The Sublime Roundabout

This is the article that caused me such mirth last night: http://www.star-telegram.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article51910755.html Here's the text: BY DAVE BARRY Tribune Content Agency Sometimes we are accused — believe it or not — of being overly negative in our annual Year in Review. Critics say we ignore the many positive events in a given year and focus instead on the stupid, the tragic, the evil, the disgusting, the Kardashians. OK, critics: We have heard you. This year, instead of dwelling on the negatives, we’re going to start our annual review with a List of the Top 10 Good Things That Happened in 2015. Ready? Here we go: 1. We didn’t hear that much about Honey Boo Boo. 2. OK, we’ll have to get back to you on Good Things 2 through 10. We apologize, but 2015 had so many negatives that we’re having trouble seeing the positives. It’s like we’re on the Titanic, and it’s tilting at an 85-degree angle with its propellers way up in the air, and we’re dangl...

Him: (giggling wildly while reading amusing political satire) Her: ANNOYING!!! ~fin~

Going back to the idea of "social inequality", and in all humility acknowledging the benefits I've enjoyed in my life, I offer the following: It seems to me that this is not about lowering expectations; rather, it's about raising them - for everyone. It's about acknowledging the disparity that exists, the fact that some are given much, while others are given little. It's about affording each an opportunity to succeed, regardless of station. But this begs the question - how do we acknowledge someone's station without making that a defining factor? I read recently that there are folks who are suing a university because they felt discriminated against in favor of a minority admission. I'm not sure I'm smart enough to comment on the overall benefits/drawbacks of affirmative action or racial quotas or whatever. I really don't think I know enough. But what I do know is that I have experienced in my own life the benefits of being a w...

I saw this this morning: My first thought was - this is pretty clever, really. My next thought was - he needs to get out of the country more. When I was in Korea, I definitely felt the way I was treated different, and was almost always acutely aware of the fact that I was not the same as everyone else.  But then I thought - how others treated me in Korea because I was a white, tall, man definitely was different than how they would treat me if I were a black, tall, man, or a woman of any race, or whatever. I'm not saying that Koreans are racist, just that being different and being made aware of it in this way was very unusual for me, and has helped shape how I treat others. Being a white man has its privileges, even when that represents a minority. On one hand, I think visual appearance differences are significant and noticeable. The fact that I am tall, for example, was almost always the first thing people noticed about me in Korea. I'm not that tall ...

I triple dog dare ya! (Here's the full clip):

I'm one of those who looks for meaning and beauty in unexpected places. I read this article this morning in the BBC (well, I say read, but it's really more of a "viewed")... Here's a link to it: http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-35105239 Here's some of my favorite pics: I've always loved electric towers/pylons. I used to watch them marching off into the distance while on a long road trip, like so many soldiers with their arms carrying their burdensome loads. While they may be an unattractive scar on the landscape, I also find beauty in their engineered simplicity and regularity.  This is electrical conduit. Again, I love the simplicity and the regularity. This image is particularly compelling because of the way the chrome-like galvanized steel conduit looks ultra-modern and clean compared with the bare concrete behind it. This reminds me of an integrated circuit board, except in three dimensions, and I think it's just lovely in its...

This is eye-opening. And also humbling:

This is humbling...

I consider myself to be a cheerful, optimistic person. Maybe that's related to my somewhat naive view of the world, and maybe part of it has to do with my personality. But I am hopeful and positive about the future, and I'm really peaceful and happy most of the time. So when I look at my blog posts of late, it seems that I may be giving people the wrong impression about myself. And I wonder why this should be the case? The truth is that experiences and emotions are very seldom 100% positive or negative - there's almost always something to be learned from everything, and even the most negative of experiences can be mitigated by the hope of both enduring through it and then the learning, growth, and peace that comes on the other side. After all, only the living feel pain, and life is generally preferable to the alternative. :) My blog is a personal place for me - a place where I can off-load some of the emotions and thoughts that I'm having. It's not intended to...

no one wants to listen to you when you're sad when you're feeling low or depressed in spirit everything is supposed to be cheerful and happy all the time and when it's not people shun you even your "true" friends are disinterested or try to "help" like you need their help all you need is their love and empathy instead you get pithy comments to buck up suck it up it's not so bad it could be worse it's not as bad as I've had it and then they leave you abandoned and even more lonely for trying to reach out I don't know why I even try It never seems to work out

My cousin passed away this last weekend. She was beautiful and had had a difficult if meaningful life (interesting how those two things go together). She'd been ill for a long time, so perhaps in some ways it's a good thing. But the sense of loss is very real, and the hole she left will probably never be adequately filled. There are so many weird and random reverses in life. People come and go, some close, others just mere strangers in a crowd... Experiences flit across the screen of our life's stage, sometimes with us as a main actor, other times we're in a supporting role, and still others find us standing off to the side and wondering what is going on... And through it all, we look for meaning. We look for significance and import and impact, searching for a pattern through which we can make some sort of sense out of it all. Sometimes I feel like it is there, like something in the corner of my eye, but no matter how I turn my head, it feels elusive, vanishing...

Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace... - John Lennon I don't know why people insist that there is an answer in violence. I just don't know. I remember when General Schwarzkopf visited the University of Utah after 9/11, he was asked what we could do to people who were willing to die for their beliefs. His answer was that we should accommodate them. I don't know what makes him the arbiter of peace, when he's a military general. But his sentiment seems to resonate with many, particularly in light of events like Paris and San Bernardino. In this way of thinking, one death is a tragedy, while millions of deaths is a statistic. That was a quote from Joseph Stalin. There are many things that I do not know. But there is one thing that I am growing more and more sure of - that is that violence does not solve problems. It only leads to an...

So the Dementors are an evil creature from the Harry Potter universe. They're used as guards for the wizard prison Azkaban, where they feed off of the positive, happy, and energetic thoughts and feelings of the prisoners, eventually turning them insane. Their most powerful weapon, however, is called the Dementor's Kiss, where they literally suck the soul out of a person.  Harry describes the effect of even being around a Dementor as feeling like one would never be cheerful again. JK Rowling attributes the powers of her fictional Dementors with the very real effects of depression on a person, sucking the cheer and life right out of a person. What is left, then, is a terrible, muted existence - you breathe and exist, but are you alive? Some people have this effect on others, trampling out their souls and stamping on the very spark of life that makes them who they are. Instead of providing love and nurturing, they tell you to "suck it up" and change who ...

So, BYU is a school owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This is known, and the players and students of BYU are held to a standard that others are not. This may be fair or un-, but it true, and the actions of these kids reflects not only on the school but on the Church in general. Surely people know there's a difference between the athletes at any school and the rest of the student body, or the rest of the institution in general (the athletes from Kansas University surely do not represent Kansas or Kansans...) But they become a very visible face on the university and sponsoring institution. And in the case of BYU, it's more acute, perhaps, because the Mormon Church is known for being made up of people of relatively high moral and ethical standards. So when stuff like this happens, it reflects poorly on the athletes, the school, and the Church: ( http://www.sbnation.com/2015/9/12/9317573/byu-player-blatantly-punches-boise-state-player-right-in-the-bal...

Here's the thing. We all live in an incredible, precious, and - so far - unique place. It's an immense space ship, sheltering us from the cold and inhospitable blackness of space, flying us millions of miles each year. It is our home, it is our shelter, and it is all we have. There is no where else. This is it. I'm talking about the earth, of course. Whether you want to believe that the climate changes we're seeing are man-made or -influenced, or if you want to believe that there is a natural, periodic cycle that we're only seeing certain elements of, the fact is that climate change is happening. What we can and should do about it is becoming increasingly and alarmingly important and pressing. And it's of immediate concern to billions (literally) around the world who are facing the clear and present dangers associated with this climate change. http://www.npr.org/2015/12/01/455745765/facing-rising-waters-a-native-tribe-takes-its-plea-to-paris-climate-ta...

I was thinking this morning about different art forms and how they communicate ideas. It seems that there are different levels (for lack of a better term) in art production. There are the "higher levels", which would include things like painting, sculpture, classical music, and the like. These are the things that are installed in high-end art installations - either in museums or in private collections - or presented in grand exhibition halls and auditoriums. And they're almost like trophies... Things to be appreciated and which have intrinsic worth in and of themselves. They are valuable because they are understood to be either rare, precious, or of other significance. But, then I got to thinking about things that were not considered "high level art". In this category, I would include things that appeal to the masses - things like movies, most computer-generated images, musicals, album covers, etc. My first thought is - is this categorization re...