Bigger than us

photo credit: NASA

Driving north from San Jose tonight, after a fascinating two-day visit to Santa Clara University, where the quality of ideas seem to be much more valued than the sound of money, (which I've heard, breathed, swallowed and choked on in neighboring Silicon Valley), those of us commuting northward were treated to a rare visual treat.

Courtesy of NPR, I know that tonight's eastern sky held the third of three lunar eclipses in this past year, and that this also was the last one until late 2010, almost three years from now.

Our Bay Area skies were cloudy, so I expected no chance to view this relatively rare event.

But as I crested I-280's last rise and merged eastward onto the 380 connector to Highway 101, there it was! A soft smudge in the eastern sky, nothing like a normal view.

In fact, as this odd image hovered over the broad, well-lighted expanse of SFO, I couldn't help but wonder whether those who say they have sighted UFOs, and those who claim to have witnessed guiding lights from the heavens, throughout human history, may not simply have been in the right place at the right astronomical time?

If so, that does not diminish their experience, in my view, but perhaps confirms it. Being there, witnessing that, validates our smallness, as humans, before the awful glory of forces so much grander than ourselves, that none of our conventional tools can explain.

Do you believe in magic? Do you believe in God? Can you reconcile the relentless logical beauty of science with the ambiguity of faith in a source not palpable, not reachable, not attainable in our status as mere wretched humans?

If you cannot, and you also saw tonight's magnificent heavenly display, it just may be a time to reconsider your beliefs. If so, you are as one with me. To glimpse the awful beauty of something much greater than ourselves raises a conundrum for intellectuals. It's a place we do not willingly go.

In future months, at this space, I will be traveling these spiritual paths, and I hope, dear reader, you are willing to stick around for the ride!

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The Boomerang Effect

SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY

As Barack Obama swept to a larger than expected victory in Wisconsin tonight, Hillary Clinton was sent a devastating message:

Attacking Obama causes us to turn against you.

As usual, I watched the candidates' speeches on TV in my hotel room tonight and then turned off the sound so I could escape the spinners.

One of my buddies active in the Obama campaign told me last night their internal polls predicted a 5-point advantage in Wisconsin as of yesterday. In fact, it appears he won by 17%.

My friends, whether you like math or not, this is a landslide, come from behind victory for Sen. Obama. In politics, this was a confirming result -- confirming trends we all recognized and eliminating any doubt about the margin of error in the various poll methodologies.

Not only is Obama the strong front runner now, Clinton probably faces a series of "last stand" primaries, especially in Ohio and Texas, and in Pennsylvania if the contest goes that much longer.

All Democratic constituencies break for Obama now except women, who understandably will be the last to desert Clinton's sinking ship.

There's still time for a turnaround, but now it depends on an Obama error, not on a Clinton surge. Looking at the trend lines among all major demographic groups, including women, Clinton already has lost.

So now it's Obama's nomination to lose.

So much of the individual decision about how to vote is private and personal that no poll yet invented can accurately gauge voter behavior as long as a contest remains dynamic and underdeveloped.

But, partially because this primary season has been so long, there's precious little development time left for anybody. The Republican race, regrettably in my opinion, is over. McCain has it wrapped up, and therefore the two most interesting candidates on the right, Huck and Paul, do not have any chance at all.

That's too bad. Blame it on Mitt.

McCain is already attacking Obama and I wonder if his advisors will learn in time what the Clintons have learned.

A candidate whose popularity rises when you attack him is a formidable candidate indeed. Go negative and you lose.

It will be revealing to watch the old warrior, McCain, who has a strong case for Americans frightened by the prospect of more terrorist attacks and the perception that the world is an increasingly dangerous place, try to compete against the younger, much more inspiring Obama.

He will attack, and in that way, I believe, he will lose.

It's a little early to come to conclusions, but, ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States is a black man, a former street organizer in Chicago, a globalist who just might have a shot at repairing our woeful image around the world. A person who might just be able to get a big enough mandate to unify this fractious nation and wage peace as aggressively as the fear mongers wage war.

That just might be something worth praying for.

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Letter to a young writer

Please imagine that we are having this conversation a few years from now, when you are no longer a student, but out in what we call the "real world."

The reason I ask you to imagine this is because you truly have a unique historical opportunity. The emergence of new media forms is happening right here, right now, today, tomorrow, and the next day.

Blogging, for example, did not emerge centuries ago in some faraway place – there are no Dead Sea Scrolls to be discovered from the early days of blogging.

It’s all brand new, so much so that we do not yet have an agreed-upon set of standards to teach you. That’s something you students and we teachers have in common – we’re both discovering the world of new media on the fly.

The explosion of blogs, websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc., means that any person who wishes to can now become a publisher.

Think about that for a second. When you were born, the only publishers of any note were the formal established companies producing newspapers, magazines and books.

The broadcast media consisted mainly of commercial radio stations, and the three major television news networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), though a slew of very young cable TV networks were already aggressively biting at their heels.

That was then.

Today, everything has changed, and your generation is now at the epicenter of these changes.

For a sense of how volatile the media environment is, just tune into CNN on any random primary night this election season. Led by Wolf Blitzer, this team jumps around from one panel of political pundits to another, all the while proclaiming that they are the "best political team on television," as if anybody was keeping score.

Each of CNN's panels of three sit at desks with -- not one -- but two laptops in front of them (a Mac and a PC). CNN reporters routinely check in with the so-called “blogosphere,” and make references to comments or questions coming in via text messaging from Blackberries, iPhones, and other PDAs.

CNN also features a large touch-tone screen that allows their main political correspondent, John King, to zoom in on the various precincts in states in the hope of illuminating the demographic patterns that identify supporters of the various candidates.

None of these gimmicks were in use a few years ago and some of them will, no doubt, be abandoned in the years to come. Meanwhile, your generation will graduate and move out into this dynamic media environment with a major advantage over the people who currently work as journalists.

Why is that? Think about it. Most of these guys came to journalism decades ago, before any of the current tool sets even existed.

They have had to re-school themselves, learn how to use new devices, and pick up new technical skills, but most of them remain lost in the '50s or '60s or 70's or (pick your decade).

By contrast, how many of you send text messages to your friends via your cellphones?

Texting is the new shorthand, and it can function as such when you are interviewing sources. This is an advantage for young people.

Interactivity is the common feature of all new communication tools and avenues. Email was the first, biggest, and still most important of these tools. In barely more than a decade it has become ubiquitous.

Imagine a reporter’s life before email? People used telephones much more.

Imagine her life before cellphones? People had to work much harder to reach one another.

Imagine what it was like before GPS, MapQuest, and other navigational aides. People got lost more often and had more trouble locating the places they needed to go.

In this flat new media world, everyone is a publisher and everyone is a consumer. Everything we say is up for grabs. If you can establish your own voice and take advantage of Web 2.0 tools to distribute your work in the social networking sites, you may be able to build your own entrepreneurial media business from scratch.

Just remember this: Journalism has never been about the bells or the whistles. Those things come and go, and always are changing.

It’s not about computers or cellphones; it’s about the networks of people you can build.

It always takes time for the established institutions of society (like mainstream journalism) to adapt to new technologies and to periods of rapid social change.

In this age of yours, one opportunity above all beckons – globalization. Think about your ability to connect not only with friends on campus but with others all over this planet!

This is an awesome new power, never before so broadly available. Human ecology is changing as a result; here too you can have an advantage by recognizing this early, and by thinking hard about how you can contribute through your work to solving global problems.

Good luck.

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Where there's an absence of belief...(どこにあるの信念の欠如... )

A tragedy of monstrous proportions is becoming evident in our closest Asian ally nation, Japan, and it should resonate here in the land of guns, where alienated boys gun down as many of their contemporaries as possible before turning their death weapons on themselves.

These horrible slaughters continue to happen in school after school all over the U.S. Every single time, after the dead have been carried away, we are inundated with reports seeking to answer the question: "Why?"

In Japan, meanwhile, an unarmed nation, there are reportedly over one million young men known as hikikomori, who withdraw totally from society, never leaving their rooms in their parents' homes, and often turning violent, not against outsiders, but against their parents, the only people who care for them.

An extremely disturbing study of the hikikomori was published by an American writer in 2006.

If you read this book, you may get insights into our own troubled young killers that evades us here. After all, when a gun is readily available, all sorts of momentary errors may occur.

But in Japan, where these same types of tortured boys have no potent weapon available, their main violence is self-inflicted; and, as they deterioriate, turned onto those who love them -- their parents.

It's hard for an atheist to read this kind of book. For it remains true that humans yearn for meaning in our lives. Thus, we have created great religions. At their best, these schools of faith have helped us moderate our extremist impulses and find the peace we need to grow comfortable in our own skin, and shut out the violent impulses of a killer species.

Sadly, in our time, religious extremists are exploiting the unhappiness of youth to incite religious war all over the world.

But none of this means we cannot find a better way, perhaps a path based on belief, such as that inherent in the greatest song ever written from a life of sin, Amazing Grace.

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極悪非道の悲劇の比率は明らかになって我々に最も近い同盟国のアジアの国、日本では、今ではここには、土地の心に響くの銃は、どこに疎外男の子として射殺する前に、できるだけ多くの契約を旋回して彼らの死の兵器だ。

これらの学校で起こる身の毛もよだつslaughters継続してオーバーした後、米国のすべての学校ごとに1つの時間は、死んだ後に行われて去っても、我々は殺到する質問に答えることを求める報告書： "なぜ？ "

日本では、一方で、武器を持たない国では、若い男性と伝えやり直す1000000 hikikomoriとして知られ、社会から完全に撤退者は、決して自分の部屋に残し、親の家で、よくターニング暴力は、部外者に反対しないが、両親に反対は、人々の世話をするだけだ。

気掛かりなのは、非常に勉強hikikomoriは2006年に出版されたアメリカの作家です。

もしこの本を読んで、洞察力が得られるかもしれないことを我々自身の問題を抱えた若いキラーズevadesここで我々です。結局のところ、銃では、すぐに利用できるときには、あらゆる種類のエラーが発生する可能性の瞬間だ。

しかし、日本では、これらのどこにもない男の子と同じ種類の拷問を受けた利用できる強力な武器は、自分の主な暴力行為は、自分自身に課す;と、 deterioriateとして彼らは、人々の愛曲がってしています-両親です。

無神論者にするのは難しいため、この種の本を読んでいる。それは事実だが、人間のための意味で、私たちの生活にあこがれる。従って、我々は偉大な宗教を作成します。をベストな状態では、これらの学校のご協力いただいた信仰インパルス過激派と穏健派の平和を見つける必要性を我々は我々自身の成長の快適な肌は、暴力的なインパルスを遮断すると、キラー種です。

悲しいことに、私たちの時間は、宗教的な過激派が利用して不幸な若者をあおるのは、世界中のすべての宗教戦争です。

しかし、いずれもこのためのより良い方法を見つけることができません我々は、おそらく、パスの信念に基づいて、そのような歌に内在するまでに書かれた最も罪の生活から、アメイジンググレイス。

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An Early Spring's Saturday.1

The air is warmer, the sun is higher, the seeds are (hopefully) germinating, and the bells of the ice-cream man have returned to the Mission.




As the parent of three young children, the first day of every weekend is almost completely devoted to being a Dad. It has always been so.



There's basketball camp, backyard basketball, ice-skating, "art" projects, Play Station 2, Sponge Bob Square Pants, "Hanna Montana," macaroni and cheese, and so, so much more.



By nightfall, they've spread to the wind, my children. One is watching the pre-NBA All Star Game competitions at a friend's house; one is staying in Santa Cruz near the boardwalk with a buddy; the third is staying with a friend at (improbably) 1234 (street name) #5.



If you do not have children, or are not actively involved in raising them, I imagine that Saturdays must be far different from anything I have ever experienced.



Maybe this is a day when you go out with a club of like-minded bicyclists, kayakers, hikers, or quilt-makers?

I hope so. Given how hard we all work, I hope for single people that Saturdays are the time to relax, pursue your passions, and shut out all the cultural noise that engulfs us.



After all, we're all in this together.




So, "I'll let you into my Saturday if you'll let me into yours." (Sorry, Bob.)



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Blood Oranges

Announcement: Today, I posted my first blog entry on the media business at bNet bloggers ...if you care to visit, please read my colleagues' posts and then scroll down to find mine.



Other than this news, today was a school holiday, so most of my time was spent in parenting: Science homework, basketball practice, Haiku, water colors, clothes shopping, smoothies, cooking, cleaning, laundry, chili, macaroni & cheese, cereal, cup of noodles, quesadillas, pizza, and so many other elements.



Cousin Mike dropped by tonight. Ever wonder what a Buddhist Lama does? Well, among other things, he's been helping a tortured young man find his way into and out of the psych ward at SF General after he indulged in a series of self-destructive episodes at Mike's temple.

Sounds like God's work to me.



It's springtime here in San Francisco.



Sourgrass is sprouting out back. I've planted green onions, daikon, radishes, and herbs out front.



So, I've caught spring fever yet again this year.

BTW, these are blood oranges.

I know that for many of you, spring remains a wistful feeling, but it will yet come. Here, in the place where all the seasons are hopelessly mixed up, it is upon us this week, but it could well be missing in action by next week.

p.s. If you chose to not follow the link to my bNet blog at the top of this post, you can still click on the title of this entry, which will take you there. And, I would be so grateful if you chose to comment on what I wrote!

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Happy Valentines Day

The third annual surprise pillow fight occurred tonight on the Embarcadero. From these photos, you will get the idea. Although I know a bit about this event courtesy of Laughing Squid, I'm still not clear about who came up with this idea, not to mention why so many people find it fun.

But, despite the mess they made of our downtown streets tonight, with so many feathers that it looked like snow, this seems like a harmless outlet much like Burning Man for young people caught in a society that often seems utterly devoid of any relevant spiritual rituals.

In this context, youthful energy has no other collective outlet but irony. That this year's event took place on Valentines Day, the commercial equivalent of Christmas for flower vendors and chocolate companies, is a perfect post-modern statement.

***

Meanwhile, thousands of miles and cultural light years away from tonight's downtown pillow fight, those survivors of Hurricane Katrina living in FEMA trailers were urged by the agency today to move out, because the trailers have been found to be toxic.


FEMA Plans Trailer Exodus

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

After downplaying the risks for months, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday it will rush to move Gulf Coast hurricane victims out of roughly 35,000 government-issued trailers because tests found dangerous levels of formaldehyde fumes.

FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison said the agency hopes to get everyone out and into hotels, motels, apartments and other temporary housing by the summer, when the heat and stuffy air could worsen the problem inside the trailers.

"The real issue is not what it will cost but how fast we can move people out," he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said fumes from 519 tested trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi were, on average, about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes. Formaldehyde, a preservative commonly used in construction materials, can lead to breathing problems and is also believed to cause cancer...


I can vouch, as one who was on the scene as the first survivors moved into these smelly trailers a few months after the storm, that we all knew then that these were unhealthy environments. It's yet another measure of the Bush administration's callous disregard for the fate of the poor that it has taken this long for FEMA to admit the obvious.

Shame on you!

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