mind blowing books: thinking outside the boxes

(30 Mar 2006 23:01)

This blog entry began as a simple couple of sentence comments to someone else's photograph of Chichen Itza, but then I realized I had so much to say on the subject that I should really post it as a blog entry instead of writing a novel in the comments section!


Going all the way back to the time I was a very small child, I wanted to be an astrophysicist, ( and yes I learned to say that word very early on because of all of the annoying ignoramus adults who invariably answered my response of "astronomer" with, "Oh so you, like, are into astrology? Wow, what’s your sign?") an archaeologist, an anthropologist and a musician. Then, I got older and was fortunate enough to be recommended by my science teacher (a wonderful woman to whom I will be forever grateful) to spend my Saturdays at Caltech as part of their Saturday Science Project. It was nerd heaven and if I had been mathematically inclined enough, I would probably have gone on to be a very rich woman by now. I shall have to write more about that in another blog. However, my grasp of physics has always been conceptual, not mathematical and so I went with my strengths, which were in the humanities. I have a degree in psychology, a teaching credential, speak three languages, play the piano and believe that we must nurture the creative parts of our souls as much as the so called “practical” parts in order to be happy. Perhaps it is the duality of my scientific and creative natures that makes that so clear to me. My particular blend of interests has led me to do quite a bit of reading in the area of knowledge where science, culture, myth/beliefs and art intersect. I am not only interested in what we know but how we and others have perceived it, tried to interpret it in the light of the knowledge and beliefs of the particular time and culture; and what impact this has had on the people in terms of how they have then applied that knowledge and interpretation to shape their culture and beliefs.

There are piles of books I could recommend as being fascinating reading in this and related areas. Here are just a few. I will try to periodically write about more of them in my blogs. I had so many and a lot of them were lost when I wasn’t able to keep up my storage place payments awhile back so I’m having to track down some of the names again without having the books right in front of me. Oh well.


1) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. [ link ]
Read this book. If you’re like most of us, you go to school and you are taught in science classes that we use the scientific method to figure out science. You make observations, come up with hypotheses, test, come up with more hypotheses, test etc. You also learn that people in other cultures and earlier times (and if you are really smart you notice that this applies to Republicans today) simply went with superstitions and tried to find ways to make their observations fit their beliefs. What he shows here is that it is more complex than that. The prevailing viewpoint tends to develop into a belief system that everyone tries to fit the data into until the preponderance of anomalous results forces the necessity of a paradigm shift to a new model. Much debated and yet it will certainly make you think. It was a required text for my history of science class and has been called a landmark in intellectual history and one of the hundred most influential books since the Second World War.


2) Conversing with the Planets: How Science and Myth invented the Cosmos, by Anthony Aveni [ link ] "Conversing with the Planets is the first popular work of astronomical anthropology, a field pioneered by Anthony Aveni, who has taught anthropology and astronomy at Colgate University for over twenty-five years. It interweaves the astronomy, mythology, and anthropology of ancient cultures by showing how to discover the harmony between their beliefs and their study of the sky. Modern scientists often dismiss the scientific contributions of archaic astronomers because earlier cultures wove their observations into elaborate, often weird - by our standards - mythologies about living planetary deities. The ancients spoke to the planets, and they believed the planets talked back. Aveni urges us to reconsider their discoveries and asks us to set aside for a while the ideas that our modern, technology-based astronomy has given to us about the sun, moon, and planets, in order to look at these celestial bodies through ancient eyes. Focusing on the belief systems of the Mayans, Babylonians, Chinese, and other cultures from antiquity through the Renaissance to the present, Aveni argues that we cannot separate the scientific contributions from the cultures that gave rise to them. Aveni's reexamination, based on in-depth anthropological studies, including the decoding of old Mayan and Babylonian texts, reveals that the ancients were far from the misguided, superstitious characters we now consider them to be. They were, in fact, deeply attuned to the motion of the sun, moon, and planets, and they used their naked-eye observations to create not only intricate astrologies and mythologies - in particular, those revolving around Venus - but also extremely accurate records and projections of meteorological phenomena."
Whether or not one agrees with every conclusion, Aveni provides a valuable service in terms that we tend to look at these subjects so often within discretely separated categories; from the standpoint of science, from the historical or anthropological viewpoint. The ability to use a broader perspective allows us insights we can never get staying solely “inside the box”. His discussion of the intricately precise and complex observations of Venus and its role in Mayan Society is what got me thinking about writing this page in the first place after seeing a photo of Chichen Itza.

3) The Artful Universe Expanded by John D. Barrow
I love this book. I’ve gone most of my life with the world telling me that science and art are two completely different, even diametrically opposed things. The very structure and nature of our universe has had profound effects on the way we perceive it and therefore on what we find aesthetically pleasing.
“The Artful Universe Expanded is an updated edition of this popular book first published in 1995. It explores the deeply profound manner in which natural law and the nature of the cosmos have moulded and shaped us, our cultures and the very form of our arts and music—a new type of `cosmic' anthropology. The main themes Barrow chooses for revealing this new anthropology are the subjects of evolution, the size of things, the heavens and the nature of music.
The book is a large, eclectic repository of knowledge often unavailable to the layperson,\endcolumn hidden in esoteric libraries around the world. It rivals The Da Vinci Code for entertainment value and insights, but this time it is Nature’s code that is revealed. It is rare indeed to find common threads drawn through topics as diverse as The Beetles, Bach and Beethoven or between Jackson Pollock, the Aztecs, Kant, Picasso, Byzantine mosaics, uranium-235 and the helix nebula. Barrow unerringly binds them together, presenting them in a stimulating, conversational style that belies the amount of time that must have gone into researching this book.” [ link ]

4) Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain
I’ve read several of Shlain’s books and find them fascinating. He is a surgeon who draws on brain research, psychology and history to make deep connections about how and why we perceive the world the way we do and in this book shows the way "revolutionary art anticipates visionary physics," [ link ]
from a review in Reason, by Nathan Shedroff:
“..one of the most interesting books on how we've developed an understanding of our world. It is the best book on physics you will ever read--and the best one on art history. By digging into our past, Shlain gives you a sense of how the politics, emotion, theory, and inspiration of art, science, culture, and technology mix.”

OK you guys already knew I was a nerd. Now you have confirmation. But you’ll have to admit after reading any of these books that it’s a hell of a lot more interesting reading than the usual escapist stuff. It’s a lot wilder and a whole lot less predictable when you start thinking outside the box. Enjoy! And don’t say I didn’t warn you if your mind gets blown.

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The Zero Emissions Campaign

(28 Mar 2006 19:46)

Breaking America’s Oil Addiction

America is Addicted to Oil

Right now, every ecosystem on earth is noticeably impacted by the effects of our oil addiction; from drilling, to shipping, to refining oil is a toxic industry. With 70% of our oil coming from conflict regions, the oil economy funds war, props up dictators, and subverts the principles of peace and democracy. And don’t forget about climate change, which has already raised global temperatures to unprecedented levels. While the problem is complex, the solution is strikingly simple: if the auto industry embraced fuel
efficiency, we would break our oil addiction. The Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange have joined together to campaign to end the auto industry’s dependence on oil.

The Auto Industry Drives Our Addiction

The Big Three Love to Guzzle Gas.

1 out of every 7 barrels of the world’s oil is consumed on US highways. The top 3 U.S. automakers are responsible for more CO2 emissions than all but 4 countries (U.S., China, Japan and Russia). And after 30 years of efforts to increase fuel efficiency standards, the average US car guzzles more gas today than it did in the Reagan years.

Oil Companies Won’t Stop Drilling As Long As We
Keep Consuming Oil.

After years of efforts to cancel destructive petroleum projects, environmental & human rights advocates have strikingly little to show
for our efforts. When we persuade an oil company to abandon a project, another fills in the gap. One petroleum development shutting down is a drop in the bucket to the global oil industry. The bottom line is that we must curb the demand for petroleum that fuels the quest for oil.

Personal Lifestyle Changes Aren’t Enough.

We might try to drive less, bike more, or take public transportation, but as long as the automakers keep producing gas guzzlers, our efforts will be cancelled out. To break our collective oil addiction, we must insist that the auto industry commit to petroleum free, pollution free alternatives NOW.

Why Jumpstart Ford?

Ford Motor Company has the worst overall fuel efficiency of any major automaker in America according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In fact, for the past five straight years, and for 20 of the past 30 years, Ford cars and trucks have been the nation’s top gas guzzlers.

Ironically, 80-years ago the Ford Model-T could travel 24 miles on every gallon of gasoline; today the average Ford vehicle can only travel 18.8 miles on that same gallon. What’s more, the Union of Concerned Scientists reports that Ford vehicles emit more global warming greenhouse gasses than any major automaker in America.

Ford is Leading Us in the Wrong Direction.

As one of the largest corporations and one of the biggest brands in the US, Ford should lead the way with fuel efficiency innovation. If they wanted to, Ford could use existing technology to immediately improve the fuel economy of its gasoline-only cars and trucks to 40 mpg, or build a fleet of plug-in hybrid gas-electric cars to get 60 mpg. Instead, Ford discontinued the zeroemission Ford Ranger EV which didn’t use any gas while providing the same horse power as gas guzzling pick ups. The solutions are here; that’s why we are asking Ford to commit to a fleet-wide average of 50 miles per gallon by 2010 and a fleet of zero emissions vehicles by 2020.

“Clearly, the entire industry
could build nothing but zero
emissions cars today if it
wanted to.”
-Niel Golightly, Ford’s Director of
Environmental Strategies USA Today
September 2, 2004

Intervene By Adopting a Ford Dealer

The public face of Ford Motor Company is its dealers. There are over 13,000 dealerships worldwide for Ford and its subsidiary brands, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover. Most dealers are independent businesses, and many of them agree that it’s time to kick America’s oil addiction. The easiest way to join the campaign for a sustainable, petroleum-free future is to find a Ford dealer near you, ask for a meeting, and launch your own intervention to stop Ford from driving America’s oil addiction!

The Time is Now

Global warming is happening; the debate over the future of today’s inefficient internal combustion engine is over. It’s not a matter of if Ford will manufacture a zero-emission fleet, but when. The first automaker to market a zero-emission automobile may be the only automaker left producing, or allowed to produce, cars in the 21st century.

What You Can Do
♣ Adopt a Ford dealer near you

♣ Declare Independence from Oil at
www.freedomfromoil.com

♣ Write or Call Bill Ford Jr. and tell him to stop
driving America’s Oil Addiction.
1-800-392-3673
-or-
Ford Motor Company
The American Road
Dearborn, MI 48120

♣ Go to www.jumpstartford.com to learn more
and Join the Campaign!

Did You Know?
• The United States is responsible for 25% of
the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and
yet has only 5% of the world’s population.
• The US is populated by 220 million
automobiles; each vehicle generates 50 to
100 tons of carbon in its lifetime.
• Americans use more oil per person than any
other developed nation on Earth.
• Over 1600 Americans have died in the war
for oil in Iraq.
• 70%of America’s oil comes from conflict
regions with 40 percent coming directly from
undemocratic countries in the Middle East.
• Climate change will threaten up to 34% of all
plant and animal species by 2050, including
up to 87% of plant species in the Amazon
rainforest.

Check out the Flash animated movie: [ link ]

Global Exchange • Rainforest Action Network • The Ruckus Society

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¡Sí, Se Puede!

(27 Mar 2006 18:23)

I am so proud of the kids today. When so many of my generation can sit on their a**es and proudly brag about how many times they have seen this or that movie, and can't even go beyond useless lip service to do the kinds of things that would show that they really cared about their so called loved ones, these kids were out there standing up for the rights of their loved ones, their friends, families and community.
Thousands of high school kids walked out of their schools today and walked miles and miles to City Halls and Federal buildings to protest proposed immigration laws that would make felons out of people who are just trying to find a way to survive in an increasingly selfish and cutthroat world. As usual, our rich bastards in Washington are trying to use fearmongering and tales of terrorism to fan the flames of racism and cruelty.
I was aware that over 500,000 people had protested in downtown LA on Saturday, but having been busy with my dad's funeral had not been able to follow all of the details and so I didn't realize the kids were going to walk out of school today until I got to Glendale high school to substitute teach today and saw a hand lettered sign on the outside of the school "walkout". Sure enough, at lunch time a large crowd gathered in the central quad, and began marching and chanting. They tried to leave the school but the police kept them in. After I left the school, I heard on the radio that students all over LA had left schools in large numbers and marched many miles to places like LA City Hall, where the mayor commended them for their courage. They even blocked a freeway interchange for a time.
So I wasn't too surprised when I got off the freeway by my apartment to see a large crowd of high school kids marching down Sherman Way. I know there is a Federal Building here in Van Nuys so I quickly surmised that that was where they were headed, parked my car, ran into my apartment, grabbed my camera and walking quickly down the street, soon caught up with them. They were great kids.
Some of the kids had come from Cleveland high school. They had been walking over 6 1/2 miles by the time they reached my apartment. Some had come from Reseda high school. That's 4 1/2 miles. It is another three miles from my place to the Federal building. They walked it with pride and enthusiasm, with cars honking their horns , chanting and yelling slogans of support. When some of the kids got tired, others would encourage them to keep going, "We're almost there!" About 100 kids made it all the way, they told me as many as 1000 has started out. They had come past several schools on the way out so probably did not take the most direct route so they probably walked even more than my yahoo map estimates here show.
They had marched out of school in the early afternoon and at first, the school had tried to keep them in but when they all started to scale the fences, they opened them to prevent injury. These kids are smart, they are committed and aware of what is at stake for everyone. Although they didn't call the media until they reached the Federal building a bit after 5 pm, they are learning fast... there will be more walkouts tomorrow morning and this time they have been forewarned. Certainly there was a lot of news coverage of the protesters in downtown LA and I had heard coverage on the radio of an earlier group of protesters in Van Nuys.
To some this may be a very controversial issue. I say what we have been doing is not working, and what is proposed is draconian scapegoating and wrong. Yes, we need to know who comes in our country but giving out only 5000 visas a year for low wage workers is insane. It totally ignores the realities of life for millions of people and it would be far better to have more legal ways to enter the country than to simply pretend that one can legislate away reality and label huge numbers of hardworking people felons for doing what they can to live. My own maternal grandparents came here legally as teenagers during the Mexican revolution. My dad lived in various countries for ten years waiting for his visa. He was a single man. These are not workable options for too many people. Lke it or not, it's the reality of life here and for a whole lot of kids, who had no choice in the matter, who work very hard to do well in school and have the same hopes, dreams and goals your kids do, it is completely unfair to punish them for the fact that their parents wanted them to have a better chance at life. I'm posting some of the pictures I took here on my photos and the whole set will be in a yahoo photo album see this [ link ]

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interesting

(26 Mar 2006 13:09)

My dad had always loved fountains and he had one installed a number of years ago in his front yard. He used to fuss with it and turn it on when people came over. At first he had a cord running our to it, later they had an underground electical line put in that went under the driveway and came up to the fountain. It stopped working a couple of years ago and though they had had electricians out to look at it it had not worked in those two years. After the mortuary took my dad away last Saturday afternoon, people started to arrive to visit my mom. We realized the fountain was running but not that it hadn't been working all that time... we just thought our mom had turned it on till she told us that. It is working every day now. It was running yesterday when we came back from the funeral.

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ouch

(25 Mar 2006 21:54)

Next time someone else better close my mom's rollup garage door. It tried to eat three of my fingers on my right hand. One is ok and two fingers are now in splints and it is a pain in the a** to try to type this way. As a matter of fact it is hard to do everything this way. At least I still have fingers and the x rays didn't show any fractures or crushed bones, just crushed fingers.

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truths

(24 Mar 2006 20:36)

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
William Sloane Coffin (1924-)

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by
silence. -Henri Frederic Amiel philosopher and writer (1821-1881)


Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)


The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)


When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and
so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open
for us. -Alexander Graham Bell, inventor (1847-1922)


Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, volume 3, 1939-1944

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin (1903-1977)

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necessity

(24 Mar 2006 9:07)

...love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other.
Han Suyin [Elizabeth Comber]
b. 1917 Chinese writer and physician

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lesson

(22 Mar 2006 23:50)

Once upon a time a man whose ax was missing suspected his neighbor's son.
The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief.
But the man found his ax while digging in the valley, and the next time he
saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked and spoke like any other
child. -Lao-tzu, philosopher (6th century BCE)

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Entering a fourth year of war. Resistance

(20 Mar 2006 12:40)

This weekend marks the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. Protests are being held worldwide. Over two million people have now signed the Women say no to war statement and it can still be signed here
[ link ] When I was at the protest last weekend, I took pictures of the Arlington west Memorial that Veterans for Peace sets up on Santa Monica beach every Sunday. Today I am posting them in honor of all of the people who have died because of this war.

Many of you on these pages are young and are being targeted by recruiters in your schools and colleges. Here are resources for you. Learn the truth. Don't let these people bully you and make you feel you have no options. Help organize resistance on your campuses. [ link ]

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Steven Vasari, 1921-2006

(19 Mar 2006 12:28)

My dad died yesterday after a long struggle with Alzheimer's, kidney failure and years of heart problems. He died peacefully in his own bedroom. I think he knew he was finally back home. It was just about 24 hours after he came home from the hospital.

He was born Stefan Vášáry, in Banská Štiavnica [ link ] , Czechoslovakia (This is now in the Slovak Republic). He had one brother, Josef who was six years older than him. His father was Hungarian, his mother Slovak. When the married, Slovakia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia was not a country until 1918. [ link ] My dad often talked about life high up in the mountains with lots of snow in the winter, buildings in his hometown that dated back to the 11th century, swimming in the lakes in the summer and eating the delicious meats and sausages his father, a butcher prepared. As one would expect for someone who grew up in the crossroads of Eastern Europe, he learned many languages in school. He spoke Slovak, Hungarian, Czech, Latin, French, and understood some Polish, German and Russian. Later in life, he had to learn Spanish and English as well.

He got a degree in law, just in time for Hitler, World War II and then the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia all to assure that the system of law he had studied would never again be used in his country. Right after WWII he received a scholarship to study in Paris and was there when the communists took over back home. He decided not to return and did not see his home country again for 40 years.
His brother already married and teaching remained there and raised two daughters, who grew up to be very famous film actresses. Their films have won many awards in Europe, at Cannes and recently, one was nominated for an academy award for best foreign film [ link ] . Emilia Vášáryová works in movies and tv and teaches acting. She visited us just a few years ago. Magda Vášáryová her younger sister was also a hugely popular actress and made many many movies as well. She visited us in 1980 and her daughters visited us a few years ago. She also has a degree in sociology and after the fall of the iron curtain, became very involved in politics. She served as the Czechoslovak ambassador to Vienna for several years and started a foundation to promote east -west business and cultural contacts. In 1999, she ran for the presidency of the Slovak Republic and came in third place. (Czechoslovakia had an amicable split into two countries, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic). After that, she served several years as the Slovak ambassador to Warsaw. I see from this speech here given in 2005 that she is now listed as State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Slovakia [ link ]

Since there were no jobs for him in Paris, he applied to be able to come to the United States and was put on a ten year waiting list. So he went to Buenos Aires, Argentina where other Slovaks lived. He learned Spanish. He lived and worked there for a few years, then was transferred to Venezuela and worked there. After that, he moved to Montreal, where he knew more Slovaks and where he attended Mc Gill University and got a degree in accounting. He also learned English. Finally, ten years had gone by and he was able to enter the United States.
He came to Los Angeles and was taken to some meetings of the Los Angeles Catholic Alumni Club by another Slovak friend. He introduced him to my mom, something they always laughed about afterwards because the other guy wanted to date my mom but she ended up liking my dad better. They married in December of 1961. I was born the following September. After that, my dad went to Cal State LA and then UCLA because he was not happy working in accounting. My mom was teaching and supported him through school. In June of 1965, they had a very eventful week. One day, he received his US citizenship, the next, my sister was born and the next day he received his PhD in Spanish Literature. Thirteen months later, my other sister decided that July was a much better time to be born than September and that 3 lbs 3 oz was big enough to take the world on . We weren’t sure she was going to make it but she did. Our little house was getting way too small for all of us so we moved to a bigger one and he got a job teaching Spanish and Spanish literature at Cal State Fullerton. He worked there till he retired in 1987.

1969 was a very special year for my dad because his brother finally received permission from the communist government of Czechoslovakia to visit us. He was not told until the very last minute if my aunt was going to be allowed to come with him. In those days, they really did not like to let people go at all, much less with family lest they defect. To have the parents of well known actresses defect would not have been seen as a good thing, but they did not want to cause trouble for my cousins so they did go back after their visit, even if my aunt did cry when she saw the abundant selection and quality of foods and goods in the stores here. It was very special to get to meet them. We watched the first moon landing together on our tv. My uncle died only a couple of years after that from a huge stroke so we were very lucky to have seen him.

In 1972, my dad spent a month in Madrid, Spain doing research. We flew over there to join him at the end of that month and spent another three weeks traveling throughout Spain visiting many cities. It was a big adventure; we had reservations in Madrid and for our last week of the trip, in Paris. Everywhere else we went; we just got on the train, arrived at the city and then found a place to stay. We had my grandmother with us and my youngest sister turned six during the trip. We had just arrived in Seville, it was already early evening and we just found a place to stay. Then my mom wanted a birthday cake for her. So she sent my dad out looking. Everything was closed because in Spain in the early evening everything closed until quite late at night, when people would come out for dinner. So he finally came back with the only cake he could find—an ice cream cake he smuggled into the hotel. We had no refrigerator and ate ice cream using plastic bags for plates until we never wanted to see ice cream again! It was a fun trip. The only time our lack of reservations messed up our plans was when we got to a tiny village in the Pyrenees Mountains late at night thinking that we would spend the night there, then take the train to Lourdes, France the next day and then go to Paris from there. But we happened to arrive on the one day out of the whole year when it was the local saint’s festival day, so there was absolutely no room at the inn. We were ready to sleep on the floor of the railway station but my parents really didn’t want to do that to my grandmother. My dad saw a train sitting on the tracks and asked where it was headed. “Paris”, they said, “but it is already behind schedule”. They let us get on the train but we had to do it so quickly that they had us pay for our fares after the train was already underway, rather than have it wait for us to pay at the counter. We slept sitting up all night in a crowded car and arrived in Paris, a day earlier than our reservations. We were allowed to stow our luggage at the hotel but could not get into our rooms until evening so our first day in Paris was spent wandering the city, tired but excited. We were there a week and then flew home with many many memories.

After that, we moved once more, to Arcadia, where my dad could have a somewhat closer drive to work while still not being too far from Los Angeles where my mom was still teaching. My dad’s research, which had been focused on the Spanish poet José de Espronceda, shifted to work on the French poet, Charles Baudelaire. He spent all of his time on him after that, publishing several papers on his poems.

He had a swimming pool put in and loved to swim and take us to to the beach in the summer. He also loved the mountains. We grew up speaking Spanish and English with a little bit of French and Slovak and eating foods from everywhere. When they were married, my mom did not know how to cook Slovak and Hungarian foods. He found an old lady who had books in Hungarian and translated recipes that had measurements in them such as “pinch,” “handful” and “gill”. The recipe for Chicken Paprikash began this way, “Climb the fence and steal the neighbor’s chicken”. He loved ice cream and always had at least two different flavors in the freezer, usually Kona coffee and some form of chocolate. Ice cream and cookies were his favorite dessert. Every day on the way home from work he would call my mom from the market and ask her what groceries she needed. This helped her get home sooner, it also ensured that he could come home with more ice cream for him and flowers for her. She always had fresh flowers.
While the other children we knew all had to wait until Christmas for presents, we always knew that December 6th was the feast of St. Nicholas. Back in Czechoslovakia, children would put their boots out the night before for him and they knew that in the morning, they would be filled with small presents and good things to eat. So we always put our (rain)boots ( hey this was LA!) out the night before and had fun running to see what was in them in the morning! He used to tell us how on St Nicholas day, St Nicholas, and angel and a devil would visit his school. The good children would get candy. They were told that the devil had coal and a spanking for the bad ones.
In 1987, he retired from the University. After that, he spent more time on his research and volunteering at his church. He and my mom visited Czechoslovakia, the only time he went back and the first time he had seen it in 40 years. There was a lot of change going on with glastnost and perestroika, but my mom was still aware that shadowy figures followed them from a distance and watched where they went and who they saw. They visited my aunt, my cousins and their families and went to his home town.

Starting in 1991, with the birth of my daughter and my sister’s daughter, he became a grandparent. I later had two more boys and my sister had one more girl. My mom retired and they had a few years together before his health really started getting bad. He had always had blood pressure problems but six years ago, he had to have a five way bypass and a valve replacement. That and a pacemaker later helped, but his health was really starting to decline. After that, he lost a kidney to cancer and over time, the other one began do work less and less efficiently, it was the failure of this other kidney that was the most immediate cause of his death yesterday. Alzheimer’s disease began to take its toll 3-4 years ago. Although the most difficult part was when we had to have his driver’s license taken away and he still did not realize that there was a problem, we were lucky to have been spared the years and years some people go through of late stage Alzheimer’s disease. While he was no longer a safe driver and his personality began to change, he went through at least a year, maybe more of time that was relatively happy for him, even if it must have worried my mom quite a bit. He had not been an especially outgoing man and he started wandering off on walks. He would go out and meet strangers and make friends with them, a good thing since they sometimes ended up having to help him find his way home and some of them became friends with my mom and started looking out for the both of them. One couple down the street came over often with their little boys and my dad used to love to go swimming with them. When the lady had her baby daughter he was as excited about it as he had been with his own grandchildren. It was so cute. My mom would take him to the park to walk and he would want to join the birthday parties and have cake. People were very good to him. The last two years saw him spending more and more time in the hospital as his general health declined and his only remaining kidney began to fail. This was the hardest part but though his memory and health was fading, he still knew us most of the time around Christmas. Although he enjoyed seeing the kids, his memory of exactly who they were was no longer there but he was still happy to see them. I am glad for everyone’s sake including his own that his other health problems took him before he had to spend a lot of time like that. There were times in the last few weeks where he didn’t know my mom, and he was unconscious a lot of the last few weeks but I think when he opened his eyes as they were bringing him in the door of his house that he knew he was at home. I think it was a good thing that he was able to be at home, freed from the tube and stress of the hospital. He had oxygen, a comfortable hospital bed, morphine for pain relief and people and family keeping him comfortable. He had an interesting and good life, but we are happy he is out of pain now.

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so tired.

(17 Mar 2006 4:52)

My dad is coming home to my parents' house today about 11 am. We have arranged for 24 hour home health care and visits by hospice care. His systems are gradually shutting down. He sleeps just about all the time now. Really, the brief times he opens his eyes he does not look at anything, nor does he appear to see or more his eyes in any directions. the lids are open but that is all. His pulse rate is high, his blood pressure very low. He has so much swelling, and this in a man who was always quite lean and had recently dropped to as little as 124 lbs. It's all fluid swelling and with it bruising. Part of that is the kidney failure, some I guess is just the failing circulation, also the getting all that liquid in him through the feeding tube. That will be removed at the hospital before he goes home. I'm glad we will be able to move on to the hospice care now for him. There is nothing good left about life for him. I do not fear the coming death, but watching this "life" is very hard. Hooked up to iv, the feeding tube, oxygen, doctors doing so many things, none of them can give him back his health, his mind, memory or make any part of life pleasant for him anymore. The end to this will be a relief for all. Our abilities to keep a body alive go way beyond our abilites to preserve the quality of life worth living for.

I continue to try to balance substitute teaching, working at the studio, keeping in touch with everyone, visiting him, looking for a full time teaching job and here and there catching the occasional sleep. As long as I continue to be in bed and not in my car when that happens, I guess I'm ok.
I really need a friend taking care of me so I don't have to do this all by myself. I need help. I can't keep this up alone. I am going to end up falling asleep at the wheel or something.
This blog is today's update to what I wrote here: [ link ]

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Codepink creates huge anti war image at protest. See my pictures.

(13 Mar 2006 13:40)

Yesterday, we gathered at Santa Monica Beach and created a beautiful image which was photographed from a helicopter. I will be posting several pictures today, both ones they took from the helicopter and my own ones from the ground. Here is a link to the Codepink site with the images [ link ]
We were very fortunate that the cold heavy rain of Saturday gave way to sun and dramatic clouds just as we were starting our protest-- in fact we got some raindrops while signing in.
Cindy Sheehan was there, fresh from being dragged 15 feet by her arms and jailed earlier this week just for daring to stand on a public sidewalk in New York and try to present the anti war petition to Bolton at the UN. Also there was one of the Iraqi women [ link ] (Faiza Al-Araji is a civil engineer, a blogger (afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com), a religious Shia with a Sunni husband, and a mother of three. After one son was recently held as a political prisoner by the Ministry of the Interior, the family fled to Jordan) who came to the US to help deliver the anti war petition this week. Faiza gave an impassioned speech reminding us that our media and government is not giving us the truth about Iraq. Many families like hers have lived peacefully Sunni, Shias side by side and the push to civil war, the tearing apart of the country is being orchestrated from the outside, by people like Bush who wish to take advantage of that. They have electricity for two hours a day and are going through horrible horrible living conditions.


If you have read my previous blog entries on this topic then you know it was a huge international effort to get signatures for this petition. They not only reached their goal but surpassed it and the number of signatories is still growing. Huge numbers of women in Latin America have become active after Hugo Chavez publicized the effort. We call on the nations of the world to spend their resources on education, health care, medical care and things that are needed for their people, not wars and destruction.

We heard performances by musicians, we heard the speeches then we moved into our places at the Arlington West memorial. Every Sunday, volunteers from Veterans for Peace [ link ] sets up crosses on the beach next to the Santa Monica pier. Each one has the name of another service man or woman killed in Iraq. I will be posting pictures of their memorial too (this will take me awhile to put up all of these pictures ) A little further down the beach from the crosses with the names, they set up an area with more crosses and coffins for use in the photo and it was there that artist John Quigley arranged the people to form the image and the words. If you are wondering where I was, I am the topmost point of the letter W in War closest to the letter A. We sat o n the sand while the helicopter circled overhead, photographing the image. Please visit Codepink and become involved-- there are links to local groups all over and if you are in LA on any Sunday come down to Santa Monica and visit the Arlington West memorial. Peace

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Wow.

(11 Mar 2006 12:04)

I just drove through snow. Here in LA. Yeah can you believe it? From where I live, there are two ways of crossing the San Fernando Valley west to east by freeway. The more crowded, common way is to go south and take the 101 to the 134 basically following the base of the north side of the Sant a Monica mountains, where some of my pictures I have up here were taken. The other way is to go up to the 118 and the 210 which takes you through the northern foothills, up through Sunland and Tunjunga into the La Cresecenta Valley and over into Pasadena that way. Generally it is a lot faster and easier, not to mention a whole lot prettier since you're going through open hills. What I didn't count on right now was the higher elevation.
We're in the middle of a big arctic storm which is dropping rain and hail all over the place. As I drove up the hill, the rain was extremely heavy and I had to drive quite slowly both for visibility and then also because the car kept wanting to hydroplane in all the water. So I was taking it very cautiously when I realized that the sides of the road were white with recently fallen hail. As I went further along, the white on the side of the road turned to snow and then the road itself was increasingly slushy snowy.
Yes about now all of the rest of you are rolling on the floor laughing your guts out at me but this is LA. It's March. I really wished I had my camera with me but realistically I was too busy driving on an icy slippery road to have been able to photograph what I was seeing and there was no safe place to pull over. I just drove through it at the 3 mph everyone was going, passed the mandatory crashed cars and eventually reached a point where the elevation dropped a bit and the slush gave way to rain and hail again. The mountains did look very pretty with the ground totally white with the little bushes peeking up through the snow.

Today's LA Times on the snow : [ link ]

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more research less war,,,our warped priorities

(09 Mar 2006 5:07)

As I write this my dad is dying. He is in a hospital, asleep and does not respond when they try to rouse him, nor has he for a couple of days now. It is the nature of Alzheimer's, kidney failure and the several other things wrong with him that he could die soon or could be stabilized enough to go back to the home and go through all of this again in the future. Considering he'll be 84 next month, had recently reached the point where he no longer showed that he recognized even my mom, was having increasing difficulty swallowing and the rest of his physical problems, I know the time to fight all of this is over. The issue now is and has been for awhile, how to keep him comfortable and what constitutes doing too much, doing procedures that only prolong life, not its quality, only add to the discomforts to be endured.
The longer term issues are left to those who will remain. The truth is we live in a country where billions of dollars are approved routinely to create ever more implements of war. No amount is too much as long as they can claim "security" or "fight terrorism". But schools must make do with too little. The average person struggles to find a way to get basic medical and dental care in this country. Programs that would help women and children, and therefore all people have a better life, both here and abroad see their funds taken away if they dare mention birth control or abortion. Research to find ways to prevent and treat diseases like Alzheimer's is not adequately funded. Celebrity names like Reagan for Alzheimer's and Reeve for spinal cord paralysis helped put these issues in the spotlight. but the Bush administration chooses to insert politics in these areas too. They are severely hampering stem cell research because of their religious superstitions. Somehow every tenet of Christianity can be thrown by the wayside when it comes to waging wars of profit and power. But when it comes to compassion for real existing living people, it is meaningless.

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Speak out against war in honor of International Women's Day

(02 Mar 2006 18:57)

From Codepink:
"This week we have seen escalating brutality in Iraq claiming the lives of 1,300 people, a poll exposing the desire of 72% of the U.S. soldiers to leave Iraq, and George Bush’s approval ratings plunging to the lowest levels of his presidency. His lies have caused the deaths and destruction of far too many lives. We must act now. We must join together across the borders to end this madness.

Next week, in celebration of International Women's Day, a courageous group of Iraqi women will converge in Washington DC to hold George Bush and Congress accountable for the chaos, the killing, the violence that is engulfing their nation. They represent Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, religious and secular women. They are united in their horror at the killings, their outrage at the Bush administration and U.S. elected officials, and their determination to stop the violence.


We owe it to them to stand with them in solidarity. You can do that by signing the Urgent Call for Peace, circulating it, and participating in an anti-war action on International Women's Day. Click here to find an event in your community. [ link ] And if you don't see one, pull something together--fast. It can be as simple as downloading a copy of our Urgent Call for Peace, representing the signatures of tens of thousands of women worldwide, and taking it to your Embassy or congressperson [ link ]


One of our delegates told us that in Baghdad these days, there are dead bodies on the streets and pools of blood on the sidewalks, that parents are keeping their children locked inside their homes. Fear is everywhere.

As we say in our call, "This is not the world we want for ourselves or our children. With fire in our bellies and love in our hearts, we women are rising up - across borders - to unite and demand an end to the bloodshed and the destruction."

Join us,
Dana, Farida, Gael, Jodie, Medea, Nancy, Rae & Tiffany
**************************************************

I will participate on March 12 in an enormous anti war demonstration. Where will you be? What will you be doing? Every one of us man and woman has a moral obligation to do something against this evil. Some can do more than others. But we all must do something. These links are for international events too, not just USA events.

"When we have the courage to speak out -- to break our silence -- we inspire the rest of the "moderates" in our communities to speak up and voice their views." -Sharon Schuster

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I love Eleanor Roosevelt

(28 Feb 2006 22:34)

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
Eleanor Roosevelt

The woman had so many good things to say. She has been a real inspiration for my learning to stand up for what I believe in and to stand up for myself. I was brought up to be who others wanted me to be and it nearly killed me. You have to be true to yourself and hopefully encourage others as well to do the same.

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