an observation occasioned by halloween insanity...

     The Young People of many ages were out and about the neighborhood for Halloween. Oddly enough, they all had their parents along, or at least a parent - I suppose someone has to stay home and pass out the bearer bonds. I don't remember too many parents tagging along with us when I was one of the Young People - that was kind of the idea you know. Of course, we live in one of the safest neighborhoods you could possibly imagine, and this my friends tells me that the intensive parental presence had more to do with the parents than with the Young People themselves. Mom and Dad must constantly micromanage everything in the lives of their delicate offspring, even at the emotional level. This leads to one conclusion. As the siécle waxes toward its fin, parents grow more and more annoying and stupid. The kids, on the other hand, are just being kids, to the extent anyone will let 'em. 

i never stood in line on Halloween...

Halloween madness.

Still more Halloween madness.

And it's not even Halloween! Who are these people?! 

deep questions...

     Well now, here I find myself with an hour to kill.

     How exactly does one 'kill' an hour? How does one discern that the hour is truly killed to death? there are obvious tells, of course. If you look back upon an hour devoted to catching up on Jay-Z's tweets, it's likely the hour in question is long since dead. That does not, however, help those of us who might wish to kill an hour deliberately, slowly, with due mindfulness to the hour's passing into the Kingdom of Memory.

another thought...

     By the by, I suspect there really is Paradise Somewhere (just what's a where?), and there really is an Angelos with a sword of flame guarding the gate - water does the trick, you see, in getting one through that gate. Now, what do we do as Christians that involves water? Let's think on that - I'm sure the answer will present itself. 

just a few thoughts...

     This is an all-too brief response to my friend Tripp's post over at Conjectural Navel Gazing. He poses a few questions, to which I of course have catechetical like answers. Bear with us.

     'If one believes in angels but not in "the Church", is that a religious belief (the angels bit) or a spiritual insight?' Well, one could be an orthodox Jew or a Muslim, but let that pass. For most of the people I meet who 'believe in angels,' and I meet a lot of people in my line of work, it's neither a 'religious belief' nor a 'spiritual insight,' but a trace of sentimental whimsy. I doubt most have any idea what an 'angel' might be. (Here's a hint: they're terrifying, and if one appears to you, he's there to ruin your life as you know it).

     'If one sits silently with one's eyes closed, feet placed comfortably on the ground or legs folded underneath, and meditates on breathing in and out seeking peacefulness, is this a spiritual practice or a religious one?' Neither, but it does sound like a good way for an insomniac to fall asleep.
     'What spiritual practices can one participate in that are *not* an invention of some human being somewhere?' It's terrible to have to deal with all those humans and their inventions. (Invenio, etc.) I know folks like to imagine there is a pure, unmediated form of 'encounter' with the 'divine,' but since I like being a human among humans, I'll take the stuff they invent with all their 'ethically ambiguous histories.' 

     After all, humans were never meant to be angels; humans were meant to sit in judgment on angels. 

clarification...

     Why yes, I do enjoy revealing the horror latent in beloved children's classics. Thank you for asking.

falling ladders, a Seussian psychopath, boys' names, and Beethoven...

     What's happening around here, you ask?
     As a contractor, I carry around in my truck these folding ladders. As you can see from this link, the typical heavy duty sort weighs around 54 pounds or so. Well, earlier this afternoon one of these collapsed onto my right foot as I helped an idiot insurance adjuster extend his. 'Got away from me,' he said rather laconically. Huh. Anyway, I am apparently what the kids call a 'lucky bastard,' because there isn't a mark on me, and the foot only aches a little. Now, I had boots on, but they weren't steel toed or otherwise protective. (Needless to say, I now need a new pair.)
     In other words, my foot was crushed by a ladder collapsing at top speed, and nothing happened. Weird it is, in every sense of that old, old word.
     What else is new?
     Do head over and give a listen as Leonard Bernstein all to briefly descants on the wonders of Beethoven's Third Symphony, the Eroica. The simplicity of means by which Beethoven achieves the most daring and complex works always astonishes me. 
     What else, what else...how can I beguile you into staying with me instead of taking in the latest episode of Black List? 
     Speaking of Black List, does that show rock, or what?
     Anyway, what else, what else...o, I know. As you can see from this gif, my brothers and I - William, Daniel, Thomas - are distinctly outliers when it comes to popular names for boys over the years. William does not come into its own until fairly late in the cycle, and then only in a few southern states. Daniel and Thomas don't seem to ever make the cut. For no reason at all, this pleases me. 
     Finally, it seems I need to explain my hatred of Sam-I-Am. For those of you who don't remember him, Sam-I-Am is that noxious little troll from Dr. Seuss's beloved tome Green Eggs and Ham. I have always, and I do mean always, loathed that pestering, nagging, intrusive little sonofabitch. To my ear, he sounds like a monomaniacal psychopath. Had he not succeeded in browbeating the hapless guy into eating what, let's be honest, sounds like food that's gone off, then I shudder to imagine how things would have escalated. I see Sam stalking his prey for months, growing ever more violently insistent, until...o, dear reader, let us not sully our evening together with such horrors.

more grad school idiocy...

     To be sure, grad students kill themselves at an alarming rate, but this article is nonsense. 'Graduate programs should offer (or even require) courses or workshops that teach yoga and mindfulness techniques.' Not on my dime. If forced to do yoga, I might just take some folks with me when I decide it's time to trip the light fantastical. Besides, no one seems to have thought of what might need to be cut from the course of study to make room for such 'courses or workshops,' or are they to be added to an already heavy load of work? 
     What's more, 'mental health' as a barrier to success sounds suspiciously like a euphemism for 'stupidity'. Yes, again, some few grad students need real help, but most are just too stupid to deal with the demands of a good program. Of course, we get into a loop here: a good program will never require something a insipid as yoga or 'mindfulness' techniques. Spare me. Finally, overlooked in all this is the simple fact that folks might just have a reason to be a little crazy. Is that so bad?

poor, poor anna...

     "'Yes, yes,' said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open window. 'But it wasn't my fault. And whose fault was it? What does "fault" mean? Could it have been otherwise? What do you think?'...," Anna Karenina, p. 635.
     She has no doubt rehearsed this justification over and over again with great discipline. 
     And can anyone tell me what has become of Banana Republic's 'Anna Karenina Collection'? Something so absurd is somehow salutary. 

apropos of nothing at all...

     Why doesn't the guy just kill Sam-I-Am? He could stuff him in a box, he could serve him up with lox; he could bury him in sand, he could mount his mummied hand; he could dispense with all green eggs and ham, he could find peace without that Sam-I-Am.
     Think about it, dear reader, think about it. 

simon conway morris, heretic...

     We find this on page xiii of Life's Solution, by one Simon Conway Morris: 'There is, however, a paradox. If we, in a sense, are evolutionarily inevitable, as too are animals with compound eyes or tiny organelles that make hydrogen, then where are our equivalents, out there, across the galaxy? . . . To paraphrase much of this book, life may be a universal principle, but we can still be alone. In other words, once you are on the path it is pretty straightforward, but finding a suitable planet and maybe getting the right recipe for life's origination could be exceedingly difficult: inevitable humans in a lonely Universe. Now, if this happens to be the case, that i turn might be telling us something very interesting indeed. Either we are a cosmic accident, without either meaning or purpose, or alternatively ...'
     It indeed trails off, that isn't an ellipsis of omission. If you know anything about the good paleontologist, you will know the significance of that ellipsis. (Let's just say that it's enough to drive some folks to distraction.) If you don't know anything about the good paleontologist, then his department faculty page is a good place to start.

all good things...

     I have tried several times to post this link on Facetube, and it just won't work. This cannot stand! You need this vital link! How is the information and transparency revolution that is Facetube to advance from strength to strength if I can't post links to gifs? What's next? Will I be refused the power to show the waiting public real time photos of my lunch? 
     The horror!
     Our technological ascendency is at an end. My only course of rational action is to drink scotch in my bathrobe at nine in the morning, and lament the passing of an era of greatness.

take and read, contemporary poetry edition...

     From the fantastical poem, 'Lord Byron's Foot,' by one George Green, comes this final stanza.

It’s best if we just contemplate your bust,

a bust by Thorvaldson or Bartolini, 

and why is that you ask, and why is that? 

So no one has to see your friggin’ foot,
your foot, your foot, your clomping monster foot,
your foot, your foot, your foot, your foot, your foot!

Is that not hilarious? Do read the whole thing. You might also want to pick up Green's book as well..

take and read thrice over...

     Head over and see what Robert J. Richards has to offer. The man writes a good book. If you want to understand what Darwin, Haeckel, and the gang were really doing, you need to have a look at Richards's work. Whatever one ultimately thinks of the matter, the story is fascinating in all its complexity.

it occurs to me...

Nietzsche had it wrong. 

That which doesn't kill you isn't worth a damn.

another thought...

     Before I return to bed, it occurs to me that a Victorian is a Romantic who identifies the Absolute and the Sublime with the Vulgar and the Utilitarian. 
     It's just a thought.

Lyell's prose, along with Darwin and Kafka...

     So, it seems that I have a sinus infection. Haven't had one of these in a long time, especially one this bad. It's really quite painful you know. O, how I suffer! 
     Well, whatever - let the pain I currently endure with stoic resolve at the least explain the rambling nature of this post. For the seventeen or so of you out there who are real as opposed to VirtualBots - and that number has grown dramatically in recent days, as it used to be only around five or so - this will  be the thrill of your Saturday. O yes it will.
     What to do, what to do...
     I know, let's pick some books from around the desk, open 'em, and see what we find. Of course, the question then becomes, Where to start, where to start...
     From Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, we read, 'But it would be idle to controvert, by reference to modern analogies, the conjectures of those who think they can ascend in their retrospect to the origin of our system. Let us, therefore, consider what changes the crust of the globe suffered after the consolidation of that ancient series of rocks to which we have adverted. Now, there is evidence that, before our secondary strata were formed, those of older date (from the old red sandstone to the coal inclusive) were fractured and contorted, and often thrown into vertical positions. We cannot enter here into the geological details by which it is demonstrable, that at an epoch extremely remote, some parts of the carboniferous series were lifted above the levels of the sea, others sunk to greater depths beneath it, and the former, being no longer protected by a covering of water, were partially destroyed by torrents and the waves of the sea, and supplied matter for newer horizontal beds.'
     Lyell's great work appeared in three volumes from 1830 to 1833. Think what you will of the science, and I think quite highly of it, but you cannot deny, without thereby showing both moral and intellectual wickedness, that the prose is just damn fine. 
     Now, Lyell's work exerted a profound influence on the work of one Charles Darwin, so how fortunate that we have to hand Darwin's The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (Just trips off the tongue, doesn't it?) The passage in question is not entirely a random choice. I marked and noted it just last night, as it is indicative to my ear of Darwin's character as a writer and scientist. That is, he is both a Romantic in quest of the Absolute and the Sublime, and a Victorian in quest of the Vulgar and the Utilitarian. To wit: 'In looking at Nature, it is most necessary to keep the foregoing considerations always in mind - never to forget that every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers; that each lives by a struggle at some period of its life; that heavy destruction inevitably falls either on the young or old, during each generation or at recurrent intervals. Lighten any check, mitigate the destruction ever so little, and the number of the species will almost instantaneously increase to any amount. The face of Nature may be compared to a yielding surface, with ten thousand sharp wedges packed close together and driven inwards by incessant blows, sometimes one wedge being struck, and then another with greater force.'
     If that does not strike you, dear reader, as a Kafkaesque image of Sublime Nature as a perpetually punitive Nightmare, then you lack all sensitivity to literature. What drives Sublime Nature to assume the form of a perpetually punitive Nightmare? Why nothing more than a concern with numbers in a ledger; with, if you please, an equation that is ever on the verge of flying out of balance. 
     With that, I must away. The drugs have worn off, so with your indulgence, I will drop some few doses of antibiotics, decongestants, and antihistamines, then slip back into bed.
     Peace out.

take and read this too...

     Since we're a little busy now, do have a look at this essay by Marilynne Robinson, 'A Common Faith.'
     Peace out,
     The management.

take and read...

     Dear reader, I give you Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus. Do spend a few happy hours with them.

why are my premiums going up?

     Apparently Obamacare, as the current health-insurance overhaul legislation is known to the cognoscenti, is a harbinger of the End of Days. Around here, of course, we thought the new sitcom with Robin Williams was enough of a portent, but folks need ever more dramatic reasons to believe the meteor is about to hit the earth. So, many ask with a combination of innocent wonder and bloodthirsty rage, Why the hell are my premiums going up? 
     The answer to that is quite simple: the elimination of underwriting for pre-existing conditions drives up the cost of claims and, thus, premiums bolt through the stratosphere. 

     The insurance companies are actually in a pickle. (Yes, among absurdity upon absurdity, the Current Madness makes insurance companies sympathetic.) The majority of Americans support the elimination of those restrictions, but don't connect claims and costs. The companies you see are required by law to have enough cash on hand to cover claims...
     I can see your eyes glazing over, but please bear with me. All premiums paid to a company for health plans go into a general fund, which is then quite conservatively invested so as to grow the fund from year to year. This becomes a vast sum of cash that the company can draw upon to cover claims. They do this, dear reader, because the law of the land requires it. Therefore, if they can't do underwriting, they must raise the cash to cover the projected flood of diabetics and terminal cases. 

     This is also the reason why everyone has to buy insurance. Consider an employer's group plan - there are no health questions because most everyone will enroll. Thus the plan draws from a decent population, allowing the premiums paid for healthy people to cover the claims of the sick people. Even then, however, there is often a buffer period before certain conditions can be claimed. Still, after that the conditions are covered no questions asked. Just so, requiring that all Americans purchase health insurance creates an enormous Group, allowing companies to eliminate health underwriting and simply cover anyone who stumbles along regardless of their pre-existing conditions.

     By the by, our Chief Justice was right - the fine for those who refuse to buy insurance certainly is a tax. How can it possibly be construed as a tax? Lessee, it's designed to raise revenue to cover costs of claims. See? It raises revenue, therefore it's a tax. QED. O, and that revenue is for federal subsidies intended to offset the inevitably higher premiums everyone will have to pay for private health insurance plans. Leave that for another day.

     Where does that leave us, my only friends? Whether we like it or not, as long as people demand that insurance companies eliminate underwriting for pre-existing conditions, health insurance premiums will remain ridiculously high, and that individual mandate must hold. 

     So, to answer your question as succinctly as possible, your premiums are so high because you got what you wanted. 

     Take the win, and have a nice day.

lines on an artist's vocation...

     I left behind a few possibilities - architecture, etc - because I knew I could never be *great* at them.* To my mind, this had nothing to do with recognition or fame - though it's impossible to practice architecture, for instance, without building the damned buildings (one must fail in public, while finding clients to pay for the failure). 

     No, as in poetry, I looked to those I knew to be great, the transcendent ones, and wondered if I would ever make anything as beautiful, daring, and true. As a poet, see, I'm more concerned with how John Donne or Dante will regard my best work when it's All Over. The Kingdom of God is given by grace; the Kingdom of Art is all about works, and reverence - even, and especially, when reverence leads you to try and surpass your masters. 

     So Yeats was wrong. For an artist, perfection of the work is ingredient in the perfection of the life. 

* Hell, I was barely competent at many of the things I tried to do.