Uncommontaries

New Post: Ghosts

2011-06-09T07:35:00.000-06:00

There is a new post at the new address for my blog. You can read and comment on it there.

7 Principles of Fiscal Conservatism

2011-05-31T10:48:00.000-06:00

N.B. This blog will be migrating to wordpress. Please find me there. Let’s begin with fiscal conservatism, then. It begins with integrity. You do excellent work. Not good work: excellent work. You know that your reputation, livelihood and security depend on the work you do. You take pride in the quality of your work: what you do and how you do it. You mind the details. You build good

Captain America: Godless Liberal, or Birther?

2011-05-23T09:34:00.000-06:00

Captain America On Frum Forum, a conservative site run by David Frum, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, there is an homage to Jack Kirby, creator of Captain America. The author calls Captain America the greatest American superhero (this was written even before Superman renounced his American citizenship). Kirby fought in Patton’s army in WW2. He declared himself a New Dealer and

Conservatism, and Original Sin

2011-05-18T07:09:00.000-06:00

I want to begin a discussion of Conservative Principles with a discussion of Original Sin. I will demonstrate the method I use by employing first an example that does not immediately push political, ideological buttons. Liberals and conservatives both have staked out positions on the issues of the day in such a way that merely mentioning an issue – immigration, energy, or abortion, for example –

Glenn Beck's Messiah Complex

2011-05-16T10:01:00.000-06:00

Glenn Beck is going to Jerusalem. He is delusional. Usually people have to go to Jerusalem before suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome. Oh, wait: he was there recently. Maybe that's where he picked up his Messiah complex. Oh, how heroic: "I believe I've been asked to stand in Jerusalem. Many in the history of man have had the opportunity to stand with the Jewish people...and they have failed."

Lost E-Mails

2011-05-01T13:15:00.000-06:00

This is a courtesy notice to my friends and others who may have written and wondered why no reply has been forthcoming. Twice – once around April 10, and again just a few minutes ago – all of the e-mails in my inbox have disappeared. There has been no warning, and they have not been moved to Trash or Junk folders or anywhere else. They have disappeared from my computer as well as from online.

Melange

2011-04-28T11:12:00.000-06:00

I want to say how important I think is this editorial in the New York Times on the 7th anniversary of the revelations about the heinous things done in our names at Abu Ghraib prison. While the Golden Rule is the plumb line for morality, I think it's a yin in need of a yang. The yang is, in my opinion, "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me." Not being a Christian or theist, I

Gas Prices, Earth Day and Economies

2011-04-21T13:17:00.000-06:00

Someone asked me recently how much gas costs here in Germany. Rather than doing the math – converting liters to gallons and Euros to dollars – I Googled and found this article. I wonder which gas price they think is shocking: ours, or the higher prices. Gas is roughly double the price here that it is in America. It's still more expensive elsewhere. Taxes here are reportedly higher, too. Yet the

Photos from Freiburg and the Goethe Institute

2011-04-20T14:40:00.000-06:00

Almost our whole class on a mountain overlooking Freiburg My friend Anton, from Ukraine Frau Ozana Klein: my German teacher, and a delight Photos are clickable/enlargeable. Time is FLYING. I simply cannot believe that I have already been here three and a half weeks. These folks are wonderful. I'd like to package them all up and take them with me from place to place, learning new

Why I am an Agnostic Rather than an Atheist

2011-04-17T13:46:00.002-06:00

I’d like to begin by turning over a hunk of this post to a passage from Stephen Batchelor’s book, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. It begins around page 197. (For those who wish to skip my philosophical musings, there is a brief update on goings on here in Freiburg below) “Siddhattha Gotama did not reject the existence of the gods, he marginalized them. . . . “I once spent a couple of hours

A Nod to the Everyday/Allestage

2011-04-10T12:04:00.000-06:00

The above is a photo of me taken on The Philosophers' Walk, across the river from old Heidelberg on Saturday. I'm wearing my Santa Fe Institute T-shirt. No, I didn't get an endorsement deal. Sitting here at a cafe - the only one I found open earlyish - drinking a latte on Sunday morning, tears in my eyes. There is a dog here. Big guy, one of those Rott-shepherd types with the brown “eyes” above

Distractions

2011-04-02T11:50:00.000-06:00

Had an interesting e-mail discussion with my former pastor from my fundamentalist charismatic days. He asked what I thought the stories of Christians who have been near death and had what seemed to be experiences that confirmed their beliefs about Heaven and the afterlife. He knows I am an agnostic these days, and asked how I could account for such events. I responded initially by saying that I

An Agnostic in Zwingli's Church

2011-03-31T09:06:00.000-06:00

Zwingli and I wouldn’t have gotten along. He was the original hard-ass, humorless theist. Thanks to him, “most frivolous behavior - drinking, prostitution and actually most fun was forbidden or strictly regulated,” according to the tourist guide, Zurich In Your Pocket. (For a more erudite source, see here) The local sculpture of Zwingli has him posed with, of course, Bible and sword. Within the

Migratory

2011-03-24T10:22:00.000-06:00

Three weeks ago I commended Boz to his new family. I saw him last weekend, and he is doing well. He was glad to see me, and I him. He is more mellow now, owing, I think, to the more regular stimulation his new living situation provides. He goes to work with Dad, on walks with Mom, and is learning how cats and 16 month olds work. I imagine he never looks at his new family and wonders how long it

Helping the Japanese People

2011-03-14T18:15:00.001-06:00

Dear friends, I know you are watching the devastation unfold in Japan and are wondering what you can do to help. I have chosen a charity, and provide this link to Charity Navigator's page on the disaster in Japan to help you choose a charity that is established in Japan and works efficiently, putting your money to good use. Charity navigator also gives tips on how to choose a charity and how to

Trading a Known Good for a Complete Unknown

2011-03-08T22:50:00.000-07:00

The bird in hand is, as we know, worth at least the two rumored to be in the bush. Boz has joined a new family. It became official today. He spent the weekend with them while I was in Kansas City, and charmed them. They, in turn, assured me that they had already fallen in love with him. After three years of living with him, he has moved in with a family that will adore and stimulate him as they

Food, Sugar, and Creative Juices

2011-02-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

Having read Mark Bittman's excellent Food Manifesto in today's New York Times, and still engaging in my losing war with sugar, I thought I would go to Cafe Press and make up some bumper stickers, since I saw so few of any use when I searched for "Sugar". Mostly I found stickers about sugar daddies, sugar gliders (had never heard of them, and they are not dirty: that's just your mind) and diabetes

Shifting

2011-01-15T00:12:00.001-07:00

Something is shifting. I have just surveyed my personal library and found nothing I really want to read. That's not normal. Instead, I find myself thinking of reading like drinking Coke: it’s okay if there’s no water. But I really want water for a change. Coke was fine for a while. But there is little in it that does more than keep me alive, or that I appreciate about it at this stage of my

Lotophagi, Unite! We have Nothing to Lose but our Inertia

2010-12-09T18:56:00.002-07:00

I confess. I found the word Lotophagus on Wikipedia when I checked to make sure I knew the story of the Lotus Eaters. Lotophagus is an inflated word for Lotus Eaters. I will be using it at cocktail parties soon. The Lotus Eaters were a people who spent their days – and, to the point, months and years – in a swoon induced by their consumption of the lotus plants that were the main food staple

Coming in for a Landing at the Bosque del Apache

2010-12-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

I went to the Bosque del Apache on Monday and Tuesday of this week. It was warmer than usual, about 30º F just before sunrise. It is one of my favorite places in the world. Saw bald eagles, a pheasant, a skunk, and lots of deer, in addition to the usual, and magnificent, cranes and geese. If you live in New Mexico, I recommend visiting. If you live elsewhere, I recommend visiting, too: I'll

What I Miss from Santa Fe - and Will Miss from Berlin

2010-10-07T03:19:00.000-06:00

It does NOT go without saying that I miss my friends, and I look forward to seeing you soon after I return. But the statement is WHAT I miss. I miss America's breakfast culture. I haven't had what I think of as a real breakfast since July. I look forward to going to Harry's Roadhouse and Real Food Nation almost as soon as I return. I miss riding my bikes. On the quiet roads of Eldorado and Old

How Can One Lack Enthusiasm for the Democrats?

2010-09-21T15:33:00.001-06:00

A good friend asked me on Facebook why I was lacking in enthusiasm for Democrats as another fucking Election Day approaches. My reply follows. Any similes or metaphors you would like to add? You really can't understand a lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic Party? Really? Explaining it feels like having to explain a joke: once it's explained, it won't be funny anyway, so maybe it's not worth

Everything Holds: A Dream Journal Entry

2010-09-15T00:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, political commentary courtesy of Dudley Do-Right. That's NOTHING compared to today. The Christmas Holstein. I had a picture of it on ny iPad. But that's not all. It was the Jewish Christmas Holstein. Not Hanukah. Not Jewish New Year. Jewish Christmas. And the Holstein was collapsed on the brick hearth, next to the Jewish Christmas tree, as if it had had too much kosher egg nog. This

Why Berlin?

2010-09-06T00:47:00.000-06:00

A number of friends have asked me how or why I have ended up in Berlin on this trip, when the plan was to spend my time in the Balkans, Greece and Turkey. Here's your answer. It was really, really hot down there. The same level of heat - high 90's, low 100's - that contributed to Russia's tragic fires. My reluctantly aging body reacted with repeated attacks of heat rash. I had to respond. Some

Revised itinerary

2010-08-15T02:31:00.000-06:00

And so I have come to Berlin. This wasn't planned, but it seems to be a good place to have landed. I am waiting, at a small cafe called Butter, for a potential German language instructor who answered my ad on Craig's List. Somewhere along the line, before I even landed here, I decided that I would stay as long as I could, get to know a great city well, and try to resurrect my high school German.

Unfriendly

2010-08-01T06:44:00.000-06:00

I have to say that, so far, I'm not feeling the love.There are exceptions, of course. The young folks at Daily Fresh this morning were quite pleasant and seemed to have good senses of humor. But as I was walking down the avenue, from the main square (trg in Croatian - take THAT, spell check!) to the train station, I walked past one woman whose look translated as, "what are YOU doing here, you

Best T shirt of the trip, so far

2010-07-31T14:25:00.000-06:00

The one at top right, seen in Mostar. If I was Muslim I'd have bought one.

Everyone Likes a Good Slap

2010-07-31T14:00:00.000-06:00

Slap is Croatian for waterfall.

Plitvice III

2010-07-31T13:58:00.000-06:00

Like Hawaii, Yosemite, and Alaska, the problem here is what NOT to photograph.

Plitvice II

2010-07-31T13:55:00.000-06:00

These blokes were so accustomed to human passersby-by that they didn't even think to take a break from grooming time.

Plitvice I

2010-07-31T13:53:00.000-06:00

I hadn't walked even fifty yards and already was taking photos. The walkway was a work of art, perfectly suited to the park.

My new friends from Rotterdam

2010-07-31T13:51:00.000-06:00

I met Nessim and his mother, Soara, on the bus from Dubrovnik to Mostar. We had a great conversation, and though I saw them in passing in Mostar, I was sorry to not have had a chance to continue our conversation while there.But then, in Sarajevo, who should spy me on the street? I was so pleased to see them. We went to a Turkish coffee house and talked for a long time. They were going home the

My new friend in Sarajevo

2010-07-31T13:46:00.000-06:00

Soara, bibliophile and linguist, employee at Connectum Bookstore in Old Town. W had some great conversations about Islam and agnosticism and fundamentalism. Oh, and about Old Church Slavic.

Migratory Thoughts

2010-07-30T12:08:00.000-06:00

The first two weeks of this trip were brutally, debilitatingly hot, between 35 and 41 degrees centigrade. I had two bouts of heat rash and began to reconsider my itinerary - even, at one point, considering coming home. It made no sense to travel to places if I was going to be able to go out in the early morning and late at night, but otherwise have to sequester in air conditioned refuges.Then it

Dolce Vita, a small serving

2010-07-20T05:20:00.000-06:00

After the Devastation, Magic

2010-07-20T03:22:00.000-06:00

Ruminations on Dubrovnik Sometimes, though certainly not always, the world rewards a risk. It certainly rewarded my impulsive decision to end my time on the sailboat and set off on a Friday night in search of a place to stay in Dubrovnik. On a weekend, let me emphasize, in high tourist season. My friends, Marina and Carmela, went in search of a taxi while I waited at the bus stop in an effort to

Taking on Tolle

2010-06-30T08:14:00.000-06:00

There is an e-mail that circulates every year that tells people not to buy gas on May 15th. It dubiously claims that a similar protest against gas prices in 1997 resulted in a 30-cent drop in the price of gas "overnight". A version of this e-mail has been going around since e-mail was invented. There are three problems with this suggestion, the least of which is that it won't

Dolphins and Repentance

2010-06-29T12:45:00.003-06:00

(In response to a conversation begun by Mary Trainor-Brigham, author of Deep Cinema: Film as Shamanic Initiation, on Facebook. Edited.)Fascinating, seeing Ric O’Barry’s film, The Cove, as a kind of hero’s journey. I have chosen not to see the film, as I have difficulty processing scenes of graphic violence. I felt like I had seen all I needed or wanted to when I saw the trailer.What strikes me,

Energy: Should We Buy It, or Grow Our Own?

2010-06-28T18:44:00.010-06:00

The following is a response to an article bemoaning the fact that this country, a majority of whose citizens are Christian, is not defined as a Christian nation. His column is at http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/2009/12/the-majority-of-americans-overruled-by-a-minority/#comment-9481. The author's line of inquiry is utterly befuddling, because it leaves so many obvious