Dear White People

When I think about #BlackLivesMatter #BLM one thing I always say is - white folks should really consider trying to find ways to support, participate or just speak on it if they can find a way and feel they resonate. After all - when you think of it - naturally black lives probably already DO matter to most black folks. So therefor it's really important that a lot more white folks maybe do some soul searching and try to be exemplify "[being their] brother's keeper" to coin an old Biblical phrase: that is to be ever more sensitive to and behave more honorably and faithfully towards their brothers and sister among other races. I hope not to offend anyone with it - but if I do offend - that's OK. Maybe lets discuss it off line if you feel sensitive. Maybe we can both learn something. Rather not turn this into an angry thread though. :) This is a comment I made to someone from a long discussion we have been in about the white race. Just some food for thought:

"Yeah - it's good to acknowledge the unique and contumacious horrors the race has committed and it's often perverse character. It's not the same as condemnation. Actually - I'd argue what WOULD condemn a member of a group that committed atrocities is the opposite - things like denial, a lack of contrition or what have you. I always like to point out that God didn't apparently give up on Cain after he killed his brother. He is still talking to him at that point. What sends Cain 'East of Eden' (what condemns and exiles him in other words) is his denial and contumacy - this "I am not my brother's keeper" business. What kind of a white man would I be if I ignored the suffering my race has produced? What kind of a man, if I denied the cruelty to which men have subjected women historically? What kind of a German would a German be for instance if he denied the Holocaust or sought in any way to diminish it's significance or the brutal role the culture had in the chaos of that age? It's not about self-loathing. Quite the opposite. It's about redemption. To acknowledge these things isn't to say that to be white is to be bad. Maybe some people believe that. maybe some white folks have some self loathing. That's not what I would promote ever, but yeah be real about history and justice and stand up for it."

Prayer for the Southern States - video slideshow

Here is a slideshow I through together just because I loved the sound of the prayer in the midst of the nature sounds.  I meant to make the audio recording purely as a memory aid.

https://youtu.be/DkhSU5NZbE4

E Ink vs. The Red Book

I was thinking about getting another digital ereader for the family though I am somewhat ambivalent about it.  I'm considering a B&N Nook Glowlight. Here is my need: I have boys that often need to read some form of literature which exists in the public domain so long as we are willing to forego the wonderful substance made of wood-pulp which feels so lovely between the fingers to dog-ear and scribble on and bookmark and even to smell.  Additionally it can be helpful even to buy an expensive E-book in a format fairly impervious to the degradation and limitations of time and space.

The next best thing to paper books for reading might not be a phone or tablet.  Think of the glare, the poor battery life, the aesthetic clutter, the distractability of the operating system, and the fact of the discomfort of even the lightest varieties of these during extended reading.  The E Ink readers I think are much better for reading because their batteries last long enough to put on a shelf in the library like any book, and they read much more like paper.  Yet there are terrible weaknesses.  Some of my interface design gripes deal with the fact that annotation is still a terrible experience.  I'm much better served by actual margins on physical paper which I can dog-ear, flip through, bookmark, tag with post-its, highlight, scribble on, sketch on etc. much more naturally and efficiently- though not in a way that is searchable.

In the future, improvements maybe made here.  Imagine being able to study a text from a computer and annotate and bookmark and tag in detail and then to later reference those details from your E ink reader.  Imagine scrawling a lasso and diagram in the margins of an e-book from your E-ink or phablet display and then to be able to tag those scribblings from your computer.  Imagine desktop software capable of optionally pulling Chicago Style citations along with a text snippet for use in your essay from a book which you primarily read the first time from a Nook Glow-light E Ink display.    Imagine easy, ubiquitous and standardized annotation capabilities delivered from a centralized cloud based platform, the augmentation of stylus based annotations and other fine touches can be imagined by cleverer people than me.

The question is - will E ink readers ever be a great experience?  I think they can be but there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest around doing this stuff profoundly better than we are doing them right now.  Considering the savings and the base utility - it's a worth-while trade off in many ways so I think in my own case I'll get one soon after agonizing about it.  It's a shame we seem to be stuck in a plateau of interface an machine design on these E ink readers.  It reminds me of the phone era just preceding the introduction of the iPhone.  The hardware was all there- we just needed Steve Jobs to deliver us from the Egypt of terrible interface design.  Steve - if you are listening - somewhere an E ink product manager needs a good muse!!

There is a part of me and a part of my culture that feels like E ink will never compare to a book.  When I think about this - trying to be impartial and just, I would say this: it partly depends on the book.  To give an extreme example, I just received "The Red Book" by Carle Gustav Jung the other day which I ordered from Amazon and an E ink based divice would be hardest pressed to ever deliver an experience comparable to the magic and wonder of parting the pages of that bad-boy which weighs about 8 pounds.  That book is printed on "two different special types of paper" with library quality materials (see from about minute 19 in the first lecture found here from gnosis.org). The spine of which is partially hand-bound in Italy so that it takes 6 weeks to produce a printing.

Here is a moment I like a lot in the introduction of that book written by one of Jung's colleagues which by way of description gives us some insight into how it is that some books especially must be obtained and admired as material artifacts in order to be appreciated fully:

Tina Keller, who was in analysis with Jung from 1912,  recalls   that Jung "often spoke of himself and his own experiences":     In those early days, when one arrived for the analytic   hour, the so-called "red book" often stood open on an   easel. In it Dr. Jung had been painting or had just finished a   picture. Sometimes he would show me what he had done and   comment upon it. The careful and precise work he put into   these pictures and into the illuminated text that accompanied   them were a testimony to the importance of this undertaking.   The master thus demonstrated to the student that psychic   development is worth time and effort. 122

While technically the art of the book can be seen in an ereader and to some degree appreciated, especially if it is a color e-reader yet that appreciation is a dim shadow from the scene described where the book itself has a vital dialectical force and influence upon the reader - even to the extent that it's physical presence in the room has a transformative effect upon the inhabitants - even the room itself.  As much as I admire- even fetishize technology - there is a dark side to it which for me is ever-present.  Simply put it is a dim shadow and a distraction away from - the natural and the authentic in some ways.  What it displaces - it can never fully replace and this is not a bad thing as long as that fact is fully appreciated.  Negatively, I thought just last night of modern connective technology as a kind of "glowing scatology" which we must dietarilly restrict ourselves from as if it were access to an endless supply of Haagendazs.  The kind of balance to be struck really I think is suggested by the modern prevalence of exercise.

People have exercised throughout history but as modern man has slipped into a relatively more sedentary life-style exercise is less and less the dominion of athletes and enthusiasts and more the mandate of every conscientious citizen who wishes for fitness.  In the past, hoeing your row, building your house, riding your horse, washing your clothes or just walking from home to work and to wherever else would give you more than enough physical exertion to stay fit in many cases. 

Similarly as we use our phones to text our loved ones we must not forget how to look into their eyes or in using interceding and older forms of technology - at least call them on the phone or write them an actual real letter.  And the way to stay fluent with these more natural behaviors is to do them continuously, with frequency and with deep regard and consideration.  We can have our tech "and eat it too" it just requires a kind of deliberation that previously was rarely ever as necessary for most people as it is today - kind of like jogging.  The lumberjack didn't have to do it but the cubicle rat really should as much for his mental, emotional and spiritual as for his physical well-being.

That Red Book is available as a pdf sometimes on the web for free - I've pulled it down and have a copy.  However it's not the same experience.  There is a whole ritual involved in reading this red book in the large paper form.  In many ways it is a 'period' experience in which you travel backwards in time through many ages and stages of the book-publication process as well as through ages of the history of art.  The book is in German and is hand-written so that what I read is the translation, referring painstakingly to the corresponding pages in order to peer through the veils besides time and place - of language and culture.

Jung's interior world informs and enriches my own.  I think too - he was writing to me - don't author's search for their appreciators just as readers search for their a connection and relationship within the page, to their favorite authors?

Reading the Red Book on a PDF is a bit like listening to classical music through ear-buds and - given the production character of the physical book, reading that physical book is more like attending a great orchestral performance in an exquisite auditorium.  The emotion, the power, the beauty, the warmth, depth and size of the experience - it's something incomparable.  The PDF - much like an audio CD of a Beethoven piece seems very true to the melody but not faithful to the fidelity of the original.  It's a sketch, a silhouette, a photograph of the loved one long to visit.  You want those too, but not the way you require the periodical glance and voice of the person.  You get the accurate fact of the thing but not the three-dimensional and motive truth of it.

His exquisite yet fluid and wild calligraphic style uncannily hearkens to many disparate bygone ages and diverse cultures besides his own simultaneously.  I have to clean the table carefully and make sure there is space and time for the experience - which is what it is - experience more than acquisition or product. I pour myself into the page and enter into a presence with the author and with times bygone and geography far-flung.  My children and wife have rarely seen it out since it's arrival because I need time and space for the reading ritual to protect both the book and state of mind.

While an e-reader can never adequately bookify a thing like this which is as much art as it is literature even removing the artistic embellishments we find that an E-Bible or E-Tao Te Qing or an "E-book of poetry can never experientially approach anything like a replacement of the physical counterpart.  In truth however - they can augment it the natural book.  Case in point, this blog post may ironically enrich a reader's appreciation of hard books and the Red book in particular.  In addition, augmenting my study of the Red Book by reading the PDF gives me some added freedoms and time with aspects of the tome. 

Modernity may enhance our lives very much as long as we are mindful of the aforementioned dark side.  In fact the crisis of technological abstraction can enhance our appreciation for life in a way because - just as this post does, it can draw us to reflections about the value and nature of things like visceral experience and personal human interaction - even of the natural world.  Authenticity and nature can allude us cleverly for a time but it is possible to relocate it if we are mindful and even to move deeper in our appreciation of our humanity in a way that unites us to all ages and definitions in a kind of handshake and nodding, affectionate glance with our neolithic primogenitors.

Ethan's Coming of Age party Saturday Oct 3 2015

So Saturday my eldest son Ethan had his "Baha-Mitzfa" (no - that's not a real word).  That is to say - he celebrated with friends and family becoming an adult in the eyes of the Bahai community.  This happens at age 15.  It's like a quinceanera only for both sexes. 

It was just so wonderful to have Ethan's friends over.  Also present were my mom and my dear friend Chase foster and Ethan's wonderful Baha'i friend Iman.  Also my sisters showed up and my niece Tabby showed up but they were late because there were other things going on that day.  Ethan's friendships seem to run deep and they are very sweet people.  I said a few words about his nature and the process of becoming an adult to those gathered, directing my talk mainly to Ethan's friends.  I talked about how Ethan is very intuitive and sensitive and told about how weeks before a surprise cancer diagnosis, Ethan told me he dreamed a huge vulture came down and grabbed his grandfather (mother's side) by the shoulders and flew off into the horizon with him.

I also played a recording of Ethan telling me about a dream he had one night in November of 2011 which anticipates the coming of adolescence.  Listen to it here - it's really delightful.  I asked the youth gathered "what do you think that frog means.  Do you remember the name of the frog?  Why would it have a name like that?  What does it mean?"  To her credit, one young lady shot her hand up and said "It's called an Infrog and that means it's like Ethan's 'inner frog'!"  Quite right!! Very Exciting!!  Then we discussed how, isn't that what adolescence is like? Just like in the dream you are discovering your inner creatures and they are all different and unique?  Isn't it just like that how like in the dream, some of these young men and women will get "carried away" and become lost in their life or as if captivated and kidnapped by that process of discovery, while others wonderfully learn as if how to name their inner self and to call on it and to command it and bring it to bear in the world? Isn't this dream wonderful and exciting, giving wisdom about what troubles to avoid and what wonderful discoveries and new powers to look forward to as you grow into adulthood?  There is tons in this dream but the kids were surprised I think and enjoyed this insight that Ethan's dream provided.  It was also wonderful to hear his young voice again before "the change" came, deepening the sound of his speech. 

Since so many of his non-Baha'i friends were there we decided he wouldn't have any kind of Baha'i ceremony that day but save it for a more intimate occasion maybe this coming weekend at my sisters home. 

Anyways I was really nervous about things going well on Ethan's birthday party and I had a nightmare the night before.  It was really important to me but everything just flowed really well and was really very effortless and filled with wonderful experiences and warm exchanges.  

https://goo.gl/photos/zTfrbzYzxhKy6Bic6
 

A sweet time was had at The Promised Land (Charlotte TN)

At this historic site, in the midst of beautiful countryside we had excellent attendance from a diverse array of wonderful souls. This event was all about the youth and jr. youth and in the main, the adults sat back and enjoyed the beautiful show, involving an ecology and society themed original play by Yasmin(sp?) and quotations on the two themes of the environment and the unity of religious truth. We also had wonderful singing and instrumental performances. This experience was beautiful, warm and uplifting. We were extremely pleased to see Jackson youth show up. We would love to see them often including Kenny who I remember meeting at the recent Youth Retreat in Monteagle!

By the way - if you want to stay up-to-date with these blog posts, be sure and subscribe.

https://plus.google.com/+FaiziCrofts/posts/HgwrGnvR1kF

March 27th at Larry's house

What an awesome time it is always it Larry's.  I wanted to be in the picture too so I put my giant head in there as I took the picture - weird effect but at least everyone is there.  :

raw, organic veggies

Most days as a stay at home pop, I try to do something grand for a meal. Meal-time after all is the most visually and viscerally obvious aspect of what a stay at home parent does and so it is my opportunity to express myself.

Often however- when I try to do a grand thing it doesn't work out because it isn't 'art for art's sake'- it is more art for the glory of the artist if you will. The intuition doesn't get involved.

Other days however, I don't seem to aspire very high at all but rather scratch an itch of curiosity or inspiration and the experiment is an effortless, addictive success. On such occasions I feel so gratified that I have fallen into the habit of capturing a photo - it is so easy to do so these days after all.

This large veggie dip platter marks one such occasion. As my boys were studying in the afternoon I prepared a snack large enough to last until dinner so that my wife could enjoy it as well and we could have a second whack at it after dinner.

I doctored up some home-made Caesar dressing with some extra olive oil and less base (recipes usually call for egg substitute or mayo - I use soft tofu) so that the dressing is sort of more oily and fragrant. I arranged carrots, cauliflower and celery (leaves on- makes it look nice- besides I have come to really like clean fresh celery greens since living in China where they think that is the best part of the celery anyway).



So it is an ultra-simple and common platter- but a few adjustments, the fact that most everything is organic and the dressing is a tweaked home-made infinitely superior ceasar dressing made this an attractive and addicting hit. Oh, and we preceded it an hour earlier with another innovation I came up with a couple of days ago- fill a glass with chunks of seedless watermelon, then pour blended seedless watermelon and ice (the result is essentially chilled watermelon juice) into the glass up to the brim. You wind up with chilled watermelon chunks dripping with juice which you wash down with more juice.

It's sort of the ideal way to drive a steak through the heart of a debilitating summer- watermelon craving.

Latest advancement in eco-friendly domestic living

Kinetic, solar and wind-powered washing and drying with the following features:

• silent operation
• solar and wind powered
• you actually burn calories using it.
• a less expensive alternative over time.
  

So, the advancement is - as you have by now surmised from the photograph: washing fabric napkins (by hand most times since you will have to wash them more frequently than your normal laundry cycle will allow) and hanging them out to dry in place of most uses of disposable paper towels and napkins. We chose to get 100% cotton for the absorbent qualities, texture and because we can compost them along with our vegetable waste at end of life. They get dry surprisingly quickly and are less trouble to wash then you might think.

If you detect sarcasm in the title you were correct. However, it is the latest advancement for our family in the sense that the change took place recently and it is an advancement in the sense that our family is interested in finding ways to live more economically and ecologically and - where possible to do both things simultaneously. So it advances our family gradually along it's chosen trajectory towards a couple of it's it's goals. We do think that these kinds of changes taken together over time do point towards a better and brighter future although ironically we find that many such changes represent a slow walk backward through time, technology and infrastructure. The thing is- what happens as disposables are replaced with things that require maintenance in the home is that it may become more aesthetically pleasing. There is something about cloth napkins that is more memorable and attractive than paper. Consider- when you go to a higher end restaurant they tend to refrain from disposable napkins and kitchen ware of any kind which is disposable. They seem to do this for aesthetic reasons. This suggests there may be something 'trashy' about disposable living. There are some things that ancient people did which are superior to the way we do things. We are trying to find a balance in a rational footing in worlds modern and antique.

The Truth about Tiger Dads

Before we begin let me clarify- despite the comparison evoked by the title of this post - I am no "Tiger-Dad", nor would I want to be. Yet I think comparing myself to the Tiger-Mom is instructive. I do in fact have some things in common with her but take the comparison as an exaggeration for I admit freely that that is what it is.

To give you some background, my wife Sunray and I are fairly strict with our two boys by American standards. Part of this has to do with the fact Sunray is Chinese. I have been a stay at home dad now for about a year- having willingly quit my job so that we could take better care of our children now that - as we saw it- we could just afford to do so.

We have our boys study around three hours per day and that includes weekends and holidays and school breaks more often than not. Some holidays and such we find ourselves in a time pinch and actually don't do the studying, but as often we work extra hard during such times since after all, there will also be time to play and there is no regular school work to contend with. Occasionally we do have a break from study for a day here and there for no special reason though this is rare.

In any case, for a while there we sort of got ourselves pegged as mean parents. My oldest son Ethan said meaningfully "I'm not taking care of you when you get old", to which I actually responded with a good laugh - confident that there was ample time between now and then for him to change his tune. Perhaps I should also have the humility to be resigned to my fate if - for my efforts and intentions which I vainly frame as being good - I somehow miss the boat. I hope to be the sort of old parent my son will cherish in my sunset years- but that is a topic for another blog post- assuming I am still posting in forty years.

Outsiders sometimes see us as overly strict. Some see us as admirable. It may be hard for folks to be on the fence when they witness our parenting style. On the one hand, my sons can read a good amount of Chinese if you consider they only started in earnest a year ago. They can play piano pretty well if you realise they have been at that for two years only. But then when they get home from school- they have very little play time. Perhaps an hour in all and these days it seems they get to bed around nine-thirty or ten because they just can't get finished before then.

So day before yesterday I had my oldest (Ethan- remember?) read the six page article in Time Magazine about the current meme known as "Tiger Mom". The article is called "The Truth about Tiger Moms"

After he read it I asked him what he thought about it. He was totally silent for a moment and his eyes got kind of big. In that instant I am not sure what was going on in his head but I suspect he might have been wondering whether it would be advisable to be frank with his impression or whether there were political considerations to be reviewed first. Perhaps he was partially just formalising some ideas.

Well, I walked around doing some house work and absently said to the air "It's no big deal Ethan, I am just looking for your honest first impressions. I'm just curious what you thought- right or wrong- it's your own view."

Well he said some things that rather surprised me. I wish I had a better memory for it but essentially I can recall him indicating that: unexpectedly - he thought she was actually a pretty loving mother and wanted her kids to be happy later on in life - and (he pointed out earnestly) they actually were happier.

Well- he was a whole lot kinder to her than I had been in my first and even in my final gentler views of this lady. I was very surprised by all of this even though I had been hoping to hear some small appreciation for her and would have taken it as a sign of maturity. I said to him "did the article sort of help you figure out that your mom and dad are not the meanest, strictest parents on earth?". "Yes" he said with some emphasis and we discussed various other aspects of the article and related themes.

Mind you - the article included a lot of things that I see as being fairly ugly. Here is one excerpt concerning a card that young Lulu made for her mother's birthday:

"I don't want this" Chua announced, adding that she expected to receive a drawing that Lulu had "put some thought and effort into." throwing the card back at her daughter, she told her, "I deserve better than this. So I reject this."

Ethan had read that part and other parts- he had read the whole article. And I am sure without asking that he found it ugly as well. What amazes me is that that those were not the parts he chose to speak with me about when I asked for his opinion. I believe we have a cogent understanding with one-another- we understand the article in much the same way and do see the bad. Yet what he wanted to discuss was the surprising good and the insights he gleaned from those things. At ten years old-this shows a lot of maturity and restraint. My old age started to look brighter to my imagination. I could hope that I had at eighty years old not lost my children to estrangement but that we had by then over our lives suffered together and managed to suffer FOR one-another and that at the end- we were bound as we had been at the beginning. Of course this is all in my mind. I have a lot of time to make many mistakes raising him and there is no doubt I will make them. What I am hopeful of is that we will recover from them and that our affection and loyalty will survive with strength.

So then yesterday- we sort of took inventory of his various school assignments and projects. Well, he showed how he had conscientiously attended to many things big and small in his back-pack which contained the artefacts and catalogue of his school life. He forgot one item though- a needful paper related to a quiz that he has the next day (that's today). "Of course you forgot it" I grumbled. He instantly shut his mouth and caste his gaze downward. I took notice and reproached myself.

"Ethan I am sorry for saying 'Of course' when you made a mistake- you do a very good job and I know it is hard for you to remember everything. I am frustrated with the brain I gave you because I struggled with the same organisational issues you do and so I am scolding myself when I get upset with you on memory lapses".

Still looking down with a silent tear racing to the ground he says "I wrote down so many things and prepared a lot but sometimes I couldn't remember one important thing that I should have remembered. I don't know why I can't get it right."

Well- I could have cried too at that point but the man in me restrained the spirit out of habit.

I reassured him and embraced him and told him what a good boy he was and how excellent and un-complaining he was as a student and as my son. This praise was not over-board- but accurately aimed. I believe that in the past couple of months especially he has joined me in my effort to raise him up well and to high standards and no-longer fights against me but cleaves to my lead with appreciation and tenacity even when it is very difficult to do so which it frequently, necessarily is. It reminds me of the perhaps cliché moment in the Karate kid movies and similar - where the student with final heart and strain, understands and accepts the mind of the master at long last and the plot of the movie turns around and you see 'master and student' united in thought and effort. At that point you get like a montage with training footage and such before a climactic tournament is won by the karate kid.

Last night and this morning- I couldn't stop thinking about Ethan. I kept seeing his face at the moment when I said "of course". I kept seeing his tear let go as if released by my changed mood of kindness towards him when I spoke.

He mentioned yesterday that he'd love some bacon this morning and so I got up early, got the boys up a little early too - and (pretty far out of character) I not only treated them to a continental breakfast with eggs, English muffins and bacon before school- but I let them play video games - a luxury reserved for Saturday mornings and as reward privileges. I don't think we have ever done video games in on a school-morning but some times the Tiger dad is soft for the cubs.

Virtuous Fruit

I've long been fascinated by food.
Modern man lives with terrible paradoxes with regard to food. For one thing, we need to understand that while 'dirty food' can kill you, sterile food can weaken you. Did you notice that the ecoli scares last year mostly or all involved organics(in two of the cases it was spinach)? This is no coincidence. You see, organic foods are grown with non-chemical fertilizers. By definition this means that substantially we are talking about excrement products as part of the composting process of the fertilizer. The good news is one can actually develop some immunity to ecoli and other so-called 'pathogens'. Otherwise there would be no special concern about Americans drinking water or dealing with ice-cubes or Popsicle from Mexico, China or Africa. Further, consider that much of the time what kills an individual named in an ecoli mortality statistic is not the ecoli it's self only but a number of other factors surrounding it:

• the person may be accustomed to pasteurized and sterilized foods (thus, little immunity)
• the person may be part of the new trend in the US towards 'organics' and thus- sinse previously they may rarely have ever been seriously sickened by food, they were exposed too quickly to food with biological contaminants (non-pasteurized foods).
• The person may have compromised immune systems ironically due to exo-genetic effects of chemical pesticides.
• The person may have too little bacterial and viral diversity in their own blood for some of the reasons already mentioned to metabolize and defend against certain biological pathogens and toxic pathogenic bi-products such as the chemicals released by ecoli.
  

In the United States, politics is in the air we breath and in the food we eat. Understand that lobbyists for industrial food industry are some of the most powerful economic and political agents in our democratic body today. With their help, we have managed to cause meats and processed foods of any sort; and by way of triangulation- especially such things as frozen pizzas or fast food: to be made the least expensive products to be found- not-withstanding that they are in fact (by the same triangulation) the most expensive in terms of land-use, labor and natural resource expenditure. Thus it is more expensive to prepare a simple salad at home with vegetables- more especially if it is organic than it is to visit McDonald or Captain Ds in many cases. Further, for all the nutritive and qualitative differences we may site which are theoretical concerning food choice the reality of such a decision is more problematic. If we are dealing with non-organic produce, it may be argued that the long term effects of eating say - peaches instead of Cheese-burgers may be hard to differentiate. The question you are left with is something like this: Do you want a high risk of cancer, birth defects and a variety of other long term chemical toxin related maladies, or would you prefer instead to deal with obesity and the risk of heart-attack due to exposure to too much meat protein, fat and residual livestock hormones?

Now, when I lived in China, the food I ate there was mainly organic (this is all changing rapidly by the way) and overwhelmingly vegetables and fruits which were ripe when they were harvested and were extremely fresh by our standards- for no better reason than that the food available to me had most often little or no recourse to modern methods of ripening delay and triggering (in warehouse environments), food preservation or scientifically advanced means of cultivation (pesticides, hormones, artificial fertilizers, herbicides, or genetic modification). Some interesting notes about that. These foods were not labeled "organic" or "vine-ripened" or "non-GMO(genetically modified organisms), or "local". They were neither FDA or otherwise, certified or branded as boutique yuppie items, nor were they expensive.

Not only was the flavor and nutrition superior but the distinction was so marked that I as an American was astonished to eat watermelons for example which had so very little white portion to the rind on them that it seemed un-natural to me. Was this a normal watermelon, or are the watermelons in the states "normal"? By comparison- the best watermelons in the US seem paradoxically under-ripe and near rotten all at once. I'm not sure if you can understand my meaning. You know that quality in a melon in which the rind has a lot of that flavorless (or worse, bitter) white rind that extends an inch or so to the center of the fruit? In many cases, the whole melon tastes somewhat like a bitter rind, even where the center has at least something resembling the red color it is known for? On the other end of the scale we all know about melons which are over ripe and loose their fibrous structure, turning into a muddy textured flavorless mush towards the center. American melons quite frequently are characterized prominently by both qualities- that is to say they are both under-ripe and over-ripe. They are both, too young and too old. This is because they were picked too soon and - having been picked and stored, were stored too long- they were never mature. They are the fruit equivalent of human decrepitude diseases in which a ten year old is still short and playful but near death from osteo and organ decrepitude.

Americans don't realize- at least I didn't that a watermelon should perhaps be under-ripe if the farmer is careless, or over-ripe if it sat too long in market but never both. Further, compared to every edible Chinese melon I have ever encountered, every American counterpart if it was edible at all, had by far and away- substantially more of both characteristics at it's most edible point. You'd have to see and eat a Chinese melon to understand how this can be and to know that I am not exaggerating. Chinese melons are - if eaten at the proper time, characterized by hardly any white rind at all and a virtuous, consistent red extending nearly to the very edge of the green outer skin, and throughout with a beautiful, saturated, sweet flavor with a texture both gushing with fluid and firmly fibrous. The peaches, bananas, apples, and tomatoes there - well I could describe their superiority to the very best American fruits similarly. In short- they tasted like food is supposed to taste the way you always hope and expect it too before you are invariably disappointed.

We blame ourselves and our children when we cannot cultivate a love of fruits and vegetables. The truth is though- most of us have not eaten a decent piece of fruit in so long we genuinely lack any notion of what these things actually taste like (when they are even mediocre by old-world standards). I ADORE fruits and vegetables- but all you fruit and vegetable haters out there- the fruit and vegetables you don't like- I don't like them either.

Fear-not (sarcasm alert), our industries have prepared for us many fortified, re-sweetened, re-flavored fruits and vegetables in processed forms - often dried, in cans, or natured into beef products. Further, they will lobby hard to ensure that such products are always the least expensive option for us. And if we become sick due to nutritional or toxic properties, well- we have a treatment for every illness known to man- not a cure perhaps, but a treatment at least. And if the treatments are expensive? We have insurances to rescue us from that. (there's a whole in my bucket, dear Liza dear Liza..)
Personally though, I can't help but be nostalgic for a world with fewer solutions, optimizations, modernizations and enhancements. Sorry, the melons just tasted better before we solved so many problems, and so many problems our solutions caused.

A Memorial Tribute to Sun Zi Xian

My Father-in-law died a year ago (10/11/07) and I thought it appropriate to remember him with a message at this time.

I wrote the following comment in my journal circa 1998 after taking this photograph at his request.

"Lao Ba ('ole dad') scarcely lifts his head from his ancient world filled with the knowledge of a long life, memories of a lost wife and the echo and shadows of the billion black characters he silently painted over the years. Beneath his wife's stunning black and white portrait lay an inscription which he brushed: 'Life is fleeting but virtue is immortal.' "

This bare, elegant image of him
beside the wife he honored with such a soft and certain brush has directed my consciousness and focused my spirit over the years.

I never met my mother-in-law. I dreamed of her only once, soon before my father-in-law was to pass from this world. She was waiting for me to bring a message from my father-in-law which turned out to bear a passage written by Abdul-Baha himself mysteriously purposed outside of time for her eyes.

For me it is no small disappointment to watch such a distinguished generation of Chinese as he was a member of, symbolically receding into the horizon of it's evening. It is a daily and a serious reminder for me- to do my part in distinguishing my own generation by illumined conduct; and lofty, courageous sentiment and vocation throughout life.

---

Here some photos of my father-in-law and mother-in-law:

A Vote is cast for Obama by my wife Sunray Crofts

Yeah yeah big deal right? Well this one is unique for a few reasons. Here's a list:

• At no other time in her life could she have voted for America's president. She is eligible to vote because she is now an American citizen.
• In China, when she was a Chinese citizen she could not have voted either for China's leadership. It's the first time in her life she will have been able to vote for her country's leader.
• A few months ago (a little too early in retrospect) we bought the pictured educational placemat for our children's mealtime study. Notice anything missing? Yeah- me too: any faces of someone who isn't male and or white..(click photo to enlarge)

So we figure if Obama wins, it could be an historic memory to have a picture to show our grand-children of Sunray casting her first vote ever for the first minority president in American history. Go wife!!

All trying hard not to squint in the bright sunlight getting ready to go to the poling booth (Ethan trying perhaps a touch too hard).

Sunray and kids (Eli about to die of boredom apparently) in line to vote at Brentood Public Library.

Talking to Poling Assistant.

They told me just before I snapped it that I wasn't allowed, so I took the photo before the camera had a chance to focus.

Feeling Good

I felt strongly compelled to write a post today as a sort of a song review, as if I were in the business of writing reviews, as if I had any part of the requisite education for such, and as if anybody reads my blog. Anyway- compulsion is not a half bad reason to write a thing.

The song is "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone. Now- I'm not a fan-boy. I don't love all her stuff. I like about half of it- but this song reminds me of how often I feel manipulated on an emotional level by the arts. It reminds me of this because it is a song which embodies the opposite of that effect on me- discovering and releasing within me some of the purest and most authentic moods and emotions.

Rather than trying to force me to think or feel - this song rather tells me about something, exposes me to it and finally draws that thing out of me unexpectedly.

Without delving into technical art, I'll just say it is a recording second to none displaying instrumental taste and a vocal art which I can scarcely imagine could be equaled even by the singer herself a second time.

The subject is a variety of exultant joy which is as vulnerable and tremblingly difficult to achieve as it is indomitable and defining; and it's opposite- the implied sorrow from which this joy is propelled and has heroicly escaped. It is the joy of a freed prisoner, a found child, a restored faith, or a reunited lover. A listener need not know the circumstances or antecedents of this joy to appreciate the song- they only need to understand something about deep joy and deep sorrow- yes, deep sorrow, this song's faintly gestured but important and unmistakable undercurrent.

Pet Peeves

I don't know why, but in the back of my mind is always this desire to make a list of pet peeves, but I never get around to it. Not only that, but there is something about the idea that makes me think this will actually be beneficial to others. How I can't imagine. One useful aspect of maintaining such a list is that having it consciously spelled out and written down increases my chances of finding a passable workaround for a particular peeve instead of just suffering with it newly and absently every time it presents it's self. I'll go ahead and list the respective workarounds when I think of any. This list will grow indefinitely.

• the depleting chip and dip paradox:
  -> OK, you make some onion dip with campbells onion soup and sour cream. You have your bag of chips. As the bowl of dip depletes making it more difficult to scoup the dip without getting your hands dirty sinse you need to reach increasingly further into the bowl. the chips you use actually get smaller as you reach the end of the chip bag sinse all the broken chips and crumbs tend to fall to the bottom. So you are reaching futher with an increasingly small chip.
  -> workaround: A spoon or a knife I guess. Slather the dip on the chip fragments.
  
  
• Touching Public bathroom handles after washing hands:
  -> workarounds: (1) open door w foot if possible. (2) open door w paper towel, taking care to toss the paper towel into bin once door has been opened enough to hold w foot.
  -> fix: All public bathroom entryways should be designed without doors like airports often have for wheelchair accessible- or else with foot operable or motion-sensing openers. At the very least- doors should open always outwards and be latch-less so that the door can be pushed open from the inside.
  

Peeves particular to parenting- things I dislike about kids:

• making rythmic, vaquely distructive sounding, banging noises in the background while I am resting or preoccupied.
• Food that kids reject:
  You go to the trouble to prepare a home-cooked meal and the kid doesn't like some or part of what you prepared. You could store it but generally this is a lot of trouble and every extra 'left-over' that finds it's way into your refrigerated can add to your sense of general maintenance anxiety in the home. Generally you just serve as a garbage disposal and consume the extra calories you should be watching for and weren't even hungry for at that point. I don't feel right about tossing it out either. The only good solution is to require the child to eat it. Sometimes I will do that.
  
• kids stepping on or just missusing DVD cases.
• losing my place in books by removing the bookmark or folding a book I had placed face-down.
• Stepping on and warping my broom bristols so that it is uncomfortable to sweep with and flings debris across the floor instead of neatly consolidating it for dust-bin duty.
• plausible deniability arguments (the sibs will be freaked out and both are denying and blaming so that I don't know where to begin to dispense punative justice)
• child bangs my elbow, tossing beverage out of my hand as by a lever.
  -> workaround: habitually announce and warn about the beverage when kids are near.
  
• stress-testing every object in the universe out of keeping with it's intended usage and (where applicable) terms of warrentee. A really annoying example is how the remote that came with my TV now has a dangling backing for the battery casing from constant unconscious and frenetic fidgeting. Gets looser and looser driving me ever closer to the brink of insanity.
  failed workaround: bought a couple of universal remotes. They are lousey- they won't work like the original remote for whatever reason.
• the universal remotes I bought to deal with previous workaround. They sit in my house looking ugly and not working as intended. I need to toss them in the recycle bin. I'll do that tonight.
• Leaning on my mouse or key-board hands while I am using the computer.
• hanging on to my body while I am trying to have a conversation.
• Making ungodly loud racket the moment they detect I am trying to have a phone conversation.
• Asking me questions constantly in such great number and diversity that I forget my own name and wander off for days in a phsychogenic fuge.
• Making requests which I would normally say no to- with greatly intensified persistence and rapidity while additionally tugging my arm as soon as it is detected I destracted because of trying very hard to talk on the phone.

Visit to China (third entry)

As some of you know, I've been keeping a video journal. Go to my video channel, 'Guoji Ren' on that journal to see the video and info re: this experience. Check back on that page later I don't plan to publish any more video until I return from China. Presently there are three videos- especially check back at least a month from now if you happen to actually be interested enough- I have so much video that I can't edit it all from here and enjoy my vacation. What I have edited and posted I did a crude job of for time constraints. Later, expect higher resolution video, wipes and fades, more taken out during a more rigorous editing process etc. In some future blog entry, I should have some more photos for you (besides the ones my son took which I posted previously that is). I haven't taken as many pictures- I've been more interested in video- but I should focus on taking some more pictures before I return. I'm sure they will be important to us- though I am not a good photographer.

• Guoji Ren (the term means "international person/people")

Visit to China (second entry)

Faizi's Survival lists

This is not intended to be universal- but it will be helpful to you in some way I think if you are ever in the mainland to consider some of the things I needed. I'll refer to it myself for next time as well even though I am talking to you in this list.

• Get instant coffee, creamer and sugar or bring same.

• A thing to hang your toiletries in.

• A box to keep by your bedside for stuff. This is intended as a chest really- so that you don't have to search pockets, zippered carrion or suitcases for things you grab five times a day.
• a digital camera with a large memory card and video capture capability such as my fuji finepix.
• Vimeo.com is your friend.
• Ubuntu Linux boot CD (I'm using it now to have unmitigated English access to my Google programs and other off-line OS functions and apps. Trying to guess what a Chinese menu is saying on someone else's computer will drive you nuts)
• Dude just do yourself a favor and refrain from bringing your own computer unless you are moving to China perminently. Plan ahead and work around the need to have your own computer- but trust me - it's not worth the trouble.
• IPod - you'll need the drive space as much as anything. Learn about "disk mode" (google it- and use it well)
• Load tons of episodes from "Chinesepod.com"
• Load tons of apps from "PortableApps.com" (email me if you get confused about how to use that stuff- also note- they will work only on windows computers- not your ubuntu CD)
• To save yourself time re: video-editing and photo blogging, Dump the contents of your cameras storage card on to your IPod (between Ubuntu and the windows computer you will likely have access to hopefully you will figure it out.)
• On Canada Air at this time- if you get routed through Toronto- you'll likely have access to power plugs and usb plugs from your seat - so if you could use the ability to keep a charge- bringing cables in your carry on will actually pay off. (I ran out of juice on my IPod from Toronto to Beijing unnecessarily)
• FSpot photo manager (in Ubuntu) can't view video- but WILL transfer video for you. It also can upload your photos to many popular photo-sites such as Picassa (Google photos- whatever)
• Just don't bring much at all. I came here for a two week trip with a tiny suitcase half filled with presents and a tiny carry-on and it still felt empty. I just had a small book, a pair of pants, a pair of shorts and a few shirts (one pair of white tennis-shoes on my feet). If you attempt in any way to sort of "accommodate" what you think you should have at home you will go insane and spend half your day rummaging. That's always true with travel- but especially in China where you are guaranteed small quarters. Learn from the Chinese on this point- they live very comfortably in small spaces. That's because "NO STUFF!!" and the stuff you do have is tiny, singular, and multifarious of function. (a bed may also be a bench or a sofa or a board-game space or a picknic table)

VISIT TO CHINA (first entry)

I have been to China many times. The first time I came - I lived here for a half year, returned for a Summer and returned for another six months, during which second six month duration I got married. Yadda yadda yadda, ten years and two boys later, here I am again in the city (Chang Chun) where I met my wife, to pick up my son's Ethan (neerly 8 years old) and Elijah (nearly 6). They have been here for three months, living with their uncle and learning to speak Chinese better.

• Map of route
• Pictures ethan took with his camera
• Video log of my trip

I'd have more pictures and stuff but I have been without luggage since I arrived. I've been in the same clothes for five days now. The airport finally located my one small suitcase and we are going to pick it up this morning. (hopefully it's the correct suit-case they found)

"Depressing" Habbits

Since 1933 (AKA. 'The Great Depression')- 2005 is the first year American's taken together spent more then they made. Not sure what that means, but it is interesting. This according to the WallStreet Journal.

Also note: assuming a person invests merely 100$ per month from age 25 to 65 in a 401k or Roth (no match is assumed, and an average annual interest rate of 11% is assumed) that becomes one million, two hundred thousand dollars. Here is another layer. What did the person actually give up over that persiod of time(40 years)? Easy. 12(months) x 40(years) x 100(dollars). fourty eight thousand dollars, or roughly the amount of money the average person pays for a new car by the time they are done paying for it. I am talking about the actual total principle and interest they paid for the car- not the sticker price which is really not what the person has paid- but the interest on top of it. Fellow Americans- if we consider opportunity cost the car may be reasonably said to have cost us one million dollars.

Thats a pretty good argument to buy a relyable 6 or 7 thousand dollar used car with cash, yes?

Sales people and marketing organisations I listen to daily on radio and TV; from credit card companies, car dealerships and the like want us to miopically look at the "payment" and think as short term as possible, living moment to moment as if something being broken into payments somehow makes it cost less (when infact it costs a lot more that way due to interest payments and financing fees and as we looked at- increased opportunity costs).

I would suggest we think in the long term- think of the end of things in the begining when we make decisions. When a person is disciplined and also smart in the begining, later on it can mean being in a position to be a source of stability and help for others.

(E Gooden):

I agree totally that it is just too easy these days for us to get ourselves into credit trouble. And the mentality to keep up with the Jones' (to have the new car, bigger house) is just nuts.

But I have one thing to say about the 401K stuff. You are right that it's a great (or has been thus far) investment. No argument there. One thing that I don't think people think about (or choose to ignore) is that when investing in a mutual fund you are nearly always investing in many corporations that 1. Do not have the public's best interests at heart 2. Engage in unfair/unethical business tactics 3. Adversely affect the environment 4. Exploit workers (in this country and others) and so on.

Big Pharmaceuticals. Big Tobacco. Fast Food. Heavy industry. Financials. You name it - we hate it. Everyday we complain about companies doing things that we deplore. Then what do we do ? We become a part of this system by investing in these companies - hoping that our investment pays off long term.

I'm not saying to invest or not invest in stocks. I would just like for people to think about this. Think about what we are doing. If we are going to complain about these companies then we should at least realize that we are a part of the problem.

I don't have any answers. And I don't know what good can come from us realizing what hypocritical buttheads we are. But I always think that knowing/realizing is surely better than choosing to ignore.

Eric

(me):

That is a very good and thoughtful point. I admit, I am troubled by that- and thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I do think that in the long term the vehicle called the stock market needs to change fundimentally- that change I beleive is actually inevitable, and is on it's way in fact. What change? Well, a mechanism for conciencious and ethical investment needs to mature. Is the investment green? How green? (environmentally friendly or even beneficial). Is it fair? (does the company treat deflated economies and foreign bodies as equals, and it's peoples with dignity, respect and care) and heres a new one- is the company public? I have come to believe that publicly traded companies are inherently gready in terms of the definition comprising it's legal identity. Actually that isn't so much my belief but arguably just a fact. If the company behave in an un-gready way (say if it has a legal opportunity to exploit a comunity in a harmful manner which clearly will be beneficial to the company and chooses not to) they may actually find themselves in direct violation of their stockholders. In the past company heads have been sued for being generous to employees for example. I think that the fact that this is even possible is reason enouph to avoid publicly traded companies- working for them or investing in them. The leadership is by definition finally headless, and by definition greedy in purpose.

(on that last oppinion concerning publicly traded companies feel free to discard it. I admit it is nothing if not controversial, and until I bear the issue out fully in the essay or what not- it is merely my pet notion)

These things as you will well know- are starting to take shape, but a ready mechanism for investers to easilly make ethical choices is as yet very imature. I look for opportunities and also wait for better opportunities to invest in such vehicles.

--Well sure- that's why I like playing with the hundred dollar figgure, and assuming no math. That kind of sacrifice is available nomatter what your income. But why I get off on this is because when people start thinking long-term and rearing their children on the good milk of math and reason, I really believe society can change. For example- assuming we all want to ease unspeakable and widespread suffering in the world (that might not be a safe assumption, but for my part I'm obsessed with it. I am never at peace because I am not built to misplace in the back of my mind the knowledge of what the real world doles out to its unfortunate and especially it's poor)- we need the means to do that. I think we do have the opportunity but we lack the means. In this society at any rate, we only lack the means because in our habbits are so self-indulgent and mindless of the long term, and the power of sacrifice (at first in the sense of frugal living) and then generosity (later- as that sacrifice turns pursposeful). Dollars can really do something right here and now- they can buy crap- they can also rescue someone from desease for example, or from the prison of ignorence if they lack the means for an education.

The Grid

I have been hearing about solar roof's in Japan, and now see, we have them coming up in California. I have been thinking about solar roofing for years as the natural evolution of what human beings have been doing with housing as civilisation advances.
click here to see article featuring the 'Governator'.
Think of how much the human home resembles different artifacts of the natural world- on an abstract or unconscious level. Pillars are like the trunks of trees (if you doubt this, consider that trunks in a forest are said to hold up the "canopy" or the "ceiling" of the forest, and in ancient Egypt and Rome, artisans modeled their pillars with leaf and floral molding as a reflection of the functional and aesthetic similarity to their natural antecedent- the trunk). ' Carpets' of grass are like the carpets in our houses (again in terms of their aesthetic form as well as their function). Windows and doorways would be like the breaks and spaces in the forest, and the dappled canopy much like windowing permits a comfortable filtering of illumination. In a way we have been designing less perfect dwellings then the bird have inhabited since time immemorial.

What are leaves but tiny, super efficient solar panels distributing energy perfectly, wasting not a mole of it's inexhaustible resource, but feeding it to the tree, and then when the leaf dies, creating rich soil from it's own body. One of humanity's goals then is to now learn from nature how to conserve.

As a practical matter, it would seem to me that the only way for this to really work well is to get these houses all plugged in to the/an electric grid, along with wind turbine electricity generators. Otherwise, you have a situation in which individuals will have to store their energy in batteries- a bad idea for a lot of reasons- one of which, you are still wasting a lot of energy that way, and you then have to replace the battery periodically and dispose of the old one. Naturally a grid system would require capacitors and batteries but not nearly the agrigate number which would be required by so many disconnected households.

One obstacle to plugging these into the grid so that the solar energy is "communised" (so to speak) is our very economic philosophy. There is a farmer who wanted to plug his turbine into the grid and receive some kind of reimbursement for the negative electric reading on his meter every month and was bared from doing it. He was the first to want to do something like that so there had been no law conceived about it. Mind you- they made a law for the situation quickly enouph. Capitalist notions of competition on one hand, and "greed is good" on another have a usefulness- but I suspect we are reaching the ceiling of their usefulness. (concerning this farmer- I hope I can find the citation later and include it. I heard about it on NPR perhaps in 07 or so)

The exigencies of the age we live in will require a new economy and a more mature and less primitive economic philosophy- at least a less simplistic one. I'm sure that capitalism in some form will and has always existed in most places- and some degree of it is a good and a necessary thing. I just have outgrown the idea that capitalism is as self-maintaining and benign as we have been led to believe. I think like any social order it requires rigor, scrutiny, many eyes, transparency and (most imprtanly) limitations upon it's powers and scope in order to do it's best job.

I frequently hear capitalisms proponents intimating that "the economy" will solve this or that problem on it's own. It seems there is an underlying faith that the less we interfere witht he natural course of capitalism and with it's native gears and cogs of competition and self-interest, the better it works and the more problems it automatically resolves. It would seem capitalism is a vertually maintnenence-free philosophy- an unqualified good for every situation it encounters. Tell me though for example, what is the market 'automatically' doing about world hunger? Um, making it worse infact as far as I am able to tell. What was 'the market' automatically doing about environmental exploitation or species extinction? I would say it's fair to point out that before the EPA came along to limit the powers and scope of capitalism, the market fiddled while Rome burned on that issue as well such that if aligator hand-bags were fashionable, and supply dwindled, the preciousness of aligator skin was increased in tandem with scarcity pooring gasoline on the problems the species faced.

My point is not that capitalism is evil- just that it has limitations and that it also isn't designed to to have an automatically beneficial effect upon everything it touches. It's a good Pavlovian way to motivate a person away from discomfort and towards pleasure. It's needful. We need more than 'greed is good' that however to build a goodly and sustainable society which will shelter, rear and serve our descendents at least as well as it has done for us.

Price of Gas

It is my belief that high gas prices are in the long run - good for us, despite the fact that it is painful.

1. cheap, readily available gas ultimately indicates a healthy and growing fossil fuel industry.
2. the oil industry carries with it the following results on an ongoing basis:
1. Incentive for international warfare.
2. Global warming.
3. slowness to adopt renewable and sustainable energy models such as hydro, electric, hybrid, bio-diesel, solar and fuel-cell based models.
4. negative effects upon domestic security insofar as; so long as we are dependent on oil, we will always be considerably dependent on foreign (often hostile) sources of it.
5. unfortunate decisions have to be made concerning our natural wilderness (the Anuar for example).
6. The greed precipitated by the inherently limited nature of this sort of fuel spurred great injustice and exploitation in the world such as what is taking place in Nigeria (if you don't know, our oil companies are in there drilling, destroying land, and employing everyone there on a slaves wage creating poverty while we continue to get rich) or the successful Coup d'état of democratically elected Mohammed Mosaddeq (Read up: "Anglo-Iranian" now called BP).
   

In fairness, lets consider the downside of the death of the oil industry:

1. In the short term, it is an expensive proposition while Americans transition to renewable sources of energy.
   * But wait- isn't that what the south was saying about Abolition? They complained that it's expensive for them to loose all that free labor. Weren't many of the grievances before the war merely economic? Hmm...