On being a "renaissance man"

I was reading a blog article that was focusing on the idea of the modern "renaissance man" [OK, renaissance person] and how one would attempt to become one. I was struck by the fact that our modern era is one of specialization and it is rare find someone who is broadly competent in a variety of areas. It is so rare, in fact, that it seems downright odd and our culture and society does not reward or value that kind of broad knowledge. We tend to become employed in a narrow area of responsibility or technical expertise and society views any concerted effort to gain a broader knowledge as wasted effort. The education system seems to be narrowing the student's focus and exposure rather than broadening their education. A university education is priced out of reach for anything that doesn't have a career payback.
Sometimes we will hear about a baseball player or someone else in sports who also has an interest in something other than their sport. It is mentioned as an oddity -- and as "color commentary" that player 'A' is a gifted artist or a musician or writes poetry or makes furniture.

One short line from the blog article stuck in my mind and I paraphrase it here: Nothing exposes a person's ignorance and lack of culture quicker than faulty geography or a lack of literary knowledge. I would add to that a lack of basic historical awareness. I don't think that you need to be a walking encyclopedia but you should know that Pakistan is in Asia and Ecuador is in South America. It would help to know that India and Pakistan are neighbors and that people in Ecuador speak Spanish.

Americans are notably ill informed on geography, literature and history. The situation is so bad that you cringe when people call into talk radio or C-SPAN to ask a question or make a comment. The ones who are least informed seem to be the ones with ready access to telephones and the airwaves.

Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, and Texas Governor Rick Perry have managed to rise to the top of political life with little basic knowledge or apparent understanding of history, geography or literature...not to mention the constitution or economics.  Presumably, the people who support them are either equally ill informed or choose to ignore the obvious deficit in the candidstes' knowledge. Some of it is pretty comical but the Founding Fathers would be appalled at the lack of basic knowledge in both the voters and the candidates.

It's getting late so I'll end this for now -- to be revisited later.

Getting our house in order

The current debt ceiling debate has been an embarrassing free for all that serves only to demonstrate how far we have fallen from our nation's purpose and potential. The posturing and contrived political schemes have reached a a new level. Instead of solving the problem the real issue became how to use this crisis as a tool to get what we want.  The question is...How can we beat our opponent?...not How can we help the country?  Often we hear some political hack uttering the rhetorical comment that "We must get our house in order!" -- a particularly elusive goal.

Granted, our house needs attention. We live in an interesting neighborhood where neighbors keep climbing our fence and camp out in the yard. We have some friends but there are also some folks that are very unfriendly and downright hostile and we have to keep sending our kids over to get them to stop harassing us or we hire security guards to watch our stuff. Grandma and grandpa are hanging on as best they can but have some incredible medical bills and can barely pay for their meds so we have to help out a little.

Trash is piling up around the door because we have gotten into the habit of just heaving it from the porch. The sidewalk is crumbling and the driveway is full of holes but we can't afford to go anywhere anyway because the price of gas is way out of reach. The SUV isn't running very well anyway and leaks oil and smokes. The paint is peeling and the gutters are falling off but that's just on the outside. The furniture is worn out, the roof is leaking, windows are broken and the sewer is clogged and backing up. Something is growing in the refrigerator and poisoning the food but we don't want to look in there. Family members are hateful to each other and constantly fighting and half of them are packing heat. We have locked up a bunch of them because we don't know what else to do. Meanwhile it is getting hotter and hotter and the lawn and shade trees are starting to look pretty bad because we have ignored them but some in the family are convinced otherwise and scream at us when we want to try to do anything about it. Several family members have started chopping down the few trees that are left.

Luckily, we have friends in the neighborhood who will loan us money to try to keep this house together and functioning as well as it does. We have a lot of money of our own but we don't want to use it for any of this stuff because we want to install a hot tub, big screen TV and upgrade to granite in the kitchen. Some of us have accumulated a fortune but aren’t sharing and take nice vacations to places where the plumbing works.

Lately those favorite neighbors that loan us money have been grumbling because they also want granite in the kitchen but we have their money and don't want to give it back. We try to ignore their complaints and get them to keep supplying the money with promises that we will do better and will pay them back someday. After a huge fight we hatch a repayment plan -- stop helping grandma and grandpa with their bills and postpone or cancel repair work on the house and, if that doesn’t work, fire the security guards. This should still allow for the kitchen upgrade and hot tub installation but the big screen TV might have to wait a while. Sacrifice is hard work.

Time Passes Slowly

Sometimes it seems that time races by and we barely get a chance to savor the events of our life. Sometimes it seems like time slows down to a crawl and we spend a great deal of our lives suspended in one place.  These are like two opposing dimensions and lately I've had one foot in each one.

Today marks four years since Joie died and I am re-experiencing some of that sense of loss like it is new all over again. This is my end-of-July-blues. Science tells us that prolonged grief brings about chemical changes in our brains so that what seems natural to a grieving person is not perceived the same way by everyone else. It is a continuing struggle to come out of the state of grief and I think that it must take a conscious effort to do so. I'm working on it but I still have a way to go. But I have come a long way and I am pretty happy with my life right now. I surprised myself by declaring that a few weeks ago during a conversation I was having. I have been able to climb pretty far but time passes slowly and sometimes it is like a slow-motion movie.

Joie and I were together about 33 years, more or less and I reflected recently on her ability to indulge my various quirks and interests while still standing her own ground and her own persona. I've mentioned before that she went through nine lives but she always brought some of that forward so it was common for her to have multiple points of focus or to be in some state of transition.  Some friends once observed that she seemed to almost submerge herself once we were married and moved to Jefferson City. That isn't true at all but it is an interesting observation that resulted from the physical distance and the reduced contact that we had with some of our old friends once we moved.

I indulged myself on this sad anniversary to pull together some pictures taken over our time together. Some of these are my favorites.



American Gothic 1975 - Colby Kansas...on our way to Wyoming and our backpacking trip. For a girl that never camped or went into the wild she did great. Her family and friends were stunned that she would do this but she worked hard to get ready and carried a 40-pound pack through the Bog Horns.




Young professionals -- the photographer made me sit on a telephone book because the man was supposed to be taller than the woman and we were exactly the same height. That's why she is grinning.

New mom -- Jill had been born just a few weeks before this was taken. Joie was a great mom but there were some trying times, too, and I had a traveling job for some of those early years.

Up all night -- Project Graduation 2002. We were volunteers for graduation night when Jill graduated from high school. We were getting punchy by dawn. Joie's dad came from St. Louis for the graduation but didn't feel good enough to attend so she was a little concerned. We all had breakfast with him later and he was fine.

Perseverance -- She broke her hip in 2004. She made herself well enough to go to Italy in June on a cane and we went all over Rome and Perugia and Florence.  Later in the year, just before Christmas, she broke her other hip and struggled back from that as well.

Family Reunion -- We came from small families except for the Ackermanns and she always enjoyed Ackermann reunions...even though she sometimes had to figure out who was who in her mom's relatives. Her mom died when she was 14 and she tried hard to stay connected. Jill and I still go to Ackermann reunions.

"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained" 

-- Marie Curie 

And yet, they persist

I've heard it said that the US Congress is the least patriotic body in America. After the last few weeks I have come to fully believe it. The most recent performance...which is still going on at this time...has to do with raising the debt ceiling. This is a routine administrative function that makes it possible for the country to pay it's bills. The crisis is entirely the fault of Republican Tea Party freshmen representatives. That is not to say that the problem with the national debt is entirely their fault...there have been decades of foolishness leading up to this point. The US is addicted to low taxes and high spending so we end up borrowing money to buy or build things we want (or somebody wants) and to subsidize farmers or other businesses and support a growing poverty class and enormous military class stationed in almost 200 countries around the world. The thing is...we have already spent the money that we borrowed... so we owe somebody a shitload of money... plus, we still want all that stuff.

The current road to default sits squarely on the shoulders of George W. Bush and the ridiculous tax cut that he and his friends managed to pass...plus the cost of fighting his two wars simultaneously (one being absolutely unnecessary)...plus a financial and regulatory free-for-all and housing crash that led to the Great Recession.

Do you recall the crash of the Soviet Union? They failed because they no longer had the resources or the national will to keep their country together. We smugly observed that this was the inevitable failure of the communist system and the relentless pressure of Our Hero, Ronald Reagan.

I fully believe that we are looking into the same chasm...we are on the downhill slope and have been there a while. Will we slide past the wreckage of the old Soviet Union as we topple into the abyss? Lack of discipline in our government and commercial affairs has brought us to the brink. Now, instead of trying to fix the problem, we have a bunch of congressional "patriots" trying to push us over...and seemingly gleeful about it. These guys are doing what Al Qaida could not do. In some other countries...mostly third world countries but not always...this is where the military would step in and tell everyone in Washington to go home (by the way, is anyone watching for that?).

It is now past the eleventh hour in this crisis...it's more like 11:59... and they still can't recognize that the system will fail unless there is a fundamental change. Instead, they persist at playing political games and blaming tactics. We are way beyond the point for gamesmanship. We have to raise money to run the government -- Surprise!! It takes real money -- our money, not somebody else's money. People who really benefited from the Bush tax cuts -- the wealthy folks who pay little or no taxes -- need to cough up some cash and pay their share. In the meantime, I hope some adult can gain control of the discussion, slap down the Tea Party folks if need be, and get this crisis settled so we can work on the real solution.