Teh New Misses Shellz

The Naming of Cats by T.S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.



And so I am settling in on some good names...

UPDATE: I am pleased to announce the names of the two new kittens. They are offically christened Anne Boleyn Boudicca (fluffy with an extra toe) & Catherine Aragon Latifah (sleak). They will be casually known as Abby & Cal. Please welcome them to the family.

The Last Apple On The Tree

I am in the middle of reading Carl Honore's In Praise of Slowness. According to Honore, we are all victim to a prevalent time-sickness. He writes,

"Why, amid so much material wealth, is time-poverty so endemic? Much of the blame rests with our own mortality...we still live under the shadow of the biggest deadline of all: death. No wonder we feel that time is short and strive to make every moment count...

Time-sickness can also be a symptom of a deeper, existential malaise. Kundera things that speed helps us block out the horror and barrenness of the modern world...

Others think speed is an escape not from life but from death. Mark Kingwell, a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, has written...'Despite what people think, the discussion about speed is never really about the current state of technology. It goes much deeper than that, it goes back to the human desire for transcendence...It's hard to think about the fact that we're going to die; it's unpleasant, so we constantly seek ways to distract ourselves from the awareness of our own mortality.' "

He goes on to discuss various ways of incorporating slowness into our modern lives...Slow Food, Slow Cities, etc. Much of what I have read thus far is essentially my justifications for moving to Marquette put down on paper. So what about that lone apple, eh? I'm getting there...have patience.

Anne Rice is famous for her vampire novels. I attempted Interview With A Vampire a couple of times over the years and always gave up, but I am determined to give it one more try. She was very much involved in the movie production, and there is a point made in the movie about the lives of vampires that she must elaborate on in the books. As the vampires age chronologically, society--the world--moves on to a point at which the vampire is no longer able to cope. The character of Louis is important to the others because he can help them adjust to the new ages. Without his help they will fade and give up eventually, their anachronistic lives to much out of sync with the modernity they are facing.

I thought of all of this over the past couple of weeks. As I drive to and from my home I pass a number of apple trees along the way to the highway. The leaves have gradually traded their greens for yellows and oranges and then for browns before mostly flying away leaving a few stragglers and some stouthearted apples behind on the branches.

There they hang deliciously red amongst the barren branches, garnished with a few clusters of brown, crumpled leaves...waiting, ...waiting,...waiting for the fall to the ground.

My uncle's mother will turn 100 next month. She has outlived all of her lady friends. She too is waiting. My neighbor's step-father passed away this week at 98. He had fought and refused nursing home placement, leaving most of his care on the shoulders of his younger wife, Heidi's mother. I commented on how this will relieve her mother of that burden and Heidi agreed, but commented how determined he had been to make it to 100.

Why do we rush through our lives? Why are we so fearful of death? Who really wants to be that last apple on the tree? A vampire hiding away in a mausoleum completely out of sync with the world around you.

It wasn't my intention to write a bleak post about death, but rather to use this image of the last apple as a means of reevaluating how we choose to live our lives. The snows of winter wait for all of us. The fable of the ant and the grasshopper has it wrong. Enjoy life as it happens. Each day is a blessing no matter how it is spent so long as it is appreciated. There is no reward for counting up all the things that will never be done, all the places never visited. That is simply mental hoarding of pointless dreams.

Billy Dean sang about it many years ago..."Gonna hold who needs holdin', gonna mend what needs mendin', walk what needs walkin' though it means an extra mile, pray what needs prayin', say what needs sayin', cause we're only here for a little while." Peace.

Calling Margaret Atwood...

Just the other day, I posted a review of Margaret Atwood's new novel The Year of The Flood which is the second in a planned dystopian trilogy. One of the leading horrors of the novel (and the earlier novel Oryx and Crake) is genetic engineering gone wild.

The corporations develop a creature that they call pigoons - bred to grow rapidly with multiple organs for harvesting for transplanting. The latest experiments before the "flood" occurs involved implanting human neurological tissue into the porcine brains. The end result--really smart feral pigs in the apocalypse that follows the "flood."

Not even a full week ago, I typed the following, "...what initially seems far fetched and distant, will echo in our consciousness whenever we come across relevant articles in the news, reminding us that Ms. Atwood's fictional warning is uncomfortably apropos."

So imagine my surprise (and a wee bit of horror) when I saw the following article on AlterNet this morning: Scientists Map Genome of Pig.

"Soo-ee! Here pig, pig, pig! Come on, piggie! Soo-ee!"

Just Kidding...

When kids lash out with a mean spirited comment, perhaps at the cost of one child's esteem in order to win laughs from the rest of the crowd - human pecking order? - he or she will often attempt to wipe the slate clean with the weak, "But I was just kidding."

Let's face it. Humor usually has a bite to it. It often involves ridicule, often with good reason. Think of Tonight Show monologues, for example. There is an inherent social purpose to the humor. However, often the ridicule is deliberate and demeaning - jokes about "fags" or "polacks" or "niggers." The jokes don't have to use those actual labels to carry the spirit of those labels.

Challenge an individual and he or she may fall back on, "Relax! I was just kidding!" The inherent problem is that the situation falls somewhere on the scale between overly righteous political correctness sensitivity on the part of the "victim" and outright mean spirited racial or gender or homophobic prejudice on the part of the teller of the joke. How do we sort it out?

Power is a good place to begin. What are the power dynamics inherent in the joke? These involve the nature of the joke, the make up of the audience, and the social context in which it is told. Confused? Let me try and explain.

A joke is told at an office party about kerdoodles and their inherent pushiness and nearly everyone laughs. The group is made up primarily of kerplutzes. In fact the only kerdoodle present is an up and coming employee who has been making rapid advancement in the ranks. The joke is told "out of earshot" but quite possibly with the intent of being overheard by the kerdoodle. The power dynamic here is clear - an individual threatened by the achievement of another, uses humor to undermine the abilities of another.

The same joke is told by a group of kerplutzes at deer camp - these would be Yooper kerplutzes. There is nary a kerdoodle in sight for miles. Now this joke about the other is fostering a sense of camaraderie. Perhaps the economy has gone sour and the kerplutzes are feeling much more insecure about their financial security. The power dynamic here is more about social groups and tribal behavior - group "us-versus-them" thinking.

Finally the same joke is told at a party made up entirely of kerdoodles. The beer and wine has been flowing. They all have a good laugh. Once again the dynamic is social group and tribal in nature, but the power aspect has shifted. Self deprecating humor often seeks to rally the troops, but in a more defensive, build ourselves up manner.

The very same joke - yet clearly the first of the three scenarios is the worst due to the power dynamics involved. So who's racist here? Who's prejudiced? Simply poor taste?

My understanding of racism involves power dynamics. However, when I googled the word, the on line definitions make no mention of power. The current definitions allow for labeling any individual, act or speech as "racist" that involves the denigration of another group and the belief in the superiority of your own group. With these definitions it becomes possible for a member of a minority group to be racist.

In the past I would have argued that a member of a minority out of power cannot be truly racist as there is no oppression occuring behind the prejudice. In other words, if members of the white majority make statements or tell jokes that denigrate members of a minority - the prejudice involves maintaining the group power of the majority.

If a member of a minority out of power makes statements or tells jokes that denigrate members of the powerful majority - the prejudice is about trying to undermine the authority of the group power of the majority. Can you see the difference?

So where am I going with all this? We just made it through another Halloween. If "Just Kidding" had a holiday, it would be Halloween. And so I share the following image posted yesterday on Facebook.

Now the Upper Peninsula is incredibly white. It is likely that there wasn't a single person of color at this party. What is the "just kidding" that is going on here?

Lose the dark face and the costume can shift to poking fun at a sort of disco style - but I would bet that this individual just decided to dress up like a "black guy." Isn't that a riot? ...what? ...what's the matter?

What is really disturbing is that this is a local television celebrity, albeit at a private party. I suspect that there won't be any fallout over this, but I'm waiting to see if the images end up pulled off of Facebook. The whole thing just makes me wince.

In the end, I will likely chalk this up simply to poor taste and poor judgement (particularly in posting the image on a social network). I'm sure he was "just kidding." Peace.

Early Fox News (il)logic...

If you look closely, you can see Glenn Beck in the crowd...

I Am Keeping An Open Mind

Readers of this blog will be well aware of the health issues I have been dealing with over the past year. I was diagnosed with diabetes at about the same time I began developing stiffness/pain in my fingers and thumbs.

This has progressed to stiffness/pain in most of my joints, as well as carpal tunnel symptoms in both hands.

My blood sugars were under control very quickly, but this other problem lingers, and I wait...and wait...and wait...like refugees in Casablanca.

I used to be skeptical about the true benefits of chiropractic medicine. However, in the months following my episode with pertussis (whooping cough) three years ago, I turned to chiropractors to help with my worsening back pain (from all the coughing). Not only did they correct the back pain, they corrected the sciatica symptoms I had been experiencing, the periodic numbness I would have trailing down my leg. In fact, within a year I was no longer taking my asthma medicine.

That last point can be attributed to a number of things. However, one of the areas that they have continued to adjust involves spinal nerves that feed the lungs. As I said, "I Am Keeping An Open Mind."

The chiropractor has been recommending B Complex supplements for the carpal tunnel and has added magnesium supplements to try and address the problems with my tendons (causing the stiffness in the joints - x-rays/blood tests were unremarkable and didn't indicate inflammation). I have added both of these supplements in the past two weeks.

I friend from high school swears by organic apple cider vinegar and other friends have concurred that this has been a home remedy for generations in this country - in particular with honey. I have added that to my morning dose of cod liver oil. I can see my brothers shaking their heads already.

The most recent alternative treatment I am trying is something called VidalCell - basically a rice bran supplement. A very dear friend who is a breast cancer survivor - now two+ years past the "you have six months to live" when she refused further chemotherapy - and she swears by this product. I called it a product deliberately because I remain skeptical. My internet research suggests that rice bran is indeed a very healthy nutritional supplement. The primary issue then is simply cost - a rather high price for what you are getting. However, it appears that it is not easy to simply go out and get rice bran either.

Once again I am thinking about atheists and rationalism and medicine and faith and God and Nature and all that stuff...

I believe there is a relationship here between my faith and spirituality and my open minded approach to alternative therapies. I have little patience for dogma and absolutism from either end of the argument.

My rationalist/atheist family members and friends will likely scoff at my venturing off the traditional western medicine path. Their all powerful deity is the human brain and what they see is the infallibility of science. If there is no proof that it is not true.

They ignore the fact that science and research is often quite contradictory. Heath care and medicine continues to evolve and is heavily influenced by market capitalism. Why would we want people to get better? We can't keep selling them are pills then? We're about to lose our patent on the drug? Well, lets tweak the ingredients a bit, add a yellow stripe to the purple pill and give it a new name and charge even more!

I find it amazingly ironic that those same rationalists will often put their complete faith in the system and consume the garbage food we are being sold and swallow the expensive magic pills that are being developed.

I have ranted a bit here and have tried not to make absolute statements about my atheist/rationalist loved ones. Mainly I believe they are simply afraid - afraid of the unknown - afraid of ambiguity. I would simply wish them an open mind. Rather than adamantly declaring "There is no God!" I would rather they say, "As of yet the mysteries of the universe are unknowable - your interpretation of the Bible is of no use to me - I am holding out for a different answer and will simply keep an open mind." Peace.

OMG! It was a wig!

Now that was a revelation - crystal meth? - hmmph, boring and passe - but that gorgeous hair was FAKE!!! I am so flabbergasted and shocked...

Read about it here.

As I Was Saying...

Back on October 4th I posted this: Happy Days Are Here Again.

Now check out this piece from AlterNet...

Can You Spot The Monster?

Hmmmmmm...a gay vampire (go figure!) and Roman Polanski...which one is the REAL monster, eh? Perhaps he should have drugged him first with a Quaalude and some wine.

Happy Halloween!!!