Category: politics

Coffee Snob

Yes, I confess: I’m a coffee snob.

I can’t abide most American mass produced ground coffee, like Folger’s, Maxwell House, and Hill Bros. Worse of the worse is Sanka instant.

No, worse of the worse could be the Folger’s Instant Coffee Crystals. Instant coffees taste off to me, as though the coffee has been recycled.

I have friends who swear by Dunkin’ Donut’s coffee. Not me. Dunkin’ Donut cofffee provides a taste that I imagine comes from a dirty tee shirt being soaked in coffee and then wrung out in a cup. Just below it are the foul offerings provided at McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast food establishments. I haven’t had coffee from any of those places in decades. Haven’t eaten at them since around 1992, when I returned to America from Germany.

I became such a snob, as with many things, when I was exposed to offerings in other places. Being stationed in Germany was the changing point for my appreciation of not just beer, but coffee, pastries, asparagus and French fries. German coffee seemed so very strong and clear that I was instantly drawn to it. I started buying different Italian coffees available in Germany, examining flavors the way others do with wines.

The same process was followed with wines, and then beers, along with cigars, ports, whiskeys, fruits, chocolate, cheese, fish, oils, vegetables and meats. I learned that an experienced palate will be drawn toward fresher, clearer flavors. Becoming more mindful among the differences in flavors, I became more mindful as I consumed food and beverages. Fresher and more refined foods offered unique flavors on my tongue.

Of course, it ruined me. Returning from Germany and settling into the Bay area, I drove by a KFC. KFC chicken! I remembered eating it as a child. A sudden nostalgic flame consumed me. I ordered a chicken dinner. The eating experience ruined my memories of KFC and made a skeptic of me about all my American favorites.

So, I’m a coffee snob, but I’m also a beer, wine, chocolate, pie, cheese, fruit, vegetable, meat and pastry snob. I’ll eat things because they’re sustenance, and it’s my nature to accept that food is fuel. But I now know that some foods don’t work nearly as well as fuel.

Something about the eating and drinking experience also affected my reading,  news reporting and movie watching. Overall, I became a snob, more watchful, more critical, more mindful. Part of me often wishes that I wasn’t a snob, that I can just turn on the television and be titillated by the latest number one show like so many others, or that I don’t need to research and vet news headlines and reports for the truth and accuracy, or that I can just trot on down to a fast food place for a meal.

With that, time for breakfast, locally sourced and organic, featuring berries and fruit we picked and froze ourselves, and a cup of coffee. It’ll be Major Dickinson today, from Peet’s.

8

Personal

Some days, you know?

You feel like asking all the gods of time and existence, when the hell will this all end? When will lasting change come?

You think of the fights you’ve been in and the efforts you’ve made. You think about the deeper, darker, harsher sacrifices that others endured to achieve their dreams.

You wonder, what needs to be done differently? You examine your life, actions and motives and question yourself about your direction and activities.

Questions bubble up again through the stew of thoughts, emotions, time and observation about who you are, what you’re done and what you’re trying to achieve. You seek your vision and wonder if you’ll ever accomplish anything close to what you see.

Doubts cause you to think, maybe this isn’t working. Maybe I need to change what I’m doing and how I’m doing it.

Because there doesn’t seem to be progress. No light at the tunnel’s end is starting to become noticeable. There’s no sign of dawn. Despite efforts to be confident and hopeful, you feel like you’re wilting under the pressure. Despair becomes your regular companion.

You look for signs and omens, and search for the keys to success and victory. You think, God, others have made it. What does it take? What does it take? 

Intellectually, emotionally, physically, you understand what it takes.

Some days, it seems like the reservoirs are empty. There’s nothing left in the tank. Sucking on fumes, you vow to stop and change, because this sure as hell ain’t working.

But you know no other way and grasp the conundrum of your existence. And you sort of smile because these thoughts are so familiar, they have their own place in your brain. And you know there’s so many others exactly like you. Somehow, there should be a measure of solace in that, but this is always so personal.

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Today’s Theme Music

Despite the sobering news out of Europe regarding terrorism and the most recent attack, we go full on pop mode streaming today, with a pause to think of those who were died or injured, those who lost someone, and those now distraught by the latest.

It’s part of the world wide web that we can know such news with the immediacy of video and audio recordings and feel others’ grief, but experience a much different reality on a personal level. A legacy of our immediate wired world is that we reach across the connections to offer ourselves and our resources, no matter how meager they are or their nature, because we feel helpless to do much more.

A cold front bulled in here, shooing the rain away and sweeping out the clouds. Except for some high, feathery cloud remnants, the weather is blue sky sunny. ‘Walking On Sunshine’ has already begun streaming in my brain, establishing itself as the song for the day.

I know, like, five things about this song.

  1. It’s by Katrina and the Waves.
  2. It was a hit in 1985, while I was driving around the southeastern quadrant of the continental United States.
  3. It’s the only song by KaTW that I know.
  4. It’s a bouncy melody with easily learned and remembered lyrics.
  5. The song’s properties lends itself to popular culture, so it’s been part of movie soundtracks, television shows, and advertisements.

Stay strong, everyone. Let’s do this.

 

 

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Thoughts of Spring

Theoretically, spring kicked in once again in America. As a blogger, it’s required that I post something about it. It’s in the Internet’s Rules for Blogging that you must do at least one blog post per year regarding a season change. I thought I’d get mine out for 2017 before too much of the year elapsed.

Being an American baby-boomer with liberal tendencies, movies came to mind. I thought this one pretty much summed up the situation in America, Spring, 2017.

 

Bad taste? Probably. I’m in an acerbic mood. It was either this or ‘Dr. Strangelove’.

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Change, Resistance, and Complacency

Writing science fiction, one area I end up studying and contemplating is change. I was happy to come across this Harvard Business Review (Walter Frick) interview with Tyler Cowen. Cowen’s newest book, ‘The Complacent Class’, addresses how America has become complacent and averse to change in recent years.

I’ve watched this develop. NIMBY – Not In My Back Yard – was the rallying chorus to battle many new construction suggestions. Property values and appearances take precedence over more pragmatic uses of land, usually in the name of property values, especially when one small set who don’t live in the area will benefit to the detriment of those living in the area and fighting the action.

Yet, we can see the concrete results in places like Oroville Dam. Oroville Dam was headline news during some of February as record rains struck parts of California. The dam’s spillway was opened but damage caused it to be closed. With water rising behind the dam, the emergency spillway was employed but the visibly fast erosion taking place concerned many. Fears that the dam was going to collapse caused mass evacuation. Many area residents were pissed because the water behind that dam in their back yard benefited others living hundreds of miles away.

Almost as an extension of NIMBY, Homeowners Associations (HOAs), have developed to protect individual neighborhoods and developments here in southern Oregon. A large part of that is the agreement to establish a new development is centered around having an open green space, or mini-park, as part of the development. That park, and the attendant common areas, need a management focus. Hence, the HOA is used. To protect property values, the HOA restricts changes and uses. Home owners are limited to what they can plant; fruit and vegetable gardens are generally off-limits, frustrating people who want to grow their own produce. Some common interest developments address this by creating a community garden.

So, from the economic and social ramification of residing in America in the early twenty-first century, to watching and thinking about politics, to imagining our future, Cowen’s book entices me.

______________________________________________________________

HBR: And all this is happening during a time when we see a lot of change in technology, particularly in IT and machine learning, and, potentially, artificial intelligence. How does that progress fit with your thesis?

Well, there is a lot of change, but it’s concentrated in some areas. Look at a classic 20th-century notion of progress: how quickly you can move through physical space. That hasn’t gotten faster for a long time. Planes are not faster. With cars, there’s more traffic. It’s actually harder to get around, and that makes the physical world less dynamic. It’s harder to build things in the United States.

The thing that’s much easier to do is sit at home and have all of life come to you. You speak to your Alexa or your Echo, and you have things be ordered. You use the internet. You watch on Netflix. It’s made us all much more homebodies, feeling we don’t need to change things, more comfortable in our consumption patterns. And obviously that has big private gains, or people wouldn’t be doing it. But there’s nonetheless a collective effect that I think is worrying when our physical and geographic spaces become less dynamic, less mobile, less intermixed. And that’s the America we’re seeing today.

Read the entire short, engaging interview at HBR.

 

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Dance, Dance, Dance

Succinct dreams remembered.

I was in the military once again, USAF, wearing my light blue shirt with its salad, dark blue pants, working in the command post. I’m in my mid-thirties.

I’ve acquired an additional duty. Every day at noon, someone comes in and relieves me so I can teach others to dance. I teach two to three people at a time.  don’t know them. They learn their steps and moves quickly. Once they learn, they disappear and others replace them. It’s important to the dream me that the students get in and out quickly, because I’m teaching them to dance to reduce tension and conflict.

The dream logic puzzles the dream me, who points out that I can’t dance in real life. Oddly, I’m not actually dancing in the dream, either; I just offered music and told them to dance. They would dance, laugh, and disappear. I was pleased with the assignment.

The song in the dream was Justin Timberlake’s ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling, from ‘Trolls’. 

The second dream was as succinct. Living on some land I’d fixed up, I was now feeding the cats. I measured out food into bowls and then go find the cats and give them the food.

Then I awoke and fed the cats.

 

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The Last Four Movies

We’ve seen four movies in five days to cap off our annual Oscar whirl. I already posted about the terrific animated film, ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’. Following it was an absurdist black comedy, ‘The Lobster’. 

Colin Ferrell, Rachel Weitz and Jenna Coleman star. These are all actors I enjoy. Their portrayals in this were all low energy, as if people were straining to comprehend what was happening. Emotional responses were muted, like too much emotion had already been expended in their lives.

We follow Colin Ferrell’s character from his arrival at the hotel and orientation. One hand is cuffed so he could appreciate, “Two is better.” The premise, that if you don’t have a mate, you will be turned into an animal, and that this is now the accepted social norm, is never explained. Nor is the hotel’s limitations on clothing so that everyone is dressed in the same manner, or having the women hunt in dresses. It’s absurd, right? None of the concepts underlying the plot are explained. You just go along with it. Strange, but engaging.

Behind ‘The Lobster’ came something one hundred and eight degrees different: an animated film about animals as people, ‘Zootopia’. The movie takes it name from the animal nation’s major urban area, Zootopia. Central to the is Judy Hopper’s dream of being a police officer, and her life as the first bunny copper in Zootopia. A crime spree has sprung up in which animals are disappearing. It’s a good movie for young people to watch. One of the baristas, a twenty year old, has watched it four times while baby-sitting children. Her take is that its message is not to stereotype people, which is demonstrated by individual’s roles as wolves, foxes, weasels, sheep and bunnies. It is more, she acknowledged. The movie takes on bullying, determination and persistence, and pursuing your goals despite obstacles. All of this is done through a clever, humorous lens that’s more slanted toward adults, such as the lemmings, all dressed the same, leaving the Lemmings Brothers building.

My wife asked, which movie, ‘Zootopia’ or ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ would receive my Oscar vote? I loved Kubo’s beautiful, amazing artwork, and the film’s ethereal aura. I also enjoyed and admired the plucky young main character’s good nature and determination. Yet, ‘Zootopia’ edged it out to receive my vote. Kubo is better at art; I thought ‘Zootopia’ was better at entertainment. A fun movie, ‘Zootopia’ kept my interest. I would have given the Oscar to ‘Zootopia’, but the edge was the thickness of a sheet of paper.

Last, last night, we watched the documentary, ‘13th‘.  This film meticulously states facts connecting the end of the civil war and the transition from black people being slaves as owned property to slaves as criminals. The documentary attacks the issues from multiple points of view, laying out a convincing narrative that letting slaves go wasn’t financially acceptable, and all the manners in which blacks, especially men, were portrayed in popular media and entertainment as criminals, thugs and murders.

Blacks naturally reacted. As blacks reacted, whites reacted. We follow the political arc, beginning with the Thirteenth Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. There was the out, the loophole. Blacks were locked up in greater and greater numbers as drug use was criminalized by the legal system. ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council – established its agenda of feeding states the legislative measures and acts that furthered a reactionary social agenda but also helped its members realize increasing profits through state laws. From that, CCA – the Corrections Corporation of America, an ironic name if ever heard – is born, as is the monetized incarceration system that establishes prisons as profit centers. Now America has fallen from leading the world in many areas, but has managed to imprison more people than any other nation. And disproportionately imprisoned are blacks, and more specifically, black men.

It’s demonstrated in the documentary how the system is gained so that many blacks who are arrested, even when they’ve not committed a crime, are never convicted of a crime but end up spending time in jails and prisons through plea bargains, and how the fear of the maximum sentence is leveraged to encourage plea bargaining.

Senator Cory Booker points out that most race riots begin with incidents of police brutality. The hype over the threat from the Black Panthers is portrayed as the greatest danger to America. Footage Angela Davis’ gripping, powerful testimony in her trail is presented.

Politically, Lee Atwater’s notorious recordings are heard about how to manipulate voters. Willie Horton is brought up again, and how it turned the election for Bush. Bill Clinton’s role and his erroneous policies are shown, and their tangible impact, along with the insane, ‘Three Strikes Law’.

Political hype feeds fears; fears led to election victories; election victories lead to increased demonizing of blacks; increased demonizing leads to greater criminalizing, which develops into greater profits. A direct result is Donald Trump’ s election as ‘the law and order president’. His boogeyman are the brown people, refugees and immigrants. Guess which pretty little group of white dominated men is profiting from increased worries about immigrants and refugees?

Yes, ALEC.

As a final straw, prisons are being used as source for cheap labor for American companies to build their products. Meanwhile, poor, unemployed and underemployed people are distracted into believing the problems lie with immigrants, refugees and terrorists. And as each political party tries to regain office, they must outdo the previous administration’s stance as being tough on law and order. President Obama was finally one to begin to point out what was happening; Hillary changed her stance from hard on crime to intelligent on crime.

I recommend you see the film.

So here we have these movies, which teach our children to be strong and unafraid, to be honest and hopeful, along with one mocking our position on marriage as an institution, and finally one demonstrating the truth about how politicians and corporations manipulate and guide people to fear and hate, and vote and profits.

This, by the way, is why I march against Trump’s Agenda.

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Today’s Theme Music

I’ve decided it’s time to upgrade. In accordance with that decision, I’ve replaced my mental jukebox with a mental iPod. Yes, I’ve gone digital.

That required me to transfer all my music from the old jukebox to the iPod. That required a lot of time. Although the mental jukebox was old, it still performed pretty well, only occasionally not playing something correctly. It was pretty full, though. Mom loves music and so does my older sis. The two were feeding me songs from the beginning. They influenced me to continue the pursuit of listening to music throughout my life.

This might have a tangible effect on these posts. I may end up repeating some songs and memories. Sorry about that. These things sometimes happen during upgrades.

The song chosen today was influenced by that realization. It also features a performer who’s had a long, impressive career. This selection strikes me as apropos for these backslide sidestep shuffle politics that seem to be permeating global legislatures. I know you’re reading with bated breath and asking, Seidel, what’s the song already?

I’ll tease you no longer.

Well, maybe one more paragraph. This song was enjoyed while I was living in Mountain View, California, commuting to work at PAS in Palo Alto for my first employment after retiring from the Air Force. I retired in November, 1995, and started working for them in December, 1995.

Here it is, then, from 1998, Shirley Bassey and the Propellerheads with ‘History Repeating’. 

 

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Longings

I hate myself on days like this.

I confess, I have longings.

Some are very simple and basic. Many will claim them as impractical and idealistic, even absurd.

Like, I have longings to be young again, and to have a nice cup of coffee with a pastry or donuts without worries about its healthiness or origins, longings to walk around, preferably on a warm, pleasant beach, smiling and nodding in friendliness to other people, who simply nod and smile back in friendliness.

I have longings for success, comfort, happiness, fun, and security in all its forms.

I have longings for freedom, equality, liberty and justice.

I’ll bet those longings are shared with many others.

I bet many people on the right and left share these longings.

I bet many politicians and CEOs share these longings, along with teachers, minorities, refugees, shoppers, consumers, teenagers, the elderly, the rich and the poor.

The nut is in the details of how we get satisfy these longings.

When the United States was founded, it was another step as part of a long walk to satisfy these longings, and the founders walked on the backs of many others. We’re shocked, angry and dismayed by their declaration that all men are created equal even while they were stealing land others already lived upon, deciding women are less deserving, and so are people who were slaves, because slaves were slaves; they were property. That was a compromise. A good one? Hell, no, I hear some shout. We’re still arguing it. It was a different era, with different values, views and principles.

I have sisters and friends who wish the protests going on in the U.S. to be over because, well, the elections are over, and isn’t that what this is all about? They have longings for a happier, more relaxed life.

But the protests and elections are part of a process. Both are symptoms of desires and larger arguments about what is right and wrong, and whether freedom, liberty and equality is even possible for everyone. Aren’t we humans simply animals at the heart of the matter, and shouldn’t it be that the strongest shall rule and take what is theirs by right of strength and power, whether it’s physical or intellectual prowess, military force, or the power of our gods?

These are arguments about longings and principles, perceptions, hopes, dreams, emotions and frustrations, resentments, hostilities and dreams that go back to separations derived from where we live, what we speak, our differences and similarities, all the way back to the most basic and fundamental questions of why we’re here, how we came to be here, and what we want to become.

I hate myself on days like this because I have longings. I want to go write. I want to enjoy my comfortable routine of writing fiction, dreaming of breaking out, working toward the horizon that I’ve created for myself to keep myself going while staving off bitterness, weariness and depression.

Some will read this and remark to their screens to me through their screen, you are a self-indulgent idiot.

I can’t argue that I’m not. I know too well the limits of my talents, intelligence and abilities. I tell myself that if I try harder and persist, promising myself, “I can do better,” and that, if I do, I can overcome my shortcomings.

Which is what these longings are all about, really. You understand.

And I hate myself on days like this, because others have longings, and I think of myself as one person but part of a larger body trying to make a difference. So I set aside my personal longings to take up the longings of others, those longings that were there long before I was born as an American, and march for what we believe is right against an agenda that we believe is wrong.

History will not judge us. History is written by the winners. It’ll be the winners who judge us. If we lose, we’ll probably be forgotten. Hell, if we win, we’ll probably be forgotten as well.

That’s the nature of being part of a larger longing.

2

America First

I was accused of seeing too much of the big picture the other day. Guilty, I answered.

The march last weekend to protest Trump’s agenda reminded me of the marches and vigils against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We, the protesters, were told we were unpatriotic. Saddam Hussein was a threat, a bad guy who had to be removed for the good of the world. Afghanistan needed to be punished for shielding OBL and his organization.

I was skeptical then. I saw a lot of lies and patriotic zeal being organized in support of a fraudulent crusade. Yes, I supported the troops, an expression that still fills me with anger. I’ve never envisioned yellow magnetic ribbons or lights of any color really being a supportive move for people killing and being killed far, far away. Perhaps that’s my cynical streak. I’m angry that so many of them died in false causes, and that we destroyed so many Afghani and Iraqi lives and families. Worse, I felt the pursuit of war to end violence doesn’t work, and that we ended up creating larger numbers of enemies through our military actions.

When, later on, Judith Miller’s bullshit became more fully exposed, and President Bush came out and said, “Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11,” and when weapons of mass destruction were never found, everyone said, “Gosh, how were we all so fooled?”

Number one, not all of us were fooled. Number two, you stopped thinking and remembering; that’s how you were fooled. You were fooled because you wanted to believe. Then you had buyer’s remorse.

Because I see the big picture, I don’t automatically put America First. In no general order, I put freedom, equality, human rights, and the planet and environment first. I question those who assert ‘America First’ without thinking about what it means and the greater ramifications of a policy predicated on America First. As I understand it, the United States of America was established to create a more perfect union, a place where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were rights we were born with, along with a bunch of other rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In other words, the United States is not an end in itself, but another step along a greater path, and a sanctuary from those who had their rights taken from them..

Besides not putting America first, I don’t put men first, nor whites. I do see it as a weakness to imprison others in order to restore ‘your rights’ and privilege. Our weaknesses are what will keep us from improving our country and our world, and from solving our problems. If we don’t nakedly bare our problems and address them but instead blind ourselves with mindless propaganda, we will create larger problems. Especially if, under guise of America First, we begin torturing and imprisoning people; we begin building walls and establishing a larger military at the cost of arts, education and the greater public weal; if, under the guise of America First, we morally, ethically and financially bankrupt our nation; if, under the guise of America First, we destroy precious resources and kill others because they are not Americans; if, under America First, our servants in the Federal government are told they are not allowed to interact with the citizens they were hired to serve.

Some will have already quit reading, writing me off as another soft liberal; others will urge me, “If you don’t like America, why don’t you leave it?” I’ve never said I don’t like America, and indeed, the United States of America was founded upon a huge liberal experiment, the idea that we could have a government of, by and for the people. I want a better nation, a nation that is a true, principled leader for freedom, democracy and equality, not a land of killings, walls and slogans.

 

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