Why Can't The English!

Henry Higgins from the Broadway musical, "My Fair Lady", in today's culture, had to be the ultimate sexist, intolerant, intransigent man, if he were real. He was the product of George Bernard Shaw's play, "Pygmalion", from which the musical was based.  Higgins, however, struck some chord that even  his critics acknowledged the stinging wit, humor and social observations to be notably true in some sense. He was an equal opportunity disparager.  He was not xenophobic because as an Englishman he had some harsh words against the English, specifically those he considered misusers or "murderers" of proper English. Eliza Doolittle, the cockney-talking flower vendor became the title character of the play and musical that originally starred Julie Andrews on stage but later played by Audrey Hepburn in the movie version that won seven Oscars. Rex Harrison played Higgins in both and won Best Actor for his role.

 

In one of Higgins' soliloquies he said,

"An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him

The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him"

Then he went on his diatribe,

"One common language I'm afraid we'll never get

Oh, why can't the English learn to

Set a good example to people whose

English is painful to your ears?

The Scots and the Irish leave you close to tears

And, of course, American English became one of his peeves,

"There even are places where English completely disappears

In America, they haven't used it for years"

He went on with his acerbic commentaries on  the other nationalities, 

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?

Norwegians learn Norwegian

The Greeks are taught their Greek

Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.

And Hebrews learn it backwards,

which is absolutely frightening.

But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.

In France every Frenchman knows his language from "A" to "Zed"

The French never care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it properly

Again, if Higgins were real, hypothetically alive in the world we live in today, he might add along his observations that might run like this,

"There even are places where some will never care what they do, actually, for as long as they  pronoun it properly".

The state of Michigan passed House Bill 4474, awaiting the state senate vote, that will make misgendering a felony - calling somebody by the wrong pronoun.

"Under the bill—which makes it a hate crime for a person to threaten another by deliberately using the wrong pronouns with an intimidating purpose—offenders would be guilty "of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or by a fine of not more than $10,000."

This is not really a political item worthy of any serious discussion. It will likely pass and likely be signed into law by the governor.  We can leave it at that.  

Now, languages have always evolved over time, changing even along and across borders in the same country.  Soon, the evolution makes it possible for two distinct languages, not just dialects, to split  from one original language; Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, as examples. However, in the centuries that those occurred, the process took a very long time and often changed with the spontaneity that is not really directed intentionally, certainly not centrally from one focal point.  Usage by and convenience for the users of the language were the prime movers of change.  

Today's language is changing upon the direction of a few, clearly not by the majority, to enforce the changes according to a particular leaning. The direction of today's language evolution is contrived and enforced with potential jail and financial penalties that, for example, the proposed Michigan law will try to achieve.

There is no predicting what trajectory society will veer into but for the moment, one idea is to make words,  and ultimately language, as the backdrop upon which culture will be made to evolve a certain way.

The pluralized pronoun phenomenon may or may not prevail.  Civilizations developed, flourished and sustained primarily based on the culture adopted by the population. Culture to mean language, social  mores, sets of laws and basic moral and ethical standards.  If the changes result in a cohesive society, civilization will continue to flourish. If, however, the population splits along a major disagreement among the people, in terms of a general cultural schism, that civilization will weaken and erode from within.  That is when another, from the outside, can and will take over.  That had been the cycle of humanity's histories for thousands of years.

Historians of the future will debate this. Today, we are charged with a profound duty to make a choice on what trajectory today's society must take. It is up to the living right now to shape the world of those who are yet to  be born and live at some time in the future.  What future inhabitants of this planet will look back to are the choices we make today.

  

The Price Is Almost Always Right Every Time

A very popular TV game show debuted in the fall of 1972. "The Price Is Right" still airs today. Contestants are picked randomly from the audience. One by one the lucky person gets beckoned by the host with the now iconic invitation to, "Come on down!" to the stage. To advance, each contestant must guess the price of the chosen item without exceeding the actual value. The aim for each contestant is to keep going to stay in the game until the chance to win a prize or ultimately win the big prize.

In life though, we are told, "there is a price for everything".  My favorite universal expression, whether viewed  sociologically, politically, philosophically or even  scientifically, is that "there is no such thing as a free lunch".  From the micro to the macro world, the "free lunch" is a myth.

The cheese on a mouse trap is the ultimate "not-so-free-lunch" for the hapless rodent. Wild boars and deer find out that feeders make them as vulnerable as fish in a barrel. But, one may observe that whether in the savannah or the rivers' edge, even high up in the sky, predators get their lunch all the time.  Yes, but not always - sometimes with a success rate that is as low as 15%  - and they have to work for it. And it is never a cake walk for any of them to catch their prey. There is always the potential for injury, sometimes even death as they pursue their prey.  

Prey or grazing animals, on the other hand, seem to get their lunch the easy way, if not so freely.  For example, we see deer, wildebeests, zebras, etc. get their food that  are not able to flee.  They're just there on the ground or low lying branches.  Is that not the ultimate free lunch?

Well, grass and leafy greens come at a price.  Each grazing animal must eat a lot of it to get the proper amount of nutrition and energy; often spending almost all their waking hours grazing, often head down, which makes them vulnerable.  Others spent additional time chewing cud because digesting grass and leaves need the extra work. What prey animals do is essentially convert grass and leaves into protein, fat  and carbohydrates into chunks of meat that predators dine on.  That is the ecosystem.  Maintaining that balance comes with a price.

Today, everywhere we look, that balance scale defines  everything to make it just right. Upset that balance and the ecosystem breaks down.

Sociologically, it is the same thing. The student who strives the hardest gets to collect what he or she paid the price for. To be valedictorian, top of the class, does not come easy. It comes with a price.  Those who only study so much, or others who do the minimum, or even none at all, make up the rest of the curve.  That ecosystem defines the path of each graduating class.

Our sun has for billions of years now been providing energy endlessly, or so it seems.  But again, at a price. It lights up the entire solar system, warms our planet, causes winds and hurricanes, charges solar panels but at what price?  It has been losing chunks of its mass at the rate of 4 million tons per second for the last 4 billion years now.  Ultimately, it will lose so much that by that time, the solar system shall be no more.  So far, we and everything in the solar system have been having our cake and eating it too. But that free lunch has a finite ending, albeit for another 2-3 billion years more. There is little we can do about this and it is even infinitely little to worry about it. 

Meanwhile, in a single and finite lifetime, there is this to ponder. One may make the right decisions; may do good things; may live a just  life or one may do the opposite of all of those.  There is a prize for the former and there is a price for the latter. In one belief system the price may come either abruptly or at some later time, often appropriately or slightly more costly. From that belief system came  the word, "karma".  Originally though, the word applied to mean a "prize" for a good deed or a price one pays for a misdeed.  Now it is mainly used to define the price for doing the wrong thing.

Centuries ago in his letters to the Romans, (KJV, Romans 6:24), Paul declared, "For the wages of sin is death .."  We will leave it at that but suffice it to say that across all cultures, philosophies and belief systems, humanity has always come to terms with the price for misdeeds. But we are generally hopeful. And so we also believe in, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works .."  (Matthew 5:16, KJV). And so it is that we are presented with philosophical choices as well when we think beyond the physical.

Speaking of physical, biologically, the price for living longer is to grow old. Aches and pains and potential health issues are part of what we expect to pay for a lengthy life span.    You want to live long? The ticket  is punched by a ticking clock, the flipping of calendar pages, the rhythm of  the marching seasons going softer and softer until one can no longer hear it.  Such is the price. Such is the price to anyone willing to pay for it.

The good news is that we live at a time when the price of aging is getting cheaper, figuratively speaking for the most part; much too expensive for some of them, i.e. organ transplants, cancer treatments, etc. Modern medicine and health care  have greatly improved managing the problems of aging. We are living at an age when vision, hearing, blood pressure and diabetic issues, to name a few, can be managed and corrected effectively.

Today, we are reaping the fruits of centuries of development and breakthroughs in medicine and health care. The accumulation of knowledge, inventions and precision in diagnosis, procedures, and tools did not come without a price. But today, much of humanity is enjoying the prize. In a way, we share the benefits that countless scientists, researchers and developers, whose accumulated efforts and dedication, paid the  price for which so many Nobel prizes were given.  The connection between their efforts and the benefits we now enjoy is not trivial.

And it must come to this: paying the ultimate price.  The mouse that nibbled on the cheese paid the ultimate price but not without saving other mice.  Research has shown that for every mouse caught in a mouse trap there are at least a dozen or more mice that were spared. That mouse trap will not catch another mouse unless it is cleaned thoroughly because the dying mouse caught in it will likely have produced a "death scent" that will warn the others to be wary of the next free lunch.

On a human scale, we have first responders who paid the ultimate price to save others.  Our military's history is replete with heroic sacrifices that countless others may go on to live a little or a lot longer.  Such sacrifices paid the ultimate price to buy the prize of freedom. Many died so young, so that many more will grow up and grow old.

So, we pay the price for living longer but we must keep in mind that after every sunset, when we see another sunrise bookended by another sunset is another extra day that is worth paying for.

  

 

Through The Eyes See You

The play with words on ICU (Intensive Care Unit of the hospital) is not to extract humor on an otherwise somber and frightening experience when one must deal with a loved one admitted to any place of emergency care, but it is a  way to express my version of a comic relief from the experience because in the end it would be all just fine; albeit, the road ahead is lined with a series of home health care visits and physical therapy. 

My wife had to be transferred posthaste from the emergency unit of the hospital near where we live to the Texas Medical Center in Houston. Now, let me set that aside for the moment, although I will touch on it later, after I go through recounting a series of mis-adventured and miscued moments that, thankfully in retrospect, happened to me rather than at the ICU.  This is also an homage to the medical profession and those who over many decades had the vision to build the medical complex I will talk about in the coming paragraphs. 

The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is famous for being the largest medical complex in the world. In the early seventies, long before the concept of medical complexes began to develop in other countries, this was the place where the most challenging medical cases were flown in from all corners, and a frequent destination of rich patients particularly from oil rich countries (the 70s remember) for  their medical needs. Rare and obscure cases that were new to and of value to medical science, regardless of financial considerations, had a place in the research units of the hospitals as well. 

Today, TMC is even bigger and leads in medical breakthroughs - from cancer research to advances in medical procedures (organ transplants, microsurgery and the development of intricate medical devices, etc.).

It is huge. On a "given" day, the number of  hospital personnel (doctors, nurses, technicians, support staff from other services), patients and their relatives, hotel workers, etc., would  make for a small town or city. But if we base it on its energy needs, water and trash services, and the number of standby generators that are as ubiquitous as the industrial AC units on every building's rooftop, it would be a decent-size metropolis.

Hotels that are part of the landscape of this complex directly or peripherally around a 2-3 mile radius may have as many rooms as there are hospital beds, if not more so, because patients' families  from all over the USA  and  other countries need places to stay. The number for multi story garages have parking spaces equivalent to the parking lot of a large mall, or that of a major professional sports stadium.

Parking poses the first significant challenge to anyone who ventures into the TMC. I, who had been through here at least three times years ago, though at multi year intervals in between each visit, should know better. I still  didn't. And we live in the area.

I drove my car as my wife was taken by ambulance during the transfer.  I circled a couple of times to get to a parking garage. I turned into a succession of levels before getting a spot at Level 4 and felt lucky it was by the elevator. Level 4, R4, fortunately I thought, was easy to commit to memory, concluding that there were at least four different zones at Level 4. I got on the elevator and pressed 1. Moments later I felt it stopped but the door in front of me and where all the buttons I pressed didn't open.

I waited a few more seconds facing the door when I heard a voice, "May I help you sir?" I looked up to the top left corner of the elevator where I thought the source of the voice came from, which I assumed was a security camera.  I replied, "I'm trying to get out of this elevator but the door won't open"

Then I heard the same voice, "Sir, sir, why don't you turn around?" I did. The elevator was one of those that opened at one or the other side  depending on how it emptied into the particular floor.  I turned and there were 5 people looking at me waiting at the lobby.  Frustration quickly turned to embarrassment though now I think it was hilarious. Picture this: Five people watched the elevator open and saw a man with his back turned to them talking to the upper left corner of the elevator. They had stories to tell their friends that day.

One of the five gentlemen with a clipboard remained standing while the other four went into the elevator. He spoke to me politely, "What floor are you headed to, sir, and do you know the patient's name? I replied, "All I know is that my wife was taken by ambulance from St. Luke's at Sugar Land to be brought here".  He said, "Sir, this is M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.  She must have been brought to St. Luke's Baylor.  Not to worry, go out those glass doors and you'll see it". 

Embarrassed again, I headed to and went out the glass door. In the glare of the sun, a huge building emblazoned with St. Luke's Baylor on its façade was two blocks away. The temperature that day was 101 F, so the building might as well have been a mirage; the concrete crosswalk might as well have been the Sahara.  I just exaggerated but a state of mind is a state of mind.  

From the information desk of St. Luke's I was told to take the yellow elevator, 6th floor.  Elevators are color-coded! Through a labyrinth of seemingly endless hallways I went through blue, purple, then at last I got on the designated elevator, or so I thought. I got off the 6th floor and asked the person at the nurse station. I said, "I was told to go to the Dooley wing on the 6th floor.  She replied, "There is no Dooley wing in the hospital. Oh, did you mean the Cooley wing?"  Of course, it was  Denton Cooley the wing was named after.  Dr. Cooley was the  surgeon who implanted the first truly artificial heart in 1970.

As a side note,

"Cooley reportedly answered in the affirmative when a lawyer during a trial asked him if he considered himself to be the best heart surgeon in the world. 

Don't you think that's being rather immodest? the lawyer replied.

"Perhaps," Cooley responded. "But remember I'm under oath."

The nurse told me to go back down and take the yellow elevator.  "You were on the orange one". I did make it to the right wing and floor at last. Again, I will hold off for a few more while and I promise I will get to it because the condition my wife experienced which I will be describing could be of special interest to the readers.

It was almost 9:00 p.m. before I headed out for home.  The ICU has no accommodation for a bed for a relative to stay overnight. I was tired and  emotionally drained to find my way back to the dreaded "wrong" parking garage.  I took the elevator and pressed 1.  When it opened, it was not the lobby but a concrete hallway that was dusty and empty.  When I turned around, there was no call button for the elevator, except for a stenciled sign that said "NO Re-Entry". There were steel stairs up and down from the floor. I just then realized that it was the service elevator I just took. Going up the stairs, the floor was filled with broken beds and furniture. The door was locked. I was at the hospital's basement/repository of old and abandoned equipment and furniture. I retraced my steps and  went one more stairwell down.  There was a door with a push bar.  I pushed and it opened up.  I was looking down the edge of an elevated inclined hedge row of ivy, five feet above from the sidewalk.  I gingerly managed to get to the sidewalk to the astonishment of those walking by.  That was the side fire exit of the hospital's basement that I exited from.

Exhausted and worried about my wife, I barely managed to take a shower before hitting the bed. The ripened papaya at the kitchen counter that needed to be sliced before storing in the refrigerator had to wait another day.  Two Cornish hens that were thawing in the fridge will too have to wait their turn for a culinary disposition of my choice, later. Despite the trepidations around my wife's medical predicament I slept for six hours straight. I beat the alarm radio.  

The routinary habit kicked in. Two scoops of ground coffee into the coffee maker, then the right amount of water were poured into the side receptacle, then I went about preparing what I needed to take with me to the hospital.  I wanted to be there by 7:00 A,M. to beat the traffic.  The aroma of coffee was particularly strong as I was moving about. Then I knew why.  I forgot to put the coffee pot under. Coffee was not coming through the spring loaded drip spout but there was plenty of it overflowing the filter basket into the sides and spreading like an ink blot on the white Formica countertop.

It was a mess to clean up but I managed to brew another pot. I poured it carefully into a large insulated Yeti coffee mug. Checking to make sure the house was secured and making a point to see the garage door shut, I drove away.  A mile into the freeway, cruising through light traffic and feeling good about it , I instinctively reached for the mug at the usual cup holder when I realized it was still sitting at the kitchen counter at home.  Driving through the freeway sans coffee in the morning turned out to be a much calmer experience than I expected. I had to force myself to be calm because I knew the streak of mishaps had to stop smearing the day. The next few miscues  during the week were not too bad and no longer deserve any more attention.  But suffice it to say, whatever advances achieved through medical research, hospital cafeteria food remains pristinely untouched by any new development. Hospital food's advancement is decidedly frozen in time, unencumbered by even a hint of telltale progress. But, in defense of the hospital, any hospital, it is in the business of healing and not striving to be a gourmet provider.  Besides, often it is the least in the patients' list of aspirations anyhow.

My wife had been complaining of a sore throat for days. Three trips to the urgent care center (it was on Friday afternoon through the weekend) made indiscernible improvement.  On Wednesday morning, I called 911 because she complained about severe pain in her throat and she lost her speaking voice above a whisper.  The EMT folks came quickly but when her vital signs and EKG proved she was not having a heart attack or stroke, they recommended that we see  her doctor that morning right away. There was nothing they could do about her sore throat.

We were at the doctor's office at eight and by nine she decided my wife should be admitted to the hospital. St. Luke's at Sugar Land was seven minutes away.  We drove there ourselves. They took all the necessary procedures and checks and a shot of antibiotics. By early afternoon, the emergency doctor decided she should be taken by ambulance to the Texas Medical Center, St. Luke's Baylor.

I was shocked and concerned that the floor she was taken to was the Intensive Care Unit (named after Dr, Cooley). When I got to her room, she had plastic tubes to both her arms and an oxygen mask over her face.  I learned they were pumping massive amounts of antibiotics and steroids intravenously. Her neck was swollen red and tender to the touch. There was like half a baseball under her chin. The antibiotics and steroids were given to her every six hours.  

By the following day, the swelling dramatically subsided and the redness was gone.  The EENT doctor made regular visits, using a laryngoscope through my wife's nostrils into her throat to assess progress. 

After two days at the ICU, she was moved to the "step down" room at a different wing of the hospital. Remember the orange elevator?  That was  the first wing I went up to first by mistake.  Antibiotics continued plus a continued lower dosage of steroid.  To help with her breathing she was hooked to a nebulizer for seven minutes every four hours.

It was only later at discharge that we knew what it was she suffered from. It was acute epiglottitis. From one reading material I read that it was suspected to have caused the death of George Washington. Most of the reading material focuses on pediatric incidences and only rarely on adults. 

"Epiglottitis is the inflammation of the epiglottis—the flap at the base of the tongue that prevents food entering the trachea (windpipe). Symptoms are usually rapid in onset and include trouble swallowing which can result in drooling, changes to the voice, fever, and an increased breathing rate".

Put simply, the wonder of human physiology dictates that in breathing, the flap opens to let air through to the trachea, then to the lungs.  When swallowing liquid or food, the flap closes to direct both through the esophagus, then to the stomach.  The swelling from a bacterial infection causes all kinds of issues with the flap of tissue either not sealing properly or obstructing the trachea. It is mostly a pediatric ailment because that part in children may not yet have developed to the proper size (mostly larger at birth).

The decision by the doctors - first in sending her immediately for admission, then followed immediately by the quick transfer to the main facility at the TMC - was crucial. Of course, the nurses and doctors at the ICU knew just what to do and the hospital was well equipped with the necessary tools and medication.  I try to imagine what this would have been like in less developed countries.  Naturally, arriving at the proper diagnosis in the amount of time that it took was too very critical.

Follow up home health visits will ensure no re-infection or other complications to ensue, while physical therapy will help her regain the strength lost while bed-bound for six days, largely because of her age and Parkinson's. 

There is so much to be grateful all around. There was  science in one hand. But I must admit I felt the prayers of friends and family paved the path for the body's responses.

She was discharged on July 3, so we spent July 4th at home to watch the fireworks on TV.  That was the first time in almost two decades that we missed spending July 4th at a friend's home ( a high school classmate) whose family opens up their home and their backyard pool to watch the fireworks with friends every year, with plenty to eat from noon till late.

However, there was something very special that night of July 4, with just my wife and me. She still had no appetite so I didn't even attempt to prepare a sumptuous meal. I must say that was the best July 4th ever, for just the two of us  together with little festivities except what we inwardly felt deep inside - gratitude for God's benevolence and the advances made possible in the medical field at this particular time in  human history that we all live in.  

Our hopes, wishes and prayers go out to everyone from all corners of the world who at this moment is facing health challenges of any kind.

   

 

Are We Smarter Than An Amoeba?

As best we can, let's try to imagine fitting the entire universe into a small gymnasium. Inside that gym are a few trillions of molecules swirling every which way. I am obviously either exaggerating the "trillion" estimate or underestimating since I can't really know for sure as neither can scientists. The enormity of the number alone - a trillion is a thousand billion - is enough to cause a light mental conniption.

One of the molecules of air in that gym is our Milky Way galaxy. In it are an estimated 200 to 400 billion stars. One of those stars is a medium-size one that is our sun. Empty space predominates the entire volume of the gym (the universe, no kidding, is all space with a sprinkling of matter) keeping vast distances between galaxies, stars and planets, asteroids, gasses, etc.

If you have not yet grasped the insignificance of our own individual existence, think just a little bit more.

What humility we have can sometimes be overshadowed by hubris in how many ways we think we know about our world. C'est moi, who is guilty as charged, managed to just inoculate myself for crafting the previous sentence in acknowledgement of our human frailty. 

Even more humbling would be to drill further down into the human physiology. An average human body has anywhere from 30 to 40 trillion cells.  Scientists had to guess  that number at the same time that they need to account as well for the number of microbes that are either permanent residents or visiting migrants that go in and out of our system, at one time or another.

Not surprisingly, red blood cells in number make up 80 percent of our body; or, the reason the term life blood makes a lot of sense.  However, our red blood cells may be that numerous but they make up only about 4 percent of our body weight.

As tiny as our red blood cell is, a mere 8 micrometers or about a tenth of the thickness of a human hair, an amoeba is even smaller - 2 to 3 micrometers. It can easily enter our body to cause all kinds of mischief. So, in our human body "universe" unimaginably tiny stuff makes up everything that we are.  Behold, these tiny denizens individually have no clue what goes on in their world that is the human body. A single red blood cell has no idea about how the circulatory system works, every fat cell oblivious to how much it affects  the entire body. It cannot make an assessment of how much of them are just enough or how too much may not be good for the body's well being.

Here is the point of all of these.  Just recently, cosmologists crafted another updated theory on the state of the universe. More than a couple of hundred years ago Isaac Newton thought the universe was a static clockwork of a system. He was right for the most part because his Laws of Motion held and even effectively helped humanity's trip to and back from the moon.  Albert Einstein refined everything and proved Newton was wrong about how gravity worked, although old Albert held on to the static universe idea.  When confronted later by Edwin Hubble that the universe was expanding, Albert took his lumps.  He admitted that the universal constant he came up with was his biggest blunder to kind of fudge his calculations to make the static universe work.  Lately, cosmologists have theorized that the universe is expanding even faster than first thought. Then Albert may have been vindicated about his universal constant thing.  We probably have not heard the last theory. Why?

Let's go back to the gymnasium analogy from the first paragraph. Individually, each of us is one of almost 8 billion people on a planet orbiting an average star that is one of maybe 400 billion in a galaxy, that is that one molecule of air in the gymnasium. Every now and then someone will claim to explain what goes on in that gymnasium and even explain how it came about, how everything in it works, and how  the gymnasium will hold up over time.

Anyone of us, or a combination of many who have accumulated the vast knowledge put together so far, explaining the universe would be like a handful of amoeba trying to explain and understand the human body.  In fact, a colony of amoeba will know no more about why they caused so much discomfort when their presence caused the individual person to be sick as we would know why the universe is behaving the way it does.  We are therefore no smarter than an amoeba, in a manner of speaking. Oh, but yes, we've become smart and have even now come to a point when we are able to outsource and sort intelligence from some inanimate objects we call the computer chip.  

We've become very smart indeed. But never forget that we are one insignificant micro spec in a micro spec that is tinier than a molecule of air that is one of trillions inside a gymnasium that is mostly empty space.

Lastly, a colony of amoeba can effectively affect our physiology; our antibodies have better chances to make us well from a horde of pathogens than our dis-united political and sociological world can  lower the global temperature by 1.5 deg C.

 

If It Doesn't Touch My Skin ..

In a nutshell, if the reader does not intend to read the entire musing, the title will suggest a few reasons about what had gone wrong with a world when and where every conceivable means had been tried to manage it. This would seem like a very ambitious undertaking if it were not coming from a common sense way of looking at things as all of you have perhaps already done so. Why indeed did every form of governing that seemed to have started so well at first, always fail in the end.  Rulers and rulership have come and gone in all kinds of personas and methods over eons of time, yet, here we are, still searching for the perfect way to manage our society.  It just seems inconceivable that centuries of experience, with handed down and written histories aplenty, humanity still does not have an answer; always searching but apparently not learning even when histories keep repeating.

Indeed, why is this the nature of our world? This world - confined only to this planet, of course - is a world that by itself, without us, will do well on its own as it had so before we were here. What has gone wrong is purely because we are here to ponder, contemplate, tinker with it, complain and worry about it. And yes, over many centuries we tried every which way to make it the world we prefer. What we know so far is not only far from encouraging because it seems that the quest is a fool's errand  when in so many instances it had been shown to work  only briefly and often within the single lifetime of whoever it was who came up with what at first was a brilliant idea. There were many examples of that and we will try to illustrate a few to bring that point home.

First, let's examine stories we've written  about the universal dream because these fables and tales represent our longing for that so-called "preferred world". We had King Arthur and his Camelot. He envisioned the Round Table where gallant knights sat to deliberate on the noble ideals of chivalry and righteousness among all. But like all the tales told, remembered but soon inevitably forgotten, Camelot did not last much beyond the life of King Arthur.  The "Man from La Mancha" exemplified the now common phrase of man's "quixotic" aspirations that begin with the "impossible dream", the aim "to right the unrightable wrong". What only remains true of the inspirational song is that nations have always had to worry and forever be concerned about the "unbeatable foe" and continue to "bear the unbearable sorrow".  Biblically and scripturally from our most revered source of faith, we found inspirations that we heeded only for so long with little enduring effect. Even King Solomon could not and did not keep the  kingdom David worked so hard to establish. After "forty years in the wilderness" the generation that Moses led from bondage died off, only for the next generation to no longer remember the hardships of their ancestors.

Real life history is not too far off from the above stories. Kingdoms and empires used to change hands after existing ones became oppressive and repressive toward the people they governed.  New empires were created by those motivated with high ideals to right the wrongs but soon themselves became, in no time, the oppressors. Nobility and royalty controlled the seats of power in so many places at different times but they lasted in finite periods until the next one.  These turnovers were repeated over and over for millennia until it was no longer about one kingdom destroying another - be it just across the border or a wide swath of lands near and far - for things to change.

I would like to name three pivotal points in history that led to the modern era of power shifts when those changes originated from within and not directly from without.

First, there was the earth shaking upheaval brought on by the French Revolution in 1789. That was significant because that event was the beginning of the end of the grip of nobility or inherited powers of royalty over the people of western Europe.  But what was truly notable, though not often discussed, let alone given credit, was that the French Revolution was likely influenced by what happened in 1776 in the new world that ushered the birth of one of the greatest shifts of power that occurred at a place called America, thirteen years earlier with thirteen original states.  The American Revolution was just the motivation that the French needed to free themselves from the shackles of royalty.

Just twenty years later, the last remaining major seat of royalty that was tsarist Russia was toppled by a new ideology that was actually proposed by a German thinker who later lived in exile in London, and who died years before the 1917 Russian Revolution. Russia was rid of the grip of power from a long line of royalty, represented at that time by the Tsar.

Interestingly, Karl Marx did not preach so much against royalty as he did with great fervor against capitalism. Capitalism that Karl Marx saw developing quickly in Europe but was largely a main byproduct of the new ideology that started in America was in his mind the new seat of power that did not benefit the common man and the general community of people. He actually believed that capitalism was the new oppressor, run by the new elite - the rich.

Marxism took hold and took on a new identity that was to be communism - a better and more preferred ideological name for its solid reference to the commune of people.  Of course, Karl Marx did not really see how his ideology worked, and clearly we can't know if he would have approved it then as it was later practiced in Russia, later surrogated in China, Cuba, in satellite countries like Vietnam, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and all the other eastern European countries.  

We know better today that communism, or politely labeled by its present-day proponents as socialism,  does not really work, despite the many ways it was tried. Yes, it did spread but we all know was that it was really not through peaceful means.  To soften the edges, its proponents would prefer it to be called democratic socialism.  Russia, where it begun and grew to become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), became a superpower after WWII, and lasted for just short of three generations (1922-91). It failed ultimately because it never really attained economic power. There was only so much the sword can do if not sufficiently supported by bread. Where it is still practiced today from its original textbook, Cuba - the only true last remaining communist country - is living evidence of how oppressive and repressive the ideology really is and that it is an abject failure relative to the economies of its Caribbean neighbors. But what about China?

What is an interesting footnote is that the Chinese revolution actually preceded Russia's by six years when it begun in 1911. We need to go back just a little farther back in time to see that it was in a way started as a revolution against royalty, as it was in Europe, when the last remaining Ming Dynasty was put to an end by the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), although the uprising was also anti-colonialism, anti-Christian, as it was putting an end to Chinese royalty.

China has now become both a military and economic power because it found a way to tweak the communist ideology into a hybrid of sorts. It operates its government under a communist doctrine of organization, control and enforcement but runs its economy with its own tweaked version of capitalism. Mao Zedong, if he were alive today, would have seen that the power of the sword alone was not enough until there was sufficiency in rice. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) today is a victory of the long struggle between the PRC (Mao's original People's Republic of China) and the Nationalist Party led by Chiang Kai Shek.  They were the two competing factions after the revolution.  Taiwan today, an island of 24 million people, represents what the PRC, now CCP, did not fully integrate with the mainland.

So, this brings us to the other major method of governance - democracy. Although 1776 was when the new experiment began, democracy actually started as an idea many centuries earlier when Greek philosophers came up with it. In Greek,  "demokratia" comes from two words, "demos" for people and "kratia" for rule. The Greek's version did not really take hold until it was sort of revived in the new republic centuries later in another continent. "Res publica" was Latin for public interest.

The new country, more popularly called America, would like to call itself the seat of people power - the new Republic. Its leaders are elected through a means of a fair process of letting its people decide on who should lead them. More significantly, it allows for an automatic renewal of the people's choices through regularly scheduled elections.  That way the people choose to keep the leaders they like and remove those they deem to have failed in their duties. Along with that and its tight embrace of capitalism, the country prospered both economically and militarily. More significantly, it brought those two attributes to bear against oppressive regimes that brought anguish to the world in WWI and WWII. It succeeded in helping free Europe and for decades after that it led in proxy defiance against the new ideology that began in 1917 in Russia, and it is still going on today, except that a new regime from the East has become a formidable military and economic power, with its own worldly ambitions.

Today, America is vulnerable externally and internally. It must confront a widening upheaval that seems to show cracks in its union while its ability to confront global issues turned tentatively iffy at best.  What went wrong? It is a long story. And we can only focus on a handful of reasons. Causes and effects became less apparent when politics overshadowed policies,  selective grievances became louder than the  sentiments of the majority that became inexplicably silent, relatively speaking, that is.

Inherent in a democracy is unity in purpose and identity. It stems from the simple reason that it calls for a majority to choose from among the select few who will be charged with running the government.  Now, why is it that America today is apparently split in the middle?  The cracks may be identified along these fault lines: Political, Sociological, Ideological and Educational.

The Covid pandemic revealed to the parents who until then were oblivious to the slow devolution of the educational system, according to some of the analysis by those who became concerned. Coupled with what became  a very powerful teacher's union, education in public schools has become a point of contention where it should not have been otherwise.

The sociological shift in mores or the erosion of what was generally considered "socially approved norms or standards of moral and ethical behavior" as recently as just a decade or two ago had been hijacked by the so called alternative redefinition and assignment of gender identities alongside  newly invented  "woke movement" and "cancel culture" phrases  to intimidate a population into quiet submission.

Pronouns that used to be nothing more than literary tools to clarify and enhance language are now instead sowing confusion, especially those among the youth but disastrously more so among the older generation.  Example: Alice elected to use "they" and "their" as their personally preferred neutral pronouns.  So, Alice chose ice cream at a pool party. To avoid "misgendering" later as a matter of conversation, "They" started to eat "their" ice cream while sitting by the pool". Naturally, one may ask: "Who are they and whose ice cream were they eating?" Now, you see how confusing that made a simple narrative description? Neutral gendering has become fodder for critics but nevertheless now accepted in academia (mostly) and in some notable publications.

"Neopronouns are a category of new (neo) pronouns that are increasingly used in place of “she,” “he,” or “they” when referring to a person. Some examples include: xe/xem/xyr, ze/hir/hirs, and ey/em/eir. Neopronouns can be used by anyone, though most often they are used by transgender, non-binary, and/or gender nonconforming people".

NPR (National Public Radio) published this month, "A Guide To Gender Identity Terms".

What is happening?! But is it real? Most experts claim that it is a myth. Nobody in his or her right mind is using these "neopronouns" in normal everyday conversations.  Operative word is "normal".  You see, how easily we can make this into a "Mad, Mad World"!  This is mainly because we have allowed a much too large  platform disproportionate to what is clearly a miniscule  percentage of the population (estimated at 1+%). We have recognized their plight, understand and respect their rights, and properly so, that an entire month is designated to celebrate them. We only have one Veteran's Day, and one July 4th. Thanksgiving and Memorial Days are holidays but Martin Luther King Day isn't and so is President's Day.

The traditionally gay community may reasonably take exceptions to this runaway moral ideology.  The likes of Tchaikovsky and Alan Turing whose lives are celebrated for their contributions to the arts and sciences are known for their accomplishments as human beings, not for attributions to their being gay.

The future hopes of any country - the young children - are pawns used by the new "minority" to re-educate and indoctrinate at schools and libraries and other entertainment venues for reasons that are hard to fathom, let alone sympathized with by the general population.  Some folks may have more to say on this subject but let's move on.

Climate change has become such an ideology that instead of uniting the people on how best the environment can be managed, it has become a wedge instead of the glue that used to get the people to stick together to confront what should be  a common issue. We know that extreme views and draconian mandates do not work. More so when such mandates are dictated by those who will not be affected at all, or when most of those called upon to sacrifice will see through the hypocrisy of the "holier than thou" politicians and luminaries who will go on to fly their private jets, sail in their mega yachts or live in 10,000 square foot homes, etc. The ordinary folks are urged to abandon gas stoves, told what to eat or drink, their livelihood taken away from them as pipelines, refineries, oil exploration and even agriculture, to name a few, are to be done away with. 

Clearly most folks will see through all these machinations from those whose agenda are cocooned with this attitude, "If it doesn't touch my skin, I'm okay with it for as long as I deliver the message to the multitude who collectively will do more for the environment by doing  with less fossil oil or none at all".  I do not need to feel so bad with this one little private aircraft, which I will use to spread the word in my speeches and participation on the global stage to speak against climate change.  

"Let us have those windmills and solar panels,  because if it is not in my backyard, it won't touch my skin", a NIMBY would say.

Never mind that putting the oil industry out of business is saying goodbye to earth moving equipment for road building, heavy construction, emergency and rescue vehicles, electric generators for hospitals and essential structures, rail and air transport, even garbage collection, etc. War on oil is war on the people's way of life.

This one way - activist induced only -  solution is a slap on the face of human ingenuity and ability to arrive at common ground pathways that are not destructive but rather more along the line of common sense and logic.

Democracy will work only when there is freedom of expression from all sides because that is the only guarantee  that ensures an abundance of ideas to come out in an open forum, as opposed to decisions being dictated by unelected bureaucrats in Washington.

In a democracy, the right to lead is decided by the people whose interests must first be served and not for them to serve those they elected. Today, we have a world where those elected to serve spend much of their time focused on remaining in power and controlling an agenda that is no longer sought or supported by the public.  How?  Not through the power of the sword but through material enticements. Fifty to a hundred years ago, much of what the government spends money on for entitlements did not exist.  The republic that was born for abhorring excessive taxation is now a government that imposes punishing taxes for the middle class on programs dedicated to keeping just enough of the electorate to keep voting career politicians in perpetual seats of power. 

Politicians who do not spend a single penny of their own money so easily disburse public funds because, "If it doesn't touch my skin .."

That is the world we live in today. It seems quite obvious by now that every conceivable way humanly possible of tinkering with the running of governments has been tried. Every experiment has failed. 

What only remains that hasn't been tried but not for lack of attempts by many in the past, is unfortunately the very one that is only met with so much disagreement.  Those disagreements have actually brought violent confrontations over centuries of fighting in the name of religion. Naturally, we got it all wrong because we mistook religion for the supreme benevolence of the true Super Power we all struggle to understand or appreciate.  

I do not offer a prescription except to say that perhaps we've been doing our searches the wrong way. A truly benevolent government that will stand the test of time is the one that will proclaim, 

"It is I alone and  everyone who touches My skin will see with clarity the Light that was there all along since the beginning of time".

 

 

Conceivable Dreams

Are dreams -  not those during REM-sleep but when we're wide awake  - supposed to be always the inconceivable kind? Or, was it what Don Quixote in "The Man From La Mancha" declared in a song: "The Impossible Dream"? Or, are they as aspirational as that which shook and changed the nation in Martin Luther's "I Have a Dream" speech at the Washington mall in 1963? Is it still a dream if it were the conceivable kind?

We all dream, even when awake, sometimes seriously and often, but no less frequently we also day-dream.  The latter is a mix of wishes, aspirations, and a no-holds-bar inconceivable desires or craving for something almost unattainable as to be relegated only in the realm of miracles; except, miracles happen sometimes, don't they? Yes, we all dream and they're different not only from person to person but from one phase to another in a person's life. These dreams change because people change, their circumstances change, their world has changed, their needs constantly change.

First, let's ask this question.  Do you dream in your sleep in color? Think about that for a minute.  Some people aren't sure; others have not really thought about it; some say it depends on the dream. Apparently, nightmares and bad dreams are always in black and white.  Not sure why. Happy dreams are remembered to be in color, or colorful. Actually, surveys are split.  Among the youth, they claim to dream in color, while most older folks believe they dream in black and white. So, personally, what do you think?  Chances are, you are not so sure anymore, are you?

Back to dreams we make up while fully awake.  There is no argument that we, in general, indulge in fantasy or wishful dreams and some of those dreams we pursue based on having the ability to at least try or we have the capacity within reason to attempt to achieve. It is totally reasonable to expect certain dreams to be conceivable. But what is conceivable to one is pure fantasy to another. 

A hot shot Wall Street trader on a good year can conceivably dream about a brand new Porsche at year's end when bonuses are handed out. Three floors below on the same street that this trader walks every day to and from an exclusive garage, a hot dog vendor may dream about the same Porsche he sees in the movies or TV ads, but that would all be pure fantasy to him. However, as I alluded to in the second paragraph, miracles do happen - such as, from the winning Power Ball  jackpot ticket; but such is itself one inconceivably long shot. Same dream for a hot shot trader and a hot dog vendor, separated by a wide chasm between what is conceivable and what is not.

Growing up on a Pacific island after the war, when I was between five and seven years old, one of countless post-war babies who were fortunate to have survived birth, reared by shell-shocked parents, during the year of independence as a country after fifty years as a U.S. colony, our young minds had too much to process.  As a young child, I thought of our world on the island as one that was in black and white, and the distant far away place we knew to be America was in color, more specifically in Technicolor. This was despite the fact that the environment around the island was filled with green vegetation, lush rice fields that turned from undulating green to a golden mat at harvest time under blue skies, flowers that bloomed year round in bright colors - all the qualities that define a tropical island.  So, why did that child's mind think that America was in color to our black and white world?

Well, both national and local papers were in black and white, and so were Filipino movies (then) while "Shane" and "War of the Worlds" were in color.  DC comics and Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" series (all in color)  were much too expensive to own  for the kids from my poor neighborhood, so we would go to this local book store where upstairs they rented comic books for on-site reading on tables and desks. To save money a group of four or five of us will  rent one comic book each and we'd exchange them round-table-wise until we've read them all. That took us all a good part of an afternoon. "Superman", "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Robinson Crusoe" (Fairy tales and Junior classics section) were all in color.  National Geographic was in color.  It was strange that I thought my world was in black and white while this land from somewhere so far away, we would imagine to be in color. Like I said, that was out of a child's mind.

Our early education was a hold over from half a century as a U.S. colony. Teachers were a product of the old system. American history was still part of civics classes along with learning about the newly minted republic that was an exact copy of the U.S. electoral system of mayors, city councils, the House of Representatives and the Senate, down to the parliamentary and election rules.  Although the present date of Independence Day has changed, the original Philippine Independence Day was July 4, 1946, which stood for decades until it was revised to June 12, which was the date of Independence from Spain in 1898.  Not to be forgotten, The Philippines was a Spanish colony for three hundred years. But lest we forget, 1898 was the year Spain lost the colony to the U.S. immediately after the Spanish-American War, along with Cuba and Puerto Rico.

So, in elementary school we knew by heart "America the Beautiful" and the new Philippine national anthem. We would sing "for purple mountains and amber waves of grain" that to me further reinforced the image of America in color. Though predominantly a catholic nation from the time Spain took over the archipelago, Christmas songs soon switched to American influence, so that we would sing "Jingle Bells" with gusto, although we had no clue what "dashing through the snow" were really like and what "sleigh bells" were for. Artificial Christmas trees were shaped like pine trees although pine was not a common local species. 

Post liberation after WWII, much of the country was poor.  Economic progress was slow. Post war babies turned teenagers, then to young adults and some went on to college. I was one of the fortunate ones to finish with an engineering degree from a university that was founded by an American missionary back in 1901. I had outgrown my fascination with a colorful America. I worked for a multinational petroleum company, got married; my wife and I had two children.

It was a happy middle class life; much of my "dreams" were fulfilled. My first airplane flight was not until I went to Manila for a job but it was preceded by many decades of day dreaming about it when we can only watch planes take off and land at the nearby airport. I never dreamed that later in my job I would be taking frequent business flights, including one overseas. We had a car - a luxury then during that time - although I didn't know how to drive until well after my 23rd birthday, five years after college.

My wife had a dream of her own. Before we met she had applied to immigrate to the U.S. It was three years later when she got a letter from the State Dept. with the forms necessary to start the process. But we were going to get married, I just started my dream job at the multinational company and my childhood dream of a colorful America a mere mental footnote; therefore, I was not too keen to uproot our lives and start over at a distant land.  So, she simply did not start the process.

Fast forward to seven years later, after a couple of moves to other parts of the country, we moved back to Manila. A letter came in the mail at her parents address from the U.S. State Dept. To make the story short, she went through with the process.  I was still un-enthusiastic but I went along for the interview since her application was now for the entire family. The vice-consul who interviewed us convinced me. Reading our submitted resumes and work experiences, he encouraged us to seriously consider immigrating to the U.S. and reminded us that if we did not avail of the opportunity, it will go to the next applicant in-line.  Approval was quick but we had to leave within the next 4-6 months.

As we settled into our seats in the cavernous belly of a 747 jumbo jet, I, for a brief moment, was transported back in time of the six-year-old wondering about a far away land in color.  All four of us were on that plane with tickets courtesy of the airline's "Fly Now Pay Later" program. No payment due until we were able,  via an installment plan to begin after securing employment. Mind you, the U.S. was in a recession, in the middle of an oil crisis as a result of the OPEC embargo. But I was convinced we were going to a land that was in Technicolor.  We paid for those tickets plus interest  starting on the first paycheck.  I don't remember for how long but it was fully paid,

The inconceivable dream of a young boy came true. We were blessed, I must acknowledge that. It was my wife's dream that started it but  the first few years of (any) immigrants' life were not easy but somehow not only that dreams kept evolving as our own lives kept changing, the dreams became more and more conceivable. Where and how we live now, compared to the nipa-thatched roof, with no electricity and no indoor plumbing throughout all my first sixteen years of age when the village was finally patched into the expanding electrical grid (still no indoor plumbing though), can only be described as one inconceivable dream that came true. 

Of course, there are countless stories like ours. Other narratives are more spectacular, perhaps some are more inconceivable miracles. One thing is consistent with these stories.  Many of these fortunate folks never stopped dreaming.  And oftentimes, the dreams become more and more conceivable, given enough time to pursue them, and learning along the way not only to recognize what is truly achievable and what is merely a pleasant day dream. 

Whatever our circumstances are, to dream evokes optimism, to not dream or do less of it is to be pessimistic about the future. We should not stop dreaming because that day when we do stop is the day we have given up.     

 

  

To Have and Have Not

"That is the question". Just like that, and a bit shamelessly, I managed to borrow from Shakespeare and pretend I've read Hemmingway's book, "To Have and Have Not". So, no, this is neither a review nor critique of "Hamlet" and Hemingway's work.  However, it is almost too easy to correlate the two titles - "To be or not to be" and "To have and Have Not" because what else could conceivably, if not logically, follow but, "That is the question".  I think I got that all cleared away. 

To have - whatever it is we want to possess - is not only a fundamental human trait, but true as well for every living thing. "To have" is as basic  a possessive desire by us as it is for a chimpanzee or chipmunk, or  for an eagle or  egret. 

Furthermore, before we get to the nitty-gritty, the English language being the way that it is, or aside from being the most effective communications tool in modern-day languages, gave us along with "to have" - two other so called auxiliary verbs : "to be" and "to do".

I think it is fascinating - the English language, that is - and by that let's just get to a few examples;

"To have" is a main verb in, "We have a good conversation".

It becomes an auxiliary verb in, "Having said that, let's go to the next subject".

Now even more fascinating, it can be both an active and auxiliary verb in the same sentence, even in consecutive order as in, "We have had these conversations before". Or, "Some of our colleagues though had had a difficult time maintaining a conversation earlier today".

So, aside from its ability to confuse and frustrate a non-English speaker, English can be challenging and fascinating to anyone trying to learn it. And "to have" is one impactful and effective verb the non-native speaker of the language will have learned over time {see, now  it is used as a future perfect tense, another tool for the English student}.

Now, and not a second too soon, let's disentangle ourselves from the methods  and  madness that is English grammar. Let's talk about what it feels like to have and then to have not.

From an earlier blog I wrote then, "No one appreciates what it is to have who does not realize what it is like to have nothing". Indeed, our desire to have may only be equaled by our fear of losing what we just had.  More often than not, those born with the riches their parents worked so hard to have, have little appreciation for it because they do not have the inherent fear that their parents had of losing what may have taken years to have. 

And that could very well be happening to an almost three century-old republic where those who inherited its riches are prone to not appreciate what it is they have until it is no longer there. When Benjamin Franklin was asked if what the founding fathers created was a monarchy or a republic, he replied, "A republic, if you can keep it". History tells us that for hundreds and hundreds of years people -  emperors and kings, benevolent leaders and despots alike - failed to keep kingdoms and governments to continue their intended existence over time. In fact, on average, empires and kingdoms  did not last for more than 250 years. 

Failing to appreciate what it was they had was and will always be the real, if not the only, reason for people's inability to keep what they had until it was no longer there. Unfortunately, for nations and empires, how it happens is imperceptible until they find out that the slow ebbing of the tide of power is realized too late.

Such power this nation attained, economic and military, was purchased with blood and the sacrifices of countless individuals to attain and keep for well over two hundred years. Battles were fought here and abroad in the name of freedom. Young people in the prime of their lives shipped out to foreign shores to defend people they did not know, countries they've never heard before until the time they were called upon to offer themselves at the altar of freedom for those gripped by tyranny and injustice.

Today, we are merely asked to set aside Memorial Day in honor of those men and women.

 

To have and have not are always bookended by honor and sacrifices.  Benjamin Franklin seemed to have warned and worried about whether the young nation then could actually keep what it just had for far longer than many others that preceded it from all corners of the world from centuries past.  

"To have" took a strong moral compass that guided this nation. To not have to rely on that compass any longer is the surest path to losing what it had enjoyed for the last two-and-a half centuries. 

Since I have not read Hemingway's book I have no idea what he had in mind. Of course, he had a knack for book titles that were often intriguing, such as, "Farewell To Arms", "The Sun Also Rises", "For Whom The Bell Tolls, "True At First Light", etc.  

Someday I will read, "To Have and Have Not" but for now it suffices as an encouragement for us to value what we have and be constantly vigilant that for something to have not is easier to attain  than it was to have had it in the first place.