Archive for January, 2011

High entertainment value

January 9, 2011

Saturday’s shootings in Arizona are certainly troubling, but not surprising. I’ve run into several people who apparently don’t realize that some of the biggest voices screaming from the fringe don’t worry at all about what they say, and even less about how they are heard.

But not realizing that three of those big names are little more than charlatans (or grifters) isn’t reserved for the mentally ill or poorly educated. Spewing hateful rhetoric and misinformation has high entertainment value and is very profitable. Why dial it back?

There is a ready audience of people who read narrowly and think even more narrowly. Is it the fault of a talk show host when listeners  don’t understand that they stir the pot of hate with a pack of lies, distortions, provocative slurs, and violent rhetoric? Couple all that with a meager understanding of the U.S. Constitution … in its entirety … and one has an explosive and polarized climate.

Ms. Palin and Messrs. Beck and Limbaugh certainly can’t be blamed for the shootings in Tuscon. But they can be blamed for using their voice to help create and maintain a political soil so toxic that distorted thinking finds much nourishment. They differ little from others who radicalize the easily influenced.

The rest of us see what they have to say for what it is.

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It makes for interesting days

January 4, 2011

Retirement sure gives one some odd days. Today was one of them: early morning quiet and meditation time, a couple of hours on the torture machine in the basement, getting some photo prints made with a 25-free-every-month card that came with a camera purchase, having a slow leak fixed on a tire … for free since I bought the tires there, picking up a Lionel locomotive from the repair shop following 64 years of trouble-free performance at Christmas time each year.

Certainly can’t complain about any of that. It makes for interesting days in this wonderful world of ours.

Anyway, back to work on Thursday.

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“A hawk!,” I thought.

January 3, 2011

It was the second day of the new year. Watching a football game at dusk, I noticed a large bird fly into a tree at the back edge of our yard. “A hawk!,” I thought.

Running upstairs, I got a much better look. What I saw didn’t resemble a hawk’s profile. The top of our china cabinet always holds a pair of 12 power binoculars. Taking a closer look, an owl!

We grabbed the new camera, a Christmas present from me to her, and attempted to catch a picture. The flash fired. Glare off the glass. How could I turn that off? A moment’s fiddling got it turned off.

On our lower level is a door to the patio. A good shot from that vantage point looked like a real possibility.

Walking out the door … luckily the motion detector didn’t kick on the flood lights … I was able to keep a tree trunk between me and that lovely bird.

I peered around the tree and squeezed off a picture. Zoomed in at 10x should give a nice look. The camera gives off a soft beep, just enough to attract the full and undivided attention of the owl.

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Perhaps it was the ambulance

January 1, 2011

Yesterday morning I took my last run of 2010. Severe weather was threatening the area. I stayed close-by.

Everything was going fine until I began my second mile. With no warning at all, my left leg collapsed, and I nearly went down. Has this happened before? Yes. But very rarely.

Actually, though, it has happened often enough so that I don’t rely on my legs to serve me well  in precarious situations. Climbing the Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza, for example.

The pyramid actually looks quite accessible from the ground. Lots of people were going up and down. After watching for a while and working up some nerve, I approached the first step.

Facing me were many, many steps with no intermediate landings. A complete absence of anything to hang onto. OSHA would not have been happy. I decided I’d just start climbing and not look down until I had reached the top.

The climb was very easy. A steady, deliberate pace, and I was done. Oh, what a view from up there. It was worth the climb. Ruins in the foreground, a blue sky with puffy clouds, Yucatan jungle stretching to the horizon.

After looking around, enjoying the view, watching people huff and puff their way to the top, it was time to go back down. How was I going to do this? What looked quite benevolent from below, suddenly presented itself as a nearly vertical drop to the ground when viewed from above.

Oh, boy! This was going to be tricky. One stumble and I would bounce down the stone steps all the way to the bottom. Climbers coming up in my path of descent would join me going down,  felled like so many bowling pins. The odds of surviving such a fall, either alive or able-bodied, were slim.

With my “trick knee,” for lack of a better description, I decided to sit down and proceed one step at a time. I was even worried about falling as I attempted to sit on the top-most step in preparation for my downward journey. Perhaps it was the ambulance sitting off to the side in the shade of a tree that focused my attention.

Well, anyhow, I made it back down. We have heard that climbers are no longer allowed on the pyramid. Unverified at this point, but understandable.

All of this came to mind as I finished my last run of 2010.

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