more fairness - more ponzi

I'm feeling a little tetchy.

I live in Maryland, where the estimate is that we will be having to spend some 11 million dollars as a result of the upcoming inauguration.

It appears now that our governor is asking that we not use the major road - the beltway - during that time.

Right.

Fairness at work. We pay for others. Fine, but who pays for me? That's where it always seems to break down.

Kind of like a pyramid scheme, you know? Which is pretty much the same thing as a Ponzi Scheme, which we keep hearing about on account of the arrest of Bernard Madoff, who is alleged to have caused a "loss" of some 50 BILLION dollars to his "investors".

Chump change, compared to the numbers contemplated by the various bailouts being tossed about by "Our Government".

When you stop to think about it, this is a Ponzi Scheme taken to new heights, in that we are not even "investing" money we have at this point. We're being set up to lose money we've borrowed. Who we're borrowing from is a little less certain, as is who will be paying it back. It's all magic. It's all about grabbing what you can, when you can. Sort of like Ireland, which used E.U. subsidies to build its infrastructure (leading to its "Celtic Tiger" booming economy) but which is a recent hold-out on ratifying an E.U. Constitution finalizing the formal relationship. It has also announced that it is opting out of a proposed 200 Billion euro European Union "Recovery Plan."

That's the problem with Ponzi schemes. The minute the have-nots become overnight haves, they stop wanting to give to have-nots. They "opt out." I am not being given that opportunity. Neither, however, have I been handed subsidies. What's wrong with this picture?

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed pages, by the way: "Atlas Shrugged": From Fact to Fiction in 52 Years.

Our lotto mentality has come home to roost. Nothing will change until we start working again. Hard work. For a long time. No more get-rich-quick schemes or overnight fixes.

Meanwhile, I think I'll take the beginning of next week off. And to preserve any semblance of a positive outlook, I think I'll also keep the television switched off. I've had about all the hope I can stand.

one sorry puppy. . . .

The eyes say it all.

mea culpa. . . .

sign posts

One of the writers I read identified shampoo and tortillas as the agents that brought it home to her that her husband would really be gone - deployed - within a set period of time.

My husband isn't deploying. But he is going to lose one of his teeth, and I'm unaccountably depressed over it.

The fact that my brother is deploying - on Friday - might have something to do with it; I don't know. That, and the fact that I've realized that - after 50 - you have to make the conscious decision to stand upright, or you gradually don't stand upright anymore. You slowly slide into a slump.

I've been in a slump.

Funny how certain things just hit you up the side of the head and can send you sprawling. It is the king who has been suffering from tooth ache - not me. But I'm the one who's all depressed about it.

I don't get it.

I need some sleep.

no excuse

I just haven't felt much like writing.

A bit of the blah's, perhaps.

Today, however, I have an interview for a fellowship I applied for back in January. It turns out that "the" fellow has already been selected - the 'chair' of an ethics department who apparently is due for a sabbatical - but they are seeking funding for a second fellowship, which they said they hoped to be able to offer me. By today, they should know the status of the funding. . . .

I'm delighted to have gotten the interview! I can't tell you, however, how much I hope I also get the fellowship. In a way, it would feel like a clear nod to a more academic path. I don't aspire to tenured professorship. But a year's fellowship would be a great way to spend the year - continuing with my research into a slightly new direction while also pursuing publication of the dissertation. Not to mention finishing the construction of our house. And where is it, by the way, that Americans have somehow moved into thinking the building or other acquisition of a full-time residence is properly left to spare-time management?! Alright, alright. . . . I won't take that diversion. Although I will just say that one's full-time residence - being as it is the very fundamental requirement for shelter that it is (and I won't mention the other fundamental requirement of food - oops. I mentioned it) - maybe ought to occasion better than spare-time considerations. And by this, I do not mean selecting paint colours or decorating the foyer . . . .

But back to other questions of occupation - what occupies our time - what ought to occupy mine, anyway.

I am frustrated with the political process and the obscene amounts of money we seem willing to spend for so little in return. I don't really know what the candidates think, after all this, merely what they look like, as they say whatever seems most appropriate to the people listening at the moment. Then, they rehash what the other candidate said - supposedly inappropriate - to some other group, amidst calls for apologies or resignations of advisors or other camp-followers.

It's all very tedious.

Meanwhile, the stock market (by all reports) is hemorrhaging. Plus which, we're spending I don't want to think how much on operations in Iraq - so far, a largely thankless "investment", with no end in sight. It's hard not to think that perhaps we ought - each of us - to be responsible for our own neck of the woods. Democracy and 'freedom' is perhaps not a gift to be given, but instead a prize to be fought for and won.

Maybe that's the problem.

I'd better go bustle myself with the transformation from stay-at-home slug, to intellectual bon vivant and potential/promising fellowship recipient, however. That could take all morning. It's my way of trying to be responsible for my own neck of the woods, I guess. My way, of fighting for the prize.

Later, perhaps we'll talk about what I learned from taking on a legal case. A good thing I learned, believe it or not. But I just haven't wanted to write about much of anything. Good or bad.

happiness and paradox - viva minus 7

I woke up in the middle of the night, all in a sweat that I hadn't talked in my dissertation about paradox with respect to the entertaining of two apparently irreconcilable positions.

Wouldn't you think that that would come to mind at some point? And wouldn't you think that that would surely come to the mind of someone [me!] who had actually spent some considerable time thinking about that very subject at the very beginning of this whole journey?!

Well - apparently not. Because it didn't. It just didn't. Not till now.

I wonder if anyone will bring it up at the viva? It seems a glaring omission to me, at this point. But hold on here! Wait a minute. . . . no one else has talked about paradox in this context, so maybe it's a bit more understandable. Maybe I just missed another potentially cool point I could have made, or maybe I dodged a bullet that would have derailed the dissertation. I don't know. . . .


Anyway, it really seems to me that the [especially Christian] embracing of paradox (theoretically, at least) could add another tool by which to attempt to navigate the terrain between the "good" and the "right". We do not have to choose one or the other where they [appear to] conflict. But neither do we need to do violence to the opposition presented in order to try and live - somehow - with both.

The other fill-in-the-blank 'gift' I got today was an article a girlfriend emailed me about happiness. It's an article by one Sharon Begley, entitled "Happiness: Enough Already." Quoting one Eric Wilson (who has apparently written a book entitled Against Happiness) she says

. . . "the blues can be a catalyst for a special kind of genius, a genius for exploring dark boundaries between opposites." The ever-restless, the chronically discontent, are dissatisfied with the status quo, be it in art or literature or politics.

It reminds me of my disagreement with a favorite writer of mine who quoted [with approval] a guy who tried to equate morality with science. In my comment disagreeing, I mentioned that that attempted equation would be to deflate immorality to a physical malady - presumably treatable with a pill. Here, we have a similar situation already going on, where everything not happy is pathological, and which ought to be treated with medication, or therapy, or both. ["ought" is italicized there, because I wanted to point out how often we ignore moral statements, which are so often headed by that little word. . . . ]

Anyway - enough for this morning. Off I go to chart the "dark boundaries between opposites" - not that I aspire to "special kind of genius" status - but I have been wrestling the blues!

lucky 13

I'm feeling flat. Kind of pointless.

I've been biting my cuticles again, in spite of the deal I made with myself that I would stop, and by which I justified the purchase of L'Occitane cuticle cream and Tweezerman serious cuticle pushing tool [read "these babies were expensive!"] about a month ago. . . . The fingers of choice for dental assault are the left forefinger and the right thumb.

sigh.

I don't get it.

I'd stopped for about 4 or 5 years.

So. Ok. Writing. Although I don't really need to write these days, so much as read. I'm perverse that way, though. When I should be writing, I'm reading. Reading? Right - we're writing!

But note, the writing isn't going all that smoothly just now, either. Very well then.

I think the problem is that I'm feeling like I'm missing so much. I haven't really been seeing many friends. I'm not doing what I want to do, but neither do I feel like I'm accomplishing much of anything else. I'm just generally uncomfortable.

I do have friends scheduled in now: buddy coming tomorrow afternoon; group dinner at another friend's house tomorrow evening; music friend's band playing the day after (early evening gig, which is all I'm up for these days) and 'actual best friend C' is meeting me there. In other words: I've gone overboard in the opposite direction. I'm good at that.

Today: hair cut.

It is probably not a good day to be doing this, as I might be tempted to something extreme. I think we can count on it being a bit shorter than usual. . . .

Who'd have thought a 'bob' was so difficult to achieve? I've been trying to get a kind of 20's bobbed hair cut for years, but no one seems to be able to achieve it for me. The closest I ever came was once about 4 years ago - growing out layers I'd consented to in a moment of madness - after which I took a pair of shears to my own hair rather than deal with yet another hair dresser also convinced that layers would be 'just the thing' on me. [It is not. Trust me on this one.]

Here's a photo I finally found of the style I want to emulate. Great movie, by the way. My current hairdresser's comment? "That's great, but it doesn't show me the back."

Ok. So what does she think the back looks like? How hard could this be?!

sigh.

Well - this oughta be fun. Oh - and I finished the turquoise vest - need buttons. That's always good for a laugh.

signs of life. . . .

I don't know why, but this post over at Garden Rant really cheered me up.

It's about a couple of birds that live inside the Denver International Airport. The article begins:

It's hard to describe the effect that three or four little birds can have on a group of bored, numbed-out, jet-lagged passengers.

It also features a poem. Which is pretty insightful, if jaded.

I guess I'm feeling a bit jaded today.

I'm not alone, it seems. A bunch of my writer-friends have posted 'I'm-down' posts. I don't know that I'm actually down, just a bit melancholy and thoughtful.

What I liked about the post is the reminder of how precious life is. And how delightful watching an ordinary sparrow looking for a meal can be. Even if it's just for a moment. Looks like I might go bird-watching today. . . .



PS - Brian Williams reported that this particular Monday in January is being called "Blue Monday" - historically showing a very high [the highest?] rate of suicides of any other day. . . . Here's the article Brian's story was based on.

nothing to say. . . .

I have nothing to say - really - but I can probably say it in 500 words or more. Dissertation-speak, you know. Actually, I've gotten a bit out of the dissertation habit and I fear I have not yet entered into the viva voce read-and-get-into-the-dissertation-defense mind set.

But I don't want to talk about that.

The pressure ought to build up enough in a week or so to the point where I'll have no choice but to talk about it, but I've still got a coupla days of dissimulation left in me. . . . Meanwhile, I'm not sleeping well, and - when I do sleep - I'm dreaming wierd dreams, like the one the day before yesterday, which involved airlifted elephants floating overhead, and the threat of one of them being lowered on me. As Dave Barry says: "I am not making this up." Or at least I'm not making up the fact that I dreamt about it. . . .

The long-awaited house is finally being built: we have a foundation, and actual walls now. Today, we had to make the final decision on the roof shingle. Don't ask. Do you have any idea how many different shades of gray they have for roofing tiles?!

I'm feeling a little sorry for myself because the rest of my family leaves tomorrow for our usual 2 weeks down in the islands. "We" decided that, because of the ongoing construction and the fact that next month I have to travel to Ireland for the viva, we ought to forego the usual trip the first 2 weeks of January. And it makes perfect sense - don't get me wrong - but I am still trying not to whine about it. Here, let me show you what I'm missing.There now. Don't you feel sorry for me?

No?

Somehow I didn't think you would.

The good news is that it's supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow. No beaches. No palm trees. But at least I won't be freezing for the next couple of days!

Well now, on that positive note, let me end and then see if I can go get some sleep free from dropping elephants. tomorrow's a whole 'nother day, with building materials to select, price and order, a trip out to the site, and then a funeral. . . .

Hoo buoy. Well that positive note was short lived. No worries though. Tomorrow's another day. Thank God.

and, finally. . . .

Further to the dirt & happiness correspondence I wrote about a little while ago, I wanted to introduce you to the latest inhabitants in our home. They look a lot like some sort of prehistoric dragon fledgling, don't you think?

They are the Hippeastrum amaryllis - the Elvas variety.

Wait'll you get a load of the blossoms! Now that'll cure what ails ya. . . .