2024-07-19
U N I M P O S S I B L E

"Prison Break is so far-fetched, I had to make viewers believe that
Michael is capable of making the impossible possible."  -- Wentworth Miller   

That's often what a good actor does. And Miller pulled it off. But that was onscreen. In real life, sometimes the even bigger challenge is making viewers (readers, listeners, coworkers, neighbors, friends, family) believe that they can make the possible possible.

I was talking with Number Two Son Mead. the chainmail artist in Canada, earlier this month and we got on the subject of people feeling hopeless. That is an often-understandable feeling. And sometimes it seems a relief to give up and not care anymore. To stop trying. To disengage. To accept that we have to meet life on life's terms. At least we stop wasting energy and inviting the pain of beating our heads against a brick wall.

But surrendering to the truth of a situation is emphatically not the same thing as giving up hope. The former can actually be energizing; the latter saps us of what little energy we may still have left. The latter gives us the opportunity to perhaps enter a different tunnel leading to a new light source; the former not only closes down the tunnel we're in but renders invisible every other tunnel we might have access to.

We often hear it from newcomers in the rooms of recovery, when we share with them a brighter future than the one they walked in with: "Oh, you're just trying to raise my hopes." Damn straight. We're trying {nod to Spider Robinson} to raise your hopes until they're big enough to stand on their own.

The people who refuse to grasp that strand of hope do indeed doom themselves to a potentially very painful, and hopeless existence. OTOH, the people who grab that strand of hope - wispy, yet spidersilk-strong - and hang onto it as desperately as they hung on to their bottle, their needle, their smokes, their racing form, their abusive lover, their anger...those are the ones who recover. Accept their reality and take charge of their reaction and response to it. Engage. Concentrate on what they can do, not what they can't. Envision a better, fuller life for themselves and their loved ones. Build it as best they can, willingly asking for help where help is needed. Pass to a succeeding generation both the progress they've made and the progress still to be made. And then share that victory with others.

Glass-half-empty/glass-half-full is an old cliche, yes. But things become cliches in the first place because they are so often true. And yes, which way someone perceives the world is, in part, directly attributable to genetics and/or early upbringing. But nature/nurture is amenable to modification. Not in one's past, obviously, but in one's present and future. The only difference is how hard one has to look to see it. And how willing one is to try.

And that's the crux. Mead and I talked about what gives us hope for the future. For ourselves, for our progeny, for humanity, for the planet and all its creatures. In our case, yes, the Baha'i Faith has a lot to do with it. That's cool, but it's not a necessity. People can find faith in a lot of times and places. They can find hope in a lot of times and places. But not if they insist that faith and hope don't exist. If they can't find any faith and hope, then they can't contribute any faith and hope.

So what? Why bother? It's too hard? It's a doomed endeavor? There's nothing to believe in and nothing to hope for?

OK. If that's the life someone wants to live, OK. But it really doesn't sound like much fun. Understand, I'm not talking about people who are suicidal here. That's different. I'm talking about people who've decided to just exist. To make do with, essentially, nothing. For whatever years they have left. Again, doesn't sound like much fun.

And that's the "funny" part about faith and hope. They're not easy. They really aren't. They're hard! But in the long run, they're so much more FUN. To say  nothing of productive. And by productive, I don't mean profitable in a material sense. I mean, it may sound weird, but giving service to others - especially if you can do so by following your bliss, like I do with writing - really is fun. And it's not hard but fun. It's fun because it's hard...and thus more satisfying to accomplish in the long run.

And ya know, when people join together in hopes of accomplishing something meaningful, they can turn the seemingly impossible into a real possibility. A person can walk on the moon. An industry can modify its tuna-fishing practices to protect dolphins. A building's top floor can be half a mile above its ground floor. A pandemic can be overcome. A dictator can be given their walking papers.  A child's cancer can be cured. I can phone a friend who lives 15 miles from me in Chicago and, when he answers a few seconds later, he tells me he can't offer me a ride today 'cuz he's in China. (Yep, that happened to me.) The impossible become possible. Not every time, no; but often enough to make it worth trying.

People with no hope can drag down most everyone around them. People who have hope may uplift some of the people around them. So it may follow that we need more people with hope than without just to keep things balanced. Even more important, the more hopeful people there are, the more the balance will tip in favor of hopes being fulfilled. (Also, sadly, vice versus.)

There are, what, 8.2 billion people in the world today? Who knows how many are hopeful and how many are apathetic. Let's say for argument's sake that we need about three hopers to balance each hopeless human. Call it needing 6 billion who think {nod to Douglas Adams}"life, the universe, an everything" is worth living and can become even better. And are willing to help try, to engage, at least in their little corner. And 2.2 billion who think nothing can become better. Worse yet, that it'll continue to go downhill forever. And have decided to not even try engaging, helping in their little corner.

And so this person joins a charitable organization. Helps put on a community event or plant a community garden. Marches for peace or human rights. Votes their conscience. Exhibits pride in their own culture and openness to other peoples'. Encourages other people to engage. Looks for and lauds the best in everyone. While that person thinks all charities are a scam. Isolates from their community. Believes grassroots actions have no efficacy. Claims "a pox on both their houses" and doesn't vote at all. Has a jaundiced view even of their own roots. Discourages others by both word and example from engaging in anything meaningful. Assumes and expects the worst of everyone else.

Not gonna try to tell you where to find hope, where to find faith, even what to look for. Not even gonna get into details about where and how I did.  [ASIDE] Not here, anyway. You can always glom onto Twigs. [/ASIDE] Just gonna let you answer all that for yourself. (Unless you email me and say you'd like to have that discussion, in which case I'd be pleased to engage with you.) Just gonna ask a few questions.

Which group would you prefer to root for? Which group would you prefer to be part of, and how? Which result will make you feel the happiest, the most alive? And are you up for being an actor portraying the unimpossible?

Like I said, just askin'.

Khoda hafez,
Lucki

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2024-06-03
T O T A L L Y

"We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe
to figure itself out - and we have only just begun."   -- Neil deGrasse Tyson

CONTINUED FROM MAY

We were able to get off the road and out of the car with two minutes, give or take, to spare. We adjusted our eclipse glasses for maximum protection as Rey carefully backed each of us up to lean against the van. And we just watched it for the less-than-two-minutes we had. As it reached totality, we took off our glasses.

Team Eclipse stand in awe*

We saw the apparent double orange arc that may manifest when the standalone corona and solar refraction/reflection off the moon's high-albedo surface (perhaps augmented by terrestrial reflection) appear at the same time. It was amazing.

We saw the last solar-surface flash and the kiss of totality, leaving the corona alone in its now-stark whiteness against the night-dark sky. It was awesome.

All the traffic pulling onto the verge and people piling out had shooed away any birds and bugs that might've been making noise. So we didn't hear the sudden silence when they stop...not 'cuz they're frightened by the eclipse (they're not); rather, simply 'cuz they think night has fallen. But we knew it was happening outside of our earshot. And we knew it would've been extraordinary.

And THEN we saw the diamond ring! It was indescribably glorious. It was what I'd most wanted to experience. It was worth the whole trip.**

I thought about how we, made of stardust, were so personally and joyously connecting with this star- and moon-born experience. And I thought of the Scriptural meditation we've been given to recite on the appearance of fearful natural events. Here was a natural event that caused terror in humans (and only humans) for thousands and thousands of years. Yet now, thanks to the harmony of science and religion, we have laid to rest that particular fear of the (no longer) inexplicable. We can understand the phenomenon, plan a trip to witness it (for the first/only time in my life), and perceive it not as an ill omen but as a demonstration of the Creator's magnificent Plan for an ordered universe. I suggested we say that verse (in English); and each of us six in turn, both Baha'i and non, did so: "Dominion is God's, the Lord of the seen and the unseen, the Lord of creation."

Once totality was over, we started prepping to leave. The group in the car in front of us included two kids who were still standing with their mother watching the return of the sun. Unfortunately, they only had one pair of eclipse glasses that they were sharing, each a few seconds at a time. I gave Rey two of our four pairs of dark blue U of I glasses (Mya had mailed them to me, and they came just in time), and he ran over and gave them to the kids so they could all watch the rest of the eclipse together. They thanked us profusely and stood together gazing up, all three of them finally able to share the same sight at the same moment.

We gradually got ourselves back into the car just as an Indiana state trooper pulled up behind us. The troopers were obviously now chivvying people off the roadsides. Rey in turn asked us to hurry and buckle up, then peeled into traffic as soon as he safely could, so the trooper wouldn't have to get out and come talk to us. Most of the cars ahead of us had already pulled out (guess they didn't have so many old/slow folks to contend with), but not the family just in front of us. The kids were still exuding about what they saw; and I think the trooper protectively let them be kids for a moment or two more before making sure they also moved on.

There were two problems for us, though. First of all, we were long miles from any intersection or ramp where we could reverse our direction and head northwest again. Rey eventually decided to use one of the median's gravelly bits that he knew first responders use to do quick reverses on the highway.

The other was that most (if not all) of us needed a restroom, but all the rest stops within about 50 miles were closed; Indiana had closed them as they reached capacity. But Rey saw one area along the highway where a lot was full and police were there getting people moved out. He pulled along side and said to one of the officers, "All the rest stops are closed and I have all these senior ladies in the car. Where can we go?" The guy looked in, smiled, and said, "Go down this side road and there's a restaurant there. About ten, twenty minutes" (He was probably taking into account that, rather than driving at a younger guy's usual speed, Rey might not want to stress any litle-old-lady sphincters.) We thanked him and headed off down the road.

When we got to the mostly-junk-food-type chain restaurant with the big parking lot and even patio seating, we discovered that the lines for the two restrooms were all the way across the restaurant and practically out the front door. Great! But it beat being in the bushes. We five got in the women's line asap. Rey battened down the van and joined the men's line, checking on the posted menu as he stood there. People in the parallel lines were wonderfully patient and talkative. After all, we had all just experience the same awesomeness and were on the same trip to distant homes. And we-all didn't just talk about the eclipse or the trip, either; we talked about a lot of interesting things, catching or losing different people's interest as the topics morphed and the discussions ebbed and flowed.

It took maybe a half hour before all six of us were relieved. We'd discussed eating there; but Rey really wasn't interested in less-than-healthy food and asked if we could just head home. We agreed; it was only fair that we do so for him after all he'd done for us. (I didn't mind; I'd stayed masked the whole trip and wasn't about to risk eating in the presence of a crowd of people I didn't know, not even out on the patio.)

We finally made it back to Chicago, still chatting, laughing, sharing, enjoying each other (and reviewing highlights of our adventure) as much coming back as we had going down. But home was looking good for everyone. Helena got dropped off first. Then we drove to Nancy's, where Marianne also left to walk her house. Finally, we arrived at my condo where Ellen's husband, having been called, was waiting to pick her up. Then Rey accompanied me upstairs to help carry the chair, some leftover snacks and, out of the cooler, a few of bags of leftovers from the firehouse, which goodies he split out between us.

I looked at the clock as soon as we got in; it was 8:30 PM on the dot. He didn't stick around long, though. I didn't blame him. Even though his shift the previous night had been pretty peaceful and he'd been able to sleep, he was tired again and ready to head home and hit the hay himself.

We reminded ourselves, though, that the 20 minutes we saved at the beginning of the trip made all the difference. It was a great omen after all. We wouldn't have succeeded without it.

Let me close by pointing you to Helena's colorful artistic take on the day: Eclipse Chasing. She didn't tell me it's NFS (which surprised me), so I assume it actually is for sale. I'll double-check with her if you're interested.

*Rey joined in right after taking this photo.
**This entry includes NO eclipse videos or stills. 'Cuz no photos or even videos - not even professional ones, never mind any poor efforts of ours - can do real justice. Trust me, if you think you've seen one on film or digitally, you have not. 'Cuz the camera simply cannot see what the human eye can. I know. For sure. 'Cuz I was finally able to compare. However, 'cuz why shouldn't you expect a little more in the way of graphics, this pair of pix Rey received shows the reaction of someone who, south of the band, didn't even quite see totality (97.9%):

Khoda hafez,
Lucki

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2024-05-13
T O T A L I T Y ?

"There is no science in this world like physics. Nothing comes close to the precision with which physics
enables you to understand the world around you. It's the laws of physics that allow us to say exactly what
time the sun is going to rise. What time the eclipse is going to begin. What time the eclipse is going to end."
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

I've seen several partial solar eclipses in person. And I've seen video footage of total eclipses. But I never had a shot at witnessing totality in person. Not until last month. On April 8. In the mid-afternoon. In Indiana or southern Illinois. It was a long shot, but I tried for it anyway. Blast the odds, why not hope? Totality or bust.

This time, I'm gonna tell you the wacky story of going towards. Next time, I'll tell the story of coming from, 'cuz that had it own weirdities, too.

Even though Number One Son Rey had seen a total eclipse in 2017 in downstate Illinois, he rousted out to take me and a friend to see this year's. When road-tripping, Rey likes to rent a vehicle rather than use his own. And 'cuz we'd be packing equipment like food and chairs, he rented a 7-seater van. That gave me more leeway and I invited three other friends. Came the morning of the 8th, and off we all six went.

Sounds easy? It wasn't. We passengers agreed to meet up in my building's vestibule between 8:30 and 9:15 AM, where we consulted on timing, seating arrangements, possible routes, etc. Rey was just coming off his 24-hour shift. [ASIDE] Thankfully it'd been a quiet night, Unlike the night before his first day assigned to O'Hare. That AM, he was shown a CTA subway train that in the wee hours had overrun the end-of-track bumper, barreled off the tracks, crashed into and flown up the airport escalator, narrowly missing bystanders at the top, and was still lodged there. See video of the crash happening. [/ASIDE] And he had to make a stop at a med lab on the way. So he expected to arrive at my place no earlier than 9:30 AM. Luckily, all five of us ladies gathered in plenty of time, compiled our research, made decisions, and had actually moved all our stuff back out to the curb, much to his surprise, just as Rey pulled up at 9:20.

Mess left by CTA subway train derailment & crash onto
escalator at O'Hare Airport, March 24, 2014, 2:50 AM

So loading went quickly, with one minor glitch. Usually when riding with Rey, I ride shotgun. Anywhere else in the car, my amaxophobia makes me anxious, nauseous (so no food for me that day until we got back home), and preternaturally reactive. But this was going to be a long trip, we all agreed Marianne could give Rey the best navigatorial assistance, and I sucked it up and ended up in the middle row. Only problem was, the floor of the van was extremely high, and short li'l ol' me couldn't step in via the side door. But Marianne thought to lay down her bagged chair, and the extra few inches that gave me off the ground made climbing in possible. (Out wasn't easy, either, but at least I didn't need the chair for that.) So we all got seated where we planned and actually pulled away at 9:30 on the dot. Probably saved ourselves a whole 20 minutes. Big whoop in a day-long trip; but hey, you take your omens where you can get 'em, right? For good or ill.

Team Eclipse friends (from left)
Marianne, Ellen, Nancy, & Helena

We wended our way down the 25-mile length of Chicago in fairly good order. Rey had a feel for how to get around the worst of the city traffic that Monday morning. Once we hit the highway south of town, he used the car's GPS system for specific directions and traffic conditions, and Marianne used her phone to track the path and duration of totality minute by minute and to suggest the best route and destination in that path based on our ongoing progress. (Honestly, their constant and comfortable consultation throughout the trip amazed me.) They decided that going southeastish in Indiana - but avoiding Indianapolis where everydarnbody was converging via plane, train, bus, car and, for all we knew, subterrene* - offered the best chance to arrive somewhere on time, in an open space, and with good viewing conditions. That meant crossing into the Eastern time zone, which was very important to the calculations.

Team Eclipse driver:
Number One Son Rey

All of us in the van knew each other, except Ellen only knew Helena and me. Nevertheless, we comprised a diverse group of totality trekkers: One guy and five gals. Two avid drivers, two sometimes drivers, and two non-drivers (one of whom never even learned how). Three middle-agers and three senior types. Three black people and three white. Three 12-Steppers and three allies. Four Baha'is and two friends of the Faith.

But it didn't take long to name ourselves Team Eclipse and begin to bond. We chatted. We sang. We laughed. We told stories. We shared our hopes (not only for viewing the eclipse), struggles, victories. We said prayers ... during a couple of which, Helena's husband back in Chicago joined us on the phone. We ('cept me) noshed on the plentiful array of fruits and other snacks that Rey had thoughtfully provided. We even held a sort of open 12-Step meeting. And we consulted on routing when Rey and Marianne asked us to. Useful skill to practice, that.

Things went pretty well. We hit a couple of slowdowns as more and more cars came onto the highway ... people like us on the way to the band of totality. Marianne figured out a way to get off the highway, around one big jam, and back on. Rey guesstimated that saved us another 20 minutes. When the same thing happened again, long miles later, she advised him on employing the same tactic.

Only it didn't work the second time. Off-highway traffic, miles later, came nearly to a standstill. Doubly frustrating, 'cuz we'd come far enough to look over and see that the highway traffic was now moving faster than us. What no one in the line realized was (a) there was a stop sign at a major intersection way up ahead, just before the next ramp to get back on the highway, (b) the cross traffic with no stop signs was dense and high-speed, and (c) cautious drivers with smaller, slower cars were blocking up the line as they waited for a rare propitious moment to turn, especially left.

After we'd been crawling for about 20 minutes, Rey posited turning around out of the line (as a car or three did in front of and behind us) and go back to where we'd initially exited the highway. We all consulted and decided we didn't want to risk losing more time backtracking, especially if the jam was still occurring back there. So Rey stayed in line (not super happily, but I was proud of his uncomplaining restraint).

We finally got within a couple cars of the intersection. Sure enough, a small car was holding up the line then, afraid to move. The car behind it swerved left, momentarily checked the cross-traffic flow, saw a gap it could accelerate into, and turned left. Ditto Rey. We shot back onto the highway. But we'd pretty much lost all the time we'd saved at the start and during the one highway bypass.

We also lost time to necessary rest and gas stops and occasional minor jams. We handled them as quickly as possible, but the minutes kept ticking away as we chatted, sang, prayed, snacked, and drove through the miles. Rey and Marianne kept in constant consultation, and finally determined that an upcoming routing towards Thornton was our best chance to beat the clock.

Thus, the point came where a group decision had to be made. Did we want to experience the longest passage time, Rey and Marianne asked, even if it was not quite total? Or did we want to try for totality, no sure thing, even if it meant missing most of the passage. The answer from the four "backseat drivers" was immediate and unanimous: Heck, if we'd wanted to settle for partial, we coulda stayed in Chicago. No, go for totality!

Helena joined the navigation team by pulling up and sometimes announcing a minute-by-minute count-down to Thornton totality. Marianne kept track of our position in relationship to the totality band. And Rey added a little lead to his foot. Everyone on the starboard side of the van donned our eclipse glasses to start watching the moon-shadow slide. And Rey, who was able to glance up through the tinted windshield at it a few times for the smallest fraction of a second, wished he'd thought to get a van with a sunroof so the portside passengers could watch, too.

Suddenly, Marianne exclaimed, "We're in totality, in the zone."

Helena answered, "We have three minutes and thirty-six seconds until it happens."

Rey surveyed the roadside. "We can't stop here," he said. "There's a ditch right next to us"

Everyone groaned.

Rey hit the gas again, and maybe a minute later said, "I see a pull-off spot right beyond that overpass."

He was right. There were already cars parked there, but a car-length strip of more-or-less flat, grassy terrain was available just out from under the overpass and no one ahead of us pulling into it. Rey slammed the pedal to the metal, got past the overpass as he braked, swerved onto the grass, rocked to a stop, hit the button to slide open the starboard door, carefully exited his door as speeding cars continued to swoosh past us seeking their own pull-off points, and came around to help us all debark.

Had we made it? We weren't sure. There was a bit of light still. But since we had to take off our eclipse glasses to debark, and since our windows were tinted, we weren't able to look up and tell absolutely if we were bathed in the last of the light before totality or the first light after. I thought - or at least sincerely hoped - we'd made it, 'cuz even more than totality itself, I wanted to experience the diamond ring.


*As opposed to submarine, 'cuz Indianapolis is the largest city in the US not constructed on a navigable body of water.

CONTINUED IN JUNE

Khoda hafez,
Lucki

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2024-04-01
E N D - S T A G E ?

"In a late-capitalist society, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer...
such is the ever-turning gyre of capitalism."  -- David Elias Aviles Espinoza

We are certainly seeing this play out nowadays. As Espinoza further notes, global economic upheavals such as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have led to simultaneous expansions and concentrations of wealth. He also notes that many economists today believe increases in wealth inequity endanger our future.

I get that. Understand, I'm not against people striving to acquire wealth. Nor am I saying everyone should have the same/equal level of wealth. After all, while no one should be left bereft of the financial resources to create a decent life for themself and their loved ones, those who contribute more to that decent life for everyone should be valued and paid what they're worth.

[ASIDE] Though let's be honest: Does, say, a tuxedoed Elon Musk partying all night really contribute more to the quality of your mundane, workaday life on a personal basis than do the sweaty uniformed drivers and shotgun riders who roust themselves out at the crack of dawn to come load up and cart away all your garbage, trash, and recyclables? (Have you ever lived through a garbage-collectors strike? Was it fun?) Whom do you think you might willingly - even avidly - pay more to if they just all stopped working (or even started picketing) for three months? 'Cuz I know whom I need the most. [/ASIDE]

No, I'm saying there should be equity in the acquisition of wealth, which is not the same thing as everyone having an equal amount of it. Everyone should have an equal chance to earn their best living with their labors, talents, skills, and knowledge. That means getting the best education they can aspire to in the safest communities they can aspire to live in. And getting the best jobs they can aspire to within the most supportive society they can aspire to be part of. Do you think that's happening now? (If you do, I'm forced to ask what bubble you are living in.)

I'm also saying there should be sufficient restraint to recognize and accept when enough wealth is enough. To eschew greedily gathering more and more wealth merely for the sake of becoming wealthier and wealthier ... with no concern about anyone else. Especially the poorest and most vulnerable, being stripped of their limited capital in the process. And to willingly pay a fair share (again, equitable, not merely equal) in, say, the wages and taxes necessary to provide a decent standard of living for everyone in the society.

I want to share a few examples of how I see greed operating to the detriment of people who have little recourse.

1.  One is in the supermarket industry. Food is not a luxury, it's a necessity. So, I went to the supermarket three weeks ago to pick up a few staples. Not things that spoil fast, understand, but things vacuum-packed in waxed-paper bags sealed in cardboard boxes so they have a decent shelf life. Before I tell you what happened there, let me give you a comparison between this megamart and the small local fruit market that sells breads from local small bakeries. Years ago, the favorite fresh bread I get sold for $2.69 a loaf. It stayed that price for, like, almost forever, though admittedly it succumbed once to some shrinkflation. Then the pandemic hit, and soon the price (with no shrinkflation) rose to $3.19 a loaf, an 18.5% increase. And it's stayed that way ever since. I suspect both the small bakery and the small market, understanding the pinch from their own personal experience, had a hand in keeping the price as stable as they could.

     Anyway, at the supermarket I bought a box of of my favorite, national-brand crackers. It cost me $3.99. I do lots of soups, and also sometimes use crackers as croutons in salads or as snacks. So a few days later, when I needed to get something else anyway, and knowing I might run out of crackers before I returned, I bought another box. It cost me $4.99, a 25% increase. (Incidentally, the other must-get item had also gone up from $4.99 to $5.99, a 20% increase.) OK, crackers do need wheat, and the invasion against Ukraine has caused our supply of imported wheat to drop, so I understood the need for a price increase, even though it seemed a little steep. Two weeks later, I went back to the supermarket. I passed through the cracker aisle. I saw my favorite crackers. I didn't buy any. I won't be buying any. The price had skyrocketed to $6.99, another 40% increase over the new price. In other words, those crackers went up by 75% from the original price in less than three weeks. No thanks; I can do without. (No wonder everyday people on both sides of the partisan divide are calling for their government to address price gouging in the food industry.)

     If a little fruit market and a little bakery can hold the line, that big food company and that big megamart chain certainly can, too. IF they wanted to. But they obviously don't. Instead, they're taking advantage, like many other companies are...and making record profits.

    As I said, I don't buy this product any more. I won't until they back down to some reasonable pricing. Are there a few things you'd be willing to forgo to get the message across to your megamart?

2.  Another foody example is a company that makes sure you know how absolutely, positively wonderful all its products are. Interestingly, it's both a consumer and a producer of water. Yep, it bottles and sells water. Pure, untouched water. From Fiji. One of our readers in Fiji gave me a heads-up about what's going on there, which I'll get to in a moment. Another of its products is nuts. Mostly grown in California's Central Valley. A bit of serendipitous research gave me a heads-up about what's going on there, too.

     Now, this company touts its charitable activities, funded by the profits it makes. It calls them place-based charities; promising that where it produces is where it gives. Like in California. Where the "family-owned" company owners are known as the "California couple who uses more water than every home in Los Angeles combined". Where it doesn't bother to tell you that its aggressive water consumption for its nut crops has exacerbated the West Coast droughts. or that it has continued to expand its orchards there even while the state's residents have suffered repeated water shortages and the water ecosystem has been irreversibly damaged. [ASIDE] Did you know it takes 50 gallons of water to grow a pound of watermelon, 100 to grow a pound of apples, and 1,900 - yes, you read that right - to grow a pound of nuts?! [/ASIDE]

     Also like in Fiji, where the company has soaked up rights to the main-island artesian aquifer to keep water flowing into its bottles - plastic bottles - for export over 5,000 miles away via greenhouse-gas spewing shipments, while it turns a blind eye to the fact that many Fijians themselves can therefore no longer afford clean drinking water. All in all, it takes 1.75 gallons of water to produce just one hand-held bottle of Fijian water. Oh, and let's don't forget that the company may have been complicit in the 2006 Fijian coup d'etat, and certainly continued to do business with the unelected, unethical, and inhumane victors. Meanwhile, the company committed itself to "support" one small town in California, which houses/employs about 35% fewer US citizens than the national average. (Hornswaggled into immigrating 'cuz they think things'll be better for them here than at home?) And within which the demographic and economic stats have been steadily declining. Wow, how "supportive" is that?

I do not buy any known products whatsoever from this company. Think a boycott might get their attention?

3.  Lest you think such greed is limited to foody folk, here's an example from the medical field. Including medical insurance. Medicare has been a boon to seniors since its inception. Services like Obamacare and Medicare (and obviously Medicaid) aren't themselves profit-making. But boy oh boy, where profit might be makeable, there the profiteers will descend like a volt of vultures. And like food, health care is not a luxury. But it's treated like one. So lemme tell you about a very good friend of mine. Who recently fell and fractured her humeral head (the ball at the top of the arm that fits into the shoulder joint) in four places. OUCH! She's on Medicare Advantage. And I gotta admit that Medicare Advantage may indeed be advantageous in health maintenance. But HMO/PPO plans are often rubbish when it comes to catastrophic injuries, diseases, and conditions.

     If I'd broken my shoulder, me with my traditional Medicare and decent supplemental insurance, I'd've been taken directly to the ER (by ambulance, if necessary), been examined and diagnosed by a specialist, been admitted to my hospital, received ongoing pain management assistance, and received a surgical repair probably in a day or three. And wouldn't have expected to pay a cent. [ASIDE] I base that statement mostly on how things went for me when I realized I had what turned out to be a potentially lethal cardiac condition. [/ASIDE] Not so for my friend. She had to go to an immediate care center, received a cursory exam and basic X-ray, was sent home with a sling and heavy-duty acetaminophen, and told to call her doctor. Which she did, went for another more-informational scan, was sent home again with no additional/enhanced pain management, and told to go to the hospital for an EKG and bloodwork. She finally had replacement surgery two weeks after her fall. That's an awful lot of time and travel spent in constant pain that often becomes excruciating before she gets to take another dose of her acetaminophen. That's what happens since health care slid from public service into died-in-the-wool profit-maker.

I'm concern about Medicare Advantage (its main advantage is that it gets to advertise) is slowly driving traditional Medicare out of the market. I'm refusing to fall for their touting small health-maintenance "freebies" at the expense of prompt catastropic care. And I intend to repeatedly write to my electeds about doing something to rein in the profiteering. You up for doing the same?

4.  Here's another instance of public service degrading into profit center. Chief meteorologist emeritus Tom SKilling served Chicago's WGN-TV for over 45 years before his retirement at the end of this past February. He was well known not only in Chicago but nationally for his work, including his dedication to educating people about climate change. His tribute page on the station's website mentions at least a half dozen examples of his advocacy. NONE of which have to do with anything he said about the subject on the air in the 9 PM and 10 PM news.

     Now, I admit I didn't catch his weather reports that often. Just sometimes. But with very rare exceptions, I didn't see much difference between what he said in the weathercast and what chief (or any) meteorologists on other channels said. I'm very aware that the words "climate change" (or any variants, like "global warming" or "climate crisis" or "escalating weather extremes") seldom cross their lips. Sometimes they even downplay the effects, like telling us if our weather is warmer or colder than "average" for a given timeframe, without bothering to remind us that as we have more and more warmer days, the "average" also goes up bit by bit from what it used to be. I wonder even how many Chicagoans realized that our average temperature this past winter was several degrees above freezing. Including the warmest February ever on record, with average temps around 40F (over 10F above the previous average) and with a mere monthly total of 1.2" snow. I didn't learn that from any weathercasters; I had to research it on my own.

     A good example is tornadoes. Why aren't weathercasters screaming bloody murder about Chicagoland tornadoes as a product of global warming? Chicago used to sit north of Tornado Alley. From 1855 to 2008, Chicagoland had a grand total of 92 "significant" tornadoes, ones with winds over 110 mph and/or at least 1 fatality and/or at least 10 people hurt. 92 in 124 years. Less than one a year. In fact, the highest number of significant tornadoes we ever had in a decade then was 22.

     Wanna guess how many tornadoes of all kinds the National Weather Service clocked last year in its Chicago forecast area? In one year? 58! A record-breaker. Which included, for the first time ever, tornadoes in January and February and March. And would you believe that on March 31, we had 22 in one day?!

     Of course, every single meteorologist is front and center about making sure we're aware of wind shear, storm height, supercells, tornado watches, tornado warnings, tornado sightings, tornado touchdowns, and safety precautions. They are positively strident about it. As well they should be, But I swear you could count on the fingers of one hand how often they include a clear reference to climate change (and still have enough fingers left over to throw a baseball). In fact, they seldom relate any weather forecasts or reports to climate change. Even though this is not the Chicago I moved to 60 years ago.

     Why not? 'Cuz they fear they'd lose viewers. See, like health care, news programs are no longer offered as public service. They're profit centers now, too. And while "if it bleeds, it leads" rules the news segments - for instance, grabbing our attention by putting crimes at the top of the hour, which convinces us that crime is steadily on the increase when, in fact, it's been going down dramatically over the past several years - what rules in the weather segment is apparently "don't rain on our parade" 'cuz the viewers don't wanna be reminded of the truth and, if you feed it to them anyway, they'll just change the channel.

    Do I know how to fix this weather report business? All it would take is every meteorologist in every timeslot on every channel agreeing to get honest, all starting on the same day. Do you think that might happen? Because I think it can only happen if we demand it. It's up to us to remind them that we want the truth. I can do that. A letter, an email, a phone call. If enough of us do, they'll get it; if enough of us don't, they won't.

5.  Finally, let me share an example of how such greed has resulted in political chaos and division. Chicago recently held it's primary elections. There was also a referendum question on the ballot that even people who don't declare a party were able to vote on. The measure was to modify our real estate property transfer tax, the one-time tax paid when a parcel of real estate transfers from seller to buyer. The modification was to lower the tax rate on properties sold for less than $1 million and raise the rate for properties over $1 million, with the proceeds going to help fund the City's programs that help the unsheltered homeless move into shelters and sheltered homeless transition from temporary to permanent housing.

     Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn't it? The wealthiest people with the biggest properties do the most to help the homeless. And in the process, save all of us from having to deal with, say, homeless encampments in our local parks and underpasses. And the rest of us homeowners get a small break, too, which helps us - especially POCs - pass on just a tad more wealth to our progeny. Not millions, you understand, but maybe at least a few hundred or a thousand bucks more. Money most likely to be spent not on frivolous luxuries but on productive things like helping a grandchild to finish school or to start a small business or professional practice. We non-millionaires certainly outnumber the millionaires in Chicago, so it'd be a shoe-in, right?

     Wrong. The measure lost 52% to 48%. In other words, too many non-millionaires voted against their own interests.

     Why? Because of a massive TV-ad and mail-brochure campaign that used misdirection and downright lies to convince small (and aspiring) homeowners and small business owners - especially POCs - that their annual property tax rates would go up every year. And renters that they'd no longer be able to afford their rent. Even though the transfer tax would never apply as long as owners held onto their property.

     Another favorite deceptive optic was to repeatedly use the words PROPERTY TRANSFER TAX in big bold type with a big swish drawn through the word TRANSFER. I don't have to tell you the campaign was well funded by the most wealthy of homeowners and the least ethical of real estate professionals and the greediest of developers, do I?

    Did I vote? Yes. Did I try to educate my neighbors, regardless of their partisanship (or non), about their stake in this? Yes. Our ward actually voted 71% in favor of this measure. Have I given up? No. The vote was close; the proponents can do a lot over time to counteract the deceptive claims of the opponents. And the City can try again, maybe even with an improved plan. What's going on in your community that you need to get out and vote about? 'Cuz since Citizens United perpetrated the idiocy that money is speech, allowing the 1% to shout down everyone else. the only way to counteract that is with enough of the 99% using our votes to speak louder.

Back to Espinoza, who ended with a telling query: "What will come after late capitalism?" Good question, David.  And: "In the face of the climate crisis, some are imagining everyday lives no longer guided by overconsumption and environmental degradation," he responded to himself. One can only hope. One can only hope it'll happen soon enough.

OTOH, evolution isn't over. The Creative Force - however you define her, him, or it - is still operating, and will continue to do so. What if we screw it up so royally that we pretty much wipe all "higher" life forms - like, say, vertebrates - off the face of the land and the waters? Well then, I'm definitely rooting for the octopi to be the next race that comes out of the oceans and strives to properly perfect and use art and science, faith and investigation, diversity and unity to achieve what 12-Steppers call "conscious contact with God" and with the world around them. After all, they have a wildly different way of looking at things than we do; so maybe what we got wrong, they'll get it right. Right?

Khoda hafez,
Lucki
P.S. Looking at point 5 above, the same kind of monied interests are now using exactly the same kind of tactics to dynamite another Chicago program to combat both climate change and poverty by mandating that all (and only) new and majorly renovated buildings must be built to use clean and affordable energy sources. Dear reader, when you see that kind of one-sided, negative advertising blitzkrieg against something as vital as keeping our society and/or our planet liveable for everyone, seriously consider and even investigate who's spending all that money and what's in it for them that they'd pour all those millions into it. A little fact checking can go a long way.

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2024-03-01
C L A S S

"Being a class act is more about who you are and what you do
rather than what you own or who you pretend to be."  -- Frank Sonnenberg

Two months ago, I posted a complementary article in this blog related to that month's Adding Insult write-up. I noted that doing so was "a very rare occurrence". Well, apparently not all that rare. 'Cuz this entry here was also written in conjunction with a simultaneously posted article in Adding Insult. And once again, I highly recommend that you read that one first. Though they're both fun, call it saving the best for last.

You've probably seen Lily, the spokesgal for the alpha phone company. An often-used character whose ads I've both panned and praised. Lily is portrayed by Milana Vayntrub, and she's really good at it.

You've also likely seen Flo, the spokesgal for the oh-so-white insurance company. An often-used character some (but not all) of whose ads I've been panning since mid-2014. Twice in a row in 2020 (here and here). And again in 2021 and 2022. Flo is portrayed by Stephanie Courtney, who's also really good at it. This time, though, she impressed me.

By which I mean the actor impressed me, not one of her ads. 'Cuz of one of those serendipitous things I learned on the way to finding something else. See, according to the 12/29/23 New York Times, "In the summer of 2020, seemingly overnight, one small but vocal corner of the internet fixed its gaze upon Vayntrub and began referring to her by a new name: Mommy Milkers, a reference to her breasts. En masse, people spammed the comment sections of AT&T's social-media posts with lewd declarations and emojis of glasses of milk."

That August, unable to escape the trolls even on her personal social media accounts, Vayntrub said in an Instagram Live video, "Maybe it just has to do with being a person on the internet, or maybe it's specific to being a woman on the internet. But all of these comments — it hurts my feelings." After noting she'd received sexist comments and private messages asking for nude photos, she added, "It's bringing up, like, a lot of feelings of sexual assault. I am just like, you know, walking my dog and getting messages from people who have distorted my pictures to get likes on their accounts. I am not consenting to any of this. I do not want any of this."

Then Vayntrub received an unexpected phone call. From Stephanie Courtney. Who said she hadn't faced the same kind of harassment as Vayntrub but nevertheless wanted to reach out and offer her support. Vayntrub called Courtney a good listener and said that the phone call made her feel "like there were people on my team."

That's a class act. Kudos to Courtney. A commercials actor with compassion. May her tribe increase.

Khoda hafez,
Lucki

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2024-02-01
D A V I D

[They] paid tribute to David as"generous with his service","a good guy",
"hardworking", and "a gentleman".  -- HCA Board Minutes, Jan. 3, 2024

It is with deeply saddened hearts that Earthstar Works shares with you the news that David Howard Luster - a best-of-friends, my family's and this website's techie guru extradinaire, and our condo association's IT technical consultant - died late last year. It was an unexpected shock we weren't even aware of until early this year, just in time to be represented at his burial on January 3rd. My condo association's Board Meeting minutes for that day recorded that the Secretary:

...reported to the Board and to other Owners that David died last week and was buried this morning, at which ceremony she represented the Board as well as the four individual Owners known to be David's clients. Board members and Owners paid tribute to David as "generous with his service", "a good guy", "hardworking", and "a gentleman".

We became close friends since we first met through our mutual love of science fiction on page and screen, sharing many SF conventions - along with Number One Son Rey - starting in the '70s. He was, especially, undeniably integral to my developing a strong relationship with Number Two Son Mead, whom I also first met at a sci-fi con.

David was one of the founding members of Earthstarworks.com in 2010. He was an absolute wizard at legacy systems, which was vitally important to us. We so appreciated his being our one-man geek squad, always ready to roll up his sleeves in person or remotely, jump right in, dive deep, and hammer at the problem until he found a solution and got our hardware and software to sit up and take notice, straighten up and fly right.

Initially a neighbor within walking distance, David also helped me with things like bulk shopping or getting places where public transit was nonexistent or too complicated. He also served as my caregiver when, as a senior, I suffered some major injuries. In fact, he was so good at doing so that, despite IT being his first love and decades-long career, he also served some others as in-home hospice caregiver. Suffice it to say that he was empathetic to the point of being practically psychic, and he had strange but effective ways of getting things done for people who needed a lot of help.

Perhaps most tellingly, as an occasional dogwalker (helping another client who owned the business) and lifelong adopter/lover of cats (though the pet he left when he passed was a parakeet "inherited" from an end-of-life care recipient...which bird, I'm happy to report, got adopted again by friends whom it knew and is now happy with), David was also my designated catsitter (my cats loved him, even skittish Angel), coming in twice a day when I was in hospital or gone on long trips. In fact, he was the only person whom Rey and I agreed should have 24/7/365 access to my condo, just in case.

David was also a friend of the Baha'i Faith. He often attended events, large and small. He talked about principles he thought the Faith" really got right" (though he was honest about the one thing in the Scriptures that bothered him and kept him from wanting to be Baha'i). And he became the techie guru and sometime caregiver for several more Baha'is than just me.

Besides all the intangible gifts David gave me, there are also more tangibles than I can remember offhand. I especially treasure artistic gifts like a photo he took inside the dome of the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette, a Linda Fairbanks drawing of Paul Darrow as Kerr Avon, a Mike Cole ink print of Keith Hamilton Cobb as Tyr Anasazi (it's a special joy to have such a piece of art depicting someone you actually know, which is why he especially gave it to me), and a small poured-silver sculpt he created of a mushroom.

This past December 28, while at the home where he was starting another stint as home-hospice caregiver (while still, of course, servicing his IT clients), David said he didn't feel well and went to lie down, eschewing his friend's offer to drive him to the ER. Two hours later, when they went to see how he was doing, they found him unresponsive, weren't sure if he was even breathing, and called 911. The responding paramedics found a thready pulse and immediately took him to the hospital. But despite the intensive care given there, he died an hour or two later: a heart attack. As I said, it was a shock to everyone.

When his previous care recipient died earlier last year, she had a Jewish funeral. David was impressed with the service and the minyan that formed for her burial, especially when he learned that none of them even knew her but were simply performing a mitzvah. He talked to the cantor, and casually mentioned he'd like such a service when he died (even though he hadn't formally practiced his Faith for fifty years). The cantor immediately promised him that. Neither of them knew how soon the promise would need to be honored. And once again, none of the men (except the cantor) forming the minyan knew David, but all were pleased to perform such a mitzvah for him. And were very welcoming to the friends and clients of various Faiths who learned about the burial soon enough to attend. A graveside memorial will be held for him in a year, complete with the cemetery laying a simple headstone and the cantor leading all attendees (who wish to) in saying Kaddish for David.

I hope this "eulogy for a best friend" - as well as Helena's elegy in his memory in HelenArt - gives you some small indication of the void David's passing leaves. To paraphrase (just changing the pronouns from plural to singular) a verse of Scripture, my wish for him. for the progress of his soul in all the dimensions of God's universe, is this: Purify him from trespasses, dispel his sorrows, and change his darkness into light. Cause him to enter the garden of happiness, cleanse him with the most pure water, and grant him to behold Thy splendors on the loftiest mount.

Khoda hafez,
Lucki

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2024-01-03
I M P R E S S I O N

"[Dr. Williams] said it well. He said usually you can train a wild animal and never tame a wild animal.
Now I tell people that a wild animal is like a loaded gun. It can go off at any time." --Jack Hanna

Nice to be back again. This entry was written in conjunction with a simultaneously posted article in Adding Insult. And that's a very rare occurrence, lemme tell ya. So I recommend you read that one first, as it both inspired and feeds into this one.

Welcome back. When I was a young adult, one summer I met a guy in Ringling's who worked the center ring cage with a trained Siberian tiger. People used to call such performers lion tamers. But no big cat, no matter how well trained, is ever truly tame. Just ask Roy Horn, whose prize tiger, a 5-year-old raised by Roy since it was a cub, badly injured him when he fell during a show. Even if Montecore was trying to help Roy by dragging him to safety, it didn't do so "tamely". It acted on instinct in an unfamiliar situation. Pretty much par for the course for any species, ain't it?

Anyway, barring some solo "tricks", the heart of this guy's act was pretty simple. He got the cat to jump onto a very tall stool. Then he had a draft horse wearing a thick leather protective pad on its back and neck - sometimes a pad the same dark reddish color as the horse, sometimes a white-and-gray striped pad that mimicked the tiger's coat - walk between the legs of the stool and stop while the trainer coaxed the tiger to step down onto the horse's back. The horse would then circle slowly around the cage to a second stool and the trainer would signal the tiger to jump onto that stool.

As the horse continued plodding, sometimes the trainer had the tiger jump right back down as the horse walked out from under the stool. Other times, he had the horse walk a full circle before the tiger stepped back down on its back. And to be honest, I saw the act enough times to realize that sometimes the full-circle walk happened because the tiger balked at stepping onto the horse's back, and the trainer had the horse go the full circle - as opposed to just backing up (which happened occasionally) - to retrigger the tiger's obedience to the step-down command.

In the years following that summer, I often described that act to family and friends. And they invariably expressed with, depending on their personality, either mild or strong amazement that he'd trained a member of the world's largest extant tiger species. Easily more than a foot longer and over 100 pounds heavier than the Bengals everyone else in Ringling's was working with.

Fair point.

But I told 'em they missed the point. I wasn't all that impressed with his training the tiger to do what it did. And didn't. One expects that of a "lion tamer" with a well-fed cat. No, I was impressed with his training the horse to do what it did. And didn't.

I'm sure that when you think about it, you understand why. Convincing a flight-prey animal - one big enough to do a lot of damage if it feels forced into a fight response - to even be in that cage with that tiger without panicking? Never mind let the cat jump down on its back like that? Repeatedly? Day after day? My oh my. That horse willingly trusted its trainer to be the alpha leader of its herd-of-three, dominant to and in total control of the feline member, too. Another case - like that of a fearless bunny among dogs - of credit where credit is due. And kudos.

S'always worth looking at things from different perspectives before deciding what most deserves our being impressed.

Khoda hafez,
Lucki

P.S.  PROGRESS REPORT ON HIATUS TASKS
1.  Keeping my promise to Rezvanieh to complete Anasazi Anthem:
     Progress has definitely not been as fast as I hoped, but it's been more or less steady. The draft manuscript is now one-third completed and online, and the eighth chapter may soon be posted, too.
2.  Making several of my books available as e-books:
     My grandShoghi, the techie wizard in the family, is willing to help me accomplish this during his gap year between high school and college. I'll keep you updated.
3.  Working with Tom Ligon on the fourth novel in his new series:
     Tom's progress on the first of the novels has been adversely impacted by a major obstacle over which he has no control. We talked about a way I can help him get past that this year, and I'm all in on the support side.

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2023-01-02
H I A T U S

"To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
  And a time to every purpose under Heaven"
                                                      --The Byrds

And it's time for me to turn, turn, turn. Turn my efforts to two, or possibly three, major writing projects:

= The first is keeping my promise to my spiritual mother, Rezvanieh, when she insisted that I must complete Anasazi Anthem. As you probably already know, I've published the prolog and four chapters. That leaves eighteen chapters and the epilog to go. I have the complete outline and tons of story notes, along with various supporting material. But all that does not a finished novel make. So I need to binge watch the show again, and then get on the ball with the real writing. I'll let you know as things progress.

= The second major task is responding to people who have asked me about making several of my books - most notably but not limited to Twigs of a Family Tree and (ah yes, another Andromeda-inspired tome) 2*4*7 - available as e-books. That's not as easy as it sounds. It also has to start with research into, for example, how best to Kindle-ize highly formatted material like poetry. I'll also keep you abreast of that progress.

= The third task is more iffy. I don't know whether it will fall (if it falls at all) after the first two tasks or between them. But it's an intriguing project. Tom Ligon has pretty much completed the first in a new series of (he hopes) four novels set in the universe of his two Analog novelettes: "El Dorado" (Nov 2007) and "Payback" (Jul/Aug 2009). As a result of an in-person brainstorming session last year, Tom has invited me to collaborate on the fourth novel if the series sells. That's obviously an offer I can't refuse. Needless to say, I'll brag about progress on that front, too.

All of that means, though, that much as I enjoy writing Abiding Blog (and Adding Insult), it now hasta take a back seat to these projects. So as of tomorrow, it's going on hiatus for part or all of 2023. Aphorisms & Memes, though, will continue to add weekly posters, since all 66 for 2023 were created in 2022 anyway. And I may send you the usual announcements, but quarterly instead of monthly.)

Still, you'll remember that I promised to write an average of one entry for every month this blog has existed. By the end of 2022, I needed at least 145 articles to keep that progress; so by end of 2023, it would need 157. But this is actually its 199th article, so taking up to a year off still won't mean missing my cumulative goal. If you're fairly new to this blog, that'll give you a lot of past articles to read for fun and info. And if you're a long-time reader, maybe you'll enjoy looking back at some of your favorites over the years, or even discovering one or two that you somehow missed. Just use the ToC in the rightbar to browse through the archives.

May 2023 be a safe, peaceful, productive, and fun year for you and yours. And please wish me luck on all three projects.

Khoda hafez,
Lucki

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