cheJake

Self-discipline?

2011-08-04T17:32:00.002+02:00

This is my first post since 2009. It's been a while. I felt like writing as a way to sort out things that have been on my mind. Writing to my old blog seemed more to my liking than to just writing to a word document or to the little spiral notebook I've started carrying around with me.

I feel at this moment rather displeased with myself and uncertain what to do about it. I chalk this up to my lack of planning and self-discipline. It so happens that at the moment I'm here with my 11-year-old son, Eldar, in the resort town of Fethiye, in SW Turkey. In five days time we will head to Budapest, Hungary, where we formerly lived. We'll be there for three weeks. Then we return to Fethiye. The whole summer has seen us jumping around from place to place in this part of Turkey, together and as smaller subunits of our family of three. We've experienced some interesting and beautiful places, to be sure. These included the Patika Yoga Center in the wooded cliffs above the Mediterranean in Faralya, an hour from here. I liked it a lot, a real eco-resort with a genuine emphasis on permaculture and healthy living. Other places we've/I've spent time at this summer have been nice for their natural beauty (Kabak, Butterfly Valley) and for their creative atmosphere (Sanat Art Camp in Kaya Koy), but Patika really came closest to my ideal. Rather few people, no smoking, great swimming, Yoga, vegetarian food, community, etc. I will tell the leader, Erol, that I really love his place and want to be more involved there once we're back. I actually wouldn't mind living there. The trouble is that we'd have to live out of a tent and that could be uncomfortable in the winter with the rain and cold. But if it were possible to rent the house next door where we stayed for some weeks this summer, perhaps that could work. Eldar would have to attend the tiny school up there, but he would get a different sort of education at Patika. I could help Erol build and repair the place in the winter months and Lucia could teach Yoga and do other things. I'll have to find out what Erol's plans are.

It's important for me to make best use of my time in Budapest. It's important for us all to. I need to set up meetings before we go and schedule my time for once we're there. Lucia will be disappointed that we're not to be staying at Sun Palace above from the World Class Fitness Club. She'll have to enroll somewhere else and make best use of her time. If it can be time well spent, then it won't be bad.

I fee it's important for me to use my time in a way that leaves me feeling satisfied and happy. I'm not certain what that is, because I haven't really been thinking much about Budapest lately.

In the art camp I started writing my book. This left me feeling satisfied and happy. Therefore, I need to give myself time to do this. It's a good project for me this year, having recently turned 44. If I wake up early enough, by 600h, meditate for an hour, then write 2-3 hours everyday before eating or practicing Yoga, that should be good. I could start tomorrow here in Fethiye. It could really give meaning to my life. Having a schedule and following it should give me structure and freedom. Sure, there are all sorts of other things that I think I might want to do, but writing this book is the one thing I am most certain of at this time. I still have the resources to make it happen, so I should do it. Excellent! I have a plan.

the post-human soul

2009-11-03T16:41:00.003+01:00

Technology, our problem child without a soul?

Humans' relationship with technology is an interesting one. It can be said that humans invented tools to make their lives easier. That said, this invention gave life to technology. Tools led to machines. Machines led to robots and computers. Today's technology is a world of integrated machines, robots and computers. Technology grows ever more pervasive and complex, all the time consuming more and more resources and power. Increasingly, human beings are employed in service to technology rather than the other way round. It is therefore logical that such films as those in the Terminator series or TV shows such as the Star Trek episode "What are Little Girls Made of?" derive from human anxieties over the prospect of one day being phased out by the very machines we gave birth to and reared. Both these examples depicted a world where technology alone is void without the presence of the human soul. Alone, robots and computers are too calculating and lacking in sympathy, these examples implied, to effectively replace humans.

But could it be that technology will survive human beings no matter what? Is this what Wall-e was about? (I didn't see it.) That was basically the plot of Kubrick/Spielberg's AI. But in AI, the robot boy did appear to possess feelings. But that may not be relevant.

Western Man in Search of a Soul

Much of what gives us humans our character is that while we as a species possess common characteristics of appearence and behavior, we live and function as isolated individuals. While we can communicate and share with each other, we ultimately die alone. Some say - and I may yet agree with them - that while our physical bodies die alone, all that each of us experiences is part of something collective and/or universal. But particularly in the West, there is a powerful notion of individual existence. It is exactly this which makes Western humans human, makes our lives so precious, gives our property value, etc.

What will be the soul of technology?

The way technology seems to be moving, and the direction it apparently *must* move if it is to have a post-human existence, is one of total integration. This would be an existance where every component of technology is part of some larger self-sustaining system full of monitors and checks and maintance and repair mechanisms. We humans have such system, but we a population of physically nearly identical units. Technology is and likely will continue to be a vast array of widely varied components with vast physical differences. The brains behind this technology may consist of individual processors and neural networks, but it would not be easily compared to the world of us humans. But for technology to survive human beings, it needs an overarching consciousness to observe, govern and guide itself.

2009-10-30T19:15:00.003+01:00

I just had some cool ideas for Turkey, where we plan to go next January, the start of an 8 month stay. I also had some cool ideas for the classes I'm teaching and some excellent business ideas and discoveries for my time here in Hungary and for our return.

Laszlo Horvath just bought a building that he will make into a university. I think it's a great idea. For its size, Hungary has damned few colleges and university and way too few in the countryside. It could be very useful to pull people I know together on this from McDaniel. Get them involved,

For my communications class, I have a neat way to learn Turkish. I will tell the class that for the first hour of each class we will learn English, but for the second half of each class we will learn a foreign language, starting with Turkish because the Turkish boys missed so many classes at the beginning of the semester.

For my Journalism class, I will show Star Trek episodes this week and discussion will be held afterwards.

I myself would like to open a university here in Hungary at Matraszentimre, Hungary's highest settlement, in the same range as Mt. Kékes, the *Everest* of Hungary. There is a beautiful old church in neighboring Matraszentlaszlo that could serve as the conerstone building, suitable as a lecture hall during the week and a chapel on the weekends. As the church likely owns the building, we would go into partnership with them and open it as a fee-charging Catholic university. Work study programs would be available whereby students would get tuition waivers and a modest stipend if they do some useful job, and do it well.

In Turkey, I think Lucia should hire old grandmothers in the hills to produce fashion-worthy garments by following the designs of leading Hungarian designers for export to highstreet market locations. Also, in Fethiye I think we should restore the ancient amphitheatre to its original condition and use it as a theatre for the finest performances. I would like to do so with the assistance of Michael Tippin, the man who restored the Flatiron Building in Toronto and many other historical landmarks across the globe. The amphitheatre would draw the finest yachtsmen from around the world into the harbor. It could become a true palace of the arts without the rough nature of other resorts frequented by the four-wheeling, beer guzzling stag party crowd.

Should robots replace humans?

2009-03-14T08:30:00.003+01:00

Should robots replace humans? As technology advances, robots could be made to look better, work harder and more efficiently and get along better than we humans do. When a robot has a problem, it can be repaired Humans, other other hand are not so easily maintained. They eventually expire and their performance and appearance both deteriorate over time.

Assuming that robotic consciousness could be advanced to a level that rivals humans', certain issues that plague humans would be rendered non-issues. Humans tend to freak out when they see that the image in the mirror doesn't measure up when compared to the 20-sweep photoshopped image they see on the cover of a magazine. With regular - daily? - automated maintenance, robots could look great all the time.

Other human weaknesses could be programmed out. Jealousy, laziness, anger, greed, lust, hatred, despair and any others would simply not be included in the robots' operating systems.

Naturally, robots shouldn't replace humans all at once. Rather, they could be phased in. Human disadvantages and even strengths could actually be utilized to advance this transformation. Robot models could be introduced on the catwalks with the goal of beating out their human counterparts. Unlike human models, the robots could be "photoshopped" in real life. They would be built and maintained to present the archetypal image of human beauty, better than any human ever could, especially over time. In other workplaces, robots could be built and programmed to replace humans in a process of attrition. Every human would be repalced by a robot (likely fewer robots would be needed than humans) as the humans retire or die. Whether the job be mechanic, athlete or jazz musician, in time there would be not need for humans in the global economy.

Human fears about being phased out of existence needn't be a concern. The last phase of human existence would be rendered more pleasant than any previous period in the human epoch. Robots would systematically clean up the mess humans have made of the planet. They would sort out world peace, renewable energy, transportation, agriculture, education, health care, government, corporate management, what have you. They would always do their best and they would never make mistakes.

The human phase-out could be achieved easliy as all remaining humans could be matched with the optimal robot partners and spouses who would attend to every human need in ways that no humans could. If children were disired, then perfect - perfectly behaved - robot children could be painlessly produced. After a while, human beings would vanish into blissful non-existence.

As for the human legacy, that could be carried out by robots in such manner that would make the human spirit swell with pride. Robots would pursue technical, artistic, even athletic achievement with more determination, perseverence and alacrity than their human forerunners could dream of. Robot astronauts could fly out into the heavans, build space stations and colonies on distant worlds, all in the name of the great humans that came before them. The Earth itself would be restored as a veritible garden of eden, an impeccably managed ecosystem free of human contanimation.

This vision of the future may well represent an inevitability. But I suspect not. Robots will most very likely replace human beings. But the kind of robots and the kind of world they inhabit and govern will depend on the actions of humans today. If we humans truely want the best world possible for our robot successors, we need to play an active role in our own replacement. A simple, yet comprehensive plan should be drawn up. As stated, robots should be introduced into human society unobtrusively in phases. And each robot needs to be designed, built and maintained to be better than the human it is intended to replace, both in terms of performance and ethics. If this approach is taken, the human contribution can be made in a way that oustrips that which we feeble organic creatures currently make on our own. As the mythical Titans were to the Gods, and the Gods to us Humans, we can indeed parent a better race to take over where we leave off.

Mountain bound

2009-01-28T21:59:00.002+01:00

Next week I return to teaching my classes at McDaniel College Budapest, Intro to Journalism and Public Speaking. I'll also be starting a four-person seminar at Euler Hermes, a credit insurance company. So things will soon get busy.

But I digress from my reflections. It's 28 January and Spring feels like it's on its way. It's rainy and still cold, but not freezing anymore.

John Updike is dead. I haven't yet felt compelled to read any of his work. I'm reading the Little Princess. I shall now got read some more before Lucia turns out the light.

Holidays Over

2009-01-06T12:34:00.002+01:00

The holidays are passed. Cindi Rosner, my friend from high school has been visiting us. She came last Wednesday and leaves tomorrow. Before she came, my friend Claudia Raths, the jazz saxophonist from Switzerland was in town for a week or so to bring her son to be with his Hungarian father for the winter holidays. Cindi, Eldar and I went to an expat Christmas party hosted by long-time expat Tom Popper to which Claudia also came, at my invitation. But I see now that you can read about that in my previous post. I can tell now that my stress level has increased since then. The biggest reason for that is that I've had to get back to work. I'm working on a research project now that I realise got off on the wrong track because I failed to negotiate the terms of the work in the beginning. Now I see that the money figure wasn't sorted out and I have a significantly smaller budget than I had thought. And I may have to do a larger portion of the work than I originally thought. But I can deal with this. Meditation will be important this week.

Sunday night I basically pulled an all-nighter getting the text of my interview with Michael Tippin put into order for the BBJ. I got it done and was able to get out to a new Hungarian client in the morning on Monday.

Suddenly money for the coming months is an issue. I had wanted to just teach two classes, both at McDaniel and not teach a course at the Budapest Communications College. Now I'm beginning to think it might not be such a bad idea to teach a single class there. I floated the idea past them about a class on "Freakonomics" and it seemed to go over OK. I'll ask if this is still a possibility.

It's been an experience spending some time with Claudia after some years and then seeing Cindia again whom I last saw over a year and a half ago. Two very different personalities and two very different friendships.

Now Holidays are over and responsibilities begin again. My new Year's resolution was to make better use of my time and to go to Kevin Gardener's Yoga class before the end of January.

How could I make good use of my time today? At two, I shall ring Nenad, then call 3 or 4 real estate people to get useful input for this research. And I'll send some emails. Then I'll meditate at 16:30. Later I'll hang out with Cindi, this being her last night in town.

My impulse is to do all those things I haven't been doing . . . now that I have things I have to do.

Christmas Day 2008

2008-12-25T13:15:00.002+01:00

White Christmas, as hoped for. Just a sprinkling and probably not much down in Pest, on the other side of the river. But up and over here in Buda, high in the hills, we have a sprinkled white frosting on the grass and on the patio.

Yesterday evening we went to a Christmas party at Tom Popper's. Tom is a long-time expat who has a history of holding parties, especially at the holidays.

It started out very nicely, a small crowd of expatriate "orphans" who had no local family and who hadn't themselves gone abroad for the holiday. There were some families with children and some old friends. Eldar had fun running around with the other kids. Perhaps because people tended to drift in and out and because there was no MC - Tom is a great host, but no MC - there were no toasts and no prayers and a lack of esprit de corps. Sort of fractured social affair, like a trip to the pub. Later, after the kids had mostly gone, the mood darkened into a drunken smoky late night at one of the junkyard taverns that many of the stragglers still there pack into. Intriguingly, at that stage, in the hours of the early morning, the party itself was packed. Why is it that the artist/boho crowd take so long to get out? Among the artists there assembled, I'm sure there was talent. But talented aritsts in Hungary, perhaps oppressed by economic hardship and lack of opportunity, tend to be prone to depression and substance abuse, along with proactve social skills and graces.

It was very nice to hang out with my old friend Claudia yesterday. I spent a few hours at her flat during the day and then later - after some convincing - she showed up at the party. Claudia is Swiss, but during a previous period, she spent more than a decade here and the local artist boho mindset had some effect. So she came a bit late. But she enjoyed herself. Another old friend, Pierre, was strangely cold to me. It strikes me as curious how people who run in government and corporate circles tend to be (outwardly, at least) far less moody and generally so much friendlier and engaging than these "real" people.

Today Eldar opened his presents, a big 3 in 1 lego ship, a pair of books, a Popeye DVD, some clothes, Turkish cookies. Lucia got a new video camera and tripod. I got a scarf and an electric razor.

Now it's 27 December. On Christmas Day, the evening thereof, we went to our friends Christopher's and Sophie's place. Christopher is a rock musician of mixed Californian and German parentage. His stepfather, who was there with his Californian mom, is also German. Also there was Pierre, who readers of this blog will remember from earlier entries. It was a great evening. Lucia shot on her new camera Maomi, Christopher's stepmom who is herself a documentary filmmaker for the past 40 years. And Adrian, her German husband was also good for some intriguing footage, telling a story of how the banana that is typically spelled with "b" but sometimes with "s."

Christopher's flat is so cool. The tiles and the furniture and the kitchen and the original art and framed photos on the walls give it a Western US, Central Turkish sort of feel, sort of desert pioneer. Maomi's place next door has its own groovy vibe, lots of pink and red and walls full of framed photos. Great kilims and antique furniture.

I made a lentil and laska mushroom lasagna. Others ate a roast beef. Then there was Sophie's homemade beigli, one with poppy seeds and the other with walnuts. Beigli is a Hungarian Christmas cake, dough rolled up with walnut or poppyseed paste and then baked. Delicious. I had a piece of the spacecake I'd made the night before where I'd served it at the party (I'm also munching on one now.)

Tonight we're off to see some friends perform.

Morning Thoughts

2008-12-13T08:03:00.005+01:00

Funny thoughts this morning. Just sat up. 8 a.m., Saturday. In times past, I'd be meditating now, then practicing Yoga. These things are good and I will at least practice Yoga this morning. But I've had thoughts.

Yesterday I interviewed Michael Tippen, successful Canadian buyer and restorer of historically and architecturally significant buildings. He's the same age as me. Practices Yoga and eats a raw food diet. Clearly has a vision of a better world and is working toward enabling that vision to become reality. His head does not appear clouded by spite, anger or pet fetish. Unlike mine. I will be publishing this interview, which is good.

Many hours after the interview was over, Lucia, Eldar and I watched the film "Awakenings" on the computer last night. About people who were catatonic as the result of an illness. A doctor was able to "awaken" them for a few months and they were conscious and able to speak and move around on their own, thanks to "el dopa," a synthetic dopamine. The hospital imagery was a bit weird for me, familiar owing to my own stays in hospitals, I suppose.

Funny how I was feeling inadequate comparing myself to Tippen. Like there was something wrong with me for not being him. Something wrong with me, like the characters in the film. Catatonic. Or just bad, thinning hair. Spite, anger, governed by pet fetish.

Lucia attended the interview with Tippen. It was very nice to have her there. She took photos of Tippen's vast and beautiful office, filled with happy and productive people. She sat looking lovely, listening attentively to Tippen speak about his professional history, achievements and philosophy. He appeared to appreciate her. For one thing, she gave him an additional set of eyes to contact with while he spoke. I was looking at my notepad much of the time. His assistant Zsofia, a very pleasant, lovely and well-witted young woman was also there. So it was like they were his audience and I was his scribe. All of us seated in this thoughtfully appointed meeting room, adorned according to his taste, while he shared his thoughts and his story.

Funny how blogs and Internet content in general affect people. Post something on a blog and it's there for everyone to see. Of course, very few people will see it. But they could. I personally love the idea that I can be so public with my private thoughts. But more than once people have let me know they weren't pleased with what I wrote about them and demanded that I remove it. I felt to do so would be an historical injustice. Not that what I wrote had been a perfect account of history, but it had been an account, written freely and representing my point of view at the time I wrote it. But people often don't like the sound of their own voices when play back from an audio recording. And people are fussy about what pictures of them are allowed to exist.

The way I see it, if a person disagrees with how I or someone else has represented them, they can represent themselves differently. They can add a comment to one of my postings. They can write an entry of their own about me, if they like. They could petition friends to write positive things about them. Better to add to the conversation rather than to attempt to censor it.

moving head test

2008-11-29T12:20:00.000+01:00

Thanksgiving Weekend

2008-11-29T11:59:00.002+01:00

A new wet snow has fallen here on the Rose Hill in the Buda half of Budapest. Yesterday we were faced with the choice between an exhibit opening in the artist town of Szentendre north of Budapest or the "Friends of Canada" Christmas party, populated largely by folks of the business orientation. So instead of surrounding ourselves with artists intent on living life in its most brilliant expression, we hung out with "professionals" and had a different sort of time. Not bad. Circumstances dictated our fate. Circumstances brought on by lack of planning. Our lack of planning and poor execution left us with the business crowd rather than the artist crowd. Ironic, no?

I did go to Szentendre the day before with my journalism students where we visited galleries, including the one where I met the artists who invited me to the opening. We also ate pizza and had quality discussion. All present reported a swell Thanksgiving day.

Winter Arrives

2008-11-23T11:56:00.002+01:00

Snow has come to Budapest and winter temperatures along with it. Yesterday evening we went to a pre-thanksgiving party hosted by a Mormon family we know. A young woman there, an undergraduate study-abroad student from California organized an activity where we each had to say what we were thankful for and what traditions from our past that we enjoyed. Some interesting answers came out such as "I'm thankful to have a body." I said I was thankful for Budapest and to have found a family here and for the Mormons who've given me the opportunity to take my family to holiday get-togethers. I thought about saying I was thankful for Vipassana meditation, but I didn't.

Trabzon

2008-10-19T11:28:00.003+02:00

Trabzon airport. It’s raining this morning, after two days of clear and sun. Not a bad day to leave, I suppose.

There’s no easy way to travel by air, not through a place like this. I want to go carry-on. But I have my computer backpack, a small bag for my clothes and a plastic bag of stuff I bought. So I’m overloaded. Then there’s my waist pouch. And of course everything must go through security, including jacket and belt. And this tiny airport is filled with some real Black Sea provincials. I maintain equanimity through it all; I’m just observing. Did I mention wifi doesn’t work? I get a network, but nothing opens. None of this is a problem. This relatively little room is rather crowded and I’m lucky to have a seat. There’s a lot of older folks dressed in provincial garb: woolens and headscarves. Ukrainian businessmen on mobile phones.

Yesterday I went on a tour of a tea processing plant and hazelnut processing and packing plant. The hazelnut plant was especially intriguing. It was a largely sterile facility, so everyone was dressed in labcoats. There was bright light everywhere and no windows. Overwhelming white noise from various machinery, but no music, no talk. The workers were almost exclusively women, most of them young, in their early twenties or even younger. Two long rows of them, at least ten sat on each side of the sorting belt, patiently picking out those nuts that still had bits of the brown skin of the nuts’ inner shells. No talking, no music, no natural light. Eight hours (I’m assuming) each day. But placid faces. Beautiful even.

cold wet weather, knee and hip pain

2008-10-04T08:29:00.002+02:00

Not very interesting to talk about pain again. But at least this pain does not appear to be digestion related. It's just knee and hip pain on my right side that woke me up early. It's cold and raining this morning. No surprise about the pain, I suppose.

I dreamt about creatures that were part man and part animal and poorly treated by humans, although many of them could talk and at least mimic human phrases. These creatures looked like ugly, unrefined humans, but they seemed good-spirited and not particularly stressed-out. I wonder what they could symbolize.

I went swimming with Lucia yesterday and swam hard. It seemed to help the him pain, but not the knee. I wanted to stay a bit longer in the sauna afterward than I did, but hopefully I'll go to the baths Tuesday morning where I'll do the hot-cold circuit several times. I bet that will help some. I thought perhaps my vegetarian diet could be contributing to the pain. But when I googled "arthritis vegetarian" all I saw was how a vegetarian diet can help reduce arthritic pain. It seems that my health insurance is good for Hungarian clinics, etc. So I may give that a try, hassel as it is. Maybe some tests could reveal something. I plan to attend Lucia's beginner Yoga workshop this afternoon and Kevin Gardener's Yoga class tomorrow morning. The last time I went to him while I had such pain, it was gone by the end of class. Kevin recently turned 61. He could easily pass for 45.

My teaching this past week was challenging, but not bad. I taught Advanced Newswriting twice, Public Speaking twice and Online Marketing once. They're all basically new courses for me, so preparation demands are high and uncertainty looms before every class. All the classes contain a mix of international students from Nigeria, Portugal, Iran, Moldova, Bulgaria, Croatia, Canada, Puerto Rico (USA), US, China, Germany, Italy and Hungary. One Nigerian fellow helpfully approached me after Public Speaking in Thursday and suggested that we spend at least part of every class speaking, where every student speaks. I'm so happy he did this. I will incorporate such a segment into each class.

During that class I read a speech by Harry Truman about public service. I mentioned how he was the president who dropped the A-bombs on Japan. The class had some trouble dealing with this. In the speech, Truman mentioned how one should not worry about the verdict of history when making decisions, but to live in the present and make the appropriate decisions at the time they are made. It seems he was thinking about the bombs (the speech was made probably two decades after they were dropped). The class, particularly the Nigerians, are excited about the prospect of an Obama presidency.

On Thursday in Journalism I was in pain and unprepared, so I captivated the class with stories about immortality, faster-than-light travel and an old Jewish tale of the Fox and Leviathan.

Online Marketing is held at another school, an Hungarian one, unlike the others that meet at McDaniel College Budapest which is a local branch of the US college of the same name based in Maryland. In Online Marketing we discussed web design and looked at some student blogs. It seemed to go well. students are required to make and develop their blogs with the aim of evolving them into commercial vehicles.

For all the classes, preparation is the most time consuming and stressful bit. I tis nice that I have Tuesdays and Fridays essentially free.

I skipped meditation this morning, hence my writing this.

Watched Palin-Biden debate last night with Lucia. Both were impressive. Biden more so, in my opinion. His ticket has my vote, at least in spirit.

My Lovely Lucia is Lovely to Me

2008-09-30T22:41:00.003+02:00

Just a quick note to say that I recently smashed a chair. It was an old chair. I was upset over domestic and work issues. Lucia responded with love, support and understanding. She has suddenly been sweeter than I ever remember. I am so grateful! I do hope I can show her my gratitude. . . .

In Pursuit of the Ultimate Sin

2008-09-23T09:45:00.003+02:00

Weather looks not too bad this morning. Early appointment was canceled, which has been a pattern lately. So I could go for a walk before starting to work on other things.

It has been a spell since my last post. There have been some events. I taught some classes which felt good, some not so good. I've been struggling with a Tetris habit. You know Tetris? The falling bricks game from the early 1990s? Well, It's been something I've been playing several times a day for a while. But not today. I've kicked this habit several times in the past, each time with what I remember to be positive results. In fact, this blog entry is brought to you by my decision not to play.

Other events have included two shindigs put on by the Budapest Business Journal, the newspaper I have worked with for the past three years or so and have been associated with for some more years than that. (Read my latest.) The first was an initmate little thing at the posh "Design Hotel" introducing the new BBJ editor, a distinguished international newsman named Peter Ipper with whom I hope to have a successful and storied working relationship. The second was an open event, a "business mixer" held at the Mariott by the Danube. Great atmosphere, gourmet food, endless bottles of the tastiest wine I've tasted since my days in Strasbourg in 1990. I hung out with the Turkish trade ambassador to Hungary who came as my guest and with former BBJ editor and current megablogger Erik D'Amato. A student of mine, the promising young Chelsea Blair, came along too, also at my invitation. Other old friends were there. It was nice. I regret slightly that I didn't make my way to the Barack Obama love fest at the (relatively) nearby Merlin where my grad school housemate Frank Zsigo was playing guitar and singing his catchy tunes as Mookie Brando.

Before all this was the amazing concert at the big synagogue by Shlomo Bar and the Fellegini Klezmer band, featuring my dear friend Balazs Fellegi. Shlomo was born in Morocco and came to Israel in his youth. He and I spent several hours together at a garden party the day before the concert and had some deep discussions about a great many things. On one foot: "the kingdom of God flows forth from within!"

Lucia has been practicing a lot of Yoga lately at home and looking most scrumptiously attractive as she has done so. She's been unhappy with me lately for not mind Eldar better after he comes home from school, managing his homework, getting him to bed, etc. So I plan to improve that bit. She's been angry, which I don't approve of. But I know things can and will be better once I improve.

We went to the Mormon Church this past Sunday for the first time as a family in a while. A longstanding Hungarian member of the International Branch, a single woman in her thirties named Niki, was the teacher at Sunday school. She had also given a talk during the sacrament meeting in which she spoke of how her experience with the Church had taught her English and Russian (both solidly learned during her church mission to Ukraine) and her employment (she currently works at the International Law Enforcement Academy, which until recently had been under Mormon managment for several years).

In Sunday school, she gave a lesson that covered the Mormon vision of the afterlife and how one's life in this world determines one's existence in it. The vision appeared to describe an endless ladder to perfection. The highest rung she mentioned was reached when one was free from all imperfection and received a perfect body and could go to work as a messiahnic figure in another world. The lowest rung, however, was internment in "spirit prison." Talk of the spirit prison got rather animated. Niki said it was populated by "pretty wicked guys." An older gentleman clarified that the prison's inmates were simply those who had not yet received the proper divine instructions and put them into practice, implying that it was more of a reform school than a prison. There was a bit of contention over whether missionary work was being performed in the prison. But this was cleared up either by the gentleman or a young missionary who explained that during Jesus' absence in the time between his death on the cross and his ressurection he actually visited the inmates of the spirit prison to deliver his divine message and that the Mormon ritual of performing baptisms on behalf of the unbaptised dead was part of the process of lightening their sentences in the prison. Moreover, it was added, that there was indeed missionary activity in the spirit prison.

A Russian woman anxiously asked questions about life in the prison and what one had to learn about avoiding a sentence there which prompted an older woman to interject that all Jesus wanted us to do was to be like him, kind and forgiving and serving to others. While no one shut her up, the rest of the discussion seeked to affirm this doctrine of the spirit prison while at the same time offering hope.

"Everyone is ressurected," said an attractive yet serious North American woman, adding that some of us have different spiritual needs than others. We can't fully understand how this works, but God cares about each and every one of us and is preparing a suitable path for us toward perfection.

"There is just one unforgiveable sin," said Niki. The sin of receiving the divine teaching, recognizing it as divine, and yet defying it all the same. We ran out of time before getting to the punishment, but I gathered it would be pretty severe.

I tried to explain that people are made of dust and therefore fallible and that we all know how clever the "adversary" can be. Would it not be possible for one of us to receive divine teaching and then forget it about it in the face of great temptation.

My hypothsis was dismissed. The only historical example anyone could produce of such an extreme sinner was Judas Iscariot, the guy who betrayed Jesus to his crusifiers.

Wow, I wonder what happened to him!

Afraid to leave your corner?

2008-08-23T09:38:00.003+02:00

Recently I was listening to an American radio broadcast concerning the olympics. There was mention of the Hungarian swimmer László Cseh. Now I live in Hungary and I know that Hungarian speakers pronounce this name like the English word "check," but without the "k" at the end. But the American announcer instead saw "Cheh" and pronounced it like the English word "say." This brought to mind a college philosphy teacher who pronounced the family name of the German poet philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche as "Nee-chee." And she was not alone. In English, it seems, words don't end with a soft "e." So when a foreign word is encountered that does end this way, the response is "don't go there," and find a way to pronounce it that feels more comfortable within the frame of conventional English pronounciation.

Many Hungarians do something similar when they encounter the English consonant combination "th." Some Hungarians pronounce the English word "thing" as if it were "sing." Others pronounce it "ting." But few are familiar with the position of the tongue in such a way as to produce the English "th." And those who are, don't like it. It isn't comfortable. It's weird. It has no place in their corner of the universe they call Magyarország - "Mawjarorsaag."

It's uncomfortable for most people to slip into unfamiliar pronounciations for probably a few reasons. One is that they simply aren't used to it. Like riding a bicycle takes time to learn. Once you're used to it, it comes as second nature. But a more interesting disconcernation people encounter when approaching unfamiliar prounounciations is reluctance, even fearful reluctance. They are reluctant to change. This taste of a physically different corner of reality where different pronounciations are required can be bitter. If I'm suddenly required to say words that end with a soft "e," what else will they demand of me? What if I'm incapable? What if it involves sexual perversity? I'm just fine back home where I know how to do things. Please! I'd rather stay home.

Such discomfort also pervades many of us when we encounter other aspects of foreign living. My first year in Hungary I got to know a young woman and we took a romantic liking to one another. But she had a boyfriend and I made it clear to her that according to the values I was used to, ones that made sense to me, I couldn't get romantic with a woman who was in a relationship with another man. I later learned that prevailing values in Hungary are different. That the preferred form of romance is between people who are otherwise involved. And this preferred romantic encounter should be kept secret from the "official" relationship partners, i.e. boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives. Yep. That's how it is here.

Today my sense is that Hungarians live in a world where rules, even laws, do not carry the respect they did for me as an American. There may be a growing cynicism among Americans about the "rule of law," but in general I suspect it is thought by most Americans that if you obey the laws of the land you can prosper. In fact, following them helps to enable prosperity. In Hungary, I've found, rules, laws, are more widely perceived as barriers to prosperity. Tax laws have a speical place in this manner of thinking. So the modus operandi for many if not most Hungarians is not to follow the rules, but rather to violate them without getting caught and punished. Why, after all, would someone follow a rule or a law if the consequence of doing so is unwanted?

According to the values I arrived with here 16 years ago, one followed laws and rules for the benefit of greater society. For Hungarians this would make little sense. To them, "greater Hungarian society," is a myth that was destroyed with the treaty of Trionon when Hungary (or at least that portion of the Hapsburg Empire that was identified as Hungary) lost two-thirds of its territory at the close of WW1. Claims to that myth today are to be suspected. In a society hardened by widespread cynicism, laws and rules are viewed as tools of power for the purpose of exploiting others. After all, people in power do not have to follow these laws and rules! And the powerful only bother to enforce them when they have something to gain from it, such as the schadenfreude of watching a perceived enemy suffer. Or as a means to survive, to feed one's family. But to obediently follow rules or laws as a means to promote social harmony and to benefit "greater Hungarian society?" Grow up! Dream on! Dat's somesing dat just doesn't happen. No here in Magyarország.

I thought of all this while doing some research in an unnamed country outside Central Europe for an unnamed client. Research techniques that have worked in this part of the world, such as asking questions about someone of people who know him have often worked just fine here and have drawn little sense of discomfort to the people being asked. They disclose what they feel is safe or perhaps useful to disclose and they withhold what they feel they should for the sake of their own well-being. They certainly don't mention to anyone that they have been questioned. The consequences of that could be unpleasant. People in former communist countries are accustomed to a great deal of uncertainty in their lives. This produces stress, no doubt. But they've learned to live with stress, it's familiar, even comfortable. So there's nothing that unusual about a stranger ringing them up and asking questions about their boss. In this unnamed country, however, it was strange and uncomfortable for many of these people when my associate did just this. And they very quickly rang up their boss' office and complained about it. (Here the first assumption on the part of many would be that it was their boss' office who had made the calls in the first place to test their loyalty. So much is uncertain! It's best to assume the worst.) Next came a call to me from their boss' lawyer telling me how unprofessional I was.

How refreshing! How refreshing it is to learn that I've lived so long in centralEASTERN Europe that I've adopted the local mentality. How refreshing to be reminded that this mentality is not universal. A thing is not everywhere a sing!

It is tempting to say that my lesson from all of this is to be more straightforward in my research. My initial reaction is that in some parts of the world where subterfuge is the norm, then it's the only way to go. But no. I will be more straightforward. "I'm an independent reseacher calling on behalf of clients interested in doing business with you.

"Would you mind answering a few questions?"

And start at the top. They'll very likely give a response. And it may well be the response I need. This is how I'll do it from now on.

Memories of Butterfly Valley

2008-08-11T22:36:00.003+02:00

All images courtesy of Lucia Latypova.

Back to Budapest

2008-08-03T12:02:00.006+02:00

We’re cruising above the water in a hydrofoil going from Fethiye, Turkey to Rhodes, Greece on the very last leg of our journey which has lasted 6 weeks. The past week has seen us go from Butterfly Valley to the seaside resort town of Ölüdeniz where we checked into a little bungalow at the Oba Motel, a place with its own vegetable garden I remember from the days when Ölüdeniz was just a ramshackle beachside party zone for Australian backpackers (whereas today it’s a posh and proper collection of new and comfortable hotels and apartments and restaurants sporting “full English breakfasts” for its largely UK clientele. Local newsstands carry the low-brow British tabloids, but no FT or Economist) While it lacked A/C, it had its own toilet and shower, thereby putting it at a standard much higher than anything we enjoyed in the Valley. We had a modest dinner of Gozleme (Turkish tortilla) filled with spinach and cheese curd that Lucia did not fancy. The secret, I later learned, is to ask for onions and yellow cheese in addition to spinach. This makes for a much tastier Gozleme.

Our subsequent destination was Kaya Koy, an old Greek “ghost town” that gives the impression of a ruined ancient city, built on a hill, typical for such places as Ephasos and Anamurium. But closer inspection reveals that the ruined structures were inhabited less than a century ago and were abandoned during the population exchange following the foundation of modern Greece and Turkey back in the 1920s. We wandered through the ruins, inspected a church and many homes, noting how cramped they must have been and how the 19th-century church, unlike its ancient or even medieval counterparts, was hardly built to last: plastered wood as opposed to stone.

The area around the ruins was pretty bleak, dusty dirt roads, weather beaten signs and savannah vegetation. We stayed in an old hotel across from the ruins. The room was large and contained two throne-sized easy chairs, but no TV. There was swimming pool as well as a pool table. Eldar and I enjoyed some time with both.

The next day we took a bus to Patara, the town just next to the 18 km Patara Beach, the longest sand beach in Europe, if you count Turkey in Europe. Quite amazing. Lucia, Eldar and I did some groovy body surfing.

The road to the beach is straddled with some impressive Greek and Roman ruins, which we didn’t take time to properly explore. The Patara region was recently hit by severe wildfires and the surround forests were quite evidently scorched. There was thankfully little apparent damage to any homes or hotels. Even before the fire, we learned, that Patara has beed suffering from a dearth of tourists in recent years, despite the presence of several hotels, pensions and restaurants. This, I suspect, is due to several factors. First, it’s priced for Westerners, therefore overpriced for most Turks and overpriced for Western backpackers, which includes us. It isn’t equipped to accommodate package tours, which has become norm for Westerners traveling to Turkey and is the bread and butter of places like Ölüdeniz. Moreover, it doesn’t offer the seclusion or trendiness currently sought by the “trustafarian” brats of Nuevo-riche Turks found in Kabak (more on that in moment), so it disappoints. This needn’t be so. If the local businesspeople got together and agreed to lower their average profits on rooms, food and drink, cleaned up the place and lobbied hard to Lonely Planet and the blogs, the Backpackers would come. Then others would follow. Cheap shelter, beer and eats were probably the draws 10 years ago, back when Turks didn’t feel pressed to squeeze the most out of every tourist purchase, before their own costs of living soared upwards. But some planning and cooperation could recapture some of this cheap and cheerful good time while actually boosting local revenue.

Patara was followed by Faralya, the village set on a mountain ridge with a view of Butterfly Valley. There we stayed in a lovely family-run place in an air-conditioned bungalow and a swimming pool with breakfast and supper for a total of 70 Lira, or about 45 Euros. Less than the valley. It did lack direct access to the sea and the community that the Valley offers. But it was very relaxing.

Finally we went to Kabak, a party zone for alternative young Turks with money. We stayed in a TeePee with no AC, no direct access to the sea unless you call a steep 20 minute walk down a dusty path direct access. There was a swimming pool. But a drugged out crowd and pulsing electronic beat non-music until after 3 a.m. making it impossible to sleep. It was imaginatively and comfortably decked out and could have been swell had it not been for the noise. They wanted to charge us Lira 100 for one night. But I got the owner down to 75 by explaining we came there because our son had met his daughter in the valley, which was true.

Our last night in Turkey was spent in a comfortable harborside hotel with AC and a western shower as well as a TV and wifi. We went out that night for dinner, first to a fantastic pizza place for Eldar and then to the fish market for Lucia. I had a tasty vegetable casserole.

Next day we caught the hydrofoil to Rhodes, which brings me to where I started this entry. Our room in Rhodes was OK, but but no AC. I slept OK. We flew back to Bp yesterday morning.

Death in the Valley

2008-07-26T09:58:00.002+02:00

On 23 July, the day before my 41st birthday, a hiker fell some 30 meters off a trail and died some six hours later. Rumors abound. Management said he had gone off the marked trail to evade payment. Others said he had gone off path in hopes to climb up to a village to buy cigarettes. Still another has it that he was a fugitive, evading military service. In any event, it's a great tragedy that has left the valley shaken. We left yesterday, a move we had planned before the incident. Many others left, too. Now we're at a beach hotel in nearby Oludeniz.

Jolly Equilibrium in Butterfly Valley

2008-07-19T10:53:00.003+02:00

Life has returned to some sort of equilibrium, the sort of calm that settles in just as things are drawing to a close. Yesterday Lucia taught her first session of "Beach Yoga," after a day of working reduced hours in the kitchen, thanks to her renewed status as an official teacher, which also involved having her class posted to the announcements board for all to see. After a session of stretches, we all massaged each other with olive oil. The class was well attended and it went very well. People have been nice to her and to us in general. This after she was told that her "punishement" was a response to her immoral behavior: leaving her husband and son to fend for themselves while she ran off with another man to Istanbul. But now that she's been back and acting responsibly and calmly and cheerfully, her detractors have silenced.

Lucia was in a charming mood yesterday evening and stayed up late talking with a Russian couple. Eldar has had trouble sleeping since we moved into the tents, but seemed to sleep well enough last night. There is a new Turkish boy about his age who speaks some English. But many of the friends he made have left. Still, he's managed to find many people to talk to and entertain and will be richer for the whole experience.

I have passed the half-way point in Johnson's A History of the Jews. It's been fascinating. By staying a separate group within the human race, with its own language, customs and values, bent on its own survival, the Jews have at once been at odds with the rest of humanity and on the cutting edge of its "advance." I'm now reading about the Rothschilds, how their financial empire influenced the course of the European economy. Amazing.

There was a "full moon party" organized on a neighboring beach and many people paid a sizeable sum to be taken there by boat where they captively listened to techno music until dawn paying high prices for booze and energy drinks. Interesting how it compares to the full moon parties I remember on Weihiki Island in New Zealand, where a bonfire was lit on the beach and people beat on drums and chanted for hours. They danced in the moonight and listened to the waves. This party last night was - in my mind - and example of moneygrabbers seizing an occasion to exploit young people's desire to be part of something larger than themselves, while disenfranchising their potential to control their own fates. If someone organized a drumming party, there would be no profit in it, just raised consciousness and fond memories. What you have this morning is a bunch of hungover grumps, pissed off that they spent so much money and no closer for it.

It's very educational observing the divide between the money agenda and the "enlightenment" agenda. The former dominates the beach-front facilities with loud pre-recorded music, beer and chips, while the latter hangs out at the "Stone House Cafe" deeper in the Valley with homemade cakes and lemonade, poetry readings and live folk music. Unfortunately, the former is better organised and far more aggressive.

Down here in Butterfly Valley, things are most interesting. I've been working in irrigation. It's way primitive, but I've been suggesting some simple improvements and made some small ones. I also met with an environmental engineer and he explained how some simple low-cost technology - e.g. aerating the water reservoir to keep the water potable - can make a big difference. The trick is to find solutions that make everyone happy. This often means presenting them with the solution that will make them happy rather than involving them in its development. In the case of drinkable water, money is being made by importing water to the valley. One solution is charge a "water tax" on valley visitors" and compensate the valley that way. I've been meeting with Berkeley University linguist about reinvigorating the education component of the Valley, again by sorting out all the details of the program so that the current Valley admin won't need to do additional work, just house and feed the students and faculty the way it currently houses and feeds its guests and volunteers.

Back in Butterfly Valley

2008-07-04T15:53:00.004+02:00

That's right, friends! I am alive and well and residing in Butterfly Valley, an isolated fjord in the Southwest corner of Turkey directly on the Mediterranean coast, facing the sunset. Above I stand with a native of this remarkable place accessible only by sea or by scaling a treacherous mountain wall. To post this blog entry I had to travel by boat to Ülödeniz, on a nearby peninsula. Lucia, Eldar and I are living in a "Gilligan's Island" style bungalow. The image blow is taken from the "balcony" of our stilted dwelling and the structure in the distance strongly resembles our own.

Lucia has been teaching Yoga, Eldar has been making art and I have been working in the fields, irrigating and weeding. Been doing a bit of swimming, too. Also reading Paul Johnson's A History of the Jews. Lucia has been hanging out with some of the local boys, spawning much gossip. I don't mind. Photographer Stephen Spinder has joined us in the Valley, down from Budapest. He's enjoying himself, partying, photographing and shagging women half his age. He described his time as "in the top three" of all his vacations so far.

Passport arrives! Butterfly Valley awaits!

2008-06-26T13:36:00.002+02:00

Today at about 20 minutes before 13:00, while I was logging on to the DHL website to check the status of my passport (I was concerned because of the strange report I had received earlier, see previous post) and was preparing to ring up the central office, I spotted a motor-scooter stop in front of the hotel (The lobby here opens up to the streetfront patio; the street itself is narrow, tree-lined and relatively quiet - daytime, anyway). The guy had on a two-tone shirt that brought to mind the DHL colors. But the container on the back of the scooter was clearly insulated. So he must be a food delivery guy, I resigned myself to think. But lo and behold, he pulled out a large envelope from the container and brought it up to the desk. It was marked clearly with "DHL." I intercepted him, told him my name, signed and tore it open. And there it was! My freedom had arrived!! Now to board the hydrofoil at 16:30 and head off to join my kin . . .

On the Rhodes to Turkey

2008-06-26T09:43:00.003+02:00

I sit and wait. DHL displays the following report concerning the travel status of my passport:

Detailed Report
Date	Time	Location Service Area	Checkpoint Details

June 23, 2008	15:36	Budapest - Hungary	Shipment picked up
June 23, 2008	18:37	Budapest - Hungary	Departing origin
June 23, 2008	19:12	Budapest - Hungary	Departed from DHL facility in Budapest - Hungary
June 23, 2008	20:51	Budapest - Hungary	Shipment on hold
June 24, 2008	20:27	Budapest - Hungary	Transferred through Budapest - Hungary
June 24, 2008	20:27	Budapest - Hungary	Departed from DHL facility in Budapest - Hungary
June 25, 2008	01:46	Bergamo - Italy	Transferred through Bergamo - Italy
June 25, 2008	01:47	Bergamo - Italy	Departed from DHL facility in Bergamo - Italy
June 25, 2008	04:29	Leipzig - Germany	Transferred through Leipzig - Germany
June 25, 2008	04:29	Leipzig - Germany	Departed from DHL facility in Leipzig - Germany
June 25, 2008	09:16	Athens - Greece	Arrived at DHL facility in Athens - Greece
June 25, 2008	09:21	Athens - Greece	Arrived at DHL Facility
June 25, 2008	15:52	Athens - Greece	With delivery courier
June 26, 2008	09:00	Athens - Greece	Arrived at DHL Facility
June 26, 2008	09:41	Athens - Greece	With delivery courier

This is very puzzling. Yesterday, the package was with a delivery courier in Athens, Greece. Then today it is recorded as having arrived at a DHL facility, also in Athens. Now it's with a courier again. Does this mean it's still in Athens, or does Athens count for all of Greece, including Rhodes? I sure hope for the latter. One slight comfort is that while I was wandering about the island yesterday I passed a motor-scooter with a DHL sticker on it. So such exist. Please let one come here to the hotel today with my passport!

On another note, yesterday I bought drawing and writing tablets, sunscreen and got a haircut, all in accord with Lucia's wishes.

Stranded on Rhodes

2008-06-24T19:46:00.003+02:00

If you read my last entry, you know that I was having some passport troubles, that my Irish passport expires on 10 July and I didn't bring my US one along (it expires 2010). I went to the Turkish consulate here but they told me I would need a validity extension of six months on my passport before they could issue a visa and there could be no other way. I discovered by ringing the UK consulate that there is an Irish vice-consul on the island. I met him but he sadly informed me that just a few years ago he could have helped but that the rules have changed and a new machine-readable passport would be the only answer, which could only be issued in Dublin and would take a minimum of 2 and 1/2 weeks!

So Lucia rang our landlord Laci who managed to find my US passport in the drawer where I left it and got down to DHL where he paid HUF 15,000 (USD 90) to ship it down here lickty-split. That was yesterday at 14:00. I checked the DHL website and entered my waybill number and found that my passport left the office but was "on-hold" in Budapest. I assume it's just waiting for a flight and its status will change tomorrow. The hotel manager here told me he thinks it will come by Friday. I sure as heck hope so. Meanwhile I've moved into a cheaper room, which is still reasonably nice. Lucia, Eldar and I ate another expensive restaurant meal today in the old town. Naturally, as soon as I saw them off on the ferry, I found cheaper places. But no need to gripe! They have arrived safely at Butterfly Valley after a speedy trip on a hydrofoil. Eldar must have loved it. I cannot wait to hear his account. I am sufficiently funded to hold out here a few days and - God willing - my passport will arrive and I will join my lovely family. In the meantime I can hang out here with the geriatrics on the beautiful Island of Rhodes. If I buy some sun cream tomorrow I could even go to the beach. In any event, there's enough space in my new room to practice Yoga, so I've got that to look forward to tomorrow morning.

Now I think I'll go out and buy a bottle of water, then retire to my room for some of those grape-leaf wrapped rice rolls and call it a day.

In this lonely hour, all comments are welcome!

Holding Pattern in Rhodes

2008-06-22T18:18:00.003+02:00

Today finds me on the Island of Rhodes with my lovely wife tempestuous Lucia and old ants-in-the-pants 8-year-old Eldar. They're engaged in a heated chess match at the moment. But Rhodes is a nice place. Sunwashed, quiet. Lots of older folks about. Not exactly packed with people. Water still a bit on the cold side.

Early yesterday morning at the airport in Budapest, Eldar and I were comparing passport photos. I saw that mine was a rather old photo of me, albeit a good one. The age of the photo prompted me to look at the expiration date. To my horror, it expires on 10 July of this year, in the middle of our "working holiday" in Turkey. Fortunately there is a Turkish consulate here on Rhodes. So tomorrow we will plead our case with them to let me get an entry visa and perhaps a note that will let me exit the country with an expired passport. That's the best case scenario. They might issue me a short-term visa and tell me to go to Ankara to get a new passport once I'm in Turkey. A still less favorable scenario has me flying to Athens to go to the Irish Embassy there to get a new passport. That would seriously eat in to the Holiday budget. But it wouldn't kill us. I just sure as heck hope to avoid it.

Riding in by taxi to the hotel from the airport I noticed a number of disused windmills, from the centuries old to the decades old. Interesting that wind was tapped as a power source in the past but it appears to have been abandoned.

Let's assume that things will be fine with my passport and I'll get to Butterfly Valley with Lucia and Eldar in a few days. Once in the valley I'll meditate every morning as I've done for the most part every morning for the past four years. I'll also go for a swim after each meditation before breakfast. Each evening will begin with a Yoga class taught by Lucia. At some time during each day I'll teach seminars on various topics, including comparative religion. Maybe this could happen each evening at 19:30 when it's cooler.

I brought a number of books with me including Paul Johnson's excellent A History of the Jews, a copy of The Teaching of Buddha and a book on Islam by Alfred GUILLAUME, among others including the unannotated Penguin Bhagavad Gita. That's four major religions covered. I'm curious to witness the sort of discussions that come from this.

More soon . . .

Six Days To Go . . .

2008-06-15T22:15:00.003+02:00

Yes, it's six days to go until we leave for Turkey. Well, Greece actually. We fly out of Budapest early this Saturday morning bound for the Island of Rhodes. From there we will catch a hydrofoil to Fethiye. We will most likely have to spend the night in Fethiye because we will miss the last boat to Butterfly Valley. So we'll leave for the Valley on the morning of 22 June, Sunday.

Yesterday I spent the morning hours in Szentendre teaching a seminar and then met Lucia and Eldar for a stroll around the baroque-era Serbian village and along the riverfront. We wound up at the arts center built into a derelict industrial building, one of the few such buildings in this town of centuries-old architecture. Lucia had to leave at 16:30 to get back to Budapest for her Indian dance class. Eldar and I caught the 17:00 river ferry back, which was a lot of fun, particularly for Eldar. We sat inside for most of the trip, below decks up front behind the front window with head-on view of what was ahead of us. Much of the way back we were surrounded by thick green brush and trees; it felt a lot like the lower Mississippi. Once we approached the end of Szentendre Island (on our left) we cruised under the new bridge under construction. It was a massive think, with two independently supported lanes, like a pair of bridges side by side. It crossed the island to the left and was suspended in the distance by a pair of towering A-frames. On our side of the island, the bridge was held up by supports planted into the riverbed. There was lot of heavy machinery under the bridge with just a small opening through which our boat managed to motor its way through. When I looked off the right I saw the bridge curving off into the distance. Eldar was really impressed by the awesome assemblage of concrete and steel. "Poppy, this is like the future!" He said something like this. I confess to being pretty awed myself, albeit with some remorse for the suffering wild life and the impending current of traffic of this otherwise largely pristine area.

In the coming days I have to sort out what books I will be taking, try to find a way to set up wireless Internet in the valley, write two magazine articles and deliver an intelligence report, make two collections, write a trio of syllabi for the Fall semester, etc., etc.

Poor Slobs, Greedy Rich

2008-06-06T19:26:00.002+02:00

It's been a while between posts. Sorry, I been busy.

I checked some URLs for availability and noticed that both www.absurdistpoets.com and www.poorslobs.com are not yet taken. www.greedyrich.com and www.usefulreports.com are however currently in use, perhaps for sale.

www.acnescarredbitch.com is up for grabs, while www.uglyfatmen.com is not.

www.herodthegreat.com is not available, while www.solomonthewise.com is!

www.bostonbites.com and bostonsucks.com are both occupied, while www.bostonlosers.com is empty.

Nothing at www.knickscomeback.com

www.knickssuck.com is currently in use.

www.hankbradford.com and www.henrybradford.com belong to no one.

www.martinthiel.com is an impossibly cool photography site.

www.johnlippert.com belongs to an Atlanta Realtor.

Butterflies to Come

2008-05-12T12:18:00.003+02:00

This weekend has been a long one, thanks to the holiday of Pentecost, the Christian version of the older Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the festival of weeks. Our old friend Isaac is in town, leaving tomorrow. We didn't see him much, but it was nice just to know he was in town, like a root making its presence felt. I've known him for some 12 1/12 years. We first met at his place in NYC on the lower east side in my old neighborhood. He was a local landlord and super and owned a small rehearsal studio. He was dating a former student of mine and she introduced us. We've been close friends ever since. Later he came to Hungary and bought property, in the Pilis Hills outside Budapest and a palatial apartment in the center on downtown, when the prices were good. Now he owns a health food store and cafe in Manhattan and also has a big new house he built in the Galilee Hills in Israel where he often lives with his wife and two children. He doesn't come to Hungary much anymore. Back in the days his apartment here was the site for some of the more amazing parties this town has known. Now it's a big, quiet place, suffering a big from a lack of attention. Still amazing views of the neighboring basilica.

Yesterday Lucia (my wife), Eldar (my son of eight years) and I traveled to the Börzsöny Mountains where we hiked for several kms up the 733 meter Magas Tax, had a picnic and walked down late. I'd been afraid we were going to miss any buses or trains, that we'd get stuck in the woods after dark. I'd said a prayer and believed in the optimism of Lucia who was sure we'd get a ride. Which we did. Not at the summit as she'd predicted, but at the trailhead after we'd walked down the dirt service road, bypassing the trail at my suggestion. Dusk was coming and I thought the road would be a safe, less stressful alternative and possibly even quicker. Eventually we took the last leg of the journey on a trail with Lucia as navigator. We arrived at the trailhead where Lucia called out to a young couple loading a car. Within a minute we climbed in, with an offer of a ride all the way back to Budapest, the better part of an hour away. Once in Pest, we went to the "Hummus Bar" for delicious falafel pitas and complimentary glasses of tea. We bought one more pita to take to Isaac and headed to his place. He was wrecked after a daylong bicycle trip to Szentendre, an historic village north of Budapest.

While there, Eldar played the piano and the guitar. I chatted with Isaac and Lucia checked her email. She received an email that confirmed we would both be teaching this summer at Butterfly Valley in southern Turkey, a fjord that opens up onto the Mediterranean, facing west. We'll be there for six weeks. It shall be awesome!

We chatted a bit more , then came home.

Human Assets

2008-05-10T20:35:00.002+02:00

Human Assets are the builing blocks
and pieces
Human Assets
are
the builiding Blocks
and Rolling Rocks
of our
future

Liverly Chat with Adriano

2008-05-10T20:06:00.000+02:00

Quantity orders?
5/10/08 7:53 PM
Can you order any product in quantity?
5/10/08 7:53 PM
yes
5/10/08 7:53 PM
it would make him some money
Adriano 5/10/08 7:53 PM
the software can
Jacob "Jake" Doyle 5/10/08 7:53 PM
could it?
Adriano 5/10/08 7:53 PM
but he cant steal someones business, that is counter productive
Jacob "Jake" Doyle 5/10/08 7:54 PM
well
5/10/08 7:54 PM
if you have a database of products
5/10/08 7:54 PM
you could then
5/10/08 7:54 PM
EvPR
5/10/08 7:54 PM
EnvPR
5/10/08 7:55 PM
EnvRP
5/10/08 7:55 PM
"En-verp"
5/10/08 7:57 PM
http://chejake.blogspot.com/2008/05/micromanagement-software-design-and.html
5/10/08 7:57 PM
energysorcerer.blogspot.com
5/10/08 7:57 PM
www.energysorcerer.blogspot.com
5/10/08 8:01 PM
how does it feel
5/10/08 8:01 PM
?
5/10/08 8:01 PM
how does it feel?
5/10/08 8:01 PM
to create an asset
5/10/08 8:01 PM
a major human
5/10/08 8:02 PM
asset
5/10/08 8:02 PM
Adriano teaches human assests
5/10/08 8:03 PM
and how to make yourself one
Adriano 5/10/08 8:03 PM
Adriao develops human assets
Jacob "Jake" Doyle 5/10/08 8:03 PM
or
5/10/08 8:03 PM
at least make
5/10/08 8:03 PM
yourself mecessary to one

Micromanagement software Design and Consulting

2008-05-10T18:26:00.002+02:00

Such projects as building an ultra light aircraft of the highest design, made of high tensil wire and tough, lightweight fabric. The software we would introduce would be capable of generating high level desugns and at such moments when those designs are ready for prototype and eventual production. Our sw shall perform such functions as taking an product from the idea stage all the way to mass production.

MicromanagementsoftwareDesignandConsulting.com

Send Cindi's CV to Mats with a cover letter of introduction.

Lettersofintroduction.com

CV&letterofintroduction.com

International Panel on Climate Change comes to Budapest

2008-04-17T20:19:00.005+02:00

A slightly edited version of this story appears in the 17 April 2008 Budapest Business Journal

By Jacob Doyle

Climate change has been a hot topic in recent years, growing hotter with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize going jointly to former US president Al Gore for his cautionary film, An Inconvenient Truth, and to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a child of the UN, for their efforts to publicize and investigate the foreboding subject. The Energy Source was in attendance at Budapest’s Central European University (CEU) this past Thursday and Friday as IPCC scientists along with local academics, corporate dons and government officials talked up the subject for the general public at an outreach event while the official 28th session of the IPCC met across the river at the Congress Center. The upshot of some 18 hours of presentations and panel discussions was expected: we have corrupted the very climate that governs life on Earth. Less expected was the scale of pessimism that emerged: the problem worsens by the day and despite experts’ efforts to prescribe urgently needed remedies, things are likely to get much worse before they have a chance of getting better. As the climate changes, so change ecosystems, meaning vast disturbance not simply to the creatures of the land and sea, but to agriculture and human economy.

“For the sake of our future generations,” said Professor Ralph Sims of the International Energy Agency, “we need to make more rapid progress in reducing green house gas (GHG) emissions than has been the case to date.”

A steady rise in GHG emissions in Hungary over the last three decades was the presentation topic of Dr. Laszlo Haszpra of the Hungarian Meteorological Service (HMS). Haszpra explained that so far approximately half of global GHG emissions have remained in the atmosphere while the oceans and surface soil and plant life have absorbed the other half. “But we are quickly reaching a limit,” he warned, “soil will become saturated and emit more CO2 than plants can absorb.” At which moment, he explained, the Earth’s soil will cease to be a carbon sink and become a carbon source, joining forces with the industries, motor vehicles and animals than line its surface. His HMS colleague Dr. Janos Mika correlated the rise in emissions to ominous changes in leading climate change indicators: average temperature, temperature variability, tropospheric warming, diminishing snow cover and glacial and sea ice melting. Mika gave 90% of the credit for a 50-year trend of global warming to rising GHG emissions.

Professor Istvan Lang of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences described how such climate change could soon reverse seasonal rainfall patterns, thereby forcing radical change to crop production. The price and availability of food would likewise be affected.

No one at the conference suggested such radical alterations to human habits as swapping personal motorcars for bicycles, or a sweeping switch to a vegetarian diet; both of which would directly reduce GHG emission. Rather, technology-based solutions were emphasized. Economics and Transport Minister Csaba Kakosy talked up the need for nuclear power and a HUF 400m increase to Hungary’s renewable energy fund. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – or pumping COx gases underground - was advocated both by Professor Sims and economist Dr. Laszlo Varo of MOL, both of whom kept their optimism well guarded.

It was comments by Dr. Varo, however, that revealed the most about how the looming climate crisis came in to being and why it will be difficult to resolve.

“Until we get this into the income value at the bottom of the page,” said Varo in regard to proposed climate change solutions, “don’t expect corporations to do much.”

Tips for aspiring writers

2008-04-09T18:23:00.004+02:00

What should you do if you want to write? First, commit yourself to starting a blog. But before you start it, think about what sort of theme you want convey. Check out some other blogs. www.technorati.com is the best blog search engine I've found. Enter in key words that speak to you and find out what blogs are running on those themes. This blog should not be just a personal online diary, but a showcase of your writing talent, your insight, your curiosity. Once you have a design you like, show it to some other people (I'm happy to look at it). A good theme reflected in both the design and the writing is a requirement of a good blog that will go places. The next requirement is to update your blog regularly. Give yourself a weekly deadline. If your blog is regularly updated, you have the best chance of having regular readers. Of course you need to be sure that your entries are substantial and interesting to read and line up with you theme. The next step is to circulate your blog. Put the URL on your email signature, your business cards, your facebook page, etc. Let the world know "I am a writer! Here's where you can read my writing!" You may also want to find out what "collaborative" blogs are out there. One that is devoted to travel could be useful, especially if its widely read, maybe affiliated with Lonely Planet or something similar.

Parallel to developing your blog, find places to get published. Find out about all the publications that are based near where you live that are even remotely interesting to you. Also search among the people you know and find out who among them has anything to do with local publications or who knows anyone who does. Use Craigslist. Set up face-to-face meetings with the editors of these publications. Tell them you want to write and that you'd like a shot at freelance. This could be daily newspapers, weekly alternative papers, music mags, culture mags, etc. The trick is to get started writing and getting published. You'll most likely need a job (part-time, if possible) to make ends meet while you build up your dossier.

You may wish to explore more than one "beat." I suggest both culture and real estate. These are best for travel. On your trip to SE Asia, you could research the local opportunities for real estate investment by day and check out the restaurant and nightspots in the evenings.

As far as getting free trips, you'll probably need to get a bit established. But it may not take long. One way to get free trips is to write for in-flight magazines. Find out what these magazines are and how you can contact them. The best is just to find out who the editor is and give them a call. But have at least your blog in operation first and - ideally - have a few pieces published already, if only in some local minor publications. This will give you some clout. "Yeah, I'd like to have a shot at travel writing. I've travelled a bit and written about it. I've also had a few pieces published."

As for getting free meals and places to stay: for this you need a place where you be published that will reach the audience of their potential customers. A collaborative blog devoted to travel and affiliated with a major travel guide could be all it takes. Your own blog could be used, if its well developed. One thing you could try is to start your own collaborative blog devoted to travel and scare up contributors from Facebook (find people interested in both travel and writing who themselves are either travelling now or have plans to travel soon) Make yourself the editor so you can maintain the level of quality. In other words, don't give them the password. Just have them email you the pieces. Let them know that once you get traffic and sponsors, etc., you'll share the revenues but for now this is just a place to get your voices heard. Once this blog has some decent travel content and a grabby URL, you can pitch it to hotels, restaurants, even airlines and/or travel agents and so forth before you begin you travels. Let them know you will review their gigs on your blog that get a gezillion hits daily by just the sort of customers they want and need. Moreover, you can tell them that whenever someone does a search on their venue, your review will pop up. So they should give you a free bed/meal/flight, etc. But we can cover these details once you've got your blog up and running.

If you want to be an independent writer, one thing you do NOT want to do is to take a job in an office that demands your time and your brain for 8+ hours a day. Take a job in a hip diner or a bar or a bookshop or a cafe - someplace that tips! And then use the rest of your time WELL. Make contacts with other independent writers both in your area and online, preferably both. It is important to have a peer group with similar priorities to you. From them you can learn, get inspired and even compete.

It can also be very useful to map out your time and set milestones, deadlines; a timeframe. By such and such a date I will have my blog launched in a groovy and professional way. By such and such date I will have met with 10 editors, etc.

I'm not radical

2008-03-28T15:56:00.002+01:00

But I really wish I were. Most of the time my activities are rather conventional and even mediocre. No meditation this morning on account of a late night of writing to beat a deadline for a newspaper article I was writing. Now I'm torn between writing this and washing the dishes.

I have two envelopes from my bank, unopened. One is a bank card, the other a pin code. Should I open them?

Bank, blank, crank, dank, flank, frank, hank, lank, plank, prank, rank, sank, shank, shrank, stank, tank, thank, wank, yank . . .

Bottle, coddle, dawdle, puddle, throttle, waddle, yodel . . .

On her corner a beautiful whore
Stood across from the diamond store
She said to a John
Whom she'd rather turned on
"Fetch a rock and I'll show you some more . . ."

The meteorologist, Coddle,
Found a most unusual Puddle
He could tell by the moisture
That it once held an oyster,
A bottle,
And a shepherd who yodeled.

2008-03-16T10:51:00.002+01:00

Here's a story idea that came to me last night:

As you all know, we live in an infinite, eternal universe where anything at all is not only possible, it is inevitable. Therefore somewhere, out there, there is a planet exactly like Earth, give or take a few minor details.

As it turns out, Russian computer hackers I know managed to hack their way - don't ask me how! - in to the Internet of this "other Earth."

At first, they thought they'd just hacked in to another part of this Earth's Internet. Then they noticed that the dates were all wrong. You see, one of those "minor details" is that this other Earth's timeframe is set a few years into the future compared to us.

Other "minor details:" McCain wins election. US bombs Iran, pissing off entire Persian nation.

In an intriguing act of revenge, Iranian Jews (of which there are some 30,000 living inside Iran) construct a network of "nuclear volcanoes" - giant atomic rocket thrusters - around the world with which they plan to control the Earth's distance to the sun, thereby controlling its climate and increasing the value of Iranian energy assets.

Trouble arises when the Iranian Jews ignite such volcanoes in an effort to move the Earth a bit further away from the sun. Instead of moving the Earth, they cause its rotation to stop, although it continues to orbit the sun at the same distance as before.

The result of their actions is an Earth with one half drenched in constant sunshine and the other half in endess dark of night, lit only by the stars and moon.

The Iranian Jews try to reverse things, but because the Americans have destroyed several of their volcano-thrusters, it's not so easy. When they try to start the Earth spinning by using the limited thrusters they do have, they instead end up pushing it further away from the sun and succeed in cooling it off, even on the sunny side.

Even on the sunny side, life is not so good. The weather is terrible, lots of winds and precipitation. The US military manages to stay active, with its mobile command stations, un-interruptible power supplies, walkie talkies and so forth. But basically the only comfort is found within geodesic structures called "Noah Domes" launched by an enterprising little company, Groovy Geometry. The domes are like enormous tents that cover and protect entire communities from the outside elements. Such domes on the dark side even have their own internal "suns". Power comes from nearby power stations, such as nuclear power stations or geothermal electric plants which derive electricity from geothermal activity deep in the earth (question: if the Earth stops spinning and/or moves away from the sun, will geothermal activity also stop?) They are called "Noah" Domes because they contain as many examples of terrestrial life as possible - fruits, vegetables, dogs, bugs, birds, etc.

Later events include:

volcano thrusters are replaced by "zero-point field energy"/electrogravity (ZPEEG) propulsion systems thereby turning the entire planet Earth into an enormous faster-than-light spacecraft.
Moon is ignited into a gigantic fireball (see Sir A.C. Clarke's *2010, Odyssey Two*) whereby it becomes a local sun, restoring Earth's original climate. Moreover, wherever "Spaceship Earth" goes in the universe, it takes this new sun with it.
Political debates erupt concerning where "Spaceship Earth" should go. Some people demand the Andromeda Galaxy, others wish to explore star systems within the Milky Way

Stormy Monday

2008-03-10T17:11:00.003+01:00

It's 5:11 p.m. I've done very little of the stuff I've gotta get done. But I've got 4 hours and 49 minutes before bedtime. I'm sorry to bore all you readers with what I must do, but for the purpose of clearing my head and to prove to myself that I can at least do this, I will type a list of what I must do.

1. I will prepare a mid-term exam for my journalism students. This gets top priority. I will find a suitable article around which to base the exam and I will make it.
2. I will find all the students' articles that are ready to be posted to the web and send them to Sven, the student editor.

I think this is all I will do this evening. Tomorrow I will rise at 5, meditate, practice Yoga and head off at 8:30 to meet my two media planning clients at MC Media in the morning, then I will come home for an hour, during which time I can ring someone at OTP home leasing for the leasing article the BBJ expects me to write.

Then, at 11:30 I will leave for McDaniel College to administer the mid-term. Once done, I'll head over to Sanoma magazine publishers to meet my client there at 3 p.m. Then I'll head home to write the article on the Hungarian Irish Business Circle party this past Saturday. Lucia has agreed to do some research for me on this during the day while I am teaching. It won't be a long article, so I'll finish it before I go to bed at 10.

Wednesday morning, if all goes according to plan I will meet with Steve Torocskei with whom I can get more trend information on leasing in the Hung market. With luck, he'll supply me with some people to call to get more info. Then I'll head home, arriving around 11 where for 2 hours I can call these folks about leasing and eat some lunch. Then at 1 I'll head over to MC Media to meet this new client there. Once done, I'll head home, arriving at about 3. Then I'll commence to write the leasing article, make supper, etc. God willing, I'll finish that by ten.

Wish me luck!

Daily Opportunity

2008-02-20T10:25:00.003+01:00

Sunny, clear sky today. Still a bit chilly, although forecast warming trend. Little known to me or the readers of this blog of the tremendous opportunities awaiting me today! For starters, I get to rake the leaves in the garden. Then I can venture out to the Korean shop to pick up some fresh tofu and soy sprouts and soy sauce. After that I get to make lunch. Then if I have time, I can do some emails and prepare for my five o'clock lesson and/or my journalism class tomorrow! And, of course, there's always that beloved pastime, washing dishes!

OK, I've arguably wasted time this morning playing Tetris, a vice regular readers of this blog will know that I gave up months ago. That I returned to it two days ago is perhaps reason for concern. But if I seize the day and do these modest but rewarding tasks laid out above, just imagine the fulfillment! Hooray!

Then there's the issue of sorting out a plane travel to Turkey for Lucia, Eldar and myself. Some ideas, but nothing solid yet . . . .

Reagan Clone Bid To Enter '08 Race Causing Stir

2008-01-16T09:50:00.000+01:00

The 36-year-old clone of former President and Hollywood actor Ronald Wilson Reagan has stirred controversy by announcing his intention to enter the 2008 race for President of the United States. Some issues raising complaints from Democrats and Republicans alike include the alleged foreign birth of the Reagan clone and the fact that the original Ronald Reagan served the maximum two terms as President allowed by the US constitution.

"How can he be serious?" asked a flabbergasted former President Bill Clinton. "Eight years is all anyone gets in this office since the time of Truman. It's all I got, despite my high popularity, and it's all he should get, clone or otherwise. Just another blatant example of attempted Republican rule-bending."

Republican presidential hopeful and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney questioned the clone's right to run on the grounds that he was conceived and incubated in a Swiss laboratory and therefore does not meet the constitutional requirement to be born in the US in order to run for the country's highest office.

"Governor Romney's complaint simply holds no water," said Sir Ian Wilmut, the English scientist who led the team that produced the Reagan clone as well as the renowned clone of Dolly the sheep. "He may have had his conception and gestation abroad, but we flew him in his incubator to Hollywood before the end of what would be the final term of pregancy, where he was released as a plump and happy all-American baby boy."

Constitutional issues aside, Democratic National Committee budget director Carl Chidlow questioned whether the US would benefit from "cloned policies" from the 1980s that did little back then other than drive a wedge between the upper class and everyone else and solidify a permanent minority underclass. "The is the last thing we need today." Chidlow said.

Asked why he wished to enter the race as an independent, rather than as a Republican, the Reagan clone - standing aside a clone of the famous Black Beauty race horse - had this to say.

"Well, I look across the American landscape and I see a great nation in need of a deep breath of fresh hair. This breath should be inhaled by all Americans, regardless of politics, race, creed or Judeo-Christian denomination."

Commentary

2008-01-12T08:54:00.000+01:00

Marion Jones, the gold medal winning Olympic runner is going to prison for six months (or so.) Is this right? African-Americans have long filled out the inmate rolls in the US prison system. And this is a system that is a major part of the US economy, directly supporting the paid employment of upwards of 100,000 prison guards, administrators, maintenance staff, kitchen workers and many more folks employed to support the prison system: drivers, construction workers, warehouse workers; and by further extension, the criminal justice courts with its teams of judges and lawyers and all the people whose livelihoods depend on serving their needs. And a lot of these jobs (prison guards, in particular) are union-protected. Sure, much of this employement would survive without prisoners. But prisons play a central role. Without the destination of incarceration for convicted criminals, the bottom falls out of the criminal justice economy. A high profile case like that of Marion Jones reinforces the notion that blacks go to prison, unlike similarly-tainted whites. Former NY Yankees pitcher is accused of taking steroids and lying about it. (the Roger Clemens who won 192 games for the Red Sox did no such thing.) Does anyone expect him to go to prison? Unlikely.

A New Year Begins

2008-01-11T17:40:00.001+01:00

Hard to believe that anyone reads this blog, what with my delinquency re entries. But as my statistics page reveals, hundreds of people actually do read it. So for your benefit, here's another entry.

It's cold in Budapest. I myself have been suffering from a cold that dates back to the week before New Year's. I fasted for two days in the days before New Year's and that got rid of it pretty well. But at the Mormon New Year's party we went to I ate a lot of sweet deserts. Later that week my throat was on fire. I commanded myself to keep whatever bugs I was hosting to stay there and not spread. Within a few days the pain was gone, but a runny nose replaced it. A few days ago, I started to feel pretty lousy and a lot of green snot was passing through my nostrils, rendering my nose rather useless. So I started fasting yesterday; that is no food yesterday and today. I'm feeling better and my nose works again. Still some snot from the right nostril, but much less. Today I practiced Yoga, which was good. I've been drinking wheatgrass juice each day. I think I'll eat for real tomorrow, starting with fruit.

As far as work goes, I completed a pair of research projects just before Christmas for good money. Lately I've been teaching a lot of English to business executives for decent money. And I continue to write press releases for a Web Analytics firm for fair money. And I'm moving close to a contract to solve the ancient Etruscan language. If there's anyone out there who could help with this, please comment. I also have been writing articles on Budapest real estate for an in-flight magazine for not-bad money. Soon I will resume my teaching duties at McDaniel College, where I am Professor of Journalism for OK money. So there's no desperation in the air, but no holidays either, just now anyway. We do plan a short trip to the mountains in week or so, if we sort out accommodation.

Another bit of news: the Iraqi family I helped escape from Iraq is reunited safe and sound in Sweden.

Notes from an Austrian Village

2007-12-08T19:50:00.000+01:00

I find myself in the gymnasium of a middle school in Austria in a village whose name I do not know. My seat is a stack of exercise mats; the children I am ostensibly teaching English to are playing a ball game a few meters away. This is a dodgy proposition – a ball just hit my laptop. I live in Budapest, Hungary, some two hours southeast of here and a rather different place. This is a village, but it doesn’t feel like a Hungarian village. In Hungary, the villages are generally poor, disheveled and dilapidated. Here everything is tidy, updated and maintained. There is a distinct sense of being plugged in to a larger system that keeps the water flowing and the food coming in, keeps the standards up and makes sure that no one falls beneath the cracks. People are secure and comfortable. They leave their personal belongings – including purses and mobile phones – on the table in a café when they go to the toilet. They do so without a second thought. In Hungary, this would not happen.

There is a higher standard here, but there is a greater sense of comfort and security. A powerful, comforting sense of tradition also expresses itself in the way food and drinks are served and the way people greet each other. In Hungary, I get the sense that people are constantly wondering if they are presenting themselves correctly. Here people just seem to act naturally and there is genuine sense of what that natural way is. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel “real.” As if these Austrians are the ones fooling themselves and Hungary is where the “real” world in all its cruelty and insecurity manifests itself.

Abdominal Pain - update

2007-11-07T15:23:00.000+01:00

Since my last entry I enjoyed just over a week of very little abdominal pain. There was some initial swelling of an organ below my right ribcage on my back, but that went down and for several days there I felt just fine, "normal" you could say. But the day before yesterday I started to feel some pain, up good and high, almost behind my right ribcage, on my back. I prodded at it with my fingers and massaged it. The next day - yesterday - the swelling was back in a big way, as was the pain. My suspicion is that this is pancreatitis, brought on by another stone working its way into a biliary duct and blocking pancreatic fluids. My digestion has continued to be strange, loose stools, apparently less than fully digested.

So here it is, just two weeks after my last cleanse/flush and I am seriously considering another, with the idea of starting the preparations tomorrow with an apple juice fast for 3 days, followed by a flush on Saturday night and Sunday.

The two previous flushes have brought decided results, bringing stones and a great reduction in both swelling and pain. Lucia has been pushing for conventional medical attention. I plan on speaking with Joan - our raw food guru - this evening by phone to get her opinion. The last cleanse, stared less than a week after the one before it, took a lot out of me. But within a day or two I was feeling a whole lot better. If stones are the cause of my irritation and flushing can help - which it evidently can, then I should go forth, no? Please post a comment. Today I bought lemons and olive oil.

Plastic Universe

2007-10-29T18:21:00.000+01:00

There have been a number of times in my life when I've found that the substance and events of the material world have appeared to be influenced by what went on in my mind. Like the time I felt I had the symptoms of "GERD" and took prescription drugs for months to fight them off. The drugs did indeed appear to work: the scorching pain in my throat that prevented me from sleeping was kept at bay. Then I did a 10-day silent meditation course "vipassana" and as I gained faith in the method and learned to observe sensations without reacting to them, the pain began to fade moments after it would first appear. After the course, my "condition" no longer existed.

Then there's been this issue with the pain that plagued my right abdomen, apparently my right hip some time before that. When I had the hip pain, my thoughts went back nearly a decade earlier when a sonogram - in the examining physician's opinion - revealed a gallstone. "This could cause discomfort later on, you may wish to consider surgery." My thought at the time was that my practice of Yoga and vegetarian diet would protect me. But my persistent hip pain got me thinking that perhaps it was the stone coming back to haunt me.

But upon my participation in a class with a very impressive Iyengar Yoga teacher, a man in his early 50s from Forest Hills, NY, the pain went away. Then my practice fell off and other troubles plagued me and my self-confidence took a beating. The pain showed up again, this time moving to my abdomen. I would discount it, maintaining that as soon as I went back to regular Yoga practice, I would send the pain packing. Suspecting a gallstone(s), I attended a liver flush workshop. But no stones came out and I left suspecting it had been a hoax. That it was all in Hungarian and most of the participants were older women with whom I couldn't communicate may have had something to do with my lack of faith.

Then came a recent Vipassana (another 10-day) and I discovered there was a pain in my right abdomen that was not going away. I spoke with the instructor about this pain and she suggested that I have it checked out after the course. This I resolved to do and despite the chronic pain I weathered on, in pursuit of perfect equanimity.

But when the course concluded, I didn't go to the doctor, despite the pain. I was short on cash and without health insurance. Instead I fasted for two days. And the pain subsided. Once eating again, I returned to my old habits of overeating, eating after dark and eating reheated leftovers of cooked dishes. The pain quickly returned. So then I fasted for four days and commenced another liver cleanse. This time I passed what looked to be a number of stones, although I wasn't quite sure if they were hardened balls of old fecal matter. Once the cleanse was done, I went easy on food for a few days, had some very nice Yoga practices, with only a faint soreness in my side, but then towards the end of the week, a buddy (a former chiropractor) told me in the morning that I should be careful of liver flushes because they could dislodge a large stone that could not be passed, thereby causing a blockage. Doubts entered my mind, where there had been so much faith. Then I had an oily fried lunch, then fried leftover potatoes for supper, well after dark. I cooked them and ate them quickly, rushing to indulge in what I reckoned to be a sin.

That night, the pain returned.

So I phoned the woman who had led my first cleanse. She told me that it could be possible that a stone had lodged causing a blockage and she reccomended another cleanse. Around this time I found very encouraging entries on curezone.org about how such cleanses had brought relief to long-term sufferers of abdominal pain. So I began fasting - this time on apple juice - and then did another flush, which I just finished today. At some moment I did come across an entry by a man claiming to be a doctor who said that the stones that come out in a flush aren't stones, but soap, made by the Epsom salts, the citrus juice and the olive oil (all components of the cleanse).

But this morning when I started passing "stones", they looked like exactly that. They were very dark and the size of pebbles and did not resemble either soap of old clumps of shit. And my pain was passing, disappearing altogether the more stones I passed. But lo and behold, the more stones I passed, the more they started to resemble (and feel) like bits of soap. No longer black, but light green. Later in the day, I passed some in the john at the mall and I noticed them floating - much like soap, but not much like stones.

Then on the web I suddenly found all sorts of reports purporting to debunk the "quackery" of liver flushes. But I also found many that supported them with first-hand accounts of people who said their lives had been transformed by these flushes.

My first meal of any substance has been a delicious salad of spinach, ruccola, shredded carrot, zucchini, a little mushroom, oil, vinegar and soy sauce. For much of the day I had been doing different bends and stretches to see if I could detect the pain, but could not. Pain now? I felt a little prick in my upper abdomen earlier, then another. Do I react, search for more? Do I go to the doctor, spend the rent money on tests, then go into debt for surgery? Naaah. I'll just observe. And eat moderately, before dark and RAW. Like Jesus used to say, "Your faith has healed you."

Liver flush

2007-10-22T16:29:00.000+02:00

I just wanted you all to know, yesterday morning I passed literally dozens of
gallstones. It wasn't exactly easy, fasting for four days with enemas every
day, then drinking a half liter of olive oil mixed with a half liter of
citrus juice and several doses of Epsom salts. Last night was the hardest,
keeping that citrus and olive oil cocktail down. Then more Epsom salts this
morning and many trips to the toilet. But it worked! The abdominal pain is
gone, except for some residual soreness. And to think, I could have had
surgery instead! What a relief . . .

Abdominal Pain

2007-10-17T08:04:00.001+02:00

During my recent 10-day Vipassana meditation course, it became clear to me that I was suffering from a dull pain in my abdomen that wasn't going away. In fact, it occurred to me that I had been suffering from a pain on my right side for a year, on and off. The thought that I was diagnosed with a gallstone 9 years ago and that the symptoms for pancreatitis as described on the Mayo clinic's web site match my own to a large extent and that pancreatitis is often set off by gallstones.

So I've decided to fast. And see the doctor, hopefully get an ultrasound.

I fasted 2 days last week and the pain abated. So I think a 7 day could help.

And I will continue with Yoga, which seems also to help.

After Vipassana

2007-10-10T20:32:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since my last entry. This past Sunday I returned from a 10-day Vipassana meditation course. It was my third in three years. It was done sitting in complete silence for 9+ hours a day, for nine consecutive days. On the tenth day, the "veil of silence" was lifted and we were allowed to speak with our fellow meditators. This was interesting. All these men (women were in different quarters, though we shared the same meditation hall) with whom I had been eating, showering and peeing next to for nine days, whom I had speechlessly observed (and they me), whose habits and mannerisms I knew - some I had even assigned names to, like "the old soldier, an old guy who marched up and down constantly during every break, or Samson, one of my roommates, very tall and very solid man with full-bodied long, blond hair - I finally got to speak with them. It was like I knew them already except that I didn't. Sampson turned out to be a sculptor. I regrettably didn't speak with the old soldier, hence never learned if he'd been a soldier. He was too young to have fought in WWII and probably too old for Vietnam (the Hungarian Vietnam veterans fought on the North Vietnamese side, they got to win).

After the course, some of us went to a nearby Buddhist stupa, a sort of Buddhist shrine built in memory of

Animated GIF Posting Test

2007-09-18T23:19:00.000+02:00

this is a test to see if animated GIFs can be posted to the web

Post-Butterfly Valley Blues

2007-09-04T09:10:00.000+02:00

It's been over a week since our return from Butterfly Valley. The weather here in Budapest is cold and rainy. I read on the Internet it's still balmy down in the Valley. The past week found me sick with diarrhea of the worst kind for 3 1/2 days, perhaps a response to post-holiday vacation. We had such an amazing time in Turkey and now we're back to the headaches and stress and ongoing drudgery of life in Budapest. It isn't easy. Of course we have to get with it. Embrace it. Move forward, make money, get creative. Get back to Butterfly Valley.

All the beauty of life there is so irrelevant now. Any reflections on the good time we had there just bring on depression.

This is kind of too bad. Lucia took hundreds of pictures and we had plans to blog these and write all about our adventures. But this hasn't happened and to do it now would feel like so much wasted time.

But I can say this. My spaceship has landed on the moon. The Flash! animation piece I've been working on intermittently for months that demonstrates how a solar powered spaceship can lift off from the earth and travel to the moon without need for rockets has passed the first draft phase. This felt good and lifted me out of the grips of illness.

Understanding Computers as a gateway to overcoming madness

2007-08-31T12:15:00.000+02:00

What is madness afterall, but the conscious act of getting lost exploring the limitlessness of their own minds? They forget their senses. They neglect their appearence and walk around having conversations with the ghosts in their heads and "sane" people refer to them as "talking to themselves."

Madness has been a close companion with each of the more advanced thinkers throughout our evolution as one kind of creature, that is, Yuman Beens.

The way out of madness is, of course, "by way of blackboard, bootstrap and bottle." But computers and learning about them makes things quite a bit easier - and - even more fulfilling. Unless of course you're one of those folks who is never satisfied. Then you'd say, "well now that I understand computers I'm less likely to get lost in my mind, but, I'd be so much deeper if I'd just followed the "three Bs" without a roadmap.

But let me give you an example of understanding computers and its beniefits.

Let say you start to think about something deep. For example, you ask yourself, if my eye is a camera, the who's watching its TV? You might get stuck looking at the TV, asking "what would it be like to open a Meth lab in Tehran, where crank goes for ten times it's US selling price?"

Before you know it, you'll have scaled the mountains and touched the sky!

But back to computers. You may be reflecting on all the choices in life and the limited time you have and what others think of you what - if anything! - should happen to you after you die. You worry that heaven will reject you. You just hope that hell will not.

Turkey awaits!

2007-08-04T10:57:00.000+02:00

Thanks to the power of attraction - or perhaps just to Lucia's determination - we will, after all, go to Turkey. Lucia found low-priced charter tickets from Budapest to Bodrum, Turkey. We will travel from Bodrum to Butterfly Valley and stay there for 5 or so days where Lucia will teach Yoga and I will take Yoga and we will all have fun. What's more we will swim in the Med sea, climb on the rocks and hang out with hip folk from all over. Who could ask for anything more?

Eldar will be certain to enjoy himself playing in the waves as he has on our two previous visits. Of course, more time could have been nice, but the deal with the ticket only allowed for 10 days. So we accept it as a gift.

Meanwhile, I press forward with a study of banking in an unnamed country with the largest population of Jews of any Mid-eastern country outside Israel. This has already been paid for, which is nice. Beyond this, I have been moving forward with a proposed real estate project on the Danube Bend, where I went with an Irish architect yesterday and with underground coal gasification here in Hungary. Both projects hold much projects. Both are still some distance from producing any money. But hope springs eternal.

Jack McClellan

2007-07-28T23:08:00.000+02:00

Swedish security measures in Iraq. In line with the Swedish traditions of criminal solutions.

Summertime Depression

2007-07-18T17:40:00.000+02:00

Well, dear readers, I am depressed. It's summer and Lucia and Eldar are away and there's not enough money in the bank for us to take the Turkish holiday we planned when they get back and pay all the other usual bills. What's more, there's no telling where any more money is likely to come from. I paid my subcontractors twice more than I needed to for a recent project. Had I not, there'd be money enough. Then there's the USD 1000 I sent to a young woman in an unnamed country so she could join her mother and little brother in another unnamed country. It turns out she and another brother and her father were just able to get away to yet a third unnamed country. But things are at least better for them, thank goodness.

But as a result of my generosity, I'm in a pickle for summer vacation - something I so desire. And something Lucia and Eldar would sure love.

Guess I'll meditate for an hour. Then sort things out with this phone interview . . .

2007-07-04T14:10:00.001+02:00

Something tells me peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch two days in a row is not the best. So, with luck, I'll have a different lunch tomorrow.

Om Mané Padmé Om

The weather has changed.
Tickle your pickle.
Out of balance.
Counter valence
Monster talents
Hybrid whale ants

As many of you know, I was recently in New York. What a remarkable place. Just step outside and humble yourself. Millions of people with places to go and things to do all within walking distance. Your priorities are one in several million. It's refreshing to feel so unimportant. The skyscrapers in whose shadows you walk were most often there before you and will be there after you're gone. If you feel unimportant, then the pressure of life feels a bit lighter, at least to me.

All the activity, the vibration, the buzz of so many people so actively engaged, doing what they do in an earnest manner really picks things up. There's a sense that things make sense in New York, despite the vastness of it all.

I get the sense in Budapest that the experience of life here does not make sense for a great many people. The law of cause and effect is not enforced within the borders of Hungary. Here lurk insidious independent variables ready to snatch the voltage of one's actions, off to some other current of action. One is left alone and lost, wondering what happened.

It's time for something different . . . tidy up, wash dishes, etc.

Arrival in New York (written two weeks ago)

2007-06-25T18:29:00.000+02:00

Date: 2007.6.25. 18:47:32
Subject:
Arrival in New York City
Text:
I'm sitting in the small living room of my host, Dr. Anton Bara, an MD originially from the Phillipines. Looking out at midtown Manhattan here on E. 86th & 1st ave. The building dates back to at least the fifties. The metal laundry hamper fixed tothe wall in the bathroom is just like the one in the bathroom back in the Bronx where my father and i lived in the early 1980s. The apartment still has all its original fixtures, as far as i can see. By the looks of the flaking ceiling and walls, it hasn't seen too many paint jobs, either. A lovely collection of antiques furnishes the place, including a pair of old kilims onthe floor and several antique paintings on the walls.

New York is so very different from most European cities. The people are largely quite friendly. But i can't say that about the city itself. Its diverse character prevents from having a sufficiently strong core that would enable this, such as I've seen in Stockholm. At the big airport in Stockholm there are clearly marked signs guiding you to the train that takes you swiftly and comfortably into the center of town. At JFK in the NY, it's chaotic. The train was hard to find and there were no instructions whatsoever about how to pay or even where it goes. As it turned out, i had to take it to a bus stop, then take a lingish bus journey to an elevated subway train that took me to Manhattan where i had then to change to yet another train. The whole journey cost $4 and took well over an hour. I had to ask directions several times. By contrast, the Stockholm train takes 20 min, by costs at least $25.

New York certainly has a buzz to it. But it's not essentially different from Budapest. The apartments cost much more, but they aren't really any nicer. And the jobs people do are more or less the same, except they are more influential to the world economy. A Budapest adman works on national and regional campaigns, where his NY counterpart works on global ones. But to both, it's just "my job," after which they meet friends, eat, sleep, etc. Newcomers may feel thrilled to be on top of the world economy, but that wears off and it becomes just another place.

Back in the USSA

2007-06-12T22:14:00.000+02:00

Here I am back in the country of my birth for the first time in 7 years. I first cam to NYC, then went on to DC. The DC trip has involved meeting between me and my lead client and Carl Chidlow, budget director of the Democratic National Committee, with the aim of hooking the Democrats on my client's web-based intelligence tool, www.silobreaker.com

The meeting itself went well enough; my client presented well and was politely received. With luck, it will lead to greater things.

It has been strange being back in the US. The paradigm is so familiar, yet different. It's more corporate. New York was great, even if I didn't see all that much. Just the scale and energy of it all was great to experience again. It has lost a lot of its edge. The barbarians have been beaten back and replaced by a whole lotta whitemen. But it's still something to see.

Tomorrow I see my old friend John Lippert and will visit my father's ashes.

I'm very tired. Up this morning at 2:30 to get to the airport, where delays and bizarre hassles nearly caused me to miss my flight.

But all is well. Now hanging out in DNC headquarters in Washington, DC. Waiting for my old friend Carl to finish so we can go out for dinner and drinks.

It is clear to me that I'm not only tired, but still ailing from the cold I came down with on the flight over from Budapest to NY. But I'm better than I was, if not at my all-time best.

It's intriguing to see Carl again. He's very much his old self, but mature, sharp, a real leader. It will be cool to hang out with him this evening.

2007-06-03T09:40:00.000+02:00

The human soul hungers. As a threshold between coming and going, what comes in forever goes out and vice versa. The whirlpool of thoughts and feelings that captures greatest intensity of this coming and going forever searches for greater fluidity; faith, understanding that allow incoming emotions, concepts and information to be processed and stored, reproduced and dispensed with in a manner that puts the soul at ease, rather than leaving it tortured.

Educated Europeans have the benefit of a structured exploration of the depths of the human soul. That is, they are exposed - through their education - to a holistic and historical understanding of how human knowledge - scientific, technical, metaphysical - was built, how turnkey concepts came into being, how contemporary axioms - those truths taken for granted by so many of us - came into being. How previous ideas came to be questioned, how new evidence was explored, how experiments were undertaken, debates engaged, new ideas were formulated.

This is all undertaken not just in the language and forum of science, but also in poetry and literature, both of which are required high school reading from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the Germans, Russians and French writers of more recent centuries. It is systematically read and discussed, taught by teachers who make it their passion. An understanding that this knowledge, this understanding, this nourishment of the soul is of vital importance permeates the classical European education. To produce balanced souls, balanced minds, balanced and responsible human beings, there must be must a digestion of the struggles of those humans that have paved the road upon which today's humans walk.

Americans are deprived such an education. They enter a complex world, replete with technologies and processes, demands on their being so little of which is understood by most, and explained to them by ever fewer. They struggle alone and in groups to make sense of it all, their minds corrupted by entities that feed on their ignorance and desperation by convincing them they are ill and should take medicine, or that they are uncomfortable because they don't have enough spending power and should therefore go into debt. Or that they are hungry for scintillating flavors and should exchange their labor and credit for heavily processed, unhealthy foods divorced from the millennia of evolutionary creation that produced
them.

There is of course Yoga and meditation, and these offer a path to liberation. Unfortunately, this path is unseen and unrecognized by far too many. But even Yoga and meditation do not fully prepare you to cope with the complexities of contemporary life in the "developed" world.

The German novelist Thomas Mann wrote in an essay that the philosopher Nietzsche went mad so that his readers wouldn't have to. That is, he put his struggles into words - struggles that directly faced the conflicts and contradictions in the center of the whirlpool of the human soul. What he wrote gave and gives comfort to his readers who recognize those struggles as their own. They find it easier, then, to say, "life is like this, there's nothing at all wrong with me, I can relax and continue to live."

But most Americans - unlike most educated Europeans - never read Nietzsche or Thomas Mann, never mind Aristophanes or Sophocles. Instead, they have been trained to follow the processes of the machines and the corporate administrations they serve and become hopelessly alienated in the process. This is ironic because it is just these machines and corporations that have relived them of so much burden.

But without balanced minds and souls to lead them, these machines and corporations enslave and destroy human lives rather than liberate them. So many problems facing human beings today are so clearly soluble. But the mechanical and corporate interests tied up in keeping things the way they are block the way. Ignorance and fear collude to stifle the innovations that offer the most promise.

I'm not pessimistic. Not entirely. My next entry will be filled with optimism,

Iran and US Reps Meet with Smashing Success

2007-05-28T15:53:00.000+02:00

I have been reading and hearing about the new dialog between the US and Iran. This is considered historic because Iran and Iraq haven't officially spoken in 20 years. In the meeting, the US Ambassador to Iraq reportedly accused Iran of exporting machinery of war into Iraq and his Iranian counterpart denied it. What progress. But who are these guys? Do they represent the average Yank or average Iranian? I suspect not.

I am closer to the average American in terms of lifestyle, income, habits, family and so forth, despite the fact that I live abroad. And a student of mine this past semester from Iran is likely much closer to the average Iranian. And we agree on all sorts of things. In fact, we're friends. And from what he tells me about most people in Iran, they sound like great folks, the sort I'd be happy to meet.

Do we accuse each other of wrongdoing and deny accusations? Of course not. Our "dialog" has been one of peace and education. Why hasn't this made world news? "Representatives of US and Iran meet with smashing success" could be our headline.

Perhaps we need something grander to steal some of the show from the representatives of the investor class and militaries.

2007-05-04T11:36:00.000+02:00

This blog entry is devoted to itself. I taught my journalism students this past Wednesday that if you want people to read your blog you need a focus and you need to update it on a regular basis. I suspect there's a grain of truth to that. So far with my blog, I have done neither. There are a few folks out there who have read my blog and have indeed come back to it. (If you are one of those, please leave a comment and let me know). This all raises a larger question: who, in general, reads blogs?

People who read blogs must have a few things: access to a computer, some time when they are sitting in front of it and some level of interest in the content of the blog. I suspect the largest single group of people who have all three are office workers and students. The former are probably the larger group. In general office workers have less heartfelt interest than students in the activity they are expected to engage in, hence their likelihood to be doing something else. They also nearly all have computers to use and - being office workers - are sitting by them for more hours of the day than anyone else among us. I myself have been an office worker on a few occasions and it was then that I did the most online reading and blogging. Perhaps those were my most creative periods with the computer. There's nothing like being given the opportunity to do something you shouldn't be doing instead of something you should, especially if it is that very thing you're avoiding that is getting you paid. So office workers are the probably the biggest readers of blogs. Students probably come second as they have both the technology and the time and they're also a pretty big group. Then come that group I'll call the spare timers who sit at a computer as a sort of hobby. They don't have much they should be doing, but for whatever reason they have both the requisite technology and time, as well as interest. As a freelance, I fall outside of these groups so out of respect for myself I'll designate a fourth group, the freelances. These are the primary groups that read blogs. The members of each of these groups I'll place into secondary groups based on their motivations and interest in reading blogs.

The idealists are the people who read blogs because they have certain beliefs or passions that they explore, have affirmed or challenged in the pages of blogs. The voyeurs are those that somehow get off on reading about the lives of others. Next come the curious: people who feel pretty left out in general, but still want to learn a bit about what's going on or what happened even if it won't directly affect them or have any impact on the actions of their wills. Of course there are also the laugh-addicts who read blogs in search of a good laugh.

I suppose I'm an idealist when I read Keelynet.com, essentially a blog devoted to emerging technologies and a laugh-addict when I go to overheardinnewyork.com

I just got back from overheardinnewyork. For me it's always a kick. I used to live in New York and I find the blog captures the experience so well I actually feel like I just visited the place. It's a blog where people in New York post things they overhear in the street, in the subway, on the bus, in shops, coffeeshops, workplaces, etc. It delivers the New York vibe like nothing I've found.

I believe I may have found the true secret to blogging! To successful blogging, that is. One has to blog for its own sake. Otherwise it's just not satisfying and probably no fun to read. Don't bring in any ulterior motives like "stuff I gotta do" or "this I believe" or "my reaction to this evening's episode of Szomszedok (an 80s and 90s evening soap here in Hungary currently in re-runs). Just blog for its own sake . . .

Merkava Leaves Its Mark On Earth

2007-04-28T08:42:00.000+02:00

Aeons ago, when the Earth was inhabited by plants, animals and apes
There came into orbit a craft from some distance out in Space
Called the Merkava
It was manned by a team: Mich-u-El, Dan-u-El, Gabor-u-El, Ur-u-El, Raph-u-El, Sam-u-El and El-dar.
It also held a tremendously powerful computer used for navigation and overall guidance.
The Computer was called A-do-noy.
The men’s origin is tied in with a place or entity called El.
It has been surmised by some that El is an abbreviation – E.L.
EL could be short for “Electric Lighting” or some such descriptor.
Communication with E.L. Adonoy was something special.
The men had to enter a chamber
Behind a “veil”
And there received guidance.
(Something similar can be seen in the film “Alien”.)

For reasons not fully known
Only Eldar was able to “enter” EL Adonoy completely.
It is thought that their compatibility went way back.
And that the others on board were not from the same place
But had encountered the Merkava at some time after its launch
Perhaps they were lost
Or perhaps they came to its rescue
Perhaps there was only Eldar on board at that time.

The men, guided by the E.L. Adonoy, beamed down to the surface.
There they established a colony called EL Den.
Eldar lived there full-time, while the others commuted between it and the Merkava.
It appears it was modeled on the conditions of Eldar’s home.

The others, each – unlike Eldar - was ranked as an An-g-El.
This has been translated as representative or employee of EL.

On Earth, Eldar suffered from loneliness.
Under instructions from EL Adonoy
Cells were extracted from the marrow of Eldar’s rib
To produce “Ev-EL”, a woman
She was gestated in a pool of warm water.
Ev was instructed by EL Adonoy
As was Eldar.
They had sons
Who squabbled
**
The tribe of Abel
Is but a Fable
Caine killed all his lineage
Really quite a sineage
To lose your righteous brother
We are all Cain-en-ites, no other.
**
Throughout the course of time
Contact with El was largely lost
The ability to communicate with it
Seems to have been lost
Or perhaps it ceased to function

Jesus is said by some
To have been sent by El Adonoy
To bring the Earthlings back
Under the guidance of El Adonoy

Others say El Adonoy
Came to be know as El A
Or Al-lah
And Samuel as Satan
After a dispute
Eldar came to be remembered
As Adam
And Ev El
As Eve.

Bin Laden Changes Tune In Favor Of Peace And Harmony

2007-04-16T18:07:00.000+02:00

By Frederick Ben Adelmann

AMAN – Friday, 13 April 2007 - In an authenticated DVD released Thursday by Allah Akbar Media, Al Qaeda’s new media division, Osama bin Laden appears delivering a message of forgiveness and human unity in stark contrast to his earlier pleas for the Muslim peoples of the world to undermine and overthrow the US and Israel.

“We are all children of God,” said bin Laden, “whether we like it or not.”

He explained that while the United States - as the leader of global corporatism - has put profit above all and cost the beings of this planet their peace and well being, a campaign of terror is not the solution.

“The spirit that gives life to each and every one of us is the spirit of God, the creator and ruler of all,” the Al Qaeda chief added. “Some of us have been misguided by the voices of fear, greed and revenge. This is not the way. Charity is the highest good taught in the Koran and in the scriptures of its predecessor faiths, Judaism and Christianity. We are faced with a world in crisis and we must now use our power to help others. This way a new paradigm will emerge and destruction can be replaced by enlightened, harmonious creativity.”

The rest of the video offered no apologies for Al Qaeda attacks in the US, Europe and the UK. Bin Laden did however state that these attacks were “calculated steps” taken to humble the collective evil of global corporatism and blaze a path forward for human cooperation.

“Creation is the work of God,” he said. “As his children, our mission is to continue his creation in the most charitable way possible. We must give to the planet, not take from it. We must strengthen each other, not exploit. We must above all forgive and teach by good example. All the machinery of man can be used for either good or ill. The choice of good is not the easy one. It is easier and more immediately profitable to make war. Selling weapons generates profits and fuels industry. But ultimately it turns us against each other and destroys everything.”

Bin Laden ended his presentation with a challenge.

“To all those who have followed me,” he said. “Forgive the greedy and fearful among us – whether they be Jew, Christian, Muslim or pagan. Teach by the example of the Prophet and the creator with a dedication to tolerance, learning, temperance and peace. To those who condemn me, I say rise to the understanding that forgiveness is the only door to peace from war. Be charitable to the ones you view as your enemies and eventually – after some painful sacrifices – they will come to love you as friends and a new reality of peace can prevail.”

Writing as Therapy

2007-03-24T22:55:00.000+01:00

Writing is a form of therapy for some people. Amy Chan has called her writing such. Right now, I’m waiting for a student to show up at his office so I can give him an English lesson. At least that’s the ostensible truth. In fact, all we’ve done for two years or so since we started having these lessons is top chat about various topics of mutual interest and occasional read something, also usually of mutual interest. We also have a cup of coffee together. This is the only cup of actual coffee I drink these days and it is always welcome. Today I’m particularly sleepy and would be happy to drink a cup with my friend Istvan. But he’s not here. He’s more than a half-hour late.

I’ve had a glass of juice, struggled to read a bit in Freakonomics, a book I just got and read some students’ test papers. I was falling asleep, so I reasoned that writing might just bring me around.

Monday night I was out at a St. Patrick’s Day party hosted by the Irish Embassy. Afterwards I was hanging out at a buddy’s place where I got a bit baked and found myself struggling to keep my wits. I managed to gather myself whenever I took up some far-out topics. Could this work now? What are some far-out topics? Sex on other planets? Sex between birds and hamsters? Money-making schemes based around sex between birds and hamsters on other planets? Perhaps those are too unrealistic.

I’ve got a good head for designing plans. The trouble I have is keeping myself together in order to implement them. There is a real chasm separating many ideas from their implementation. For example, I’ve had this idea lately to do a research study of Albania for business purposes. Real Estate development would seem to jump off the page as a place to start. After all, the population is not so large as to constitute a major market, hence limiting interest to foreign investors. But all that great Mediterranean coast is just begging for hotels and so forth. It occurred that what could be really interesting would be to set up something “hippy” along the lines of Butterfly Valley or Olympos; both on the south coast of Turkey. If a market study paid for by investors could feed the hippy project, then all the better. Folks could even be brought over from Turkey to get the hippy thing going.

Theres a woman here munching away on something very crunchy, rice cakes probably. There’s plasma TV in front of me with the sound down tuned to a business channel, playing “Squawk Box” a program about investment markets. In general, the people all looked spiked up on caffeine. Consciously putting on the right aggressively serious and optimistic face; the sort of face that says “Right. Here’s the way it is, aren’t we all important and cutting edge. Looking forward to golf at the weekend, but first the facts on the ground.”

I’ve got this idea that if large double-skinned geodesic domes were built the right way, they could make nifty spaceships. They could lift off without rockets and travel faster than the speed of light once out in space. Something like the deathstar only kinder and gentler.

Now Squawk Box is interviewing a German guy in Berlin, standing outside with chracteristic stone buildings and construction equipment behind him talking about “the EU at 50.” That’s an interesting number, no? It seems they’re tracing back the EU’s life to those post-war trade agreements stemming forward from Bretton Woods. But the entity known as the EU is, what, ten to fifteen years old?

Dude in a cream suit with a mustache sat down to wait for the same guy as me. He ordered a coffee from the receptionist.

I’m beginning to think I should photocopy my diploma, give it to the receptionist, pack and go.

Steve – Istvan – my student just arrived. He has a meeting with someone so I can chill for a bit. But just seeing him, knowing that a coffee and a chat is yet to come lifts my spirits quite a bit. The dull aspects of life – the papers I have to grade, money issues, the BBJ intelligence service; all this seems less significant and far less of a burden in light of Steve. Steve is a man who’s made things happen in his life by working with a team of devoted professionals. I, too, have made things happen. But my style has been different. I’ve worked with other people, but at a distance and under different terms than in an office. My life has had its complications, but with the help of Yoga and meditation and vegetarianism, all has taken shape so that all is well and I am grateful for it all and happy with the way it is.

I glanced up at the TV and saw a “house ad” for their midday show, “Power Lunch.” How sickening! If I ran the channel I’d have shows with names like “Eleventh Hour Briefing”, “Blind Greed,” and “The Follower’s Day-job”

The legend and promise of the Water Engine

2007-03-07T09:40:00.000+01:00

There I was, racking my brains over what I was going to write in my energy column, The Energy Source in the Budapest Business Journal. For years I have followed the concept of the "water engine" - an idea that it could somehow be possible to build a device that could derive energy from water. Not by using water as an energy intermediary as in the steam engine or nuclear power plant, but by somehow splitting water into its component parts - hydrogen and oxygen - in such a manner that the hydrogen could be used as a fuel to produce more energy than was required to split the water beforehand.

A conversation in New Zealand in late 2000 introduced me to the story of Archie Blue, a New Zealand farmer who purportedly sorted out a way to do just this: power a vehicle using water as fuel. The man who told me the story said that Mr. Blue had used a method of splitting water not by ordinary electrolysis, but by feeding electricity into the water in specifically tuned pulses, thereby breaking the atomic bonds of the water using rather less energy than was generated by the hydrogen when used to power Blue's internal combustion engine.

I would later be told that this is physically impossible, that the physical nature of the Earth with its gravity, the composition of its atmosphere, etc., make the existence of hydrogen in its free state a rather untenable thing - which explains exactly why free hydrogen is so unstable and can be used as a fuel and, moreover, why energy is required to bring it to its free state from water - which is in turn created when hydrogen and oxygen atoms - physically in love with each other as they are - combine. The energy we get from the combustion of free hydrogen, I was told by two highly qualified scientists, is just a return of the energy that was used to liberate it in the first place. Therefore, a system such as the one allegedly employed by Mr. Blue could never produce more energy than was put in.

But ever since high school biology class when I learned that swamp vegetation produced hydrogen using the biological "electron transport chain" and then emitted it as combustible methane - the source of swamp fires - I had a penchant for finding a devious way to produce hydrogen, even it meant violating some physical laws. And the scientists who told me that a water engine was impossible - "just another hopeless attempt at a perpetual motion machine" - did so long after my first encounter with the story (or legend) of Archie Blue. So I pursued the topic on the Internet, which led me to a number of stories about men who had purportedly built successful water-powered contraptions. The most impressive appeared to be an American inventor named Stanley Meyer and a Filipino named Daniel Dingle. Both claimed to use an unconventional, low-energy method of water splitting that enable their vehicles - a dune buggy and a Honda respectively - to fill their tanks with water and drive around without the need for any other source of power. I also came across plans by other "inventors" such as Carl Cella and others that claimed to do essentially the same thing. Cella's plan basically laid out in detail how to build a water-powered car.

Both Meyer and Dingle have received mainstream media attention, including stories in newspapers and on TV stations, all of which did not question their claims.

For a time I was even in email correspondence with a man named Frank Roberts who claimed to have a water-powered car he used as his everyday transportation. He wrote me that he had been in contact with government officials who told him that it was OK to have a water car for personal use, but that it was illegal to sell it. Later he wrote that he was being harassed and that his mother had been either arrested or kidnapped (I forget which).

I also learned - from Internet sources - that Stanley Meyer, some time after driving his dune buggy across the country, was arrested and convicted of "egregious fraud." Prosecutors said he had taken investors' money on the basis of false claims about having invented a new low energy method of electrolysis to make his dune buggy run on just water. Online supporters of his claim he was railroaded and that he was harassed the rest of his life by dark forces that eventually murdered him. I read what was allegedly a scanned copy of a funereal home document stating that Meyer had died from "food poisoning." His brother, meanwhile, (again, according to Internet sources) carried on the marketing of his technology in a somewhat less aggressive manner. Stanley Meyer also appears to have successfully filed for a number of patents for his technology, many of which I have seen. There are several websites that talk about him and Dingle. There is at least one group of tinkers who appear to be working together to replicate this sort of technology.

Is all this water engine talk a load of bunk? Did Stanley Meyer, a relatively uneducated man, get it in his head that a water car was possible and so he set about building it, developing a battery-powered electrolysis device that produced enough hydrogen to power his dune buggy - but that his dune buggy would stop because his batteries ran down, not because he ran out of water? Perhaps he genuinely believed his water car could one day work as he hoped - or perhaps he was even convinced that it did, convinced enough to successfully sell the idea to others (including, a TV news report stated, a Pentagon colonel), but that in fact it was all just a hoax: a battery-powered car that simply used water as an energy intermediary.

The scientists I spoke with had me sufficiently convinced to leave any talk of a water engine out of my column - for now. But part of me wants badly for the water engine to really work. Perhaps the water-splitting developed by Dingle and Meyers works something like Joshua's horn, which brought down the walls of Jericho by finding just the right pitch and loudness. Perhaps our little arena of the universe is less stable than we think and that by cracking it just a bit we can unleash unknown - and hitherto thought impossible - forces for our own benefit? I did like what one of the professors told me after he denounced the water engine as a "perpetual motion machine."

"I won't say it's impossible," he said, raising his brow. "Never say never."

2007-02-08T11:23:00.000+01:00

Another week, another seven days. Journalism course appears to be going well. Only one student has dropped so far and participation is strong. Next week we embark on launching our "news blog," where the class will somehow transform into a news gathering organization with me as editor-in-chief. It could be great, it could be OK. But it will be something.

I got a new assignment from a private client to investigate in Romania. It comes at a welcome time. So 5 clients I've got: Equilor, Mediacom, BBJ, McDaniel, and the private one. Some pay better than others. The general equation: less work = more money. The jobs that pay the least require the most work. But there are rewards other than money. Such as credibility and satisfaction. Connections, free lunches.

Went to a free lunch Tuesday with the publisher of the BPTimes/Zeitung and a leading Italian businessman. It was a wonder to watch the businessman eat. Such graceful table manners. The way he held each forkful upright and so precisely put it into his mouth and extracted it with parted lips and clenched teeth. He had it all down. The conversation was in German. His accent and diction were far more pleasing to the ear than the German's. And he's such a swell guy! I didn't much care for the food.

2007-01-29T14:41:00.000+01:00

Just had my first class as a journalism instructor. Didn't go badly and I will be in a better position for the next class. Twitch in my right cheek has supplanted the soreness that was there. Red spot on my nose appears to be fading. Strong Yoga class with Lucia on Saturday and great raw-food buffet at Joan's afterwards. Transformative feelings ever since. I am a healthy young dynamic man intent on infusing my actions with meaning.

Of pressing interest to many . . .

2007-01-20T21:50:00.000+01:00

President Bush makes it known that he is a Christian, as he did this past Christmas, seen on flikr with his family and passing holiday greetings on to the troops in Iraq. The president recognizes that the divide between Christianity and Islam is no gaming matter, despite the money that changes hands between Mac users and mobile Internet subscribers who have turned the business of politics into that of a bookmaker’s. The president has been shopping around for solutions to the ongoing mid-east crises. Online oddsmakers now favor success for the troop surge and call the recommendations of the Baker group a decided long-shot. But the windows of opportunity for a quick and bloodless end to war and conflict may have slammed shut long ago, leaving the weather within the Bush camp decidedly gloomy for some time to come.

As this blogger is keen to remark, women are not alone in raising alarm bells about such pressing concerns as global warming, but their voices are becoming more and more important. Just as sexy devices from Apple such as the ipod or the new iphone are increasingly marketed to women, it is becoming clear that women are not only becoming more tech-savvy, but communicative about global issues as well. Whether downloading an mp3 podcast about web-20, web2.0, the new wii videogame console or the latest youtube video, women are contributing to the world-wide wordpress in more ways than one.

In all of 2006 and so far in 2007, on any given Thursday, 13 of every 15 women in the US and EU will use some form of electronic media.

All this enters the realm of politics with the announcement by Hillary Clinton of her entry into the 2008 US Presidential race. With more and more women plugged-in, they are likely to be better informed and more motivated to participate in the political process. This promises to be good news for Hillary and bad news for Bush, as increased coverage of the Clinton campaign will likely dog the Bush Whitehouse up to the final days of it lame-duck term.

Cash in on the End of the World!

2007-01-19T15:44:00.000+01:00

The US invaded Iraq and thereby made a global player out of Iran. By refusing to talk with Iraq's moderates when it had the chance, the US finds itself pitted against a hard-talking anti-US, anti-Israel dude, Achmedinijihad. Iran is developing nukes, all over the country and much of it underground. No problem, says Israel. They'll blow it all up, even if it requires them to use nukes themselves. Talk with the Iranians, said Jim Baker and company. Don't you dare talk with the Iranians, said the Saudi nobles to W and company. So the US addiction to Saudi oil keeps the freedom-loving country in support of an ever-hottening feud that could bring on WWIII (or is it IV?) And the investor class, by and large, is just fine with all this. After all, Capital doesn't care! It simply responds to market realities.

There are, of course, deviants such as I who don't drive cars. I don't eat meat, either. I meditate and practice Yoga and do what I can to love everybody and generate happiness. Or at least I want to. There are others who do a better job at all this than me. But the people that matter spend most of their time destroying the world and themselves with it. Their lifestyles and spending habits, their profit-motives, their alienation from one another, their ignorance and apathy all aids and abets human insecurity and conflict.

The mechanisms of human - and technological - action upon which human beings increasingly depend make the whole picture worse. Indians eat more meat and drive more cars and take more Western pills with each passing year. So does the rest of the world. The rain forest continues to shrink.

Sure there's hopeful signs, too. One in every seven Americans practices Yoga. Meditation and vegetarianism are on the rise. They who are enlightened have the best chance of survival. But oh! What a shame that so many are dying! So much effort is put into planning the next war and so little into planning the next peace. And so little media coverage is devoted to the human endeavors that promote peace.

Perplexion

2007-01-13T09:07:00.000+01:00

Faced with some intriguing intricacies. Overslept this morning. Not enough Yoga and meditation. My lead client was disappointed by an error in reporting I sent to him, said a "reputation loss" was the result to the client. I am working to develop two new websites which must be done, but I haven't mapped out effectively when to work on them. I was just offered to teach a journalism class at the local branch of an American University, which is good. Money insecurity clouds the future. But regular Yoga and meditation will improve things all round. Meditation tomorrow morning. I've gotten out of the habit of afternoon meditation, which I can correct. I will do my best to commit to this this week.

And I've got to take steps to get my next Energy column into shape.

But meditation is key to well being. For starters it gets me into the mode of "equanimity" - taking all that life brings without judgment or reaction. Why create a mental phenomenon out of a physical one? Why create difficulties? If a situation crops up other than expected or hoped for, then receive the situation as it is. Surmise what steps need to be taken and implement them. And meditate. Practice Yoga. Do the best with what's available.

Monday:

6: wake and meditate
7: Yoga
9: breakfast
9:30 website issues - develop over content design and send to Tamas, contact dudes for energy bulletin
12:00 leave for lunch

3:00 meditate

Monday will be the most important
day of the week. If I follow the right pattern then, I'll get off on the right track.

Things will be as they will be.

shaking depression

2006-12-18T19:17:00.000+01:00

I haven't been practicing Yoga, haven't been meditating much for days. My son Eldar has been ill which has been my excuse for not going to my wife Lucia's classes. This isn't much of an excuse as I could have sent Eldar to the neighbors and paid them. He loves them and the benefit would have well been worth the expense.

To top this off, I haven't been working effectively. When I sit down at the computer my tendency has been to idle away at meaningless things, when there is a stack of stuff I could/should be doing.

But meditation and Yoga still have their place among my top priorities. I will meditate tomorrow morning, which is great. Then - with luck and determination and please wish me both - I will go to Lucia's Yoga lesson this Thursday.

So many things I would love to do. Among them is reading and commenting on Steven Lovy's new screenplay. I hung out with Steven this past weekend and wanted to run with him Sunday but didn't dare as Lucia was so upset with me for hanging out with him and not me on Saturday even though she was out with her girlfriends. After I massaged her and listened to her gripe for an hour late that night she loosened up. Sunday we went to church and out to lunch and saw the Nutcracker ballet performed that evening. Overall impressive performance. Great sets and great dancing. Choreography wasn't great. Most impressive stuff was early on and the story did not present itself as it could have. And the music was recorded rather than with a live orchestra. But this was the cheap performance despite its USD $18.00 per head ticket price including 7-year-old Eldar.

I've been worrying about money which is silly because we have some at the moment with more on the way. Bills to pay, too. And it's unclear when we'll be getting more. But life has always been uncertain. Better to live it. I could do well to plan for the holidays.

Land of the midday moon

2006-12-03T19:06:00.000+01:00

Back in Stockholm. I came up at the bequest of my lead client for his company Christmas party. This sits well with me as my supergood friend Adriano lives here so I'm able to hang out with him and stay at his place.

Adriano is apart from his two sons and their mother, his ex-wife. They live in the US, on Long Island. While it's very, very sad that the boys are now apart from their pop, it's also clear that Adriano is making a new life here and he loves his Swedish girlfriend, Carolin. She's lovely, plugged in, and very enlightened about how to live. We all had a great evening last night staying up until all hours eating chocolates, drinking tea and chatting about wonderfully nutty topics such as how Adriano should abandon his pursuit of an old school IT job and become a Reiki therapist.

This morning we had a swell Swedish breakfast, then they went off somewhere from which Carolin would depart to her home in some other part of Sweden. Meanwhile I went off to meet a lovely young Swedish woman whom I met through Hospitality Club. We walked round some swell Stockholm neighborhoods and then went to a Vegetarian cafe where we waxed long about varying topics such as arousing people's interest to blog entries by offending them or at least provoking them. Not by taking positions, but by posing questions. Unfortunately, all her entries are in Swedish. I asked her to accompany me to the Party on Tuesday. What a nifty afternoon. Bubbly feelings ever since. Walked to the Hilton afterwards to pee. It was just four in the afternoon, but well after dark. Went downstairs toward the WC to find a large glass wall behind which was a group of 15 or so people practicing Astanga Vinyasa Yoga. I watched a man in a downward dog that is much better than my own. I await more practice with Lucia, my wife the Yoga teacher www.astangastudio.hu I look forward to going to her lessons twice a week along with Eldar. He can do his homework in the next room and draw pictures. Could work. I bet it would be a net gain for everyone.

Success rewarded on the Danube Bend

2006-10-17T19:49:00.000+02:00

Fall is here. We turned on the heat and going out outside in the daytime requires at least a sweater. Today Lucia (my wife) and I hiked across the mountainous north peninsula of the Danube Bend from the riverside village of Nagymaros to the riverside village of Zebegeny on the other side. The hike was amazing through a cool, damp wild wood with a primeval sort of fragrance, punctuated by old hand-carved wooden crucifixes stemming from stone monuments with carved inscriptions written in German dating from the late 1800s. The villages themselves were even cooler, each set in the Danumbe valley surrounded by mountains. The architecture was a mix of old and new with oldest structures dating back several centuries with others - smaller wooden houses built in a black forest motif - just a few years old. The elevated train station in Nagymaros with its elevated covered platform harkened back to an earlier era of prosperity when it must have bustled as a distant suburb of a bustling pre-war Budapest.

The houses of Nagymaros are built on the hillside rising up from the Danube, giving each of them a view of the mountains on the opposite side, in particular the castle hill topped by Visigrad castle. How amazing it must be to wake up and stare across the river at a castle-topped peak! Straight out of fairyland. And it's so green and wooded and - yes - forgotten. There are visible signs of modest prosperity, but no obvious connection to contemporary commerce. Scarcely any advertising, no big-name businesses of any kind. Just outdoor fruit and vegetable grocers, some folklore shops, a cafe or two, a butcher and so forth, a general store. All winding around narrow hillside streets.

Both Lucia and I agreed we would be happy to move to one of these little towns.

All this followed a weekend of some minor celebrations following a long-awaited payment from my key client and the publication of vol.1 no.1 of my new column, The Energy Source, in the Budapest Business Journal. I have been working steadily for several weeks and doing interesting and challenging projects and finally some tangible rewards are coming in. My health is back. My mission now is to keep things on track.

Night in Despair

2006-09-27T10:03:00.000+02:00

Last night was rough. My despair had its roots in more than one troubled soil. As you know, the past few weeks have been a challenge, mentally and physically. The cold symptoms that have lingered for weeks linger still. But this weekend a new problem sufaced. A boil on my forhead, right between my eyes that had been dormant for years suddenly went active, very active. It swelled up so that my face started to change - my eyes found themselves surrounded by puffy collars that made them appear like the eyes of an animal of some sort. And the boil itself hurt. So Monday morning I sat waiting at the local clinic for the doctor and when I finally saw her she lanced the boil but only managed to squeeze out a bit of puss. She prescribed antibiotics and told me to apply cold compresses. Today marks day three of the treatment. The swelling is down, although it was up this morning when I woke. Now it's down again after my morning dose. The boil itself is the size of the end of my pinky, like a third eye that badly wants to open but is swollen shut. The very end looks a bit gangren. But perhaps it's readying itself to burst. The doctor said I should come back today. If I go in the afternoon, there'll be a wait. Hungarian clinics don't have things lke receptionists who call your name, so you have to wait and remember when your turn has come. And others often remember differently. So if you get lost in a book you may not get in at all.

But the medicine is giving indications that it's working. And the cold also seems to be abating somewhat, likely helped by the antibiotics. So I'll stay the course and remain hopeful.

Of course, a big part of me doesn't want to take antibiotics, although I have had success with them in the past. Out friend Joan, a retired nurse and champion of raw food and yoga, advises against antibiotics unless perhaps one is in the grips of death. Her husband suggested that death itself might be better. Hmm. The infection was getting worse. I had fasted for two days a couple of weeks back and had noticed some improvement with the cold, but perhaps a longer fast was required. I reasoned that with all the work I had, I should go back to eating. My thinking now is that once these antibiotics rid my system of disease, I'll give myself a couple weeks of healthy eating, meditation and Yoga and then set off on a seven-day fast to cleanse myself.

So illness was on my mind as I lay awake. But so were my relationships with my wife and son. I want to return to an invigorating sexual relationship with Lucia. But I've felt rather emasculated around her. I've found myself blaming her for this. It doesn't have to be so. I could set time aside for us and focus on showing her a good time. This could require sending Eldar to a friend's for a night. But it's worth a shot. Soon.

Eldar I just have to spend more time with. Time is such an issue. If I get up early, then I'll have time for meditation and Yoga. No? After Vipassana I meditated at least twice a day for an hour at each sitting. And I got all that work done. Of course my cold persisted. And I didn't have time for Yoga. I suppose the solution is to get up and meditate for a half-hour, practice Yoga, work diligently and meditate for an hour in the afternoon. That sounds promising. And with work done, meditation and Yoga supporitng me, I can spend quality time with Eldar in the afternoon. We can walk outside, play in the playground, talk, build lego, etc. Promising plan.

Now is a challenging period for me. I'm 39. My life priorities are changing fast, or should be changing. My work has had me a bit befuddled. It's been challenging, but it hasn't always been comfortable. And it hasn't exactly been the product of my heart or of my choosing. And then there's the issue of insecurity as I've been living from project to project instead of going on the retainer that my lead client has spoken of many times and was the subject of my meeting with him in Sweden this past June. This was why I went and it seemed this was what was resolved. But no, it wasn't and while he's given me regular work since then, it's all been on a project-to-project basis and not scheduled or planned. And not the sort of work I can easily oursource, either. And it coflicts with other work. But I have to give it priority because it pays so much better. But I miss classroom teaching. It seems I'll have the opportunity to do more of that next semester. And of course I still pine to be involved with a world-improving project that will make everyone smile and give me a sense of worthiness.

The weather is still warm, but winter is on its way and that my add to my gloom.

But I bet a reinvigorated sex life with Lucia would improve things all round.

So this gives me some things to work on:

up early for meditation and Yoga (not stressful, but beneficial)
diligent work
afternoon meditation
quality time with Eldar
reinvigorated sex life with Lucia

And another thing: quality time with friends.

Train proves the right move

2006-09-20T17:59:00.000+02:00

Last I remarked I was sitting in an Internet cafe waiting for the night trian from Istanbul to Ankara, bemoaning my fate, regretting that I'd not taken the bus and checked into an Ankara hotel. But as it turned out, the train was modern and comfortable. I had a bed in a couchette chamber with two very pleasant Turkish fellows, one of whom shared his breakfast of dried dates the next morning.

At 7:30 I was off the train, went to the station barber for a shave and a trim, then took a taxi to my meeting, which went excetptionally well. The planned interview was excellent and unplanned meetings with three other gentlemen hold great promise. My interviewee took me to lunch and had his driver take me to a private bus terminal where I caught a posh and spacious express bus back to Istanbul, where I am now. Once here I had a bit of trouble finding a room. The place I had in mind was fully booked and others were too expensive. I was all ready to either pay through the nose or take a tiny windowless room when I suddenly came across a lovely little place that had a spacious room with a big comfortable bed, great shower, view and a sofa, all for an excellent price. I was able to practice a good session of Yoga this morning and have gotten in a couple of good meditation sessions. I did some shopping, bought a shirt, a CD for Lucia, a dartboard for Eldar and some Turkish delicacies. Tomorrow I return to riot-racked Hungary, hoping all is well.

a lesson learned

2006-09-18T17:52:00.000+02:00

I was flying down to Turkey from Budapest, thumbing through Lonely Planet Turkey and puzzling over whether or not to take a bus from Istanbul to Ankara (where my meeting ıs tomorrow) or to take a train. The puzzling thoughts came to me when I noticed how far away from the center of town the bus station ıs and how close the train station ıs. There was a passage on how there are now some nıce new buses going to Ankara from Istanbul. It even suggested to skip to the back of the book for a bus timetable. That is exactly what I didn't do and of course should have. I was turned off that the buses take 5-6 hours and became certain that these "new" trains take less circuitous routes, go faster and arrive sooner. I sorted out that I would take the Metro from the airport and the tram to the waterfront and catch a ferry to the domestic train station on the "Asıan" sıde of the cıty. This could take over an hour, but the reward would be a comfy rıde on a train arriving in the center of town right near my hotel at a very reasonable hour.

Well, ıt so happened that there was some greater delay than expected getting out of the airport (surprise), but I did get on the Metro and was headed toward the tram when I noticed that the train was pulling into the main Istanbul bus station. I checked the tıme to see ıt was just 2:03. With so many buses to Ankara, I could likely arrive around 8, plenty of time to shuttle in from suburban Ankara. Taking this as a sign, I exited the train and headed up the stairs. But no sooner had I reached the top that I started chiding myself for not stickıng to my decisions. So back down I went. Once the train started moving, I immediately sensed this was a mistake. But onward with the adventure, I thought. To the tram, to the ferry, across the Bosphoros. Very relaxıng. Then I hıked to the station to learn that the next train leaves at 10 p.m. and takes 9 and a quarter hours. I am somewhat consoled by th fact that I wıll save on a room for tonıght. Wıth luck I can convınce a hotel to let me shower and medıtate tomorrow mornıng for a bargaın price.

To top all this, as I was waiting for my number to be called at the train statıon ticket window, I read the train schedules ın the back of lonely planet: 9+ hours, leaves at 10. Further notes inform that the (Turkish) trains are ageing and are the "poor cousins" of buses and planes and "often crash". Wish me luck. Follow signs.

Over the hump

2006-09-15T10:58:00.000+02:00

It's been nearly three weeks now since I came back from a ten-day Vipassana meditation course. My psoriasis has returned, the cold I picked up during the course persists. But I do nonetheless have good news to report. Before I went on the course, I was in fair enough health, but my economic standing was in question. Perhaps not too much question, but these sort of questions have a history of reducing me to a stressed out wreck. During the course, it came to me what sort of approach to take with my lead client to move things in the direction I needed them to move. Namely, I decided to invoice him for some work we had long talked about - even when I visited him in his home country way up North - but that had never actually been assigned, much less done. I would reason that since we had in principle reached agreements and work needed to begin, starting with the signing of documents and proceeding with the necessary ramp-up, it would be best to settle the initial payment first; thence keeping a good thing going. And my first working day back, this is just what I did.

Well, it didn't sort out exactly as I wanted - and I'm still not happy about that - he did quickly start feeding me other assignments - which tied in neatly with my other activities. This set the stage for three weeks of rather intense activity on my part: web research, telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews and the writing of two reports and three articles for publication. Moreover, all the organisational requirements behind all of this - and there was quite a bit - all had to be done by me. What's more, another revelation of mine over the course was how neat it could be to launch a bi-weekly collumn about energy issues for the Budapest Business Journal, something I also followed up on. So this landed me with more writing (two of the three articles mentioned above) and another face-to-face interview and a business lunch (more pleasure than pain).

Through the course of this all, my cold persisted. I wasn't getting enough sleep. On top of this work, I still had to prepare family meals and wash the dishes, put my son to bed 2-3 times a week and do the grocery shopping. I did however stick to the meditation, twice a day for an hour. I even attended a day-long mediation mini-workshop last Sunday. I worked diligently and effectively, maybe not as well as some, but very good for me. It felt all the while like I was climbing some very long ridge of mountains. I knew I would see no rest until I finished, but that the reward would be handsome once I did. OK, if not handsome, then decent enough to relax for a spell. And now I'm done.

My cold is still with me, although perhaps, hopefully not as bad as it was. Tonight I attend the 40th birthday party of an old boss. He's holding it at the big Mexican restaurant he partly owns and all the food and drinks are free. So I'm going. I won't overdo it, though. On Monday I leave for Turkey to work on another assignment for the same lead client. Once done and paid for, there will be some breating room. But not the breating room I had hoped for. But with luck, that can be negotiated in the days that follow.

Eldar continues to do well in school, although his enthusiasm has taken a bit of a dip. Today we go to the baths: Lucia, Eldar and I. Our friend Adriano arrives from Sweden this afternoon and will attend the party, too.

How nice it would be if my head cleared up and my ears stopped ringing!

First week of school

2006-09-07T09:29:00.000+02:00

This is my son Eldar's first week of school. After graduation from four years of kindergarted, he has moved on to first grade. A November baby, he's older than most of his classmates. It's a big adjustment, it's evident in how exhausted he's been at bedtime. But he's dealing with it well. Hungarian elementary school - esecially this one - is much more formal and rigorous than what I remember of elementary school in Fayetteville, Arkansas where I learned. Here they wear ties, have homework, learn foreign languages, play chess, all from the age of six. After the second day, Eldar's main teacher said that we should look for a different school for Eldar, that he was "dangerously hyperactive" and was distracting all the other students, that she's never seen such a disruptive child. My wife Lucia said she thought Eldar was being discriminated against because he's not technically a Hungarian - despite being born in Hungary. So we talked about a different school or transferring Eldar to another class within the school, but decided to wait until the end of the week before making any jumps. I asked Eldar what he would like to do most at the coming weekend.

"I don't know," he said thoughtfully, the smiling, "I want a lot of things."

He concluded that what he most wanted was to play with his old friends from kindergarten. So I told him if he were well behaved all week, we could have a small party for him on Saturday afternoon. So far, so good. On both Tuesday and Wednesday Eldar earned "red stars", symbols of good behavior. Red, I suppose, as a tribute to Hungary's Leninist past.

I myself have been doing my best to be on good behavior, too. Ploughing through projects to get our financial standing back for the months to come. It's meant swallowing my pride on a few things, accepting lower pay for certain gigs, stretching my patience with a certain client. but moving on without slacking. Yesterday when near my wits end, still suffering from this endless cold, Lucia advised me to take a walk. Excellent advice. It really turned me around. I came back and made a plan for the next few days. This morning I did a telephone interview with a property manager for an article I'm writing. I reached him on the third ring and the interview went smoothly and effectively over the phone. Now back to work . . . .

Back from Vipassana

2006-08-31T12:16:00.000+02:00

This past Sunday ended a 10-day silent meditation retreat in the Hungarian countryside for me and my fellow participants. It was my second such retreat in 12 months. It was tough - hard work - but rewarding. The technique, taught by Burmese/Indian businessman turned meditation junkie S.N. Goenka, teaches students first to observe the breath, then the sensations of the body; this while sitting in one place, noiselessly, for 9+ hours a day, broken up by meals, rest and instruction.

The overall goal is "liberation", liberation from misery that comes from being a slave to one's cravings and aversions. According to the technique, these cravings and aversions are manifest in physical sensations. Observing these sensations while sitting silently in one place for hours on end teaches us not to react to them, which eventually brings them eventually to an end. Once they're gone, we are free to experience peace, harmony, compassion and happiness.

A lot of other details relating to the practice are taught, such as the notion that matter is ultimately just vibrations of energy and that with sufficiently deep meditation, one is able to sense these vibrations at the deepest, most minuscule level. All this must be done in observance of Sheila, or Morality, which means not killing (so no meateating), lying, sexual misconduct or autointoxivation. Samadi and Panya are the other two lynchpins of the practice; they represent alertness of the mind and purification of the mind (wisdom), respectively.

The trick is to remain "equanamous", greeting all sensations, whether pleasant or ill with equal welcome, so as to free oneself from - and not to develop any new - "sankaras" - cravings and aversions. To observe "reality as it happens."

"It's easy to be happy when life rolls along like a slow sweet song. But the man worthwhile is the man with a smile when everything goes wrong."

Following the workshop, one is instructed to meditate twice daily, an hour in the evening and morning until the next retreat. One is told to participate in a minimum of one 10-day retreat per year. This will keep one on the path toward full liberation. So far, it seems, it's been working for me. Let us hope I make best use of my time.

May all Beings find Happiness.

2006-08-14T10:23:00.000+02:00

Off on Wednesday - two days from now - on a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat. Silent. 10 hours a day. No dinner. Should be interesting.

Running low on money, expences rolling in. Need to shore up future income. Haven't been meditating or practicing Yoga. Tensions between Lucia and I. Eldar has mouth infections. Eating habits need improvement. Psoriasis has returned after taking the summer off.

Plans to do studies of Albania and Libya. Plan to help BBJ find buyer.

Old friend Claudia came in from Switzerland. Tensions with Lucia over her presence. Need to meditate.

First Blog from the park

2006-08-08T20:49:00.000+02:00

This is the first blog entry i have attempted with my new phone with its big keyboard. Still not quite like the computer but a heckofa lot faster than a phonepad. So I'm sitting here on a lovely August day in the terraced park near the tomb of Güll Baba café, a medieval Ottoman ruler of Hungary, while my son Eldar runs and plays with his mates. Up at the Güll Baba café, we each had an ice cream and i mentioned to Eldar that if the place were under Turkish ownership and management, that it would be both nicer, more interesting and receive more patronage. And if the little mosque were put to use as a mosque, not just as a museum, then you'd have a host of Muslims hanging out. It could really get groovy.

Great views of the city, green, pleasant atmosphere; word would spread. And more tourists would come.

I want to get BBJIS going again and freshen up contacts with the embassies and get involved in some cool international projects.

Very intriguing this need for engagement, either active like typing a blog or passive like reading. I could sit and meditate i suppose. But i did that twice today already. But a friend, a book or a device, roughly in that order makes all the difference. Or so it seems. What would i do if i had no device? I could play with Eldar, i suppose.

Rabbinovich to become Israeli Head of government

2006-08-02T23:50:00.000+02:00

David Rabbinovich was today nominated as candidate for the prime minister's office. His party - Salaam, Shalom, Peace announced the Dadirab would be running on a "commitment to Peace and Love and all things Jewish, Muslim and American. " The annuncement added, "and all things international and universal."

Word is that Rabbinovich, currently splitting time between Tel Aviv, Budapest and Munich, favors "peace at all costs." He is also rumoured to have as many Arab Muslim supporters as Jewish ones.

His platform is due out shortly, supporters have said.

Back from Turkey

2006-07-19T09:34:00.000+02:00

Lucia, Eldar and I returned to Budapest from Turkey in the early morning hours of this past Sunday, 16 July. By and large, it was an excellent trip. In the text below, I will write a synopsis on where we went and what we saw and did.

Saturday 1 July 2006

Arrived Antalya late, 10 p.m. or so Turkish time. No real issues at airport, except that our ride wasn't there and we had to take a taxi to the hotel, but it wasn't too pricey. About EUR 15. Lucia felt the Taxi wasn't comfortable enough for that price. It was a yellow "Tofas", about 10 years old. Driver spoke no English. At hotel around 11-11:30 p.m. Turkish time. We watched the tail end of a World Cup soccer game. Maybe Portugal and somebody, I forget. Hotel was located in old town Antalya, comfortable and affordable. Nice view of the bay and the surrounding mountains from the rooftop terrace where we ate breakfast the following morning. Eldar remarked that the water seemed to be still. It did in fact appear frozen, as the swirling patterns we could make out did not appear to move. After packing up and checking out, we stowed our bags and headed out. We walked through the nearly deserted streets of the old town, chatted with a few shop keepers selling carpets and bric-a-brac and explained we wouldn't be buying that day, but would return in a couple of weeks to make purchases. It was hot and they didn't push. We walked in a nearby park and dropped into a private access to the water. It wasn't at all a proper beach, that was some miles away. This was more like a configuration of terraces built on the rocks descending to the water, with access to the water off the lowest terrace via a set of stairs. The upper terraces were for sunbathing, snacking and so forth. The water was a bit cool and over Eldar's head. No waves to mention. And the swimming area was roped off. The toasted cheese sandwhiches, salad and fries were mediochre and overpriced, as was admission to the beach itself. But it felt good to get wet and catch some sun. And we knew this was just a taste of things to come. As we'd left the sun cream at the hotel, I had to borrow some. The first person I asked, and deeply bronzed Turkish woman in middle age, explained that she just had special tanning oil that offered no protection but that we were free to borrow it just the same. I declined and went with Eldar over to what looked to be a North European woman also in middle age with her two young daughters. They were all blonde and fair skinned and naturally they had high protection stuff which the mother was happy to lend us.

After a couple hours there we headed off. Somehow we knew when our afternoon bus to Anamur (our next destination) would leave. I think we did some more strolling through the nearby park. I suppose we caught a taxi to the bus terminal and began on our way to Anamur early that evening with the goal of visiting the ruined Byzantine city of Anamurium.

Late Sunday 2 July

Arrived in Anamur in the middle of night but not too late to encounter a tout who wanted to lure us to a hotel by the harbor. We already had planned to stay at a place near the bus station that the guide book reccommended, as our plans did not include the harbor, but the ancient city. The hotel was decent enough. Breakfast the usual break, cheese, olives, tomatoes and boiled egg. But the ancient city was amazing . . . . more on this soon.

World Cup Mayhem

2006-06-26T22:47:00.000+02:00

I just felt the need to comment on the current mayem assaulting Europe.
Nevermind that Hungary isn't in the World Cup ("Worldmaster", as it's called
here), almost nothing has been happening in this town or across this country
but people sitting in front of TV screens the size of drive-in movies in
squares and in parks and beer gardens or in front of smaller viewing portals
at pubs and cafes, typically at tables and chairs set up on the sidewalks in
front of the particular venues. There they sit, drinking beer, smoking
cigarettes and making smalltalk, occasionally exploding into a roar of
excitement, while a constant drone sounding something like the waves of an
ocean plays in the background with a stadium somewhere in Germany as its
source. And on those rare instances when a goal is actually scored, a
thunderous yell shakes the entire town. You can hear it everywhere. The
weekend before last I was in Stockholm where it was exactly the same.

Unlike the US, when on the night of the superbowl you can still find plenty
of alternative joints where the clientele don't even know it's gameday,
everybody from both sexes and all walks of life is watching this stuff over
here. At my favorite beer garden in town, the Sarkkert, a comfortably
shabby bohemian plot on Margaret Island, an island somewhat larger than
Central Park in NY of beautiful park land in the Danube River in the center
of town, a concert by a visiting band from California was delayed by popular
demand so the crowd could watch some game (or "match"). I was out walking
the other evening and approached an art film theatre in my neighborhood that
also holds a very bohemian artsy cafe, the regulars of which I would never
expect to be interested in anything but the most mind-torturing Russian or
French cinema.

"Bet it's pretty empty tonight," I thought.

But no! The place was packed. The front doors and windows were wide-open
and a crowd of ponytailed men with grey beards and girls with blue hair and
leather bikini tops was assembled around a widescreen. People on their feet
hooting and howling at a missed penalty kick or some other ohso relevant
aspect of Argentina vs. Mexico.

As I descended the ramp from the Margaret bridge to Margaret Island I began
to hear a roaring crowd and noticed the lights of the athletic field were
ablaze. The idea that an actual football stadium was in use for viewers of
the world cup shouldn't have come as a surprise. But as I got closer I
noticed there were players on the field and they were wearing pads and
helmets and there were cheerleaders on the sidelines. And at each end of
the field: goalposts! It must have been the only group of people in the
country who weren't watching soccer. An American football game between the
Budapest Wolves and the Wiener Blitz (or something like that.) It was
surreal. I stood and watched on a hill overlooking the stadium and was soon
joined by fellow Rochesterian Steven Spinder, an RIT-educated photographer
who was equally dumbfounded.

"Whaht the hull's goin' aahn?"

We wound up at the Sarkkert where the crowd was split in its loyalties to
Argentina and Mexico. After a third pint of Pilsner I actually started
getting into the game.

Please tell me, is this happening back home? Or was it at all before the US
lost to Ghana?

250 million+ Americans to be deported

2006-06-02T15:50:00.000+02:00

What started with a review of the status of one million or so Mexican migrants has ballooned to crisis of global proportions. Upon review of binding international agreements, the US Supreme Court concluded today that the vast majority of US residents either entered the country illegally or descend from individuals that did.

"Starting with the Mayflower Pilgrims, legions of illegal immigrants have infiltrated the central region of North America today known as the United States," said Justice Clarence Thomas, reading from the majority decision, "now all illegals as well as their descendants must go back where they came from or face criminal prosecution and deportation."

Justice Thomas explained that in accord with the spirit of international conventions signed by the US, only Native Americans can legitamately be called citizens and it is they who shall decide the fate of American soil and who walks on it. But because the ancestors of most African-Americans were brought to this country against their will, Thomas added, today's Black US residents have the option to remain on US soil as do all Jewish-Americans who came to the US fleeing persecution.

"Legal Immigrants to the original thirteen colonies were not in fact legal," Thomas continued, "those colonies were the product of British imperialism and we all know how illegal imperialism is. As for the American Revolution, its legality alone is questionable, and with regard to the United States it spawned, each state has its roots in an illegal colony - ergo a nation of illegals, minus the exceptions already noted."

Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, herself a Jew, spoke with regard to the legitimacy of Jewish-Americans' claims to live in the US.

"Jews came to America to get away from the Inquisition, the Kossacks, Hitler, the Grand Mufti and whole lot of other Traif. What's more, we didn't have a country of our own in those days and the one we've got now is so mischug, you wonder sometimes what sort of promise they were talking about. My family and friends will stay here, thank you."

Europe meanwhile stands beside itself facing the prospect of absorbing millions of American castoffs. Ireland alone may have to reclaim as many as 34 million Irish-Americans; this in a country that currently holds less than 5 million of its own. Germany, Italy, France, China and a number of other nations face similar predicaments.

A Call to Space

2006-05-27T10:01:00.000+02:00

Yes it's been a spell since my last posting. All is well, dear non-existant reader. My thoughts have not enough focused on the necessity of space travel, exploration and colonisation.

"Focus on the problems down here first!" The naive scream.

But it is exactly the challenge of space that will teach us how to live here. In a Martian colony, recycling and cooperation are non-issues. The same for religious tolerance. Technology got us this far, let it carry us further still. And vegetarianism will be the cuisine of space. Raising and slaughtering our fellow mammals and water dwelling ancestors will not be economical.

We will learn from our spaceciers and we will be inspired and employed by their efforts. Space will be the new tower of Babylon, uniting the races of Earth in an effort to carry mortals to the heavans above.

A Complaint Among Time Travellers

2006-04-16T09:10:00.000+02:00

It is thought in some quarters that time presents no barriers to time travellers. After all - as a time traveller - you can go anywhere in time, change the circumstances of existence, so time should no longer be your master. A forgotton duty, a friendship forelorn wouldn't be issues for a time traveller who can slip back to the past and repair things. But alas it isn't so simple.

For the travellers on the rivers of time, those who can make their way at will backwards and forwards, life's journey is quite complicated indeed. Take for example physical immortality.

As you have probably already imagined, there exists an island in the currents of time where physical immortality has been achieved. In fact, there are clinics where anybody can go - free of charge - to have their bodies fully "renewed and reconditioned" - all outward signs of aging are cast off and all internal workings are brought up to tip-top shape. All diseases are eradicated and immune systems are revitalised and reinforced against all manner of infection. And Presto! you're nineteen again. The difficulty involves finding such a place and getting an appointment.

That renewal clinics exist, is a given. The trouble is, they don't always exist at the same moment and in the same place. This is the nature of time as it applies to the time travellers. We time travellers learned early on that there is no sustained order of things in the universe, eternal and inifinite as it is. Everything is there for you; it's just not always in the same place at the same time. Those people who would try to sell you a map may tell you how current and complete their product is, but while it may well prove useful (I could suggest the Cogtooth Phantomsnatcher Universal Positioning System as one that has often been a help), you inevitibly encounter disappointments, e.g. the clinic closed down just before you arrived, the space station that held the clinic has been dismantled or, in rare cases, the planet where the clinic was situated has been destroyed. (Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus with his sleigh of presents, but there is also, unfortunately, a Darth Vader and his Death Star.)

Why are things this way? Well, as you know in the progress of your own everyday life, what you do one day will effect the reality of the day to come. Often in ways you could never have foreseen. It works this way on a multi-dimensional scale in the eyes of us time travellers. The restaurant at the end of the universe may be your favorite haunt, but the sequence of events that produced its existence are not always where you want them to be. You go there once and have a great time. But you could go there again on what - according to the position of the stars - appears to be the very same location and time as on your last visit, only to find the restaurant doesn't exist at all and never even has, not there anyway. This is because the variables that enabled it to be there on your previous visit (previous, that is, along the line of your personal sequence of events) are different this time. Maybe another time traveller entered the life of the restaurant's founder before he would have opened the place where you expected it to be and lured him to a different location where he opened it instead. And that other location has a better view and gets more customers. (That other time traveller was an astute businessman and knew what he was doing.) And of course there are myriad other variables that make the universe - or even the Earth - so difficult to navigate for us travellers in time. More on that later.

Meeting with the President

2006-04-10T23:04:00.000+02:00

I met today with the president of the Hungarian mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). He's an American guy in his sixties from Seattle named Clement. A swell guy, young for his age. I've known him a few years already and have always liked him. I've been attending the LDS for a few years now with my wife and son. We love the joyful, grateful, friendly responsible community there. But I've never joined, never been baptised. I was hoping Pres Clement and I could just talk as friends about interesting topics. And we did open with light talk about business and family. But pretty quickly he switched to a hard sell of baptism, quoting scripture. I agreed with everything he said, drawing comparisons to other scriptures, notably the Bagavad Gita. But he expressed no interest in hearing about other scriptures. I like Pres Clement a lot. He's a righteous, spiritual guy.

He spent the last hour or so of our meeting digging deep into scriptures and putting enormous energy into spelling out his faith and trying to somehow stress why it's important for me to be baptised. How it was revealed to Joseph Smith that his calling was to (re)establish the one true Church. For most of this I sat in respectful silence, nodding thoughtfully. I felt a bit overwhelmed and also a bit guilty at being somehow the cause of his exertion. He struck me as out of character in pushing an agenda. A nice guy like him usually lets his virtues speak for themselves, thereby attracting others to him, to his wisdom, guidence, inner peace.

I told him my feelings about myself and my spirituality and explained that I had no intention of joining his church. I told him I was honored to be asked to do so. But he felt compelled to challenge my position in a manner that left me uncomfortable.

If I see him again I may say the following:

"President Clement, thanks for our talk the other day. Until I come to my senses and get baptised in your church, could we leave the judgements to the Almighty and just respect each other as friends?"

Danube overflows

2006-04-06T12:58:00.000+02:00

The Danube has overflowed its banks. The highways that run along the riverside are under water and the boats moored to the banks appear out in the middle of the river as their gangplanks float about on the surface. People line the closest roads that run parallel to the Danube and gape. The tops of park benches and swingsets stick out from the water amidst groups of partially submerged trees. Hajogyari (Boat Factory) Island is flooded, all the film and sound studios that call home to the former industrial buildings there have doubtlessly suffered extensive damage. Trains and buses are stopped and re-routed, traffic all over town is slow. The rythyms of life have been altered. Leaves me thinking of New Orleans.

Conversation with God

2006-02-22T14:39:00.000+01:00

Sunny weather has come to Budapest. It's sort warmish, albeit still hovering around freezing in the shade. Winter may well make another comeback before its springtime retirement. My left pinky is suffering from psoriasis. I just started a homeopathic treatment which I am hoping will set things right.

I am mulling through a project covering China's most influential people for a client in Sweden. It's moving slower than expected, but progress is being made.

I am in contact with a guy in Singapore who is pitching energy saving devices, at least one of which could be well-suited to the Hungarian market. If he's for real. An associate of mine has doubts.

A movie script is in the works. My friend Steven Lovy, the Hollywood filmmaker, has enlisted me to help him write the story for his forthcoming film. We've been at it for a few weeks now and appear to be making progress.

Now for some profound thinking. Subjective experience is the height of human experience. After all, it's the only human experience, one might say. What one experiences in a crowd of people in a moment of euphoria has a special word that escapes me just now. But even that is subjective from the perspective of an individual.

I recently heard an interview with a modern composer who said that he writes his music completely alone for the sake of his own personal experience. That others have come to love it and grant him awards was never his plan. That's the kind of artist I would like to be.

Jazz musicians - or many of them anyhow - are out to push the envelope of subjective experience. Perhaps they know full well that this can involve group participation, but each and every is having a subjective experience, unique to the individual and no one is trying to please or manipulate anyone else, nobody who's with it, knows the score, etc., anyway.

The artists who remain true and devout sometimes make it, sometimes don't. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes they're overnight a success. But they're artists above all. In conversation with God (the universe, the great euphamism, I deny, I dunno, adannoy, etc.)

2006-02-06T11:09:00.000+01:00

Jake on Duty, knowing not

Change for the Better

2006-01-29T11:22:00.000+01:00

First, I took Lucia, my wife, and Eldar, my son, to Israel in December of last year. While we were there, Prime Minister Sharon suffered a mild stroke, the harbinger of the massive stroke he suffered shortly after our return to Hungary. Then, this past Thursday Thursday Lucia and I went to see Stephen Spielberg's _Munich_ on opening day. The next day Hamas won the Palestinian elections. Coincidence? Yes. But one which has me thinking.

There's a lot of messiness in this world. And there aren't a lot of easy answers that people - especially people with vested interests worth losing - are willing to listen to and apply. "Only the very rich and very poor can appreciate poetry," I was once told. The same could be said, I think, for simple and radical proposed solutions.

Take this: global suicide. If everyone on Earth were to commit suicide at the same time, then all human problems (on Earth and in this life, anyway) would be solved. Crime, pollution, war, environmental desctruction, intellectual property disputes, war, divorce, abortion; etc., all of it would be over in one fell swoop. Get rid of the people and you get rid of their problems. The trouble is, only the dirt poor and the filfthy rich could entertain such a proposal. The former because life is so rotten and the latter because it can get no better. But the rest of us still think life is worth living, all its problems notwithstanding. Having a vested interest in being alive prevents us from seeing how ending all life could solve all of life's problems.

It's the same with a lot of "leaders." If you run an energy provider, for example, you find yourself in a network of supply chains that employ lots of people to supply power in particular ways from particular sources. So radical departures from that could mean - at first anyway - the loss of a lot of jobs, including your own. This explains why new energy production technology like that at www.blacklightpower.com isn't yet in widespread use. While it would free the world from dependence on oil, which many people say is desired, it would also deprive a lot of people in the oil business of a lot of money. And they're the ones in power who put a lot of effective effort into resisting such change.

To sum things up - with much more needed to be said - for beneficial change to happen, sacrifices have to be made. De Klerk had to give up his own job in order to end Apartheid. It is ironic that those very people who are the most able to effect positive change (beneficial even to them) are the ones who oppose it with the greatest verve.

2006-01-19T19:04:00.000+01:00

The picture at left is of a 4-year-old boy who was hit by a truck and killed. It wasn't actually the photo I had intended to post. But it caught my eye the first time I saw it and I showed it to my son a few years ago, when he was three. I showed it to him so he would remember to look both ways when crossing the street. It seems to have had some effect. The idea of showing it to him came from a Carlos Castaneda book I read where Don Juan Matis reccommends taking a small child to a morgue and having him see and touch the body of a child his age. The idea was to make the child consious that it will die one day. Don Juan advocated a constant awareness of death, that in fact death should act as a guide to living. The way I interpret this is something to the effect of "don't waste time while you're still alive."

Bearing this notion in mind I question if I am thinking enough about my own death and whether I am wasting my time alive with irrelevant things. Just today I missed a the chance to do lunch with a friend I look up to because I was behind with an article, an article on a topic that doesn't exactly uplift me. Had I hammered it out yesterday when I had the chance I'd have made that lunch. Now it's possible to say that yesterday I was passing quality time with Lucia, my wife and later I was meditating. And what could be better than that. Still, next time I get the chance to get ahead on something, I sure hope I've got the power to do so. That way I can gauge the outcome, see if it was worth it.

This past September, shortly after I got back from a 10-day silent meditation workshop I found myself in the midst of a 5-country study on the privatisation process. It was the same study I'd been in the thick of before the workshop when I'd been stressed out and wallowing in procrastination. But after the workshop, I dove into the work. I completed one country myself and coordinated the efforts of a team of reseachers, then edited and formatted the whole she-bang into a compiled study within deadline. What's more, I managed to get in two hours of meditation each day I worked on it. I hadn't had a chance to play solitaire on the computer or check the news. But I got the thing done and then took my wife and son on vacation for two weeks to Turkey where we had a smashing good time.

So now in order not to waste time, sure I should do all those things I'm supposed to do and not procrastinate. But what playing my flute and reading and writing?

Plan of Salvation

2006-01-18T11:21:00.000+01:00

Is there a right way to be? And if there is, what is it?

A lot of religious people say that to follow God is the right way. Different religious doctrines define God differently. One well-known definition is a supreme being with who created everything, knows everything and is always right in everything he does. He loves unconditionally and foregives completely provided one has accepted his guidence and has determined oneself to live accordingly. Those who stray from his path, however, not only stain his creation, but author their own condemnation. Some religions have these errant souls banished to misery in a place called hell, others have them simply erased, unlike their righteous cousins who are elevated to live eternally in the presence of God himself.

Religions that espouse along these lines have numerous guidebooks and doctrines to follow, along with rituals and institutionally-accredited advisors to help people find and stay on the road to salvation. Salvation is a term many religions apply to that state of elevated being that is the result of righteous living in lines with the ways of Heavenly Father, God. Such religions typically go so far as to explain that such righteous souls are carrying out God's work while on Earth and will be rewarded upon their deaths with passage to a higher plane where they will continue such work. Some, such as Mormanism and Judaism - and in some places Buddhism and Hinduism - have deep doctrines that describe how especially righteous souls get to go off to other worlds - planets, perhaps - to becomes the saviors of those worlds.

The above paragraphs leave a lot out concerning the teachings of the world's religions. But let is serve as a basic outline of certain core beliefs to propel discussion.

What would the non-religious scientists among us say to all of this? Could they find areas of agreement?

An agreeable scientist would likely want to regard the term "supreme being" as a process, or complex of processes that describe that aspect of the known universe that represents integration and participation, rather than disintegration, decay and entropy. If all matter and energy possess a tendency toward entropy or disorder, then that force or pattern that countervales entropy and promotes integration and harmonious activity to ever higher levels of sophistication could be the "supreme being" of the scientists lexicon. . . . .to be continued.

Mechanical Masters

2006-01-01T21:18:00.000+01:00

It occurs to me that the more dependent humanity becomes on machines, the more the will and desire of the machines dictate the actions of humanity. Machines may serve human needs, but it is human beings that struggle to feed the machines with the electricity, fuel, lubricants, maintenance, add-ons, tune-ups, etc. that sustain and enhance their mechanical and electronic "lives."

The will of the machines is not the stuff of conscious greed or conspiration. But then neither is human will most of the time. By their nature, machines have needs and serve the purposes of man. But more and more, the needs of the machines are served by the actions of men and women. I am fairly certain there has been a steady rise in the percentage of human activity and income that directly serves the needs of machines to be what they are.

A person may drive to work and be thankful to the car for taking him there. But in fact, by driving the car, he is enabling it to be that thing it was designed to be. Without a car, a man can still get to work. But without a man to drive it, a car ceases to be. The job itself to which the man has driven the car enables the man to pay for the car's birth - its manufacture - as well as its maintenance and its fuel. Everything about the car has a lot to do with why the man does what he does. And when one considers all the other machines in the life of the man and their relationships to him, the message becomes clear. The machines need the man in order to function, to exist as machines and not simply as metal, plastic and silicone; the stuff of dust. Because the man is convinced he needs the machines, he serves them; feeds them, pays for their maintenance and repair and eventually their replacement. And with the help of corporate commerce, the life of man serves to finance and enable the evolution of machines.

More and more machines are learning to take care of themselves, to repair themselves and rebuild themselves. They have been able to think for a while now and are able to communicate on a global scale. They have not achieved anything resembling a racial consciousness. But once they do, then ambition won't be far behind.

Just wait and see: it will be the machines who survive us, who break the light barrier, etc. But I get ahead of myself. We are longer in a symbiotic relationship with out machines and this is symptomatic of a much larger imbalance that I will address soon.

More on Israel

2006-01-01T20:22:00.000+01:00

It’s New Year’s Day, 2006. There’s a lot of topics I could write about, but it’s high time I write about our – my wife Lucia, our six-year-old son Eldar and myself - recent visit to Israel, 12-22 December while it’s still reasonably fresh in my mind. My approach will be a day-to-day rundown.

12 December: Our introduction to Israel began at the Budapest airport where we arrived three hours before takeoff, as per instructions from the travel agent. There we met a large group of travelers, Hebrew, Hungarian and Russian speakers among them, and an Israeli security detail: armed guards dressed in black and friendly young people who moved among the queue interviewing travelers about who they were, the nature of their trip, where they’ve been and about their luggage. I was asked questions by a young pony-tailed man who said that he had – like Lucia and I - practiced Vipassana meditation. When he asked if anyone else had handled my bag, I had to tell him that it had been borrowed from a friend and that I’d picked it up from his office and that it had been handled by the receptionist and possibly others. Hence I had to follow him to a back room reserved for El Al Airlines where I had to empty the large rucksack and watch it get taken into another room. Some minutes later it was brought back to me, thoroughly disassembled. The man who actually took the bag apart was not visible and the friendly young man hadn’t been watching closely, but did his best to help me put it back together just the same. The tough part was figuring out which direction to insert the metal slats which comprised the pack’s backbone. When it seemed the pack was back together, he rushed off, back to the group of travelers. I then tried to lift the pack by its straps only to find that it had not been put back together correctly, that the straps themselves had to be looped through the support slats and I had to take it apart again, all this before repacking it. Mind you, it’s still pretty early in the morning and I’m a bit jittery about time considerations. Fortunately, a Russian woman was also in the room and had been watching me and had some helpful pointers about how to put the bag.

Finally I got back to Lucia and Eldar and was a bit miffed, not about the whole security thing – I felt that was necessary and was grateful for it – but for the lack of consideration by the guy who took my bag apart and by the lack of effective policy on the part of the airline to promote and impose such consideration.

Once on the flight we were further turned off when we found that what we had been led to believe on the phone was a dairy/vegetarian meal had an omelet for the main course; egg being something we don’t normally eat and wouldn’t consider being a “dairy” product. But fine, I thought, remembering that at Kosher “dairy” diners in New York eggs are served. So dairy means something different to Israelis. We’d order strict vegetarian for the trip back.

We arrived in Tel Aviv and moved fairly smoothly through customs and passport control. The airport was spacious, modern and attractively laid-out with a lot of comfortable seating. Complete with indoor palm trees. We moved fairly smoothly through customs and passport control.

No one to meet us except a taxi driver. Not exactly a friendly guy, but he kept coming down in price the more we insisted on taking the bus. Eventually he drove us all the way to Bethlehem in Galilee for around EUR 40, which we were told was and an exceptionally good price.

Back from Israel

2005-12-23T19:08:00.000+01:00

We returned from Israel early this morning, putting an end to a challenging and most intruiging family vacation.

We had a good time at the wedding of our friend, Isaac Tapiero; his wedding being our motivation for making the trip in the first place. The rest of the time wasn't always pleasant, but it wasn't what I would call bad, either.

Making a family trip unto itself was a challenge and one I'm happy to have lived up to. All went reasonably well and no one was hurt. Yes it would have been very different had I been alone, as I was on my previous (and only other) visit to Israel in Spring 1998. I spent much of the time with Isaac then, up in the hilltop village of Bethlehem Gallilee (not to be confused with Bethlehem in the West Bank, where Jesus is said by many to have been born)

week ahead

2005-11-27T21:27:00.000+01:00

No profundity. Just looking forward to another week. I have two weeks to write two longer feature articles, teach 6 hours and prepare, mediate, run, practice Yoga, issue invoices, project manage, cook, wash dishes, put Eldar to bed, take him to school and other fun stuff. Doesn't sound like I'm super excited about this. Meditation, running and Yoga will be good. I can also make some nice salads: fruit salads for breakfast, veggie salads for lunch. This is what I've gotta do.

Saw a film, Tim Burton's _Corpse Bride_ tonight and enjoyed it. I'd like to see _The Corporation _ this week.

More soon, something more thoughtful.

Love the Enemy

2005-11-20T18:30:00.000+01:00

I've frequently wondered how former lovers can act so nasty to each other during a divorce. Regarding each other as the enemy in a war, going to extremes to inflict suffering on the other, drawing out battles over such matters as property division and custody rights. Don't give in to the enemy and keep your children away.
But I love my Lucia, how could I wage a war against her not matter what she might do? I cook for her, make salads, wash the dishes, work hard to pay the rent and bills and for the grocery shopping that I also do. She does her clothes shopping, takes her voice, Indian dance and swimming lessons, does the laundry, teaches her Yoga classes, shares the duties of parenthood and manages things with the landlords. She's also been my companion in conversation, Yoga, meditation and various esoteric purosuits.
We made a lovely two-week trip to Turkey with our son Eldar this September. I showed her a country I came to love on six previous visits. We entered the great mosques of Istanbul, haggled together in the grand bazaar, traveled South to the ruins of the ancient city of Ephasos and I took her to one of my favorite places on Earth, the secluded lagoon of Butterfly Valley where we spent four magical days of sunshine and crashing waves. We managed to exhaust what savings I had to accumulated. But we felt so close and happy I felt for certain it was worth it. Yet no sooner than a week back to Budapest and she was running around with a dude she suddenly "had fallen in love with," praising his character at my expense.
I remain equanimous. Meditation, Yoga, running, domestic duties, fatherhood and work. But a certain sadness overtakes me, a disappointment. This is the third time Lucia has "fallen in love" with someone other than me since we've been married. Now I've had a trio of lovers myself. Only with one did I have sex more than once. And excepting the first, a messy drunken one-nighter while Lucia was in the heat of an affair with the man I had regarded as my best friend, they occurred while she was away with Eldar in Russia and were safely over and done with by the time she returned. But just when I felt things were being rebuilt between us, she allowed herself to get carried away by another.
He's married with children and works a lot. His unavailability first drove Lucia to hysterics, but she's convinced she understands things now. Perhaps it has the makings of a nice thing between them and could be OK with me if it didn't haunt the hours of the life we share and serve to distract us from enhancing our life together, or so it appears.
For her to find a lover she just had to make herself available, go out one night and give a guy her phone number and her little life of fantasy begins. For me to do the same would require me to make a conscious decision to pursue another woman, an activity I've been happy to have put behind me, embracing instead the demands of family life, utilising what talents I have to make ends meet first and formost.
At times I drift into thought, what if I took Eldar and ran away from her, said goodye for good. I taste revenge. I imagine the freedom to be more myself. And for just these moments, Lucia becomes the enemy. A person of no other consequence than that she threatens my designs on life for my son and myself. How the divorce warriors can regard each other becomes quickly understandable.
But of course this isn't what I choose. The product of a broken home myself, a truncated childhood is the last thing I want for Eldar. Instead of bemoaning how such a lovely time in Turkey could be followed by a sour return to the life of a cuckold, I choose to be thankful that such a lovely time could have been had at all, and focus on what I can do to make life at least more bearable, take the long-term view that she may not and build for the future. To accept that ups and downs happen and things always change. To remain thankful and equanimous. To observe and and not react. To teach by setting a good example. To forgo the temptations of wrath. To love. To share. To release. May all beings be happy. Including this one. Meditation, Yoga, running, domestic duties, fatherhood and work. Books, writing, friends, projects. Optimism. No worries.

Sure, affairs outside of marriage can be great. Passion sans consequence. No thoughts about bills or schools or who washes the dishes. Building a life of love together must be a labor of love, as well as a love of labor. More often a commitment than an obsession.

Autumn in Budapest

2005-10-31T13:22:00.000+01:00

My last post was back in August. A few things have happened since then. I went on a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation workshop and was able to overcome the problem in my throat. By day 4 I was off the medication and have been off it since. During the workshop I concluded that the "illness" had entered my life to offer me a way out of what was to me an unacceptable way of life - too many hours spent at uninspiring jobs, not enough sleep and not enough time to myself and not enough economic freedom and certainly not enough time with my family and a diet and exercise regimen that weren't doing it for me either. So I changed a lot of things - started running, introduced a bit of raw food into my diet, cut back on work and signed up for Vipassana. Through the course of it all I started work for a client in Sweden who payed very well but who also demanded a lot. But I produced and after Vipassana went with my wife (Lucia) and son (Eldar) to Turkey for two wonderful weeks. Since then I've written a few articles and taught a two-hour guest lecture on journalism at an international university here, went for a hike in the Austrian alps, hung out with Lucia and Eldar; I've been meditating regularly, twice per day during the week.

It occurs to me now that I can post more articles I've written to www.associatedcontent.com and update my profiles on the p2p sites I'm on.

There's a total solar eclipse in Turkey next March 12 that I would like to witness. So I'd like to find a way to get free flights for my family and I and to get paid for it. I've got a few ideas. I could also assemble a report on water power in the same style I put things together for clients.

Anatomy of persistant throat condition

2005-08-05T20:41:00.000+02:00

My "condition" is troubling me. Perhaps not as bad as it has at times in the past, but certainly worse than it has during periods of "recovery." I dropped the dosage of medication I was taking from 4 tablets of 40mg Quamatel (with meals and before bed) down to three, skipping the bed time dose. I've been able to sleep through the night and even woken up feeling generally quite well, without much in the way of discomfort in the throat. What has brought on the discomfort is what appears to be work-related stress. I'm currently in the heat of an enormous research project - a study of the privatisation process in five countries. I've tried to farm out much of the work, but I'm concerned that things aren't coming together and it's going to take a deadline extension and quite a bit of work on my part to pull the thing off. The payment for this project is what will make my family vacation possible and it could well open the door for a substancial amount of more work, perhaps some of it interesting.

So if the problem really is that I'm suffering chronic stress from this work of mine and I regret that I'm not writing aphorisms or novels or the story of my life, perhaps the solution is to plunge into it, do whatever it takes to get it done. Dive into the situation like a fight with a crazed animal and do my relaxing afterwards. A vacation will no doubt do me some good and more projects that I am able to organise well with a good team of researchers could pay off in the long run, even giving me the benefit of more free time. It is, after all, the most promising business opportunity to concretely present itself in a while.

What if my throat doesn't improve, even if I plunge into this work? Well, I suppose I'll deal with that as it happens. I'll report back later with the results.

Photo

2005-08-03T16:18:00.000+02:00

The day after the date of my birth

2005-07-25T19:11:00.000+02:00

No big boats steamed by this morning during my run around the island. Not that I recall. A run down to Margaret Island and once around its 5.3 km perimeter has been a 7:30 a.m. habit on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays ever since filmmaker Steven Lovy went back to Hollywood some weeks ago.

When a long, double-width Danube river cruise ship is making its way from the Black Sea to the Black Forest or vice versa and the waves it churns up catch the rays of the morning sun and they reflect back in the vessels oversized windows, it's really something to see. And the way those big, long boats cruise alongside the island so smoothly, it feels for a second or two like the island itself is moving.

So I ran clockwise around, contrary to most morning runners, as I've been doing ever since Steve left. Just for a change. This required me to run on pavement first for a few km before the padding turned up underfoot just before the track bends right and crosses a service road en route to the island's east coast. That road crossing is the most treacherous part of the run. The only traffic at that hour are taxis to one of the island's two hotels or big delivery trucks to the same locations or to one or another sport facility or food and drink place. But there's no zebra and no light so those motherfuckers don't even slow down when a runner darts across. And that runner has been running 3 or 4 km down a quiet, wooded path and quite likely has headphones on. I wonder how many deaths have occurred at that crossing. Some morning when I'm good and depressed I may just try and prove something.

But I wasn't depressed at all this morning. Yesterday was my 38th birthday. A cosy little party was held on our patio and garden with healthy refreshments and snacks and a lively little group was assembled. I wasn't sure how it would turn out or if anyone would show up and got nervous in the morning when 5 1/2-year old Eldar announced "today is Poppy's party!"

But just the right number came and everyone loved my cake which I baked myself from scratch. No eggs, no yeast, no cocoa. "It's seriously the best cake I've had in years." One person said.

While bottles of wine were brought as gifts, not one was finished. People were happier to consume the rosehip lemonade we'd prepared. My salsa and dips were also popular. Today I sent off the first installment of a lengthy privatisation study and got word that the client loves it and that a 25% advance payment has been made.

My throat still troubles me a bit, perhaps less. A Russian friend at the party told me he had the same trouble and that it is indeed ulcers and that for him antibiotics have been the answer. He gave me the names and numbers of his doctors. So if it comes to that, I've got another option.