here goes

Sometimes a girl just needs a little more!

Kimberly-Clark recently announced a new automatic toilet paper dispenser. It dispenses 5 pieces at a time to lengths totaling 16, 20 or 24 inches. I assume they are referring to the thin industrial toilet paper commonly found in airports, theaters, and office complexes. 

The AP story about the new product quotes company spokesperson Richard Thorne: "Most people in life will take what you give them. People will generally in life will take what you give them."

That is so not true for women and toilet paper.  Our needs are sometimes much greater than  24 inches of thin stuff.  I'm appalled by this development, frankly.  I hope the machines don't build in a 30-second or 1-minute delay between deliveries.

I measured my TP consumption one time during a medium-need day.  At work, with the really thin stuff, I needed 20 pieces: 5 times more than prescribed. At home, I needed 12 sheets of the thicker kind.

If these machines -- which promise institutions savings of up to 20% -- catch on and if the situation gets too dire and time-consuming, I'll get a bigger purse and start carrying my own TP.

That'll show them!

Democracy struggles on a bit longer

I'm delighted that our U.S. Senators have seen through the Bush dynasty's plan to eviscerate our democracy.  The Senate has voted down a repeal of the estate tax.  Someone has been listening to those quiet voices of reason.

(Yes, I'm a voice in the wilderness in Silicon Valley, but at least the policy makers finally listened!)

In fact, Republican Senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and George Voinovich of Ohio are a credit to not only their party, but to compassionate humans throughout the U.S. "Repealing the estate tax during this time of fiscal crisis would be incredibly irresponsible and intellectually dishonest," Voinovich said.  That's what I call compassionate conservatism.

This has been a sucky week until now!

For my birthday, I want...

Yesterday, it was fun to watch Congressmen work up a froth of rhetoric about Yahoo!, Google, Cisco and Microsoft working with the Chinese government to censor the internet.

The politcos are unhappy with these corporations' anti-democratic antics (as am I).

However, not one said a word of complaint that Google didn't have a nice little image to commemorate Charles Darwin's 197th birthday, which was February 12th.  Google has little diagrams to commemorate everything.  Why not a bit of acknowledgement for Darwin?  Maybe they will come up with something in 2009, for his 200th birthday.

Or, next thing we know, Google et. al. will restrict searches on Darwin here in the U.S.  Wouldn't it be nice if everyone everywhere could 1) read and 2) search the digital content of the world at will?

Where's the compassion?

My heart goes out to the people who lost their homes because of Hurricane Katrina and to those who are stranded far from home. My heart especially goes out to the people trapped in New Orleans.

The thing that most concerns me now are radio announcers reporting that, because of the looting and violence there, the National Guard has been called in to maintain order.  What I want to know:  aren't they bringing fresh water with them? The people need food and water!

Of minor concern is: why is the Red Cross being foisted off as the primary way to route money to relief efforts?  For all the fine work the Red Cross does, I do not plan to send them any of my money.  I, personally, will send my relief money to Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS). I like their approach better than the Red Cross, which is an extension of good ole Amish barn-raising.

When I lived in the South, in hurricane country, and when I told people of my Mennonite background, I lost count of how many people told me, "Oh, I love the Mennonites!  They were so helpful rebuilding our town after the Hurricane X!"

This strong favorable response both pleased and surprised me. I fully expected people in the South never to have heard of Mennonites. Now, I'm proud to support the MDS efforts to rebuild in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

I hope the people in the South will soon say how helpful the government was in helping rebuild, but for now, I'm not getting that vibe.

Targetting Christmas giving

A story in the San Francisco Chronicle alerted me to the fact that the Salvation Army is facing a bleak year. Not only are they short on volunteers, but Target and Mervyn's banned their volunteers from collecting outside their stores and Safeway has reduced the number of hours volunteers can collect funds.  (Mervyn's has since reconsidered and will allow Salvation Army volunteers to put up kettles and ring bells outside their stores.)

While it is true that the Salvation Army has some issues with inclusivity and tolerance, it is also true that they help people no one else will.  In the spirit of this holiday season, I've created a new Christmas carol to sing while you are boycotting Target (to the tune of  Good King Wenceslas):

Target’s CEO looked ’round on the eve of Christmas,

When the shoppers all came out, thick and cheap and endless.

The cash rolled in all that night, though the chill was awful,

When a slim man with a bell, rang it, got some pots full.

“Come, chief sales forecaster, come, if you know it tell me.

Salvation Army volunteers, are they something we need?”

“Sir, they’ve come here every year, ever since we opened,

But I can tell you that on them, our sales do not depend.”

“Bring me ideas and bring me spin, chase those people away.

Seeing reminders of the poor, distracts from buying, I say.”

They turned away from the poor, they turned away together.

They planned and schemed through the year, summer, fall, and winter.

“Sir, I fear a great backlash, public opinion against us.
I fear we will lose profit this year, and miss our goals for Christmas.”

“Mark my words, you doubting heart, tell of our corporate giving.

If we hide the poor from them, our guests will go on spending.”

“O how wise you are, my boss, folks will never miss them.

If we ourselves give small funds, no one needs to see shame.

Therefore, shopping souls will know nothing of pain and suffering,

Our profits will grow and grow. We will go on earning!”

Cuban Situation: Now versus 40 Years Ago

In preparation for meeting former President Clinton, I'm studying up by watching documentaries, like The Fog of War that relays to the viewers all the eleven life lessons Robert McNamara learned in his 80 or so years. I'm only partway through lesson 4 and already, I found much to transcribe.

McNamara describes what he witnessed during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. As the film shows a teletype machine spelling out the message, McNamara quotes like he's done it a thousand times the first message Kruschev telegraphed to the Kennedy in the White House during those tense October days.

We and you ought not to pull on the ends of a rope. Would you have tied the knots of war? Because the more the two of us pull, the tighter the knot will be tied, and then it will be necessary cut that knot. And what that would mean is not for me to explain to you. I have participated in two wars and know that war ends when it rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction. For such is the logic of war. If people do not display wisdom, they will clash like blind moles, and then mutual annihilation will commence.

After quoting Kruschev, McNamara goes on to give his own reactions, now that he's had 40 years to think about it what he witnessed and to hear what was going through the minds of his adversaries and collegues,

In the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war... Rational individuals -- Kennedy was rational, Kruschev was rational, Castro was rational -- rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.

I know what I am about to write has been written before and described more clearly by others, but listening to McNamara quote Kruschev, I could not help but think how conflict and war have changed, about how our feelings about it have changed.

First, our present administration does not seem to have rationality as its primary defining point. Next, there was not a civil exchange between the two leaders of the opposing sides before lives were lost. Osama bin Laden and George Bush will not send each other text messages that acknowledge destruction would be mutual and that the powers have equal weight in causing it.

By living so long with the threat of instant annihilation, we have grown callous to the pain of war on others and tired of fearing death. Have we become nonchalant about inflicting death and destruction? There is no greater military power on earth than the U.S., even though there are no fewer weapons than before. The struggle is no longer balanced. Osama bin Laden has no nation with set borders, no fax machine in his office wired to receive communiques from the White House. Bush has no empathy for bin Laden and bin Laden has no empathy for Bush.

Now, two powers -- an amorphous, irrational one and a structured irrational one -- are facing off again in Cuba: the all-powerful U.S. who have detained prisoners in Cuba for months versus the alarm and dismay of the rest of the world.

The knotted rope has frayed and snapped.

Hair on fire

Richard Clarke is testifying tomorrow afternoon before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a bipartisan commission. It should be interesting because people who testified today were already reading out loud from his new book, Against All Enemies, that criticizes the Bush administration.

At today's hearing, apparently there was a moment of levity when someone used the phrase "hair on fire" to describe people in the intelligence community who become very upset.

I've noticed that recently, I have not had my hair on fire about much of anything. I do keep thinking that I should finish and post the essay I drafted on 9/12/2001. It is still, unfortunately, apt to our present situation. A writer friend of mine told me he thought I was truly a writer because I actually wrote something on 9/12 when most people in the U.S. were having a hard time doing anything. He didn't think my essay was particularly good as it was when I sent it to him -- it needed for me not to be at odds with myself, he said -- but I wrote at a time when others could not write.

Will the Bush people have their hair on fire about what Richard Clarke says tomorrow at the hearing tomorrow? If I'm at work where I can get a live internet feed or in my car tomorrow afternoon, I will try to find a live broadcast. If someone has their hair on fire in public -- rather than in the war offices in the Pentagon -- I want to witness that and to bear witness to it.

Will voters and politicians get their hair on fire during this year's presidential campaign? It's already looking like it will be a vicious one, but I frankly don't see why Bush is attacking so harshly so early. It seems to me like he will burn up all the hair on his head before the race really kicks in after Labor Day.

I'm not much of an activist. I think the reason is that activists have to have their hair pretty much always on fire so they can sustain a sense of urgency needed to work hard to prevent things from going the awry. I find it hard to sustain a sense of urgency. Running a government or a life in a state of continual panic and fear seems horrible and ineffective approach for long-term success.

I now state publically that the one thing that gets my hair singed a bit are the Bush-supported cuts for the estate tax. Bill Gates, Sr. agrees with me and has written a book about it. Not that I have anywhere near Gate's clout and influence, but I'll go on record on my blog as opposing these tax cuts. I probably will write an essay about my position, too, someday, but I better be soon because House Republicans are currying support for their preposterous budget proposals even as I write this.

Seeing shadow people

I'm not sure my perceptions are normal, but I have noticed that I see human shapes in shadows all the time. For instance, when I turned left at an intersection today, I thought that a person in a black coat stood in the esplanade mostly shadowed by overpass above. A traffic light mounted on the post in the middle of the esplanade stood only about 6 feet high at most, so we drivers in the left turn lane could see it as we sat in our cars waiting for the left arrow.

Each light has its own hood, so the light fixtures appear huge relative to the rest of the post, and the hoods toghther cast a large shadows on the lights and post below. The post itself and the No U-Turn sign also cast shadows. The impression of all this negative light was of a person wearing a dark trenchcoat and a dark hat hunched under the traffic light. Pedestrians standing on espalnades are a bit creepy, especially at this particular intersection, so as I pulled up to this "person," I shied away a little.

Then I saw that I was jittery only because of a shadow.

Later in the day, I thought how that now that the sun shines again in Northern California, I've been jumpy because of shadows. It reminded me of a striking photo I saw in today's SF Chronicle about how the state of California just surreptitiously purchased part of Sutter Buttes, the "smallest mountain range in the world." The photo had a lighting and shadow situation similar to my traffic pole incident (the lighting was on the other side).

After I remembered a dream conversation I had last night about shadows and light. In my dream, I must have been a photographer out to capture these mystery shadows and someone asked me to describe the process of perceiving light and shadow and capturing these perceptions artistically -- which is impossible to describe even in a dream. Or, maybe it's impossible to remember.

The striking thing about "mountain" photo is that there is no way to gauge the smallness of the mountains by the photo. Anyway, I can't publically access Peace Valley anytime soon, according to the Chronicle.

Fad explosion

Yeea aaah! After nearly 40 days of blogging, Google searches finally work on my blog, mostly. I searched on one of my test strings "Pt Reyes Pelican Lake" and the Google search took me straight to the correct archive page rather than to just the front page. So, I'll add the Google link back in again.

A really interesting thing I've noticed about the explosion of a fad involves gyrokinesis. After I first posted my first gyrokinesis entry about a month ago, Google searches on gyrokinesis put my blog on the second results page. Now, only four weeks later, my blog pages are on page 14 of the Google search. That's quite an explosion of links in just a few weeks.

This blog is pretty close to the top for some other obscure searches. In fact, it's first for "gyrokinesis blocks." It seems that, for this blog, the magic ingredient was categories, because the results for "gyrokinesis blocks" brings up my "fitness" category. I used the word gyrokinesis in a lot of posts to test intrasite Google searches and, at long last, it all works!

*** NOTE: This blog entry takes a depressing turn.
Just wanted to warn you before you read further.

Clearly, I'm not too keen on writing creatively or passionately today. I'm sticking with something mechanical. I couldn't even use that old fallback -- posting a link to another item or news story -- because I could not find a link that interests me, except maybe that mother who pleaded not guilty to murder because she refused to have a C-section which resulted in her losing her twins girls. Just can't work up the courage to read more than the headline for that one. I know reading it would just make me upset in ways I can't quite predict. By that I mean, I may be more upset that someone can be prosecuted for not having a medical procedure or possibly more upset that two otherwise viable babies died. If I were T.C. Boyle, I might write a short story about the moment of decision for that mother. Maybe after some time goes by, I think of it. Or that moment may show up in my dreams.

End of depressing turn ***

So, yeah! Google works on my site!

Rare, reviled breed

An astute reader of this blog sent me a pointer to this MSNBC article about blogging not really having caught on -- at least not among adults.

According to the article, between 2 percent and 7 percent of adult Internet users keep a blog. Of those, only about 10 percent update them daily. So, how many adult users of the Internet are there in the U.S.? The article didn't say. How much of a deviant am I? I asked Jeeves. All Jeeve's data was 1999 vintage or older, so I asked Google. The best estimate (from 2002) I could find for users over 12 years of age (minus the Canadians) is about 150 million.

OK. So, 10% of 2% of 150 million people is 300,000 U.S. residents who update their blogs every day.

Hmmm. Not many. Even if I take 10% of 7%, I get 1,050,000. It's probably less than that if you count only adults 18 and over, like the article said.

I took the poll on MSNBC to get the results of the poll about what MSNBC readers think of bloggers, blogs, and blogging. Here they are as of 5 minutes ago.
Do you keep a blog? * 1279 responses
Totally! 6%
I hate that term, but yeah.
8%
No. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
29%
No. I have a life.
57%

Do you read blogs online? * 1303 responses
Totally!
6%
Often.
9%
Once in a while.
26%
Never.
59%

The few, the proud, the bloggers. In honor of the 10-year history of blogging, I added our leader's blog, the ground-breaking blog, first guy doing it and all around fun dude to my list of sites to visit. Please welcome, Justin Hall's very own Justin's Links (We met at a conference. He wouldn't remember me, probably, but we have a very good friend in common.)

I'm somewhat familiar with Justin's early blog. He never gave me the impression that he started his blog because he wanted to make use of its "potential to steer the online discourse." For him, it turned out that way. For me, we'll see. There is something powerful about being first. The tone of the MSNBC article gives me an idea about what the Pew study was about. I would actually like to read it. Found it! Um. I'll get back to this later.

For now, my astute reader wishes to remain anonymous.