I Want Women's Panties...

There, now that I have your attention -

…to be sent here.

I ran across this gem from J.K. a few minutes ago. So I did a little research.

I asked myself, “Is this little guy (below) really afraid of women's underwear, not to mention of what might occasionally fill said items?”

Than Shwe

Well, I don't know about you, but I think he has 'panty-fear' written all over his face. Probably kills peaceful monks too because he's thinking that's what they're wearing under those sissy robes. D'ya think?

Next on the cogitation trail, of course, is answering the question “What potential leader in Myanmar doesn't fear panties?” I came up with this:

Suu Kyi

Not only does it look like she doesn't fear panties, but I'll go out on a limb and hazard a guess that she occasionally wears them. At the very least I suspect that she doesn't want to kill monks because she imagines that they might be wearing them.

For those of you who are wondering what on earth panties have to do with modern nation-state leadership, I can only say that they have everything to do with it. 'Nuff said.

Now, if it happens that Shwe slips the surly bonds, or slips on a banana peel, or starts wearing slips, whatever, and Myanmar finds itself with Kyi as her new leader, please do not stop sending panties, preferably unwashed, to the above address. Kyi plans to hold them in reserve in case a new panty-fearing General comes along, when she will simply issue them to the monks and have them chase the bad guy back into the jungle.

Lastly, there's this post by Vladimir Chang on the 'Guns and Butter' blog. The last paragraph is particularly apt:

Myanmar to crack down on kittens, bunnies next

RANGOON – Fresh off a bloody crackdown on more than 2,000 peaceful Buddhist monks, Myanmar's ruling junta announced today that it was targeting kittens and bunnies next.

“After last week's fun in Rangoon, I was quickly left bored and listless. I found myself wanting some other group to crush ruthlessly, and I wondered, 'What could be even more defenseless and wholesome than a Buddhist monk?' And I thought, “Kittens!” said Senior General Than Shwe, head of Myanmar's government. “So I decided to kill me some kittens. And after that it'll be bunnies.”

Myanmar's army won't even have to use its own weapons for the kitten kill. China is contributing submachine guns and ammunition, while Thailand has sent thousands of hungry dogs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if Myanmar ran out of its own kittens, he would gladly supply Russian ones.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the act, but saying that it has no jurisdiction over hostile acts against felines and rodents. And even if it did, the council declared, it wouldn't have the authority to act. And even if it had the authority, it would just sit by and watch because at this point that's all it knows how to do.

Hey - all's fair in love and war!

Dreamtime

I had the most amazing dream last night, and that's saying a lot because all my dreams are amazing…. ;-)

What's most amazing is the feeling of partaking, being more than just an observer, the utter clarity of it, and the absolutely effortless remembrance of it in its entirety. And it all happened in the course of an evening's nap. A lifetime in a microsecond.

I'm within my familiar Escheresque staircase dream, the one where I know I'm dreaming, where I explore my dream like I'd explore an island I'd never been to. Ever upward, darkness giving way to light, women in plain white cotton dresses, educators, path lighteners. A door opens off the staircase and I step through onto a grassy field. A woman and a man stand there, naked, beautiful, eyes glinting with mirth, sorrow, power, and vulnerability, all at the same time. The man sits yoga like and smiles, the woman speaks but I can't understand her even though I know she's using English. “Patience,” she says. That one word I do understand. I remember thinking, though, knowing, that what I beheld was surface, not substance. I think they're aliens and remember the woman in the movie “Cocoon” and wonder if this woman will peel her skin off and reveal the light too. I remember in my dream Star Trek's “law of convergent evolution” and feel satisfied that they can look just like me but be wholly different as well, even truly alien. The woman sits near the man and both beckon to me to sit with them. I wonder if they're sexually compatible (with me), if they think of things the way I do, and sit with them. Each puts a gentle hand on my forehead and I fall back and sleep within my dream.

In my sleep within my dream I dream anew, a layered dream that my dreaming self is fully aware of. In my dream within my dream I am sleeping on a jet bound from Alaska to Tokyo (this part actually happened in the 70's) via the polar route. I awaken to the sound of the Captain's voice over the intercom saying: “It's sunny and beautiful, and also a balmy 77 degrees below zero outside the aircraft. I watch hour after hour as frozen mountains slide under the belly of the aircraft. I shift to a room where I'm reading a book about the doctor at the South Pole who developed breast cancer (dr = Jerri Nielsen, book = Ice Bound - I actually did read it). The C130 aircraft sent to rescue the doctor, even though it was fitted with skis and special ultra low temperature equipment, could not rescue the doctor until the temperature climbed above 55 below zero. (They had to wait several weeks.)

I awaken back into the first dream asking myself “How did I fly when it was 77 below?” and feeling like I'd just been lucky, that the plane couldn't possibly have flown in air so cold and should have crashed. I feel my heart pounding a bit. The naked man and woman are there waiting for me. The man says “Patience” too, which I understand, but the rest of his English is familiar but incomprehensible. Suddenly I'm back in the staircase and the floor is covered with three kinds of chess pieces: pawns, kings, and queens – no bishops, rooks, or knights. Stepping on them my bare feet hurt, like I'm walking on sharp gravel. I walk back down the stairs to full wakefulness, each dreaming step taking me closer and closer to the everyday world. I hear a voice, again speaking an English I don't understand, but it's not a bad sound. I'm awake. I look out the window and see stars. The bottoms of my feet tingle, even burn a little, like I'd just walked across sharp objects.

It was a good dream….

Cabbages and Kings....

The mantra coils seductively around my arms and tickles every sense. I become deliciously deliberately helpless, and there's a scent, an overwhelming hint of earthy tones, the intent inscrutable and obvious at once. Intent? Chest vibrating basso profondo I sing on, but that's not it at all, ears sympathetic, but that's not it at all, sweat-lodge sweat running in intimate rivulets, but that's not it at all, not the point. There is no point, or maybe it's all point. It depends. I sing on.

Robert drums; starts with an indeterminate whump whump whump which becomes a more elemental rhythm, then adds his own mantra to the dawn stillness, breaking the symmetry. Layla keens a sweet tonal lament of love and loss. It all adds up. Direction is meaningless; everything is the center, I sure am, each of us parts of the same. Time is no different. Memory of past is interwoven with memory of future. It all comes so effortlessly.

This is better than any drug, any sex, any secret ritual. Or maybe it's all those things in synergy, been there all the time, mythic, worldly, inevitable. It depends. We sing on.

This is life.

I think of Descartes' cogito ergo sum, he, a creature of his world. I think sum ergo cogito or maybe sum ergo sentio, me, a creature of mine. But how can that fit within the illusion of time? The answer is there, right in front of me, of you.

A mosquito lands on my calf, a little vampire wanting to stay alive just one more day. I let it have it's fill, hoping the sun hasn't risen too high, that it's not too late.

I think of the American attention span and quickly move on to something else.

Sarte lying in bed wrapped in sheets of Egyptian cotton. Before him de Beauvoir explains that double reciprocal incarnation has more than a sexual context, that it applies to all and everything. He's so close to it, so close, but he doesn't listen, the idea is fixed in his head, immutable. She gives up because she loves him and won't willfully damage him.

Ram Dass knocks on the inner door, feet muddy from the walk. He has the system down pat, the oneness, the wholly outside otherness, but he has forgotten about the parts that make it up.

Some people fly above the surface, others dive below it, but each place is incomplete without the other. I know this because my grandmother told me it was so.

I sometimes think about her, my crazy grandmother. I say 'crazy' because that's what everyone said she was, but then again they didn't know her, not the way I did.

Her given name was Cora, but my sisters and I called her Gunny. I'm not sure how we came up with that but it seemed perfect for her. She was of stern Prussian stock, wore long dark dresses buttoned high on the throat, even in summer, and carried herself as though her spine was made from a single piece of machined stainless steel. She smiled often, but never with her face. She was fiercely intelligent, and fearless. People either loved her or were frightened of her, as though she were a bomb that might go off any second if things weren't handled just right. But she never did 'go off,' ever.

This is the woman who insisted I wear white cotton gloves when I played, some kind of litmus test for playground dirt, and that I always carry a vial of eucalyptus oil with me. She told me to sniff the oil whenever someone near me coughed so I wouldn't get a cold or whatever illness it was that they had. I probably didn't get fewer colds than anyone else my age, but I did develop an inordinate fondness for the scent of eucalyptus. And I 'get' colds to this day. She told me that to 'catch' a cold sounded silly, like you had to run after one first.

This is the woman who, after a day-long spring storm, looked through the kitchen window and said “Our tree is hurting. Let's help.” I was puzzled but followed her as she collected a hunting rifle and some 30.06 shells and headed outside through the mud-room door. The tree, a spreading maple laden with mounds of wet April snow, sagged to the ground, where a few large limbs already lay broken, litter for next winter's hearth. Gunny loaded a handful of shells into the rifle, took aim, and shot several of the higher branches. Hundreds of pounds of snow obeyed the report of the rifle and the impact of the bullets and cascaded, glistening, to the ground below. The tree joyously raised its branches toward the sky, shaking off the rest of its burden, then shivered. “it's still hurting,” she said, “but now it won't uproot, it'll live.” She was 82 at the time.

This is the woman who, when I was six, took me to see an animated Christmas diorama and thereby challenged how I look at things. As I pressed my nose to the cold window and stared in wonder at Santa and the elves and Rudolph and everything Christmassy Gunny whispered: “Imagine that those figures are what's real and that they're only here to look at us. Imagine that it's us, you and me, who are like marionettes at the end of long invisible strings, acting out some play.” That perspective scared me then, and I cried. “Don't worry,” she said, “what is simply is, just don't make assumptions, or at least try not to trust them.” She spoke to me like that, even at six.

This is the woman who dropped a two year old me out of my second story bedroom window into the waiting arms of a neighbor as the family farmhouse burned down around her. She leaped after me, breaking both her legs. A few years later she explained gravity by saying “Don't put too much stock in 'up' or 'down' because they can switch places in an eyeblink.” She kept newspaper clippings about Albert Einstein in her nightstand. She never went to university, having been evicted from her homeland by the churning political tides of World War I, but she knew more than most who have.

I was only eight when Gunny got sick one last time. I wondered then if she'd forgotten to carry her own vial of eucalyptus oil. I still wonder about that. On the day she left we all visited her in the hospital, arriving just after my uncle had given her a bunch of ripe bananas, her favorite fruit. She had thrown them back at him, yelling: “Are you trying to poison me?” “Dementia,” the doctors said, but they didn't know Gunny either. After a short time I found myself alone with her, everyone else having invented reasons to be in the hallway, trek to the cafeteria, whatever, just something to be away from impending death. I didn't mind, really. After all, she was still alive, and still Gunny, my Gunny. Suddenly, without warning, and those are two very different things, she opened her eyes, found me, and said “Remember you have a third eye. Don't lose sight of it.” It was like her to make a joke out of serious advice. Then she closed her eyes and lay there, breathing gently, mouth slack. Later that evening, sometime just before the day gave up and ripples of purple spread across the heavens, she went away. Everyone, doctors and family, started talking to her, calling her name, with the doctors adding mysterious rituals using needles and ancient machines. It all seemed very silly to me. It was so obvious that she wasn't there any more. I didn't understand what the big fuss was all about about. I couldn't understand. I had seen her go. It was okay.

So she'd named the tiny spot way in the back of my eyes, somewhere between a dream and the sharp prick of torn flesh. I don't know what it's made of. Sometimes I think maybe it's iron, an unyielding thing smelted in some hellish furnace. Other times it's more like a knowing crystal grown in a cool dark place, but one with edges bleeding into softly bounded facets. I've known about it ever since I first counted myself among the conscious, but it was Gunny who told me what to call it, it was she who taught me how to use it, how to 'see' things in their interdependence, how nothing exists in isolation, except for everything, and maybe not even that. It was she who told me that this is the thing that makes us human, that creates the reality we only think we are a small part of.

Her gift is with me on the day I think these words, the day I sing. Subsets and supersets, each thing extended, unlimited.

I sing on.

I think, I am, of things integral, of consilience, of unity and one.

My ass gets soggy, the ground is a bit dewy.

I get up, hungry. Breakfast awaits. I turn toward the camp, the others too. Daylight, then thunder and rain. We walk.

I sing on.

Crazy in Love

It's official. It's all over between me and '(s)he who must be obeyed.' (Thanks Rumpole!) No more slogging into big rectangular-prism shaped buildings, those blocky uglinesses bedecked with corporate logos, working on empty things, pleasing no one important, humming old Beatles tunes and composing haiku as I toil, vain efforts to keep my mind from turning into mush. Lord knows I tried, but the relationship was doomed from the get-go. I was just so blind. Communication broke down over the years and less and less often could I lay softly on my nightbed dreaming of tomorrow's triumphs, likely instead to find myself stewing about today's lunacy. Industrial relations counseling didn't help.

No more DuPont or EDS or ArvinMeritor. Yesternight I quit them all, completely and forever. Good riddance.

You see, I'm crazy in love again. It's a great feeling. My school, my wilderness boarding school for boys with learning and/or social difficulties, is my new workplace, my new focus, and I'm absolutely in love with the whole experience. I think this one is for keeps.

It's kind of odd though, and somehow karmic in a very good way, that I would find a place, a purpose, helping to mold the minds of boys, showing them a new way to see themselves, all the while learning a few things about myself and the human condition. Odd because I never was one of them. Oh, I was a boy all right, at least at one time in my life, but one who went from being twelve to being a little shy of twenty overnight. Poof! Unintentionally and quite unwillingly I missed those intervening years. Boys that age always seemed like an alien species to me. My own boyhood truncated by harsh visitations, I grew up with no brothers, but I did have sisters, and all the neighbor children were girls. Me and an even dozen girls who basically ran the daily affairs of three remote dairy farms in the stead of three sets of absent or distracted parents. When I grew up I fathered two daughters. My sisters bore daughters. My friends had daughters. I had absolutely no experience with boys.

Ah, but therein lies, perhaps, the advantage. To have little surety of a situation is liberating. I couldn't carry any baggage into this new job because my preconceptions were immediately dashed on the rocks of a mistaken shore; I had no history to draw upon. I was, and am, as blank a slate as my charges are. Yes, they do learn from me, and I am making a positive contribution to both the individual and collective lives of my students, but at least as important to me is that I am learning also at a sometimes breakneck pace. It is one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.

I wrote about my first forays into this new work relationship in several earlier postings, and I won't repeat that here, but know that the students in this wilderness boarding school present behaviors ranging from ODD through OCD to ADHD, with severity from mild to severe. Also know that the names of the boys have been changed to protect their identity and the name of the school cannot be revealed in the context of my posts.

Here are a few glimpses into this new world:

Last weekend Quentin, a student in my group, asked me if the Spanish word for 'fish' (we were fishing for our dinner) would mean the same thing it does in English. We have several Hispanic students which I thought might have stoked his curiosity, but I didn't quite understand his question. “Sure,” I said, “'fish' is 'pescado' in Spanish.” “I know the word but that's not what I mean,” he said, “I want to know if when Hector says 'pescado' he has the same thing in his head that I have in mine when I say 'fish.' Does it mean the same thing to him? When I can't control my anger do I have the same kind of image (his word and emphasis) in my head that Hector has in his when he acts like me? Would I be calmer if I thought with calmer words and would I then act more calmly?” I was stunned by this quiet fifteen year old boy's sophisticated question. That his thought process could even implicitly recognize the ties between language, his internal mental landscape, and his worldview was astounding to me. I didn't think of it at the time but Rapunzel's post reminded me of an article I read recently and of a great quote: ” To have a second language is to have a second soul .” We talked for over an hour, touching on how language is both a reflection and creator of perception, exploring the distinction between meaning and significance, and, at his behest, diving into the waters of positive self-direction and individuality in a social setting. Oh yes, we also talked about the best way to prepare and cook the perch we caught. They were delicious.

A few days later I accompanied my group on a rock climbing expedition and enjoyed a similar experience. Allen, one of my students and a boy I was just starting to know, was hanging off the side of a boulder, maybe twenty feet above me, when he turned and said: “Mr Krupp, want to know what I was thinking about?” Without waiting for a reply he continued: “Human beings are a renewable resource, but individual human beings, you, me, Mr Lacy, the other guys, we aren't renewable at all.” He had a look of elation on his face as he chewed and digested the sustenance of his own thought. Then he turned and continued upward. Fortunately my being twenty feet below him meant that I was standing on flat ground and in no danger of falling other than over. What an insightful comment, and one of special import and value to its maker. Within Allen's mind that day two powerful self-images were contesting for his future; the old one, of an angry and defiant young man, one who had little value for the rights and prerogatives of others, and the new one, of someone who recognizes the validity of social contracts and simultaneously rejoices in the individual. The outcome of Allen's internal struggle is important - to him, to me, and to you. I have read Allen's testing results, absorbed his background reports, memorized his profile, and I interact with him as often as I can, but the one thing that stands out in this vast sea of information is the simple fact that Allen is a leader, make that Leader, one of the highest magnitude. He's the kind of person, who through sheer force of personality, commands attention regardless of the age or gender or social circumstances of those with whom he interacts. I'm happy to write that since this day the latter self-image seems to be ascendant. Allen is not ready to graduate the program at my school yet, but I have no doubt that he will be ready sooner than many of his peers. If he turns himself to the task, and I believe he will, he will rise to a position of influence in whatever endeavor he chooses. He has the potential to make positive change in the world we live in. Remember, you heard it here first.

And then there's Michael, a younger student from another class who is occasionally placed with my group for logistical reasons. I had been told by other staff that Michael was admitted to the school primarily due to behavioral issues rooted in OCD. However, in my few interactions with him I had not seen that diagnosis present itself, until one day…. Michael is a renowned hacky-sack player. He can keep the footbag moving for a very long time and perform amazing feats of acrobatics and balance while doing so. No one else at the school comes close to his level of expertise. While waiting for a campfire dinner to be prepared one weekend I watched as Michael performed his wizardry. I was captivated by the skill he exhibited and the graceful beauty of his moves. After about ten minutes he missed and the bag tumbled to the ground. He started again. Missed again in ten minutes. Started again. Missed again. Then he picked up the hacky-sack, threw it into the woods, scrunched his face up, and sat on the ground crying. “Why'd you do that?” I asked. “That was wonderful.” “It wasn't perfect,” came the anguished reply. I asked what perfect would be and was treated to a twelve minute routine, perfectly choreographed but sans footbag, of what he was trying to do. “It's only twelve kinds of kicks in twelve groups going forward and reverse twelve times in twelve minutes, and I can't get it right. I can't get it right. I've been trying for a year. I can't get it perfect. God hates me, God completely hates me.” He was attempting 3,456 kicks in twelve minutes, many of high difficulty. When another student told Michael that the world record for five minutes is only 1,019 kicks Michael responded that he didn't care about world records, “I want perfect.” I'm not an expert in how OCD manifests itself, but for the rest of the evening Michael was withdrawn and walked around the campsite miming his moves and talking to himself. Falling asleep that night I heard noise on the opposite side of the bunkhouse and saw him flicking his legs and arms, perhaps dreaming of hacky-sack perfection. “Don't worry Mr Krupp, he does that all the time” chimed another student. I'm taking every opportunity to talk to Michael, to learn more, and happily heard that he is working with both the school psychologist and psychiatrist.

A few days ago another of my students asked: “Hey Mr Krupp, why does everything bad I do have a name, but everything good I do have none?” Alex cannot seem to complete a sentence without an obligatory “fuck” or “shit” or some other socially restricted word. What he presents is not a tic, such as in coprolalia, which someone once told him he had, and which he believes he has, but a looser thing, I think one of background more than of pathology. Once again Rapunzel's post, and Ted's question, got me thinking. I checked the DSM IV TR (Thanks Krissy!) and sure enough, there is no word for someone who utters good things. Why not, I thought, create a new word? If coprolalia translate literally as 'feces tongue,' let's use “eulalia” for 'pleasing tongue.' ('eu' - the Latin prefix for pleasing.) So that's what I do. Every time I hear Ted say something 'good,' I say, “There you go again with your eulalia. I always get a smile. A couple of the other students have started using it too. Now for the staff.

I'm not slow at these things, and I always wondered if anyone could engage me to the degree my daughters had when they were this age. My students not only keep up, but in many cases they flat out challenge me to keep pace with them. I think the greatest thing I can do with my life right now is to contribute to the future of our little spaceship through working with these budding adults.

Crazy in love indeed.

Suppose They Gave A War And I went?

The set-up (1):
Son, Daughter, you must believe that you are proof against those
Seeking to destroy you.
Your fathers are proud, and your mothers no more scared
Than they should be.

The set-up (2):
Your sacrifice is necessary even if it is
Your all.
Our lies are no greater than those told
By your parents.

The preparation (1):
Take this holiness and eat for this
Is your Body.
Take this holiness and drink for this
Is your Blood.

The preparation (2):
One-fifty-one and little white pills and it feels like
You can’t remember.
The future just a history not yet real
But it will be.

The preparation (3):
I will soothe you with my body for it may
Be your last.
My arms are wide open so come to me
And breathe the peace of Venus.

The learning:
Balsa, intrepid shield against an avalanche
Of ton boulders.
Squint your eyes against the nightly vision
Of torn bodies.

Getting there:
Slopes of pure white, vast, immense,
I adore you, goodbye.
Spots of green and brown on endless blue,
I love you, goodbye.

Being there (1):
Soft eyes of Catholic plea,
How can I help?
Just don’t ask me to save a choking child since
I don’t know the trick.

Being there (2):
Doe eyed girl of little past, skin like
Fresh chocolate milk.
It isn’t necessary, your ardor, unless
You really want to.

Being there (3):
Discovery of the other side, mine, and what it means
Frees me forever.
Your sweat smells different but I love it just the same so thank you
Child of Mars.

Being there (4):
Brilliance with no peer and loving too, the thought of lunch
Makes you hungry.
You’ll catch up you say but you never do,
So why did you off yourself?

The Choice:
Want to go fly? It’s so cool at a click
Straight up.
No man, way too tired, I’m racking it so now I’m not but they
Are all dead.

R&R in the Morning:
Dress for the paddy and draw a .45 because you may need
To shoot someone.
It’s easy to find, no contest at all, just
Head for the smoke.

The witness - son:
Left thigh split open like a cheap
Pork hot dog.
Carnal howl forever frozen in
Timeless agony.

The witness - daughter:
One soft and pink, the other turgid and black
Your two breasts wink.
Impossible baby will suckle them for milk
That cannot flow.

The witness - Milo:
Your eyes are wide man, and your feelings
Stink of vomit.
Didn’t think it possible, did you, rich kid from the barrio
Of High Aspen?

The witness - me:
Falling through the vault of Heaven feeling what
I can’t imagine.
The screaming was just metal burning for
You were already gone.

The witness - God:
They are of me, and I of them, and that is everything but
They cannot see it.
I want to believe in them but
They wear me out.

Return:
I protected you - no not from them, those little farmers, but
From your masters.
The one domino that did fall hit me on the head and
Nothing will ever be the same.

A Place of Power

I was in a place in the mountainous forests of western North Carolina so right, so perfect in itself, so magical that it took my breath away. And in this place I was accompanied by people who fit that moment and that place just as perfectly.

For two days I got to play at working with my maybe, perhaps, just might be, new job at a wilderness boarding school for adolescent boys who have adjustment difficulties ranging from ADHD to ODD. I've written about this before so I won't belabor the details, but two experienced counselors and I were given the responsibility of working with ten boys aged 14 to 17. The school's main campus has all the modern amenities but the boys do not live there. Depending on age and program progress each of the boys is assigned to one of five campsites which are remote from each other and from the campus.

The campsite I was assigned to is the most remote; perhaps two or three miles over difficult trails from the school's entrance, and in the late afternoon sun, fully provisioned for the weekend, we set out for the site. The trail followed the shore of a sparkling lake before it climbed to the top of a ridge, plunged down the side of a deep gorge through a series of switchbacks, and ascended the opposite side. Once across the gorge the going was a bit easier, a distance where mountain laurel formed a living tunnel, brighter glades were lined with pink lady slippers, and towering oak and maple giants, energetic with their new greening, blocked out direct sunlight. As we neared the camp the boys became quiet and increased their pace, as though they were intent on getting there without delay.

We rounded the final bend and I had my first look at where they lived. I understood their eagerness, instantly and completely. On an alluvial fan that terminated the gorge we had crossed earlier they had built the only home they would know for the one or two years they would spend at the school. Trees covered a high ridge on the far side of the site, and a bold stream raced downhill between them and the camp itself. There were three buildings, each showing the workmanship of the earnest but inexperienced young hands that had built them. A raised composting latrine was located off to one side, while a lean-to shed with a fire pit constituted their kitchen and dining hall. They cook and eat in that shed whenever they aren't at the main campus for academic classes, doctor visits, and like things. Snow, darkness, cold, rain, wind - it doesn't matter; that's where perhaps 50% of their meals are taken. Near the center stood the bunkhouse, a rustic thing on stilts, uninsulated, but heated by a single wood burning stove. No electrical power. No running water other than the trickle from a hand pump. No televisions or computers or PS3 games. Nothing but the greening of things, the rush of water through the stream bed, and the whisper of wind through the trees.

Between the buildings the boys had built a beautiful and extensive rock garden, a frog pond complete with lily pads, a group meeting place, and had sculpted a dozen faces into large pieces of driftwood which they then hung like a huge wind chime. Twisting trails cobbled with stream-rounded rocks wended between all these things so that they might be better admired close at hand. When we arrived the sun had just reached the top of the far ridge, and the entire site was bathed in that beautiful late afternoon golden yellow glow so prized by photographers.

This is a place of power. In the Celestine Prophecy there is a place in this part of the state that is called so. This isn't that place, but it has to be a close second. I think I know what the first person to discover Machu Picchu must have felt like. I encountered something that has to be what and where it is. There is no better place for this camp.

To a person, the students are highly intelligent and in various stages of dealing with their internal impulses. One of the younger boys is working on, among other things, controlling his language. At the campus he had trouble constructing sentences without at least one “damn” or “fuck” in it. This is a problem because one of the other boys takes immediate offense and open warfare ensues. When we got to the camp I noticed that he had toned things down and complimented him. He asked if I wanted to see what made him completely calm and beckoned for me to follow. At the edge of the stream, behind a tree sat a little stone statue of The Buddha. He leaned over it, rubbed it's belly, patted its head, turned to the stream and started singing, first the Beatles Let It Be, then the refrain from Gloria in Excelsis Deo. “It works,” he said, “I'll be fine the rest of the night.” He was. Another boy, really a young man and the oldest in the group, appeared very well adjusted and I told him so. He said “You should have met me when I got here a year and a half ago, you wouldn't say that. The kids who are new here would never understand it if I told them that I'll miss this place, this camp, when I graduate in a few weeks.”

Before dinner was cooked over an open fire - pasta with tomato or marinara sauce, salad, dense bread, peas, corn and beans - everyone attended to their assigned chores; sweeping out the bunk house, adding wood chips to the latrine compost pit, tending to the frogs and plants, pumping water for washing, gathering firewood, and generally pushing back against the tides of entropy. As I watched and participated I couldn't get images of Wendy's Lost Boys or thoughts of the denizens of Lord of the Flies out of my head. It was so appropriate.

After eating and cleaning up everyone had time to read by flashlight before the ten o'clock curfew. Maybe it was a special night, but there were no problems with any of the boys, something the experienced counselors say isn't all that common. Sleep came swiftly to all of us.

Morning found the temperature at a brisk 38 degrees and, after a bit of groggy stumbling around, the boys cooked a breakfast of eggs and veggie sausage. After food we headed to the campus for a science class and then on to the lake to fish for that night's dinner. At first I thought it was my imagination, but as we walked away from the camp the boys became less relaxed and started showing some signs of the behavior that had got them into the school in the first place. But no, it wasn't imagination at all. The other counselors said they see it all the time, and to prove their point, when we returned to the campsite later that day the metamorphosis was repeated. Boys who had been unruly and difficult on campus started to mellow out just as thy had only a day before.

A place of power indeed.

Chaos Orders

At the height of last summer’s hottest week a butterfly flapped its wings in China and as a result, only twelve days ago, I was reintroduced to a forgotten world.

The wind started blowing in the early morning, and by noon was shaking the house as though it were made of nothing more substantial than cardboard. Sentinel trees, some having stood guard for hundreds of years, suddenly grew lusty for the wet earth, and heeding the dim memory of their kind, sacrificed themselves to the dream of becoming nurse-trees. It was a fey dream. They fell by the hundreds over a thousand square miles, most harmlessly, but not all.

A tree down the road fell across a power sub-station and darkened the homes of 9000 residents, mine included. No power, no heat, no television, no telephone, no Internet. I played cards and scrabble with my daughter by candlelight. I read by the light of a camper headset with the red LED light activated to conserve the battery. After several hours of doing that I would turn it off and everything glowed with the bright green light of an aurora. I threw out the entire contents of the refrigerator after two days, and I took very cold showers in a very dark bathroom. I wondered how friends I could not talk to were doing. I thought a lot.

After 5 days the power came back on. Another two days and the cable worked again, but because power surges had damaged my router the Internet and telephone (VOIP) were only restored today.

I had missed a lot, but I know my problems were trivial, nothing, bumps on a toad.

I didn’t learn of Virginia Tech until two days after it happened. It took my breath away and I have a lot of catch-up grieving in absentia to do. I’m still at it. I found out that in a town just to the west of me a tree fell on a truck and killed the driver. A man I know, a teacher at my youngest daughter’s school, was fly-fishing and was struck by a falling limb a foot in diameter. He’s still in the ICU.

There’s no big lesson in all this, no wisdom I’ve gained. Life went on, and death, and love and war, and commercials and everything else that normally goes on. But dammit, it did bother me to be disconnected from it, even for a few short days.

My Favorite Toy

I was asked to name my favorite toy from childhood.

Arrgh! Questions like this drive me crazy. I resisted for a couple of days, but I finally broke down and answered.

Ask most Americans to name their favorite color and the response is likely to be red or blue or whatever. Ask a Brit and the response is often something like “Favorite color of what?”

So I’ll answer like a denizen of the UK: “Favorite toy to play at what?”

But there are some toys I remember more than others.

I had a red 3-speed bicycle my grandfather gave me just before he died. My father had a flat tire one day and I wanted to be just like him so I pounded a nail through a board and drove the bike over it. He figured out what I’d done and wouldn’t fix the tire for weeks. I’d probably still have that bike except that one of my sisters accidentally drove a tractor over it. At least I think it was an accident.

I had a Radio Flyer wagon. A great toy too, but I decided it needed more carrying capacity and built a huge wooden box on top of the metal base. It was so heavy I could hardly pull it. I didn’t want to admit that I’d been dumb enough to paint myself into the corner of a figurative room, so I waited until nobody was home one day and I killed it. Really. I got my uncle’s 12 gauge double barreled shotgun, loaded it with two double-ought magnums, and blew the thing to bits. The shotgun was too big for me, I was only ten, and it slid under my arm as I pulled the triggers - yeah, both at one time - and broke my nose. That didn’t matter though, because I had to put the shotgun back and clean up the bits of wood that littered the yard. I hadn’t finished yet when my parents and sisters returned home. Nobody ever asked me why my nose was bloody, why there were bits of wood all over the yard, where the wagon had disappeared to, or why my clothes smelled like cordite. I guess that was just normal stuff for ten year old farm boys. I hear these days that guns are locked in cabinets. Wow! And, no, I haven’t owned a gun in decades, so your wagons are safe.

I had a brown teddy bear that I wore out with love. One day the fabric just split open and white fluffy stuffing spilt across the kitchen floor. I cried for an hour.

I had this cool camera once. It used a film size called 620 so it was fairly large, and it was made of pink plastic. Mostly I took pictures of anything that didn’t move out of the way. One day I read about how balloons had been used in the Civil War for reconnaissance so I decided to give aerial photography a shot. First, I made a mechanism from an old windup alarm clock that would ring the alarm bell and trip the shutter simultaneously. Then I practiced with the clock/camera contraption until I could reliably predict a one to five minute shutter release window. Lastly, I taped the entire thing to a box kite - not those wimpy little box kites you find in a store, but a 2×2x5 monster flown with 30 pound test braided fishing line and built as a Boy Scout project - and then found some wind. It took most of a full day to get it to work but after the film came back from the drug store I had a beautiful photograph of the barn roof from 300 feet up. That was the end of it though, because when I tried to repeat my achievement a strong gust parted the fishing line and my kite was last seen crossing the Canadian border. I’m probably responsible for a spate of UFO sightings.

I built a crystal radio. It really amazed me that I could hear people talking and listen to music simply by putting the parts together in the proper order. It was magic.

I had a beautifully illustrated copy of Alice in Wonderland. I read it out loud almost every day and stared into the illustrations until I felt like I was falling into them, just like Alice falling into the well.

But favorite? Any of these? No. My favorite toy then is my favorite toy still; that wonderful toy between my ears, that lump of meat that houses the I that is me, and connects me to the universe, the most stupendous playground of all.

Blessings

Tonight I visited dear friends and was fed an exquisite vegan chili. It was the kind of food that feeds your soul as well as your body, and the kind of food you remember and want to eat again the next day. Well, I've been taken care of on that account as I was sent home with a big bowl filled to the brim. I'll have it for lunch tomorrow if my daughters don't snitch it in the meantime. I think I'll sit by it in the kitchen and growl if anyone approaches too closely.

The chili was washed down with an ample quantity of beer, and when the eating was over we played cards for a hour or so. I lost badly.

The air outside is crisp and cold. It snowed only a day ago, and the sky is crystal clear with thousands of twinkling stars. On the way home I chanced to look up just as a meteor streaked across the velvety blackness, a sparkling blue-white incandescence trailing behind it. I'm sure it was there just to show off to me.

When I got home my daughters greeted me with hugs and an invitation to sit with them to watch a movie. I did, and within a few minutes they both fell asleep, their heads resting on my shoulders. They are so wonderful.

Rob Brezsny is right, the whole world is conspiring to shower me with blessings.

Chinatown

While on a business trip to New York City I took my evening meal in that frantic hive of humanity, Chinatown. Because MSG gives me a livid headache I asked my waiter to have my order made without benefit of that dubious substance. He looked at me and, indignantly, with a heavy accent said: "Yes Sir! Food has no ingredients!" I wondered if this was a generic statement or if he was referring to his food only. I thought that I might not want to go that far so I queried him just to be sure: "No ingredients? At all?" With great dignity he responded: "I give my pleasure to you - so, no ingredients, no ingredients. Yes?" Belatedly I realized that this might be a good way to lose weight - The No Ingredients Diet. No wonder Atkins offed himself. (He just made it look like an accident - but I know better.) So, with great bravery, I ordered. The food arrived, mountainously, but with no MSG - it was actually quite good. My waiter came by the table in mid-meal and asked "Is everything pleasure to you?" I almost told him the truth but managed instead to blurt "Very good, very good. And thank you for no ingredients." His smile told me that I had given my pleasure to him. I can, however, tell you that the drinks served in that establishment were chocked full of ingredients - presumably not those subtracted from the food.

Categories

To make sense of an otherwise overwhelming stream of information the brain has evolved a remarkable capacity for categorization. In the pursuit of becoming, in the quest for enlightenment and knowing, that trait is also the strongest of all adversaries.

Bits and Dots

Think of the number of subatomic particles in a grain of sand, of the billions of electrons, neutrons, protons, and all their myriad variants and constituents that make up such a small thing. Now think of something larger, like the entire beach where you found the grain of sand. Think of how many more subatomic particles there are in something so large - a truly vast number. Keep going though, through all the beaches that there are, the oceans, all the land, the entire planet, out through all the planets, the Sun, and then roam even more. Think of all the particles that constitute all of the 400 billion stars in this average galaxy, and of all the particles in the billions of of galaxies that exist throughout the entire universe. Keep that thought.

Your brain, that three pound lump of meat between your ears, consists of about 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses. Very large numbers indeed but small compared to the number of subatomic particles that make it up, and vanishingly tiny when compared to the scales above. Yet it is not the sheer number of neurons and synapses that should take your breath away, that should boggle your mind, because the magic strong enough to do that is in the number of possible interconnections; the combinations and permutations that underpin everything that makes you, well, YOU. The number of neuronal/synaptic combinations and permutations in your brain, the thing thinking of these words, exceeds the total number of subatomic particles in the entire universe by three orders of magnitude!

It is within this extravagant excess that you brain contains something even more wondrous than the universe itself; your brain is the physical seat of what you are, and is the springboard and reservoir for mind, for consciousness, for spirit, for soul, for you.

And something else. Are you the collection of subatomic particles that make you up? If this is so, how is it that you remember anything from even a year ago? During the last twelve months all the subatomic particles that make up your entire body, every one of them including those in your brain, have been replaced. Not one meson, quark, electron, particles on and on, that constitutes your physical self has been part of your body for more that several months. Not one! You are constantly renewed. Are you then simply the pattens impressed on this physical substrate? I can represent any pattern, by definition, as an algorithm, albeit a complex one in the case of representing you, but it is possible in principle. I don't think I could represent 'you' with an algorithm, no matter how complex. Do you? Think about this.

And lastly, at least for now, a question: Have you ever heard of quantum entanglement? There is a process whereby pairs of subatomic particles become entangled in that they exist in a state where they always exhibit identical behavior regardless of the distance between them and they do this instantaneously. Every bit that makes you up is potentially related by this process to an exactly equal number of particles that could be, and are, anywhere in the universe and any time a particle in you undergoes a quantum change so does the paired particle, at exactly the same time, even if that particle is on the other side of the universe.

There is so much more. In due time........

Spam

I got an email with the subject "See How Smart You Are - Take Our Free IQ Test." I couldn't figure out how to open the test.

Another email was bannered; "Al - Learn how to qualify." When I opened it I discovered that the body was blank. Apparently I'm unlikely to become qualified anytime soon.

"Al: Go to the bathroom more often" got my attention but the message itself was incoherent. I think it's from the same doctor who wants me to quit wearing my bra to bed.

Another trumpeted "Are you paying too much for auto insurabce, [double sic] let us quote you." I wasn't sure how that would do any good, but I sent them a few lines I thought they could use anyway.

I have 17 messages promising, for a price, "clinically proven" techniques for "natural male enhancement." I have questions. Natural male? As opposed to....? Where exactly are these clinics? What do they look like? And most importantly, if I buy and use each of these "techniques" in series are the effects cumulative? I mean, wow! Maybe I'd have to use turn signals.

To assuage my girl side, I looked for corresponding messages offering "natural female enhancements" and am happy to report that those born or converted to this state have an even larger offering to consider and apparently many more things that could do with some "enhancement." I believe that the cumulative thing is applicable here also.

The religious right is in on the act too. I'm promised a date with "Sexy Christian Singles" and told "How to get rid of Debt the Christian way." War, I guess. Or maybe get the lenders dates with sexy Christian singles and in their bliss they'd forgive all the loans. Ya think?

Over the past three weeks I've received 15,356 spam mail messages selling, promising, giving away, and soliciting just about everything imaginable. Thanks be unto Google for sequestering it, but I must admit that my visit to this strange place has been entertaining. I'll go back soon, say sometime in 2012.

BiggerBetterFaster

What's up with plain old base reality? We don't like what we get? Well, we'll just bend it, twist it, shove it, and presto-changeo - something new and improved will pop up.

Satisfied with the Civic? Hell no! Let's make us some SUV's - Why settle for a puddle hopper when we can jump the whole damn lake? What? You say the lake is now filled with oil? Well, Duuuuh! Presto-changeo - The Escalade!

Like the good ole taco? Up yours buddy. I want a double meat thrice wrapped Ersatz Mexican Thingie, super biggie it please, with a longer belt on the side. Presto-changeo - The Nacho Gordita Supreme.

And now for something completely different. The Russians were on to something back in the '70's. Tape some weird sensors on your head, take a nap, and wake up knowing new and improved things. Wanna know about nuclear physics, or nail down the complete Mayan Calendar? No problem. By tomorrow morning you can be the expert.

And of course somebody was bound to improve on the good-old-fashioned wet dream. Now we have sleepsex!

But why stop there? Surely there are other sleep-x potentials out there. How about:

Sleepbirth - If you can have sleepsex, surely there will be a little sleepconception going on. And all those sleepzygotes will eventually want their own Escalades and Gorditas and demand the full rights inherent in being birthed. "Well uh, I dunno, I had a little sleepsex, woke up, and now there's this little kid here. Musta been a long nap. He's already outa diapers."

Sleepwork - Why wake up and go to work when most of us are asleep there anyway? Getting your work done while you sleep must have some kind of advantage. "Hey, how ya doin'?" "Oh, good I guess, just a little tired. I worked a double while I was sleeping. But the money will be good come payday. I think I'll take a little ride in my Escalade and get a Gordita. Wanna go wit me?"

Sleepwar - This is one of those times you probably don't want to share your mattress with someone else. Hey, a little sleepsex or sleepbirth is fine, but a full-blown blitzkrieg while you nakedly nap, well, what a turn-off. Enough of us go to bed with a .38 Colt under the pillow anyway, so who's to mind a few M16's or SAW weapons? Oh, and please get yourself a new and improved pillow holster.

Can sleeparchitecture, or sleepuniversity, or sleeplandscaping be far behind?

I'm gonna go nap now. Hey, anything could happen!

Breasts

I was thinking of George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" the other day when by pure chance I saw the oddest thing on TV. There was a program on The History Channel of all places, about breasts. Not the ones on chickens, but the ones on human females. Boobs, tits, headlights, knockers. You know, those kinds of breasts.

I thought it might bear watching. I mean, after all, when a major educational channel devotes one full hour to breasts, it must be important. I might learn something. So I watched, with great anticipation of enlightenment.

The show was divided up into four equal-length sections: The history of breasts, breasts in art, the support of breasts, and the augmentation of breasts. Now here's the odd thing. In the history section I saw representations of how breasts developed, in size and shape, through successive editions of homo habilis, homo erectus, homo neanderthalensis, and finally to us, homo sapiens sapiens, double-wise man. (Hmmm. Really? And how in the world does anybody know what homo habilis breasts would have looked like? And what are breasts doing on a man?) In the art part, I saw painted and sculpted breasts from Greek, Roman, Mezo-American, classical Indian and modern times. In the support presentation there were thousands of breasts, every one slung, trussed, flattened, pointed, puffed, flattered, fluttered, pushed up, out, in, sideways, and every one in a bra or some such cantilevered contraption. But not once in 45 minutes of watching had I actually seen a photograph or video of a naked breast. But then it happened! In the augmentation discussion. A naked breast, on a woman, well partly on a woman, who was lying on an operating table in a Los Angeles hospital. The surgeon deftly separated the bottom of the breast from its owner, lifted it away from her supine body, and in the resulting gap slipped a pouch that looked something like a sandwich bag filled with Jello. He then patted the breast, which by this time looked something like a bruised breakfast egg, back into place like a teenager out for his first feel, and stitched up the incision. After a quick commercial break, I was treated to before-and-after photos. The "before" photos showed a rather nice looking pair of breasts. Ones that if I were the owner I'm pretty sure wouldn't want to change. They looked like they would do whatever it is they are supposed to do just fine. But then the last "before" photo morphed into the aftermath, or the afterbreast. There was nothing in the history, art, or support sections that could have predicted this, or rather these! I was unprepared. I half expected that little critter from the movie Aliens to pop out. Well, two little critters, just for symmetry's sake. It looked like something was trying to get out! Breast Monsters! These were no longer breasts, they were weapons! Whether you own breasts or not, or in either case even if you're only borrowing someone else's for a little while, you do have certain expectations of curve, softness, texture, temperature, etc. These new fangled additions to this woman's chest looked like they could hurt you; big time. "Hey, what happened to your fingers?" Bashfully: "It's a long story, but...."

So like Carlin's words, words we can only hear after they have been beaten and mashed, and transformed from their original shape, if we can ever hear them at all, we have breasts, which are fun to look at we all agree, but some among us add: "Only after they have been beaten and mashed, and transformed from their original shape."

Magic

One can debate and refute magic forever, and many do, mostly those who refuse by way of reason magic's provenance, or those, who by their unfortunate nature, see nothing they have been told they cannot see. And then there are those of us who might perchance have fallen into this denial but for luck. For it is a proven fact that if magic happens to one, with the full force and presence of its beauty, it can no longer be denied.

The table thus set, I spin a tale of magic.

Simply to sit and contemplate, to smoke, to sip my coffee, to eat my salad, that was the plan. I was to steal a few moments alone and allow the tides of life to wash over me. It is in these moments that I most feel love, mine extended and mine received; the wonderful connections of my life. There is a picnic table behind the factory where I work. It is solitary, rarely visited, and an ideal place for reverie. On this day a warm afternoon sun was reluctantly giving way to dusk, gentle zephyrs swirled vortices of dust over the parking lot, and I settled into my seat.

I didn't witness his arrival because like many good things he just appeared. One moment there was an unknown void, and then it was filled. He just happened. The connection was immediate, and elemental. He had soulful eyes, dark brown, and of unfathomable depth; eyes that said I had something he wanted, wanted even more than a sweet breath of Spring, and if I would please be so kind, he would reciprocate in his own way. Now, I am not one who takes lightly the possibilities that tumble forth from the cornucopia of my life, but I also listen to what experience has taught me; not to promise myself what is not mine.

Nevertheless, of his own volition and with my unspoken encouragement, he transformed himself before my eyes, from a simple thing of flesh and blood, into a manifestation of his own desire to fulfill an ancient need. A soft breeze swirled the hair on his head and sunlight played lightful melodies across his back. His muscles rippled with a supple vigor infused by his want, and the delicious tension of anticipation played out across his flank. I was helpless before him.

He approached, and I felt my own longing spawned by this chance encounter stir powerfully, until it was a thing unto itself; a fleeting possibility of spirit taking on substance, an irrevocable touching of the being behind those dark eyes. Closer. Power and permission incarnate. His breathing amplified into short puffs. Closer. What little fear remained to him dissolved into a singular pellet of want; I could see it behind his eyes. Closer. That field of pure energy that defines me, and that I in turn define began to mingle with his; began the wonderful and overwhelming mixing that creates something so much greater than its parts. The promise of the mystics, that there is just the one, can in this moment be realized with the intensity and presence of a god. Slowly, and with a grace that I do not command, I reached out and offered my hand and its bounty. Touch. In what seemed an eternity but was surely only an instant, the exchange was made, and I basked in the radiance of his love; a love that knew no name.

He withdrew to the corner of his safety, tension slaked, awaiting the rest of his life. I bade him farewell and too quickly became again who I had been only moments before; a man, and like him, awaiting the rest of my life.

Yes, simply to sit and contemplate, to smoke, to sip my coffee, to eat my salad, that was the plan. How did I know that silly rabbit was going to come hopping up to the break table? I hope he enjoyed the carrot but I didn't see him eating it. He hopped into a pile of gear crates stored in the back of the factory; presumably to eat without any other rabbits trying to steal his meal away. I'll have to say that that was a first for me. So very unafraid. He gently took the carrot from my hand – and then raced off.

The magic was very real. There was a momentary suspension of the normal instincts that keep wild creatures from getting too close to us; large bipeds that we are, always unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous. When he approached to within two or three feet the fear just evaporated, as though he'd judged me and found me harmless; at least to him. But the magic was in more that just this. I had a very strange but very clear feeling that, for a special moment, I was him; that I could feel the order of the world he feels daily. I "felt" his world as an impressionistic mosaic; a soft edged approximation that so eloquently captured the spirit of things. Maybe that's why rabbits are such great broken-field runners.

He had given me a slice of his world, and as best I could, I had given him a slice of mine.

Actually, I don't know if it was a "he" or "she" rabbit. I mean, they're not like humans. You can't just go up, flip 'em over, and take a look. "Hmmm, let's see here. Oh yeah, it's a girl." Nope, that doesn't work with bunnies.

Global Rabies

Visiting a friend in hospital, you leave her room to get some coffee. Walking down the hall toward the vending area you spy a towel on the floor. A few feet beyond the towel stands one of those all-purpose carts -- the kind used by the janitorial staff. Reasonably assuming that the towel has just fallen from the cart, and being the fastidious citizen that you are, you bend over, pick it up, and toss it into the cart's wastecan just as two orderlies charge down the corridor toward you. They look at you, eyes wide, and say, voices trembling: "That fell from a tear in the bottom of the waste bag on the bio-hazard cart; it's contaminated with rabies virus!"

As you absently finger your watchband the staff physician tells you that rabies is virtually 100% fatal, that in all of medical history there has been only one person who survived untreated; a fifteen year old girl from Wisconsin. The physician says that infection may enter the body through the bloodstream and asks if you have any cuts or sores on the skin that came in contact with the towel. You look down at your index finger, at the little paper cut you got yesterday afternoon while cleaning your office. You silently pray to a personal God you do not really believe in.

So you are presented with your options and asked to make a decision. It is entirely possible that the part of the towel you touched was virus free, or that the virus particles in that area may have already been dead, in which case you will not contract rabies. It is also possible that the virus has already invaded your body. It may not be necessary, no one can tell you with absolute certainty, but you can choose to undergo a series of injections that will stimulate your immune system; enabling you to fight off the disease. The injections would be administered into the muscles of your abdomen and are known to be quite painful. Alternatively, you may elect to forgo treatment. After all, if you aren't infected you don't really need it and you will be fine. But, if you do have the virus in your body, you will almost certainly die.

As individuals most of us would choose to vastly reduce the risk of symptomatic rabies, albeit at the expense of some pain.

Where is Hari Seldon when we need him? As a species we often act contrary to the good of the whole, or of the individual. Humans have possibly contracted something far deadlier than individual cases of rabies, yet we debate endlessly. Is this weather, or is this climate? Are the changes we measure the result of axial precession, or the burning of hydrocarbons? Who the hell cares? We have touched the towel and we might get a fatal disease. The treatment will be painful; economic dislocation, clashing cultures, famine, disease, real suffering, and death. The alternative is possible, even probable, extinction.

We admire lemmings too well.