Ramblings

just between us demented gimps

2011-07-25T15:04:00.003-06:00

Since 1976, I have been recovering from a bout with encephalomyelitis that had me comatose, then quadriplegic, then paraplegic and, after the late eighties, ambulatory to some extent. The upshot is that I am able to see things from a perspective that affords me some insight into the outsider, the misunderstood, even the victims of prejudice. I am able to hear the insights in discussions of white privilege or multiculturalism or other assumption-questioning concepts.

At present, that means some immunity from the attempts to manipulate me that seem to be the main output from an old acquaintance of mine. He exaggerates his own cognitive and physical problems in what seems like a never-ending search for sympathy and guilt-induced compliance to his own wants and whims.

I am afraid he will just dismiss me as one more of the threatening hordes of evildoers that his overactive imagination seems to be surrounding him with. Ah, well. It's not as if I'm unacquainted with being misunderstood.

So many Scott Heaths

2011-07-06T11:38:00.002-06:00

When I thought I'd dig up my neglected blogger.com website, I couldn't recall what I had named it. I tried scottheath.blogspot.com [no, different Mr. Heath], and even scottrheath.blogspot.com [not me, either]. It's actually sheathramblings.blogspot.com that ends up here.

I don't think either of these Scotts is the one responsible for collection agencies often calling me by mistake, but my thick neurotrauma accent usually convinces them that I am not that Scott Heath.

Lately, I've begun calling myself the Scott Heath.

Blogging 2011

2011-07-06T11:27:00.002-06:00

Back in 2002 or so I used the web-accessible storage space provided by my e-mail service to cobble together my own home page. Since then, services like Blogger.com have sprung up to automate the whole process. I see that I've not been taking the time to make a lot of entries into this blog, though. Maybe if I just incorporated more controversial phrases, I would pop up in more searches and get some replies.

Paris 2009 soft cover

2010-01-06T13:44:00.001-07:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

Starting Over

2008-04-23T11:12:00.003-06:00

When I first began my Internet presence, the word 'blog' did not exist, and I used a rather clumsy design for my home page. Eventually, I let the whole issue drop. Now, there are a great many "social network" services out there and I hope to become active in a few, which I'll be adding links to here or on my home page.

What's This Blog For?

2006-05-10T09:52:00.000-06:00

A readership for this blog does not exist yet, which is mostly my own fault. I haven't told anyone about it, and if someone did find it by chance, he or she would soon realize that I haven't been updating it very often.

So, to start off the public unveiling of this blog, feel free to tell me what you think I should start discussing (even if it is something like 'whatever feels right').

This Intelligence Thing

2005-11-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

"This intelligence thing might not work out, you know." The book group I was saying this to must have assumed I meant the silly attempt of the current government to blame the WMD issue on "bad intelligence." But by intelligence I meant the self-aware brain functions we pretentiously call intelligence. After all, I observed, intelligence hasn't existed on this planet for all that long. Everyone just assumes that we humans are the "intelligent" species (an arguable assumption, I know, but you know what I mean), but there are plenty of species that have been getting along perfectly well without this dubious gift of intelligence. And they've been at it for a much longer time than us. They could do so even if we use our cleverness to make nuclear devices and wipe ourselves out. Species so simple they could survive a nuclear winter. Like cockroaches, for instance.

One of the points I made was that, if you looked at the age of the universe as one year (with the big bang on January 1 and the present as midnight on New Year's Eve, as Carl Sagan did, see the link above), then the dinosaurs get a week and human history gets about 5 minutes. Arguably, those pea-sized dinosaur brains may have done better by their host species than all our grey matter is doing for us.

These observations were greeted with admirable tolerance, and normal conversation soon resumed.

I'm back!

2005-10-12T14:14:00.000-06:00

When I need a break from my regular work, I find myself checking here to see if these Blogger people have deleted this blog for inactivity. They haven't, so I'm making an entry for no good reason.

Pragmatic Progressive

2005-01-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

While I like to consider my personal values to be primarily independent of politics, I sometimes identify with the values of compassion, equality, and idealism that I think of as civilized but others may dismiss as "Liberal". After all, the real dangers of such an identity are evident in the more common adjectives that often accompany that word. Adjectives like "fuzzy-thinking" or "unrealistic".

It is my hope that the phrase "pragmatic progressive" will remind me to hold on to the idealism and compassion implied by the "progressive" label, but be willing to examine things like unintended consequences (thus the "pragmatic" modifier).

Another phrase that sounded nice, at first, was "compassionate conservative". I suspect the idea behind that coinage was to combat the reservation most Americans still had about conservatives: the image of the corrupt, insensitive, selfish establishment figure who ruthlessly exploits whatever resources are available for personal gain. That moniker has served its purpose, that is to say that some folk were willing to believe that a political figure could be both compassionate and conservative. But the people aspiring to that moniker, by their seeming insistence on being corrupt, insensitive, selfish establishment types, have devalued it and put it in danger of becoming a symbol of hypocrisy.

Actually, most Americans could be considered "pragmatic progressives". I think that's what I'll try to be.

American Divide: War of the Filters

2004-11-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

We all have filters to block out the huge amounts of irrelevant crap that gets hurled at us each day, in spam (refinance now!!!, hot stock tip!!!, hot teens!!!) or TV (Drive this and be sexy!!!, eat this and be sexy!!!, ask your doctor about this and be sexy!!!). For example, some of us tune out anything starting with the phrase "Bush lied" as 'silly' or 'childish' whining from the nattering nabob set. Others tune out any mention of the president that doesn't include the word "liar" as more nonsense from the right-wing echo chamber.

I don't think adding to this left-right debate (which really predates America itself) is a good use of anyone's time.

I feel that religious humanitarianism is something that the political-left should pay more attention to. Tikkun.org is one (Jewish-flavored) element; there's also FCNL.org (Quaker-flavored) and the Sojourners movement (Evangelical, no less, at www.sojo.net). These are just a few examples of existing organizations with a strong spirit-based positions that don't get bogged down in religion.

That last comment relies on a distinction between "religion" and "spirituality" which is itself a distinction both the fundamentalists and the social progressives often fail to appreciate. I think that may be why the "religious left" has been ignored.

Here's a link to the Friend's Committee on National Legislation, if you'd like to check them out.

Separate Realities

2004-10-28T13:26:00.000-06:00

The world series victory puts me in mind of other struggles that are going on...

I've been struck by how often the sudden switchbacks and jaw-dropping falsehoods of some political figures (it doesn't matter which ones) contradict what I think are the facts. The PIPA.org report, "The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters" confirms what I long suspected: they and I live in separate worlds.

The problem is that actions that seem reasonable to one group can be disastrous in the world of the other group.

There's a real correspondance here to the religious cult phenomenon of the 70s, and one lesson I learned from that experience is that only the individual caught up in a separate reality can break out of it. Nobody else can do it for them (deprogramming seldom worked).

Seriously looking at opposing views helps: some of them are easily dismissed, but if some are troubling, check them out.

The old gray goose

2004-09-10T11:20:00.000-06:00

Last year, Linda's birthday presents included a lawn goose. Every few months (or more often sometimes) we change her costume. Linda has made some, her sister Jeannette has given her some, and some we order from LawnGooseDesigns.com.

The link below takes you to my Club Photo album of goose pictures. There are also some new pictures in the Family album.

Manchurian Candidate: Then and Now

2004-09-02T09:55:00.000-06:00

Manchurian Candidate: Then and Now
I finally took in the theatrical movie "The Manchurian Candidate" last weekend, then watched a DVD of the original last night. They are both good movies, but the differences are revealing.

For one thing, the power-mad, villainous mother has gone from a manipulating political wife to a manipulative senator. Righties say Meryl Streep's character is obviously based on Hillary Clinton, and lefties assume that the inspiration for the character must be Barbara Bush. The actress admits to using many manipulative characters, mostly Maggie Thatcher (although I thought I saw some of Lady Macbeth in there).

But what really struck me is the replacement of The International Communist Conspiracy with two unrelated villains. First, there's the Terrorist Threat, which dominates all the political speeches and television reports in the new movie, and serves as the fear-generating device used by cynical politicos. Second, we have Manchurian Global, the Halliburton/Carlyle Group style multinational investment company that actually does the brainwashing to cement their place in U.S. government.

Both movies maintain a careful non-partisan stance. Lefties point out how the New York convention makes this clearly the GOP, while righties dwell on the striking resemblance of the candidates to Kerry and Edwards. I felt like the visual similarities to the Democrats let the filmmakers get away with what might come across as an anti-Bush polemic.

I also noted that the original leaves the Frank Sinatra/Major Marcos character in the Army as he goes on to Save the World. The Denzel Washington/Marcos character is discharged from the Army, and then Saves the World on his own, albeit with the help of the FBI.

But, as I said, the movies are both top-notch entertainment. Their differences tell me more about how the moviegoing audiences have changed, and who makes a plausible/acceptable villain or hero these days.

-Scott
[here's a link to the Metacritic page on the new movie]

First Ramble

2004-08-12T11:59:00.000-06:00

When I reworked my website a few years ago, I reserved a page for "ramblings", thinking that I would use the space to share little essays from folks in my family. I even attached the Internet address of my home page in our annual holiday card. Since then, I never got around to creating little essays, putting them in Internet form, and uploading them to my web page. So nobody came back to the my web page.

Since then, the "blog" movement grew up as people with the same idea started doing what I was only thinking I might do. Now, Yahoo is offering a service to do just that for free, so I'm giving it a spin. Tell me what you'd like to see here.

-Scott
[here's a link to my home page]