August 2013 Photographs and Perspectives

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A Major Step in the Right Direction on Marijuana

In the way of good news, this story is a positive note on which to end the summer and this month’s column:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/obama-administration-will-not-preempt-state-marijuana-laws–for-now/2013/08/29/b725bfd8-10bd-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html?wpisrc=al_comboPN

My focus on the marijuana issue is its medicinal use (especially in the case of epileptics) and the need to back off using law enforcement, legal, and judicial resources for minor offenses like recreational possession and use (and releasing people who have been jailed for those offenses).  Like with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who now admits he was wrong after years of campaigning against marijuana, people who are anti-pot simply out of ignorance need to research the topic more fully.  Here’s Gupta’s article and video:

 http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/08/health/gupta-changed-mind-marijuana

This guy is considered accomplished in his field (in January 2009, he was offered to be Obama’s Surgeon General but took his name out of consideration that following May) and it still took him years to figure things out because he was so fixed in his close-minded stance.  How many other ways has being close-minded prevented him from getting the bigger and more clear picture?  When people are closed-minded and ignorant, they usually apply those traits to much of the way they look at things.  It shows you that years of expensive education and having fancy degrees (and a show on CNN) are no guarantee that someone will actually be intelligent, objective, rational, and competent, even in the field they specialize in.  I know a guy in his 60’s who is a retired MD (and holds several other degrees) who has less of a perspective now than I had when I was ten and doesn’t seem to be adept at anything, even the most minor functions.  The classroom seems to be the only place he can learn.  When you lack perspective, you’re guaranteed to often miss the point.

While I’m on the topic of doctors, the point I made in my professional juror article about people not being able to figure things out unless they’re specifically trained applies directly to medical doctors.  My point about inept lawyers applies to doctors as well.  Just because you have credentials doesn’t mean you’re good at what you do (even though that’s their purpose).  It absolutely amazes me that doctors can go through years of undergrad, medical school, internship, residency and decades of professional practice and still not know what my specific illness is, and I know a lot of people have had experiences that support that sentiment.  I constantly tell people when they complain to me about similar experiences that medicine is not an exact science, but it’s still not an excuse for having to leave a doctor’s office no clearer to understanding the illness and the specific way to get rid of it than when I walked in.  To me, that’s as much an issue in the area of health care as insurance coverage, maybe more so.

Legalization of the recreational use of marijuana is complicated in so many ways (grading and taxing, for two) that it’s smarter to leave things the way they are for now and just back off arrests for use and minor possession and releasing those jailed for those charges from our overcrowded prisons.  The irony of the uptight and ignorant people who refuse to back off their anti-pot stance is that they are the ones that would benefit most from its recreational use.  I don’t, however, promote its use, since you can never tell who can use it in moderation and keep it in check and which people it will effect detrimentally (just like alcohol or other intoxicants or narcotics).  People should first focus on handling their responsibilities and problems the smartest and most direct way they can and not see pot or any other intoxicant as an escape or coping mechanism.

For people who claim pot is a gateway to more powerful and damaging narcotics, users would seek out, easily find, and use those harder drugs with or without the use of marijuana.   I know people who have smoked marijuana almost forty years without an interest in seeking out other drugs (to the point of avoiding prescribed painkillers after surgeries and caffeine) and are, in fact, in much better health than most people half their age (feel free to read into that).  Besides, the same logic can easily and maybe even more appropriately be applied to alcohol, which itself is a proven gateway to drug, verbal, physical, spousal, child, and pet abuse, divorce, crime (including murder), deadly car accidents and loss of jobs, homes and families.

In this example of a minor possession arrest, the drug is different but the point still pertains:

A court case in which I was a jury member in LA concerned a $15 sale of crack cocaine by an undercover cop.  The case lasted 3 days.  Between the sting operation, arrest, incarceration, trial, and time of everyone involved in the case, including the work days jury members missed, it’s easy to see how misguided, expensive, time-consuming and wasteful drug arrests on a minor level are.

DPW

August 31, 2013

These pictures are of the August 20 Blue Moon.  Double click on them to see them in their full size.

UK is a No-Go on a Military Strike on Syria

It’s not the vote itself that was significant enough for me to comment.  For the first time in weeks, I turned on CNN yesterday and my timing was perfect; within minutes they covered some of Prime Minister David Cameron presenting his case for joining a military strike on Syria in response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons on his people.  This article says it was the experience of taking part in the 2003 war on Iraq, which we now know was completely baseless and unwinnable, that was behind Parliament’s vote to stay out of this conflict:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/30/us-syria-crisis-britain-idUSBRE97R1BD20130830

Parliament interrupted its summer break to convene over the issue and it was a pleasure to listen to them talk.  They were so much more intelligent, articulate and emphatic than our own politicians, who are still enjoying their own break. Even, and maybe especially, when they disagreed, they sounded objective and diplomatic.  Because I try to only watch or listen to things that are smart, informative/educational/enlightening, or funny, I only watch about 90 minutes of TV each day (the evening news and Jeopardy) although I’m guaranteed at least seven hours every Sunday during the NFL season.

I never really searched out any news channels but I know now to watch the BBC News coverage of world events, unless they pander to the LCD like CNN does, which I doubt.  I’ll find out soon enough.  Even though it was stimulating to watch the proceedings, it’s unfortunate that, after making a bad call in following Bush’s 2003 lead into Iraq and as a result of that experience, this vote may also seem like a questionable decision as time passes.

DPW

August 30, 2013

TV Stars Have Moved into the Neighborhood

Abused, abandoned and homeless cats and dogs are a soft spot for me and I can’t watch those commercials or go by animal rescue cages.  I refuse to look.  After losing two cats I had for fifteen and a half years and experiencing grief I didn’t even realize I had in me, I was apprehensive to get more cats just because I didn’t want to go through that experience again.  While I was at Petco last Saturday, rescue cats and dogs were on display and I spontaneously committed to getting three kittens, which I could pick up later in the week.  The rescue people asked me a few days later to consider replacing two of my choices with two black-and-white kittens from a four-kitten litter because they didn’t want them to be broken up individually.  The black kitten was one of my original choices, which I feel good about because the animal rescue people said no one adopts black kittens.  I found that odd because most of the cat owners I’ve known as an adult have had black cats.  Maybe it’s a superstitious east coast thing because all the black cat owners I’ve known lived in the Bay Area.  This IS the part of the country where witches were burned and progressive thought in this area is not the norm.

The animal rescue people said the litter these two black and whites are from will be featured in an upcoming episode of Animal Planet’s Too Cute series and they said they’ll let me know when the episode airs.  Apparently, the white male I have steals the show by licking a skunk during the segment.  Just to make sure, I’m going to DVR the series.  I’m not creative at naming companions – I lived in West Hollywood, where you can no longer refer to them as “pets” and which is the first city in the country to outlaw the de-clawing of cats – and I didn’t bother asking the rescue people if they named the cats.  Maybe they’ll have names on the broadcast.

I’m open to good two-syllable name recommendations if you’d like to post some you think are interesting.  My last two cats had good names.  The older (by one year) female gray tabby was named Minu (minou is French for “kitty”; we always spelled it wrong) after a cat she looked exactly like that had belonged to a friend.  I got his OK to use the name.  My buddy named the younger male – who looked very similar to the new black and white female kitten – Loki, without realizing it was the name of the Norse God of mischief.  He just thought those syllables sounded good and it turned out to be the perfect name for that cat.  I don’t want to give them names like “Blackie” or “Spot” or “Patch.”  Any help would be appreciated.  I’m thinking of going with the name Maya for the black male after a black male cat a buddy of mine (an anthropology major) had.  Both my friend and his cat have passed on and borrowing the name is an appropriate way for me to remember both.

Minu and Loki in 2003

Naming the kittens isn’t for the purposes of giving them a sound they can respond to; it’s so we know what to replace our names with on the deed to this house because we forfeited ownership the moment they arrived yesterday.  This house is now theirs.

DPW

August 15, 2013

I’m inviting you to share the moment I opened the box after we got home from the animal rescue shelter.  Click the link to see the video.  MVI_2858

Added August 18, 2013

The black and white brother and sister were very cautious around the black male at first.  Now I have to peel them all off each other.  Click the link to see the video.  MVI_3489

A Lighter Take on Religion

The title is a reference to my “Turning Cobra into Python” article, which started out as a response to John’s posted comment to my review of “Sullivan’s Travels.”  I wanted to address the fact that I never met anyone else who tried watching Preston Sturges movies and didn’t like them and, more significantly, also had repeat eerie coincidences.  (In seeing it again, thinking about it, and based on the fact that everyone who recommended “Sullivan” said it was Sturges’ best movie, I don’t think I’ll get much from re-watching his other films.  “Sullivan” was always the most watchable of the ones I’d seen.)  The response took an unexpected turn and went into some of my thoughts on God and religion and evolved into the article.  This one is lighter in both tone and mass (NPI).

Here is an excerpt of the comment John posted below that piece:

You have this opportunity, as did people from years ago, before all this texting and linking and multitasking, not only to be one with nature but more importantly, to have the time to think things out…along with …photographs that illustrate your stories

I didn’t even realize until recently you could click on the photos in the articles to see them in their full size.  I haven’t had an editor since before my “Mud” and “The Great Gatsby” reviews so I’m doing this rudderless, which is tough since I’m somewhat dyslexic – I can read one of my own sentences over and over and miss the same error every time – but the site’s administrative interface is user-friendly and I’m figuring it out as I go along.  That’s not entirely correct; a buddy has stepped up and done a great job of working with me in editing what I write and I owe him thanks.

Actually, many of the main thoughts I share in my writing are things I’ve thought about for years and, in many cases, decades.  I stopped doing and chasing things I decided were unnecessary years ago so I can really devote my thinking to more grounded priorities (I don’t have a tablet and I can go days of misplacing or not using my smart phone without realizing it).  I try to live as uncomplicated a life as possible, which is something I strongly recommend.  One way to achieve that simplicity is to not be concerned with what people think about you, which is how I’ve always been so that part is easy.  Also, minimize time spent with people who aren’t sincere and positive and who don’t think constructively.  By doing that, you don’t have to make conversational concessions.  Everything else will fall into place.

What my current situation allows is that – along with the other responsibilities, hobbies and interests that fill my day – I’m sitting and writing things out, which makes me remember things I’d long forgotten and prompts me to come up with associated anecdotes.  For instance, the thoughts that laid the foundation for my perspective on God and religion came to me when I was eleven and sitting in Catechism, which I always thought was a strange name for Catholic Sunday school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confraternity_of_Christian_Doctrine

I remember where I was sitting in the classroom when those thoughts hit me and I knew I would remember the moment vividly, and I do.  I don’t remember specifically what the nun/teacher said, but I remember thinking, “This is bullshit.  This isn’t what God would want us to be taught at all” and I fought the urge to say it out loud.  I blocked out what was taught in those classes even more after that.  Even in blocking things out, I nailed all our tests, which were all gimmes.  I continued going to mass until I was confirmed at sixteen or seventeen.  At that point my mom said, “That’s it, you have no pressure from me to go to mass anymore.  I just wanted to give you the religion I was brought up with.”  Even at the time, I thought that was brilliant.  Any resentment I harbored up to that point vanished immediately and a tremendous weight had been lifted.  That weight is called “guilt.”

As outgoing and sociable as I was in regular school, I never made the slightest effort to make friends or even speak during CCD classes. I was so apathetic I didn’t even bother to find out what “catechism” meant or what its initials (CCD) stood for, which is unusual for me.  It was one of the few times I didn’t put my full focus and a sincere effort into what I was doing so I could get the best out of the experience but, in an understatement, it just wasn’t inspiring.  One thing I didn’t like about it was that it wasn’t interactive at all; we just had to sit there and take it.  Not that I needed the company, but I’m sure more than a few others in those classes were as miserable in sitting through them as I was.

I think people who haven’t had a religious upbringing can’t really have a valid opinion on the topic of religion.  I’ve met quite a few people from different religions and denominations who are bitter about their religious upbringing, especially children of clergy.  I’m not objective enough to be able to tell if I’m bitter about it or not.  In the late 80’s, while living in Berkeley, I was talking to a recent Cal grad and the topic of my being raised Catholic came up.  In response, the guy said – and he was genuinely shocked – “YOU were raised CATHOLIC?  You’re the only well-adjusted Catholic I’ve ever met!”  I don’t remember if he was Catholic or not but I know that it became the focus of our conversation.  I didn’t even realize Catholics had that stigma.  As he said it, I thought to myself, “This guy needs to meet more people.”  I probably even said that to him.  More than looking for reasons to be critical and cynical, I just think the way religion is misused and selectively misinterpreted is disappointing.

Even though I sat through those classes resentfully, I wouldn’t trade the experiences for anything.  For one thing and along with mass, they made the rest of the week seem that much better by comparison and Sundays in our house were always fun and the meals especially great.  It felt like we were rewarded for the paradoxically hellish way the day started.  Both the classes and mass were like stepping into a strange world once a week and the feeling of leaving mass was liberating.  I’m sure a lot of people felt much better at the end of mass than at the beginning for one reason or another.  I lived for the words “Go in peace” at the end of each service, which was my own personal emancipation proclamation on a weekly basis and it tempered my resentment.  You have to admit, it’s the coolest thing to say at the end of a gathering and it will be into eternity.

One thing I need to stress about my take on religion is, as negative as my generalizations are, I know a lot of people take part because it gives them centering and a social outlet, both of which are positive things and I think those people represent the majority of churchgoers.  The drawback is that it can preclude independent thinking and there’s something very mindless and subservient about it.  I can’t be too critical if, again, it ultimately makes people feel good, allows them enjoy the company of like-minded people, and keeps them centered (besides, I love Christmas).  Again, had I not had those experiences, I wouldn’t be able to make that assessment.

Go in peace.

DPW

August 13, 2013

The pictures of the waterfalls in Saugerties in the Hudson Valley were taken Saturday, August 10, 2013 around 11am.  If my buddy didn’t need to use the restroom and stop at the hotel we stopped at, we wouldn’t have discovered the waterfalls behind it.

The cloud pictures were taken from the car on route 44 as we drove through Pleasant Valley on June 28 in mid-afternoon.  They came during a break between intense rainstorms.  Because the car was moving, I missed much better shots but I’m happy with the ones I got.

The church and school building in the pictures are the ones I reference in the article.  I had never seen a picture of Our Lady of Lourdes or the CCD building I attended in Great Falls, MT until I Googled it after writing this article.  They look exactly like they did in 1969 and the pictures are very nostalgic and a bit eerie for me.  The building in the background is where I had the revelation my teacher would not have appreciated.  The classroom was on the other side of the building.  Finding the pictures and looking at the church’s website was an unexpected bonus and it made my day.

Look at the sky in the church picture.  One of Montana’s nicknames is “Big Sky Country.”  I think Montana is the nation’s best named state.  The name is strong and rhythmic.  The Spanish word montaña means “mountain”.  “California” is another great name for a state.  Both would be good names for countries.

 The day after I posted “Turning Cobra into Python”, John sent me this email:

“Ok I started to answer your email – then my neighbor banged on my window to walk our dogs together.  I then noticed something in the window of Harry’s Occult shop across the street to the right as we were walking that was like being hit by a sledgehammer. You are not going to believe this, but they have a large statue of a Cobra in the window.”

John then went back and took this picture of the cobra.

On August 7, John told me he let his dog into his bedroom for the first time and came back to find two CD cases and jackets chewed up.  One was an Andrea Bocelli album and the other was “The Best of Blondie”, whose second track is “One Way or Another”, which is the song I referenced in my coincidence anecdote in the “Python” article.  I don’t think I’ve thought about the song in the 30 years since the coincidence occurred and I would turn it off immediately if I heard it because I dislike it that much.  John is the only person I’ve met who has repeat eerie coincidences the way I do.

Today’s 5am Walk

The walk I take in the morning is 7/10 of a mile from my house to the top of the road then I turn around and go to the bottom of the road, then up half a mile back to my house for a total of 2.4 miles.  When I started taking the 45-minute walk in early February in sub-20 degree weather, I wanted to walk it as much as possible because I thought I’d stop doing it when the weather warmed up.  Warm weather brings out insects – especially ticks – and other animals, like the mountain lion that was spotted last week in the back yard of the house at the top of the road.  Our neighborhood also has its own bear, which I’m not interested in confronting or even seeing unless I’m in my house at that or any hour.  The neighbors say the bear is harmless and eats bird food from feeders but it has teeth, claws and is bear-size.  When I used to hunt as a kid I knew that if you were within sight of a bear, if it wanted to, it could be on you in the blink of an eye because they’re deceptively fast.  I have a clip somewhere of a grizzly running down a young mountain goat that had about one hundred yards on the bear.  Here’s a video of a grizzly running down a young elk. Keep in mind even a young elk can easily outrun a person.  Don’t watch it if you’re squeamish about this sort of footage.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGLCZSiWr_I

The first shot is me stepping off our driveway onto the road and the rest follow the progression of the walk.  The last is the sun coming up between the trees on our property behind the house.  Pictures of the brook don’t come out well because there’s not enough light at that hour and the trees close in on it more each day.  The brook is really rushing now from all the rain we’ve been getting.

Hope you like the pictures.

DPW

August 10, 2013

A Walk in the Dark

I woke up at 3:30 the other night and, for no reason and with little thought, put on my sweats and walked our road in the middle of the woods.  What an absolutely fascinating experience that was.  I thought my eyes would adjust to the dark but they didn’t.  We are not nocturnal creatures.  I’m sure animals were watching me.  During the day, when I look over our property, I can detect the slightest sound or branch movement and animals are better at it than I am.  We have a massive brown owl on our property that probably saw my every step. It’s so big its wings seem to flap in slow motion and it’s awe-inspiring to watch fly.  Our road’s only street light is near its bottom end and most of the houses, like ours, are set far back from the road.  It didn’t even occur to me to turn on our external lights.  I couldn’t see anything for most of the walk and I zigzagged a lot, which I could tell because I stepped on the gravel on both sides of the paved road.  I carried a big heavy branch with me and used it to bang the ground every fourth step to warn animals of my presence.  A strong rhythmic sound will scare animals away because they know only a human can produce a sound like that.  I was mentally prepared for what I would do if a mountain lion confronted me.  More than anything, defend the back of your neck because cats know instinctively to bite there to kill.  Loud yelling would scare it away before it became confrontational and my voice really projects.  Being on my guard but not afraid in total darkness in nature was exhilarating.  I heard an owl hoot and some rustling, otherwise it was silent.  I guess it was because the temperature was in the 50’s, but I didn’t hear any bugs or other birds. I don’t know if I’d ever do it again but what an experience.  I kept looking up through the tree tops at the stars and sky, which were framed beautifully by the black of the treetops.  I love the serenity of the night.

The first three pictures are of the road’s only street light and the bend approaching the bottom of the hill/road.

Other than this intersection at the bottom of the road, the street light on our road near it and this house, the rest of my walk was pitch black.

 

DPW

August 5, 2013

(Click on images for full size)

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