Mushroom season! (finally)

Okay, so there were a few Agaricus bernardii that I managed to find on the lawn of an office building in Livermore, but, for the most part, there were no mushrooms coming up because, after all, there had been no rain. But this week changed all that. Decent rains on Monday and some on Tuesday, and then the lashing of the storm on Wednesday and Thursday promises to get the mushroom season really going.

On Friday, (ahem) my wife (still getting used to that phrase) and I went hunting at two locations in the East Bay hills. At the first, we found a lot of white russulas, which are technically edible, but supposedly insipid: "better kicked than picked, better punted than hunted". There were also the scattered death caps and uninteresting Suillis (also edible but insipid), but the only thing we came away with were a small amount of decent oyster mushrooms.

At the second location, we found a few chanterelles, which seem to have come up after the rains earlier in the week, as they were surprisingly non-waterlogged. In fact, they were nearly brittle, splitting apart easily - as opposed to the somewhat rubbery texture I find more often. When we cooked them up last night, they were probably the most flavorful I've ever collected. We quite lazily didn't make anything nice with them, but had them over some short-grain brown rice with pan-roasted pine nuts. However, that combination was actually great. The mild nuttiness of the brown rice nicely complimented the honeyed earthy nuttiness of the chanterelles, and the richness of the pine nuts blended and smoothed out the slight edge to the mushrooms.

The oyster mushrooms we ate for breakfast yesterday. Fresh wild oyster mushrooms are so much better than the farmed ones, with so much flavor that they resemble seafood. I cooked them with eggs into which I had mixed some cooking rice wine, a little soy sauce, and a dribble of sesame oil. This worked quite well.

We're Programmed Wrong

When someone's being selfishly demanding, our instinctive reaction is to try to deny them what they want, when actually that selfish behavior indicates that they need our generosity. Our usual reaction to someone being angry is to run away or to return anger, "fighting fire with fire". Instead, we should help them try to figure out what to do about the situation that's making them angry, even if they're being angry at us. If they're so angry that they can't start to deal with the situation, we should just patiently let them be angry.

long vs. short, II: meat and murder

For instance, many people like to eat meat, but don't want to know about the lives of the animals involved and the processing entailed before their bodies wind up on dinner plates. Would more people be vegetarian if they had to be directly involved in farming and slaughtering?

Similarly, if people everywhere felt the same thing as relatives of people killed in Iraq or the US Gulf coast, would we still be debating when or if to leave Iraq, or whether to plan for the greatest benefit to those displaced (instead of for the benefit of the companies which received no-bid contracts)?

long vs. short lengthscale interactions

Something that's puzzled me, and about which I've probably commented earlier, is, somewhat flippantly, why knowing something and experiencing something aren't the same. For example, if your child were killed in a bombing, you'd likely engage in activities that helped to numb your pain: withdrawal, crying, drinking, travel, political activism, whatever. But just our knowing that this happens to all too many people these days doesn't affect the rest of us that much. We go on living our lives more or less as usual because, after all, it hasn't "happened to us", a way of thinking which strikes me as somewhat tautological. It didn't "happen to us" because we insist that it didn't. But how can these things not happen "to us", since we exist and they happen?

Job?

Okay, now that I'm married, the next items on the agenda are finishing up a bunch of unpaid work and getting a job. If the demand for renewable energy is growing so much, and if markets do so well at allocating resources, why aren't people banging on my door to hire me? Perhaps because I have yet to build the series of bright flashing neon signs which point them to it.

Married

I don't think there are very many people who read this blog who don't know, but I got married last Sunday. It was a bit of effort getting it together, but altogether it went very well. The weather even cooperated, with the clouds clearing so rays of sun slanted through the redwood grove. Family left yesterday and this morning, and there are a few more tasks to finish up, but it's pretty much done. For those who came, and especially those who helped out in some way, thank you! We had a wonderful time.

A common question was whether or not we were going away somewhere. For those who didn't get to ask us, the answer is "no". After going to Eritrea and Burning Man (which was great this year), we're staying put for a while. Besides, where better to have some relaxing time than scenic North Beach, San Francisco? And we want to get together with all those friends with whom we got to talk only so briefly on Sunday. :)

Laundry List

When I went down to put the laundry in the dryer, there was a puddle of water on the floor about a half inch deep at most. There was still some water at the bottom of the washing machine chamber, but it cleared quickly and easily when I started the cycle on the final spin. The washing machine drains into a sink with a lint trap in the drain. One side of the sink and the sink rim above it had bits of red and blue lint stuck to them. The same bits of red and blue lint were in the lint trap of the dryer, which contained a couple bath mats and assorted hand towels.

This all seems to suggest that the bath mats and towels produced lint which clogged either the washing machine, the sink, or, somehow, both. The water in the machine appears to indicate a clog prior to the exit pipe, but that this water later cleared easily seems to negate this hypothesis. The lint on the rim of the drainage sink appears to offer the alternative event that the sink clogged and overflowed.

I suppose further experiments could point the way beyond this impasse, but laziness will likely prevail.

Beet Salad

Last night I made a beet salad with which I'm so pleased that I want to share. :) The beets were boiled, peeled and chopped, with balsamic vinegar poured over them. In some olive oil, I blended a couple cloves of pressed garlic, chipotle chili powder, and a dash of Chinese 5-spice. This mixture was then stirred into the beets. Salt to taste. The "chili powder" was made from whole dried chipotle pods ground up in a coffee grinder. Be careful with the 5-spice. It's wonderful with just a dash, but becomes repulsive (to me) when it's a distinctly strong flavor. The beets went well with buttered brown rice, braised spinach with sesame, and a 2002 Turley Juvenile Zinfandel.

I'm particularly happy about this because these are the sort of flavors I've been trying to blend with beets for years, but this is the first combination that has really worked out.

Being there

I've previously been very skeptical of traveling for its own sake. Why go anywhere, I wondered, when we're all fundamentally trapped inside our own heads. I've met plenty of insightful, untraveled people, and plenty of well-traveled people who seem completely unaffected by their experiences. Better to stay at home, I thought, and read up, analyze one's life, meditate, talk with friends, etc. than to journey to far-flung lands in search of something which maybe isn't there and could just as likely be found at home, especially when that home is the SF bay area.

While I can't say I've exactly changed my mind, I was surprised by the impact made by being personally transplanted into a very different reality. Sure, I'd seen photos of poverty, but actually seeing people living by the side of the road in shacks made of sticks, twine, and plastic sheeting made that life much more imaginable. When we see photos or read descriptions, why don't our minds fill in the logical details? Why don't we extrapolate from the images what it must be to smell the animal dung, to feel the dust and exhaust in our throats, to absorb the frustration, weariness, and good humor of the people living there?

Still, I was there for only a month, and as a rich American. I stayed in a well-kept pensione, ate out all the time, and got to run around talking with government officials gathering data for wind power analyses. I only saw the poverty and the idle people, and heard some complain about the overly controlling "system" which allows them no opportunities. What do I really know about living there? I noticed early in my trip that many memories long dormant were resurfacing, probably in an unconscious effort to understand the new surroundings in terms of the old. Many things reminded me of Hawaii, of Berkeley, and of Black Rock City. How much could I see what was really there?

Not all back right away

Our schedule has slowly been shifting back to Pacific Daylight. In the meanwhile, we have been able to explore our neighborhood at times of day heretofore inaccessible. A few nights ago, we got up at 3:30am and roamed the streets of North Beach and Chinatown. We followed the sound of crowing roosters to a poultry shop with live birds where someone was unloading cages to be cleaned. We had passable macaroni salad in a 24 hour coffee and donut shop. Later, we found a Vietnamese place open far past their posted 2am closing time where we had a bowl of pho. We walked by police and shop owners dealing with a smashed window. The guys in the foccacia bakery were having some sort of argument, and I could certainly sympathize with being cranky that early. By the time we rounded Washington Square park the last time, the sky was getting brighter and a few old Chinese women had come out to start their morning exercise routines.

Back

I got back from Asmara yesterday evening and stayed up until 11pm or so to help me get back on this time zone. It seems to have worked, at least better than the adjustment in Asmara. I'll blog about my time there over the next couple weeks or so. Cheers!

From Eritrea

I'm in Asmara and doing well. I will be able to get email now and then.

The Internet is just f'in great

This afternoon, as I'm in the final stages of packing for Eritrea, I decide to get out my old camera from my childhood (I'm such a luddite) to bring with me. When I bought film it occured to me that I'd need a new battery, too. I brought in the old one to Walgreen's, but they don't sell them anymore. I went to the camera specialty shop in North Beach, and the battery the gentleman assured me was the current replacement didn't work. With a quick online search, I discovered that my camera originally took a 1.35V "625" battery, but that these were banned because of mercury content. (Apparently, batteries in that style today are 1.55V - probably what the guy at the camera store tried.) One web site recommended getting a 1.4V "675" hearing aid battery at the drug store, and making it fit in the camera with an O-ring around it and a piece of aluminum foil as a shim. I easily got the ingredients in the neighborhood and, with a bit of trial and error, it works! Woohoo!

Off to Eritrea

Okay, so I'm in my last-minute panic about getting things done before I fly off to Eritrea, via Atlanta and Amsterdam, early Wednesday morning. Not much to say except that, and that I'll be back in the later evening of July 14. Now back to panicking! :)

Getting Here from There

A couple nights ago, I opened the main drawer of my desk a little too vigorously, pulling it out of the desk entirely and spilling the contents all over the floor. In an instant, I created for myself what became a major task yesterday because, not only did I have to put it all back in, but I had to examine and organize every bit of it in the process.

One item was an address book which I had kept over many years in grad school. I was then required to go through and google everyone about whose present situation I was remotely curious. Many people did not show up at all, but many others did, as professors at Michigan, Columbia, Bennington, Oberlin. (There was one museum curator, too.) The Bennington prof had first-authored a paper with second author "R. Penrose".

All this brought up my former academic ambitions, and I felt rather inadequate. But reflecting further on it this morning, I confirmed that I'd probably not be happy being a professor. For reasons both personal and mysterious even to me, I think I'd feel like I wasn't really accomplishing anything being a professional intellectual. For some reason, it feels much more satisfying traveling to Eritrea, setting up met data stations, trying to get wind farms built. Someday I could see doing something more think-tanky, but for now, more praxis.

Buddhism and Christianity

As I've already blathered on about a bit, Buddhism is about becoming aware of the true nature of your existence, the "Buddha nature". All things are contained within this fundamental nature, which is much larger than the usual small, difficult selves with which we habitually live out our lives. When seen in the context of this larger nature, all things are "okay", i.e., one can be compassionate towards all aspects of self and others. Even the small self, which gives us so much trouble in our daily lives, is part of this purity of awareness.

In Christianity, one acknowledges that one is fundamentally flawed and seeks forgiveness and help from a power greater than oneself. By striving to correct correct one's flaws (live morally) and by acknowledging that one is incapable without divine assistance (accepting a divine savior), one can be forgiven for one's sins and be loved. The holy spirit enters those of true faith and gives them guidance.

There is an obvious analogy between the two: there's something wrong if we think the small beings we appear to be are all alone. By acknowledging this "something" larger than ourselves and tapping into it, we can overcome our (at least apparent) limitations. We even find, to our surprise, that we are part of this "something larger".

But if we're all talking about the same thing, why don't more people realize it and stop fussing about who's right? An obvious problem, from my point of view, is that the Christian tradition insists that it is the only way to tap into this "something larger", denying that non-Christians have access to it at all. In contrast, Buddhism claims that the Buddha nature is "no distance" from everyone's daily existence, but that we usually distract ourselves from noticing it. The less obvious problem is that cultivating our awareness something "no distance" from ourselves can become very tricky, and we can easily lead ourselves along a non-productive or even self-destructive path. It's tricky enough that, when you're trying to build a coherent organization, you can easily just skip over the whole thing. (see book summaries)

Comments from those familiar with other religious traditions?

Why Bad Things are Bad

In a previous post, I described how all the various aspects of our "normal" life, when investigated, are found to be united in a very deep way in which everything is really all right (in an affective sense, not in a moral sense). This sounds desirable because, if we could realize how all the things which distress us in our lives were really okay, we would be greatly relieved ("suffering and release from suffering"). It's hard, though, because our instinctive reaction to distressing things is not to investigate the distress, but to avoid it, to close off that part of ourselves because we believe it to be unbearable.

Until recently, this "knowledge" that everything's really okay had led me to a sort of "stiff upper lip" approach. Part of my reaction to my and others' distress has been to dismiss it because it's "not real", since it just needs to be seen in the right way to "make it go away". Of course, one needs to be at least partly or outwardly patient with it, since fighting it just makes it "more real" and stronger, but also present was this feeling that such patience was at best a stopgap measure, or in other words, impatience.

The problem is that, although distress itself may not be "real", its effects are as real as we believe it to be. Our reflexive reaction of closing down our awareness so we don't have to "deal with it" forecloses our ability to open to its true nature, in the context of which the apparent distress is not distressing. Thus, we have sympathy for someone in distress neither because we get caught up feeling the same things along with them, nor because it's a posture adopted for its efficacy, but because we see directly the violence it does to their connection to their true nature.

My Orchid is a Freak!

My Masdevallia wasn't blooming when I bought it. My thinking was that it was such a nice healthy plant and that the lack of flowers to advertise it made it cheaper. The tag in the pot, Masd. elephanticeps x Masd. coccinea made it sound quite promising. Indeed, the buds it sprouted kept getting bigger and had this gorgeous deep scarlet / maroon color. The tips of the petals are bright yellow. However, the flowers did not open all the way. The petals, which had promised to be long and tapering, stayed partly curled up, sometimes into a kinda cute curly-q, but sometimes really awkwardly folded back behind the flower. Now, they're still pretty and actually have a faint peachy mango scent, but this is not quite what I had expected. My father, an orchid grower of many years, says that, at least with Cymbidiums and Cattleyas, this kind of a thing is a major issue in breeding: whether the flower opens well and completely. So I imagine what I got was a cross which someone grew that didn't quite go as desired, and which they decided to sell off. I'm glad to have it and happy it's doing well and all, but hmmm..... always the fly in the ointment, I guess.

Wherefore art thou, UC Theater?

The UC Theater, on University Avenue in downtown Berkeley, was a repertory theater which played fabulous movies for runs of, at most, a week, and, more often, only one day. In its cavernous, dingy interior, I was introduced to many movies I still adore, and more movies which I'm sure I'd adore if I still remembered. Driving past the old marquee yesterday, I was reminded of the many years in which I lived only a few blocks away and in which I went to the movies there only relatively rarely. After it was gone, of course, I regretted not going to see movies there more often. I still haven't seen Wages of Fear, Irma Vep, Gummo, Yi Yi, and many more that I wanted to see at the time. I'd think that, now that I'm in the city, there should be a similar great movie-going experience within easy reach, but there is no theater, much less something like UC Theater, in North Beach. I guess there's the Roxie in the Mission, but, so far, all the theaters here feel less accessible or less interesting. Yes, in Oakland, I lived right by the Parkway, but the movies there were, for the most part, pretty dull to my taste. So... suggestions for what's here in San Francisco?

Update

The apartment move-out went less smoothly than I expected because I forgot (?) about having to leave the apartment clean, something which I had done only sporadically while I lived there. The gf and I spent some late hours getting things as clean as we could in the time allotted. Granted, we did technically have more time, but we also really wanted to go on a camping trip in the Pinnacles organized by a friend. I haven't heard anything about how much of my rather large cleaning deposit I'm getting back.

The Pinnacles trip was fantastic. The peaks and gullies and caverns are awe-inspiring, and the late spring rains produced a profusion of wildflowers. At night, we had yummy meals with good wine around the campfire. The showers at the campground were great. What more could one ask?

All my crap, now jammed everywhere into the place in North Beach, is slowly being put into some semblance of order, although this will take a weekend or two of collaborative effort by the two of us. For myself, plenty of work and some play needs to be done before I head to Eritrea in six weeks.

Mice, Part 2

My reactions to the trapping of mice in my apartment, detailed in Mice, Part 1, got me wondering why they were relatively strong for something so minor. People and other animals are dying equally unpleasant deaths nearby and around the world all the time, and I don't feel the revulsion that I did at the mice with crushed skulls directly in front of me. Is it a failure of the imagination? Are we unable to care about what we don't experience directly? If this is the case, how will we ever have collective action on extreme crises like genocides, much less on the probably more widely relevant issues of worker rights, fair trade, and environmental preservation?

Even my reaction to the mice makes no sense in itself, at least in terms of concern for the mice. They probably died with very little suffering, and the amount of their suffering is not obviously correlated with how gruesome I find them. Did the mouse that sprayed blood on the wall suffer more than the mouse that appeared to have simply paused at the edge of the trap? Apparently, we are not horrified so much by the suffering of cute mice as by the implicit reminder that this sort of thing could happen to us. We're repelled by the prospect of our own pain and deaths, not by the actual pain and deaths of other creatures or people. So how do we proceed to strive for justice on a footing different than individual, personal fear? That fear of "it could happen to me" seems a quite inadequate basis for action, individual or collective. Whatever that magnanimous spirit is, how do we nurture it within ourselves and within society? What do we do in the meanwhile?

This question sounds very familiar to me, almost trite. I'm sure others have run up against it and formulated the question much like this. So.... any thoughts?

If democracy is the best option...

In Jared Diamond's Collapse, about which you may be tired of reading here, he first discusses a number of historical instances of collapse of civilizations in which environmental degradation played an important role, as well as discussions of environmental problems in some contemporary societies. In one of the last chapters, he discusses how societies have failed to prevent serious environmental problems: failure to anticipate a problem, failure to perceive the problem, failure to try to solve it, and failure to actually solve it. He says that the third of these is, surprisingly, the most common. In discussing various forms of clashes of interests that can cause societies to fail to try to solve environmental problems, he adds:

A further conflict of interest involving rational behavior arises when the interests of the decision-making elite in power clash with the interests of the rest of society. Especially if the elite can insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions, they are likely to do things that profit themselves, regardless of whether those actions hurt everybody else. Such clashes ... are becoming increasingly frequent in the modern U.S., where rich people tend to live within their gated compounds and to drink bottled water. (pp. 430-1)

In Perfectly Legal, David Johnston describes how the U.S. tax code is increasingly shifting the burden of taxation off the wealthy and corporations and onto those whose income comes primarily from wages and salaries. (It can be a little dry, but, if you're as geeky as I am, you will find it gripping and devastating.) This is not directly an environmental issue, but it serves to illustrate the point that those who can fund political campaigns get laws written in their interests:

(I will insert the quote from Perfectly Legal when I get the book unpacked after the move. It's about how, in the 2002 congressional election cycle, something like 80% of campaign funds came from 10% of the donors, or somesuch.)

While this upward distribution of wealth is patently unfair, this combination of power and isolation of a wealthy elite can have more disastrous consequences, as Diamond points out.

In a previous post, I complained that no political group seemed to act "in the general interst". Then perhaps the best way to make collective decisions is through a contest of interests, fought as "fairly" as possible. In my limited understanding, this is the point of a democracy, but this is not how our democracy is working now. The best hope for it that I can see is Clean Money. If you're a Californian, please do sign up and become a member. If you're not, look for the activity in your state at Public Campaign. It's a great investment in our country.

Mice, Part 1

This is, I'm sure, a familiar story. Several months ago, I was up early to catch a plane and groggily noticed from the bathroom that there was a small rodent sniffing around the living room floor. When I got back to Oakland, I bought, at my girlfriend's insistence, catch-and-release traps, and baited and set them. I'd see a mouse now and then, but, as it couldn't get into the food cabinets or up on the counters or dining room table, I didn't worry that much about it. After all, it's a mammal pretty closely related to humans, and was actually pretty cute. After a good while, I finally caught one baby mouse, which I released a couple blocks away. However, the presence of mice became less deniable and more evident, with lots of little mouse turds on the stovetop. (Evidently, they could climb up inside the stove from the floor.) The little crevice in the kicthen drawers shelving from which they entered was getting obviously dirty from their comings and goings. The catch-and-release traps, although cleverly designed, were not catching any mice.

Within 24 hours of setting the lethal traps, as my girlfriend finally asked me to do "sometime when I'm not there", I had killed 3 mice. Just this morning, the fifth was snared. It was a rather cute juvenile or young adult, looking at first like it had just paused at the edge of trap. However, the trap bar was clamped down on its upper back, probably breaking it immediately. Some of the others have been messier, making their eyes pop out or bloodying the trap. The worst one sprayed blood on the wall moulding, and was a little disquieting to clean up. After lifting the bar and allowing the fifth dead mouse to fall into the trash, I washed my hands, cut a small piece of cheese rind, re-baited and re-set the trap, and re-washed my hands.

Above, I make it sound like it's my girlfriend's fault I started using the lethal traps. It's not. Since I'm leaving the place at the end of the month, I felt like I didn't want to leave a mouse-infested place for my building manager to tend to. She has been very generous and helpful to me during my time here, and I didn't want to make more work for her.

What's for dinner, and Related Issues...

From what I can tell, part of being a good Buddhist is becoming a strict vegetarian. However, my teacher focuses on waking up to the nature of our existence, and doesn't say much about specific practices or dogmas. Correspondingly, as far as my practice is concerned, I tend to modify my point of view only as a result of direct meditation-related insight. On this question, my awareness once of what appeared to be at least an aspect of the original nature indicated that its basic character was not significantly different for animals and for humans, and thus that eating animals was tantamount to eating humans.

However, from a "rational" point of view, I don't really understand vegetarianism in a practical sense. It has long seemed to me that almost everything we do deprives animals of their lives. If you eat grains, animals were killed when the field was plowed, when the grain was harvested, and by pest control for the stored grain. If you use paper, animals were killed when those trees were harvested. If you eat dairy products, what do you think the dairy industry does with the excess male animals? And a large fraction of our energy needs is supplied by burning fossil fuels, producing global warming and changing habitats on a massive scale all over the world. Given this sort of death of animals from human activity, eating a little bit of animal protein for our dietary protein requirements seems rather minor. (I highly recommend the Harper's article at the last link.) Besides, it's not just animals that die because of the way we live, but other humans as well. Indeed, after reading Jared Diamond's descriptions of the results of environmental collapse on Easter Island and in the pre-European-arrival American southwest, there would seem to be a non-negligible possibility that the economic changes resulting from exhaustion of global resources (such as reaching peak oil) could produce an outbreak of cannibalism somewhere.

In the midst of all these questions, my reaction is that there are much larger spiritual issues involved than whether or not one eats animals. How do we reconcile ourselves to the death that is the direct result of our continuing to live? How does it affect what it means to be alive?

Going to Eritrea

As part of the wind energy project I'm volunteering with, I will be going to Eritrea 15 June to 14 July!

Lobbying for Clean Money, Fair Elections

Yesterday I went to Sacramento to (1) attend the press conference for Loni Hancock's Clean Money, Fair Elections bill, AB 583 and (2) to go talk to legislators or their elections issues staffer about the bill. This was my first introduction into such things, and it was a very interesting experience. I always find it kind of startling and fascinating when things that I do for the first time actually work kind of like people have told me they work, or in the way that I have been thinking about them. It's related to my surprise that I can really know anything. Those who know me know that I am often very convinced that I know many things very well, but there's still this feeling, particularly when doing something new, that I and everyone else contriving to do it is just playing a game that they hope will have the effect they want. I suppose this could be consistent with the conceit that no one knows more than I do...

Inside and just outside the capitol building, I ran into two people I haven't seen in a long time. The first was someone who had been a grad student and union organizer at UCLA when I was a grad student and union organizer at UCB. He was ABD and is now organizing TA's in the CSU system. The other was a friend-of-a-friend with whom I've hung out now and then over the years, who was in molecular biology but now works for the NRDC. I wonder how close to the expectation value of "number of people I know in the state capitol building on any given day" this sample was.

Anyway, I'm going back next week for the bill's hearing in the Elections Committee. Last year's bill was, against expectations, passed out of the EC, and we hope to do it again this year.

Love those Crixa cakes!

After dinner at a friend's house recently, we had our choice of desserts left over another friend's going away party. Given the choice between a plastic-covered cheesecake or a Crixa cake, we of course both went for the Crixa cake. As we were digging in, I asked what kind it was. My friend said it was their apple cake. She went on to say that, actually, she really liked plum cakes, which (in a slightly dreamy voice) were more of a gold cake, sweet contrasted with the plums' tartness, with the gold tinged purple around the plums... I said, wait a minute, isn't this like fantasizing about someone else while you're with your partner??? Startled, she exclaimed, "I'm sorry! I love you, Crixa cake!" Which we do, really.

Parasite at Anti-Schwarzenegger Rally

I was present yesterday at the San Francisco Ritz-Carleton Hotel for a protest against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Although I oppose him in general, I was not there as part of the actual protest. Instead, I was for the first time one of those pests who swarm to such things to promote their own causes. Mine was Clean Money, Clean Elections. It was more difficult talking to people there than at the previous tabling events I've done. Most people were busy going someplace or other, and those that weren't were listening to people on a stage with speakers. However, of those with whom I managed to converse, most were interested in my cause, and many people signed our petition to the state legislature to support Loni Hancock's bill to have clean money elections in California.

Briefly, the idea behind Clean Money, Clean Elections: to run for office, candidates need money to get their message out to voters. Where does this money come from? Almost entirely from deep-pocket donors. These donors are the folks that need to be pleased by the successful candidate's time in office. So if politicians want to be re-elected, they are responsible to this small, wealthy constituency, and not to the voters who elected them. Clean Money gives politicians the option to run their campaigns entirely with public money (from taxes) if they take no private money. Then politicians are beholden not to special interests, but to voters at large. This is a non-partisan cause and should be supported by anyone who wants to strengthen our democracy.

Most of the crowd there were union members understandably angry about Arnie's proposals to shortchange the state workers' pensions. I asked many of the people with whom I talked if they thought their unions would endorse Clean Money. Every one of them said that, while there would probably be good support for it among the membership, the leadership would oppose it because it would limit the union's ability to pay for politicians. This didn't especially surprise me, but it does nonetheless disappoint me. Unions exist to promote the interests of the working people in their membership, and I doubt that we can really have a progressive movement in society without organized labor being perhaps the driving force. However, if unions had the broader picture of advancing their members' interests, they'd get behind Clean Money 100%.
Working people would be the immediate beneficiaries of Clean Elections because unions usually get outspent, as I recall off the top of my head, by about 3 or 4 to 1.

I believe, though, that all people would ultimately benefit from Clean Elections because decisions could be made more collectively and not just for the interests of a small segment of society. Everyone likes to believe that they know what's best for society, but for unions and business groups alike, their opinions happen to line up with what's best for them economically. A more disinterested decision making process will be necessary if we, as a society, are going to have a hope of making choices truly in the general interest.

San Francisco Mondovino Premier

When I started this blog, I had in mind that it would be a place for me to shape the vague ideas bouncing around in my head. However, while I am working on some higher concept posts, I'd like there to be more content in the meantime. In that vein, here is a (slightly edited) email I sent to a friend about the San Francisco premier of the wine world documentary Mondovino:

The event was in a screening room of a new condo development south of
Market close to the Embarcadero. The setting, at least, was fairly
generic, although, since small, fairly intimate. Most of the crowd
was dressed nicely but not especially upscale, and everyone was pretty
relaxed. Nossiter, I think, was dressed in a corduroy sport coat and
casual slacks or even jeans. He recommended that people would
probably be more comfortable not sitting in the first few rows. I
knew one person there: Joe Bilman who runs Subterraneum wine storage
where I rent a locker, and who had sent out the email announcement
that I had forwarded to you. I also recognized Steve Edmunds of
Edmunds-St.John, someone who, though mild-mannered, is obviously very
passionate about individually crafted wines.

For the Q&A period, there were about 6 people on stage. I recall only
Randall Graham of Bonny Doon, Jonathan Nossiter, Joel Rosenthal, an
inporter featured in the film, and Garen Staglin of Staglin Family
Vineyards. There were a couple other people involved in other aspects
of the wine business, a trader and perhaps a writer. Randy Graham:
definitely a terroirist but not willing to condemn micro-oxidation
completely, "if used judiciously"; mostly seemed silent and
thoughtful. Joel Rosenthal was much the way he came across in the
film. Jonathan Nossiter was criticized for filming people in ways
that rather slighted them, with the odd camera angles or showing that
guy's balls, or protraying the Frescobaldis as particularly venal, or
for showing Bob Parker's dog's ass, or for showing Michel Rolland just
hopping out of limos and recommending to everyone to use
micro-oxidation, or for just showing the Staglin family hanging out
around the house all day instead of being in the vineyards. His
almost uniform defense was that he just showed what people chose to
show him - he would have gladly filmed Staglin or Rolland in the vineyards if that were where they had taken him, for example. Garen
Staglin said that he very much resented how his wife's comments -
about getting their workers a t-shirt - were taken out of context and
implied that they were not caring and involved in their workers'
lives. He said that when Michel Rolland comes to his winery to
consult, he stays the whole day, and that in the five years he has
known Rolland, he has never heard him say micro-oxigenate. Everyone I
talked to said that they admired Staglin's courage for getting up on
the stage after that movie. A couple audience criticised the film as
unnecessarily divisive, greatly exaggerating what controversy existed.
One of them, a Burgundy buyer for a local wine store, came up to Nossiter at the
reception afterwards and said he found Nossiter's defense against
being divisive - that he just showed what he saw - so facile as to be
disingenious.

In the film Rosenthal commented that the current battle in the wine world was like the collaborators and the resistance in World War II. One of the panelists, perhaps Nossiter, said that a historian of the period had told him that, at the time, it was difficult to tell what exactly constituted collaboration or what constituted resistance, and therefore, who exactly was collaborating or resisting. This was agreed to apply to the current "battle" over wine.

There were three Joel Rosenthal selection wines served at the
reception - a Bandol Rose, a white Burgundy, and a St. Emillion. All
were fabulous, to my taste. The Bandol was light, richly but
delicately floral, and still gently girded by something approaching
structure. The Burgundy had a good core of concentrated ripe (but not
super-ripe) fruit, and a good supporting acidity not really distinct
from the fruit. The Bordeaux was concentrated red fruit, cedar spicy
and black earth, very lively and hitting many notes at once. I wanted
to ask him more about the wines, but I never managed to get in a word
between the other people there talking to him. (In that crowd, I was "just a consumer".)

Joe Bilman's comment was that, in his opinion, the movie was summed up
by his own choice in cars: a 1973 Alfa Romeo and a 2004 Lexus. Each
has its charms.

Spirituality and Self-Interest

Patriots say "God bless America." Sports players pray to God for victory. Many peoples worship spirits or divinities that embody or control aspects of nature that are crucial for human survival, and do their best to please such spirits or divinities. Christians similarly (as I understand it, which, admittedly, is not that well) worship the divinity that controls their fate in an "afterlife", and try to please that divinity by being a "moral" person in this life. Basically, people want the good stuff - food, possessions, happy feelings, good health, etc. - and they want to avoid the bad stuff, and most of spirituality and religion are just everyone's attempts to get what they want and avoid what they don't. As another example, I'd bet there are lots of meditators who just want to be peaceful, who want to relieve their emotional discomfort or be nicer to other people, and think that these ends are the main point of meditation.

Instead, the main point of meditation is to comprehend your existence directly - all the good stuff and all the bad stuff - and thus act in accord with it. Clinging to the good stuff and avoiding the bad stuff means that you don't examine the essential nature of all your existence. Without examining all your existence, you won't truly comprehend any of it. The Christian bargain above does get at this essential truth. What you want may get you condemned to Hell if God doesn't like it, i.e., if you do anything to get the good stuff, you may ultimately be worse off. But it strikes me as in the same vein as threatening a child with a spanking if he doesn't eat his vegetables. The point is to eat your vegetables without a struggle of wills, external or internal, because you know it's good for you, i.e., the point is to grow up.

My original goal in meditation was to develop more compassion for other people. Maybe this is indeed the level at which we all have to start, when we realize that we're doing the same things and still not getting what we want. However, my motivations have changed as I went along. Maybe the second paragraph does not actually describe the ultimate point of meditation, but just where I am now. Regardless, what I'm getting at is that most people seem to keep hitting their heads against the same walls in life without stopping to examine the wall, their head, and whether the are perhaps preferable alternatives. Is this just human nature or are the major non-Buddhist traditions partly to blame for not encouraging this kind of examination?

Coming up roses and ...

In my apartment in Oakland, there's no room for a garden, but I do have some plants out on the fire escape. The largest is a rose, a delicate pink, strongly scented, fluffy-petaled English rose, Sharifa Asma. The past two springs, when it has sent out shoots all over, I have knocked off a lot of them in an effort to channel its growth into a fuller shrub. This spring I just let it go. It has filled out nicely with fresh, red-green leaves, maybe even on the "frame" I built in previous years, and has young flower buds all over. The northern side is a little mildewy, but I'm ignoring that for now.

Nearby is a cactus that I have had for a few years. It, too, is blooming, now for the first time. I had wondered what the development of a fuzzy white patch on top meant, and now there are two bright pink buds poking up out of it.

I have admired the Masdevallias at the San Francisco Orchid Society show for many years, but my previous attempts to grow them resulted in the premature deaths of two plants. Anticipating my arrival on the first floor (chilly, not much light) of a North Beach flat, I bought another at this year's show in February, and put it on a ledge outside the bedroom window. When I checked up on it last weekend, I found that it has apparently been loving this cold, rainy weather. Its new leaves have grown well, and it's sending up what appear to be two flower shoots. This is quite exciting because it wasn't blooming when I bought it, and there was no photo of the flower. I bought it because it looked like such a happy, robust plant, and because I was told that both of its parents - it's a hybrid - had bright, large flowers.

I'm not sure what to make of how happy this all makes me. Saturday morning, I had been quite grouchy because I had woken up earlier than I would have liked. But when I checked the masdevallia and saw the two flower shoots, I became quite cheerful, because of something that has no "real" effect on me.

How to write a Craig's List personals ad

This is where I try to impart some probably useless information, a small speck of dust in the swirling blogosphere, in the hopes that someone somewhere will connect to it and use it.

The basics: You must say something about yourself, what you are looking for, and give your age, height and weight. I'm always amazed how many ads omit one or more of these things. Let's assume you're beyond that.

Most ads have a very basic format. "I like these things, have all these positive qualities, and I'm looking for someone who is similar." More or less. These come across as very much the same: long walks on the beach, partner in crime, good food and wine, athletic companion, blah blah blah. What you want to do instead is to just express what is on your mind at the moment, more offhand than crafted, and a little about why you're looking for someone. Be sure to include the basics, but they are not the main point. The main point is to write in a way which expresses who you are indirectly, so that your personality comes across between the lines, like body language. Of course you want to be on good behavior, but don't worry about appearing to be perfect.

Below is the post by which I figured this out. I wasn't trying to write a real ad; I was just blowing off some steam. To my surprise two attractive, interesting, educated women replied.

We all have our own requirements...

Reply to: anon-11377495@craigslist.org
Date: 2003-05-16, 10:28AM

If you're up for some self-indulgent rambling, read on...

So I think, well, I'm a pretty nifty guy - well-educated professional,
well-intentioned and kind, good cook, appreciative of the arts, politically
aware, a little edgy, reasonably emotionally / spiritually aware....
so what's the problem with finding someone? First, it seems,
I'm not the largest guy - 5' 9" and more skinny than not (aged nearly 35).
It pisses me off that many women who are shorter than I am want someone taller.

But, heck, I seem to have my own "stupid stumbling block" criteria:
you must be exceedingly smart - intelligence engaged with life. Of
course, the more traits / interests you share with me the better, but
that seems to be the most difficult to find.

Le Pichet

This is not the sort of thing I expect to usually post about, but here it is. Should you find yourself in downtown Seattle, and you are the sort to adore French bistro food, make your way to Le Pichet, 1933 1st Ave, near Pike Place Market. The food is robustly flavorful and very French, and the wine list (also very French) is a full page, single spaced, and you can get any wine you like in the amount of full bottle, pichet (pitcher, or half-bottle), demi-pichet, or glass. We got a pichet of nicely full-bodied Cairanne (Cotes-du-Rhone) to go with our meal of butter lettuce with vinaigrette and roasted hazelnuts, "ham and cheese on toast", chicken liver terrine, and fresh raw oysters. Their espresso's not bad, either, which, as I understand it, is more typical of Seattle than Paris.

Then we picked up our luggage at the hotel, said goodbye to Seattle for now, and caught the bus to the airport. The lunch at Le Pichet was exactly the sort of fortification I wish I could get for all my air travel.

Life as Illusion

One of the things you hear in an introduction to "Buddhist philosophy" - in my case, in high school - is that we and our lives are illusions, that we don't exist, that everything is nothingness. This view of reality doesn't easily square with our everyday notions, and made me wonder what ever made anyone propound it as true. Now, however, I've been meditating long enough to have some different ideas of what these things mean.

First off, let me say that they are not the points of dogma, like the divinity of Christ or something, that I had originally thought they were. They are simply efforts to describe in language "what is" as sensed by generations of practitioners. They are not things I can truly explain in the usual sense of "explanations"; they can only be "seen directly" via meditation. My parents are scientists, and I approach this stuff with that kind of skepticism, a sort of experimental experiential ontology. That said, let me add to those efforts at describing "what is", based on my limited awareness.

We all run around very sure that our immediate perceptions of our lives are the final word. But as I have meditated more, I have observed now and then (often not during meditation) that what we usually take as reality is sort of a surface reflection of something much different and more universal. My thoughts, sensations, feelings, and actions are not the units I had thought they were, but instead, all have the same fundamental character to them: Original Nature, Original Mind, Buddha Nature, whatever words you want to use. Don't get me wrong. Except for those moments of insight, I still live my life in the same mental space as everyone else. Seeing those sorts of things does, however, change the way I regard my life, even if "regarding" something is still relating to it on its surface level.

This all leaves my usual self feeling rather perplexed. "You mean I'm an illusion?," it says. "Then what else is out there?", it wants to know. The only answer it gets seems to be that it will get no answer it can understand and accept, that there is no way to look and understand, because those actions themselves are illusory. "How then to proceed?," it asks. I'm told there is no way to proceed, and no need to do so. There is only existence as it is at each moment. I'll let you know when I get there.

Movin' on... over.

Last night, I told the manager of my apartment building that I'm planning to move out by the end of April. There were a few things to talk over, such as the screw holes in the bathroom wall and the occasional visits by a very cute mouse, but for the most part, there wasn't much to the conversation. She and I have gotten along well, and it appears this will continue through the move-out process.

For myself, though, I'll miss this place. It's the only place I've lived alone, and I've appreciated the shelter it has offered me. After living in group houses throughout the many years of grad school, I immediately moved in with my girlfriend at the time. When we split up in September, 2002, I moved into this place, with it's new hardwood floor, antique tiled bathroom, gas stove, and quiet hallways with mostly friendly neighbors. Since then, the apartment has been my place to come back to for solitude, to cook for friends and lovers, and from which to venture forth for walks around Lake Merritt and shopping runs to the Berkeley Bowl.

Now, however, I'll be moving in with my new girlfriend (and fiancee) in North Beach, San Francisco, so while I'm already waxing nostalgic about living alone, I hope I don't live alone again for quite some time (maybe never). North Beach is densely populated, and a popular destination for tourists, who can often be heard yelling and generally whooping it up on weekends. You don't have to worry as much about the hours of stores and cafes there. In the past, this contrast has provoked a sigh of relief from me upon returning to this side of the bay, but I imagine I'll get used to it, and even like it. Just another phase of life, I suppose.

Hooray for Zinfandel

Last night, my sweetie, a couple friends and I drank a bottle of 1997 Turley Black-Sears Zinfandel over dinner at Jojo. It didn't really match most of the meal, since we all perversely ordered seafood, but it was fantastically yummy. (I'd also brought a 1998 Beringer Sbragia Chardonnay, but we wanted what we wanted, even if it didn't match the food.) The wine still had that edgy blackberry fruit that it did when I tasted the barrel sample in 1998, but it had softened, rounded, and evolved that caramel-like flavor of a nicely mature wine. I was very happy about it, both to drink the wine, and to share it with friends who had not tasted something like that before.

We discussed Jared Diamond's _Collapse_ in the midst of that gustatory delight. Where will we be in a few years when oil demand meets oil production capacity? What will come of our efforts to do good in the world when many things that are cheap become expensive? Where do luxury zinfandel and grilled halibut fit into such a life? How does that affect our enjoyment of them now?

It's in the mail

This afternoon, I finally submitted for publication the first paper to come out of my thesis work. (I graduated in May, 2000.) It's a milestone (or millstone) of sorts, one that has been very heavy and not moved much until the last year or so. It turned out that I had to sit down with my advisor and walk him through the work, with him writing the paper bit by bit in a way made sense to him. What still puzzles me is why it came to that. It's not that hard, and he's a much smarter man than I am. Anyway, at least now he does understand it and thinks its good, interesting work, and he's happy to start writing the next paper, to be published in a different journal with a different audience. And we still get along. I do wonder, though, if he had been involved and supportive while I was actually working on it, whether I'd be a professor now, and whether I'd be happy about it.

Springtime Amanitas

This last week I've found three species of Amanitas, two new to me. Last Saturday, on the Berkeley campus, I found what I think was a single A. velosa. Since there was only one, and it looked plausibly like the deadly A. phalloides, I didn't eat it. Then Sunday, around Lake Merritt, there was a cluster of A. novinupta coming up. Took one home to ID, and, since it's not rated highly, I didn't eat it either. Then, Wednesday, while I was walking in downtown Oakland, I was nearly overrun by a rather abundant fruiting of A. pantherina, some really beautiful mushrooms. Maybe I will eat those one day if I'm feeling overly curious and masochistic. Amanitas everywhere, but not a bite to eat.