MillersTime

Baseball Notes, Thoughts, & Stats After 38 Games

Richard — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:33:01 +0000

from Life Magazine

In no particular order of importance, here are some thoughts and some statistics rattling through my alleged brain at the end of the first quarter of the season:

• The Nats: I’ve been to a half dozen, or maybe more, Washington National’s games because, alas, I don’t live in Boston and the Sox are not coming to DC. A few observations:

1. Nats’ pitching has kept them atop or near the top of the Division all season. They lead the other 29 major league teams with an ERA of 2.94 (the only team to be under 3.00 in ERA.).

2. Young ‘phenom’ Bryce Harper is exciting to watch and may be the ‘real deal.’ I have been wary of the hype surrounding him over the last year or two, but in every game I attended, he did at least two things that had potential impact on each game. He seems to be learning from the veterans on the team, unfortunately, that means players like Jason Werth. Still, he’s 19, and we know what that means.

3. The Nats will not continue to play at the .600 pace (and thus winning 97 games) they have so far. While their pitching has been outstanding, I don’t think it will hold up for an entire season. They’re currently hitting .243 as a team, 26th out of 30 in the majors and 14th of 16th in their league. Their fielding is at best average, putting them at 16th out of 30 in the majors and 8th out of 16 in the National League.

4. But they will do better than last year (80-81), increasing their wins by 10 games and perhaps ending the season in contention for their Division. If they can maintain their current rate Runs Scored (140) – Runs Allowed (126), for a Differential of + 14, they should be in the hunt.

5. It’s fun to spend an afternoon or evening at the park without fear of doing bodily harm to oneself on every swing, hit, miscue, run scored, etc. (which is how I feel at Fenway).

** The Red Sox will do significantly better than their current W-L percentage of .474 and last place in the AL East. I suspect they will not win the Division, but maybe (hopefully?) they’ll scrape through into the playoffs. Why?

1. Their pitching is better than their current ERA of 4.63. They’ve won the last six of seven games because their pitchers, finally, did what they are capable of doing. Presently, the Sox are 28/30 in the majors in pitching and 13/14 in the American League. Their bullpen has been outstanding when given the opportunity to protect a lead.

2. Their batting is strong, even without Ellsbury, who will return before the All-Star game. Currently they are 4/30 in the majors and 2/14 in the American League with a BA of .273 and with 205 runs scored.

3. They lead all teams in fielding a fielding percentage of .989 and are tied for the fewest errors, 16.

4. So, surprise. It’s about the pitching. Lester, Beckett, Buchholz, Bard, and Dubront and a strong bullpen.

5. I’m neither a fan of nor a hater of Bobby Valentine. I think he has wonderful baseball ‘smarts,’ and will help as much as hurt the team.

**The Yankees, the team I love to hate is in trouble, I think:

1. Other than Jeter, who’s gotten off to a fantastic start and Cano, they aren’t hitting and have a team average of .266, not terrible (8/30 in the majors and 5/14 in the American League). A-Rod, Swisher, Teixeria (.228), and Granderson are all barely hitting .250. I suspect at least one or two of these four will improve.

2. The hitting isn’t the only thing that’s hurting them. It’s the pitching that’s suspect – ERA 4.3, 23/30 in the majors and 10/14 in the American League. And without Rivera to shut down other teams, their bullpen has taken a huge hit.

3. Fielding-wise they’re OK, .988, good enough for 2nd in both the majors and the American League.

4. I’m not sure what will turn they’re season around, but they may have trouble winning more than 90 games this year (they’re currently on schedule to win about 85.

** Baltimore:

1. Often the (lowly) O’s start off OK, only to revert to form and the most they do is spoil things for the other teams. This year, however, that good starting is continuing.

2. Why? Good pitching (ERA 3.41, 2/14 in the American League, and decent hitting (BA .251, 3/14).

3. The statistic that stands out is the differential in Runs Scored – Runs Allowed. They’ve scored 182 and allowed 164, which gives them a + 18. The Soxs have scored 205 and given up 192 for a differential of +13. And then there’s the Yankees, who have scored 178 and given up 171, a differential of only +7.

4. Can the O’s stay atop the Division? My friend Nelson R (and no doubt Chris E) is hoping. I am suspect.

Finally, I am working on a post about John Sexton’s (NYU President) course “Baseball as a Road to God.” In preparing for this future post, I just finished Robert Carver’s 1968 novel The Universal Baseball Association which Sexton seems to believe is one of the best books about baseball (and meaning in our lives, religion, and God). I didn’t know of the book (it’s on his syllabus in his course) and would curious about what anyone who has read it has to say about about it.

Latest from Sam Wo’s

Richard — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:32:02 +0000

Thanx to friend Anita Rechler, the above picture, taken May 13, confirms that indeed Sam Wo’s is closed and has yet to satisfy the Health Department that it meets code.

The owners are trying to see if it is financially feasible to do so.

We can only hope.

Except for this San Jose reviewer of Sam Wo’s:

“I hate to be the one to destroy all of your love for the quintessential stereotype of Chinese people from the 17th century, but as a Chinese American, I think this place is RUDE, DIRTY and the FOOD IS a C+. Sorry, I know there is a lot of melodramatic history–huhaha of our rudeness which is weird that we enjoy it and still practice it.

“I am GLAD this place is closed for Chinese people, we deserve a cleaner/nicer place, try Cupertino or San Mateo joints.

“My personal opinion is that this place is an embarrassment to Chinese people!

“I am ready for the hate emails now. But I respect your opinion !

Xie Xie for reading!”

Two Films & a Play

Richard — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:36:51 +0000

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (for the Elderly & Beautiful) *** (1/2)

The previews and descriptions of this film made me uncertain I wanted to see it, even though it is about a favorite place of mine in India – Jaipur. But something got me to go, perhaps a review or perhaps because we couldn’t find anything else we wanted to see.

It’s the story of seven retired aging English individuals (two of the seven are a couple) who go to India on an extended stay, each for his or her own reason but all because they are at a stage in life where they are living alone, aging, and want something more than a lonely ending to their life. They are attracted by a brochure to the” The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” which they find is anything but what the name suggests.

Very little goes as they expected, and you can imagine their various reactions. Somehow, however, the film walks a fine line and becomes not only interesting but involving as you learn about each of the seven characters.

But it’s primarily the acting, I think, that makes the film worth seeing. The cast is led by Judi Dench and includes Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy, an Ronald Pick Up. Indian actor Dev Patel (the lead in Slumdog Millionaire) adds to the strong cast.

For me, there was not enough of the wonderful Jaipur scenery and way of life, but somehow the film overcomes being trite and cliched and draws you in and keeps from going over the line into the predictable.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel won’t make it into my top films of the year, but you might just like it.

Where Do We Go Now ****

Another foreign film we saw in our Sunday Cinema club, this one takes place in a somewhat isolated village, probably in Lebanon.

Much of the time the Christian and the Muslim inhabitants of the village get along with each, that is until some event occurs (usually from outside the village) that results in the men getting worked up. Then hatreds break out, and usually someone gets hurt. Finally, the women get fed up with their husbands’ actions and decide to do something about the situation.

The women unite and come up with a series of antics that seem ridiculous, but probably no more ridiculous than the religious wars in which their husbands engage.

I’m not sure if you call the movie a fable, a comedy, a drama, or a fantasy, but it is not meant to be realistic. It is meant to get the audience to see the foolishness, mostly of men, of any civil conflict, religious, political, etc. The women, often the ones who survive these conflicts and have lost their husbands, sons, fathers, are the ‘heroes’ of the film.

Written and directed by Nadine Labaki, the film is in English and in Arabic and Russian with English subtitles. Most of the actors and actresses are not professional, but many of them are terrific.

Where Do We Go Now has been a box office success in Lebanon, generally liked by audiences everywhere, and not so well liked by film critics, who have been mixed in their reviews. It was the winner of the Toronto film festival’s “People’s Choice Award.”

Clybourne Park****1/2

We recently saw this play on Broadway where it is now ensconced after being Off-Broadway, in DC, in London, in Philly and in LA. The Broadway cast of seven is the same one that has been together previously.

Briefly, Clybourne Park, written by Bruce Norris, picks up in 1959 just about where Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun left off. A white couple is selling their Chicago home in an all white middle class neighborhood. The buyers are a black family. The white couple gets pressure from various people in the neighborhood not to sell for fear their property values will decline.

In the second act, now 2009, the neighborhood has become all black, and a young white, couple wants to buy the home and enlarge it as the neighborhood is ripe for gentrification. This time the black residents are against losing what they have created and fear they will all be pushed out.

Largely it is a play about race relations, class resentments, prejudices, all taking place over a period of 50 years and revolving around where people live and what they believe about each other. It is done with such humor and witty dialogue that rather than becoming a dark play or too provocative it becomes almost more entertaining than thought provoking. But there’s plenty to think about, and the cast is terrific. The second act (both acts actually) starts a bit slowly and gradually becomes 45 minutes you will not forget.

Clybourne Park won 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2011 Laurence Oliver award for Best New Play, and has been nominated for the 2012 Tony Awards in the categories of Best Director, Best New Play, Best Actor, and Best Scenic Design.

It’s a good evening at the theater.

Three Very Different Restaurants

Richard — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:12:46 +0000

I draw your attention to three very different restaurants in very different geographical locations. The prices vary widely, but the tastes at all three are worthy of your seeking them out.

1. Bandolero – 3241 M St. Georgetown, Washington, DC

Taquitos

Bandolero is now scheduled to open May 24 in Georgetown.

With another couple, we had a preview of Mike Isabella’s second venture when he opened a Bandolero’s pop-up in the space recently abandoned by Tackle Box in Cleveland Park.

The good news is that we liked almost all of the dishes we were served. Touted as a “modern Mexican” menu, most of the servings were of the tapas variety, with good twists on some more traditional Mexican favorites.

You can see here what was on the menu when Isabella and his team were practicing on us. I am not clear how this menu will relate to what will appear (their website describes an enlarged menu) when Bandolero opens next week. But if they keep most of the tapas type entries on their new menu, I suspect the restaurant will be a hit.

Beware of the prices, however. We were a bit surprised when our all-inclusive $65 per person menu ballooned by almost $100. True, we enjoyed the margaritas and some of the other specialty drinks, but something didn’t seem right about the bill.

Isabella is the chef/owner of the very popular Graffiato in Chinatown. That restaurant, opened just about a year ago, features largely Italian small plates with emphasis on seasonal ingredients.

Mike Isabella was name The People’s Best New Chief mid-Atlantic winner for 2012.

2. Woodlands Pure Indian Vegetarian Cuisine: 8046 New Hampshire Ave., Langley Park, Md. 301-434-4202

Dosia!

I may be premature in writing about this Indian Vegetarian restaurant, but I’m sure I’m on to something, albeit about a decade late.

Having lived with a family in Madras (now Chennai) and having returned numerous times to be with them, I have longed for their particular vegetarian cuisine. Technically, the Shah family is from the Gujerat and their food isn’t exactly South Indian. But between what I ate and came to love with the Shahs and what I also enjoyed when they took me to one of the few local restaurants they would frequent, Woodlands, I got to know about dosas, idilis, and sambar.

And now I learn there is a place in this area with the same name, Woodlands. It is a pure vegetarian restaurant and specializes in dosas (they list all 14 of them as dosai). Their menu is much more extensive than just these wonderful crepes, and I can’t imagine why I didn’t know if it’s existence before now. (Hat tip to Indian cooking teacher Edward Hamann for letting me in on the good news.)

I have made one trip to Langley Park/Hyattsville to check it out. Despite having the address and a GPS system, it took me some time to locate it. It’s in a shopping center and the address is only vaguely helpful.

Anyway, a friend who was in the Peace Corps in Nepal has been craving authentic Indian food, and we agreed the DC places weren’t that good. So for lunch the other day, we headed out to the suburbs and eventually made it to Woodlands. They were featuring a lunch-time buffet, something I usually avoid like the plague, but, they had a small dosai along with their other offerings, so we decided to choose that.

We both agreed this food was the most authentic Indian food we’d had in a restaurant in almost 40 years in the US. And the bill came to under $10 for each of us.

Now I have to return to explore the actual menu and specifically their dosas. If the picture above is what I’ll get, you can bet I’ll have more to say about this Woodland’s.

(A phone call to them just now informed me they’ve been in this location about 12 years, and they have no connection to the one in Madras/Chennai. There is also another Woodland’s at 4078 Jermantown Rd, Fairfax, 703-385-1996 which use to be owned by the same owner as the one in Maryland but now is under new ownership. Hamann says the dosas there are quite good.)

HELP, please: My wife Ellen loves dosas also, but she has this thing about places being geographical undesirable, which she defines as being anywhere outside of the DC boundaries (fortunately, she makes an exception for our daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren). She claims if she has to cross a river or a county line, then she wants to end up at an airport.

Any suggestions on how I can get her to go with me to Woodlands?

And if she refuses, are there any takers out there to join me?

3. Il Buco Alentari e Veneria 53 Great Jones St., NY, NY, (212) 837-2622

Since my ‘younger’ daughter has abandoned NYC, I no longer have scheduled places to eat or kin folk to guide me thru the maze that is restaurant heaven in NYC. Fortunately, however, I have a friend, Andrew Rasiej, who is a long-time resident there and who is always good for the latest recommendations.

Once again, on our recent trip to the big city, Andrew took us to a winner, Il Buco Alentari e Veneria. Opened about six months ago by the folks who have a sister restaurant nearby at 47 Bond St., Il Buco, where I think I’ve eaten (Elizabeth, can you confirm this?), Il Buco Alentari e Veneria is definitely a winner.

There are many good reasons to hasten to this restaurant and return to it (it’s also a salumeria market, a bakery, and an enoteca) – the bread, the Iberico ham, the spit roasted short rib, the cacio e pepe pasta, the salt roasted branzino, and the atmosphere, for a start. It feels like a neighborhood, large family place and not one of those fancy white cloth tabled places). Suffice it to say that everyone of the things we ordered were stand outs on their own.

I just came across a NYTimes review which says it all better than I can. The reviewer liked it so much, he wrote a second article a week later identifying five dishes to order.

No restaurant has it all, and tho a casual place, the tables are crowded (they have some communal tables), and the prices are higher than at either of the above two restaurants.

They also have what appears to be wonderful sandwiches at lunch. They’re entire menu is here.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a place in New York, this is a good one.

Sure wish we had places like this in DC.

More Pix of the Kinder

Richard — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:51:10 +0000

For those of you who enjoy pictures of the kinder, here are some of the latest, including a Kodak slide show of the gathering for my sister Janet’s 70th birthday in Atlanta.

T’s nice to see the next generation coming along so nicely, and their parents too.

(Randy & Corey are Janet’s sons. Jolie is Randy and his wife Val’s daughter, and Evan is Cory & his wife Julie’s son. Annie is my daughter, Abba (Edan) is her husband, and Eli and Abby are their children.)

Abby and Eli

Jolie, Annie, Abby, Janet, Cory, Evan, and Eli

Cory & Evan

Jolie & Randy

Jolile & Janet

Eli & Abba

Abby, Annie, & Eli

Abby and Eli

And if you want to see more, Click Here.

LBJ: Political Genius or Ruthless Manipulator?

Richard — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:36:28 +0000

Over the last week I have read Robert Caro’s fourth book on Lyndon Johnson and attended a Politics & Prose bookstore “conversation’ between Caro and Politico’s Chief White House correspondent Mike Allen. I thought the book (606 pages) truly worthy of my week’s devotion to it. I enjoyed listening to Caro and getting a sense of the man, his humility, his solidity, and his insights, though I think Allen missed an opportunity to draw out Caro on many aspects of the book that deserved discussion.

If you definitely plan to tackle The Passage of Power, you need not read further than the end of this paragraph. Mark this site, and come back to it after you have read the book. Then read what is written below, and let me others know what you think.**

If you’re not sure if you want to read the book, or if you just want to get a bit of a summary and one person’s reactions, read the “Summary” and “10 Takeaways” below.

(If your time is limited, check out The New Yorker’s excerpt of the day LBJ went from believing his political life was over to attaining the most power he ever had — Nov. 22, 1963.)

Summary:

Part I of The Passage of Power, “Johnson vs. Kennedy: 1960” actually begins in 1958 and continues for 156 pages, describing Johnson’s desire and obsession for the presidency in the coming election. As we all know, he did not get the nomination, and Caro tells us why he failed:

*Johnson underestimated JFK who he knew from the Senate and who he described as a playboy who was lazy and though smart enough was “an indecisive politician;”

*Johnson’s was crippled by a lifelong fear of failure and not wanting to end the way his father had;

*When Johnson finally entered the race, it was too late (tho just barely) to prevent JFK from securing enough delegates on the first ballot at the Democratic convention;and

*For all of his political skills, Johnson did not understand the importance of the change that had taken place in the country, the transformative nature of TV.

Also, in Part I, Caro describes in fascinating detail how LBJ became the Vice Presidential candidate. JFK’s choice of Johnson for VP shocked everyone, especially Robert Kennedy who made three trips to Johnson’s suite to try to get him to reject the offer. (Don’t get to this part of the book late at night because you will not be able to put it down.) It seems to be Caro’s view that JFK chose Johnson primarily because he knew he could not win the presidency without Johnson’s ability to bring along Texas and several other southern states.

In the second part of the book, “Rufus Cornpone” (144 pages), Caro describes Johnson’s attempts as VP to find a role for himself in the Kennedy administration and why he failed. Largely, JFK and RFK had decided to freeze him out because they felt he was not loyal to them, he was allied with southerners, and he might impede the direction they wished to pursue. Also, RFK personally hated Johnson and was determined to marginalize him (the feeling of hatred was mutual).

When Johnson realizes he had indeed traded his power in the Senate for at best a ceremonial role and that he would have no power in the White House, he gradually becomes depressed, loses weight, can’t sleep, and feels his life ambition of attaining the presidency is a failure. He’s not even sure JFK will choose him as a VP candidate, in 1964, despite assurances by everyone that he will be on the ticket. (Caro seems to indicate that by the time of the assassination, JFK had already decided that Johnson no longer had support in the south. To win reelection, he would need someone different as his VP choice).

When Johnson realizes he is stymied, when it’s clear he will have no power, when the Kennedy administration refuses to use his political skills in any way, Johnson feels discarded and becomes a shell of his former self.

And then the tragedy of Nov. 22nd changes everything.

For the next 300 pages, the man, who just moments earlier felt his political life was a failure, is thrust into the presidency and probably the most successful and productive period of his life.

Caro almost magically puts the reader in Dallas, in Johnson’s limousine, in the Dallas hospital, on Air Force One, and then back to the White House all on the same day. (Again, don’t start this part of the book, “Dallas” & “Taking Command,” 81 pages, unless you have enough time to read it all in one sitting). From almost the moment Johnson’s Secret Service bodyguard puts him on the floor of his limousine, through the flight home and beyond, there is a transformation in Johnson that Caro describes as simply astounding.

The final 213 pages, “To Become a President,” describe Johnson’s triumphs, one after another. Caro describes an amazing blaze of successes (seven weeks), including calming the nation, convincing the Kennedy team to stay, and in winning great approval from the country. Further, he went beyond what anyone thought possible in passing long stalled legislation, specifically a tax bill and civil rights, and in calling for a War on Poverty. Caro believes this was a watershed period in American history and credits Johnson with a “triumph not only of genius but of will,” writing that “The situation brought out the finest that was in him.”

Caro concludes:

“In the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson this period stands out as different from the rest, as perhaps that life’s finest moment, as a moment not only masterful but, in its way heroic. If he had held in check these forces within himself, had conquered himself, for a while, he wasn’t going to be able to do it for very long.

“But he did it long enough.”

Ten Take Aways:

What Caro Does Best: He puts you in the middle of each aspect of this history (five years), describing, in his own voice, in the voices of the hundreds and hundreds of people he interviewed, and from the documents he accumulated, each scene such that you feel you were there. When Caro is unable to determine the accuracy of an event, he gives all the data he has and leaves it to reader to make a judgment. Additionally, he describes the context in which each event takes place in such a way that you not only feel you are there but that you understand it better than whatever you thought you knew in the first place. (One example: the day LBJ moves in the Oval Office, he begins the chapter with a short history and a description of that space that even if you have been in that presidential office, you know you must go back to see it again.)

2. What Caro Does Not Do So Well: Despite making 605 pages seem like a page- turner mystery, Caro over does some things. Specifically, his sentences are too long; one sentence goes on for a long paragraph. I often had to go back to the beginning of the sentence to remember where he had started a particular thought or point. Also, and I suspect he and others would disagree with this, I believe he overdoes it with his quotes and his obsessive need to solidify his point(s) by having numerous people say similar things.

3. How Does Caro Do It: 35 years, 1.5 million words, 3000 pages, four books, so far, and folks are still buying his books, despite his writing about something that took place more than 50 years ago (The Passage of Power will be the number one-selling hardback book next Sunday, according to what we heard at the Politics and Prose book conversation.)

Briefly, Caro is an old fashion newspaperman and a consummate researcher. He assumes nothing, takes nothing for granted, and interviews every conceivable person who has touched or been touched by Johnson. He not only visits most of the places he describes, he has gone to live in Texas and in Washington to understand the context in which LBJ lived. He listens well and has gained the confidence of most, though not all, of the folks he quotes. (The Johnson family, for example, “is so hostile to me that I have not been able to talk to his daughters,” and Bill Moyers, LBJ’s advisor and then press secretary, will not share his experiences, thoughts, and insights with Caro.).

Caro forces himself into a routine, he says, because he is ‘lazy.’ He puts on a coat and tie each day, goes to his office, writes the first three or four drafts by long hand, and then finally types up what he has written. He only uses a computer for minimal research, and he doesn’t use a tape recorder when he interviews. (He says he doesn’t concentrate well if there is a tape going and states that when he compared a tape of an interview with Lady Bird Johnson with his handwritten notes, he had gotten everything.)

Finally, Caro believes he can complete his writing on Johnson with one more volume, covering from 1964 on, though he says he understands why folks might not trust him on that point. He has outlined the ‘final’ book and even written the final sentence of the final book. He is 76 and has put in his will that if he is unable to finish the last book, he does not want anyone to complete it for him.

And briefly, the book convinced me:

4. LBJ Was a Political Genius. Both as Majority Leader in the Senate and as President of the United States, Johnson can truly be termed a political genius. He understood power and how to use it. He knew exactly how to get to someone. He knew what drove others and could and did adjust his actions accordingly.

5. LBJ Was Ambitious, Ruthless, Deceitful, and Immoral. In his use of power, nothing was out of bounds for him. He became a millionaire because he traded influence for money, and there seemed to be no limits to his use of whatever power he had. For him, the ends always justified whatever means he needed to use to get there.

6. LBJ’s Concern and Care for the Poor Was Real. Although it was not immediately obvious, he truly cared about those who were unfortunate in the society and worked to make their lives better, probably because he personally knew and understood failure and poverty. He was probably our most successful champion of all Americans of color.

7. RFK & LBJ Had Many Similarites: Though the feud between these two men is by now well known, and Caro adds many details to confirm and describe it. Less, however, has been written about the similarities in the two men. Both were driven, tough, obsessive, ambitious and also hardworking and cared for those less fortunate.

8. Ambition and Compassion. When these two attributes were in conflict for LBJ, ambition won out. When they were aligned, he was virtually unstoppable.

9. The Seven Week Transformation from Failure to Triumph Was Stunning. What he was able to do between the time JFK was shot and the time he delivered his own State of the Union message seven weeks later is truly astonishing.

10. LBJ Has Been Shortchanged: Caro argues, convincingly I think, “The succession of LBJ deserves better fate in history. For had it not been for his accomplishments during the transition, history might have been different.”

**I am planning for a Fall evening discussion (and dinner?) at the Millers’ of Caro’s fourth book. Let me know if you’re interested

Remaining Nats’ Games: List of Dates Still Available for Free

Richard — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:18:35 +0000

Here is a list of the remaining games that are available for you to choose from to join me to watch the Nats in 2012.

One seat for each game is free to you, except you may have to buy me a hot dog and/or a beer and put up with my companionship for the duration of the game.

If you might want two tickets to any of the games listed below, I may be open to selling those to you. Note that the Friday, Sept. 7 Marlins game is definitely for sale.

Email me at Samesty84@gmail.com with a first and second choice of a game to attend with me.

First come, first served.

Updated: 5/18 – Dates and Games Still Available for You:

~~Thursday, June 21, 7:05 vs Rays~~

Wednesday, July 4, 11:05 vs Giants

Friday, July 20, 7:05 vs Braves

Friday, Sept. 7, 7:05 vs Marlins (Two seats, prefer to sell them but can be convinced otherwise)

~~Wednesday, Oct. 3, 1:05 vs Phillies~~

Three TED Talks

Richard — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:31:43 +0000

Three TED Talks, by Elizabeth Miller

During the month of April, I tried to watch 30 TED talks in 30 days. TED, for those who don’t know, is an annual gathering of some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers out in Long Beach, California. Standing for Technology, Entertainment and Design, the conference usually consist of 50+ talks over four days that allows speakers and attendees to discuss a wide variety of topics. Most talks are about 20-25 minutes long.

Touted as “the ultimate brain spa” and a “4-day journey into the future,” the original conference has grown to include TED-sponsored activities all over the world and on a variety of more specialized topics (the environment, young people etc).

The conference has come a long way since it first debuted in 1984. You can read more abut TED’s history online. These days, it posts most of the talks by featured speakers online (though not right away), which is what motivated me to watch them from the comfort of my own home.

I didn’t quite get to 30 talks in 30 days. I probably watched more like 15, but these are my three favorites, on quite different topics.

Susan Cain: The power of introverts:

Are you an introvert or know someone who is? This is a must watch. This one resonated with me so much, I ran out and bought (OK downloaded on my Kindle) Cain’s book on the subject “QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a world That Can’t Stop Talking.”

Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?

Turkle is author of several books about the impact of technology on society and someone I studied heavily for my final MA exam in communications a few years ago). Here, she asks the question, as we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? She examines how our mobile devices and online personals are changing human connection and communication.

Jer Thorp: Make data more human

Thorp is currently the data artist in residence at the New York Times. His work focuses on adding meaning and narrative to large amounts of data. Here, at a TEDx event in Vancouver, he talks about some of his projects which include graphing an entire year’s new cycle, to mapping the way people share articles online.

Join Me & Robert Caro

Richard — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:28:21 +0000

Having purchased two copies of Robert Caro’s new The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Vol.4), I was given four free tickets to a Politics & Prose bookstore event with the author.

Robert Caro will be “in conversation with Mike Allen, chief correspondent of Politico,” the newspaper/Internet/radio/TV outlet that focuses on what’s happening in Washington.

The event is Wednesday evening, May 9 at 7 PM at the Sidwell Friends School, 3825 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC.

I have at least two free tickets (and perhaps three) available for folks to join me.

First to ask…by email, Comment below, or phone.

“Ways of Knowing Truth,” by David P. Stang

Richard — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:46:26 +0000

As readers of this website may know, I am on a quest this year to try to understand how we know what we know and particularly how come good folks can differ so much on issues of politics and religion. Along that line, friend Dave Stang sent along the speech below he gave in 2007 in an attempt to school me on this subject.

(Also, see his Comment at the end of Articles of Interest.3)

May 16, 2007

Ways of Knowing Truth David P. Stang

If truth has meaning anymore, what is it? Many intellectual and well educated members of our society in government, industry, the professions and academia, who retain a serious interest in truth often appear to comprehend it as applying almost exclusively to two categories of concern: (1) concepts, hypotheses, theories and abstract ideas; (2) physical and economic facts, such for example — did the shipment meet our specifications or what is the bottom line?

The manner or method of addressing these two categories of concern in order to ascertain any relevant truths consists of applying two or three criteria or techniques. The first criterion is coherence of the argument, that is its logical structure. The assertion is scrutinized by testing whether it contains fallacies or non sequiturs, and whether it consists of logically persuasive arguments and is free of contradictions.

The second criterion is correspondence, that is how well does the verbal or written description correspond to the external reality about which it is asserting truth claims. Do the data and related facts support the conclusion?

These first two criteria are regarded as sufficient for the evaluation of propositions the subject matter of which is speculative or non-physical. But empiricist laboratory researchers believe for nearly all inquiries regarding physical or material objects or most known energy forms precise measurements are also required. That is measurements in combination with the utilization of the first two criteria. In these circumstances measurements are applicable to science, engineering, accounting and the like. Taken together these three interrelated methodologies are referred to as the empirically cognitive mode.

The truths that result from studies or investigations which employ any of the above three criteria have been touted as containing the following characteristics: they are wholly objective, totally impersonal, sterile, emotionally distant from us, unrelated to our character or being, unrelated to our daily behaviors and values, unrelated to our personal integrity, unrelated to our social conduct, unrelated to moral good or evil, in fact unrelated to any subjective aspect of our entire existence.

But being true to oneself — by the very nature of the undertaking — is wholly subjective: oneself evaluating oneself. Therefore, it is fair to question whether such a non-objective process can produce any knowledge of value or even begin to approach Truth? Those for whom empirical cognition is the sole pathway to truth would argue that subjectivity of any kind leads inherently to invalidity, uncertainty and self-delusion.

But the ancient Greeks made pilgrimages over twentyfive hundred years ago to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in order to consult the Pythian Priestess about their present and future personal concerns, an unquestionably subjective undertaking. The inscription on the Temple of Apollo stated, ‘Know Thyself.’ The Pythian Priestess or Oracle at Delphi was believed to speak only the truth.

Socrates, a visitor to the Temple of Apollo, as quoted in Plato’s Apology, advised a similar thing: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’ or words to that effect. If these ancient Greek subjective, if not obviously mystical, approaches to Truth finding have any present validity, to whom can we turn for contemporary guidance on these matters?

In my opinion a book first published thirty years ago was quite seminal in the expansion of our comprehension of how truth beyond empirically cognitive knowing is perceived. The book’s title is The Spectrum of Consciousness. Its author is Ken Wilber. One almost unconscious and unquestioned assumption about how we perceived or discerned truth prior to publication of Wilber’s book was that we are only able
accurately and efficaciously to comprehend truth when we are functioning in the empirically cognitive mode. A similar belief was that the cognitive mode is the normal waking mind state of well-educated people and the only mind state that could be relied upon to deliver the unvarnished truth to us.

But Ken Wilber said no. There are many states of consciousness and we experience reality somewhat differently in each such state. Wilber acknowledged that scientific reasoning and responsible philosophical speculation do indeed occur in the empirically cognitive mode. He pointed out that there are also other mind states or states of consciousness in which people perceive, or are able to access, truths.

In his preface Wilber stated that the thesis of his book “… is, bluntly, that consciousness is pluridimensional, or apparently composed of many levels; that each major school of psychology, psychotherapy and religion is addressing a different level; that the different schools are not contradictory but complementary, each approach being more-or-less
correct and valid when addressing its own level. In this fashion, a true synthesis of the major approaches can be effected.”

All of these levels of consciousness, Wilber asserted, are components of a total spectrum similar to the spectrum of radiation ranging from light rays to x-rays. He could have also used as a metaphor the radio wave spectrum with simultaneous broadcasts occurring at multiple frequencies. A similar metaphor could have been lenses — from microscopes to telescopes — each lens exposes us to a different reality.

In Wilber’s contentions we see an echo in a new dimension of the value of a Liberal Arts education which was long-ago taught by Plato, one of Socrates’ disciples at the Academy in Athens. The more lenses through which we are able to view aspects of our existence — including our internal selves — the better and more comprehensive information we will be able to access. This remains to this day the justification for Liberal Arts studies.

Wilber opens his book with a quote from the American philosopher, psychologist and psychical studies scholar, William James, who declared: “Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, while all about it parted from it by the filmiest screens there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different… No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.”

It should be clear to us that Truth is multidimensional and truth is mediated through many different mind states. Without attempting to digest or encapsulate Ken Wilber’s or William James’ theories regarding the multidimensionality of consciousness, let us simply consider some examples of varying mind states or dimensions of consciousness that fit our individual frames of reference and experience.
Let us consider other common varieties of consciousness that rely less heavily or not at all upon empirically cognitive processes. There are many different ways of knowing, but we will only discuss a few of them. These include in descending order of empirically cognitive reliance:

(1) applied psychology, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis;
(2) reflections on normative issues such as morality;
(3) matters of the heart;
(4) aesthetic experiences and awareness;
(5) meditation, breath work and other forms of spiritual questing.

How many of these lenses do you utilize? And which have produced real meaning for you? Let us briefly examine each of these modalities of consciousness one at a time.

In applications of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and in other patient-treating branches of psychology an agreed-upon goal is to facilitate the patient’s ability to tap into his unconscious mind whenever painful memories have been deeply repressed. The patient’s defenses tend to keep the door between the conscious and unconscious mind tightly shut, thus barring access by the patient’s conscious mind to his painful memories. Neither ‘willing’ that door to open or devising cognitively based commands to the patient to unlock that door himself are at all effective in relaxing the patient’s defenses. But there are unexplainable moments when the patient’s defenses slip or relax and the patient’s conscious mind in a mysterious flash obtains access to those buried, deeply repressed memories. Through such openings — as truth is revealed to the patient — emotional healing takes place.

Becoming a student of one’s own unconscious mind and its unconsciously generated dreams is an additional way to heal as well as broaden one’s depth of self-knowledge.

Searching for answers to questions involving right and wrong can also involve the utilization of modes of consciousness other than the empirically cognitive mode. It has been well established for centuries that the empirically cognitive mode is far better able to comprehend ‘what is’ than ‘what ought to be’. The latter type of question is known as a normative issue.

Normative questions such as those concerning moral issues have been explored by philosophers and theologians for millennia. The objects of such discussions — based on cognitive reasoning — pertain to the production of good and the avoidance of evil, and to how good and evil are defined. These criteria have been employed to determine whether an action is good or bad. Ethicists look at the likely result of the action or behavior in question. An example of this approach is the theory proposed by Immanuel Kant known as the categorical imperative. This asks what would be the result if everyone took the action in question. The deontological approach claims that certain actions are inherently wrong irrespective of their likely results. Others interpret right and wrong to have been determined by God, for example the Ten Commandments.

But normal, healthy minded people who have never read philosophy tend more often to make heart-based moral choices. On a day-to-day basis many such people determine what behavioral choices to make by listening to their conscience. Some adopt the Golden Rule which holds: do unto others what you would wish they would do unto you. Out of this heart-centered modality, rather than employing a strictly cognitive approach, they act lovingly and compassionately.

There are other heart-centered ways which combine knowing and loving. One way is to ‘know’ a lover in the biblical sense of that term. Yadah is the Hebrew word consisting of the letters Ayin, Dahlet and Yod. ‘Knowing’ a lover in the King James Bible sense of that word was not a prudish avoidance of the term sexual intercourse or shorter, more earthy versions of the verb to copulate. ‘Know’ in the King James Bible meant the kind of knowing that results not only from the sexual act — but from sustained intimacy — as a result of looking lovingly into each other’s eyes, eyes that are the window of the soul and learning — therefore knowing — the naked essence, character, soul and being of one’s lover.

That level of intimacy is so intense that in participating in it one comes to know one’s lover as oneself. That knowing is recognized as a soul entwined linkage of the couple which produces an awareness of that aspect of their inner-selves capable of experiencing a union of being. The quality of this connection and oneness of being transcends orgasm. Thus, the knowing extends beyond tactile sensation. It is also a joining of heart, mind and soul. At its deepest essence this is not unlike how a mother knows her infant and how the infant recognizes its mother — much in the way cow and calf know one another, mare and colt, ewe and lamb.

Although with respect to human beings this form of knowing contains a cognitive or discursive and sometimes introspective dimension, that aspect of the totality does not constitute its core. The core of knowing one’s lover in the biblical sense is learning to love selflessly which is knowing through giving love with the totality of one’s being. There is truth in this kind of knowing. This level of knowing another is similar to the mystical experience of knowing the Divine. When we experience the Divine at the very highest level that moment of unitive oneness
is not only an exhilarating experience, but awe inducing as well.

Lovers’ love and loving the Divine aside for a moment, there is also a wide variety of uplifting aesthetic experiences available to us. But, for the sake of illustration, let us consider two aesthetic subcategories: Nature and the Arts. Everyone has enjoyed sunrises and sunsets particularly in the mountains or at the seashore and other beautiful landscapes at any time of the day or during a moon-filled night. Such visual experiences delight the eyes and satisfy the soul. But at their peak these aesthetic experiences instill a profound and transcendent state of consciousness giving rise to a deep sense of relationship and interconnectedness between and among Creator, Creation and Self.

Connecting with, relating to and becoming at one with Nature can indeed be a mysteriously thrilling experience which transcends a visual awareness of ambient beauty alone.

The other day I visited a good friend who is very bright, holds a Ph.D. and whose cognitive reasoning is usually quite solid. Yet neither his doctorate nor his well-honed empirically cognitive skills constitute the core of his feeling vibrantly connected to Nature.

My friend took me out on his patio and asked me to sit very still. Then he went inside and came out with food for the birds, squirrels and chipmunks. As he sat down in his chair the birds dropped down from the trees, perched on his arms and wrists and ate the seeds out of his hands as well as those that had fallen to the patio floor next to his feet. Then the squirrels scampered down from the branches above and ate seeds out of the cup which my friend held firmly against the trunk of the tree.

After he had finished feeding the birds and the squirrels my friend noticed that a chipmunk had arrived on the scene. He poured some seeds into the palm of his right hand and sat down holding his hand about three inches above the patio’s red brick floor. The chipmunk headed straight for the hand holding the seeds then stopped dead in its tracks as he noticed my presence. My friend said to the chipmunk, ‘Don’t be afraid. He won’t hurt you. He’s just a spectator. Now come and eat your seeds.’ The chipmunk trotted over to my friend, rubbed his nose against his hand, then hopped up on my friend’s wrist and ate contentedly out of his hand. The little furry creature filled his mouth with seeds until his cheeks puffed out like little balloons. Then he hopped down and scampered over to the edge of the patio to masticate his mouth full of seeds.

Just then about seven or eight of the birds who had already eaten their fill landed on the fence at the edge of the patio chirping away as they looked down at my friend. Facing the birds he said, ‘Did you have a good feed?’ He then looked at me and said, ‘They have returned just for the company. They do it all the time.’

My friend told me that several days each week a wild Fox in his neighborhood walks to the edge of his patio while he is sitting in his chair. The Fox will simply stand there and look at my friend and he at the Fox. My friend told me that this communion with the wild animals means a lot to him. He said, “I really feel connected to these critters and they to me. I talk to them and they understand me. You can imagine what a transformational effect my experiences with these wild creatures has had upon me.’

It is difficult to separate a love of nature itself from the aesthetic enjoyment of gazing intently at any of nature’s manifestations — whether they include a broadly spanned landscape, a close-up view of wildlife or the appreciation of a single blossom.

We move on now to a Fine Arts sense of the aesthetic. The oil painter will be mesmerized by a landscape, feel connected to it and compelled to paint its vital essence he sees with his eyes and feels in his heart. Out of this process the artist’s canvas often comes alive and speaks to the inner eye and ear of the artist. Ask any accomplished fine arts painter and he or she will tell you that this is almost universally the case.

The novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet hears voices — the voices of characters they write about and the voices of the Muses who inspire them, just as composers hear, with their inner ear, delightful melodies which they transcribe into a musical score. Whether one is a creator within the realm of the Fine Arts or an aesthetically sensitive appreciator, both worship Beauty. They know and have experienced how transporting Beauty can be. This short focus on the Fine Arts has brought us to the aesthetic/spiritual interface.

We now transcend aesthetics and the five senses and consider another way of knowing.

Consider how the meditator learns to sit absolutely still and with the aid of disciplined breath work he allows all of his cognitive thoughts to blow by like clouds on a windy day. In the silence of his no-self enlightenment blossoms.

We have now entered the realm of spiritual knowing. When we males first step intently onto the spiritual path it is common to perceive the experience ahead as a great adventure — a conquest of sorts. Under such circumstances it is easy for us to tend to act as if our purpose is to locate and possess spiritual treasure in order to haul it home with us — much in the spirit of a big game hunter. He shoots and kills the animal whom he was tracking and questing after, then drags the dead carcass to a taxidermist and mounts the animal’s preserved head on his office wall.

But walking the spiritual path in search of enlightenment is not like being a big game hunter at all. One doesn’t return from the quest with God’s head in a bag ready for mounting. This is not only because there may not be any anthropomorphic bones in the body of the Divine. It is also because the most intimate knowing of the Divine transcends duality. This means that to experience at-one-ment with the Divine requires suppressing the egoself.

Accordingly, the object of walking the pathway of enlightenment is not to seize, capture and conquer either a piece of God or a chunk of so-called esoteric knowledge related to the nature of God. Rather, a valued prize of dedicated walking along the spiritual pathway can be the acquisition of a sense that at the core of our being we are connected to the Divine Spirit and that incomprehensible, unknowable Spirit lives and somehow expresses itself within, through, between and among us.

Another prize available from dedicated walking along the spiritual pathway is a contentment to live in the present moment filled with gratitude for the gift of incarnation and a feeling of compassion, empathy and graciousness for and toward everyone with whom we come in contact.

The gifts which come to us as we walk dedicatedly along the spiritual path are not gained by conquest, but through surrender. What is surrendered is the ego. What replaces the ego is a silent, centered, patient receptivity. Only in an egoless state of receptivity are we capable of receiving illumination and enlightenment.

When illumination and enlightenment descend upon us they often come — as the American poet Carl Sandburg put it — like fog, ‘on little cat feet’. The story of Saint Paul’s illumination recorded in the Book of Acts was that he got on his horse full of delusions, was hit with a lightning bolt of illumination and knocked off his horse aware of nearly every heavenly secret there was to know.

But that’s not the way it usually works. Illumination and enlightenment more often come in subtle little slivers gently touching our awareness causing us to recognize, ‘Yes, that’s how it is in this present personal moment in time.’

Illumination and enlightenment come on little cat feet to the poet part of our minds. Not to the computer-driven, data-collecting, fact-finding, empirically-bent, logic-chopping part of their minds.

The Light is a Divine Gift, not a negotiable commodity. Light is not
to be had on demand; light comes to those who patiently wait for it.
A paradox is that to receive the Light we must become still and receptive with zero attachment to whether our centered sitting results only in a moment’s serenity on whether it also sheds a glimmer of Light.

Only when the ego is in the inactive mode does the Light began to reveal itself. But an ego in remission is only a necessary condition for the Light to enter, not a sufficient condition. The nature of the Light-bringing Spirit is described in the book of John this way: “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who was born of the Spirit.”

Light can manifest in many forms. Two of its most common manifestations are as Truth and as Beauty both of which we experience as perceptions. Another manifestation of Light is compassion or love which expresses itself through us. One way to understand compassion or love is that this action is in our heart and constitutes our soul’s response to Light. Put slightly differently, the Light triggers within us a compassionate and loving heart.

As we become more spiritually sensitive we are no longer able to perceive Truth and Beauty coldly with our discursively observing minds only as something apart from us that we objectively recognize. What happens instead is that Truth and Beauty lights a fire in our soul which stirs our heart to awaken and respond. A response is joy and also compassion. To an experienced sojourner along the spiritual pathway – where there is Light there is Love and the two fit together as part of the Divine Whole.

At the beginning of our discourse we were focusing on the nature and process of empirically cognitive knowing. Since then we have departed that realm to journey together into other more personal, more subjective, more sensitive ways of knowing. We can also refer to these experiences as modalities of consciousness.

What are the truths we can experience when we are participating in each of these various modes of consciousness?

The truth of the experimental laboratory method is scientific knowledge.

The truth of cognitive inquiry is validity, coherence and correspondence.

The truth of applied psychology, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is self awareness.

The truth of moral searching and normative reflection is justice, fairness and the common good.

The truth of the heart is compassion, loving service to others, also intimacy, tenderness and adoration.

The truth of aesthetics and nature is a consciousness-altering beauty, poetic insight and a sense of being deeply connected to what was once perceived by us to be ‘other’.

The truth of meditation, breathwork and spiritual questing is serenity, illumination, enlightenment and a sense of oneness with the Divine.

The truth of all these pathways combined and integrated is wisdom which refuses to dwell solely in a modality that always distinguishes self from other, but which instead more often perceives Self as connected to Other.

The essence of how efficaciously to transform ourselves from new initiates of the Spiritual Pathway into a full-fledged truth seekers, truth lovers and truth doers is to recognize that only some truths are objective, dry, distant and impersonal. For truth seeking and truth loving to become more richly meaningful to us we need to know that Truth is mediated not only through our cognitive processes but throughout our entire spectrum of consciousness. Accordingly, each of the non-cognitive aspects of our consciousness is also a pathway to its own type of truth.

Articles of Interest.3

Richard — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:10:43 +0000

Here is the third in a series of links to recent articles I’ve found ‘of interest.’

The first three articles, in various ways, ‘talk’ about what has happened and is happening in the world about us. Then there is an article about a modern attempt to follow Odysseus’ Mediterranean ‘jaunt.’ And finally, a very short ‘review’ about a topic that continues to interest me – the brain and how we come to believe what we believe.

1. “It All Turns on Affection,” by Wendell E. Berry.

For those of you who are familiar with the wonderful Wendell Berry, here is his 2012 Jefferson Lecture wherein he makes the case that “We do not have to live as if we are alone.”

(“The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities recognizes an individual who has made significant scholarly contributions to the humanities and who has the ability to communicate the knowledge and wisdom of the humanities in a broadly appealing way. Established in 1972, the Jefferson Lecture is the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual and public achievement in the humanities. The lecture is delivered annually in the spring in Washington, D.C.”)

2. “Taxed by the Boss, by David Cay Johnson, Reuters, April 12, 2012.

I’m not sure what to make of this report, but I do think what is contained in it is not widely know: 2700 companies, as a way of encouragement to do business in a state (?), legally keep the taxes they withhold from their workers. Whether this is a good idea or not, I’d sure like to see more information about this ‘practice.’ (Note to those who believe I am unhinged on certain political issues: I have refrained from titling this “Corporate Socialism.”)

3. “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem,” by Thomas Mann and Norman Orstein, Washington Post, April 27, 2012.

Wherein two long time political analysts (one from the Democratic leaning Brookings Institute and one from the Republican leaning American Enterprise Institute) finally shed the ‘both sides are to blame’ reporting to explain what has happened to our political system.

4. “Cruising the Mediterranean: A Modern Odyssey,” by Daniel Mendelhsohn, Travel & Leisure, April 2012

Mendelsohn: “He’s (Odysseus) the first tourist, the first person in either legend or recorded history who traveled because he thought the world was interesting, because he wanted to “know the minds and see the cities of many men,” as the poem puts it. So did we; and for a brief period, we felt a bit like our hero—for the 10 days we sailed, one day for each of the years he had to travel before he got to the home we never managed to see.”

5. “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World,” by Iain McGilchrist, short review of a book “about the origin and making of today’s dominant worldviews, both ours as individuals as those of our collective cultural narrative” – a book I have not read but that will probably be part of my year long attempt to understand how we’ve arrived at a place and time where it seems difficult to have conversations about political and religious issues.

Articles of Interest.2

Richard — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:30:01 +0000

Enough folks seemed to like the idea of my posting Articles of Interest, and so I will continue along. Let me know what kinds of articles most interest you. Until then, you’ll get a smattering of my eclectic reading.

For Articles of Interest.2, you’ll find one article relating to food/eating out, one on travel, two book reviews, a column for those who are aging or helping someone who is, and the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning article for feature writing.

1. Six Rules for Dining Out by Tyler Cowan in The Atlantic Monthly, May 2012. Cowan has a slightly different slant than many restaurant writers.

2. You’re Welcome: Couch-Surfing the Globe, by Particia Marx in the April 16 New Yorker. Another slightly different way of looking at something, this time on traveling (especially if you’re a bit younger than I). Don’t be put off by the title. Hat tip to friend Sal Gaimbanco for alerting me to this article.

3. Wish You Were Here, a new novel by Graham Swift, lovingly reviewed by Washington Post’s fiction editor Ron Charles. I haven’t read it, but the review is intriguing.

4. India Becoming by Akash Kapur, reviewed Mar. 11 in FT Magazine by David Pilling. Another book I haven’t read, but one that also intrigues me, following along on Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forever.

5. Too Many Pills for Aging Patients, a column by Jane Brody in The New York Times, Apr. 16. If you are aging or helping someone who is, check out Brody’s article and recommendations.

6. The Bravest Woman in Seattle, by Eli Sanders in The Stranger, a Seattle Weekly. Sanders recently won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for this article. (Note: strong and disturbing content)

As always, please let me and others know of your comments or thoughts on any of the above articles.

Also, do alert me to any article(s) that you think others might find of interest.

Two Good Films

Richard — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:48:20 +0000

The Kid with a Bike ****

Another good foreign film, another one in French with subtitles, another one which offers some hope amidst times and circumstances that are troublesome (See Le Havre, Monsieur Lahzar).,

This one is about an 11 year old boy, Cyril, who has been abandoned by his father and misses him terribly. Living in a children’s home, Cyril desperately wants to find his father. While searching for his father, he literally runs into a kindly young woman, Samantha, who decides to try to help.

The 88-minute film traces Cyril’s search for his father and the growing relationship he has with Samantha. So as not to spoil the film, I’ll refrain from outlining what happens, but the boy and his bike and the woman who is helping him become individuals you will not easily forget.

(Note, wife Ellen did not like The Boy with a Bike as much as I did, but the film was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize ag Cannes and a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.)

Hermano *****

This Venezuelan film may be the best film we’ve seen this year in our Sunday morning Cinema Club. Maybe the best we’ve seen anywhere so far this year.

It’s the story of two brothers raised in the barrios of La Ceniza. The younger brother, Daniel, “Gato,” was found and rescued by Julio and Julio’s mother. Then raised as brothers, Gato and Julio become inseparable. They also become rising soccer stars and are presented with the opportunity to play professional soccer. What happens then I will leave to when you see the film.

There are so many good aspects to this film, the acting, which almost doesn’t seem like acting, the filming, which while slightly jarring to some folks, I thought was superb, music that adds another layer of interest, and a story line that is much more than the usual sports as a metaphor for life film.

The film has not been shown yet in this country but has won some prizes outside of the US. It will be shown here, opening within the next couple of months after several benefit performances around the country.

Do put it on your list to see.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Monsieur Lahzar, which I reviewed earlier, got a rating of 100% (good or excellent) from our film club when we saw it several weeks ago. Apparently that high a rating has only happened one other time in the 20 years of the movie club (“The Piano” was the other one.). It opens in Washington April 27th.

A Sad Apology

Richard — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:01:48 +0000

One Last Time

In October of last year, I wrote, “Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again – almost.”

The topic was an old favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Sam Wo’s. After being away a few years, I found myself one noon in SF with some free time, and so hastened to Washington St. to see if it was still there. You can read for yourself how delighted I was with what I found.

Now, thanks (?) to my good niece Leslie, comes word that after 100 years, Sam Wo’s is closing. You can read about the details as written in the SF Chronicle, but basically, the place is so far from being acceptable to the Health Department, that it would take a mammoth rebuilding to keep it open.

Alas, the present owner has chosen, probably understandably, not to do so. It will close Friday nite/Saturday morn, April 20/21.

And so my apologies to the also deceased Thomas Wolfe. After going ‘home’ to Sam Wo’s for the last 50 years, that is now no longer possible.

So sad.

Never again.

So sad.

Update: Sat., Apr. 21, 4 PM: Now comes word that there may be hope. According to this article, the owner’s daughter wants to keep Sam Wo’s open and will appear before the Health Board on Tuesday. Stay tuned.

Update, Wed., Apr. 25: The health dept hearing’s over, and all agree that Sam Wo’s can reopen if they correct the code violations. Owner appears to want to do so. No reopening date set. See SF Chronicle latest story.

The Hunger Games: The Books Trump The Movie

Richard — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:45:06 +0000

Because so many MillersTime readers (including this editor’s daughter) put The Hunger Games’ triology on their ‘best reads’ list of the last year or two, and because the first of the three films is now out and setting all kinds of box office records, I succumbed to both the books and the movie over the last several weeks.

So here’s my take on the books and the movie. (If you haven’t read said daughter’s take on them both, check out her review here).

The Hunger Games: The Books ***1/2

I started the first book on a Sunday night and read most of the next two days, finishing the third on that Tuesday night/Wednesday early AM.

That alone says something.

They are page turners. The first two are better than the third, I think. Tho once you’ve started and are hooked, you will probably finish all three.

The Suzanne Collins’ triology is not to be mistaken for Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series nor J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, tho there are a few echoes of both.

I suspect there may be more parallels to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Series (those I haven’t read) and various reality TV shows, with some attempt at a futuristic overlay.

One of the criticisms of The Hunger Games is that the trilogy is written more for a younger crowd than say The Millenium books. But so were the Harry Potter books, and those were read with much pleasure by folks of many ages. While there’s not the depth, cleverness, intrigue, sophistication of Rowling or Larsson, Collins nevertheless gets the reader and holds on for most of the trilogy.

Sum? Not great literature but involving if you don’t expect too much.

The Hunger Games, The Movie, Part I **

Doesn’t hold a candle to the book.

While it’s faithful to the story-line from the book, it hasn’t been translated well to the screen.

That’s often the case for me — I usually like a book better than the film of a book. And that’s definitely the case here.

The casting is good, particularly Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, and several others do well with the material they are given. But for this adult, the translation from the book to the movie is pretty dismal. While I was somewhat engaged, perhaps because I wanted to like the film, I was never entranced nor on the edge of my seat.

Artistically, there is no threat here to the Harry Potter films nor the Stieg Larsson ones. Much of the two hours and twenty-two minutes just didn’t seem real.

But the film continues to set box office records, and, according to my unscientific sample of six of the 25 seventh grade students who saw the film at the same time I did (in the middle of the day!), three of the six liked the book better than the film. However, all six liked the movie.

So what do I know?

Liberals & Conservatives, ‘Explained’

Richard — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:31:27 +0000

David P. Stang, a friend, upon reading Chris Mooney’s Liberals and Conservatives Don’t Just Vote Differently, They Think Differently, which I posted yesterday in my new addition to this website, took exception to the article, intimating Mooney was 51 cards short of a full deck (my interpetation of Dave’s comments).

But rather than just throw stones, Dave composed what he calls an ‘essay” to school us on what he believes we all need to know about Liberals and Conservatives.

As I’m in my extended search to understand how good folks can see things so differently, particularly in the area of politics and religion, I post Dave’s thoughtful piece below.

See what you think.

Liberals and Conservatives
An Essay by David P. Stang

The meaning of these terms varies depending upon who is employing them, the geographical location and historic period in which they have been used and, of course, upon their etymology. Sometimes these terms are equated with political parties in both the United States and abroad. For example, in the U.S. liberal tends to be associated with Democrats and conservative is usually linked to Republicans.

These liberal and conservative labels are also associated with stereotypes. The Republican stereotype of a Democrat is government-loving, corporation-hating, religion-loathing, woolly-headed, feely-touchy, Marxism-inspired, politically-correct idealist who believes that all stereotyping (except epithets about conservatives and Republicans) is inherently unsyllogistic and without any factual foundation, prefers wearing his or her heart on their sleeve to sound analytical thinking, identifies with minority groups who perceive themselves as professional victims in need of government funded compensation and who perceive lower and middle-class members of the electorate to be inherently incapable of caring for themselves or being able to make intelligent decisions and undertake wise actions regarding their life situations and are therefore in need of inherently wiser bureaucrats at the national, state and local level to make decisions for them regarding what would be in their best interests, and that massive government deficit spending is grounded upon sound economic reasoning.

The Democrat stereotype of a Republican is either (1) a ‘Red State’ unwashed, uneducated, mentally retarded cretin whose cosmology on a good day is at best troglodytic, likely to be a born-again Jesus freak, ignorantly and prejudicially intolerant of any member of all minority groups, who believes that dining at Burger King is a five-star experience, who avidly believes that good citizenship is best exemplified by supporting and attending games featuring their local high school athletic teams and who is convinced that the theory of evolution is inspired by the devil, or (2) is a government-hating, under-taxed managerial level employee of a large corporation intent on maximizing profit through the ruthless and criminal exploitation of the poor, helpless and underprivileged and who thinks restricting government spending to revenues received i.e., achieving a balanced budget, therefore confirming all holders of that view as suffering from an underlying psychotic delusion.

Now sometimes stereotyping contains at least a kernel of truth. If so, it ought to be encouraged rather than prohibited as a fiendish act. This may seem totally radical as it could entail high crimes involving horrendous political incorrectness. Liberal versus Conservative political battles in our Nation’s Capital and elsewhere are more often than not bitter and nasty undertakings, particularly when the extremists of both parties are going after each other hammer and tong. Based upon nearly twenty years’ service in the military and all three branches of the federal government and over thirty years of practicing law in the District of Columbia my own personal prejudice about both Republican and Democrat extremists is that their agenda is based upon hatred rather than the detached analytical reasoning. To set the record straight from the outset I regard myself as a liberal in the context below described.

Enough about contemporary American Democrat vs Republican political party battle lines for the time being. Let us now turn to the historical meanings of liberal and conservative.

The term liberal in ancient Greece meant free as of the class of freemen, not slaves. Persons of that class attended Plato’s Academy where the Liberal Arts Curriculum had its earliest origins. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were known as the Trivium. Grammar pertained to the structure and usage of the Greek, then Latin languages. Rhetoric was the predecessor of oratory, or public speaking, in which one was taught to persuasively argue one’s point of view. Logic, of course, meant Aristotelian logic, featuring syllogistic reasoning and identifying and refuting fallacies. To these three subjects were added mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy which included astrological reasoning as well. This was the training received by the great philosophers, plus every other professional career pursuit of the ancient, medieval, renaissance and early modern eras. Taken together these seven subjects were known as the Quadrivium. In recent centuries other topics including philosophy, the humanities, foreign languages, plus the hard and social sciences were added to what became known as The Liberal Arts’ arts and sciences curriculum.

The educational theory upon which this curriculum was based, metaphorically speaking, was that each academic subject of interest was regarded as a separate and distinct lens through which to view reality. The greater the number of lenses one had at one’s disposal the more comprehensive one’s knowledge of reality could become. The Liberal Arts understandably became an academic center of knowledge-broadening free thinking. Freethinkers were encouraged to question everything and accept nothing as a given. Truth in all its forms was to be hard-won through solid discursive reasoning.

During the medieval years and extending through most of the Twentieth Century European gentleman from the high school (or gymnasium) level were given a Liberal Arts education. This was the principal curriculum, for example, of the British Public (meaning private) school system from which graduates were considered well enough educated to enter the managerial workforce without necessarily going on to undertake further higher education.

Thus, Liberal Arts values over the millennia have been directed at truth finding. Nothing is assumed to be true. Every assertion is to be challenged by subjecting it to analytical scrutiny. The humanities and the sciences are engaged in truth seeking. They both engage in comparing and contrasting. When comparing two objects of study scholars search for what is similar between the two. When contrasting scholars search to identify what is different between them. From this discipline of reasoning emerged the classification of genus and species. Organisms that were quite similar to one another were classified as stereotypes: “Something conforming to a fixed or general pattern.” (Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary)
But in recent years many academic liberals allege that there is no such thing as a human stereotype as all humans, they claim, are each entirely unique and therefore share no characteristics in common. Yet racial, ethnic, gender, nationality, age group and geographic distinctions among humans are well recognized and statistically recorded. But ironically no distinctions between individuals within such categories can be considered valid by today’s liberal scholars because they assert each individual member is wholly unique. Therefore, any attempt at stereotyping in such cases has been declared by such academics and their former students who have infiltrated our American society as not only logically invalid, but morally repugnant; worse yet, disgustingly politically incorrect. But that forbidden classification system is nevertheless acceptable to use for stereotyping species and subspecies of millions of flora and fauna.

Here one of the paramount Liberal Arts values of challenging any assertion, questioning every premise, digging relentlessly for the truth has been sacrificed for the ‘greater cause’ of political correctness. Sad to say my liberal friends of the Democrat stripe in the Ivory Tower and in most urban environments have not yet detected this gross inconsistency of values.

However, Republicans traditionally tend to conserve traditional values, including those which for centuries in the educational system have been known as the liberal tradition of truth seeking. For Republicans generally regard the practice of political correctness as not only an insult to those values but an abandonment of truth seeking itself.

Hence, conservatives do their best to conserve what has proven to be good. Conservatives don’t believe that the newest thoughts on the block necessarily constitute the best ideas. Conservatives consistently eschew new governmental social action ideas because they always either entail spending more tax payers’ money and/or they require higher taxes.
Having established these principles we can, in good conscience, safely return to political stereotyping. Now it is true that not all Republicans are committed to conserving well established truth seeking values. And it is true that not all Democrats are opposed to conserving well established truth seeking values. But it is also true that more Republicans than Democrats view political correctness as an abdication of truth. And more Republicans than Democrats believe that individuals should be economically and morally responsible for themselves rather than relying upon government largess to support them.

But it is not true to say that only Democrats embrace liberal values. Thank God for the Republicans’ dedication to conserving traditional liberal truth seeking values, sometimes necessarily through use of justifiable stereotyping.

Blogger Nails Sox Sports’ Writers

Richard — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:07:24 +0000

For some time now I have been annoyed by various (Boston) sports’ writers who seem to me delighted to create controversy, stoke ‘controversy,’ and generally confuse good sport’s reporting with manufactured controversies.

I know Boston writers have a history of being tough on the Sox (Teddy made it easy for them), but I’m not talking about that so much as the ‘manufactured’ controversies, the over interpreting, the seeming delight in augmenting even the smallest issue into a major bruhaha (sp?).

The latest along this line is the Bobby V comment on Youk and the fallout resulting. We all know that Bobby talks too much. But so do the (Boston) sports’ writers who need controversy to fill their columns.

I don’t plan to comment on each and every so called controversy this season, but I just read on a friend’s blog what I think is all that needs to be said about Bobby & Youk and whatever else will come along along these lines this season.

Check out what Jere Smith wrote last night in his A Red Sox Fan From Pinstripe Territory blog: An Elvis Man Should Love It.

He nails it.

The New MoneyBall

Richard — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:50:41 +0000

Now that the season is underway, and especially since most Sox fans have put down sharp objects and stepped away from high places, we can settle into the season and try to enjoy the sport with all its infinite variety.

I’m always looking for articles and discussions about baseball that go beyond the daily scores and the media hype that many writers seem to get paid to produce, articles that add to my understanding of the game.

A few weeks ago I came across this Forbes magazine article by Tom Van Riper, The New Moneyball. Take a look at it.

When you finish reading the article, be sure to click on the link at the end of the third page, Special Report: The Business Of Baseball 2012, to see what your baseball team and all the other teams are worth.

Moneyball it is.

Articles of Interest.1

Richard — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:46:40 +0000

One of the wonderful benefits of the Internet is the access it allows to a wide range of articles, videos, etc., on many, many subjects. One could spend, for example, an hour a day just reading articles on say the Boston Red Sox, much more than was previously available on one’s local sports page where there might be only a few lines and a box score.

Now that I have more leisure to follow my interests (not only the Red Sox, but as you know from MillersTime, escapes and pleasures, family and friends, local, national and global issues, etc.), I come across numerous articles each week that I never would have seen prior to the advent of the Internet and my own retirement from my professional life.

Some of these articles I mention on the website, and some of you have written that you appreciate these links as you never would have seen the article(s) otherwise. But there are many more ‘articles’ I find and read/watch, etc. that don’t necessarily fit into a blog post.

The thought occurred to me that perhaps once a week, perhaps more irregularly than that, I could simply post links to a half dozen or so articles on a variety of topics, that might have interest for MillersTime readers. I’m not sure if this ‘addition’ to the website will pan out over time nor exactly into what form it may morph. (For example, I might include original writing from folks who want a place to post something they have written.)

As I ‘launch’ this addition, I encourage you to send me links to articles, etc. that you finding of interest to you, and I can consider adding those into the ones I identify. As always, I am interested in points of view that may be different from the ones I often express on the website.

Think broadly, articles can be about any topic at all — parenting, aging, sports, books, films, entertainment, travel, local, national, international issues, etc. Whatever you come across that has particular meaning for you may have interest for other readers too.

You can send me an email (Samesty84@gmail.com) with a link to the article, or you can post the link in the Comment section of the most recent list of “Articles of Interest,” my temporary title for this new feature. But I welcome alternative suggestions as to what to call this part of MillersTime.

For the moment, I will ‘house’ “Articles of Interest” in the Misc section of the website, tho if it seems to take hold, I might add a separate section for it on the website.

For Articles of Interest.1, consider the following:

1. When to Buy a Plane Ticket , an article in NYTimes, Travel Section, April 15 that gives some guidance on when prices may be the best for your future travel.

2. Unsinkable, by Daniel Mendelsohn in the April 16th New Yorker, where in Mendelsohn writes about “Why we can’t let go of the Titantic,” and why we love the good ship and its story.

3. The Internet Is My Religion, a 12-minute talk/video by/of Jim Gilliam at a PDF conference a year ago. I think I posted a link to this earlier, but since I can’t get into all of my archives at the moment, I’m reposting it because I think it is a powerful personal story about humanity connected.

4. Liberals and Conservatives Don’t Just Vote Differently, They Think Differently. Author Chris Mooney is an admitted liberal and a journalist who focuses on science in politics. As I’ve written earlier, I am on a quest to understand why and how good folks can disagree on politics and religion.

5. A Veteran’s Death, the Nation’s Shame, Nicholas Kristoff, NYTimes, April 15. Kristoff writes, “Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veterans suicides are logged every year – more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.”

6. Finally, three related articles on some of the latest research, thinking, and writing on issues of mental illness.

“The Epidemic of Mental Illness – Why,” Part I of a two part series by Marica Angell, M.D. in the NY Review of Books, June 23, 2011. Angell is a Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine.

“The Illusions of Pyschiatry,” Part II of Marcia Angell’s NY Review Books articles. Part II was published July 14, 2011.

“The Illusions of Psychiatry’: An Exchange , NY Review of Books, Aug. 18, 2011, where in Angell’s previous two articles are critiqued, and she responds.

Robert Caro: “”The Passage of Power”

Richard — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:26:36 +0000

I just finished Robert A. Caro’s The Transition, an excerpt* (April 2 The New Yorker ) from his soon to be published fourth volume, The Years of Lyndon Johnson biography.

This excerpt describes the day LBJ took over the Presidency, and, like everything else in Caro’s LBJ biography, it’s a page turner.

If you know the three previous volumes, you know what to to expect from Caro. And he doesn’t disappoint.

If you don’t know Caro or haven’t read any of the LBJ biography, you have a treat in store, a long one. His first volume, The Path to Power came out in 1982 and was about 900 pages. It was a page turner.

The second volume, Means of Ascent, was published in 1990 and was a mere 500 pages. That one too was fascinating, and a ‘quick’ read.

Then 12 years later, 2002, Caro published his mammoth Master of the Senate, a 1200 page work that probably will never be equaled in its understanding of the Senate and of the man who ran it. That one was also hard to put down.

Now he is about to publish his fourth volume, due out May 1, 2012, The Passage of Power, and if the excerpt mentioned above is any indication, Caro, now 76 years of age, hasn’t lost any of his mastery of understanding LBJ, the times he lived, and the details of what he did.

Apparently there is one more volume to come, which will cover the final years of his Presidency.

Please stay healthy Robert Caro. You are a national treasure.

In addition to reading The New Yorker excerpt* while you await the publication of The Passage of Power, here are two recent, lengthy articles about Caro and his work on LBJ.

Robert Caro’s Big Dig, The NY Times Magazine, April 12, 2012

The Big Book, Esquire, May, 2012. (You may have to scroll down to “News & Politics” on the Esquire website and then click on “Chris Jones on Robert Caro and the fourth volume.”)

(* – The New Yorker excerpt requires a subscription to the magazine or its iPad app, tho you can read the Abstract here.)