The big snowstorm was seen coming for days. Everyone had braced for it and started hunkering down early. We parents at Great River School had one more thing to attend to, however. It was my daughter’s Winter Choral Concert, scheduled to end just a few hours before the big dump was to come. Time fell around us all as the clockwork precision of life was scheduled to stop for a moment.
Leaked or Planted?
The latest batch of official US documents released by wikileaks caused a tremendous storm with two immediate reactions. The first was a nearly hour by hour revelation as to what was in this batch as reporters combed through the piles of information looking for newsworthy (or simply salacious) details. The second reaction came as a character assassination (and call for a bloody assassination) of Julian Assange as a “terrorist”.
The first wave of revelation is understandable, but neither of these reactions tells us much about what is really happening here. That requires time.
National Wellbeing
Can government improve our happiness? Can it at least measure how happy the people of a nation are and work toward improving it? The idea is being implemented, but not as some strange leftist diversion. The Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, has been interested in the idea since he first ran for the leadership of the Tory (Conservative) Party in 2005 and has elaborated on it several times. Now that he is the leader of Britain he has charged the Office of National Statistics to formulate the questions necessary to judge just how happy the British people are.
The “Wellbeing Project” is expected to report by 2012. The debate on the project’s importance has, naturally, already started.
Winter Tea
This time of year, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a cup of tea. When the sky turns grey and the moisture falls heavy in clouds of snow I come in from walking my dog with a thin icicle dripping from my nose. In a moment apart the steam from my mug then warms my nose and soon enough my gut. I am warm and refreshed.
It is the break that makes it special. The water has to be heated and the tea steeped for 5 minutes, and then it is time to relax. I have to make time for tea, I have to stop being in motion for a short while to enjoy it.
In this moment the revelation comes as the steam rises in thin curls that disappear into nowhere. Evaporation like this is what makes life on earth possible, although in nature it is driven by the warmth of the sun. But in my small mug I can imagine the mysterious forces that bring water away from the sea.
Re-Invent the Wheel
Any day that starts with a nearly mandatory trip to the Apple store is not a good day. That’s my gripe for the morning as I find I have to buy another battery charger to replace the one that oh-so-easily snapped off. It’s not really a big deal except that this plug slips out so easily it probably has a lot to do with why Apple batteries don’t last very long. And here I have to buy another badly designed little thing.
“It’s Apple,” you might say, “They do stuff like that.” Well, it’s not just Apple – it’s nearly everything that wants to the latest kewl thing. The level of complexity in our world means that a lot of bits and pieces need to be put together to make things work, but they aren’t always using the best things around them. The wheel is constantly being re-invented. That’s a shame.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 