Music soothes the savage seizure...or unleashes it

I've always enjoyed a variety of music genres. In preparation for the summer season, I've spent the greater part of a month searching for new summer music. It's been a while since new tunes have found their way to my eardrums, and I've been eager to explore the [sound]waves, so to speak.

In my musical journey of self exploration, I came across a song on the radio that just sounded...well...bouncy. I found the CD at the local library and thought I'd check it out. The song was "Hot & Cold" by Katy Perry.

(Those of you who have known of the song for some time and realize just how out of touch I am: yes, I know who you are and I can hear you snickering...)

This fine afternoon I depart from the library parking lot and slip Katy's CD into the stock Hyundai Santa Fe six-speaker stereo (impressing everyone at once that Hyundai stereos actually play CDs! It's true, and this isn't even the deluxe model!). The bass is set to deadline center because, well, c'mon, these are stock speakers and I'd hate to blow them out listening to the CD most known for "I kissed a girl and I liked it..."

In case you're not familiar, the song "Hot & Cold" begins with a nice moderate tempo, a little electronic beat. I turn onto the main road and into typical afternoon city traffic as Katy pipes into the rhythm with a whispy "Youuu...change your mind...like a girl.... changes clothes..." I catch myself nodding my head in time with the beat, windows rolled down, elbow propped casually upon the driver's side door frame, volume turned perhaps a little too high.

As Katy tells me, "You're no good for meeee..." I feel the tension as the crescendo builds... until at last, the chorus! And with the chorus, the beat intensifies and I find myself suddenly imitating "the Roxbury Guys" of SNL fame! My head is spasming to the right in perfect time to the rhythm a la Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell and my body seems to be jerking to the left in time with my head and my hands are thumping the steering wheel with caffeinated enthusiasm while the driver of the car beside me is frantically trying to voice-dial 911 on his bluetooth to report the runaway Santa Fe barreling down the road under the strain of the driver who is apparently suffering an epileptic seizure possibly brought on by the thumpy music playing too loud on the cheap stock Hyundai speakers!

The chorus ends, the song resumes a quieter pace, and I return to a light, casual nod to the beat... but then here comes the chorus again... and my head is back to bouncing and I find myself singing along to the words I don't quite know and the car beside me has decided it's much safer to pull off to the side of the road because this crazy seizing guy in the Santa Fe is now screaming in some weird tongue that would make a Pentecostal minister envious!

So... I enjoy music. It's not often I listen to bouncy club music, but when I do, I experience it. I'm still in search of good summer songs. I've found a few, and some great ones have been recommended to me by friends.

Enjoy your summer, enjoy your music, but try not to freak people out with it.

Leia Mais…

Not so close, and impersonal

Yesterday, as I stood beside the open driver's side door of my car watching the scene unfold, I was reminded that, for the sake of safety, individual men lacking any mitigating circumstance are looked upon with a leery eye when interacting in public.

I was in the Costco parking lot, making my way through the sea of parked vehicles to the one recognized as my own. An older woman and young boy (presumably grandmother and grandson, for the sake of story simplicity) were stopped beside an overburdened shopping cart right behind where my car was parked. The boy was crying and holding his legs, and the grandmother was worriedly asking if he was okay, and where it hurt. From what she was saying (things like: "I told you to hold" and "I thought you were going to stay on") I gathered that he was riding along the outside of the cart, but stepped--or slipped--off, and the cart rolled over his legs, pinning him down momentarily.

She saw me reach my car beside them and gave me a look that said, "I know you're leaving, we're going as quickly as we can." Wanting to reassure her under the circumstances, I told her, "Take your time." Not very tactful, but I hoped it got my point across.

As it appeared more and more that the boy needed attention, I stepped forward and asked the woman if I could help with anything. She shook her head poignantly and continued urging the boy on. I took her meaning without delay and returned to the driver's door of my car.

As I sat in the car waiting patiently for them to continue past, a second cart rolled by, piloted by a couple slightly older than me. The woman of the pair expressed her dismay at the struggling boy and offered her assistance, which the grandmother took graciously.

I looked on from the suddenly isolated security of my car as the grandmother helped the boy along while the second woman assumed command of the first shopping cart; her husband drove their own cart away to their car.

As I was brought up to help when I can, this experience was disappointing for me, although I can't at all say I'm disappointed in the grandmother's responses. As the circumstance played out, I was by myself, near my vehicle, and entirely unknown to her. A strange person offering help is a rarity; and given the headlines news every evening, a man offering to help surely must have an ulterior, and most likely malevolent, motive.

And what of those mitigating circumstances I mentioned in the beginning? I've noticed that when I have my son and or daughter in tow, or are out and about with my wife, or better still, all four of us are together, then I am at once more readily approachable to others. Parents will make "parent" comments about their child's behavior while standing in a store line. Dad's will share empathetic expressions as they pass. Mom's will happily agree when you offer to pick up the bottle that just got lobbed at you from the stroller.

It's truly unfortunate that we cannot take everyone's actions at face value, thanks in no small part to those who have fooled others with acts of apparent kindness. In the parking lot of Costco, I meant only to offer help, but who's to say that the grandma looked at me and imagined the news that evening, with my neighbor being interviewed: "He always seemed like a nice man. I never would have expected he'd do this sort of thing. It's really a shame..."

And to tell you the truth, for the sake of my family, I wouldn't say I want to change that common social suspicion. By all means, listens to your gut and observe your surroundings. Better for the grandmother to be wrong about me than to be wrong about the guy who would harm them.

This isn't a very existential entry, is it. There might be a deeper meaning on the social construct and our relationships within a community, and we can all work to make it better... if you look really hard.

Leia Mais…

All work and no caffeine makes Brett a jittery boy

Until February this year, I was a coffee nut…or maybe coffee bean, to use a more appropriate metaphor. I'd begun innocently enough with the occasional cup my senior year of high school, but my beverage of choice at that time was something more of the carbonated persuasion. Coke. Mountain Dew. Perhaps the occasional Jolt Cola when I could find it. Coffee wasn't my beverage of choice; it just happened to be another avenue through which to flood my body with caffeine.

My first introduction to flavored coffee (not the General Foods International coffee blends, mind you, but the hand-made-by-cheerful-baristas-wearing-aprons-who-also-recommend-the-raspberry-scone coffees) was after I took a job with the airline. On a whim in those early days at my job, before the novelty of travel had worn off, I coerced my best friend to fly with me from Phoenix, AZ, up to Seattle, WA… for a cup of coffee. By that time (early 1996), Seattle was known to Arizonans as the place where people "drank coffee". So we flew up in the morning, rode the bus from the airport downtown, and did the touristy sightseeing thing… with coffee in hand.

Let's take a step forward through linear time to a point in my life when a full night's sleep is a luxury not often found and coffee (in all its forms) is not so much a recreation drink as an addicting necessity to get through the day. On any given Saturday I could siphon the entire contents of our home's 12-cup coffee pot, and decimate a 32-ounce bottle of Coffee-Mate (any flavor will do) in less than two weeks.

As unhealthy a relationship as it could ever be, my love affair with coffee came to a grinding (pardon the coffee bean pun) halt when I came down with bacterial bronchitis in February. I stopped drinking coffee, or anything else that wasn't hot tea or water, and in no time my bronchial coughing fits were augmented to by a wondrous side effect often called caffeine withdrawal.

Every time I coughed, my head was pummeled from above, in front and behind by the mythical gods of caffeine, who seemed persistently intent upon reminding me that I had forsaken their elixir of energy.

As my bronchitis persisted, so too did my resolve not to drink coffee. Okay, so it was so much resolve as an acute awareness that drinking anything with cream in it would send me into more rib-wrenching coughing fits. But it worked, and I have left coffee behind.

Okay, I've actually "snuck" two coffees in the past two weeks, but now I'm done. No more… really.

(sniff, sniff) Hey, did someone go to Starbucks? I smell a venti nonfat caramel macchiato with an extra shot of espresso…

Leia Mais…

Ellen DeGeneres and George Takei Ruined My Marriage? Really??

I don't know how, but that's what opponents of same sex marriage tell me. "Allowing homosexual couples to marry will destroy the institution of marriage," they say. That's a real shame. I enjoy my marriage, and love my wife very much. It's disconcerting to know that someone else can destroy my marriage just by getting married themselves.

I've heard this often enough that I finally asked (on an online forum) how my marriage was in danger. The answers came as sound bites: "If anyone can get married, then the sanctity of marriage is destroyed." "First same-sex marriage, then polygamy, then animal lovers marrying their pets." "Marriage is a right given by God to a man and woman." "The United States government (and the governments of the states) want to promote the traditional husband-wife family unit as the cornerstone of society." "Same-sex marriage is not a conducive child-bearing union."

These are all powerful answers… as long as you don't ask follow-up questions. None of them really told me how my marriage would be ruined by someone else's ability to marry. After a few forum pages of pushing through the sound bites, one of the posters finally answered directly: "We don't mean that it will destroy YOUR marriage or MY marriage. But it may make other people suddenly think that their marriage is less significant if all of a sudden a gay couple can marry." When I asked the follow-up of "How?" they didn't (or couldn't?) respond.

I thought after my experience on that forum that I'd outline the holes I saw in the arguments they gave me.

Same-sex coupling is not a conducive [biological] child bearing family.
If marriages were excluded based in part on this qualification, then couples who do not have children (whether by choice or – as argued against same-sex couples – because of biological limits) would not be allowed to marry. If a couple says they will conceive, but then decide against it later, would they be subject to a mandated marriage annulment?

The government wants to promote the traditional, husband/wife family unit as the cornerstone of society.
Promoting and "making illegal" are two entirely different tactics. Our government promotes higher education, but they do not deny people the right to obtain jobs if they don't get a post-secondary level education. If promoting the "traditional" nuclear family became an eligibility requirement for marriage, then what happens to families that consist of single parents, divorced parents, or even dual-income households (Mrs. Cleaver didn't leave Wally and the Beave at home to go work in an office or plant somewhere, after all).

Marriage is a Right granted by God to a man and woman.
Assuming the government can agree on which God or Gods gave us this right, you still have that pesky Lemon Test that would make any such decree immediately unconstitutional. The Lemon Test was established in the Supreme Court's ruling of Lemon v. Kurtzman 403 US 602 (1971), wherein three requirements were set forth in legislation concerning religion:

1. The government's action must not promote a particular religion or religious view;
2. The government's actions must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion; and
3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive entanglement" of the government and religion.

This would also mean that any civil marriages not presided over by a member of the clergy would not be recognized by the government, including those performed by justices of the peace.

Marriage is a privilege, not a right
According to the General Accounting Office of the Federal government, there are (as of 1997, before the Defense of Marriage Act) "1,049 federal laws classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor".
Some examples include:

• Access to Military Stores
• Assumption of Spouse's Pension
• Bereavement Leave
• Immigration
• Insurance breaks
• Medical decisions on behalf of spouse
• Sick leave to care for spouse
• Social Security Survivor benefits
• Income Tax breaks
• Veteran's discounts
• Visitation of spouse in hospital or prison

Marital status is a factor in state laws as wells, including:

• Assumption of spouse's pension
• Automatic inheritance
• Automatic housing lease transfer
• Bereavement leave
• Burial determination
• Child custody
• Crime victim's recovery benefits
• Divorce protections
• Domestic violence protections
• Exemption from property tax on spouse's death
• Immunity from testifying against spouse
• Insurance breaks
• Joint adoption and foster care
• Joint bankruptcy
• Joint parenting (Insurance coverage, school records, etc)
• Medical decisions on behalf of spouse
• Certain property rights for married couples
• Reduced rate memberships for married couples
• Sick leave to care for spouse
• Visitation of spouse's children
• Visitation of spouse in hospital or prison
• Wrongful Death (Loss of Consort) Benefits

When relating to loved ones, many of these are not "privileges", but rights.

Really, when it come to the debate over same-sex marriage, it boils down to whether or not a couple who has made that solemn promise to each other will be afforded the same rights and legal responsibilities as heterosexual couples who have made the same commitment.

Laws like California's recent Prop 8 will not end homosexuality, nor will they prevent gay couples from making that vow to each other. What it has done instead is take away rights that were put in place to strengthen and protect those couples who chose to promise themselves to each other above all else.

The argument that gay marriage will destroy the institution of marriage is ironic considering that Prop 8 actually sought to invalidate 18,000 same-sex marriages in California (the text said the measure would make all same-sex marriages constitutionally illegal). After its passage, it was clarified so as to add exception to those who were already married.

Despite what I'm told by those who oppose same-sex marriage, I think my marriage is pretty safe from harm despite the thousands of marriages in California alone. We won't mention all of the marriages back east or in other nations.

Leia Mais…

Finding the Right Adjective

"Do you ever get rabid thoughts?" asked my seven-year-old daughter in a rather serious tone as I tried again to tuck her into bed last night. We'd stayed up a little late to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on DVD, and as a result she was a little energized by bedtime. (I would be concerned by the degree to which she laughed at Lucy yanked the football away from Charlie, but my daughter later frown and admitted that Lucy really isn't very nice.)

"Rabid thoughts?" I asked. I was sure I'd misheard.

"Yeah. I keep getting them, and I can't calm down."

Confounded, I asked again. "Rabid??"

She nodded and tried again to find comfortable position in her bed. "You know, like when all these thoughts come into your head when you're not thinking of anything, and they don't have anything to do with what you're doing."

Like an archaeologist deciphering the Rosetta Stone for the first time, understanding hit me. "You mean random!"

In my defense, I was also tired, and so cannot be blamed entirely for the laughing fit we both fell into. Suffice to say I didn't exactly help calm her down for bed.

Leia Mais…

Just the facts, ma'am...?

"You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war," responded New York Journal publisher William Randolph Hearst via telegram to artist Frederic Remington, upon receiving word that all was quiet in Cuba. Embroiled in a turf battle for readership, Hearst and rival newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer of New York World began campaigns of article writing now referred to as Yellow Journalsim.

Yellow Journalism, so nicknamed 1897 by the New York Press, calls up images of sensationalized stories, half-truths, and outright lies, all used for the purposes of selling the news or, in some case, moving social agendas. The Journal and the World, for example, are credited in moving public opinion toward American involvement in Cuba's fight for independence with their falsified stories Spanish atrocities against Cubans.

(Historical note: after the sinking of the USS Maine in Havanna, Hearst's Journal ran the headline: "The War Ship Maine was Split in Two by an Enemy's Secret Infernal Machine." The fallacious story outlined a plot by Spain to sink the Maine by hiding a torpedo under its hull and detinating it from shore. Stories like this inundated the newspapers and swayed the public toward involvement. Three months after the sinking, the United States Congress declared war on Spain, thus beginning the Spanish-American War.)

The era of sensationalism in journalism is thought by some to have lost its hold on fact-based journalism, and found a niche of its own in "grocery store" tabloid papers. If you truly believe this, listen to the headlines on your local news, or read the first sentence in just about any newspaper report.

"Tonight at 11," chimes the newscaster's voice of video feed, "Is your child safe? The KXYZ news team investigates the latest popular electronic toothbrush. See what really happens in your child's mouth."

Yes, that was yellow journalism journaling yellow journalism. Listen to the commercials for your local news, though, and you'll be given the gift of your very own personalized sensationalism.
Hearst's and Pulitzer's shameful tactics are alive and well in all the news media formats. Add to that this new era of blogging the news (insert your op-ed here) and you have a yarn ball of opined hearsay facts from third party sources told under the condition of anonymity. The facts are still there, hidden somewhere under the enticing adjectives and ear-candy metaphors.

Twenty-four-hour news coverage hasn't helped. After all, now you don't just get the news; you get the "experts" talking about it for an hour and a half afterward. There's no need to form your own opinion anymore. The experts will tell you what it means. How do we as a society separate fact from opinion? In this era of news at your fingertips, when your iPhone alerts you of the latest headlines, and a blog is just a GoogleNews-click away, are we really supposed to discern the difference?

Hey, who put this soapbox here?

Leia Mais…

My Trouble With White Paper

Meditation is a mental exercise that I've been grappling with since I was but a wee lad frolicking in the world of hippy parents and the Age of Aquarius. My mom was the first to attempt the arduous task of teaching an eight-year-old what meditation was and how to accomplish it.

I was swimming in the apartment's community pool with my friend John on one of the countless hundred-degree summer afternoons in Phoenix when I noticed my mom sitting on the submerged steps with her eyes closed. When we asked why she wasn't swimming, she said that she was meditating. This word garnered the globally recognized eight-year-old response: "Huh?" She told us that meditating was kind of like relaxing, and meant clearing your mind, taking slow breaths, being very still.

John and I wanted to learn how, though less for mental clarity and more because when Luke Skywalker closed his eyes and breathed deeply he could move rocks with his mind! Yes, The Empire Strikes Back had just come out.

So we sat on the steps next to Mom, closed our eyes, matched her breathing, and sat really still.

…For about thirty seconds. C'mon, we were eight. What did you expect?

Flash forward twenty-eight years (don't let the eighties smack you in the head on the way). Meditating is still one of the most difficult things for me to accomplish. Many have suggested the "trick" of envisioning a white sheet of paper. It is said that the point of meditation is to clear your mind, so to imagine a sheet of clean white paper should nudge your mind into not thinking of anything. Unfortunately, that's not how my mind works.

Sitting still and comfortable, I breathe rhythmically and try to clear my mind. Apparently my mind abhors vacuum, and so random thoughts flood even as I try to relinquish them. So I turn to the white paper technique. I imagine white paper, nothing on it, completely clean. I focus on it, and suddenly find myself turning the white paper over in my mind, wondering if anything is on the other side. Then my mind wonders why there's nothing on the white paper. Why is this paper here in front of me if nothing is on it? Oh yes, because I'm supposed to be looking at nothing. But even white paper is something. I begin to image all the tiny pulp blemishes in the paper and see that the paper is really not white at all; rather, it is many different shades of off-white. Maybe it's recycled paper. It can't be completely white if it's recycled paper. This leads me to my art lessons of yore and the concept that the color white is not even a real color, but the inclusion of all colors reflected back to the human eye.

Thus I find myself concentrating on an imaginary multi-hued sheet of recycled paper wondering what it was before becoming this sheet of paper and thinking it might make a good paper airplane were I to fold it properly.

So much for clearing my mind.

Several years ago, I happened upon a wonderful book that helped me get closer to mental clarity. I've read it twice and have put it again on my short list of books to read in the coming weeks. It is called Turning Your Mind into an Ally, written by the Sakyong, Mipham Jamgön Rinpoche. In his book, the incarnate lama speaks to the reader as a teacher, laying out his story while guiding you in ways to "cultivate the natural strength of the mind through meditation."

Regardless of faith or philosophies, I recommend this book as a step toward strengthening your focus. Sadly, however, this book does NOT teach you how to move rocks like Luke Skywalker.

Learn more about Sakyong Mipham Jamgön Rinpoche at http://www.mipham.com/.

Leia Mais…