Musings on Community

April 4th, 2008 by David

One puzzles over the question of time and energy. The devotion of time for others is a struggle. It is usually cast in terms of the most false morality and a singular disconnect from the realities of the world in which we live. False myths. These mummies who haunt our society. they justify their role in terms of the ordering of society and yet the order of society seeks to preserve privilege and pass on poverty. In striving to keep what is ours, we balk at any change — we hesitate to learn — we anathamize what is not aclimatized. We concretize that which would lead us to truth and in so doing, we create a rotting corpse of the truth; a corpse that might be preserved for a time, but is eventually incapable of being that which it was.

So, all this becomes a block for the connection between people. The community we crave and from which arose the myths we mummify, stands beyond our reach through the agents of hypocrisy and dogmatism.

And yet the truth struggles for breath through the musty wraps of fear that bind the dead to keep them from disrupting the privileges of the living. Gasping and reaching for the hope, love and joy that comes from a life lived with reverence for the past, love of the present, open hope for the future and an honest care for the community.

When it comes to community, I am wary. I fear being open to a community that disappoints me. I have borne so many disappointments. How can one be open to a community and yet maintain boundaries?

The boundaries are the tricky bits. How can I drive or be the change I want to see in the world? The difficulty sits in the nexus of an expectation or impatience for change and the limitations set by time and available resources. Given the limits of time, how can one set expectations of a community?

And what are those expectations? What are the limits of selfless acts versus the realities of quid pro quo? If limits and expectations are not clear, confusion and disappointment result. Why am I so inexperienced at clearly articulating these boundaries and expectations?

Fear. Fear of losing an opportunity for achieving some good due to encountering hard limits. There is also the fear of not living up to high standards. In the first, we find an aversion to setting boundaries because soft boundaries can be manipulated for profit. In the second, softly articulated standards can leave room for interpretation and this can leave an opportunity for excellence by changing the standard after the fact.

So, I reflect on the question of boundaries with a nod to Terminus. We need these boundaries. In ancient Rome, we needed Terminus to maintain the good fences that make good neighbors. In our lives today, we also need boundaries of expectation and commitment to maintain communities and develop ourselves and our society.

Posted in Society. Would you like to add to the 1 comment »

Elderly and Gay

October 9th, 2007 by David

The recent article in the New York Times sheds light on what will no doubt be a growing concern in this country as the post-World War II demographic surge known as the Baby Boomers will be growing older.

Because Patrick and I are the caregivers for his 89 year-old grandfather, we are acutely aware of the strength of character it takes simply to grow that old and infirm. When you compound that with the discrimination of the health care institution or what one is forced to accept as one’s peers, the results can be devastating.

Elderly gay people like Ms. Donadello, living in nursing homes or assisted-living centers or receiving home care, increasingly report that they have been disrespected, shunned or mistreated in ways that range from hurtful to deadly, even leading some to commit suicide.

Some have seen their partners and friends insulted or isolated. Others live in fear of the day when they are dependent on strangers for the most personal care. That dread alone can be damaging, physically and emotionally, say geriatric doctors, psychiatrists and social workers.

New York Times … Jane Gray … 09 October 2007 …
Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in Twilight

The multimedia feature is really worth a look.

Posted in GLBT Americans. Would you like to add to the 1 comment »

Windows Live Writer

October 3rd, 2007 by David

Wow!

I didn’t expect I’d like it. I didn’t expect I could use it. I didn’t expect it to be cool.

The new Windows Live Writer is a program for anyone with a blog. Really. I’m sure there are some blogs out there that cannot interface with Windows Live Writer, but I’ve been impressed to have it work with all three of mine. You are reading this post at either Existential Ramble, Literarytech, or http://literarytech.spaces.live.com/. I can publish to any or all of these. Very cool, and it is only in Beta 3.

Posted in Miscellany. Would you like to comment »

Beijing Pollution Problems

September 22nd, 2007 by David

Patrick and I can certainly attest to the horrifying pollution in Beijing. His sinuses were in constant panic and we all felt the impact of the bad air. This picture was typical of the air in Beijing.

Environmental campaigners say China must overhaul its transport system, not just with a few ad hoc No Car Days but by putting in cycle lanes, reducing the price of public transport and making it much more difficult for people to buy private cars.

The head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has already warned that if the pollution is bad next summer, some endurance events - such as cycling or the marathon - may have to be postponed.

BBC News –> Asia-Pacific News –> Beijing drivers ignore No Car Day

One of the expatriates with whom we visited in the hotel indicated that it was expected that the PRC would order all government cars off the road during the Olympics and that this was expected to reduce the cars on the road by about 50-60%. One wonders about this expectation in light of the failure of “No Car Day.”

Posted in Environment, International. Would you like to comment »

Deaf Presidency

September 15th, 2007 by David

In the 500-page book, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” Mr. Greenspan describes the Bush administration as so captive to its own political operation that it paid little attention to fiscal discipline, and he described Mr. Bush’s first two Treasury secretaries, Paul H. O’Neill and John W. Snow, as essentially powerless.Mr. Bush, he writes, was never willing to contain spending or veto bills that drove the country into deeper and deeper deficits, as Congress abandoned rules that required that the cost of tax cuts be offset by savings elsewhere. “The Republicans in Congress lost their way,” writes Mr. Greenspan, a self-described “libertarian Republican.”

New York Times –> Andrews and Sanger –> Former Fed Chief Attacks Bush on Fiscal Role

Of course, it is no surprise to this writer that the Bush Administration is guilty of abandoning the principles that were supposed to adhere to the Republican party. I have lost track of the number of individuals that I have encountered who claim to have lost any sense of belonging to the Republican party because their main reason for staunchly defending it in the past was fiscal conservatism and responsible strong defense. We now have neither. The military is stretched beyond our ability to quickly or economically rebuild it and that stretching extends to the National Gaurd as well. The consequence is that these friends and acquaintances fail to see themselves and their values in the Republican party.

It will be interesting to see how the situation develops and if the Republican party can recover or if the Libertarian party can become more recognizable as a stronger and more viable alternative.

It seems that more people than this humble blogger have felt that Mr. Bush and his administration lack the ability to listen. BlueDreamer has often remarked that his study of terrorism and Middle Eastern extremists has left him with the distinct awareness that we struggle with much that was known to those who study these things. Once again, the anti-intellectualism and blind ideology of this administration is clear to see.

Posted in Economy, Party Politics. Would you like to comment »

No Exit, No Strategy - New York Times

September 14th, 2007 by David

I am glad I did not spend time last night listening to the President. I read his entire speech this morning and there was nothing noteworthy in it. As the Paper of Record observes:

This was the week in which Americans hoped they would get straight talk and clear thinking on Iraq. What they got was two exhausting days of Congressional testimony by the American military commander, hours of news conferences and interviews, clouds of cut-to-order statistics and a speech from the Oval Office — and none of it either straight or clear.

New York Time ? No Exit, No Strategy

The presentation was carefully constructed. In fact it was so carefully constructed that one can almost see the speech writer’s outline in the paragraph breaks. It is carefully constructed to tell us that we are fighting the evil empire of the twenty-first century. The word “al Qaeda” appears 12 times by my count and “terrorists” occurs 9. The President had a better platform for driving public opinion when Saddam Hussein was reigning. At least then he had someone who was arguably a “bad man” (although why we want to topple this one “bad man” when there are so many around the world, but that for another day). Using the platform that we need to be nation-building in Iraq and that our young men and women need to die for it is a weak position. Likewise, arguing that a reduction of 7,900, or 4.68%, constitutes a move of substance is insulting. It will be the middle of next year, if then, before there is as much as a 25% reduction.

All this seems to be a move to numb the public to the eventual adoption of a permanent US presence in Iraq. It is akin to the strategy used with gas prices: spike prices — public groans — drop prices a bit — rinse and repeat. The net result is that it will become a fact of life that there are troops stationed in Iraq. The death of US soldiers is already an event of no significance in the general day-to-day life of most Americans. The President’s speech simply moved us further down this road.

Posted in US at War. Would you like to comment »

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About Existential Ramble

Existential Ramble is a blog where David will post whatever comes to mind. For a few years, this was largely political in nature as the category cloud reveals. David's blogging time is split between ERblog and his professional website at literarytech.com. The major difference is that if it is a controversial, personal opinion type post, you'll find it here.

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