ashbylane

As a kid I clearly remember the antagonism between the US and the USSR - I was both fascinated and terrified by it.  When the Berlin wall came down, I was - like so many others - not only relieved but filled with hope for all the possibilities that represented.  While this blog is not the place for a long dissertation of what went right and what went wrong on Russia's transition to 'democracy', suffice it to say that when a nation spends 70+ years under a totalitarian state that is involved in every aspect of life, you wind up with a generation that is uncertain how to balance social order and liberty.  Given the dynamics involved in the collapse of the USSR, the tendency in Russia has been to favor 'social order' (imposed by the state, of course) - that coupled with an infinitely suspicious view of the West and resentment for power and influence lost has landed us where we are today:  the Russian invasion of Georgia.

The nation of Georgia has an amazing history - a rich and ancient heritage that Americans would do well to know at least something about.  Consider some highlights:

·         By the 4th century BC, Georgia had one of the earliest examples of a state run by a sophisticated arrangement of king and aristocracy (just check your history books on where the most of the world was at this time - not pretty).

·         Christianity was declared to be the national religion in 337, leading to a boost in literature & arts, and it helped unify the country.

·         The Renaissance in Georgia happened before the European Renaissance.

·         Georgia has been caught between warring parties for centuries - Arabs, Mongols, the Persian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Germany and the USSR.

·         Georgia declared independence from Russia after the 1917 "Communist Revolution" and set itself up as a democratic republic.  It was under British protection until 1920....only to be invaded by the Red Army in 1921 and subjugated to communist rule.

·         A 1924 rebellion against communism was brutally suppressed by Russia, and dissident movements in the 60's weren't successful (at least not in the short term).  Georgia declared independence from the USSR before it collapsed.

·         Over 77% of Georgians are in favor of the nation joining NATO.

·         In 1992 and 1993, Russia backed the Abkhaz separatists and "ethnically cleansed" (the better word is slaughtered) over 200,000 Georgians in the breakaway province of Abkhazia

·         George W Bush was the first US President to visit Georgia.

·         Georgia has been supporting the US in Iraq until the Russian invasion.

The people of Georgia want to be free of the bully at their doorstep.  They want to be able to address the problems with the two breakaway provinces without threat of Russia invading and decimating their tiny military force (too late for that).  They want to be free to operate their own major oil pipeline (which, by the way, competes with Russia) without fear of a superior Russian military attempting to bomb it (too late for that).  They want to be confident that those who call them "ally" will actually come to their aid in the hour of need (too late for that as well).  With friends like these, who needs enemies?  I am completely blown away that the only person who seems to understand what Russia is doing here is John McCain (my close friends know I'm no huge lover of McCain).  While I was amused (and glad) to hear that Bush and Putin exchanged heated words at the Olympics over the invasion of Georgia, why did it take DAYS for out government to really come out and condemn it?  And what are we going to do about it?  Has there been any mention of aid being sent to Georgia, or economic sanctions against Russia, or (pipe dream), an increased presence in the region to send a message back to Russia that says "We stand by our friends - back off"?  The headlines this morning indicate that Russia might be turning its attention to Ukraine next - another ally.  Are we going to abandon them as well?  Does anyone in our government have even half a brain left to see what's going on here?  Russia is re-asserting USSR-style power and influence.  Only this time they have more economic power to fund their ambitions (does anyone recall Reagan saying we shouldn't allow Russia to build their own oil pipeline to supply Europe?  Yeah, THIS is why.).  Unless we do something to curtail it, Russia is going to continue to 'send its message' to the former Soviet states: tow the line or you're next.  How many more friends will we abandon while we refuse to face the reality of the situation?

Can I see your license and registration m'am?

@ Costco w/the fam

...both enthralled with a baby einstein video on cats.

Kitty and kid...

I just have to pass this along (taken from http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2008/07/is_black_hole_a.html):

Is "black hole" a racially insensitive term?

Apparently to some. From the City Hall Blog at the Dallas Morning News:

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term.

Judge Jones should be very glad that the central collections office has not become a white hole, a theoretical object that ejects matter from beyond its event horizon, rather than sucking it in. It wouldn't be fun for Dallas to find itself so near a quasar.

Anyone wanting to know a good deal about black holes should read the excellent new book, The Black Hole War, by Leonard Susskind, which has just been released. I'm in the middle of it, and the book's a fascinating tour of modern physics written for the layman. It's just been marvelous so far.

Really?  Have we truly arrived at a day and age where nearly everything is viewed through the lens of racist outrage?  Are you telling me that both Commissioner Price and Judge Jones did not know that Mayfield used the term in a very common way?  And what am I in danger of being called if I suggest that if they did not know what Mayfield meant that they had no business being county commissioners?

Can someone tell me what is truly being gained in the so-called "public race discussion" today?  Anyone who really wants to talk about substantial issues faces the hard sell of taboo topics.  If you even want to come to the table with the intention of truly accomplishing something, it requires you (in many cases) to put your career and reputation at the mercy of those who are masters at churning out catchy 10-second sound bites about how racially insensitive you (and the rest of your 'kind') are.  Years ago when I lived in Atlanta, my boss on a 3rd shift job was a black man named Ron.  We became good friends, and it was a world of relief for both of us to openly discuss our differences, and not at any point fear that the other would resort to the "victim" mentality.  It wasn't strange for he and I both to use words like “black" and "white" - neither of us were looking for reasons to be offended by the other.  To this day I believe he and I helped each other better understand our races, and not just one another.

I know that I can't separate my opinion from who I am - I am a white male thirty-something (heck, that's the "trifecta" of liberal anathemas), and yet I cannot find a nationally known civil rights leader worthy of the mantle of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Like Mulder, "I want to believe" that someone is truly out for the best interests of our nation becoming a cohesive unit of races that support, admire, get amused by, celebrate, debate with and fight for each other.  But what I see from many of the "nationally" known (and self proclaimed heirs to Dr. King) smacks of power-tripping, bitterness, divisiveness and "victimhood".  Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I don't think so.  My parents taught me that discrimination was wrong.  My childhood taught me how to befriend an Iranian boy named Afshin who could barely speak English when we met in 6th grade.  A super-talented Korean at my old company challenged me to become the best programmer I could be.  A good friend - Steve - (African American) from my last job is someone I've laughed more with than anyone else in YEARS.  I laugh even when I imagine hearing his laugh.  Dare I say that I (along with many of my childhood friends) grew up without racial templates and talking points?  Operating from the basis of a "racial template" in my life is so far from second nature, I don't think I'd know HOW to do that.  What grieves me the most is that the previously mentioned (yet un-named....) "nationally" recognized civil rights leaders seem to be doing more to breed a new generation of racism and hate than they're doing to solve real problems.  For the life of me I can't imagine why they would want to do that - the only logical answer is it's simply a way to hang onto power.

In the meantime, I think NASA should officially declare the existence of "Grey Holes" - lest the black holes be offended by comments that "they suck" and white holes be offended by comments that "they blow".

...perhaps I had picked a poor combination of snacks for work today.

And then it hit me....

So - some more awe-inspiring intellect is on display in the world of education.....a report from the "The National Children's Bureau" (in the UK) is claiming that toddlers who dislike food "foreign" to them (to be more specific, the context of the claim is when a toddler is exposed to ethnically unfamiliar food) are expressing racist attitudes.  Really.  I'm not kidding.

So....let's try this out:  My son will not eat anything with balsamic vinegar on it.  He can't say "yuk" yet in the context of disliking food, but I'm sure he would.  That is expressing a racial tendency? (i.e. - it makes him racist?)  And since it's been like that from day one, can I turn a common pc argument on its side and say he was born that way?

Would that study call a Kenyan child racist if he turned up his nose at an American grilled cheese sandwich?  (Many east Africans do not share the Euro-American love of cheese...are they all racist?)

My sarcasm aside, our feelings-oriented culture has become a caricature of itself.

Meic Pearse (Prof of History at Houghton College, NY) says this: "The currency of the term tolerance has recently become badly debased.  Where it used to mean the respecting of real, hard differences, it has come to mean instead a dogmatic abdication of truth-claims and a moralistic adherence to moral relativism - departure from either of which is stigmatized as intolerance."

So, our toddler dilemma plays out like this:

In the old definition of tolerance:

Person A: "Want some of my tabouli?"
Person B: "Yuck!  Sorry, have all you want, I'll stick to my lasagna."
Person A: "Oh,ok - you don't know what you're missing."

In the new definition of tolerance:

Person A: "Want some of my tabouli?"
Person B: "Yuck!  Sorry, have all you want, I'll stick to my lasagna."
Person A: "You racist pig.  What do you have against mediterranean food?  I'll see you in hate crimes court."

Thanks to everyone who has been thinking of and praying for me and my family over the last few days.  We had some interesting moments, and I want to share some of them in hopes that if you are anything like me (and tend to shrug off pain or sickness), that you'll reconsider when it really counts!

LESSON ONE: Walk-in Clinics should NEVER have the final word
On Thursday, Steph took me to a walk in clinic in Spring Hill.  While I was still mostly convinced I had food poisoning, I was BEYOND miserable at this point.  It hurt to talk, breath, move or do ANYTHING that even remotely involved my upper torso.  The doctor at the walk-in clinic was NOT listening to me.  (This is a huge pet peeve of mine in normal life, add a potential life-threatening illness and it's downright criminal.)  I could tell as I described the pain in my chest that she wasn't registering it.  AT ALL.  I told her I felt like I had swallowed a soft ball and it got stuck (not that I know what that actually feels like, but, hey, it's what I imagine that would feel like).  She kept asking questions like "does your throat hurt?"  "Do you have stomach cramps?"  I honestly don't remember one question about my chest pain until she finally suggested I try drinking some liquid antacid.  Seriously, she would have simply sent me home saying "Well, drink lots of fluids...." when I was practically doubled over with chest pain in her office.  I was so ticked.  When I realized she wasn't getting this I said, "Where else can we go?  Is our best bet the Williamson ER?"  She said she'd call ahead and let them know we're coming.  However, when we walked into the ER, the nurse checking me in asked "Did Dr. So-and-so know you had severe chest pain?" I said yes.  The nurse was dumbfounded.  "She didn't even mention that to us."  Don't get me wrong - I'm glad we have walk-in clinics.  But doctors there are not going to have a full perspective on your health (like your regular physician), and they're NOT equipped to do any serious testing (like an ER).  If you go to one, make sure the doctor is truly listening to you, if not, don't be afraid to say "We're going somewhere else".

LESSON TWO:  Pride and false bravado just get you killed.
While Steph and I were in the ER, a simple curtain separated us from the next bed over.  We could hear an older man complaining of chest pains.  The doctor was asking him and some family members questions, when suddenly we heard the man make a sound as if he was in serious pain, and a family member said "Oh God!" They were quickly asked to leave and a nurse says "I don't have a pulse"....the doctor barked some quick commands, told everyone to stand clear and you could hear the click of the paddles.  At this point I looked at Steph and mouthed the word "Pray".  A nurse was drawing blood and putting my IV in, but I couldn't help but think about that man next door, and how upset those family members must have been.  Even under all the calm "professional" demeanors of the nurses and doctor attending him, you could hear such concern and determination.  After a half a minute or more of praying for him and listening to the activity going on, they successfully resuscitated the man.  I was so thankful that the man survived, but I was struck by the timing.  Imagine if he hadn't come in?  What if he (like I would have had I not felt so awful) had said "It's probably nothing, and I don't want to ruin the family holiday weekend"?  Even if he had waited 30 minutes, he would've had that heart attack outside the hospital, and may not have lived to tell about it.  About this time I was being told that, although my blood enzymes looked great, the doc thought he saw something abnormal on my EKG, and that he was concerned I might have contracted a virus that was inflaming the tissue around my heart.  Up to this point, the thought of my chest pain being heart-related had never occurred to me.  I have a healthy heart, passed a physical with flying colors - I quite naturally assumed that my chest pain must be due to something else.  That I could contract an infection that could put my heart at risk had not crossed my mind.

LESSON THREE: LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN!  QUESTION QUESTION QUESTION!  REPEAT AS NEEDED.
As a software developer, I'm painfully aware of all the TLAs (Three letter acronyms) and "geek speak" that so many in my field love to use.  Sometimes it really does help speed up communication.  Very often, though, I hear a developer use those terms in talking to someone unfamiliar with them - and it drives me crazy.  What's the point?  A power trip?  Blowing smoke?  Condescension?  Ignorance of your audience?  There were several instances where the walk-in clinic doctor and even my own physician dropped "doctor speak" as if I was supposed to understand exactly what they meant.  I absolutely refuse to be dealt with like that.  I made them explain to me, in detail, what they meant.  I thought I may have detected some surprise that they were being made to explain themselves, and I wondered, how many people don't ask when they should?  Also - the ER doctor and my personal doctor disagreed on the results of my EKG.  The ER doctor was (naturally) being very cautious since if my issue was heart related, he didn't want to send me home to potential death.  However, I could tell my doctor was dismissing him somewhat sarcastically when he arrived at the hospital (not to his face, but to me).  I was glad I had listened so closely to the ER doc, and my own doc.  While I ultimately agreed with my doc's assessment, I wanted to remind him that he could dismiss the ER doc's concerns so easily because HE wasn't the one being admitted.

LESSON FOUR: IF YOU'RE LOSING THE DEHYDRATION BATTLE, GET HELP
I learned this one about ten years ago.  (After a botched spinal tap (thanks to someone misdiagnosing me with meningitis), I was laid out on my back for a month, hardly able to eat or drink because of the pain of my nervous system being so dehydrated.  It was one continuous migraine-on-steroids that started between my eyes, went up and over my head, down my back to my bum.  I finally had to go back to the ER to get fluids via IV.)  I recognized Thursday morning I was losing my battle in trying to stay hydrated (yeah, the diarrhea was that bad...yuck).  That one fact alone is probably what convinced me the ER was the place to go.  They immediately recognized I needed fluids and put me on an IV, and it made ALL the difference.  I suggest you do the same if you find yourself in those shoes!  What I didn't know was that dehydration causes your heart rate to increase.  (I had actually complained to Steph about my heart rate Wed night.)  My resting heart rate was abnormally high when I got to the ER (try 110 - I'm normally in the 70s).  Going to the ER can be an inconvenient pain - but don't risk NOT going.

LESSON FIVE:  GOD IS STILL GOOD
My favorite lesson.  Despite the ordeal, pain and inconvenience, I am incredibly thankful that I have such a wonderful wife, family and friends standing by me.  It's an amazing thought that one day we will live without sickness and death - and I reminded myself of that reality throughout the whole ordeal.  It really puts things in perspective.

...That this is what the inventors of moblogging had in mind when they made it possible to blog from your phone.

I don't think...

Górecki: Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"); Three Olden Style Pieces

Zofia Kilanowicz

I listened to the first movement of Górecki's 3rd on the way to work this morning.  It's hard to describe, but it was a very moving and surreal 30 minutes (the only "non-moving" aspect was the traffic!).  Górecki has an amazing ability to communicate emotion - not your "surfacey" kind of feeling - but deep spiritual emotion - in his music.  It's been a long time since a piece of music has so throroughly grapsed my heart and demanded my thoughtful attention - and produced that oddly pleasant "cathartic" grief that only great music can bring.  Maybe it's the musical analog to "having a good cry".  Either way, listening to the long build up of throaty, mournful bass, the patient climb as higher parts added to the lament, and then finally the soprano floating in above it all - and all that juxtaposed against the scene of morning rush hour traffic and accidents....it was strange, but wonderful.

I highly recommend this cd - even if you've never found 'classical' music you enjoy.  These 3 movements address human suffering in a deep and accessible way - with substance and dignity.  The second movement was inspired by an inscription an 18-year-old Polish girl scrawled on the wall of a Gestapo prison cell that read "Oh Mamma do not cry—Immaculate Queen of Heaven support me always".  One can only imagine the horrors so many Poles experienced at the hands of the Nazis.  In an interview with the Polish Music Journal last year, Górecki said this: "...I would like to add something here about the inscription. In prison, the whole wall was covered with inscriptions screaming out loud: "I'm innocent," "Murderers," "Executioners," "Free me," "You have to save me"—it was all so loud, so banal. Adults were writing this, while here it is an eighteen-year-old girl, almost a child. And she is so different. She does not despair, does not cry, does not scream for revenge. She does not think about herself; whether she deserves her fate or not. Instead, she only thinks about her mother: because it is her mother who will experience true despair. This inscription was something extraordinary. And it really fascinated me".

His words, as well as his music, are loaded with wisdom:

"The most important problem for me at the end of the twentieth century is the continual lack of time. We are always in an awful hurry and still we waste an incredible amount of time, for instance in front of the TV or in a car. While I do like some aspects of our "fast" civilization—I love to fly in airplanes, I am fascinated with cosmic adventures, trips to the moon or Mars—and we do live in astounding times, still, here, in this music, we have to surrender ourselves to this other dimension of time. We have to slow down. Only then the sonority will be fantastic: the higher the music will go, the more distinctly it will sound. I dream of writing such tranquil music. I do not want to compose anything that echoes the modern "rush" - the cell phones, the telephones and faxes. It has to be calm. Life is too beautiful to be wasted in this way, by rushing things so much."

My wife scored the MAJOR find today - a Thomas the train set with TONS of accessories and tracks - you name it! It's in great condition and she got a terrific price on it!

Our yard sale find!