Category Archives: Sailing Through Life

Mariner’s Alter Egos

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Mariner takes time out in this post to clarify what readers find odd if not confusing – his use of alter egos. A short explanation is on the blog page “About the Ancient Mariner.”

The egos are based on Aristotle’s Triangle of Persuasion: Ethos-Pathos-Logos, alternatively, ethical values, existential values, logical values. Again alternatively, Guru, Chicken Little and Amos. Mariner has taken some unavoidable liberties with the three to infuse them with mariner’s personality and his post objectives; still, the underlying function of each can be defined by Aristotle’s triangle. If the reader wants to know more about Aristotle’s triangle, use the reader’s search engine.

Guru (ethos) is named after the abstract philosopher in the BC comic strip: otherworldly, definitely abstruse and beyond social motivation. Guru lives in the rarified atmosphere of philosophy, theoretical physics and esoteric theological principles.

Chicken Little (pathos) is named after the famous chicken in the children’s storybook. Chicken Little represents the vulnerability of everyone as they try to survive in the manufactured, albeit incongruous and unfair political methods of tribal existence. “The sky is falling” is a genuinely accurate and frequent experience for everyone.

Amos (logos) is named after the prophet Amos in the Old Testament. His accounting of the state of affairs in Israel 700 years before Jesus was quite acerbic and accusatory. Israel was in a period of peace and prosperity (much like the US) but increasingly disregarded God’s laws, especially in economic terms (much like the US).

If one were to review all of mariner’s posts from the beginning in 2013 (not advised – mariner wouldn’t do it, either), one would notice that each post was influenced by one or another of the three alter egos. Most often, Amos prevails because that is what the blog is all about – the state of affairs in life, science, religion, economics, ethics, etc. But the reader need not pay attention to a post in terms of alter egos; it is their contribution to the whole, much like a recipe has ingredients. One doesn’t think of the little yeast living a short life in bread dough, one thinks of toast and butter.

Ancient Mariner

 

Reparation Revisited – the Native Americans

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Readers raised the question whether the US owed the Native American reparation. Setting aside the fact that Europeans arrived on the Atlantic shores and proceeded with a policy of genocide, some may contend that the Native Americans received reparation via the establishment of indian reservations. This is as rewarding as saying the Japanese Americans that were forced into internment camps during WWII were pleased about the fact they were put in prison.

Andrew Jackson’s order to relocate the Cherokee Nation to Oklahoma (Trail of Tears) is more demonstrative of the fact that reservations were no reparation. The land for reservations was the poorest that could be had. During the Trail of Tears, 4,000 men, women, and children died and included Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw that were relocated under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. For centuries the original Cherokee land occupied the entire area from the Mississippi River in the West to the Blue Ridge Mountain in the East. There was pressure to claim those lands to find gold and expand farmland for those who weren’t Native Americans.

Mariner doubts anyone then or now claims that exile to useless internment camps (reservations) was reparation. In a recent post travelogue, mariner noted the poor state of reservation economics; the average Native American has assets averaging 10% of the rest of the US population.

Taking into consideration the displacement of Neanderthal by Homo sapiens, the propensity for invasive genocide throughout the ages, the desire to eradicate via multiple terrorist wars in Africa and the Middle East, humans are of the same propensity as the black plague, jackal, hyena, Komodo Dragon, and of course, our predecessor, the chimpanzee.

Food for thought: For those without money, plutocracy is a form of slavery by deprivation without constraints or interest in a person’s whereabouts or bodily wellbeing – for now.

Ancient Mariner

 

Don’t be Vulgar

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In recent days, mariner and his wife have had family guests from both sides of the family. It is refreshing to experience the familiarity of family and at the same time feel grateful that, in the United States at least, life goes on despite the vulgarity of the headlines. Reality, too, plays out as friends and family suffer ailments and discouraging circumstances. The overview, however, is that life goes on – despite shootings, racism, war, social abuse and economic distress.

This is not to suggest that one should ignore or be indifferent to the vulgarity of our times. As a member of a democratic society of 350 million people each living an ongoing life, one still is inevitably linked to a responsibility to all 350 million citizens (a different kind of family) to take care of our democracy even as we are distracted by personal life experiences. That vulgarity is part of the nation’s social experience is a side effect of social change. The thesaurus offers other words for vulgarity: tasteless, lewd, licentious, rude and offensive among many more. Vulgarity is a litmus test that identifies dissatisfaction and stress. Vulgarity easily promotes a response of increased rudeness and offensive behavior which makes it hard for an individual or a society to ease vulgarity through compromise and compassion.

The tools one needs to be successful in managing stressful change are found in one’s ongoing life. It is important that life goes on. There is strength in familiarity that helps dealing with vulgarity. There is strength in family unity that helps dealing with vulgarity. There are feelings of security and day-to-day accomplishment that help to weather vulgarity.

Maybe it’s a good time to visit one’s family just to reinforce confidence and even satisfaction that there is a rational side to society. Maybe it’s a good time to take a deeper look at vulgarity to figure out how to make life go on in the midst of significant social change.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Returning

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Mariner is of an age that the past, the vital, three dimensional experience of his past life, has faded into brittle memories. Sure, there is the memory of interesting, emotional and benchmark moments of the past that can be recalled as short, tintype memories. But what is missing is the personal, fully reconstructed past – a moment that reinstates one’s life in this moment as if it were still that time – real, fully normal, fully existential feeling as if time has not passed. One is not remembering; then has become now.

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) discovered long ago that playing old music that was popular in ‘the day’ provokes pleasurable feelings in viewers that take them back to the real days as if those days had not passed by. Yesterday, PBS broadcast a collection of Nat King Cole songs and memories that brought the past into the present. This sensation is hard to explain. One isn’t reminded what it was like – one is watching Nat as if time had not passed. Of course one is listening to Nat; he is a popular entertainer. The mind doesn’t correlate then and now. It is now.

There is a slight hangover of melancholy, of course. As an individual moves through life, history changes things; the brain and the body shift slowly toward old age. Mariner wrote a post recently that described time as breaking off in chunks. That seems apropos; people live their lives in periods of time that are chunks of the past.

Why does one have melancholy? The good old days typically are that period of time between 10 years and 25 years of age. An individual experiences constant maturing through many nodal points of personality, physical change, and new horizons of perception and capability. It is similar, if less frenetic, to the hyperactivity of a two-year-old learning language, independent reality and physical skills on a daily basis. In other words, the good old days are days of new adventure, new awareness, new feelings. It is a time of engaging in newly discovered realities.

There is no change in personality when one is old. The body changes but not in the direction of adventure as much as in the direction of disability. It grows more difficult to sustain vitality and to explore new things. Years ago a friend of mariner said, “Life is like an automobile tire that can’t be changed for a new tire. It loses grip; it loses strength; it starts to leak and finally it has a blowout.”

The challenge for old timers is not lingering in the memory of Nat King Cole but to keep learning. Learning and conquering new life experiences is what makes the good old days so special.

Ancient Mariner

 

Our Democracy at Work

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AT&T maintains a formidable presence in Washington. The company spent more than $15.8 million on Washington lobbying last year, and its lobbying spending in the first quarter of 2019 put it among the top two dozen companies, according to a POLITICO analysis of disclosure filings. AT&T has 17 in-house lobbyists and also retains nearly 30 outside lobbying firms, according to disclosure reports.

Readers need to know that AT&T owns:

•HBO and Cinemax, as part of Home Box Office Inc.

•TBS, truTV, TNT, Studio T, and TCM, as part of Turner Entertainment Networks

•Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, as part of the TBS, Inc. Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media (AYAKM) division

•CNN and HLN, as part of CNN News Group

•The websites Super Deluxe, Beme Inc., and CallToons

•DC Entertainment

•DC Films, including all of the “Batman” movies

•Turner Broadcasting International

•Turner Sports, including the website Bleacher Report and the rights to March Madness and NBA playoffs

•The CW (50%)

•Warner Bros. Animation

•Hanna-Barbera Cartoons

•Fandango Media (30%)

•Warner Bros. Consumer Products

•Warner Bros. Digital Networks

•Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures

•Warner Bros. Pictures International

•Warner Bros. Museum

•Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank

•Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden

•Warner Bros. Studio Tours

•Warner Bros. Pictures

•Warner Animation Group

•Warner Bros. Family Entertainment

•NonStop Television

•New Line Cinema

•Turner Entertainment Co.

•WaterTower Music

•Castle Rock Entertainment

•The Wolper Organization

•HOOQ

•Blue Ribbon Content

•Warner Bros. Television

•Warner Horizon Television

•Warner Bros. Television Distribution

•Warner Bros. International Television Production

•Telepictures

•Alloy Entertainment

•eleveneleven

•Warner Bros

Is democracy threatened by this? What happened to antitrust regulations?

 It is an age of corporatism unbridled by a government that still thinks only in terms of the printed page. How will AT&T influence our opinions not just for entertainment but for news and an understanding of reality? This is too much control over a public’s perception of the issues of daily life.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Finally

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Winter seems at last to have given in regarding its long battle to deter Spring. An unexpected late frost damaged tomatoes and impatiens enough to delay blooming but all survived even if near the ground level. During the exceptionally cold Winter, the Azaleas planted in the front a year ago were frozen completely except for a few shoots coming from the roots. Only a handful of blossoms appeared. Needless to say, Spring planting of flowers and vegetables is behind schedule.

As headlines in the news report, this area and the entire Midwest has suffered record rainfall throughout the Winter and early Spring. Flooding is everywhere and the major rivers are setting record flood stages; many very large crop fields look like lakes. Instead of an emerging Spring, mariner’s home town suffered endless weeks of a weather pattern that hung around the freezing point, snowing at night and turning to rain during the day.

Mariner is old enough that reengaging the labors of gardening after Winter layoff takes a while. Between the rain, grass growing like there’s no tomorrow and a water table high enough that one’s boots splash when walking on the lawn, it will be awhile before the grounds look kempt.

Mariner’s daughter gifted him and his wife with a fancy Cherry tree. Sitting next to a large crabapple tree that blooms rambunctiously, that end of mariner’s home should be quite a display. Mariner also set out his potted Oleander, Amaryllis and the cactus collection from the Sonoran Dessert.

So, all is happy again in mariner’s hometown – especially for the lawn Nazis whose lawnmowers, blowers, lawn trimmers, tillers and power washers are incessant and drowned out only by the cars racing on the dirt track at the fairgrounds. When mariner first drove into his town in 1964, he said, ‘This is a town of lawns.’ And it is. The Town Council passed ordinances requiring lawns not to be too long and the property must appear well maintained.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to walk outside without bundling up and to hear a living world from hummingbirds to riding mowers to stock cars.

Ancient Mariner

 

Reality isn’t very large

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Mariner was reminiscing the other day about his teen years. That was a time when weekend dances were common in high school gyms. Living on the East Coast, there were summer beach parties, water skiing, Limbo contests and in the midst of it all dating and beginning to learn ‘grownup’ social skills. Naturally, after a moment, realism set in and mariner realized that era didn’t last very long. Not only that, it doesn’t exist anymore. Everyone has memories, of course, visions stored in brain cells. There are accountings in history books, mementoes, even the old letter sweater. Still, that era doesn’t exist anymore in any form of reality. That chunk of time is gone. Time doesn’t flow; it breaks off in chunks just like a glacier.

Think about the lives of our elders in the year 1900. It was an era where the horse was front and center to virtually every human activity. One accepted without thought the smells, the chores, the care and feeding of horses. On farms, it was an unconscious chore to start the day harnessing old Dobbin. One couldn’t go to town or church or work or haul the product of one’s labor without engaging a horse.

By 1914 the internal combustion engine had replaced the horse – so rapidly and so completely that everything from commerce to politics was reinvented. By 1925, after World War I, the horse was no longer a centerpiece in society. The horse world disappeared. That time broke off as a chunk and was no more.

Reality, that is, an interacting phenomenon that creates new actions and results, is really only about 25 years long. In a Zen moment, one realizes that their own reality has disappeared, too. Having only a few moments that exist in memory, one’s old self is gone.

Similar to a glacier losing a chunk of ice into the sea, the actual chunking process takes a long time. A glacier may take a half century to slowly split and melt to the point that a chunk falls off. Mariner proposes that today, at the start of the twenty-first century, humanity is splitting and melting as it approaches a moment of chunk, when the time one is familiar with today will suddenly be gone. A new time is beginning.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Happenings

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[HuffPost] Confirmed: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Viber, Snapchat and Messenger blocked in #SriLanka following series of deadly church and hotel attacks.

The United States is fortunate that misinformation did not lead to bombing and killing during the political campaign. Social media remains an uncontrolled communication service unhindered by the scruples and regulations of America’s free press. While the US suffers racial hate in the bombings and killings in black churches, Sri Lanka suffers religious hatred fueled by racism and politics. Life in the US could be worse. So far citizens yell and curse one another but warfare is not a tool of our religions or politics except for the armed crazies who seem to have a bias toward school children.

The real cause in Sri Lanka and many other situations is the ability to broadcast untrue and unwarranted information. Mariner believes that fact-checking can be automated to the point that attempts to spin falsehoods could be trapped.

– – – –

Talk about violence on TV, did the reader watch Bernie Sanders on Fox television? A notable moment to remember and one that caught the debaters off guard was when Bernie asked the audience if they would rather have single payer health coverage or stay with insurers. A significant majority raised their hands for single payer.

– – – –

[NPR] More than 80% of parents in the U.S. support the teaching of climate change. And that support crosses political divides, according to the results of an exclusive new NPR/Ipsos poll: Whether they have children or not, two-thirds of Republicans and 9 in 10 Democrats agree that the subject needs to be taught in school.

It is true that society would be less argumentative if our children were educated in contemporary subjects that provide a common (apolitical) foundation for life. However, public education is subject to imposing political and religious influence. Civics isn’t taught anymore because political locals prefer less complicated, controlled campaigns; American history of minorities isn’t taught because of race prejudice; Religions of the world and the accompanying sociology isn’t taught because of conflicts between other religions, science and Christian bias. Health practices aren’t taught because of biased resistance to issues like sex, abortion and flu shots.

Imagine if there were a class called ‘Living Today’ or ‘Contemporary Living’ where the material covered how government works, factual presentation of long-standing, polarizing issues and videos of economic circumstances around the world. Nah, mariner is dreaming.

While Betsy DeVos’ economic model for education would wipe out public education, private contractors may be encouraged to teach contemporary subjects by dangling increased profits for the effort. Nah, mariner is dreaming.

But just imagine if Donald’s base had studied civics and economics. . . Mariner is following Alice down the hole. God bless the US electorate.

Ancient Mariner

 

Being Real

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[“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit.]

From the Atlantic:

 Can We Touch?

Physical contact remains vital to health, even as we do less of it. The rules of engagement aren’t necessarily changing—they’re just starting to be heard.

James Hamlin, April 10, 2019

֎  Today’s post largely is a number of excerpts from James Hamlin’s article. Regular readers know that mariner is skeptical about modern technology, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) which is cleaving human behavior away from interpersonal touching, hugging, conversation, and deliberate sharing of the intimate space – a column of space that extends about a foot from the body. Several studies are presented that show a human is dependent on touching and hugging not only for social acceptance but for healthy bodies and emotional development. Brackets [ ] encompass quoted material.

[ Tiffany Field has spent decades trying to get people to touch one another more.

Her efforts started with premature babies, when she found that basic human touch led them to quickly gain weight. An initial small study, published in the journal Pediatrics in 1986, showed that just 10 days of “body stroking and passive movements of the limbs” for less than an hour led babies to grow 47 percent faster. They averaged fewer days in the hospital and accrued $3,000 less in medical bills. The effect has been replicated multiple times.

Field, a developmental psychologist by training, went on to found the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. She was a pioneer in highlighting the effects of “touch deprivation” among kids, famously those in orphanages. She explained to me that the effects are pervasive, influencing so many bodily systems that kids are diagnosed with “failure to thrive,” resulting in permanent physical and cognitive impairment, smaller stature, and social withdrawal later in life—which often includes aversion to physical contact. ]

       

      

   

֎ It is beyond question that hugging, touching, kissing, caressing, and many other intimate reinforcements are a biological requirement in primates – in fact all mammals require to some degree feelings of value, justification, affection, friendship, bonding, celebration and love.

[ Physical touch doesn’t make adults larger, but its effects are still coming to light. Field has published similar findings about the benefits of touch in full-term infants, and then children and pregnant women, adults with chronic pain, and people in retirement homes. Studies that involved as little as 15 daily minutes found that touch alone, even devoid of the other supportive qualities it usually signifies, seems to have myriad benefits.

The hug, specifically, has been repeatedly linked to good health. In a more recent study that made headlines about hugs helping the immune system, researchers led by the psychologist Sheldon Cohen at Carnegie Mellon University isolated 400 people in a hotel and exposed them to a cold virus. People who had supportive social interactions had fewer and less severe symptoms. Physical touch (specifically hugging) seemed to account for about a third of that effect. (The researchers conclude: “These data suggest that hugging may act as an effective means of conveying support.”) Cohen and his colleagues continued to show other health benefits of physical contact, such as a 2018 reveal in the journal PLOS titled “Receiving a Hug Is Associated With the Attenuation of Negative Mood That Occurs on Days With Interpersonal Conflict.” ]

֎ Everything mentioned to this point is critical to a healthy, mature sense of self. But there is another level of reality. Culture comes from human interaction; who we are among ourselves in a world of 7.7 billion people is reality. There is no way to identify and manage reality except through human interaction. Smartphones and iPads and computers are not reality. Let them take control and there will be no reality save ‘the cloud.’ Shades of “The Matrix”. We should have learned this on television: the fun parties in beer commercials are not real.

Reality comes from interaction with other people. The degree to which data mining distracts us from reality is damaging. Stop just to reinforce a friendship and hug them will enforce cultural reality. Giving the thumb a workout is time away from reality.

Ancient Mariner

 

Spring, maybe, has sprung

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Mariner’s town had its first Spring day three days ago. A Spring day means the Sun is shining, the breeze is comfortable and the temperature is in the sixties. Two days ago the town had its second Spring day in a row. However, as expected the temperature returned to highs in the forties and in the twenties at night and a couple of inches of rain the ground doesn’t need.

On those two Spring days mariner wandered outside to examine the gardens and lawns. Early bulbs are breaking through the mulch; the azaleas out front haven’t shown any interest in growing yet; there is hope they will return in zone 3-4 conditions. He cut back the patch of dead cattails and the brown zebra grass in the shade garden. Mariner cleared the Asparagus bed. The pickup truck was full and ready for the dump.

Mariner noticed other small things. A #$!!@ rabbit had eaten his newly planted fig tree to the nub and two 18-inch high emerald arborvitae as well. Two years ago three fox families moved into town because of the abundance of rabbits. The foxes don’t seem to be around this year and the rabbits are back.

Mariner’s wife feeds the squirrels and birds during winter snows. The snow is gone and thousands of sunflower hulls cover the kitchen garden as if mariner had spread mulch. Mariner has lots and lots of tree leaves like Ash, Oak, Walnut, etc. to collect along fence lines, in the gardens, and across the lawns. Funny thing, mariner has only one tree – a Pecan tree.

So it’s the beginning of another garden season. It was not easy to collect the grasses and clear vegetable boxes. Fifteen years ago mariner could clean up the yard in three hours or so; this year it took all day and required several breaks to ease the pains of codgerhood. Tomorrow he’ll drive to the dump and maybe find a dumped truck load of good dirt to pilfer.

Ancient Mariner