A Brief Interlude

(Actually, these are boxer shorts, not briefs.)



In light of the Christmas season (pun intended), I will be taking
a brief hiatus from blogging for a week or more. In the meantime,
have a great Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year!

The Presses Are Rolling - All Over Us

I understand that newspapers are losing readership to electronic
media, but I also hear that newspaper publishers everywhere are
being bid for at rising prices. What is going on?



Freedom of the press
has been the approved moral position of our culture for centuries.
During those same years, however, monopolization of the
press &mdash which began with moveable type and now charges
ahead in this mystifying time of digital "yes" and "no" &mdash
has had its loyal supporters.



In the sea of media in which we are engulfed, there is an
endless supply of such contradictory stances.
We have mounting evidence of the dreadful cost to society of
obesity, together with increasingly skillful manipulation of
our eating habits by advertising agencies (in the direction of
more calories). We witness encroaching centralized control of
media, and simultaneously unfettered freedom for individuals,
as exemplified by this very blog (among
millions).
We are lectured to by those who would guide us to financial
freedom through prudent savings, and we are overwhelmed by
vendors promising us:
"Buy now, and don't pay anything for 12 months!"



Free enterprise and freedom of the press must mean that we
are free to read, to look, to listen, to do whatever we like.
No doubt there are some who turn everything off as they go about
their mental lives, but they are indeed few. Most of us abhor
silence, and welcome input. When forced to wait, we pick up
something to read or listen to or even to watch. Of course,
it must be our own fault if, in so doing, we invite pressures
on ourselves &mdash or is it?



Philosophize as we will, in the meantime the free presses are
rolling, and rolling all over us. All this begs the question:
Are we as "free" as they are? That should make us think. At least
we are still free to do that &mdash the last time I checked.

Words Of Wisdom

Recently, I bought a book at a temporary stall set up in the
entrance to a
Salvation Army
hospital. It cost $11.99, and in retrospect I should have bought
more of their books. It is called "8000 Things You Should Know",
and thanks to
plagiarism,
it could supply blog material for as long as I live.
I suppose not all 8000 will be "words of wisdom", but undoubtedly
some of them will. In the spirit of that book, here are
a few other insightful (and pithy) remarks. These are taken
from an old clipping of unknown origin, and I hereby borrow them
for "my" column.

• Mark Twain: Golf is a good walk spoiled.


• Lily Tomlin: The trouble with the rat race is
  that even if you win, you are still a rat.


• Groucho Marx: Military intelligence is a
  contradiction in terms.


• Voltaire: The art of medicine consists in amusing
  the patient while nature cures the disease.


• Gioacchino Rossini: How wonderful opera would be
  if there were no singers.


• John Ciardi: There is nothing wrong with sobriety
  in moderation.


• Woody Allen: I took a speed reading course and
  read "War and Peace" in 20 minutes. It involves Russia.


• Dorothy Parker: Brevity is the soul of lingerie.


• G.K. Chesterton: To be clever enough to get a
  great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

I have some words of wisdom of my own that I have amassed over
the years. But enough — I don't want to overdo it.
As Solomon mysteriously admonished,
"Do not be overly wise".

Age Equals Incompetence, Right?

As we grow older, our senses and physical abilities tend to
become less available and less effective, but many of us take for
granted that this happens on something of a time schedule, just as
the leaves fall in the fall, and then comes winter. I suppose,
as it is December and the leaves are long gone, and as I will be 93
the day before Christmas, that I am being personal again.



I have
written before
about the tendency of people to regard me as changed since I am
over 90. Some of those closest to me are among this lot. I do
observe that I drive more carefully now, but this is because
I want to avoid any discussion with the authorities about age
if I commit some tiny infraction. I accept that eventually
time
conquers all, but I also know that individual schedules are
hard to predict.



Composers create music, and musicians give concerts well into
their late eighties. We see people of that "ripeness" completing
marathons, even if not winning them any longer. Writers and
scientists do very well at similar ages. Understanding
accumulates, I think — I was party to matters in
my fifties that I am too "smart" to touch now. The
"been there, done that" flavour of wisdom does not suffer with
the passage of time.



Some societies, as
termites
and primitive human groups, pool their learned and instinctive
behaviour, acting as the group "knows" how to act, often avoiding
pitfalls thereby (sometimes literally). This collective wisdom
is passed down from generation to generation, a group inheritance
of sorts. However, it is difficult to find examples of such complete
cooperation in our Western society, or of such attention being paid
to the knowledge of elders. In the rush of modern culture, is the
voice of the older individual still heard?

In Mourning, Among Her Souvenirs

My first wife, as I have always reminded her she is, is in the
hospital, and has not been home for over eight weeks. She has had
many ongoing medical conditions, from hereditary thyroid deficiency
to Type 2 diabetes. Her heart efficiency is about 30% after
a heart attack in October, and now her blood sugar levels call for
monitoring and readily available insulin. And what can I say
about myself other than that I am in mourning?



Here I am, in a home where I am surrounded by her choices of
nearly everything I look at. As you come in the front door,
a lovely big bowl of fake flowers greets you, and the walls have
her framed selections, some of family memories. In the off-kitchen
eating area &mdash as we have eliminated a definite dining
room &mdash the wall decorations range from extremely good to
great, and the junk in the adjoining kitchen is definitely OK.
In short, Margaret Hilda MacLeod Crowdis, my present wife,
is just everywhere.



In the middle of the night, I am careful when I get up for
drainage purposes, so as not to disturb her who is not there.
In the morning, I always come downstairs early to read the papers,
and can't help thinking about her preferences for breakfast.
Since I am almost 93, what do you think I think of during
those early hours but the future, and what on earth
(good expression) I can do about it?



Between missing Margie, and wondering when we will again share
the same residence, I am simply reduced to this: I am in mourning
among her souvenirs.

We Begin To Die ...

As I am contemplating my 93rd birthday this coming Christmas Eve,
my thoughts are, of course, on life with all its mysteries, and
on death with some mysteries of its own. As has been said,
"If we knew all about anything, we would know all about everything".
I am still alive, but not as "alive" as I once was, and I realize
that this process has been gradual and inexorable. As I approach
death, I ask questions concerning when I was most alive, and I have
reason to think it was just following

that
lucky sperm being allowed into that lucky egg.

The speed of division and specialization was never so great again.
I am very aware that my cell replication and repair processes
are still slowing, and that this can only result in something vital
not happening, or not happening correctly enough. Then I will,
for the record, die, although many of my tissues will be sufficiently
alive to be usable by a lucky, compatible, somebody. This is a
fascinating thought, that parts of me might "live" after I have
died.



Taken all together, though, I would choose to stay here &mdash
in one piece and in good shape, of course &mdash indefinitely
longer. I would not object to being the oldest human on the planet
by a hundred years or so. Or would I? Some things,

like sex and good food, might lose their sensory appeal altogether.

In any case, this is not my decision to make. We cannot reverse,
or even alter, the
arrow of time.
Tissues will repair more slowly and less perfectly, and eventually
some tissue we need will fail entirely. As we slow, we prepare
to die, and then we do.

Thomas Edison Was Deaf, Wasn't He?

It is well known that
Thomas Edison
was deaf, but later in life, when he was famous (to say the least),
a specialist told him that it might be possible to repair his
hearing. However Edison declined the offer, saying that this way
he could hear when he wanted to hear (and sometimes he heard things
to his advantage that others obviously did not intend for him to hear).
It was a sort of tranquility on demand.



This brings up several questions in matters of morality, of ethics.
Was this honest, to pretend what was not (entirely) so? How many
of us tell others everything we know? Should we, no matter how
we acquire information? Why was Edison permitted to be left alone
to work productively because of his "affliction", when otherwise
his time (like ours) might have been taken up by someone wanting
to sell him some thing or some idea?



To be sure, it was sneaky, but who isn't? As Jesus said, "Let him
who is without sin cast the first stone". Now think of
all that Edison accomplished —
and of the thousands of things he tried that did not succeed,
which he viewed as successful because he wouldn't try them again.
Apparently, Edison did not regard himself as lonely, for he could
communicate with others when he cared to. Another famous man who
valued being left along was
Alexander Graham Bell,
who often spent weekends on his houseboat to get away from
the telephone.



My title is a question, and the answer is: Define "deaf". Hearing,
like sight, mobility, and health in general, is so involved with
other considerations that we can only say, as in most matters,
"it depends".