Dryden Town Board

I recently agreed to run for Dryden Town Board and was nominated last week by the Dryden Democratic Committee. You can read the announcement in the Ithaca Journal (if you're quick - Ithaca Journal links don't remain active very long.)

Sonnenberg

After a 15 minute argument about "You said Route 90," we were off to Sonnenberg Gardens for the Arts at the Garden show. There were five booths at which I was tempted to buy something: a painting from Pat Rechlin, a black glass vase from Pinkney Studios, a fiber artwork by Linda Hansee, who promised to email me a picture of it so I could decide, a pot from Mountain Star Pottery and a box from Frosty Morning Jewelry both of whom have no website. I did buy a lovely Ikebana flower holder from Hillbottom Pottery. Many of the artists at this show will be at the Clothesline Festival in Rochester in September, the same weekend as the Plants for Life Sale in Ithaca.



I'm glad we had time to walk around the gardens, too. This view reflects what I'd like to do around the meadow south of my house.






I think I was the only person in the Rose Garden taking a picture of a fly.








I've been really interested in stonework lately, but I doubt I'll ever manage an arch like this.

Eight Square Schoolhouse

I visited the Eight Square Schoolhouse today. Built in 1827, it served students within two miles until 1941 when the Dryden school district began transporting students to the Freeville school. The History Center in Tompkins County brings fourth-graders here every year for a taste of 19th century school days. Nicely refurbished with desks and slates, it's easy to imagine the twenty-eight foot diameter room containing up to twenty students in eight grades.

The decision to build the octagonal schoolhouse was influenced by Quaker tradition making efficient use of space and maximizing light and ventilation. In 1848 Orson Fowler began advocating octagonal buildings for the beneficial effects on health. Fowler, a phrenologist, also crusaded against corsets. His advocacy for sex education contributed to his eventual downfall.

I rode my bicycle to the schoolhouse, two and a half miles from my house. That doesn't seem far by any measure. But as I rode out of sight of my house, I remembered that it's been a few years since I've ridden the bike more than a mile. Happily, it turns out that two and a half miles really isn't far. The gravel shoulder provides an adequate safety zone for those moments when pickup truck drivers insist on passing too close to me. I know I'd have to grit my teeth if Maggy insisted on riding in sandals with no helmet, but I must admit I enjoyed it.

Cleaning

Not to be outdone by Maggy's kitchen cleaning... Though I have no one to blame by myself and the hundred and eight two projects I try to keep tabs on, I do sometimes notice that stuff is getting out of hand in the rooms I use a lot.

You certainly can't tell from these pictures that this cleaning included washing the windows. But you may detect from the missing spot of sunshine on the floor roughly how long I spent doing it.

Notes on matting

• It's harder than it looks.
• If step 1 goes well, don't be overly optimistic about step 2.
• Start out with 10 or 12 sharp pencils. If the phone rings or the cat wants to go out, you're gonna lose your pencil.
• Measure twice, cut once. Be prepared to start over.
• If for some misguided reason you're double-matting with black over white, find some way to keep your hands clean (the black rubs off on everything).
• Expect to drink more coffee (or beer, depending on the time of day) and smoke more cigarettes than usual.
• Do not, repeat DO NOT put your drink down near your workstation.

This is a field sketch of Bill's dated 1951. I "float-matted" it on white to reveal the ragged edges characteristic of a field sketch. Then double matted it with off-white over black.

I like the result. If I don't use it for the show we're mounting at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, I'll use it in my bedroom.

Other pictures that may make it to the show:

Sushi Salad

I have mixed feelings about posting recipes, but this is so easy and good - if I forget about it, I'll be glad to find it here.

Combine:
3 Cups cooked sushi rice
3/4 cup sliced celery
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 pound small cooked, shelled shrimp
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1/4 cup rice vinegar

Line a salad plate with lettuce. Top with 2 scoops of rice mixture and sliced avocado. Season with sesame seed, kelp and/or soy sauce.

1 cup serving: 256 calories, 13 g protein, 5 g fat, 44 g carbohydrate

Links

I used to scorn the practice of campaigning for links to a blog site. People who have little to say tend to do this to increase traffic to a site which has no other way to attract readers. Well, come to think of it, I still scorn that practice. But the blogs I like best are the ones with good links.

This morning I started, somewhat randomly, in my list of bookmarks for "Things to read when I have a chance," at Cognitive Daily. From there I traveled to Mixing Memory and an interesting article about language and color. I didn't know that English speakers have 11 basic color terms: green, blue, purple, red,pink, orange, yellow and brown. Wait, that seems to be only eight...

This graph was developed "by having people name Munsell color chips, which depict colors across the visible spectrum. You then determine the color names that were used to describe the bulk of the spectrum. In doing so, you get graphs that look like the following for English-speakers (from Roberson et al. 2000)"

Why is pink a separate concept when there is no word for light green or light blue? Why don't lilac or lavender count? Why are the colors yellow and orange so "small?" Why is brown just kind of dark orange? I'm a redhead. These are important questions to me. My horse, my dog, one of my cats and my hair are all very similar colors. We call the horse chestnut, the dog brown, the cat orange and me, well, red. Interestingly, the shape of the "orange" concept matches the map of my property. (And Mary Magdelene and I share a birthday - but that's another story. Let's talk about coincidence someday)

I started looking at the links to blogs that Mixing Memory finds interesting. Some are ones I already read: Panda's Thumb, Shakespeare's Sister, Pandagon and others. Blogs Mixing Memory led me to that I bookmarked to return to include: The Valve, LogBlog, John Hawks, I Blame the Patriarchy, Here's What's Left, Ethical Werewolf, Cosmic Variance.

Those sites, of course, lead to others. And now it's 9:30 and things are being added to my "to do" list much more rapidly than things are being checked off.

Namesake

I've just finished reading Namesake. Gogol is named for the Russian writer to whom his father believes he owes his life. Throughout Gogol's youth he's embarrassed by the name. Before starting college he changes his name to Nikhil, which would have been his "good name" according to Bengali custom, had not American bureaucracy made it difficult for his parents. Nikhil later advocates that people choose their own names when they're eighteen.

I'm reminded of the effort some of us put into choosing screen names or user ids.

My daughter grew up as Margaret - a name she says everyone responds to with "My grandmother's name is..." After a summer of deliberation she chose to start college as Maggy. For some reason she registered as Margarette - a choice she backed away from two years later. But Maggy, though not as drastic a change as Gogol's, has worked for her despite the nearly universal tendency to spell it Maggie.

Many other wonderful thought in Namesake... The description of grace surrounding the family of the woman he dates "From the very beginning he feels effortlessly incorporated into their lives. It is a different brand of hospitality from what he is used to; for though the Ratliffs are generous, they are people who do not go out of their way to accommodate others, assured, in his case correctly, that their life will appeal to him."

Birdbath

Here it is. This is the most nearly plumb it will ever be. This Chickadee was kind enough to land here just as I was taking the picture - confirming that the structure may remain plumb in use and making the picture much more than I'd planned.

This picture lacks the sense of the water flowing from near the top of the curve and overflowing from the dish. I'll tinker with the shape a bit. But I like the musical implication of the clef-like curve.


Also, yesterday a honeybee came for a drink from the fish pool on the deck.


And many thanks to Belinda for figuring out for me how to include images and links to "What I'm reading" in the sidebar.

Redstart

Yesterday I was working on the "cup-runneth-over" bird bath I've been planning for a while. The idea is to create a gracefully curved copper tube to drip water into a shallow copper dish overflowing into a tub of stones. I got the parts into place yesterday but I found that the pump I was using couldn't lift the water to the height I wanted. On the plus side I accidentally created a much more graceful curve with the copper tube than I had originally envisioned.

As I sat back on the deck with a cocktail to contemplate the progress, a young Redstart landed on the wire fence near the project. He explored the parts, landing on the copper tube, the edge of the dish and finally plunging into the water to bathe for a few minutes. He didn't mind when I cautiously got up to get my camera. But I took a moment too long to grab the long lens. As I came back, he finished his bath and sat preening on a branch above the water.

I can hardly describe my pleasure watching the bird. I've never seen a Redstart this close. They eat insects, so naturally have never come to the feeder. Bill has told me again and again that running water is a magnet for birds. Hence the plan for the bird bath. But who knew it would work this fast? I can hardly wait to get another pump and finish the project.

I had trouble finding a picture that adequately conveys the grace of this tiny warbler. Peterson's Field Guide describes the Redstart as "the most butterfly-like of birds." This lovely photo is from Carol Edwards and copyrighted 2004.

These are the moments that restore my soul.

Time

This morning my sister sent me a link to this clock - you have to watch it to appreciate the digital irony. Not that I really need any more reminders of time passing. It's 10:30 and the sun is shining. Yet I'm sitting indoors.

A book I borrowed from Robin shows me how to make a neat little book. The cover includes an hourglass template, two pieces of acrylic and some sand.

I wanted to make the book for Maggy and use the pages inside for the Benjamin Franklin quote, "If you love life, do not squander time. For that is the stuff life is made of." But that sounds really nagging - and you're looking at the sand trickling away. Man, is that depressing.

So, I thought of Jim Croce, "If I could save time in a bottle, the first think that I'd want to do is to save every day 'til eternity passes away just to spend them with you." That's better, but way too needy for a mother-child thing.

I could work up a pretty good philosophical rant around "The fundamental things remain, as time goes by." Or an artistic presentation of "Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."

Still, it's 11:00 and I'm going outdoors now.

Hummingbird

This may be why I can't get things done. I was replacing the worn out steps to my back door. Nearby there's a nice stand of Bee Balm and I'd been watching the hummingbirds coming and going for days. I got the project with the stairs roughed out. But I couldn't resist getting my camera.

Years ago I read, in a photography book, "When you're about to take a picture, ask yourself 'Why am I taking this picture?' and if you can't think of a reason, don't take the picture." So, the reason for this picture is to show that there are hummingbirds in my life and I can sit still long enough to get a picture of one.

Coyote Ugly

Maggy was home for my
birthday. I drove her back to New York Sunday morning in time for her shift at Coyote Ugly. My sister suggested visiting her at the bar - something I probably never would have done alone.














She says there are a lot of bad pictures of her at the bar. Here's another.

Africa and Sister Agnes

Sister Agnes said there was no point in studying Africa because it changed so much. She was reputed to be in her eighties when she was my high school history teacher in 1965. So, perhaps it had changed a lot in her lifetime. Wouldn't that be all the more reason to study it? Anyway, it remains a gap in my otherwise fine Catholic school education.

In my continuing effort to fill the gaps, I found these maps. I posted the map of Africa over the kitchen sink. I admit that at first glance I can only accurately place four or five countries on the map. And there are several countries whose names I don't recognize. Ask me again next month.

Then perhaps I'll move on to Carl Sandburg. "Fog comes in on little cat feet..." was okay. But "Chicago" was not poetry 'cause it was ugly. If Sister Agnes read this she'd be furious that I used the contraction... Or perhaps my spelling of Sandburg. I tried to confirm it with a Vivisimo search and found 204 references to Sandburg and 77 references to Sandberg. This is surely not an area where majority should rule.

Philosophy and Ideology

I've been enjoying Ron Suskind's book The Price of Loyalty, about Paul O'Neill's two years as Secretary of the Treasury, partly for the insight into the Bush administration and partly for the similarity to my last job. O'Neill was shocked by Cheney's position, ("Reagan proved deficits don't matter. We won the midterms. This is our due.") in the debate over further tax cuts in the face of rising deficits in late 2002. O'Neill "thought that, clearly, there's no coherent philosophy that could support such a claim," and started to ponder the difference between philosophy and ideology.

"I think an ideology comes out of feelings and it tends to be non-thinking. A philosophy, on the other hand, can have a structured thought base. One would hope that a philosophy, which is always a work in progress, is influenced by facts. So there is a constant interplay between what do I think and why do I think it..." I think many of us in the Reality Based Community are asking those questions continually. In June I wrote something similar about knowledge vs belief.

Recently in this discussion of evolution a writer putting forth his "Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis" refers to the "Darwinian Myth." Another commenter, skillfully and politely questioning the hypothesis leads him to this astonishing position:

"I have great difficulty applying logic to evolutionary matters. The major weakness in the Darwinian scheme is the fact that superficially it seems very logical. That does not make it correct. Hypotheses have to be reasonable - facts don't. An hypothesis does not cease to be an hypothesis when a lot of people believe it."

He may be making a logical leap to "Everything outside the set of 'reasonable things' is fact." Or "The set of things people believe in does not intersect the set of things that are true." Or a number of other logical errors.

This serves to drive me closer to Greenspan's recent exhortation that the best thing we can do for the economy is to educate middle and high school people better. I think, to some degree, that would make it easier to continue to educate people after they leave school. I'm often frustrated when I don't have enough information to reach a reasonable conclusion, but I'm increasingly infuriated by people (including some of my liberal friends) who have little or no information to support their positions.

Dark Wraith

Dark Wraith has the most interesting thing going about tax reform and national sales tax here - part 1 and here part 2.

Social Security information

A comment from Lee Arnold on Brad Delong's blog this morning led me to this excellent 12 minute animated video explaining the current Social Security system and possible solutions.

Blogger Images

I wonder if Blogger's new photo option is any easier or better than Picasa.

Well, clearly I should resize and reduce resolution before trying to upload. I'm working with a modem and I won't always have time to wait 20 or 30 minutes to upload.

Now, let me try to figure out placement. I think I chose right justfied in the initial download.

Okay. I can resize them and with trial and error I can move them around.

This is my perennial border last Wednesday:

(Insert text here 'cause I can't seem to space the new paragraph down to the bottom of the picture. I know Blogger doesn't like more than one line between paragraphs. Clearly I'm going to have to learn enough html to adjust borders etc.) Clearly I made the task more difficult by upload two pictures at the same time. Just a little more space...

This is the border on Friday, after edging and mulching.

Okay. I'm going to have to experiment a little. But it's certainly no harder than Picasa. And may be more versatile once I figure it out.

SSI - Social Security Insurance Rhetoric

A few years ago, as Business Director of a not-for-profit arts organization, I was working to establish a retirement program for employees. I think helping employees save for retirement is one of the best benefits an employer can offer. It gives the employee some security, it helps attract well qualified employees and it reduces employee turnover. One member of the Board of Trustees preferred a cafeteria style benefit plan because he thought requiring employees to save for retirement in order to receive the matching money the employer offers was paternalistic.

The current rhetoric in the Social Security debate equally baffling. Is the current SSI tax, matched by the employer, paternalistic? Maybe. Is that bad? Note that it's SSI - Social Security Insurance. It's not retirement savings. It provides workers with an annuity type investment to fund retirement. If you retire early and live a long time, you get more than you paid in. If not, well then, aside from survivor benefits, you're funding someone else's retirement. Maybe that's the part conservatives can't stand.

We're simply not going to let people starve when age or disability forces them to retire. SSI prevents the need to support, outright, people with no other retirement savings (or inadequate savings). And, incidentally, everyone else benefits, too. Would we prefer a tax to support only the people who have no other retirement savings?

I'm absolutely in favor of private retirement savings and investments. I have some myself. Every one is free now to establish whatever private savings plan they want. Some plans are nicely encouraged by tax exemptions and credits. We don't need the government to require private savings. It's enough that there are some tax benefits. What SSI provides is a bit of insurance for people who haven't had enough money or foresight to save enough for retirement.

I know I have neighbors who don't have enough money to save for retirement. I also have friends with incomes considerably higher than mine who've been living in the moment and have saved little or nothing for retirement. I'm okay with that. Let me repeat: it's Social Security Insurance. I'm required to carry liability insurance on my car. In addition, I opt to pay for collision coverage to cover the expense of repairing my car in the event of an accident. So, for thirty five years I've paid hundreds of dollars a year for car insurance. I've never had an accident. Someone out there is paying for their accidents with my money. Likewise, if I live a long time (which I may, given the fact that I've never had an auto accident) I'll be getting someone else's money in my Social Security check.


Consider that other great misnomer, Life Insurance. It has that warm, fuzzy, safe feeling. But it's a bet with the insurance company. You're betting that you'll die before you pay in the value of the policy. The insurance company is betting you'll live a long time and pay in more than the value of the policy. Let me clue you in. The insurance company, just like the Las Vegas dealer, is going to win. They're not doing this for the fun of it. They're making a profit. If I had life insurance I'd be counting on all those people who live a long time and keep paying their life insurance to give my beneficiary a chunk of money when I die.

Hmmm... I wonder how many conservatives have annuity investments or life insurance.

Evolution and knowledge

Sometimes I'm a bit slow to catch on. I don't always have time to follow up on interesting things. So, it's only recently that I looked into the concept of "reality-based community" posted on so many of the blogs I read. Apparently the term arose in the fall of 2004 following a NY Times article in which an unnamed aide to Bush is quoted:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

This would be funny if it weren't so scarey. I'm fine with the contrast between faith-based and reality-based. And I'm firmly situated in the reality-based community. But it's truly frightening to hear someone in government say "...we create our own reality."

I always enjoy discussions of evolution and creationism. My friend, Bill (whose picture I posted here), is a retired Cornell biologist. He was internationally renowned in the field of behavioral evolution and nearly everything I know about evolution I learned from him. It's easy to love a framework of knowledge that makes as much sense as evolution. I especially liked his response to a graduate student in the throes of angst about the meaning of life. "Life is just a gene's way of getting more genes." It takes a lot of the heat off the decision of "What should I do today?" Today economist Brad DeLong is writing about evolution here.

When I'm pondering how to influence someone who's views are very different from mine, I usually come to the question of knowledge vs belief. It's relatively easy to influence someone whose ideas are based on knowledge. But so often you come to the place where differences of opinion are based, not on knowledge, but on belief. So, what's the difference?

I know there's a whole branch of philosophy devoted to knowledge, but I'm not well educated in this area. There are things I know because I've experienced them, i.e. if I touch the hot stove I'll burn my hand. And there are things I know 'cause someone I trust told me so and it makes sense: some American colonists were outraged by the Stamp Act. And there are things I believe, without any rational basis, because they work for me: educated is better than uneducated. My sister still disagrees with me regarding "clean is better than dirty." Notice the word in common here: "better." Eventually evidence accumulates and some beliefs become knowledge. I think I was eight when I realized it's not the bending trees making the wind blow, but the other way around. And I'm still not sure exactly why that's true.

But in the end, I don't know how to influence people who cannot incorporate knowledge into beliefs.