See Ralph run.

I'm not sure how to feel about Ralph Nader's decision to run for president again. Should we be upset about his potential spoiler role, stealing a few votes here and there from (fill in presumptive Democratic candidate's name) in states where there are close contests? Are there enough Green/Socialist voters in swing states such as Ohio or Florida to make a difference? Will it be more than a symbolic statement just to get on the ballot as a third, largely rejected but hard to ignore, option?

Why, Ralph, why?

I have to admire anyone who has the cojones to turn everyone in the so-called center against him, not to mention everyone "left of center" and everyone "right of center," but wait, everyone is already against him, so what's to lose? Nader has a point in arguing that the debate needs to be pushed off its present course:

"Let's put it this way. At a minimum, a tugboat candidacy can push the major parties closer to the harbor of the people and away from the harbor of giant corporations that are tearing the heart and soul out of this country."

A tugboat candidacy, starring the little green tugboat that could.

Moderate, rational people say that Ralph the Good, fighter for consumer safety and corporate responsibility, has perhaps gone around the bend of reality. They say he's nuts, he's wack, he's an egomaniac. Wrong. He looked crazy when he took on General freakin' Motors in the 1960s too. Thank goodness for people crazy enough not to settle for being obedient corporate chattel.

I humbly propose an apples-to-oranges comparison. Are all the third-party candidates in England, Canada, France, and Germany monstrous traitors because they don't line up dutifully behind the standard bearer who has been anointed by the major party that is least repugnant? At what point does the lesser of two evils constitute just another power broker for the war machine?

Go, Ralph, go.

extended

My friend Mike is in the hospital recovering from surgery, so I went to visit him tonight. The top of his head is all stitched up along an incision that resembles a mohawk, but he looked calm and lucid sitting up in bed. We talked for about an hour; mostly he talked. He was quite animated; his girlfriend Marcia sat in the other chair. She was not so animated but was keeping her chin up.

It's all kind of surrealistic. Jim, a mutual friend, told me last week that Mike was in the hospital for the surgery. While driving home from work, I saw that the lights were on at the Taoist Tai Chi Society in uptown Methodistville, so I pulled in the alley and checked their sign. They were still open, so I went in and asked the two people there if they had any information on how Mike was doing.

They didn't know me, but they were kind enough to tell me what they knew of his prognosis, which was not very optimistic. Apparently this kind of cancer is treatable but not curable. I said I'd like to go see him, so they gave me a phone number and his room number at Dodd Hall, where he was doing some rehab. It's supposed to storm tomorrow, they said, so tonight might be a good time.

Although I never know how to act in such situations, I'm glad I went. Mike had a lot of positive things to say about the medical staff, both in the emergency room at St. Ann's and at the James cancer hospital at OSU. He said melanoma is a really aggressive cancer. He apparently had one on his back more than 20 years ago, then a recurrence on his neck about five years ago, but it's only speculation whether this new malignancy in the top part of his brain is a migration from the old cells or something entirely new.

Mike talked about his study of Buddhism over the last several years and the support he's getting from the KTC (Karma Thegsum Choling, i.e., Tibetan Buddhist) community downtown. It was clear that studying the dharma has given him a way to understand and cope with what he's going through. I got the impression that he is working really hard to process what he knows about his condition, what to expect, and what that means in the larger context. They showed me pictures of his daughter and grandson, and they asked about my kids and whether I'm still teaching.

Then I went home and did the things I normally do at home: eat supper, drink a vodka and OJ, read a couple of chapters of a novel I'm halfway through, work out a little, wind down, go to bed. But my dreams were very disturbing, and I only slept fitfully, with a Bob Dylan song running continuously, which I excerpt here:

Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.
. . .
Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb.
They all fall there so perfectly,
It all seems so well timed.
An' here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

It's kind of funny how these circles overlap. Jim knows Mike from KTC, and Jim is in my Wednesday night men's group at the big UU church in Clintonville. He recently gave a guest sermon at the small UU church in Delaware County. I got to know Mike when he worked in the art department at the publisher where I work in editorial, and later we practiced together for a while in a taiji class in German Village. He and Marcia have studied with the Taoist Tai Chi group for quite a few years.

I'm not sure where this story is going. I just wanted to write something down because that's how I process stuff. Down.

May all beings be happy and have the causes of happiness;
May they be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow;
May they have that great happiness which is sorrowlessness.
May they leave attachment to dear ones and aversion to others and live
Believing in the equality of all that lives.

- The Four Immeasurable Meditations

cable

Boldly we press onward, into the brave new world of the nineteenth century!

It's not that we're Luddites exactly. We drive cars, check our e-mail daily, carry cell phones, the usual stuff. We use power tools to saw lumber and drill holes, but only if the equivalent hand tool would take ridiculous amounts of time. I cut logs with a chainsaw and split them by hand with a maul. I still use a reel-type push mower to cut the tiny patch of lawn, and I'll use a leaf blower when they pry my cold, dead hands off my rake.

Okay, so there's a little resistance to doing everything with the newest gadgets. At least on my part.

Jessi and Zelda have been downloading music since the dawn of Napster, and Gven has had an iPod for a couple of years. I haven't gotten into it, so I listen to CDs. On the other hand, Jessi has taken to listening to vinyl records on a turntable once in a while, so the pendulum occasionally swings back.

When the kids were in middle school, the joke was that their friends thought we were Amish because we didn't have cable. We watched our share of TV and fought over which shows were acceptable, encouraged, and actually good, as any healthy Amerikan family would. In fact, we were probably more permissive than most, although the choices were limited to broadcast: NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox.

Our viewing habits ranged from X-Men to Soul Train to Bob Ross painting, and of course Sesame Street. Lots of Nature and Wild America on Sunday nights, lots of Mantis and X-Files on Friday nights. Family Ties, Thirty-something, ER, Seinfeld, and yes, even Friends. The horror. On our budget, we occasionally debated between buying a new TV or installing cable, which we resolved by doing neither.

There was one year, my first year out of graduate school with my first "real" job, when we did subscribe to basic cable. We lived in a subdivision in a small town halfway across the continent, and we decided to indulge. Long story short, the job didn't last very long and neither did our infatuation with cable.

Needless to say, a major part of Jessi's and Zelda's technological education has come outside our four walls. Gven and I aren't tech geeks by even the loosest definition, and the kids have been resourceful in navigating their own paths, each in their own way, through the electronic landscape.

Part of the story is simply my frugality, reinforced with a large dose of anticonsumer culturism. How many times did the three of them suffer through my tirade against the commercial conspiracy to brainwash us into buying more stuff we don't want or need? But that cuts both ways, so when the handwriting on the wall says we can bundle our Internet service with cable TV and actually save money, my resistance begins to wear down. And I can watch Big Ten basketball on Saturday. There's that too.

So the WOW guy came last week and installed the magic box in the living room, and suddenly we have like 200 channels, a remote that looks like the cockpit of a 747, and still there's nothing worth watching.

I sat there for two hours on Saturday afternoon - when I should have been outside making a yurt out of macrame - surfing through bad movie after bad movie, diet infomercial after evangelical jewelry shopping after NASCAR Disney sitcom after historical documentary cooking show before I figured out that there are four or five channels, instead of the usual two, that interest me. But all 200 come in sharp and clear!

Botton line, I'm succombing to the lure of the dominant culture's ability to suck me in by providing what I, just like other hungry consumers, like to watch. There was actually a track meet - the U.S. indoor national championships - on the tube yesterday. I haven't seen a track meet in years. The downside, of course, is that I only watched one race - the women's 800-meter finals, which was awesome - before I foolishly got up from the couch momentarily and someone else came in and changed the channel to a sappy chick flick. This could get ugly.

Ben Joins LeBron

There is a beacon of hope in anotherwise bleak landscape, friends and neighbors, and it doesn't involve primaries, caucuses, conventions, or superdelegates.

The erstwhile complacent Cavaliers general manager Danny Ferry pulled off a major trade approximately one minute before the trading deadline on Thursday. The buzz has been that Cleveland needs a stronger supporting cast to give LeBron James some help going into the playoffs. At least on the surface, it looks like a brilliant move.

The Cavaliers get the defense and rebounding powerhouse Ben Wallace, journeyman forward Joe Smith, and a draft pick (from the Chicago Bulls), a reliable shooter Wally Szczerbiak and promising point guard Delonte West (from the Seattle Sonics).

They give up an adequate power forward Drew Gooden, talented but disappointing point guard Larry Hughes, and a couple of guys I've never heard of, Cedric Simmons and Shannon Brown (to the Bulls) and a couple of role players, Ira Newble and Donyell Marshall (to the Sonics).

Gain five (potential) impact players in exchange for six who helped out but didn't really deliver. Of course it's a gamble. Ben Wallace's best years with the championship Pistons are years behind him, and he'll never be the force he was then. But paired with Zydrunas Ilgauskas up front, he could - emphasize could - be the dominant rebounder the Cavalier need against the likes of Tim Duncan, Yao Ming, Shaquille O'Neal, and Dirk Nowinski. Szczerbiak can hit a shot when everybody is triple-teaming LeBron (think John Paxson shooting threes for the Bulls when Michael Jordan kicked it out).

It's a poetic trade. The old, battered, blue-collar Wallace will go into battle alongside the young Greek godlike LeBron, and what's not to like about a lineup (in Cleveland!) that includes two white guys named Ilgauskas and Szczerbiak. And just in time. It's late February, and some of us need something to look forward to.

Did I mention that this is about basketball?

Bobbyroger

He's a winner. He's a fighter. He can do no wrong. Bobbyroger Clemensknight is two badass peas in one badass pod. He is two testosterone-injected bulls whose shit don't stink, so he deserves more respect than other people.

See him strut and pose for the admiring cameras, the adoring fans, and the fawning senators. The sight of the schoolyard bully roughing up lesser mortals only excites the awed spectators, who feel a little tougher themselves when their idol flaunts his power and flouts the rules. Rules are for other people, not larger-than-life future Hall of Famers like Bobbyroger.

See him defiantly throw the broken bat at the base runner. Hear him toss folding chairs onto the court and cuss out teenagers in the locker room. That's a real leader, a role model, a modern American hero, teaching by example the skills of winning by intimidation.

See him challenge the authority of the Mitchell report and the testimony of his so-called friends and training partners who "misremembered" what happened right under the held noses of teammates, trainers, and management. Don't touch me, I'm a seven-time Cy Young Award wiener.

See him go on hunting trips with the vice president, accept the personal "support" of the jock-sniffer-in-chief, and schmooze with the senators of the party in power who want his autograph instead of his sworn testimony. When you have friends in high places and all those record-setting wins to your credit, you shouldn't have to give Senator Waxman and the Committee on Oversight the time of day. It should be accepted as true because you said so, because you're Bobbyroger Clemensknight.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle

To my provincial mind, this is what theater is all about.

One wants to be entertained, of course, yet the most engaging, funny, exciting plays are the ones that take you somewhere else, tap into something real, and show you something you didn't know you knew. At least I find that entertaining.

If there is political commentary and moral ambiguity, that certainly adds weight, and if the play reveals a connection between today and some historical setting, you've got something special: Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Chekhov, Arthur Miller.

Brecht!

Gven Golly and I walked over to Cowan Hall Saturday night for a student production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. We expected it to be well done. Christina Kirk, who directed the play, is Gven's colleague at the Yoga Factory and a theater professor at Evangelical Brethren College right here in Methodistville, in the patriotic heart of Central Swingstate, and I've seen enough to know that Chris does good work.

I've never seen Brecht performed straight, so I can't compare this to that, but this production was slightly unconventional and a bit challenging, but after all, in the playwright's words, "The times are out of joint!" Since he wrote this, much of the theater world - and the world at large - has gone all Brechtian anyway. So it was very layered, with multiple subplots, unexpected turns of events, and tons of irony.

In a minimalist set, charactors in circa A.D. 1000 costume are in the throes of a rebellion in some kingdom in the Caucasus. Their struggles for survival are frequently interrupted by the playwright and his translator arguing about how to stage it properly. Brecht's mistress saunters onstage to hand him a coat or a drink. The Singer (Elizabeth Shivener, a fine actress with riveting stage presence and a great voice) addresses the audience directly like a Greek chorus.

On one level, my workaday mind is yanked into the self-serving and sometimes kind intersections of regular people playing the hand they're dealt. On another level, I'm moved by the power of art to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And I'm so damn impressed with the work this small college does, which increases my respect for the academic institution, the compromises needed to keep the doors open, and the everyday folks who toil away there. I live down the street and could partake of this resource more often if I didn't have my nose in a book so much.

Funny things happen when you step outside your own bubble. I recognized one of the student ushers as Jackson H., younger brother of Rob H., Jessi's friend from elementary through high school, who was also a theater major at Ev Breth. Miraculously Jackson remembered us, even remembered our old house in the old neighborhood. His family has since moved to California, his dad now teaches at UC Riverside, and they're "living large." Even as a ten-year-old Jackson did a great Peter Lorre. Somehow that chance encounter gave even more dimension to the evening's experience.

I'm not complaining

Yeah, that's what they all say. But how much more busy can a person get? Okay, maybe I am complaining.

I have a lot on my plate at the moment, and most of it I'm digging, as in pinch me, I can't believe they pay me to do this (notice I didn't say 'pay me the big bucks') but I'm just about at my limit time-wise, which beats being bored with stamping out widgets or widget-like consumer products with no intrinsic merit, or having nothing to do except correct other people's run-on sentences.

Actually I kind of like the drama, the slight edge it adds to the day, when I have a ball or two in the air, there's an unresolved issue that needs attention, somebody needs something and I'm on a deadline. Especially when it's a project with, pardon the expression, philosophical import. So I should revel in the condition, since it won't last, and stay up until ridiculous hours doing what I can to git 'er done.

So I do. As much as I'd like to be, I'm not inexhaustible, so about two o'clock I'm done, kaput, out of gas. Then I sleep like a rock until the rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out your window and I'll be gone, you're the reason I'm travelin' on, but don't think twice, it's my cell phone alarm going off, and it's time to get up and do it again.

Things come in bunches. The practical law book is catching up with it's production schedule, so chapters are flying in and out rapidly, and it's good stuff, so I don't mind a bit. The globalization of pragmatism book that I'm (shhhh!) moonlighting is up against the due date, and I'm finally getting the hang of using Zelda's laptop to edit electronically, so I'm learning a lot on that one. While some of the writing requires a lot of stylistic polishing, the one or two top-notch essays in the collection make it well worth the labor intensity of the chapters. Finally, the lay sermon on Buddhist practice that my friend Jim is delivering at the Old North Church this Sunday is the culmination of quite a bit of preparation - more his than mine - and I'm looking forward to seeing that come to fruition.

In a few days, I'll be over the the immediate hump, and there will be other creative problems to solve, speaking of pragmatism, and I can already see a couple of them penciled in for next week. Just give me a day or two to level out first.

Much to celebrate

Some sort of harmonic convergence has created a glut of specialness in the crowded February calendar. I don't recall as close a concentration of holidays, both civil and religious, in such a short period of time. Or maybe, since I have no life to speak of, I'm more acutely aware of this abundance of red-letter days to sit up and take notice.

Imbolc is a new one in my recovering-Protestant consciousness. It falls halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox and marks the returning light following the darkest part of the year. They say that in agrarian societies it was the time when the new lambs were born, another sign of renewed life and growth. Also called St. Brigid's Day by later Christian cultures, Imbolc is associated with fire and healing and poetry.

Super Sunday, a modern made-for-TV holiday, is the biggest annual event in the civil religious spectacle that is professional sport, and therefore it qualifies as a holiday for purposes of circling the date, planting oneself in front of the tube, and celebrating with friends, or lacking friends, with one's spouse, who has the patience of Job and rarely gets one's undivided attention so she'll take what she can get, especially if the New York State of Mind Giants pull an amazing upset of the bad-guy cheating megalamaniacal New England USA Patriot Acts, infamous for their domestic surveillance and subsequent wrist-slap and destruction of evidence. Serves 'em right.

Mardi Gras, aka Fat aka Shrove Tuesday, happens to be Super Duper Tuesday on the political calendar, a biggie regardless of your personal disposition toward Lent, piety, Carnaval, dancing in the street with your krewe, or poll-driven party politics. It will be wild and fractious, especially on the Democratic side, and will probably get a little out of hand, so what else is new in the world of pseudo-events that responsible adults are supposed to take seriously.

In both cases, wretched excess is the order of the day. I can't help but wonder about the fallout from staging a de facto national primary election in about half of the states on the same day our neighbors to the south have the biggest party of the year. Okay, maybe that's only fitting, and it's a time to party for the Party of your choice, but if you're going to stay up late, do you really want to be watching talking haircuts tally delegates in front of a color-coded map?

Ash Wednesday, of course, is the day after Fat Tuesday, and where I come from this is only slightly less exotic than Imbolc. Something about a smudge denoting penitence and humility. Help me out here, my Catholic friends, I was raised to not know about such things. As the follow-up to Mardi Gras and its indulgence, Ash Wednesday involves fasting and quiet, the yin to Tuesday's yang, the ascetic follow-up to the ecstatic revelry. Okay, I think I get it.

The very next day is the beginning of the lunar new year, or Tet, which this year brings the Year of the Rat. Like Carnaval season, this is more than a holiday, it's a couple of weeks of celebrating for those who really get into it. And, like Imbolc, it is connected with the big wheel of the sky turning in its regular cycle. And like both, it probably means more to those born to the culture, which means the rest of us can have, at best, a once-removed appreciation, which is still worthwhile.

Lest we forget the big patriotic days - Lincoln's birthday, Washington's birthday, and the lame official compromise known as President's Day, whereupon Abe and George and their parents can commmence turning over in their graves. My calendar also says Flag Day is coming, too, so I should expect some earnest flag-waving in Methodistville.

Not to mention the ultimate Hallmark holiday, also important for florists and candy makers, smack in the middle of the month, Valentine's Day. Call me unromantic.

They're off and running

Isn't it just deplorable how much attention the mainstream press pays to the "horse race" in an election year instead of focusing on the issues facing our society? I'm sure you are as upset as I am over the travesty this ridiculous and endless campaign has become.

Ladies and gentleman, place your bets please.

In anticipation of Super Duper Tuesday, let's imagine some potential nominees and their potential running mates, what their chances are, and how best to package them for maximum public nausea.

In the red silks of Republican Farm, based in Texas at the moment, we have a front-runner in Citizen McCain, an old warhorse who is gaining momentum heading into the stretch. If he gets the nomination, how will he balance out the ticket and reclaim the mantle of the real, true, genuine bona fide conservative's conservative? Why, choose a true-believer, right-wing, possibly insane running mate, of course.

Not Romney, because they're both from out west. Maybe Huckabee, just to lock up the Christian zealots. Giuliani would make a dream team geographically to win New York's electoral votes, but Rudy would never do it. Ron Paul would add the needed intelligence and substance to the rhetoric of the campaign, but nobody's really listening. People are talking about Joe Lieberman, the Republican's Democrat, but is he tainted by Gore 2000? If so, that might be his best quality in the eyes of Republican, Floridian, and crossover voters.

What McCain really needs is a good voice and a photogenic presence. He's got that squeaky little speaking voice, and unlike our current (cough) chief executive, the man is not a walking photo opportunity. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Fred Thompson for vice president. Law and Order. Tall, manly, authoritative Tennessean. With a voice that says "leadership" to calm the fearful masses into blind obedience.

McCain-Thompson. Do what we say and nobody gets hurt.

In the blue jerseys of the yeoman farmer party of Jefferson and Jackson, it's more complicated to find a suitable running mate for either Clinton or Obama. Edwards would provide balance but wouldn't, and shouldn't, play second fiddle again. Are there any Democrats left in must-win California? Someone moderate to round out either candidate's appearance as immoderately liberal.

The obvious choice for Hillary would be - Bill! He would be the de facto VP anyway, so just make it official. Might as well put his considerable policy wonkishness and persuasive powers to work, and keep his butt on a short leash, whatever you do. There are no negatives to a Clinton-Clinton ticket, because the same people detest both of them, so Bill's presence on the team doesn't alienated any voters who aren't already alienated.

If Obama gets the nomination, the first thing to do is unfreeze hell, and the second thing is to put the apostrophy back in his name. What? You didn't know? It's really Brock O'Bama. See, his real father was an Irish guy from Tuscaloosa. You heard it here first. Roll Tide. Get a running mate with just a shade of redneck - that pretty-boy NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, or our own Jim Tressel - and you've got a dream ticket.