Planetaki Planet OLLI

FOLLOW UP

2010-02-09T13:45:52+00:00

This is a further elaboration of the reply I posted to Ann's comment on my long post, "Where We Are Now." It is natural to focus one's attention on the Tea Partiers, and to decry their looniness. But it would be a very serious mistake to imagine that the fundamental shape of American foreign and domestic affairs has been importantly shaped by them and their many predecessors. If one wishes to locate the roots of our policy of permanent war, look to the Foreign Affairs Council, to the sober, respectable, moderate, thoughtful men and women of American public life, to William Fulbright and Mike Mansfield, to Joe Biden and Madeleine Albright, to Hillary Clinton and Zbigniew Brzezinski, yes even to Henry Kissinger. Look to every Senator who has ever chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or Senate Armed Services Committee, to every Secretary of Defense since the post was created. I cannot think of a single major public figure since World War II who has questioned the foundations of American foreign policy [with the possible exception of Henry Wallace, but I am not sure about him --- I was only fourteen at the time.]

For a while, to be sure, American military policy was driven by the objective technological facts of the delivery of nuclear warheads. But that technology settled down forty years ago. [If anyone is actually interested in this, I would be happy to post a long explanation. At one point in my life, I was an expert on the subject, and wrote a book about it that I never succeeded in getting published.]

The crazies in American politics are dangerous, but they are not the explanation for the shape of post-World War II American foreign and military policy. Nor, needless to say, are they and their ilk the cause of economic inequality in America, any more than fever blisters are the cause of an infection.

BRAGGING

2010-02-09T13:45:52+00:00

I have won 130 games of FreeCell in a row, and counting, without using the undo feature. Not bad for an old guy! And you thought I just meditated on the eternal verities.

WHERE WE ARE NOW

2010-02-08T17:42:25+00:00

It is difficult, in the midst of the flood of information and commentary on public affairs, to maintain any distance from the immediate moment. As a philosopher, I am supposed, professionally, to view things sub specie aeternitatis, or at least within a time frame more extended than that of a Mayfly, but I do not have a Merlin who can change me into a mountain, as he did to Wart [the little Arthur] in The Sword in the Stone, so that the future king could see things from their perspective.

Nevertheless, in this post, I propose to step back from the moment and ask, of this country and its people, Where are we? And, perhaps more to the point, Why are we? I am now seventy-six years old, and though that does not give me the perspective of a mountain, or even of a redwood tree, it does allow me to achieve some distance from the affairs of the moment.

The first thing to recognize is that the United States has been continuously at war for close on to sixty-eight years, and there is in this country neither the will nor the interest in bringing this condition of war to an end. It might be objected that though, to be sure, there have been periods during that seven decades when we were at war, there have, after all, been as well periods of peace. But I think that is a faulty construal of the situation in which we find ourselves. Since the seventh of December, 1941 [a day, as Franklin Roosevelt said, that shall live in infamy], this nation has been on a war footing. Indeed, it has been at war. I take as my authority here the great English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, who, in the thirteenth chapter of the First Part of his masterpiece, Leviathan, wrote these words:

"For WAR consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time, is to be considered in the nature of war; as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather, lieth not in a shower or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE."

Why have we been at war continuously for seven decades? The conventional answer is that we have been confronted first by the threat posed by the Soviet Union, and then, when that passed, by the threat [conveniently] posed by militant Islam. But neither of those claims is true. The Soviet Union was a territorially continuous empire whose rulers exhibited no interest in engaging militarily beyond the contiguous area they ruled at the end of the Second World War. Unlike the United States, which has repeatedly sent troops beyond its borders since 1945, and indeed has permanent garrisons of its troops in nations around the world, the Soviet Union ventured only once beyond its contiguous sphere of influence, and that, after all, was into a country -- Afghanistan -- that has common borders with three of what were then Soviet Socialist Republics -- viz., Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

The permanent war footing of the United States since World War II has wrought enormous, devastating, and irreversible changes in the politics, economics, and culture of this country. The most immediately obvious effect of the endless war is a dramatic shift in the power exercised by the three branches of government. The Constitution was written so as to severely rein in the powers of the executive. Although the President was designated as Commander in Chief, the power to declare war was reserved for the Congress, and that, together with their control of the purse strings and the power to impeach, try, convict, and remove officers of the other two branches guaranteed, the founders thought, the ascendancy of Congress in the American political system. This balance was upset during the Civil War, but then immediately reestablished itself one the war was ended. In our world today, the Presidency looms large, with unlimited power to make war, total control of the information needed to judge the wisdom of military action, and -- with the current compliant Supreme Court majority -- liberty to ignore the few restraints on presidential power that have survived three quarters of a century of war. Let us understand that this is in no way a point of contention between Democrats and Republicans. The permanent war was launched under Harry Truman, continued [though with hesitation and concern] by Dwight Eisenhower, expanded by Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and reaffirmed by every subsequent president, up to and including Barack Obama. War has long since become its own justification in America.

The economic dislocations occasioned by permanent war have distorted American society in two ways: First, unimaginable quantities of resources, over seventy years, have been diverted from socially productive uses to what is essentially waste, thereby dramatically lowering the standard of living of most Americans and all but destroying the public infrastructure of America; and Second, the processes of allocation and expenditure of these vast sums has made every state in the Union, and therefore every politician in America, dependent on the continuation of the war economy. It is not even possible, save by the sort of fantasy thinking that economists call economic modeling, to form a coherent idea of what America might look like now, had it not embarked seventy years ago on a policy of permanent war.

As for the culture of America, it is thoroughly steeped in and interpenetrated by martial imagery. America has become the Sparta of the modern world.

The second thing that stands out as we strive for perspective on the condition of America is that this country no longer has a strong, effective labor movement capable of constraining and combating the pernicious effects of unrestrained capitalism. [I am not talking about a revolutionary movement, aimed at replacing capitalism with another form of economic organization. I reserve such dreams for the night time hours.] It had such a movement at one time, of course, even though labor unions have never managed to organize the preponderance of American workers. The pyramidal distribution of wages and salaries in the United States has remained fundamentally unchanged for a century, save for a widening of the gap between the rich and everyone else in the past twenty years. But despite the frenzied and absurd right wing talk about "Obama the socialist," there is no serious energy anywhere in America for an overturning of the present structure of economic inequality.

In summary, America is a nation on an unnecessary and unjustifiable permanent war footing, with an economy characterized by large and growing inequality. It is, to state it clearly and openly, not a country I can happily call my own. My time horizon is necessarily somewhat foreshortened, since even under the best of circumstances I have only another two decades or less to live. But it is impossible for me to imagine that these two fundamental facts about America -- permanent war and deep inequality -- will change in any significant way in the lifetimes of my children, or even of their children.

What is to be done? [If I may echo Lenin.]

Despair is not a plan. It is a sentiment. Revolution is not an option. It is a fantasy. What remains is incremental action to ameliorate evils, reduce suffering, and protect the vulnerable, all the while recognizing that even many successes will not alter the framework within which we are condemned to live our lives. There is some comfort for me, but precious little, in the knowledge that I have been questioning the justifications offered for the war footing and for the economic inequality at least since the late 1950's. Were I fortunate enough to believe in God, I could comfort myself with thoughts of a heavenly reward. As it is, the most I can do is utter a loud and self-justificatory "I told you so!"

Inclement Weather – Personal safety is the key consideration!!!

2010-02-07T20:05:31+00:00

We hope you were warm and comfortable in your home watching the snow fall. It is great to see the sun shining today!

Some Session A courses start on Monday, February 8. If you are scheduled to attend a class this week, we want to remind you of OLLI’s Inclement Weather Policy.

For information on CLOSINGS:

TV: Watch WVIR-TV (NBC-Channel 29)
Radio: Listen to WINA (1070 AM)

OLLI classes in all locations follow the Charlottesville Public Schools on cancellations.
For information on DELAYS:
OLLI classes in all locations follow the Charlottesville Public Schools on delayed openings for classes beginning prior to 11 a.m. and early closings for classes beginning at or after 1 p.m.

EXCEPTION: OLLI classes at Meadows Presbyterian Church follow the Albermarle County Public Schools for delayed openings for classes beginning prior to 11 a.m. Classes starting at 11 a.m. or later will be held.
Personal safety is the key consideration!!!

Digging out again in Charlottesville!

2010-02-07T16:42:22+00:00

Everyone is busy digging out yet again. In our neighborhood we were lucky to have power for most of the storm, so it could have been a lot worse.

Filed under: Charlottesville Tagged: Charlottesville, February, snow, winter

ADVERTISEMENT FOR MYSELF

2010-02-07T17:12:17+00:00

In 1959, Norman Mailer published a collection of short pieces to which he gave the deliciously ironic title Advertisements for Myself. This morning, I was re-reading my little book, Moneybags Must Be So Lucky, in preparation for the class I shall teach Wednesday evening on Chapter One of Das Kapital. Moneybags is a very short book, a mere 82 pages, consisting of the Romanell-Phi Beta Kappa Lectures, delivered at the University of Massachusetts in 1984-85, and published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 1988.

In 1739-40, David Hume published anonymously the three volumes of A Treatise of Human Nature, far and away the greatest work of philosophy ever written in the English language. Desperately eager for literary success, he was deeply disappointed by its reception, and later said of it that it "fell still-born from the presses," a phrase that will resonate with every author who has ever anxiously awaited reviews.

My little book cannot even be said to have had an unfavorable reception, for it had virtually no reception at all. It was not noticed, save for one rather favorable review by George Scialabba in The Village Voice [!!], and if the royalty reports are to be trusted, has not yet managed, twenty-two years later, to sell one thousand copies.

And yet, and yet. If I am any sort of judge of literary and intellectual merit, it is, page for page, the best thing I have ever written. It is also, I am absolutely confident, the best thing anyone has ever written about the literary, philosophical, and theoretical dimensions of the first several chapters of volume one of Marx's great work.

Even in the select circle of close friends and former students who form the readership of this blog, I cannot assume much awareness of my little failed book, so let me quote several passages that I think are especially well-written. This entire blog post is so embarrassingly and nakedly self-promoting that I shall not even attempt a feeble excuse. Put it down, if you must, to an old man's intimation of mortality.

In the first chapter, I am talking about the relationship between the literary resources of a language and the conception of reality that the language is being used to articulate. I choose as an example the language of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century:

"The metaphysical poets conceived the universe as having been created by God in such a way,and according to such a plan, as to establish an endless series of correspondences or parallels among the most disparate elements of the creation. As the moon shines by the reflected light of the sun, so the subjects of a great monarch shine by his reflected glory, and so too does the lover live in light or shadow as his beloved bestows upon him the radiance of her smile. As the sun rises in the East, heralding the start of an earthly day, so the crucified Christ, God's Son, rose in the East to heaven, heralding thereby the dawn of a new day in the spiritual life of the world; so, eventually, do we hope to rise to heaven to begin the endless day that awaits us beyond the night of the grave."

And here is a second passage, from near the end of the third lecture. I am trying to explicate Marx's difficult and puzzling claim that the concepts of "commodity" and "value," though verruckt [crack-brained, crazy], are nevertheless socially real and therefore objectively valid. Throughout the early chapters of Capital, Marx repeatedly uses religious metaphors and allusions to communicate his conviction that the marketplace is as fully mystified as the altar ever was.

"Economic efficiency demands that both entrepreneurs and merchants abstract entirely from the natural properties of the commodities they produce and sell, attending only to their exchange value. The prudent capitalist cannot allow his economic decisions to be influenced by his normal human responses to the accidents of his wares. The tailor in love with his worsteds is no better than a whiskey priest drunk on sacramental wine. A sensuous affection for fine cloth, lingering on from a precapitalist craft pride, may incline him to a more costly suiting than the market demand justifies. Soon he will find himself driven to the wall by rational tailors whose fingers are numb to the feel of good wool, but whose metaphysical consciousness can discern the exact quantum of value in each yard of goods."

Nobody, I think, has ever written like this about Marx. And no one else has ever deciphered, as I do in the final chapter, the famously mysterious discussion of the Relative Form and the Equivalent Form of Value, all while explicating it by means of an old Jewish joke.

By way of contrast, my best known book, In Defense of Anarchism, has sold more than 200,000 copies in English, and exists now in fifteen languages, including Croatian, Korean, and Malaysian.

Sigh. I am reduced, as Norman Mailer would have it, to taking out advertisements for myself.

Choose a Rainbow for Health

2010-02-06T21:20:16+00:00

I think that the “color your diet” approach is the one of the easiest, healthiest ways to control your weight. If you choose a rainbow, your plate will be filled with fruits and vegetables full of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants – and relatively few calories. Can’t wait for spring and the Charlottesville City Market!

Here is an article from Prevention Magazine to get you started:

Eat a Rainbow of Health

A colorful plate delivers a hefty dose of age-fighting nutrients

The healthiest (and tastiest) diet is a colorful one, but 80% of Americans still don’t eat enough brightly hued fruits and vegetables, according to a new analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination surveys.

Produce contains phytonutrients, plant-based compounds that researchers believe may help ward off obesity, cancer, and heart disease. For a color-coded breakdown of what you need more of and why, turn the page. Aim for two half-cup servings from each group daily.

Continue reading …. Eat a Rainbow of Health – Prevention.com.

Filed under: Diet Tagged: antioxidants, cancer, colors, fruits, health, healthy lifestyle, heart disease, minerals, phytochemicals, stay healthier, vegetables, vitamins, weight loss

STRUGGLING TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD IN WHICH I LIVE

2010-02-06T21:49:40+00:00

Markos Moulitsas, founder and proprietor of THE DAILY KOS website, recently commissioned a poll of 2000+ self-identified Republicans in an attempt to find out what they believe. 36% think Obama was not born in the United States and 22% aren't sure. 63% think Obama is a socialist and 21% are not sure. 21% believe ACORN stole the 2008 election and 55% are not sure. And so forth.

There is a quite natural tendency to conclude that there are scores of millions of truly insane people in America [and that is just on the right!] Now, I do not take a back seat to anyone in my despair at the mindset of my fellow Americans, but as I mulled over the results of this poll, I found myself thinking both about the earlier poll showing that most Americans have no idea that it takes 60 votes in the Senate to block a filibuster, and about an old article on public opinion polling by David Riesman, an important sociologist of an earlier time. [I actually knew Riesman when I was at Harvard, but that is four or five other stories.]

So bear with me, as I try very hard to interpret all of this in a way that does not lead to the conclusion that America is a looney bin.

Riesman first. Very early on in the development of public opinion polling, Riesman pointed out that there is an important element of face and social standing lying behind the results of polls. What interested him was the fact that public opinion could swing so dramatically from one side of a question to the other in no more than a few weeks. His explanation was this: When a pollster comes to the door and asks for the homeowner's opinion about Red China or the Middle East or Health Care Reform, there is a good chance that the respondent won't know anything at all about the subject and will have no opinion, at least as we ordinarily understand having an opinion. But the poll taker is likely to present himself or herself as a middle class professional [we are talking 1950's here], and the person who has come to the door will be embarrassed simply to say, "I have no idea." He or she will know perfectly well that having opinions about things like that is a sign of social status. Rich people, upper class people, have opinions. So the respondent will cough up an answer, possibly choosing one of the offered possibilities on the basis of something vaguely recalled from television or the newspaper headlines. Two weeks later, when another poll is conducted, if in the interim something has caught everyone's attention that inclines in the other direction, the poll will seem to show a big sudden shift of opinion. But in fact, all it shows is that neither the respondents to the first poll nor the respondents to the second poll actually have any sort of opinion at all.

This idea is supported, I think, by that poll about filibusters in the Senate. If three quarters of the people polled don't know that it takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster, then I think we can conclude that that 75% really know next to nothing about what is going on in the public world.

Now look at the poll commissioned by Moulitsas. There are a great many self-identified Republicans who are very, very unhappy about America. They hate the fact that Obama is president, they hate the fact that people are talking openly about same sex marriage, they hate the fact that people are losing their jobs and their houses. And someone calls them on the phone [I don't think people knock on doors any more] and asks them a series of questions,. They may be ignorant, but these folks are not stupid. They understand perfectly well that a "no" to the question, "Was Obama born in the United States?" is an anti-Obama answer. They know that "socialist" is a swear word, and one that one is permitted to use in public. So, not being offered the opportunity to say, "Yes, Obama is an a**hole," they do the next best thing and say "Yes, Obama is a socialist and he was not born in this country." The informational content of that answer is nil, but the emotive content is rich and full.

I venture to guess that if Moulitsas had commissioned a poll that asked, "Do you think Obama kills little white babies and drinks their blood," some significant non-trivial percentage would have said "yes," and a much larger percentage would have answered "I don't know." It goes without saying that there would have been a big yes vote for "Is Obama in league with the Devil?" but that might just indicate a particular theological orientation.

Polls are frequently a good indicator of feelings, if properly interpreted, but they are often no indicators at all of informed opinion. On the other hand, a poll asking which American Idol candidate the respondents support, or who is going to win the Super Bowl, may very well elicit genuinely informed opinions.

Does this make me feel any better? Well, ignorant is better than crazy [I think].

Journaling Your Way Through Fear

2010-02-06T05:29:09+00:00

The last few days, and presumably the next few, I am exploring journaling as a way to face down fear. I'm scheduled for cataract surgery on my left eye on Monday, and the right one ten days later. In general, cataract surgery is no big deal. In fact, my father claims that he'd rather have cataract surgery than a root canal. It's said to be the most frequently performed surgery in America, and virtually 100% effective with infection and other complications almost nil.

It does help to know that, but it isn't that simple in my case. If I were having standard, old-fashioned cataract surgery, that would surely be enough to hold my fears at bay. But today there are choices. Today there are at least three kinds of hi-tech "premium" lens implants available to increase post-surgical range of vision, perhaps to that of a healthy young eye.

My choice is the Crystalens. Some people never need glasses, even for reading, after these lenses settle in. Most need over-the-counter reading glasses for prolonged reading. I can deal with that. I already have umpty pairs of special glasses positioned around the house for specific needs.

I've done my homework in selecting both lens and surgeon. So why the anxiety? I wonder, will they work perfectly? Will I need further treatment for my minor astigmatism? Will I be happy with my choice? This latter question is a biggie. The basic surgery is covered by Medicare. The premium lenses are extra. I'll have a tidy sum invested in these new lenses that I expect to be looking through for another thirty years or more, and this is an irreversible decision.

I've already filled a dozen pages (not consecutive) in my journal as I worked through this decision. Now I'm at the howling stage anticipating the final step: "That doctor is going to slice open my eye! She's going to suck out my real lens and put in a plastic one! What if it doesn't work? What if I HATE it and want my old eyes back?

I WANT MY MOMMY!

I'm going to have to settle for a picture of my mommy. But it helps to write it, in huge letters, filling half a page. Just saying it helps. I can write, and drop tears on the page, and I feel better.

Yes, journaling definitely helps control current levels of anxiety. It helps by simply letting the feelings out in a safe and honored place. On the page they feel real. They have substance. They are transferred from my heart to the page, without danger of being lost or dismissed. It isn't just fears that go there. I write all the solid reasons why everything is going to be okay. I've written them so often I'm staring to believe them.

I have found a great way to face my fear down — on the page!

Write now: think of something you are feeling anxious about. Take ten or fifteen minutes and write about it in your journal. Let it all hang out. Scream and yell on the page. Feel sorry for yourself. Call names. Cuss if you want. Then give yourself a pep talk. If you don't have a journal, or you want to be sure nobody finds this, use plain paper and shred it.

Winter Wilderness Adventure -- February 4, 2010

2010-02-05T18:21:13+00:00

Three dozen OLLI members braved the cold to participate in our Winter Wilderness Adventure on Thursday, February 4.

We traveled to Starved Rock State Park to watch eagles and take a wintry hike to the top of Starved Rock. Joining us on our adventure was Maury Brucker, President of the Illinois Audubon Society. Maury provided wonderful insights about bird conservation efforts throughout the state, and gave great eagle watching advice and assistance, too.

Our guided trolley tours took us to the Illinois Waterway Visitor Center, where we heard experts talk about the history of bald eagles in Illinois. We stepped out onto the balcony to view the eagles, and spotted several in trees and on an island in the river. The trolleys then transported us to Buffalo Rock, where we saw even more eagles and gazed at the frozen waterfalls along the way.

Back at Starved Rock, our docent, Abby, took some members on a hike around the park, while others braved the icy conditions to climb to the top of the rock.

It was another great day of learning, and OLLI extends heartfelt thanks to Maury Brucker and the staff at Starved Rock State Park for making our trip even more delightful.

For more information about our trip, please visit the Illinois Audubon Society and Starved Rock State Park.

The Lady in the Lake

2010-02-05T08:04:11+00:00

Our next screening will be The Lady in the Lake, Thursday, February 18, 2010. This MGM production of 1947 was directed by Robert Montgomery and starred Montgomery as Philip Marlowe. Audrey Totter starred as Adrienne Fromsett. The telling of the story was done by using the first person camera as dictated by Montgomery. The film was shot as though seen through Marlowe's own eyes. The film takes on the first person narration in the novel. Murder, My Sweet used narrative framing and voice-over for duplicating Chandler's writing style. Do both methods work equally well? A point for discussion after the screening.

GOAT CHEESE LUNCH

2010-02-05T04:59:43+00:00

Lunch today was an affair to remember! Mary Harley Kruter invited me to join an extended list of girlfriends to lunch at Celebrity Dairy of Siler City NC. http://www.celebritydairy.com/

Celebrity sells goat cheese to the area restaurants and upscale food markets in the Triangle. My DH discovered the cheese soon after we moved here but we had not the opportunity to actually see the operation. What began several years ago with a couple of goats is now a full scale farm herd milking about twenty goats [twice a day!], selling cheese and the occasional special event at the farm. The Inn offers eight bedrooms and breakfast served in the Atrium. The atrium is really the space between the early 19th-century cabin and the modern inn added at the front. The space is used for dining and features a large stone fireplace and room for long buffet serving tables.

Mary [left] welcomes arriving guests in the dining room. Nineteen of us [right] enjoyed a prix fix luncheon consisting of fresh goat cheese served with a focaccia bread made with spelt grain for the first course. Lasagna made with spinach and goat cheese was the main dish.

The most marvelous 'goat milk' ice cream over a warm, oozing melted chocolate brownie finished the meal. Never had ice cream made with goat's milk before but it was subtle, refined, smooth and way above average.

After lunch one of the staff girls [a milker], gave us a tour of the barns and gave us some goat facts. The number of new-born kids now totals about fifty but the season is not over yet. Early milking begins at 06:00 a.m., after which the cheese making process begins. Late milking at 6:00 p.m. is followed by clean-out, wash-up and ready for the next day.

Currently getting about 45 pounds of milk per day, the yield is about 60 pounds of cheese. As February is birthing time for the mothers that proportion of milk to cheese will diminish as the milk yield subsides over the coming months.

Little kids are getting extra milk from a multi-nippled drink source. Two of the older goats vie for the drinking fountain [right]. Cats are scampering here and there about the barn and off to the side no less than five female peacocks are noted.

Mary Harley [right] and friend talk to a young 'kid' in the barn. Besides goats the farm includes a large chicken coop with all colors of fowl. All five female peacocks were poking about. Mister Peacock, resplendent with a huge tale feathers, was sunning on the opposite side of the house [away from the women].

The inn offers some very cozy accommodations, many of the rooms sporting vintage quilts that I would not have missed. Anyone with a camera would would not have missed photographing when viewing this colorful 'crazy quilt' pattern. Just admiring all the collectibles and vintage wares was pre-lunch entertainment.

This evening:
DH and I just celebrated our 'first date' anniversary: February 4, 1984.
We met at The Pear Tree in Rumson NJ, where he offered me a glass of champagne. I thought to myself "humm...champagne...my kind of guy." Tonight we had a champagne toast to the next 26 years. bbf

A Conversation about People and Events in Charlottesville

2010-02-04T15:05:45+00:00

Take a look back in time with Florence Bryant and Joy Perry as they share their perspectives on the influential leaders and significant events that have helped to shape Charlottesville over the past 45 years.

Florence Bryant is a retired teacher and author who will reflect on the urban renewal of Vinegar Hill, the formation of public housing developments, and the start of integration in the public and political life of the city.

Joy Perry is a former board member of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society who currently leads tours of historic Charlottesville.

The presentation is free and open to the public. It will be held at the Covenant Church of God, 1025 East Rio Road, on Friday, February 12, from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

For reservations, please email the OLLI office at olliuva@virginia.edu or call 434-923-3600.

HOME AGAIN

2010-02-04T15:41:54+00:00

I am home after a quick, very busy, exhausting, but quite rewarding visit to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY. I gave two talks, both of which were videotaped and recorded. I have been told that they will be posted on a Marist server, and that I will be given links to them. If that in fact happens, I shall review them, and if they are not totally appalling, I will post the links.

The first talk was a great success and a total failure. It was supposed to be a very high level technical discussion of a paper I have written on Kant's ethical, legal, and political theory. I sent the paper ahead to the Philosophy Department, and they discussed it in anticipation of the session. But when I showed up Tuesday evening, I discovered that the audience was utterly different from what I had expected, and that almost none of them even knew about the paper. A large group were students taking an on-line philosophy course and using my textbook, ABOUT PHILOSOPHY. They were there to meet their Instructor for the first time, as well as to meet the author of their textbook. It was wonderful and rather comic to see the Instructor say, "Hello, I am your Instructor, and here is the author of your textbook." In the thirty-five years that the textbook has been in existence, I have never met a group of students using it! So it was wonderful for me. Another group of people simply came to hear me because my talk was announced locally. And then there were the handful of people who really expected a serious discussion about Kant.

How on earthy was I going to speak to this heterogeneous group in such a way as not totally to mystify and alienate most of them? I decided to wing it. The first question got me started. A man sitting near the back of the group [there were maybe thirty or more people in the audience] asked, "Are you an atheist?"

That gave me an opening to deliver a long monologue on the nature of religious faith. A student taking a course on Marx, among other authors, asked me what people meant when they said Marx had stood Hegel on his head. Well, I could handle that one! By the end of the evening, I think everyone had had a pretty good time, even though the philosophers never did get the serious Kant discussion they came for.

The second talk, on Wednesday, was much more straightforward. I gave a formal lecture on "What Good is a Liberal Education?" that draws on ideas in the writings of Freud, Marx, and Marcuse to answer the question. I hope I can post that one. It really might provoke an interesting discussion on this blog.

Many, many thanks to Ann Davis for arranging all of this.

Oh, by the way, it was no colder in Poughkeepsie than it was when I left in Chapel Hill!

Accentuate the Positive

2010-02-04T04:10:07+00:00

How often have you heard the mantra “Your problems are your best friends,” or some variation thereof? I could fill several pages without stopping as I listed all the reasons we should rejoice in our tribulations because they are such valuable learning opportunities and that sort of thing. Indeed, I even believe most of those reasons.

A variation of this advice carries over into lifewriting wisdom. Yours Truly joins such notables as Dr. James Pennebaker, Univ. of Texas Psychology Department chair and author of Writing to Heal, and Linda Joy Myers, Founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers and author of The Power of Memoir, in extolling the virtues of using stories about dark moments to give balance to a memoir or collection of vignettes. Experts agree that journaling or writing about traumas and difficulties is helpful for instilling insight, healing pain and anxiety, facilitating forgiveness and transforming lives.

Nothing in this post should be construed as negating that advice, but there is another side of that coin that has largely escaped notice. That’s the wisdom of “accentuating the positive.” Pennebaker’s initial research emphasized the value of writing about trauma, but as the years have passed, further research has shown that writing about happy events and memories has almost as much therapeutic value.

Dr. Martin Seligman, Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the Univ. of Pennsylvania and author of Authentic Happiness, has spent decades doing research on the health and other benefits of optimism and happiness. His research shows that these traits can be learned, and while he does not advocate denial, he does demonstrate that there is tremendous value in accentuating the positive.

To greatly oversimplify the vast sea of research in these areas, the results indicate that it is indeed beneficial to face problems and challenges squarely, and to do so with an optimistic attitude that it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. It is equally valuable to write about our successes and moments of joy, and turn as much introspective attention to explore what we have been doing right and look for additional opportunities to do more of that.

If you don’t feel up to writing the tough stuff, don’t beat yourself up. Just keep writing. Write happy memories. Write fiction. Write anything at all, but do write — just for the health of it.

Celebrate success! Celebrate joy and happiness! Celebrate them in ink as stories, and refer back to them when skies and spirits are dark.

Write now: a story about one of your crowning successes or moments of great joy. Write about love and achievement. Wring your memory dry on this topic.

Mandarin's Jade by Raymond Chandler

2010-02-04T00:11:15+00:00

Chandler wrote Farewell, My Lovely (film title: Murder, My Sweet) using material from three of his published short stories as a basis. One of the three short stories was Mandarin's Jade. Just by the title you can see that it fits into the novel.

Here is a little of the short story, Mandarin's Jade from Chapter 2: "I Drove. Or rather I held the wheel of the big black car and let it drive itself. I was wearing a sporty light-colored overcoat and hat belonging to Lindley Paul (Lindsay Marriott in the novel and the film). I had ten grand in hundred-dollar bills in one of the pockets. Paul was in the back seat. He had a silver mounted Luger that was a pip to look at, and I hope he knew how to use it. There wasn't anything about the job I liked."

Now let's read some from the novel, Farewell, My Lovely, skipping some of the new material: "He handed me a light colored overcoat which made me a fine target. It fitted pretty well. I wore my own hat. I had a gun under my arm but I hadn't told him about that."

***

"He handed me the manila envelope and I opened it up and looked at what was inside. It was money all right, a huge wad of currency. I didn't count it."

***

"The big foreign car drove itself, but I held the wheel for appearances."

The last sentence quoted is a fine example of what has become known as Chandlerisms.

Four Season Food — University of Virginia Health System – Live Red

2010-02-02T21:21:21+00:00

We all love the taste of those fresh tomatoes from a farmers’ market, but don’t wait for summer. Some research has suggested that processed tomatoes may be even better for you than fresh tomatoes. Was the Reagan administration on the right track when they listed ketchup as a vegetable for school lunches?

Enjoy the heart-healthy benefits of tomatoes all year
By Susan E. Del Gobbo, MPH, RD, UVA Health System dietitian

During the winter, a freshly grown tomato isn’t likely on your shopping list. But science shows that you should definitely consider enjoying tomatoes in their canned or frozen forms all year long. Turns out that processed varieties may even be better for you.

Few foods compare in taste to a freshly harvested tomato. Yet within hours of harvest, fresh tomatoes are transformed into tomato products—including canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomato soup, tomato juice and ketchup.

It is well known that eating generous amounts of fruits and vegetables are likely to reduce the risk of a number of chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer, and recent research hints that tomato products may be protective in such diverse conditions as ultraviolet-induced damage and osteoporosis.

Read the complete article: Four Season Food — University of Virginia Health System – Live Red.

Filed under: Diet Tagged: health, healthy lifestyle, stay healthier, tomatoes, vegetables

Five Points Washington -- January 21, 2010

2010-02-02T21:21:16+00:00

What originally started as an idea for a fitness center has blossomed into a large multi-purpose facility with a partnership among with the City of Washington, the Washington Park District, Washington Community High School, Washington District Library, and the Washington Area Community Center (WACC) Board.

OLLI visited Five Points Washington, the non-profit, 136,000 square-foot facility in mid-January. During the tour, we viewed the fitness center, indoor track, aquatics center, gymnasium, performing arts center, banquet rooms, and the library. Two members of the WACC Board, President Sherril West and Secretary Kris Hasten, also addressed our group and explained the incredible community support that helped build the facility, which now boasts more than 7,000 members.

OLLI extends its appreciation to Sherril and Kris, along with General Manager Vikki Poorman, who provided an incredible learning experience and informative tour. For more information about the facility, please visit the Five Points Washington website.

Scottish Ethnic Dinner -- January 16, 2010

2010-02-02T21:21:16+00:00

OLLI's latest ethnic dinner celebrated the Scottish culture at the 41st Annual Burns Supper at the Itoo Hall in Peoria.

More than 30 OLLI members joined 100+ other guests for the ever popular and traditional evening of Scottish music, dancing, toasts, and addresses by members of the Peoria Scottish American Society.

Special thanks to the Peoria Scottish American Society, as well as Dick and Norma Helfrich, for their assistance in making this event a part of OLLI's winter offerings.

2010 Winter Classes -- January 12-15, 2010

2010-02-02T21:21:16+00:00

It was our biggest Winter OLLI ever!

More than 175 members braved the cold weather to participate in 25 diverse courses over four days during the second week of January. Led by community experts, Bradley faculty and staff, and OLLI members, the classes once again combined expertise and subject matter for lively discussion and through-provoking insights.

OLLI is lifelong learning at its best.

Please pay attention! – teaching in an age of “multitasking” students

2010-02-01T22:02:50+00:00

In my years of teaching Web Development courses, I was increasingly plagued by students trying to keep up with social networking sites, instant messaging, email, etc., during class time. Because of the nature of my courses my students were always sitting at Internet-connected computers so my problems started before the days of wireless access and students’ omnipresent laptops and web-enabled cell phones.

One of my teaching colleagues once asked whether I thought that we older people had Windows 3.11 brains while kids were growing up with Windows NT brains. All I could say was that I know that I have a one-track thought process if I really want to learn something. He agreed and we marveled at our students seeming ability to do everything at once.

Now there is some current research that questions whether multitasking is really as “efficient” as its proponents would have us believe.

I am very glad that my computer can multitask (Windows NT was a huge improvement for me, and now my iMac is really fantastic at doing lots of things at once), but I am happy to learn that perhaps it is not necessary for me to try to do the same thing!

Below I quote an interesting article on this subject from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Scholars Turn Their Attention to Attention

In an age of classroom multitasking, scholars probe the nature of learning and memory – January 31, 2010
By David Glenn

Imagine that driving across town, you’ve fallen into a reverie, meditating on lost loves or calculating your next tax payments. You’re so distracted that you rear-end the car in front of you at 10 miles an hour. You probably think: Damn. My fault. My mind just wasn’t there.

By contrast, imagine that you drive across town in a state of mild exhilaration, multitasking on your way to a sales meeting. You’re drinking coffee and talking to your boss on a cellphone, practicing your pitch. You cause an identical accident. You’ve heard all the warnings about cellphones and driving—but on a gut level, this wreck might bewilder you in a way that the first scenario didn’t. Wasn’t I operating at peak alertness just then? Your brain had been aroused to perform several tasks, and you had an illusory sense that you must be performing them well.

That illusion of competence is one of the things that worry scholars who study attention, cognition, and the classroom. Students’ minds have been wandering since the dawn of education. But until recently—so the worry goes—students at least knew when they had checked out. A student today who moves his attention rapid-fire from text-messaging to the lecture to Facebook to note-taking and back again may walk away from the class feeling buzzed and alert, with a sense that he has absorbed much more of the lesson than he actually has.

“Heavy multitaskers are often extremely confident in their abilities,” says Clifford I. Nass, a professor of psychology at Stanford University. “But there’s evidence that those people are actually worse at multitasking than most people.”

Read complete article: Scholars Turn Their Attention to Attention – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Filed under: Lifelong Learning, Live & Learn Tagged: computers, Lifelong Learning, Live and Learn, multi-tasking, students, teaching

OFF TO POUGHKEEPSIE

2010-02-01T18:33:07+00:00

Tomorrow well before the crack of dawn, I shall head to Marist College in Poughkeepsie to give two talks. The second one, "What Good is a Liberal Education?," has some rather unusual ideas in it, drawing on Marx, Freud, and Marcuse. Indeed, it is in its way a good example of the Frankfort School project of achieving a union of the insights of Marx and Freud. When I get home, I shall post on this blog the part of the talk that deals directly with those ideas. I will be very interested to see both what sort of response it gets at Marist and what reaction it provokes on this blog.

Meanwhile, I wait forlornly for the Congressional Democrats to do SOMETHING about health care reform.

SNOW & SEW WINTER DAYS

2010-02-01T18:48:34+00:00

Now ten o'clock in the morning the outside temperature is just approaching 32 degrees meaning that the 'melt down' may begin by noon or soon thereafter. When winter storms hit North Carolina we are housebound until the snow melts and after the first couple of days, the temperature is watched hourly.

When will it get above freezing? How soon will the frosted layer break up? How long will it take to get out of the drive? And, assuming we could, where would we go? Normally I could care less but DH is not a house-bound kind of guy. Tomorrow will be the fourth day and just about his optimum confinement limit. Meantime what am I doing?

Sister Jan remolded her the kitchen of her Elon NC house recently and subsequently bought new kitchen linens. For that reason the tea cozy I made several years back no longer fits the color scheme and she asked if I could make her a new one. With some excess fabric cut from a too-long apron and a hot-pad to work from scraps and sample pieces of fabrics were selected on Friday, strip pieced on Saturday, pattern cut on Sunday and today I am beginning the top quilting.

True, Tea Cozys are not that big in size but the details are demanding in time and attention. The lemon print is the fall-off from the apron to which I auditioned a collection of prints and cut strips of various sizes.
Given the color scheme of golden yellows and muted greens I could not help but feel I had gone full circle. Remember the harvest gold and avocado greens of the '60s? My career as a paint color stylist began in 1968 and for the next three years I was saturated in golds and greens until the next color trend took root. Forty-plus years later can it be that the trend is are heading back to yellow-gold-sage-avocado? Must there be reminders of how old I am getting?

Next concern is structure. Like architecture any fabric construction intended to have volume (or fit over a tea pot), and needs to keep its shape. That problem is solved partly by stitching as each stitch makes the textile stronger. But adding a jumbo cord covered in slightly gathered fabric around the bottom edge augments the support for the cozy. Once interior volume is ascertained to fit a big tea pot the final step is to create a top knot that can be easily grasped to lift the cozy.

And you thought this was easy!
Outlined with a gathered, golden piping side one is the 'monochromatic' side while the opposite side sports some fruit, more color and repeats the accent green stripe.

The last step is the top stitching, here a detail of the pear surrounded with echo quilting. This step is done by hand and much as I avoid hand sewing this will be my 'fill-in' work when I need to sit down or have a cup of tea. And it may take the rest of the week!

While the cozy may be approaching the final stitches, the last few scraps are being joined to make a scrappy hot pad to complete the tea cozy set. And if you are asking why go to all this trouble instead of heading to Kitchenwares and buying a commercial cover, ask yourself where in the world will you find another one like this? Originality is the first law of textile arts.

Back to stitching, bb

How Long Should a Story Be?

2010-01-31T05:21:25+00:00

“How long should a story be?”

I’ve never taught a beginning lifestory class without having this question arise. I’ve never found an improvement on the classic answer:

“As long as it takes to tell the whole story.”

For an powerful example of how large a slice of life can be packed into 282 words, click over to the essay blogger Maureen M entered in TupperWare’s Chain of Confidence contest. This poignant tribute to her mother covers a lot of ground. It includes all basic elements of a complete story (who, what, when, where, why, plus plenty of suspense and tension) and I guarantee you will not anticipate the surprise ending.

Maureen’s story is focused with laser-like precision, cutting directly to the point. There is enough content between those two dozen lines to fill at least a page for each word, but you may not understand the core story as well if it did.

Whether you are writing a single vignette story or a book-length manuscript, be clear on your purpose and let the story tell you how long it needs to be.

Write now: a laser-focused short story of 500 words or less about some significant influence on your life. Write fast; write tight; write real. And double-check for all the basic story elements.

Discussion Questions for Murder, My Sweet

2010-01-31T23:18:46+00:00

Internet Movie Car Data Base

The novel, Farewell, My Lovely, was based on three of Chandler's short stories. Two of the contributions stand out. What are the two plot elements? (The third contribution was to the ending of the novel which was changed for the film.)

The film is said to have a Hollywood ending. What is meant by this for Murder, My Sweet?

How does Powell come across as Marlowe - hard-boiled?

What does the film tell us about Lindsay Marriott and Jules Amthor? What was their business relationship?

Who is the girl that Marlowe sees as he comes to his senses next to the sports car in the canyon? Why is she there?

Name who was killed in the film and why. Does everyone pay for their "sins?"

Trivia: what was the make and the year of the taxi used in the film?

Watch for the two special effects used in the film. Are they effective?