Stay Sharp! - Part 1

I think it was teaching the 11 year old scouts that got me started but, like a lot of men, I've learned to appreciate a well sharpened knife.  I say "like a lot of men" because of all the videos on youtube featuring slightly scary looking guys talking about their preferred method of keeping their blades sharp.

Having to teach the scouts how to sharpen a knife required me to learn something about it. Not only did I learn some basics but I found out what a useful and practical skill it was.  The rack of fairly expensive knives in the kitchen went from a disappointment to a joy to use once I got a decent sharpener and started using it.


 I'll cut to the quick:  If you want a sharp knife, get yourself a simple pull sharpener like the one pictured on the left and use it. You can buy it for $2.95 at the Knife Center.  You hold it with your left hand and pull the knife through the ceramic rods at the bottom of the "V" to sharpen.  One pair of rods is coarse, the other fine.  There are a lot of variations on this particular design but the pull sharpener has a significant advantage over the whetstone:  the angle between the knife and the sharpening material is fixed.  Also consider its lower cost and smaller size and weight and you've got a real winner. It also works with just about every size of knife, even machetes.  If you have no other sharpener, let this be the one.

One other thing:  you should hone your blades before every use.  Honing is different than sharpening but related.  Think of the long line that the knife blade makes.  Then think of that line wandering back and forth a little bit.  More of a wobbly footpath than a precisely engineered road.  That's what happens to most blades through use, the tip bends to the side, reducing its cutting effectiveness.  That's where a butcher steel comes in and why one is usually included in every knife block.

So what's the relationship between sharpening and honing?  In practical terms: you hone before every use, you sharpen once or twice a year.  A sharp blade makes the edge of the blade very thin and more likely to "wobble" and needs frequent honing.  But they address two very different problems:  Sharpening addresses the shape of the edge along its cross section, honing the straightness along its length.  It should be noted that the pull sharpener above is really more of a honing tool.  It's ability to reshape an edge (using the "coarse" setting") is fairly limited.  For that you need something stronger.  In the next part, I'll cover it.  If you want to skip ahead, there are a lot of excellent sources on the internet already.  I recommend http://blog.metrokitchen.com/knife-sharpening-honing/.

On the Road to Damscus

Being a Biblically named town, there are a lot of states with a city called Damascus but the one I am going to be talking about is in Damascus, Virginia. It's own website describes it as "Trail Town, USA."  That's because of its prominent position along the Appalachian Trail:  it is near the Tennessee/Virginia border which means that it marks either the first (or last) 1/4 section of your entire AT experience.   If you're a NOBO (northbounder), you're conditioned for the trail and an experienced backpacker.  If you're a SOBO (southbounder), it's time to start thinking about the end of your journey and all that brings.  Although the AT passes through 14 states (ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, NY, NJ, PA, MD, WV, VA, NC, TN, GA), Virginia is by far the longest stretch, just about 500 miles.


Aside from its prominent position along the trail, Damascus is a "Trail Town" for a couple of other reasons.  One is all the support it gives to hikers along the AT, boasting a townful of hostels, bed & breakfasts, trail outfitters and, the hiker's lifeline, a post office (with a hiker registration desk.)  The other is The Virgina Creeper Trail which starts in Damascus and runs to Abingdon, VA, 35 miles away.  It's not named after some weird old guy from Virginia though, it's named after a vine very common to the area, the Virigina Creeper:


Virginia Creeper, creeping up a tree

The trail is an old railway which has been converted to a biking trail that runs along the Holston river.  This is a fairly common thing to do with rail lines that have fallen into disuse and is referred to as a "Rails-to-Trails" sort of project.  The trail is full of trestles and bridges and runs through some gorgeous countryside.  Keep in mind it's peak fall color right now.  The Va. Creeper trail is the reason there are so many bicycle rentals in Damascus.  Despite the creeper trail's obvious charm though, it's the AT that put Damascus on the map.  Every year in May, Damascus has "Trail Days", a week long celebration of the trail and the people who hike it.


A potential through hiker enjoys the Trail Days celebration.

Our SOBO son Dennis has reached his 3/4 done mark and we decided we'd meet him in Damascus with a resupply and visit to cheer him on.  The last time we saw him was about a month ago when he came through Harpers Ferry, the halfway point on the trail.  His oldest brother joined him for two days in MD and they did the entire state (~35 miles) in that time.  He had a hiking buddy then and they both took some time off the trail after the first 1,000 miles.  Three days after they restarted, his hiking buddy decided to leave the trail.  Dennis picked up a new hiking buddy for another month but with the cold weather settling in, he decided to set out alone at a ferocious pace.  Since that time, he's done at least a couple of marathon days (>26 miles) and hopes to finish before Thanksgiving.  Barring any injuries, it looks like he's going to make it.

My Darling Wife and I were really looking forward to seeing Dennis again and it was only a 6 hour drive down US I-81 to Damascus.  Plus it was fairly close to Dante, Va, the coal mining town where her Dad has spent his childhood, a place I'd never seen.  We brought with us a huge supply of backpacker chow, some winter clothing, an MP3 player and a laptop.  The MP3 player was for the trail and it was loaded full of talks and music.  I know some people really like to listen to audiobooks while they're hiking.  The laptop was for the one night we'd be staying with him at a hotel so he could play League of Legends over the internet with all his friends back home. He was very focused on that and as soon as he got to the hotel room and had repacked his backpack to accommodate the resupply, he stayed up almost all night playing on the laptop.

One of the nice things about the trail is you can keep whatever hours you want.  Dennis barely made the breakfast bar which closed a 9 a.m.  After checking out of the hotel late, we visited the nearby town of Dante, Va.  The house where my father inlaw grew up was in a sad state of disrepair.  No one had lived there for about 50 years though so it wasn't unexpected.  The whole town was built on the side of a mountain, anywhere there was purchase enough to build.  There is a coal miner's museum and memorial in town.  Almost 100% of the election signs we saw along the way were strongly anti-Obama because of his enmity to coal mining.  It was pretty cool.

When we got back to town, we stopped for a pizza and movie and headed out to Tennesse to drop Dennis off at the trailhead.  I had to get the trailhead GPS co-ordinates off of Google Earth and type them into the car GPS since it was just a wide spot on the road where the AT crosses.  The final approach was 11 miles of mountain road switchbacks but the trail crossing was marked and we waved goodbye in the dark as Dennis took off for a nearby shelter.  He probably needed to get to bed early anyway after staying up all night playing League of Legends!

Wild Spiders I Have Known

Today's blog title is taken from a book by Ernest Thompson Seton, Wild Animals I Have Known.  You can read it online here.  Being a famous Canadian and a founder of Boy Scouts, he was required reading for young Canadian boys. ET Seton has a very interesting life story and you can read about him on Wikipedia. 

The spider pictured on the left here is the Spined Micrathena.  Spiders are commonly classified for the webs they build and this one is what you call an "orb-weaver".  That's a very classical sort of spider web, a wheel shaped web with a spiral holding it together. 

Their web is the way the catch their meals.  Every evening, they eat whatever's in their web and the web itself and then they build a new one.  It's a good way to keep their webs clean.

The Spined Micrathena is very common in MD.  Early Saturday morning, at about 6 am, while MDW was sleeping, I set out on my mountain bike to ride a path nearby in search of a fabled shortcut to the Great Seneca bike path.  The path I chose was only about a mile but all the micrathena love this trail and had build many webs across it.  By the time I reached the end of the trail, I was covered in spiderwebs, especially my face and head. They don't bite and usually drop when their webs are broken but it's unnerving being covered by spiderwebs, especially with the spiders and the shell of their earlier meal still in them.  I think I'm ready for the Haunted Forest come Halloween.

I had high hopes for this shortcut.  It was along the path of some high voltage power lines and they had just mowed the field, making it fairly easy to ride through.  But, there were two stream crossings with steep banks I couldn't see when I first scouted this shortcut and that pretty much killed the idea.  While climbing up one of the sides of the stream, I came across an entirely different sort of web.

These sort of webs are made by grass spiders.  They are related to funnels spiders that build a web in the shape of a funnel and wait at the bottom to devour their prey.  Fortunately the MD species are pretty harmless, just like the micrathena.  We do have the brown recluse and black widows here but I rarely have encountered them.

Windows 8 - Another Sign of Microsoft's Continued Decline

Big companies, especially those who introduce the first of a new product to market, rule for a long time until they fall into complacency and are over taken by their competition.  In the 70's and 80's, IBM's near-monopoly on everything computer related was unassailable.  People feared or envied IBM for their total dominance of a wide range of computers from desktops to sprawling mainframes that required their own building.  But, oh how they have fallen!  Is fallen, even a son of the morning!

How did it happen?  A series of poor decisions and a failed strategy.  If there's any one event, it was when Microsoft and IBM disagreed so significantly on the direction of the next generation operating system (OS/2), that they split and Microsoft implemented their vision as the Windows operating system.  Since that moment, Microsoft's star has ascended while IBM's has declined.

Well, it's about to happen again.  I'm talking about Windows 8.  The beginning of the end for Microsoft.  They're about to be eclipsed by Google and Apple, and this time they're not likely to recover. 

The current situation is that MS pretty much owns most of what you'd call the "enterprise"  space. Businesses that rely on the Windows support and infrastructure to execute their daily operations.  They're the new IBM!  They own the data center and business desktop.  The "consumer" space they share with Google and Apple. For their own personal computing needs, people are increasingly using their smart phones and tablets/iPads .  Apple and Google don't yet own the consumer space but they have a big chunk of it and that percentage is increasing.

In response, MS decided to come up with Windows Phone, a program that originally appeared on the ill-fated Zune music player.  And they adapted it for a smart phone.  It's hasn't sold very well, probably because people are happy with the phones they have.  Here's where it get surreal.  Microsoft decides to use the Windows Phone software and fit it onto to their desktop OS, replacing the desktop that has "just worked" for at least 25 years.  It's an unholy mix of keyboard, mouse and touch and an abandoned desktop metaphor.  I wish I could go into details of how awful it really is but that would be too much.  I'll just include some favorite links:

A deep dive into Windows 8 Consumer Preview
Microsoft Is In Serious Danger Of Flying Straight Into A Mountain With Windows 8
Why Windows 8 could be the next Vista
8 Things We Hate About Windows 8
The Seven Things I Hate About Windows 8

I use a 27" monitor and find Metro (MS' name for their new desktop) annoying.  It insists on displaying every application in full screen mode (there are no windows under this version of Windows) which is overwhelming.  The start button is gone, replaced with "tiles".  A tile is sort of like a desktop icon but less flexible.  Not everyone is going to like Metro is all I can say.  But the real deal killer is that now MS is asking all the people who write applications for Windows to write Metro style apps.  To support touch as well as mouse and keyboard.  If you don't, you'll be forced to use the somewhat broken desktop mode, something similar to the current Windows 7 desktop but without a Start button.  And all the annoying screen hot spots that is part of Windows 8.

Apple took the right approach and keeps their phone and desktop version of iOS separate.  You can't run a pixel-twiddling program like Photoshop without the accuracy of a mouse.  Which is why there are a lot of programs that will never appear on a tablet.  Not without a radical re-write.  In other words, MS is asking everyone (living or dead) who ever wrote a program for the PC, to re-write it for touch and Metro, a unimaginably huge task.  And application support is what makes MS king.  Why break everything you ever worked for?  So everything that's been before is either broken or hurting.

The other deal breaker is the training issue.  Nothing in Metro is intuitive, it's difficult to learn.  One thing that always riles me about a new release of Windows is how all the settings are moved around.  Every new version puts the network settings, the security settings, all those little twiddly things in different places.  I wouldn't mind if there were some reason for it but I can seldom see it.  Windows 8 takes this obfuscation of settings to a whole new level.  People are going to puke on Metro not because it doesn't work but because they can't figure it out. 

All of this this could have been avoided if they kept the traditional desktop and let you launch the Metro environment from there.  But they want to be done with it forever, just like the old DOS command line.  Just so they could chase after the tablet and smart phone market.  It's a textbook case of if it ain't broken, don't fix it.  The only thing that was broken was their market share.  Nobody was asking for this!

MS's lack of judgement is also revealed in another, smaller aspect of Windows 8.  Starting with Office 2007, MS replaced a huge mashed up confusion of command bars, drop down lists, menus and icons with the infamous ribbon.  The ribbon is a huge but better organized mash up of tabs, command bars, drop down lists, menus and icons.  Because they hate us, they dropped the old interface and forced everyone to use the ribbon.  It was met with mixed success but people have finally stopped complaining about it.  So now they're adding it to a lot of Windows utilities like Notepad and Explorer.  Maybe that's why they think forcing everyone to use Metro out of the box will be a great idea too.  But do you see anyone else using the ribbon?  I don't and MS has been promoting and supporting it vigorously. 

Windows 8 is going to be a hard one to recover from.  Much worse than Vista.  The performance and compatibility problems the new security model introduced gradually got better over time.  People will learn the Metro interface over time but rewriting every application to support touch is probably never going to happen.  I'd like to say that over time, MS will improve the Metro interface but I'm loosing confidence in their judgement and fear they might double down on their mistake instead.

Windows 8 is a solution in need of a problem.  Zune failed, Windows Phone is loosing millions and I see the same thing ahead for Windows tablets.  There wasn't anything wrong with Zune or Windows Phone, it just wasn't better than anyone else's.  MS withstood years of losses on the XBox but even if they are prepared to do that for their phones and tablets, success is not guaranteed and they have formidable competition.  Even if they survive all that, ruining their enterprise business to chase after a misbegotten vision they will not survive.  IBM had to abandon OS/2 for much smaller mistakes.

Maybe my children will see IBM buy out the shell of what's left of Microsoft in the years to come.  But the irony of that will probably escape them.

Update: It's 12/2012 and Win 8 has been out for awhile now.  Here's a few more links:

Microsoft Has Failed
Microsoft's Problems

Invasive Species

I spend a lot of time outdoors in Maryland hiking through the many bike trails and footpaths that crisscross the county.  After a while, you start recognizing the plants and trees and flowers.  Having an Audobon or Peterson guide to WildFlowers or Trees is also very helpful. 

I have a sister who studied Forestry at the University of Toronto back in our younger days.  In order to graduate, you need to pass Dendrology 101.  Dendrology is the identification of trees.  For the final exam, your professor takes you out to Earnest Thomas Seaton Park in the wintertime and you must identify 100 different species of trees.  No leaves, you may only use the tree bark and general shape for identification.  If you flunk, you have to keep taking it year after year until you finally pass or wash out. 

So my sister was highly motivated for a time to identify trees.  I would occasionally visit her and we couldn't walk far down the street without her going over to a tree and asking me to identify it.  Especially if it was something unusual, like a doubly compound Kentucky Coffee Bean tree.  Or an elm tree with an asymmetrical leaf base.  Most of the elm trees in Canada were wiped out years ago by the Dutch Elm Disease so seeing an live elm tree there is a rare treat.  As a result I gained an appreciation for dendrology and actually learned something too.  Thanks, Patty!

Most identification systems depend on a "key", simply a set of rules, things to look for to narrow down the choices.  You go from general to specific until you reach the level you want.  It works for trees, ducks, insects, whatever you have.  And there's no Master Key, you can make your own key, whatever you find that works for you.

When I moved from Canada to Maryland, I made an effort to familiarize myself with all the different trees and flowers mushrooms and insects.  In comparison to Maryland, Canada is a bleak wasteland of monotony and it was great to see all the new species of ...well, everything!

It wasn't too long before I came across a curious sort of...attitude...I guess is the word.  Some species of plants and insects and animals are unloved and branded as dreaded "Invasive Species".  Species that didn't come over on the Mayflower but instead are breaking down our borders and starting gang wars in our forests and meadows.  And the Invasive Species are strong and aggressive and just destroying the fine and dainty balance that has maintained for so long.

The picture above features the horrendous Japanese Stilt Grass, another "Bio-Bully" that's pushing around the native species, beating them down and taking their lunch money.  But, the thing is, I love Japanese Stiltgrass and look forward to this time of year when it spreads it lush, deep green blades over the otherwise barren forest floor.  And it's fun to walk through.

See all those delicate green vines wrapped around the tree (and almost everything else)?  The one with the triangular leaves?  That's called mile-a-minute weed.  Botanists call it Persicaria perfoliata.  Calling it a weed is actually very unkind, and "a mile a minute" is a gross exaggeration.  It can grow maybe 6 inches on a hot summer day.   It's quite prolific, kind of like the stilt grass.  But see how beautiful and green it looks?

Awhile ago, the head of NASA was being interviewed and on the subject of global warming he said that nobody really knows what the proper temperature of the earth should be and he wasn't so sure why people were worrying if it went up or down.  Likewise, I don't think people should presume to know what the proper balance of life in the world ought to be.  I say, let the strong survive and everything will balance out.

Empty Nest

Today's the day our youngest son Dennis leaves for Baxter State Park in Millinocket, Maine.  That's the home of Mount Katahdin, one of the end points of the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail.  He's taking a hiking buddy and they drive up this afternoon.  Me and MDW (my darling wife) are responsible for getting him and Michael from the other end of the trail, Springer Mountain in Georgia back to home when that happens much later this year.  God willing!

They will be part of the Southbound Hikers that every year attempt the trail.  About 80% of the people who make the attempt are Northbound Hikers: they start in Georgia around March and finish in the fall at Mount Katahdin.  I think part of the reason for that is because just before Mount Katahdin is the dreaded 100 Mile Woods, a 100 mile stretch so remote you must pack 10 days of food to make it between resupply points.  Better to tackle that after you're an experienced hiker/camper with a few hundred miles behind you.  Plus Mount Katahdin is a real killer, you ought to take a look at it on Google Earth!  It's 5,268 feet, an amazing height for an East Coast peak.  And there are a lot of blood crazed black flies on that section of the trail.  But for whatever reason, they've decided to start here.  Good luck, Dennis and Michael!

Part of the reason for them choosing the Southbound option has to do with the time of year they are starting.  It takes about six months to finish and you don't want to finish on the Northern part after the cold weather sets in.  But they both had to finish high school and Michael was also waiting for his Eagle Board of Review.  He's now an Eagle Scout but through a combination of procrastination and a busy school schedule, wasn't able to complete his Eagle project and write up until now.  So they're leaving the end of June.

MDW and I spent much of this week preparing for the big day.  Mostly, MDW dotes on Dennis and I try to call her off.  And I do spend some time reassuring her that Dennis is an experienced backpacker and will be able to handle most situations.  And that we are only starting him off, not responsible for his successful completion and every contingency imaginable.  But I also ran the dehydrator, making a mountain of beef jerky. 

Maybe one of the most useful things I did was Tuesday night's AT prep hike at the Ed Garvey shelter.  This is the time of year most of the Northbound hikers come through Maryland so we packed our packs and headed up the mountain to the nearest AT shelter, the Ed Garvey shelter near Harpers Ferry, WV.  The idea, as in most prep hikes, is to carry the same equipment you plan to take on the real expedition ahead and see if you're missing anything.  And there was no problem there.  The fun part was meeting and talking with all the other through-hikers we encountered.  Michael and Dennis were able to talk about important things like what to take, resupply points, cell phones (everyone on the trail now takes one) and of course they offered a lot of unsolicited advice which is great because some questions you just don't know enough to ask. 

One of the through-hikers offered that nobody ever leaves with too little equipment and that everybody ends up mailing stuff home or leaving it in one of the hiker boxes at a shelter or town.  A hiker box is just a box where people who left the trail or misjudged their needs abandon equipment for others to use.  Another offered that the black fly season in Maine was early and now mostly over, a cause for celebration.  Another sang the praises of Body Glide, a balm that eases chaffage, a common trail hardship.  Another advised hanging up all your equipment to dry every day when you get to camp, especially if you have a down sleeping bag.

One of the through-hikers I passed on the trail was named DreamCatcher.  They all have trail names, like some secret faternity might.  He had just finished from Georgia to Maryland and had taken off a month to scuba dive in Mexico.  It was his first day back on the trail and he had lost a lot of his conditioning, which he bemoaned.  He was carrying an iPod and playing music through its (modest) speakers while he hiked.  We met him again at the shelter.  He had brought a backpacker's hammock to sleep in and looked pretty comfortable slung between a pair of trees.  Most people stayed in the shelter, choosing to sleep in their bag with a pad underneath.  Some stayed in tents.  A few guys built a fire and cooked foil packs.  I played cards in the shelter for awhile, until it got dark and then wandered off to a hammock of my own.  I always like sleeping outdoors and it was pretty fun (and educational!) talking with all the through-hikers.

The next morning we went into Harpers Ferry where the AT Headquarters is.  It's the halfway point on the AT.  We picked up some maps there and did a little sight seeing.  And we kept running into through-hikers, everywhere!  We ran into an older guy who was on his third through-hike. He did one when he was twenty, one at forty years old and he was now fifty and halfway through his third. When I asked him why he did it, he simply replied, "To get away from my wife!" 

So we've done what we can so far.  MDW will be sending him packages of food in the Post Office at regular intervals.  I'll be visiting www.onepanwonders.com for ideas and keep the food dehydrator running.  It'll be summer soon and we can send dried peaches and apples and pears and--who know what else?

One of the through-hikers said it takes two things to finish the trail: #1 is the desire, #2 is the intelligence to adapt.  Between Michael and Dennis, I think they've got a real solid combination.

Outside Looking In

Mary Chapin Carpenter is a singer/songwriter who is sometimes put in the Country category.  I don't think she's very country, I think she's closer to be a folk singer.  She sings a lot of deliciously sad songs about broken hearts and being lonely.
Although she's had a few hits, even a few Grammy awards, my favorite song of hers is Outside Looking In.  For a long time, she was an older single gal and in this song she writes about the pain of it and longing for marriage.  It's strikingly personal and honest and frankly a little bit like singing about the elephant in the room.  Here's a verse:

I see them walking hand in hand, and my eyes just want to linger
On those golden wedding bands, wrapped around their fingers
By the time I turn away, I feel it once again
I'm back in this familiar place, outside looking in

You can hear the entire song on youtube, but remember it's a heart breaker--you'll have to be strong!  It's even eerier after having heard her sing even more sad songs about remembering her parents fighting while she was a young child.

The good news is she did get married (at age 44) and is still married.  She recently had to cancel a tour because of a serious health problem--a pulmonary embolism.  It took her awhile to recover from that and was difficult for her emotionally.  That's when she discovered what she calls "the learning curve of gratitude":

---

The Learning Curve of Gratitude

by Mary Chapin Carpenter

I believe in what I learned at the grocery store.

Eight weeks ago, I was released from the hospital after suffering a pulmonary embolism. I had just finished a tour and a week after returning home, severe chest pain and terrible breathlessness landed me in the ER. A scan revealed blood clots in my lungs.

Everyone told me how lucky I was. A pulmonary embolism can take your life in an instant. I was familiar enough with the medical term, but not familiar with the pain, the fear and the depression that followed.

Everything I had been looking forward to came to a screeching halt. I had to cancel my upcoming tour. I had to let my musicians and crew members go. The record company, the booking agency: I felt that I had let everyone down.

But there was nothing to do but get out of the hospital, go home and get well.

I tried hard to see my unexpected time off as a gift, but I would open a novel and couldn't concentrate. I would turn on the radio, then shut if off. Familiar clouds gathered above my head, and I couldn't make them go away with a pill or a movie or a walk. This unexpected time was becoming a curse, filling me with anxiety, fear and self-loathing — all of the ingredients of the darkness that is depression.

Sometimes, it's the smile of a stranger that helps. Sometimes it's a phone call from a long absent friend, checking on you. I found my lifeline at the grocery store.

One morning, the young man who rang up my groceries and asked me if I wanted paper or plastic also told me to enjoy the rest of my day. I looked at him and I knew he meant it. It stopped me in my tracks. I went out and I sat in my car and cried.

What I want more than ever is to appreciate that I have this day, and tomorrow and hopefully days beyond that. I am experiencing the learning curve of gratitude.

I don't want to say "have a nice day" like a robot. I don't want to get mad at the elderly driver in front of me. I don't want to go crazy when my Internet access is messed up. I don't want to be jealous of someone else's success. You could say that this litany of sins indicates that I don't want to be human.

The learning curve of gratitude, however, is showing me exactly how human I am.
I don't know if my doctors will ever be able to give me the precise reason why I had a life-threatening illness. I do know that the young man in the grocery store reminded me that every day is all there is, and that is my belief.

Tonight I will cook dinner, tell my husband how much I love him, curl up with the dogs, watch the sun go down over the mountains and climb into bed. I will think about how uncomplicated it all is. I will wonder at how it took me my entire life to appreciate just one day.

The Necessity of Moral Strength

There's a lot been said about the compatibility of science and religion and I think that's because people who have rejected religion see it as some kind of superstition or as something made up to help a primitive society to deal with its fears.  I find this most unscientific.  I speak personally but I think of religion as the science for happiness and peace.  The only social science I subscribe to.

The problem with most moral laws, unlike physical laws, is there there are rarely immediate consequences.  It's difficult to explain to your teenagers the importance of saving themselves for marriage without pointing out the importance of the things they already take for granted like a stable family life.  It's even harder if they don't have one.  You need to convince them of the glory that could be theirs all the while not being sure if they'll ever attain it.  A tricky sell indeed.  But that does not undermine or negate in the least the happiness of a secure home and family.  Of peace at home.

The studies pitting children from single parent homes versus traditional nuclear families always end up the same.  No need going over the results.  They help prove the gospel is true but are usually couched in terms sociologists use.

What's true for individuals and families is true of society in general.  The oft-quoted British statesman Edmund Burke made the following observation regarding society and goverment:

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.

Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

We've forgotten a lot of this kind of writing.  Alexis de Tocqueville also said

Liberty cannot be established without morality nor morality without faith.

Finally, the father of our country, George Washington, from his farewell address:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports...And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.

Nobody knows why there's gravity but we're aware of how it works.  Isaac Newton figured out the gravitational law, F = Gm₁m₂/r2 and it was a big breakthrough.  Nobody ignores the physical law.  Religious truth is revealed by prophets instead of scientists.  But its laws are as immutable even if the consequences are not immediate.  Historians disagree on the causes of the decline of the Roman Empire but Moroni never blamed the fall of the Nephites on their political system, their military, their economy or foreign invaders:

Yea, woe shall come unto you because of that pride which ye have suffered to enter your hearts, which has lifted you up beyond that which is good because of your exceedingly great riches!  Yea, wo be unto you because of your wickedness and abominations!  And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth.

 In order for any individual, family or people to succeed, they must "build on the rock" of virtue.  It catches up with you if you won't.

the machine stops

Back in high school, as part of our English curriculum, we read a number of short sci-fi stories, one of which was the amazingly prophetic The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster.  Instead of living in cities, everyone lived in the machine, in rooms where they were all interconnected via Skype and they never went outside.  Never.  You can read it here.  You can download a custom copy and see people's comments here.

I think just turning you on to this story would be good enough but I feel compelled to make at least some kind of comment.  When I was a kid, the new technology was tv.  My parents grew up without it and saw it come of age and I think the general feeling about tv was very good.  In some sense, it was very educational and informative.  Back then, you got your news from the newspaper and you could only find out what happened in the world once a day.  So tv was in every way better than the newspapers or radio.  As a family, we'd spend most of our evening (once my homework was done) from about 7 to 9 watching prime time.  Most people did.  And Saturday morning we'd watch cartoons until they went off the air.  In our innocence, we never wondered if watching all that tv was good for us.  And I think our parents agreed in general all the while noting we didn't go outside to play much on Saturday mornings any more.

I don't want to belabor the comparison here but pretty much the same thing happened to me as a parent.  There was no internet or computer gaming when I was a kid and so when the Mozilla web browser and Commander Keen came out, we were all thrilled to enjoy their delights.  Back in the 56K modem days, the internet was mostly a promise waiting to be fulfilled but it was not too many years before that promise came through.  And simple side scrolling sprite-driven games blossomed into gorgeous and seductive 3D renditions of beautiful and fantastic landscapes.  All the while my kids were going from toddlers to teens.  I also noticed that Saturday morning (the time my kids didn't want to play outside) had extended itself as well.

What can I say?  Tv and the internet and video games are all good things and there's no going back.  No one wants to go back anyway.  We have to learn to live with these innovations and control them.  But everything makes using our time wisely harder and harder.

So I want to close with another classic work:  the movie Brainstorm.  I think most of what needs to be said have been said by these two works.  In Brainstorm, a scientist (Christopher Walken) discovered a way to record people's experiences on something like videotape.  Their sight, hearing, balance, emotional state, taste, smell--everything, the total experience.  And at first everyone is delighted and it makes Christopher Walken fabulously wealthy and respected overnight.  And for awhile everything's cool but as time progresses, a lot of real unhealthy things start to grow out of it.  The ending is rather unusual and it does not resolve any of the issues, it just reminds us of the judgement day coming.  Recommended.

Sitting Through Sunday School

Last Sunday, in a uncharacteristic burst of enthusiasm for scripture study, I decided I would actually do the reading for the day's Gospel Doctrine class. It was on the Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob 5. I reviewed the student and teacher's lesson plans which are posted online and did the readings.

I remember when I first read the allegory so long ago that I was surprised that they knew about grafting tree branches in BOM times. So I looked it up and Wikipedia said that grafting was an ancient practice, going back to 2000 BC. So I learned something new. I checked the Bible and grafting was mentioned in Romans 11. In the apostle Paul's allegory of the wild and tame olive tree. To my surprise, Jacob 5 is based on Romans 11. Funny I hadn't heard that before despite all the times we'd studied Jacob 5.

The other part of the lesson covers the first Anti-Christ, Sherem. The anti-Christs in the BOM get increasingly corrupt so being the first, Sherem is sort of a softie and recants before his ignomious death. Still his technique and sophistry is remarkable and so well suited to the times. Every great story needs great villains.

To my disappointment the link to Romans 11 was not discussed in the class and the section on Sherem was skipped entirely. Pouty face emoticon. The lesson was fine but the thought did occur to me that if I had taught the class, it would have been way different. Not necessarily better but definitely different. And it made me really wonder what's the right way of doing it and how to decide. Or if there's no right way, only different ways.

I remember what a disappointment the LDS Teacher Development class was. I know it is a generalized teaching course but it was definitely focused on evoking a positive emotional response from the class. There were no exhortations to know your material. No exhortations to invoke wonder, curiosity, love of the subject or any of the other things you would generally associate with teaching. And I know this is just me but I believe that teaching requires some entertaining. Anytime you make a presentation to a group, you should make it entertaining.

But the truth is I love Gospel Doctrine. It's still my favorite part of the Sunday meeting schedule. I got my testimony by only reading and praying. The scriptures are that literal pearl of great price. I believe in them and their power. That all we need to do is teach them and that will instill a love of them. They open up that area of the mind that makes it easy for the Holy Ghost to find space.

As Mormons, we get in a lot of study time. I'm pretty sure we sit in classes way more than any other Christian denomination: besides the three hours of Sunday meetings, there's seminary, institute and the two year mission. So we ought to know the scriptures better than anybody. And I think that as a group we do. But that we're not benefiting from that group knowledge like we ought to. Lessons often end up as lots of beating of the dead horse, punctuated with stories of human interest, testimonies, poems, modern parables and allegories. And the needs of orthodoxy prevent too much personalization of the formulated lessons.

So it seems to all come down to the teacher

I'm not sure what makes a great teacher. Handling a group discussion without wandering off into crazyland helps. If there are a few people in the class who know way more than you do, you need to be able to use them effectively in a discussion. You need to know your class as well as the material. I've always liked the teachers that provoke you to thought or wonder. Teachers that present something that you never knew before. That's an art and also a lot of work.

Why Welfare is Wrong

The text below I wrote many years ago. It was inspired by Ezra Taft Benson's The Proper Role of Government. It's the smallest summary I could make--I thought it was so important and the concept now so lost that a brief summary would help make it more accessible.

I remember a text book on economics explaining the rise of the welfare state in the United States as beginning in the depression era. This certainly does seem to be the case if you study the levels of government spending since then. For the first 150 years of our country, government spending was very frugal. A marked departure from that frugality begins with the FDR welfare state and government spending has taken off since then. Perhaps "taken off" is too mild of a description, it’s more like "overwhelmed the US economy."

Besides wrecking the economy, public welfare is just wrong. It is morally wrong for the government to take money from people and redistribute it to those who they say are in need (i.e. more likely to vote for them). Having said that I want to emphasize that I am not against charity. Just the opposite, I believe it is the duty of every man to help out his fellow man as he is able but I am very much opposed to public welfare.

Let me put it on the very personal level. If some poor fellow comes up to me in the street and asks me for some help feeding his family and getting medical help for Tiny Tim (who is a cripple), perhaps I will be moved with compassion and want to help. I would then reach into my pocket and see if I have anything there that would help. But maybe he needs a friend or a teacher and I could be that person to make a difference in his life. Maybe my efforts to restore this guy who is down on his luck could change both our lives. But the least I could do is give him a few bucks. But let’s say I don’t have the means or interest in helping out this guy. Is it okay for me to go to you, beat a few dollars out of you and give it to him? No, it’s not. That is theft. Perhaps a well-intentioned theft but theft nonetheless.

In a welfare state, the government plays the role of the guy who beats the money out of you and gives it to the beggar. And that’s about all he does for the beggar.

Public welfare is mostly a mean of re-distributing wealth and only provides a check, not the support, mentoring, friendship and respect that might also be needed as badly. It also does nothing for the giver.

This discussion is usually included in the broader category of the proper role of government. The government takes money from us for a lot of reasons, generally for promoting the welfare of the people, so why is this different? Glad you asked!

In the U.S., the government is supposed to derive its powers from the people. At least, that was the way it was originally set up. How does this work? Let’s consider the right to self defense. Most people would consider it reasonable for a man to defend his life and property. It’s something we almost all need to do and so it’s reasonable that we hand out that responsibility to the police and military. The important thing is that we have that right as an individual and we grant it to the government. The government is not doing anything we’re not allowed to do individually. If we are poor and in need, do we have the right to rob our neighbour? Then the government shouldn’t do it on our behalf.

And that, my friends, is why welfare is wrong.

Songs From A Room

A long, long time ago, way back in 1969, my favourite Canadian poet released his second album Songs From A Room. I'm a big fan of Leonard Cohen's music. I've collected his works from since I was in high school and am still tormenting family members by playing his music over and over and over. And over and over and over.

On that album, there's a song called Tonight Will be Fine and here's a verse from it:

I choose the rooms that I live in with care
The windows are small and the walls almost bare.
There's only one bed and only one chair
And I listen all night for your step on the stair.

After that he goes on and on about how lovesick and crazy for this girl he is but, hey, he was a young man back then, what else are you going to sing about? I wanted to point out his description of a well decorated room: stripped to the essentials. It does my heart good to hear I am not alone on this. My wife always wants to put up pictures and frilly things over the curtains. I've seen the dreaded knickknack shelves full of collectible figurines. And I know everyone has their own style and it's not wrong. But I want to point out that one of the smartest men who ever lived agrees with me:

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." --Albert Einstein

He probably was talking about some physics problem and not how to best layout your bedroom, but he was so smart, it might just have been one of the great underlying principles of the universe, you never know.

I recently re-equipped Brian's bedroom for my own use now that he's in Utah for the next two years. There's a bed and a chair. We got the chair from Staples just last week. Along with the new desk and dresser, the room is a work of art. Small window and nothing on the walls but paint, just like the song says. After it was all done, I sat back and thought how wonderful it looked. So beautiful in its simplicity. A work of art even. That's when I thought of the song.

On the desk is a keyboard, mouse and a 24 inch screen. And nothing else. The stark simplicity seems to call out for me to sit down and do something. Fill this hard drive full of your photos, your stories, your programs and software. Write some software! Oddly enough, it made me think back to Leonard Cohen again. From his first book The Favourite Game. I don't have a copy anymore and it's not on Amazon for the Kindle so the quote is missing. But he talks about getting ready for the school year and the annual trip to the store to stock up on school supplies. He writes about all the notebooks so empty and aching to be filled with the business of living. About all the pencils and erasers who have not yet been put into service and are unfulfilled in their purpose.

Take a moment and enjoy Leonard's latest song from his new (now platinum!) album Old Ideas: Going Home

The Double Nickel

Back in the 80's, in a symbolic effort to "conserve energy", President Jimmy Carter lowered the top speed limit on all federal highways to 55. It was an unpopular move and overtime it was undone but for a long time "55", the double nickel, was our national top speed everywhere in America.

My father, commenting on his own mortality, said he was fine with the double nickel. Once he'd raised his family and accomplished most of what he wanted professionally, he was ready for the reaper. And 55 is about the time that happens for most guys who marry in their twenties and have kids within a couple of years.

I'm still within plus or minus 3 mph of that top speed limit and I have to admit, I really understand what my father was trying to say. It's a transitional time for both me and My Darling Wife (MDW). The house is almost empty and our child rearing days, so exciting and full of activity and promise, are quickly concluding. So what's ahead? For me, work until I retire, grow old and die? For MDW, perhaps she'll re-enter the work force or just take an early retirement. I think she's still trying to decide. My Mom never went back to work but she was quite a homebody and found lots to do to keep herself busy at home.

At times like this it's great to have somebody to turn to. My Dad for example. He told me that thing about the double nickel many years after he'd turned 55. Well into his seventies. For a long time, he'd worked as the sales manager for a mining equipment manufacturer. In the last ten years of his working career, they moved him to a new manufacturing facility and made him the General Manager. Nice. After a stint there, he came back to his old job as the new General Manager and retired as the top executive. So he accomplished a lot in those last years after he'd hit 55. Even after retirement he had some secret plans and clever tricks to keep working and he started his own business. He ran it for three years before selling out to his partners and finally retiring for real.

During his retirement years, we'd visit every now and then and I noticed that the mean old bastard I'd grown up with had softened considerably. I don't know if years of being a father finally softened him, if it was his immense old age, or if being a grandfather was such a sweet, carefree gig, he could finally afford being a sweet old guy. Whenever I think about it, I usually conclude that he was really always that way and if I wasn't so busy being an ungrateful brat as a kid, I would have been able to appreciate him better. I hate those sort of self-accusing epiphanies but in all fairness, I think it a real possibility.

When MDW and I first married, we started our family almost immediately. Most couples wait a couple of years but we didn't. I always told her that eventually we'd have our empty nest years and we could be sweethearts without a care in the world then. The good news is I think that's actually working. We spent most of yesterday trying to build this new desk we got from Staples. It came in about 150 pieces and had an instruction book with 36 pages of illustrations on putting the dang thing together. It took most of the morning and afternoon but it gave the two of us something to do together and it was pretty fun. I still like her pretty well it seems. We just like each other, even when doing stupid things like assembling office furniture.

I think there's a difference between old love and new love. New love is exciting, exhilarating even. Old love is more like a Mother's hug: reassuring and comforting. New love is like music from a dramatic scene in a movie that rises and swells. Old love more like a pleasant melody that plays softly throughout the day. The new love that had been so full of promise has fulfilled all its promises and you have all those years of accomplishment and adventure together to look back on.

Another saying my Dad always told me was that life begins at 50. Even though he's dead and gone, his example and wisdom are still helping me through my days. Thanks, Dad! You old bastard!

I ♥ Serial Killers

After having been best friends with Netflix for awhile, it is telling me something important about myself: I am fascinated with serial killers. At least I really like watching movies that feature them. I have to stop and wonder what is wrong with me.

I'm pretty sure Netflix is not wrong. One tv show that I am really very fond of is Showtime's Dexter. I really shouldn't be watching it, it is rated TV-MA and from some of the episodes I've seen, it comes by this rating honestly. I justify it by telling my self it's a guilty pleasure. Weak I know, but that's the nature of self-justifcation. Dexter plays a forensic blood splatter expert who works for the Miami police. His adopted father was a policeman and he adopted Dexter when he was young after a very traumitizing event. We are lead to believe this traumatic episode (seeing his mother murdered) caused his blood lust. His "dark passenger" becomes evident to his father as the boy ages and he teaches Dexter how to channel his murderous impulses to be something good by becoming a vigilante. Dexter refers to his (now dead) father's teachings as "the code."

So after solving crimes during the day, he sneaks out at night and takes out bad guys the police miss for one reason or another. He's a vigilante and in a perverse way brings justice and makes the world safer but all the while feeding his dark side. It's crazy to say so but he's like a superhero whose super power is murder.

If it was just Dexter, I probably wouldn't worry that much but in it's quest to give the customer what he wants, Netflix now shows me an entire shelf of movies titled "Scary Serial-Killer Thrillers" alongside such standards as "Recently Added" and "New Releases". Well, also "Critically-acclaimed Quirky Dramas". The customized rows do change based on what you watch but the words "Quirky" and "Serial-Killers" do tend to come up a lot for me.

Does the heart of a sociopathic serial killer beat in some forbidden part of my chest? Am I only a disappointment or tramua away from locking myself up in a clock tower with a sniper rifle? I still worry a bit about that but the reason I usually dismiss these thoughts go back to my days of reading murder mystery after murder mystery. Turns out that people who love murder mysteries are among the most law abiding of the citizenry. Like accountants and librarians and persumably, in my case, computer programmers.

The other thing that occurs to me is that maybe this sort of fascination isn't that unusual. There's a long tradition in American music regarding the "murder ballad". The original version of On Top of Old Smokey is about a guy murdering his sweetheart. Both Johnny Cash and David Bromberg sing Deliah, a traditional jailhouse ballad. The writer/killer is in jail awaiting his execution and tells his story in a song. Maybe that's why there are so many murder ballads, what else you gonna do while waiting for the hangman?

I guess the other aspect that drives the fascination is that we spend a lot of time trying not to think about what could happen to us when we walk that dark street or open that door to a poorly identified stranger. When confronted with the horrifying and unthinkable things some people are capable of, it challenges how you deal with the world around you. You need to live with your fear without letting it overcome you but never forgetting the danger. And that's a toughie.