Other Owls, Number Four – X the Owl

X, good old X. Not much of a name, I'll grant you, but a very fine fellow nonetheless. X, as I'm sure you know, lives in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Neighborhood is something of a misnomer. It is actually a very small kingdom, ruled by a benevolent but absolute monarch, King Friday XIII. The tiny landlocked state has a low birth rate (only two live births have been recored in the last 40 years, one prince and one platypus), but otherwise seems to be a healthy and nurturing environment. The chief export of the area is rocking chairs. The country has no transnational disputes and is considered extremely stable, except for when Lady Elaine Fairchilde causes trouble with her Boomerang-Toomerang-Zoomerang.

X lives in a hollow space in an old oak tree. Unlike most owls, he has a door that covers the opening to his home. The cross beams on the back of the door form an “X,” which is visible when the door is open. It originally was a standard “Z” shaped set, but Handyman Negri, at the request of X, renovated it to be more distinctive.

Living in the same tree is X's neighbor and closest friend, Henrietta Pussycat. She occupies a small house that is secured to a stout branch very near his door. Henrietta has an unusual and somewhat debilitating speech pattern that over the years X has learned to understand. He sometimes acts as her translator. The owl and the pussycat are great friends, and although there have been rumors of a deeper relationship, nothing is known for sure.

X is, I believe, unique in his blue plumage. Most owls have feathers that help them blend into their surroundings, but X has never been one to blend in. He sits in his great tree, a very public owl, always glad to greet a neighbor. Here's to X. Moral exemplar, nifty-galifty owl.

Tales From the Crypt

We spent part of an afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts this week, mostly looking at the new exhibit, “The Secrets of Tomb 10A.” I've always been a sucker for ancient Egypt, so I had a wonderful time. 10A was the tomb of a governor and his wife who were mummified 4000 years ago. Sometime in the distant past Governor Djehutynakht's tomb was tumbled by grave robbers who made a hash of the place, ripping everything, including the chamber's mummified inhabitants, to bits. In 1915 archaeologists working for the MFA found the place, and the museum has spent decades putting things together. It's really quite fascinating. There were dozens of model boats, some symbolizing the boat that the dead would take on their journey in the afterlife, some representing boats used in funerals, and others of a more pedestrian nature, like kitchen barges (upon which little figures can be seen making beer) and fowling boats, used for hunting. Bits of the canopic jars where there, which surprisingly had feet instead of flat bottoms. Models of people about their work, making bricks or farming, were found near tiny representations of jars, bread, tools, weapons, and walking sticks, symbolically giving the deceased the things he would need in the afterlife.

I found the coffins themselves to be the most interesting. Little things, like the liveliness of the painted birds or the details on the doors painted on the inside were strangely moving and beautiful. Little painterly touches give one a sense of connection to a tomb artist of the Middle Kingdom period. I was reminded of Shelly's "Ozymandias." “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains.” Nothing of the power of kings and governors lasts, but art, the work of unknown carvers and tomb painters, that lasts and is still charged with power, millennia later.

The richness and complexity of their religion is daunting. It seemed as if every surface of the coffins were decorated or written on. The robbers had broken the governor's coffin apart, affording us a view of the parts that were never meant to be seen, including the places where one panel was attached to another, forming a join. I was struck by the hieroglyphs scratched into the joins of the coffin's panels. They weren't decorated, as they would be unseen, but it was still deemed necessary to write spells here. The inside of the boxes were virtual spell books, giving the dead all the words he would need to proceed safely through the complicated, hazardous, and wonderful life that awaited Egyptians on the other side.

The complexity and diversity with which human culture makes it's efforts to come to grips with the eternal never ceases to fascinate. The ancient Egyptian effort was, perhaps, the richest and most difficult of all. Intertwining mythologies that changed based on what part of the Nile Valley you came from and what century you where there, with century after century layered on top of that, created one of the greatest wonders of mankind – Egyptian religion, and all that it inspired. Remember, when Djehutynakht died the great pyramids had been standing for about five hundred years. In all that time the culture and religion didn't stand still. It kept evolving, changing, and growing. It's only natural that he needed a guidebook.

I wonder, is religion, and all its expressions, the great collaborative art project of every civilization? In attempting to grasp truths beyond our ability to comprehend, are we in fact creating truths and beauty beyond what would otherwise be our ability to create? Looking at the care and skill that those ancient artists lavished on things both simple and beautiful, reading the the prayers and incantations written for the governor, I am moved by the power of belief.

Happy World Television Day

Today is one of the most important days on the United Nations calendar, the day we are to celebrate TV as a medium of “peace, security, economic and social development and the enhancement of cultural exchange.” In solemn commemoration of this august occasion, I will now go watch SportsCenter and then Scooby-Doo.

I Am Jack's Grotesque News Item

When did Tyler Durden get to Peru?

Bumper Sticker Politics, T-Shirt Theology

Do you remember all those T-shirts and bumper stickers from a few years ago that read “01.20.09?” Did you think they were funny? Well I didn't. I thought they were negative and mean spirited. They brought nothing to the debate but acrimony. You want to criticize the president, his party or policies, then fine, do so. But leave the empty-headed negativity to sports, where you can indulge yourself by saying the team from some other town stinks. It's still obnoxious, but at least it doesn't really matter.

Today I read about T-shirts and bumper stickers that say “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8” The verse reads “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.” I like that one even less. Taken out of context, the verse cited simply calls for another to take his place in the Oval Office, no different than the 01.20.09 signs and the 01.20.13 signs I've already seen. But biblical verses do not exist without context. The next two verses continue: “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.”

That isn't even close to funny. It is, in fact, it's a stone's throw from being illegal.

Psalm 109 is a curse, what biblical scholars call an imprecatory psalm. The psalmist calls upon God for help against lying, deceitful enemies who falsely accuse him. He calls down a terrible curse upon those enemies. Its use is nonsensical, as the president, while he may be viewed as an enemy by his political opponents, does not stand accused of bearing false witness against anyone. This disconnect between the quoted verse and the target of the curse suggests a glibness in the use of the Bible that I find to be somewhat distasteful.

Contemplating this, I find myself comforted by another verse -- Proverbs 26:2.

“Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying,
an undeserved curse goes nowhere.”

Trekgasm

How did I miss this? Bloopers from the most recent Star Trek movie.

Amusing if you are a Trekkie. Otherwise, meh. I, of course, was amused.

My Dear Wormwood

The other day I strolled into my neighborhood bookstore. I had been reading a big history and wanted to take a break, so I was browsing for books that I've always wanted to read but just never got around to. I fell upon The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. That's been on the giant to-be-read list for a very long time.

As is often the case when I do this sort of thing, I feel a bit of a fool for not having read the book before. Perhaps if I had read Lewis's wisdom years ago I'd have not fallen into error, as I certainly have. On the other hand, when I look back at myself as a youth, I see a pretty sharp guy who lacked a good deal of the wisdom I now have. I'm not sure that I would have taken the lessons this book offers. I'm not sure I would have understood. As Edmund Wilson said, “No two persons ever read the same book.” I am not the same person I once was, and neither, I hope, are you. I've already added Screwtape to my to-be-read-again list to see what a grayer me gets out of it. I think it's a rather nice gift to my future self.

The book is in an epistolary form, made up of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon with an administrative post in Hell, to his nephew Wormwood, a young tempter on his first assignment trying to secure a soul for his master and from God, here described as the Enemy. The central literary conceit is that old notion that every person has a guardian angel and a demonic tempter at his side, whispering advice. I think this personification of our internal dialog can be a useful tool. It can throw light on what might otherwise be dimly realized thoughts. It can help us be more aware of the cognitive distortions that often lead to needless anguish. And it can help us to focus on our healthier notions, the “advice” of our “guardian angels.” One caveat though: if you find yourself coming to believe that the voices in your head are really other people, seek professional help.

The cartoon image of the devil on the shoulder is usually seen as advising big, flashy sins of the seven deadly or ten commandments variety. That's not what Lewis was interested in here. In one letter Screwtape tells his nephew that he should create a feeling of dim uneasiness and a numbness in the heart of his “patient.” He will then no longer need to provide pleasures as temptations. Rather than focusing on work or sleep or prayer, the man will waste his time doing things he neither likes nor dislikes.

You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, "I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked". The Christians describe the Enemy as one "without whom Nothing is strong". And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.

It's the little sins that seem to get most of us. Self destructive habits, mindlessly wasting the little time that we have, not pursuing real happiness, not being about our work, not doing what we know to be healthy, that's what destroys us. It separates us from God, Lewis says. Our own little tempters don't need to counsel violence when despair will do. If we can't be separated from religion, we can at least be separated from God by focusing our minds on how superior we are as Christians. The Enemy would rather have us focusing on mere Christianity and selfless love of others. According to Screwtape:

The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if hit had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things.

I don't want to leave you with the impression that the book is a collection of nothing but profound insights. It is a form of novel; it tells a story, cleverly and with some humor. Sometimes Lewis uses Screwtape to comment on matters regarding England and her Church, but most often he is writing about things that apply to the universal human condition. I'm already looking forward to reading it again.

Analysis Spock?

Leonard Nimoy on Obama: “There will be people sniping at him for what Dick Cheney referred to as 'dithering.' Well, for Christ's sake, how about giving it some thoughtful process before you send thousands of kids to die? It's painful to watch the political game, them trying to outdo each other, to get political points at the expense of reality and intelligence.”

Logical. Flawlessly logical.

Diabetes Day

Today is World Diabetes Day. So what, you say? Diabetes isn't all that serious, it it?

Here are a few fun facts from the American Diabetes Association. Did you know that “diabetes kills more people in the United States than AIDS and breast cancer combined?” You probably know that the number one killer in America is heart disease, but did you know that “adults with diabetes are two to four times as likely to die of heart disease as those who don't have diabetes.”

More fun facts: “Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure.” It is the number one “cause of new blindness in adults ages 20 to 74.” It is “responsible for more than 60 percent of all nontraumatic lower-limb amputations.”

The number of Americans with diabetes is growing. The ADA says that if this growth continues at its current rate, one third of babies born in the US in the year 2000 will eventually develop the disease. For racial and ethnic minorities that prediction jumps to one half.

In a time when we are discussing the cost of health care you might want to know that diabetes takes $174 billion out of the economy every year.

Diabetes is an enormous threat to public health, yet it sometimes seems that no one has noticed. Today would be a good time to learn more, to take action, and to begin to stop diabetes.

11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour

My mother grew up in a small town in rural America. She remembers what used to happen every November 11th. At 11:00 AM the church bell would ring the time. People would stop what they were doing. Working, walking, talking, teaching, even driving, it didn't matter. They would stop, stand, and silently commemorate all those who had served in our armed forces. In time, this practice declined.

Today, Americans are freer, safer, and more prosperous than most of the world. If there are any veterans reading this, I'd like to offer you my thanks.

Patriotic Stimulation

A big thank you will soon be due to American taxpayers from our favorite local football team, the New England Patriots. Governor Patrick wants to spend $9,000,000 of stimulus money to build a footbridge that will connect parking lots at Gillette Stadium and the Patriot Place shopping-dining-spa-entertainment-museum-hotel-shooting range-outpatient clinic. This will make it much easier for Pats fans to cross Route One and enjoy the spectacle of their team crushing another foe.

Just a few years ago this would never have been possible. In those dark days the deluded people who ran things in the Commonwealth thought that spending public money on a private investment was an outrage. Government, it was thought, should not be in the business of giving our money away. While other states went into debt to build new stadiums, the leaders of the General Court let it be known that if the Patriots wanted to build a new facility, they would have to do it with their own money. Taxpayers would kick in to widen the highway in the area, but Mr Kraft would have to spend his own money for his new stadium. He did, and it is a very nice place.

Today, we are much more enlightened. Now we know that to stimulate the economy the government should borrow billions of dollars and spend it on all sorts of projects. Besides, it's not like we're paying for it. It will be our children and grandchildren. That, my friends, is change we can believe in. Together, we can give millions to The Kraft Group to stimulate the economy, create jobs, and make game day just a little nicer. Thank you taxpayers. You're all Patriots now.

More Gloom For the Bookstore Business

Waldenbooks says they will close 200 stores after Christmas. That means another 1500 booksellers out of work. When I worked at Waldenbooks it had well over a thousand stores. It will be well under 200 by this spring.

Waldenbooks began in 1933 as a rental library. People who wanted to read popular books would pay three cents a day to borrow them. It was a great business and by the mid-1940s they had over 250 locations. In the 50s the new killer app came out: the affordable paperbound book. Rental libraries, once a vital part of the cultural landscape of America, went the way of the gaslight. Waldenbooks adapted and thrived.

Today's killer apps, ebooks, the internet, and big box bookstores (which won't survive this century either), are too great a change for the now mall-based chain (malls aren't doing so well either). Erstwhile arch-rival B. Dalton is down to just a handful of shops. It is a business model that has outlived its utility.

Pity. I like moderately sized bookstores. I bought my last book in one. But the future is not bright.

The Great Escape

Twenty years ago today something remarkable happened. Something that I always believed would happen but never believed that I'd live to see happen. Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall came down.

For those too young to remember, the wall separated communist East Berlin from free West Berlin. It was designed to keep the people of the east from escaping oppression. Long, tall, and wide, it was actually a set of parallel walls with a large area between them to afford the guards a clear field of fire. Before the wall some 3.5 million Germans escaped, about 20% of the population of East Germany. After the wall was completed about 5000 Germans escaped. Well over 100 were killed in the attempt.

I am reminded today of something that Mohandis K. Gandhi once said. “When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.”

Today bits of the wall are displayed all over the world (like this one in California), lest we forget the terrible lesson of history and the irresistible power of the human spirit striving for freedom.

Salute

Charlestown is steeped in history. It was founded 381 years ago and has been officially part of Boston since 1873. It's where the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought. George Washington had trenches dug there as part of the siege of Boston. It has been a tight-knit, mostly Irish neighborhood since the 1860s. The Charlestown Navy Yard has been there for more than two centuries, and it has been the permanent home of the USS Constitution since 1934. Townies take a justifiable pride in their heritage.

About twenty years ago a lot of what we used to call “yuppies” moved into the neighborhood. They were not always welcomed with open arms by the established residents, as it was thought that the newcomers might change the essential character of the place. About ten years ago another wave of upper middle class people began to move in. Condos were built and old buildings were turned into new condos. The newcomers liked the old town. Mostly.

The only blot on their otherwise perfect urban paradise was that ship. Not the view, mind you. Looks great, adds to the resale value and all that. It's the noise. The Constitution is a Navy ship. It is, as you've probably heard, the oldest commissioned warship in the world. Every day, just as it has since 1798, the crew raises the flag in the morning and lowers the flag in the evening. At each ceremony, morning and night, they fire a cannon in salute and play the national anthem. The townies have been setting their watch by it for 75 years.

But the newcomers say it must stop. At the very least not on weekends. And maybe turn down the volume. “Over the summer, we have entertained several times, and we have had guests sit up in shock when the cannon goes off,” the residents wrote. “It has also awakened them at 8 a.m. while they are vacationing and then blasted them again at sunset.”

I feel for them. I do. When you are entertaining your guests, it just doesn't do to have cannon fire when they want to sleep in or enjoy their evening cocktails on the balcony. Certainly not.

I just wonder why, if the sound is such a terrible bother, they moved in next to a ship that has been doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same spot for three quarters of a century?

I would like to suggest a solution. I believe that the problem could be one of the load being fired. The sound would probably be muffled if actual cannonballs were loaded instead of just powder and wadding. They would most profitably be aimed inland, perhaps up on the heights where the newer buildings are located. Such a plan would likely eliminate the source of the problem.

No need to thank me. I'm just glad to help.

Cat Flu

This morning's news brings us word that a cat in Iowa has been infected by the H1N1 virus. This is, of course, terribly serious, especially for the kitty, and a useful warning to infected cat owners. Still, I couldn't help but wonder what John Cleese was doing in Iowa. Apart from being a full-time stapling machine, of course.

Trivial Hoot Six

Great googly moogly. It's been way too long since I did one of these trivia things. Number five was during the summer. That time I asked if anyone knew whose sarcophagus was pictured. David Rupp nailed it. An unheard of Triple Hoot to David, the king of maniacal trivia! The answer was Captain John Paul Jones.

I'll stick with the captains but this time go all Star Trekkie on you. Name every adult performer who has played the role of James T. Kirk on Star Trek. By “on Star Trek” I mean official, canonical Star Trek, not parody Kirks, not fan-made Kirks, but real, official James T. Kirks on real, official Star Treks.

Who played Kirk? It's a trickier question than you might think.

Some Are More Equal Than Others

Yesterday Maine voters rejected the idea that the law should apply equally to homosexual and heterosexual people.

I'd like a law that says that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Too radical? Yeah, such a law would probably never pass, at least not in today's America. Pity.