Gratitude

In the run up to Thanksgiving I, like many others, am inclined to reflect on the things I am grateful for.  I'm not so full of sunbeams that I can do a grateful thing each day set but I can at least give voice to what I find meaningful.  I am grateful that I have the luxury of being able to write what I think in an online forum.  It doesn't cost me anything, I have the time to do it and I don't have to worry about the police at my door if I say something controversial.  This ability has become so mainstream to the American way of thinking that it is hard to imagine places that this freedom doesn't exist.  We have heard of these places but really I think it is hard to truly picture it.  I am grateful to have had the opportunity to live in a developing country for a period of time and be able to get a brief taste of what true poverty is.  A place where keys are worn as a status symbol because they indicate that you have something worth enough to go to the trouble of locking it away.  A place where dissident groups are known more for their murderous raids than pithy signs and slogans.  The luxury of having a pantry is hard to comprehend for much of the world.  By luck of birth I get to live in a great place.
I am also lucky to have a great family.  Both the what  I was born into and what has been born to me.  While my childhood was not devoid of drama, it was of a far less sinister quality than many friends.  I am not sorry to have any of my relatives.  Further, where so many people I know  have to struggle with special needs children or infertility, I have been blessed here as well with bright capable children.  I know that they love each other to which sadly seems to be becoming more the exception than the rule in or not so civil society.
I am also grateful to have been employed in one of the more stable professions in this volatile time.  Even our company had to deal with certain new austerities but through it all, I was confident in a job.  How uncommon is that today? 
I look forward to Thanksgiving for many reasons but for the reasons listed here I get to look forward to each and every day.

Confessions of an Anglophile

I must admit to a weird little predilection of mine. There is something absolutely fascinating to me about the Brits. Their culture is so alien to our own yet the shared language and many common values give a sense of Deja Vu. (on a side note, I find it very entertaining that I use a French term to describe my feelings about the English) I love the feel of received pronunciation on my ears but even a strong cockney accent or thick brogue makes me smile.

It probably started in my formative years early morning Saturdays. I usually would wake up too late to catch the normal cartoon fare. I would typically watch what would become my favorite three shows; This Old House, Victory Garden and Doctor Who. The first two fueled other interests of mine but watching the Doctor was great entertainment. I came to identify with the Intrepid Doctor's sidekicks as they saved the day on whatever planet, battled various forms of evil in the galaxy and then whisked off to some other place and time. When I would visit my Dad, who had cable TV (oh what a wondrous joy that was), I would also enjoy the Cosgrove Hall masterpiece, Danger Mouse. I can't tell you how happy I am that I am able to share Danger Mouse and Doctor Who with my own kids in DVD form as well as the beautifully done ongoing Doctor Who series. Other early Anglo TV influences include the BBC comedies Fawlty Towers, Monty Python Flying Circus, Good Neighbors and To the Manor Born whenever they appeared on local broadcast PBS. It was more than just TV. I also remember following the royal wedding of Charles and Diana sitting in a hotel room with my family and learning about Lord Baden Powell, founder of scouting, at our scout camp which was named after him.

I've come to love other current BBC shows like, As Time Goes By, starring Dame Judi Dench and Geoffery Palmer. My love of cars led me to the great show, Top Gear and a friend turned me on to watching Quite Interesting with Stephen Fry. The Sherlock series was peerless and makes me excited to see Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins in the new Hobbit movie.  Other more recent loves include BBC4 radio podcasts like In Our Time, Thinking Allowed, Material World and Gardeners Question Time which I use to entertain me on long drives or plane rides.

So as you may have noticed, I have gone to the trouble of dropping a bunch of links.  This is all part of my nefarious plot to create new Anglophiles.  Click on the links at your peril.

Many to One (/Rant on mobs)

 A lot of oxygen has been expended recently related to the self-proclaimed Occupy Movement.   I am particularly fascinated to hear that many people identify with this modern Woodstock and may believe it to be the great hope for civilization.  I don’t.  Even the most sympathetic news coverage depicts a chaotic band of hollow rebels whose unifying complaint is a nebulous idea that they have been unfairly deprived of something.  Claims of being Anti-greed are laughable since they are the embodiment of covetousness, who lives in the same apartments as greed.  It seems more of a, “I want you to not be greedy and give your stuff to me,” argument.  I am inclined to think that this is a result of societal changes in the way that we no longer reward the truly deserving.  Instead, we are led to believe that we should value everyone the same; no losers; everyone is a winner.  This generation has grown up being told constantly that they are to be valued the same as everyone else and are shocked to discover that the workplace reality is that buskers, baristas and barnacle scrappers can not lease a new Mercedes every 60 days just like the late head of a particularly popular technology company.  Further, the Lord of the Flies culture in these encampments is not the enlightened ideal I would want to see raised to the national or international norm.

I despair that anyone would think that the road to a better future is beaten down by the feet of a mob.  I believe that as a general rule the combined intellect of a group is inverse to the number in that group.  Said another way, I believe in individuals and fear collectives.  This I know to be an unpopular idea.  We like to imagine that humanity must work together to achieve greatness.  While it is true that no man can move a mountain alone, it does take an exceptional person to conceive, organize and achieve such a goal.  The result of broader representation in governing bodies has been increased deadlock and stagnation.  Our leaders no longer lead because they aren’t sure who they are leading from day to day.  They have to poll their constituents to get the pulse of the community and maximize their chances for re-election. 

I don’t know if this system can be repaired or not but one idea may be to lengthen terms but limit all elected officials to one consecutive term.  These have to be done together since the length of the interim term has an affect on the nullifying power of the single consecutive term.  There would still be powerful people who would shift positions around government but I would rather that than the zombification of the legislature.

I suppose I feel about the current movement (which makes me think of other less glamorous movements) much like the never ending calls in social media for this or that cause.  I do not believe that clicking ‘like’ on a webpage or copying a ‘status’ or standing in a fetid park barking received diatribe at passersby will make any impact on the world except to add to the clutter.