez! Some smart person somewhere said, "Perfect love casts out all fear." Not perfect government. It still is not the system of government that is broken, but the condition of the human heart.
Sunday, October 22nd
Naps are helpful
The lots may be cast into the lap, but the issue depends wholly on
the Lord- Proverbs 16.33
God does not play dice [with the universe]- Albert Einstein
Yesterday Nancy and I participated in the Community Resource Center's annual fund raiser called "The Pumpkin Patch." Proceeds go to the food pantry, hence one can "buy" a pumpkin for a donation of 3 cans of food. I participated by playing the mandolin and setting out a "tip" jar. All the tips of course went to the CRC.
This was my first time flying solo in a street musician hat. Now, of course I know better, but I imagine that since I've worn so many musical hats that I don't really have to go back to square one every time I try something new. But of course, that's not true. When I first started playing piano in the restaurant I had a plan: I practiced- drew up a song list- and warmed up ahead of time. Silly me: I should have done all of those things before "the gig" on Saturday. I did none of those things. Of course, it still "worked" but it could have gone better. One problem was that unexpectedly there was a karaoke dude there that I had to compete against with my tiny little acoustic instrument. It didn't work too badly (I set up on the opposite side of the parking lot) until he played Hang on Sloopy and then I just gave up.
I should mention that a great tool for adding simple traditional tunes to one's repetoire is the multiplicity of tunes available on the internet in abc format. Abc is a way of writing music notation in plain text which can then be translated to music notation with many freeware and shareware programs such as abc2win. By inputting text into the program such as this:
X:1
T:Boys of Belfast, The
R:march
D:Cran:
Z:id:hn-march-13
M:C|
K:Amix
A3B c2d2|efgf e2ed|c2A2 A2Bc|dedB G2E2|
A2AB c2d2|efgf e2ed|c2A2 dBGB|1 A4 A2E2:|2 A4 A4||
|:e2ed e2f2|d2dc d2ed|c2A2 A2Bc|dedB G2E2|
AGAB c2d2|efgf e2ed|c2A2 dBGB|1 A4 A4:|2 A4 A2E2||
You get this:
Mary Jo Kilroy made an appearance at the Pumpkin Patch. Politicians still make it a point to shake hands I guess. She wasn't talking politics all, but unaccountably I was nervous. Then I noticed that I had my Susan B. Anthony dollar in my pocket and I had this weird fear that Mary Jo would ask me about how I was voting and we would get into an awkward discussion.
When Nancy and I got home from CRC we both napped. That was helpful. I had this dream:
I'm at Yeah, Me Too and I notice that they've got a bunch of wine piled up on one of the walls. The more expensive wines are arranged in one pyramid and the less expensive wines in another. I put my hand on one of the expensive wines and ask Jovan, "May I take this?" He hears me but is so busy that he doesn't answer. So I take the wine and the entire pyramid crashes to the ground. Of course I apologize and say that I will pay for it all. But Jovan answers that it is really his fault because he didn't answer me when I asked, "May I take this?" Nevertheless I insist that I will pay for it and ask how much the wine cost. Jovan tells me $12,000. I tell him I will give him $100 a week until the debt is paid off. He tells me that I don't have to.
This could be a dream about prayer and hearing from God. If you ask God to help you make a decision (like voting a certain way) and He doesn't answer you clearly, are you at fault for the bad results?
How would Jovan feel if he knew he played the role of God in one of my dreams?
Saturday, October 21st
The God of Chance
In life there is nothing by chance and completely external. Everything has meaning, everything means something, i.e. is manifest as a sign from the other world. -N. A. Berdyaev
Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles. -Acts 1:26
One thing that I have been thinking about this past week is the appropriateness of committing my vote to "chance." It is easy to argue against relying on a coin toss to make such an important decision. One possibility is that I will simply stop caring about who our leaders are. The unfortunate fact is that are many elections that I simply don't care about. Whose brilliant idea was it anyway to elect judges, anyhow? I can see how someday it might come in handy if I in fact vote for a winning judge: for example if I ever find myself facing him or her in court:
Judge: "Mr. Kohn, do you have anything to say before sentencing?"
Me: "Let me begin, judge, by saying that I voted for you..."
But the fact is, I do care about who occupies many positions of leadership and certainly about many of the issues that are being voted upon this year. And there is the danger that if I continue to rely on coin tosses as a way of making decisions, the net result is that I will end up simply not caring but, much more disturbingly, not praying.
In googling the subject I've come across a Godsend, I believe, in a book called God of Chance by David B. Bartholomew. David is both a statistician and a preacher. I will know better after I have actually read it, but the bit that I have read gives me the impression that this book will be really helpful, not only concerning voting but in other areas as well. This is from the intro:
The central message of God of Chance is, I believe, still as valid today as it was in 1984. This is that chance has to be seen as within the Providence of God. It is not something which requires the abolition of theism nor is it an illusion. We increasingly use chance as a tool in scientific work and it would surely be surprising if God had not got there before us.
The entire text of this book can be found here.
Friday, October 20th
It's the most wonderful time of the year
Time once again it is for the United States Postal Service to solicit charitable contributions from its employees via payroll deduction. Last year I split the pittance I donated bi-weekly between the Clintonville-Beechwold Community Center and the Postal Employees Relief Fund. This year I have decided to throw the whole shebang to the Community Center. I freely admit that part of the reason is that my wife now works there as a paid employee. I also upped the ante a bit so that now I am considered to be donating on the Silver level. Sound snazzy? Well, I did a few calculations to see where the various donating levels stacked up percentage-wise:
Bronze: 0.7% of income
Silver: 1.3% of income
Gold: 2.0% of income
Platinum 2.7% of income
So the Post Office considers you a really really generous person if you donate 2.7% to charity.
As an aside, I read recently that according to a study by Forbes Magazine the most generous givers percentagewise in this country are people who make less than 10K annually. They give over 5% on average of their income to charity.
Anyway tomorrow Nancy is volunteering her time for a CRC event called "Pumpkin Patch." I don't know exactly what all is going on there, but I have volunteered to set my behind on a chair and play mandolin for a while. I do know that Nancy loves working for the CRC. At the beginning she complained a bit about the pay. I suppose everybody that works for such agencies can't help but compare the pay to "regular" employment. But now that she has been there for a while she can't imagine not being there. Every day she works there she gets comments from the elderly people about how much she and CRC mean to them. Literally every day.
The little that I do seem so inadequate when I consider the needs that are out there. But if everybody pitches in just a little bit, it really does add up. The Combined Federal Campaign of which the Post Office is a part raised 286 million for charities in 2005 alone.
So if your place of employment offers you the opportunity, please consider donating to a worthy charity. And, of course, you could always throw a little bit the way of the Clintonville CRC. You can always donate directly, but if you donate via the United Way the CRC receives even more because the United Way matches donations.
Thursday, October 19th
Save the Trees! Vote Green!
(Jesus said) "Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied.
We've been inundated with political mail at the post office this week. Maybe you've noticed some in your mailbox.
Wouldja like to get rid of it? I found out something interesting today that may help. If your party affiliation is Republican, you will not get Democrat literature. If your party affiliation is Democrat, you will not get Republican literature. If your party affiliation is Unaffiliated (like me) then you are fair game for both the Demos and the Repubs.
So I had a brilliant idea today. As soon as humanly possible, I am going to become affiliated with a third party, thus getting off of both of the major party mailing lists.
The catch? By Ohio law, the only way to become affiliated with a political party is to vote in a primary election. So I have to wait until some third party actually has a primary election here. Hopefully the greens will be first. If any party would not mail anything, it would be the greens.
I'm almost ready to cast my lot to decide who to vote for. After some thought I have decided to use a Susan B. Anthony dollar. Jesus after all asked the Pharisees for the coin used to pay the tax. In the U. S. we pay our taxes in dollars. After deciding on a dollar coin it was a no brainer to go with Susan. They say that the more things change the more they stay the same and although many things have changed since Jesus' time it is still true that the various caesars of the world put their portraits and inscriptions on their coins. Susan of course represents the power of the vote.
I have also decided to go with a straight Republican/Democrat choice on the Ohio governor, even though there are others running. In Acts, the process of selecting a replacement for Judas was not pure lottery. They narrowed it down to two men who had the approval of the others. For me this automatically excludes independents. It's really hard for me to exclude third party candidates, because truthfully I like voting for third party candidates. But if I'm honest about it, this is largely as a rebellion against both the two party system and voting in general. One purpose of this exercise is to truly submit to Caesar as Romans 13 commands.
Wednesday, October 18th
My world is shattered
Today I saw an advertisement in the mail that pictured a "genuine medical reconstruction" of a clogged artery and it suddenly hit me. Mike DeWine has started an unholy trend that will destroy life as I know it. As everybody in Ohio knows by now, Mr. DeWine approved a T. V. message which contained (gasp) a reconstructed photograph. As far as I know this is the first time this technique has been tried and I am extremely troubled by it. Already people in the business world are using it to get me to buy their products.
Who am I supposed to trust now?
Before, voting was simple. I would just line up the photographs I got in the mail of the various candidates and vote for the one that was least blurry. I know that people are divided on the issue, but I just trust people that photograph less blurry more than people that photograph more blurry.
But now, I can no longer trust these photographs. Mike DeWine has opened a pandora's box.
And just when I think that I can comfort myself with the thought that political elections are relatively rare events, people in the business world get ahold of this dastardly technique. Every day I make a decision to buy something- some days I make multiple decisions to buy something. It is so much more difficult now deciding what to buy, knowing that I can't always trust the images that I see- images I used to trust to help me make an informed decision.
Damn you, Mike DeWine!
Tuesday, October 17th
It's not as bad as I thought
I admit it: I never cared much for G. W. Bush. I doubted that his values were my values. But according to Dave Kuo's book Tempting Faith, G. W. Bush's top advisors think people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are crackpots and goofballs.
If this is true, G. W. very likely thinks so, too. This gives me a hell of a lot more faith in his judgement.
Maybe things aren't so bad after all.
In other news, I've had a time of it getting a sample ballot so that I can decide who to cast my vote for ahead of time. Flippin' a coin for every race is going to be too time consuming to wait 'till I'm in the voter's booth. I called the League of Women Voters and amazingly they didn't know how to get one. They referred me to the Board of Elections which sent me to this page. You can type your name in here to find out if you are in the registration database and, if you are, you can download a sample ballot. Or, alternately, you can search on a given street address and download the ballot for that voting address.
How cool is that?
Sunday, October 15th
I'm voting biblically this year
I will be voting biblically this year: that is, according to the precept laid out for us by divine inspiration in Acts Chapter 1 Verses 23-26:
So they proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, "Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen." [...] Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.
In a similar fashion this year I shall get a sample ballot and cast lots to see who the Lord would have me vote for this year. For most decisions I will be able to use a device which has great Biblical significance:
They brought the coin, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied. Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.
Since in our culture "caesar" demands not only taxes but voting I shall use his coin to meet both his demands.
Thursday, October 12th
Elmer Fudd
Nancy says I'm done now...
...but I think thewe's pwenty of woom fow a fiddwe.
I awways wanted to speak a foweign wanguage, but it's a heck of a wot of wowk to weawn how to do it. So I've done the next best thing and used googwe's wanguage toows to defauwt my googwe seawches to Elmer Fudd. Gwanted, Ewmew Fudd is not weawwy a foweign wanguage, but it makes me feew sophisticated to use it. I even twanswated my entiwe website to Ewmew Fudd using the dialectizer. It's a pwetty cool tool, and fwee, too! Hewe's the Gettysbuwg addwess in Wedneck:
Four sco'e an' seven years ago our Pappys brought fo'th on this hyar continent, a noo nashun, cornceived in Liberty, an' dedicated t'th' proposishun thet all min are created equal, ah reckon.
Now we is engaged in a great civil war, testin' whether thet nashun, o' enny nashun so cornceived an' so dedicated, kin long indure. We is met on a great battle-field of thet war. We haf come t'dedicut a po'shun of thet field, as a final restin' place fo' them who hyar gave their lives thet thet nashun might live. It is altogither fittin' an' right thet we sh'd does this.
But, in a larger sense, we kin not dedicut -- we kin not cornsecrate -- we kin not haller -- this hyar groun'. Th' brave men, livin' an' daid, who struggled hyar, haf consecrated it, far above our pore power t'add o' detrack. Th' wo'ld will li'l note, no' long remember whut we say hyar, but it kin nevah fo'git whut they did hyar. It is fo' us th' livin', rather, t'be dedicated hyar t'th' unfinished wawk which they who fought hyar haf thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather fo' us t'be hyar dedicated t'th' great tax remainin' befo'e us -- thet fum these hono'ed daid we take increased devoshun t'thet cuz fo' which they gave th' last full measure of devoshun -- thet we hyar highly resolve thet these daid shall not haf died in vain -- thet this hyar nashun, unner God, shall have a noo birth of freedom -- an' thet govment of th' people, by th' people, fo' th' people, shall not perish fum th' earth.
Wednesday, October 11th
i'm not evil, really i'm not
last night anya called from texas and gave us the tragic new that mike's chemo is not working; the tumor in his lung is growing back. The doctor painted a grim picture and, naturally, they are both devastated. Nancy and i went over to mike's parents last night to give them a hug and tell them we are there for them.
everyone is feeling so down, and yet i can't seem to wrap my head around it. I haven't experienced that "punch in the gut" that the others apparently have.
maybe it's because it was less than two weeks ago that mike married my daughter and he was so full of life then. perhaps when i see him tonight at the airport after they've flown back home it will hit me.
Nancy is so much better at this stuff than i am. When she got the phone call she was the one that immediately suggested driving to Hilliard to see the mintons, even though we don't have a car. we borrowed one from my parents. When my mom heard the news she even drove the car to us so we wouldn't have to wait for a bus to take us up there.
probably it never would have crossed my mind that we should have gone out to hilliard last night. And yet it was such a natural and good thing to do.
Monday, October 9th
New uses for mandos
Listening:
Power 107.5- Columbus' best hip-hop and R&B
Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band- Music For Non-Thinkers
Everybody Digs Bill Evans- Bill Evans
In a Lifetime- Clannad
Irish Jigs and Reels- Various Artists
Reading:
The Ugly American- Lederer and Burdick
Eating:
Uncured Bacon, Braunschweiger, and Hot Dogs
Red Beans and Basmati Rice
Free Range Pineapple
Drinking:
Water
Dead Guy Ale
Kombucha
Unwashed Ethiopian Sidamo Coffee
Yesterday I picked up a wall hanger for my mando at Swampdog's Music. In this way when my mando is not being used as a musical instrument, it serves as a stylish wall decoration:
Nancy concurs, which is the most important thing of course. In fact, she was so enthusiastic that she told me to go out and get another hanger for the guitar. If I play my cards right, I can parlay this into a whole bunch of new musical instruments... ahem... I mean wall hangings.
While I was on vacation, I did some more organizing of my music library, particular my itunes library. The feature on the latest version of itunes which automatically imports images is great, but of course there is tons of music that isn't available on itunes, hence images must still be imported "manually" (if that word still has any meaning in the virtual world.) Many of these images are of course available on the 'net, but some are not. I was very disappointed that I couldn't find artwork for Live at the Laurel by the Oak Ridge Klezmer Band. After creating virtual artwork myself with Nancy's digital camera I created this page thinking that perhaps someone else might be looking for artwork for this certainly obscure but really enjoyable recording of traditional Klezmer. Also on my vacation I picked up Music for Non-Thinkers. My original intention was to give it away as a gift, but then I realized that this was impossible without insulting the recipient. Certainly the music is like none you've ever heard (at least it is my fervent wish that this is the case). Check out Stars and Stripes Forever. Doktor Gugenheimer has this to say about his rendition of this classic work:
Whose heart will not beat high at this classic approach to John Philip Sousa's timeless music? We must all admit the inspiring tone of this great march has been enhanced by the machine-like precision of my band. Also, I like the all-too-little-known vocal in the recording, because the good German words add immeasurably to the stature of Sousa's work. I sing the vocal.
Thursday, October 5th
All I have to do is dream
To see a whale in your dream, represents your intuition and awareness. You are in tuned to your sense of spirituality. Alternatively, it indicates a relationship or business project that is too enormous to handle.
To dream that you are being chased, signifies that you are avoiding a situation that you do not think is conquerable. It is often a metaphor for some form of insecurity. In particular, to dream that you are chased by an animal, represents your own unexpressed and unacknowledged anger which is being projected onto that animal. Alternatively, you may be running away from a primal urge or fear.- www.dreammoods.com
Last week I had several dreams which featured animals chasing or attacking me. I'm not so silly as to think that every doodad you see in a dream has some deep archetypal meaning as in "dreaming about an oak leaf is good, but dreaming about an ostrich feather is bad." Sure. One dream I had involved me being attacked by an elephant. Dreaming of elephants is supposed to be a good omen, but I suspect I dreamed about an elephant more because I had been thinking about elephant brains for the past few days. Elephant brains on average weigh 7500 grams, 5 times the weight of the average human brain. Thus elephants are 5 times smarter than humans right? Except that as a percentage of body weight, the human brain is 3 times larger than the elephant brain. So humans are 3 times smarter than elephants, right? Except that as a percentage of body weight mouse brains are 3 times larger than human brains. So mice are 3 times smarter than humans, and 9 times smarter than elephants, right?
No wonder that damn elephant was so mad at me.
But the dream that stuck most in my head was a dream where I was in a department store type setting, chatting with other people and riding escalators slowly to higher and higher floors. The pace was slow and relaxed, but there were 3 whales slowly chasing us all and blocking the only exit on the ground floor of the building. I knew that they were whales, but they looked more like large wooden boxes that had been painted black. I knew that they were somehow alive, but had been made mechanical and somehow able to survive and move outside the water. I knew that when they caught us it would be horrible: worse than death; although I didn't know why. And I knew that there was no way out in the direction we were going.
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