Ersatz Dillema

I have a problem.

The computer I had for more than seven years had one game of solitaire on it. I used to play a game when I finished a major task, or when I was on telephone hold, or just procrastinating. I used it like dessert at the end of a meal, as a reward.

My new computer has four (maybe more) free computer games. These include "Klondike" (which is impossible to win) Spider (like the one on my old machine) Pyramid (addictive) and Tripeaks (addictive).

Please note – two addictive computer games! How will I ever get anything else done?

It's so simple. You just click the mouse and ersatz cards fly through the ersatz air making cunning little noises when you make an appropriate match or even more cunning little noises when you actually hit a run.

And if you win? Wow! Ersatz fireworks and triumphant music.

How often does something you do elicit triumphant music?

I'll tell you how often. As often as I win a stupid computer solitaire game.

Does anyone know of a CSA (computer solitaire anonymous) chapter?

Does anyone know how to resist the siren call of ersatz triumph?

Please, please share whatever you know.

Past Perfect

Not all New York Times Science items are brilliant.

A weekly column features developments reported in the interim seven days. Recently, one of those items was entitled "Times Past."

"Twelve large, moon-shaped pits discovered in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, represent the oldest lunar calendar ever discovered, archaeologists say. The pits mimic the phases of the moon, National Geographic reported, lining up with it perfectly during the midwinter solstice.

"At 10,000 years old, the pits are by far the oldest calendar yet discovered."

[All well and good, and interesting. But note the next sentence.]

"It shows that Stone Age society was far more sophisticated that we have previously believed ..."

Well duh.
How do you suppose people kept track of things without Google?

Golden Prose

One of the reasons I love the New York Times is the high quality of the writing. There are two journalists who regularly have bylines in the Tuesday Science sections. One, Nicholas Wade, tends to write about archeological topics (I have one of his books). The other, Dennis Overbye, usually writes about physics and astronomy in ways that I at least come close to understanding.

I look forward to Tuesdays and often clip out articles that intrigue me. Sometimes, the items are very small. A few months ago there was a photo with a one-sentence caption reporting that one species of South African dung beetle was proven to use stars to navigate.

Think about it. Is there anything lower than a dung beetle? Is there anything higher than stars?

Months later there was another item proposing that gold was created by the collision of stars. Wow. Talk about stardust melody!

I was pleased to note that these two tidbits intrigued Mr. Overbye as well. He melded them into an article with the headline: “Stars, Gold, Dung Beetles and Us.” Without his permission, I here quote: “It's hard to imagine a more beautiful or humbling connection between the sacred and the profane, the microscopic and the large, inner space and outer space.

“The Milky Way is one of natures' greatest creations … And it is only one of countless galaxies, scattered like sand from here to eternity, rushing outward in the great expansion, whose meaning... is as fathomless to us as it is to a scarab pushing its (ball of dung)...

“Scarabs were sacred to the ancient Egyptians for the ability to create life from waste. They were a symbol of the eternal renewal of life from death, not unlike the waxing and the waning of the stars themselves.

“Egyptians wore representations of them as amulets. And wouldn't you know, in one of the ultimate symbols of recycling, some of them were even gold.”

END OF SUMMER

They have closed the lake in Loveland, Colorado.

Lake Loveland isn't really a lake. It's a reservoir disguised as a lake. [It works. People swim and boat and water ski in it and on it.]

The water is being used to irrigate fields. That's what it's there for. It's the end of summer and hot. The crops (mostly in Greeley) need water. Every day there is less and less water in the lake.

I wonder. What if they drill more fracking wells? (Greeley has a lot of them.)
There will be even less water.

What if they build more housing developments? (All of northern Colorado has housing developments.)

There will be even less water.

Some day – sooner than we think – there will be no water.

No place for boats and swimmers and pelicans.

But with more fracking wells, we'll have natural gas to export and jobs to generate income so we can buy all those houses and all the water those families will need.

If we can find water.

Extraordinary Confluence

It had been one of those days when nothing happened the way I had planned, and things that were supposed to have been fixed didn't work, and I was generally disheartened. Perhaps I should have gone upstairs and worked on my book, but I wasn't exactly inspired. That's when I remembered that, after a summer of abominable movies, there were two films I actually wanted to see.

One of them was, 'Lee Daniels' The Butler'. Checking the show-times, I figured I could make it if I didn't dawdle. So I went. And I'm glad I did. It's an excellent movie, reminding me of so much of my country's history that I, like the butler, Cecil Gains (Eugene Allen) (Forest Whitaker) have lived through. And how much I (and some others) have learned from the civil rights movement.

I got home, fed cats, did chores, ate dinner and was about to open the book I've almost finished when I turned on the television to see if, by some miracle, there was anything worth watching.

There was.

My PBS station was broadcasting an American Masters program on James Baldwin. It was riveting, in some ways more moving than the film I had just seen.

I am white. Always have been. Always seen the world from the white, middle-class perspective, viewing events from my safe, privileged point of view.

Pondering the stories of the butler and the author, it occurred to me that much of my world – and its attendant comforts, is illusory.

Cecil/Eugene knew two worlds: the world/face he showed to whites and the world/face he experienced at home and with his friends.

James Baldwin knew only the painful, dangerous, violent, contradictory mess of the world he transmitted to the rest of us through his books.

They knew authenticity. To the extent allowed by circumstances, they lived authentically.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s great speech, it's a good time to be reminded of what we have overcome … and of how much more we have to learn.

Through an extraordinary confluence of one movie and one television program, I now remember.

Summer Glory

All of a sudden, my neighborhood is alive with sunflowers.

They have exploded in front yards,
back yards,
side yards
and parking lots.

It is a glorious celebration of August
and the waning, but still hot, days of summer.

Hallelujah!

Circular Logic

One circular bird-feeder brings great joy to various sparrows

and me

and my cats

and

the occasional squirrel

who seems to mistake it for a tire swing.