To what end? (Dust in the wind.)

Detail of album cover from Kansas Point of Know Return, which featured the song ‘Dust in the Wind’

I wrote recently[1] about how learning to manage small upsets makes all sorts of things more tolerable.

For good or bad, that suggests a question:  

To what end?

You can ask this for just about anything.

Learn a new language? Learn to play the piano? Complete the crossword? Write a book? Get a new job, nicer car, bigger house?

Everything that is a thing will turn to dust.

Ideas and deeds, good and bad, live forever (or at least beyond our ability to measure forever). Even if eternal reward and punishment are only metaphors, they embody this truth rather tidily.

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10% of $1,000,000 is far less than 10% of $100, by many factors.

If that doesn't make sense to you, you probably never had to choose between snow tires and groceries, or a pack of cigarettes and a six pack, or overtime and sleep.

[2014-02-24]

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Kansas founding member Kerry Livgren is a Christian. Source >

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[1]

Small bothers fall away one by one, including a black nail polish stain >

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Feed your head.

Kiev riots on Jan 23, 2014

After an onslaught of news so inane or horrible that it was either numbing or unfathomable, I am mentally and physically exhausted.

We move with ease between Al Roker giving Russian lessons, to the death toll hitting 25 in Kiev (not to mention oh-by-the-way 4 killed in a Beirut bombing).

We exhaust ourselves with trivial matters. It’s a wonder we have any energy left for the important ones.

[2014-02-19]

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Chris Hayes

Chris Hayes asked today if his audience understood what the sides are in the Ukrainian dispute, and which side we should be on.

Interesting question. It seems to suggest I’d want to take a side, if only I spend the next segment with him to educate myself.

How about this side: Everyone stop killing each other.

My generation had it right after all. A unkempt toking rabble who, instead of rain on anyone’s parade, tuned in, turned on, and dropped out.[1]

This is still cool 40+ years later:

Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit

Feed your head.

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[1]

The hippie movement had a number of factions, some politically motivated, some decidedly not. I think I identified more with the “nots.”

FWIW, I kinda like Chris Hayes. He's got a job to do, just wish he'd be more of a hipster Anderson Cooper and less a hipster Sean Hannity.

And if anyone's wondering how I am still watching MSNBC after getting rid of expanded cable - for some reason, the cable company left that channel on. So I watch it. I suspect that's an accidentally-on-purpose agreement with MSNBC.

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Is it just as important to know Why as How?

A good writer knows the difference between a gerund and an appositive.

A great writer knows that knowing that is irrelevant to good writing.

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I didn't know what a gerund was for years. Mrs Blystone (née Emerson) said she taught us in 7th grade at Bethel Christian School, but I must have missed that day.

[2014-02-18]

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It occurred to me that conservatives often think it is as important to know why as it is to know how.

Examples…

* Being a good Christian means not only knowing I am saved, but why.

* Being a good American means knowing the shape of my country and the shapes of other countries and why they are important (or dangerous or irrelevant) to my country.

* Being a good musician means knowing why one note is preferred to another.

* Being a good writer means knowing why one word is preferred to another.

This leads to all sorts of ridiculous maxims because we look for them where they don't belong, eg, "Good writing is good spelling" (or the correct number of paragraphs, topic sentences, etc). 

Because we are more comfortable finding something to measure.

I submit that you can be a fine Christian, American, musician or writer and not have the brains God gave a turnip.

People who are uninspired Christians, Americans, musicians or writers often compensate by insisting that why and how are interchangeable.

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Now, maybe my classification of this type of person as “conservative” is unfair, not sure about that, but seems I’m on to something taxonomically helpful. (And I am in some things myself conservative.)

[2014-02-20]

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Sometimes widespread adoption is a handicap (unintended consequences).

The 'About' dialog from Internet Explorer 9 released in 2011; today is Feb 13, 2014. This is the version I use at work.

Example: The Internet Explorer web browser has been adopted by many large companies as a campus-wide standard.

Great for Microsoft, right? They own the office desktop and browser experience across traditional business. Loads of licences and users conditioned to the Microsoft UX, like babies sucking on McDonald's French fries.

Well, not really, because...

New browser versions are not always backward compatible with the homegrown applications these companies write for the browser. So they can’t upgrade the browser until all their affected apps are rewritten.

What happens?

Users get stuck looking at a 3-year old version of IE while newer flashy versions of Chrome and Firefox operate right next to it. If you’re in design land, you may have an Airbook open next to your desktop, or a Chromebook, creating an even greater contrast.

This makes IE feel antiquated and slow, and slots it in our mental midden alongside time clocks, cloth cubicles, and staff meetings.

No company wants that.

This is just an example. The browser wars have turned into OS wars for mobile devices and cloud computing, but the principle remains.

[2014-02-13]

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The type of personality from which all intolerance arises.

There are two types of people (from funnyjunk.com)

There are two types of personalities in this world: Those that think everyone should be like them, and those that think the world is better off with more people very unlike them.

Every sort of intolerance arises from the first type:

* Why can’t they learn to speak English?

* Why can’t he drive faster?

* Why don’t they teach their kids some manners?

* Why don’t they rake their leaves more often?

* Why won’t they drink with me?

* Why won’t he go to church?

* Why don’t they vote?

* Why don’t they wave hello?

Etc, i.e., "Why doesn't everyone do things like I do?"

[2014-02-14]

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A few things I say to myself (but not out loud, and in no particular order)...

I’m among the most talented writers I know.

If I were single, I’d marry me.

Sorry, Jesus, that wasn't very nice, was it?

Have you seen my marbles?

Wow, she’s a babe. Shame on me. But, wow.

[2013-12-09]

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Why some Christians refer to remain private Christians.

An interred monk at the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, Sicily

Some Christians remain private because they’re embarrassed. Some are shy. Some don’t really believe. Some do believe and remain inscrutable for political expediency (public office, business leadership, etc).

But there are some who bare themselves so utterly before God in the practice of personal piety, that to speak of it publicly would be painful and humiliating. You will still see them praying, giving, caring, reading the bible, but you will rarely hear them talk of it.

American Gothic by Grant DeVolson Wood (Wikimedia Commons)

And that is certainly not to say that the converse is true - that those who do speak publicly on matters of faith do not have that same piety. I suspect many do, but that is something that takes a certain steeled spirituality that I don’t possess.

I am thinking mostly of my family here; the men especially were of this type. Dad, Grandpa Cairns, Grandpa Grandy. Strong silent men. Good and devout. Men who lived their faith rather than talk about it. The Cairns & Grandy women are the same way, but for some reason the images of the men are in my head at the moment.

[2014-02-17]

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Studying Job (where anticipation and reality are forever only nearly meeting)

Depiction of Job by French painter Léon Bonnat (Wikimedia Commons)

I've always wanted to do a short story or novella based on the Book of Job, and I did start one; I finished a chapter that retells the court scene in heaven where Satan bets God he can turn Job against him.

(Job is considered the oldest book in the bible, and it’s fitting that an ancient book investigates such an ancient question: Why do bad things happen to good people? It’s also an epic premise. Milton knew the potential of the delicious villain long before Indiana Jones was fighting Nazis; in fact, he was criticized for making his Satan too heroic in Paradise Lost).

Pastor Robert Appold at St Matthew Lutheran Church taught me something on Feb 9th that I’d never heard before: Job is about faith when there is no reward.

I thank Pastor Rob for this insight. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered it myself. The bible is rife with examples and paraphrases of that idea. There may be another very good answer, but I like this one. It grows out of our daily struggle with senseless tragedy but avoids the trite and unhelpful “the answer is there is no answer,” which is no answer at all.

And it makes sense outside a biblical context - at work, in marriages, families, friendships - where anticipation and reality often run parallel, forever only nearly meeting, like receding train tracks.

(Everything reduces to psychological egoism if we want it to, just as everything reduces to subatomic particles, charges, spins, etc. That doesn't mean there is no meaning from distances at which these things fall into patterns.)

I have a series of prayers I pray every day, ending with a sort of ‘free form Dear Jesus” in which I just talk about family and work and such.

There are days I cannot do even that, and I only pray  ”have mercy on me, a sinner.”

[2014-02-09]

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There are a  couple paragraphs here that are very good, and stand out apart from their context and meaning. I fear sometimes beautiful little turns like this will go unnoticed since few readers will follow me that far, even if only for a moment. Unlike memes and videos and infographics, words are work.

[2014-02-18]

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Connections (spooky action at a distance)

I often dream about people I've known, both alive and dead, and wonder if in those moments I am not sharing a real encounter.

Did you know that when you touch another person you are exchanging electrons? We share in each other in ways we can’t even begin to imagine.

Quantum entanglement (spooky action at a distance > ) intrigues me, not because it provides a (sort of) believable foundation for Star Trek-ish transportation, but because it says two things are connected despite distance, any distance, and any will to the contrary. You can no more suspend gravity than disregard quantum entanglement.

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There are accounts of closely connected people that sense each other’s trials even though they are far away. Most of this is probably coincidence. After all, we’re all closely connected to someone; if you tally all the premonitions across billions of people, you’ll get a lot of coincidentally accurate ones; but among them might be something else, a subatomic particle, perhaps, that passed from one finger to another and migrated to the brain, where it settled and beacons across time and space.

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And there will be wrong ones. I dreamt once of my Grandma Grandy (Mom’s mom) being taken up into heaven with Jesus. This was when she was alive. The dream was so vivid, I had to call home and make sure she was okay.

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I’m a skeptic, but I love the paranormal; I’d like nothing more than to meet a real alien, or Bigfoot or Nessie.

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We desperately want to be connected to others. And we sometimes feel what we desperately want to feel.

[2014-02-12]

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A Modest Proposal for Preventing Sick Children from Being a Burden to Their Parents and and Country (讽刺)

“The Belgian senate voted 50-17 on 12 December to amend the country's 2002 law on euthanasia so that it would apply to minors, but only under certain conditions. Those include parental consent and a requirement that any minor desiring euthanasia demonstrate a "capacity for discernment" to a psychiatrist and psychologist."

Belgium expected to legalise euthanasia for children >

I see no reason why this merciful step should not be taken universally among developed countries.

Teenage children are mentally and physically equipped to drive, work, marry, and have children. How can we not grant children who are suffering protracted pain, hospitalization and medication the opportunity to make a decision regarding their own health?

Indeed, I suggest that this is such a wise course of action, we might wish to alleviate them from the burden of this decision altogether, and make it for them, as we do fetuses and the elderly.

How much could we save?

The average cost of EOLC (End of Life Care) per patient in the US is about $30,000.

Each year around 13,500 children are diagnosed with cancer in the US.

About 25% of all kids who are diagnosed with cancer die.

Let’s assume one child dies for every child that’s diagnosed, and this number remains constant. That means the annual EOLC cost for terminal children is about $101,250,000 (probably conservative by a few factors).

Let’s round that down to $100,000,000.

$100,000,000 would pay for about a 10th of what is currently spent on bridge repair nationwide, or build over 10 miles of new urban freeway.

It would feed, house, and guard 596 inmates in a large city prison system, or put 1,954 police officers on the street.

It would pay for the annual health and feeding of up to 172,413 dogs or 149,253 cats.

Or how about things that healthy kids can use?

$100,000,000 would pay the salaries of 1,875 kindergarten teachers, or buy over 25,000,000 school lunches, or 401,606 school uniforms.

Not to mention:

No hospice for children.

No Make a Wish Foundation expenses.

Or the funds that could be recaptured by St Jude’s, St Joseph’s, Joe Dimaggio's, and all the other children’s hospitals.

We could go on an on. There is no end to the expense that could be recouped with a compassionate and prudent euthanasia program.

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• Facts about pediatric cancer >
• The “average” cost of EOLC per patient is about $30,000 >
• Average yearly cost for a dog >
• Average yearly cost for a cat >
• Cost of bridge repair in the US >
• Cost to construct a new 4-lane highway >
• Cost to feed, house and guard inmates in New York City >
• Median salary for a kindergarten teacher in the US >
• Average national cost of school uniforms >
• Average salary of a police officer in the US >
• The title is based on Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick >
• Clarence has given his locks to Locks of Love > a number of times.
• This post is satire (讽刺).

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We can never be 100% sure about anything and should not make irreversible decisions that demand 100% certainty.

I support the preservation of life at all stages for all ages.

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[2014-02-12]