If any of you have ever watched or read any of the "Magic School Bus" series you will appreciate Arnold's refrain of "Please let this be a normal field trip!". I shared that refrain Tuesday as I went with Tyrell's class to Harriman State Park on his class's first field trip. I was pleased to find it was a quite normal field trip. The kids had great behavior, the weather was great and there were plenty of interesting things with which to fill the mind. On the list of proverbial back yard treasures I had previously overlooked how great it was to be so close to some of the only remaining US habitat for the trumpeter swan. We didn't see any of the swans on the field trip but it was still nice to know we were in their home.
Tyrell seems to have a lot of friends in his class as we got on the bus several kids were begging him to sit by them. I was glad he chose to sit by me. We had a great time on the ride discussing ideas for the spell castle. When we were close to arriving I told Tyrell how much I enjoyed talking with him and that I would be putting some of his ideas in the game. "Oh great! he exclaimed so we'll have a double head purple dragon with a wand in its mouth that shoots exploding fireballs that destroy the walls and then turn into more baby dragons?"! Well ... maybe not all of your ideas. I don't lack for creativity around Tyrell. I do expect the game will have bombs and an invincibility power up before release.
I regret again being short a picture. In the excitement of getting ready for the field trip I forgot the camera. Traveling with my house has left me accustomed to always having everything I need with me. The lakes and forests were magnificent. Twenty five eight year olds on a dusty trail, not quite so hot. It is a cross country ski trail in the winter. In the summer people are expected to pick up their feet. I am not sure what it is about kids that gives them the need to shuffle their feet in dust but the need does apparently extend outside of my family.
Tyrell's teacher was very complimentary of him. She could not say enough about his love of reading. I am very pleased that he has become such a great reader.
Tyrell reading to Natalyn
Changing subjects toward sweet justice... One of David's very bad habits is that when unattended in the bathroom he will get into the soap and shampoo and dump it in large quantities. Late one night this week, I don't remember exactly which night, we heard a yell from the bathroom. We ran in to find that David had greased him self from head to toe with soap and then slipped into the toilet as he was trying to walk over it. I don't think he got a bruise from his misadventure but we did get a great laugh.
Originally we had intended to be out for Conference weekend however Friday seemed to arrive about 3 days earlier than expected and we couldn't come up with an idea that sounded better than simply staying put through the weekend. I have loved listening to conference in the trailer. It is small enough that it is easy to stay focused on the talks rather than needing to chase kids and has everything available for human comfort. The kids enjoy quietly playing with pattern blocks and every now and then absorb part of one of the talks.
Grandpa with David, Natalyn and Dallin
On Saturday between the first and second session I decided that I had been disciplined enough in my running program that I was allowed to cheat a bit and give myself a really punishing run. I know it isn't the most physiologically effective thing to do but it is so psychologically emancipating to put the body at the edge of its limits. I hope at some time in the future the pace and distance of my "hard" run are what I will do for cool downs but for now the fact that I was at the edge of what I can do is enough for me. Coming to the end of my run up hill to the bench I literally cried out loud a couple of times it hurt so bad. I have an image of a great runner (and great person for that manner) trapped and bound inside of myself. Trapped by laziness, ignorance and fear. Every time I take action that works against that person's bonding agents I untether the captive a little more and bring him closer to expressing himself in my outside self. Charging up a hill at the end of a run feels like the opposite of laziness and fear, I enjoy the image of bands being broken and my greater self coming closer to finding its freedom.
After the second Saturday session Dallin and I had some nice father and son time between sessions. We got a bat and ball and took turns pitching to each other. Taking pitches from a 6 year old bears more semblance to golf, croquet or tennis than it does to basebal,l but it was still satisfying to put wood on a ball. The game got a little better when we noticed the unedible apples lying on the ground. I can't think of a time it is not enjoyable to see a person in pure pleasure. When Dallin "apple sauced" his first pitch was one of those times. I would imagine there are people in the majors who have hit grand slams and been less elated than Dallin was with his bat to apple connection.
The Sunday sessions were also nice but I have eaten way too many cookies.
Before I really digress in this entry I would like to share a small insight I had this week. The insight was derived from a conversation with a ward member in his fifties as he talked about how busy he was. I resisted the urge to slap a person without any kids at home to take care of complaining about being busy. I rather decided that he legitimately was busy. In fact I think it would be accurate to state as a trend that the older we get the busier we get. That at least seems to be the pattern of my life and seems to be validated as I talk with older people. So the question to ask is "why does it happen?". The conclusion I came to this week is that it happens for the same reason that we spend too much money and we eat too much food. Religion and society have taboos on the former two but we do them anyway. Being too busy is something that is more generally accepted but I believe the drive for it is fueled by the same appetites that drive over consumption of food and over spending. Good old raw human greed. I believe a well tempered life will control their busyness the same way it will control its consumption of food and its use of money. In the mean time I am wondering what Lexie did with the left over cookies.
It is almost time for the US General Election and it is therefore time for a rant! The following is a mix of ignorance, emotion and idealism. A mixture much like sugar fat and salt, it is difficult to come up with anything healthy with them, but likewise hard to miss on something enjoyable. I imagine at some point I may look back on this with embarrassment but in as much as this is a reflection of my current self, I think it is worth getting the snapshot of my thinking. Unless I experience a drastic shift in view point over the next month (i.e. lambotomy) I am not going to vote either of the major ticket monkeys. I hope to do some research in the next month to find a more rational minor party candidate but I am not overly optimistic. Cynics are hard to satisfy. "Dan why are you so cynical you may ask". Well since you might ask I'll answer just in case you do. If you don't ask please skip the next section and keep your mind a little clearer as you do. I will warn you that it was Lexie's opinion, which I do well to take as gospel, that the following may offend certain people. My intention is more toward expressing ideas than spreading offense.
Four years ago I decided I would do the best I could to align my values with my selection of candidate. I approached the election with the understanding that it was not possible to have a "perfect" candidate but I could use my judgment to pick the better of the two candidates or at least the lesser evil and thus make my patriotic contribution in steering the country in the proper direction. I did my best to keep my mind clear of the on slaught of propaganda generated by both parties and decided the best way to make a decision would be to listen to the debates and judge the candidates by their own words. Watching the debates it was pretty simple to determine that George Bush was closer to my values and thus the person to vote for. Opps! I am embarrassed that I missed the fact that I was supporting a want to be king that would use his power as president to drive fear into the United States population and make efforts to expand presidential power. I still do not feel I have enough information to make an honest assessment of how necessary it was to invade Iraq, however I do know that a leader that preaches fear is a leader to fear. Fear is used to control people and rob them of their independent thinking. That is not exactly what I had in mind four Novembers ago.
As far as the economy goes my assessment of politicians is they are much like the fly riding on the buck board exclaiming about how much dust they are making. The place I put the focus on the politicians has to do with if their efforts in policy are toward enabling people or constraining people. I think I am now ready to bring up the issue over which I refuse to vote for either of the front running candidates. It is the 700 Billion dollar bailout. I was appalled at how quick they both were to "throw aside partisan politics and do what the country needed". I see their action as more of turning away from what the US population wants and shamelessly boot licking their funders. The ideals of capitalism are founded around market efficiency through survival of the fittest. What has been created is a fascist monopoly. I did do enough research before writing this to learn that you can use the word fascist to describe just about any political system with which you aren't pleased. There were so many varied forms of fascism that there isn't really as solid definition of it, but it is still a useful term for putting a "smell" on something. The core of my complaint is the violent power shift we are experiencing which I believe will soon rival and possibly exceed Medieval power structures in their atrocity and disparity.
It would be hard to find anyone with an eighth grade education in the United States that could not have pointed out 3 years ago that housing was overpriced and people were over extended. The fact is despite the clarity and abundance of this information banks persisted in making bad loans and miraculously found that they lost money. That on its self is not a problem in my mind. I believe the right to stupidity is one of the fundamental tenants of human freedom which must be tenaciously defended. The problem comes in the idea that the correction of the problem should come out of the middle of our society. A 700 billion dollar bailout (I'll admit to being short research here but I think the US population is about 350 million) proportionally represents $14,000 coming out of my house hold in as much as there are seven people in it. The country's concern is not in doing anything right or fair. The country or rather the country's leaders concerns are based in maintaining the power structures that gave them their position. Wait a minute aren't we a democracy aren't we the structure under which the leaders gained their power? Apparently not. The mighty dollar feeding the propaganda machines to fill empty minds with distracting notions is the structure. If people don't like an idea it is simply that there has not been enough invested in changing their perception of it. (The last is taken almost directly from John Mcain in reference to reframing the bailout as a recovery).
Capitalism is a winner take all system and not necessarily the best way for a society to enable its citizens to realized their human potential. The major problem I see with communism is that it consolidates power in an inefficient and unbalanced way. When we take the worst parts of capitalism and then mix it with the worst parts of communism we have a real mess. When we have two candidates and a president who can't move in that direction quickly enough we have a disaster. The latest moves which sustain oversized power structures by draining the resources of the lower class citizens by increasing their tax burden is nothing but an amazing move toward the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
I believe the fact that I have never had a class in macro economics qualifies me to make great idealistic generalizations about what should happen to the national economy. I do not buy into the idea of being a credit economy in the form we have it. I think it is obvious to see that the current structure failed. If I am correct about the cause of the failure the failure was caused by over extension. I do not buy into the doom and gloom prophesied by the recovery plan pundits. The idea that if the government does not steal 700 Billion of our tax dollars to feed their insatiable funders we will experience another Great Depression is nothing more than more of the same "turn the constituents brains off", fear politics we have been suffering through for the last several years. I do believe that it is possible that there could be short term negative repercussions toward lack of government intervention. I also believe that the repercussions of class drift caused by people sacrificing their resources and thus their freedoms in reaction to fear is much more reprehensible. Having a bank fall on its face does not reduce the amount of fertile farm land we have in the country, it does not make trees for lumber disappear from the forest, it does not make metal disappear from the mines. Our country will have beds to sleep in and food to eat without cowing to power structures that mishandled their power and resource in the first place. We do not need to hand them more power and resource with a plea to protect us from a non-existent threat.
So please find me someone who is not interested in robbing the american of their freedom and I will consider giving them my vote. In the current situation I do not see how my conscience will reconcile a vote for either major candidate. To those supporters of Obama and McCain I offer my shallowest and most insincere apologies as I state your candidate does not represent the best interests of the American people.
By the way Lexie and I agree that if 33 brings this much cynicism unchecked I am going to be a real gem at 70.
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