Notes From Neal

“Summer time, and the livin’ is easy…”

So goes the song from the musical Porgy and Bess.  The weather is warm, the swimming pool is comfortable, the evenings on the deck are pleasant.

Yes, summer in Ohio. Life is good!

I need a break.  Time and space to clear my mind, refresh my soul, and lose the stress in my body.

I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes, first found on a t-shirt while on vacation about twenty years ago in Nags Head, North Carolina.  The restaurant was towards the south and named Sam and Omies.  It’s still there and they have a web site now.  I haven’t been there in many a moon, so I’ll make no recommendations.

But I digress.  Here’s the quote found on that long since worn-out t-shirt:

“Everyone ought to believe in something, I believe I will go fishing.”

Sophmom recently posted an article on her blog referring to a story in Salon, entitled How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned. I highly recommend the article, as it delves into the despicable political games played while the people of New Orleans, that happens to be a city in the United States, suffered in one of the worst disasters in our short history.

The Bush government is not only inept, it’s corrupt and just plain wrong. It’s a government that’s more than willing to sacrifice those it serves for its own political expediency.

I usually don’t read they myriad of comments found after stories like this one, but this particular comment by someone known as “tangerine” got my attention:

burn in hell forever
Bush, Rove, all of them. They stole the White House, then eight years of our national life, and actual lives in New Orleans and Iraq. I can’t really express my rage properly.

The graphic shown below displays one of the greatest existential and philosophical paradoxes known to man. Don’t you think so?

Or do you really know what it’s all about?

Today, our family received our “Economic Stimulus” check from the US Government. A check, by the way, that our country can ill afford to be sending when they are trillions of dollars in debt.

The theory behind these checks is that the American people will go out and spend that easy money on more consumer goods that they don’t need, thus stimulating the economy. Or at least the bottom lines of the large corporations and their lobbyists who concocted this scheme.

Some will spend more than their check on much more stuff they don’t need, charging purchases to their already overloaded credit cards, thus economically stimulating the bottom line of selected financial institutions.

In this household, we plan to take this blood money (and it is), and use it to provide economic stimulus to our own family. The bulk of those dollars will be used to pay off debt, the remainder being invested for our future. Folks, the consumption orgy is over. Turn out the lights and put a few bucks back for your future.

That’s the best Economic Stimulus I can think of.

As my Economics professor reminded us just about every class, in his pre-lecture monologue, “there is no such thing as free lunch.“

After writing yesterdays’ post, Time, I am reminded of the song, Sunrise Sunset from the musical Fiddler on the Roof.

(Tevye)
Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?

(Golde)
I don’t remember growing older
When did they?

(Tevye)
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he get to be so tall?

(Golde)
Wasn’t it yesterday
When they were small?

(Men)
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

(Women)
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

Where has the time gone? It doesn’t seem so long since that chilly, rainy August day when we left our son, Josh, at Carnegie Mellon University for the first time. Five days from now, I’ll be bringing him home for the summer after a wonderful year.

Where has the time gone? My daughter, Sarah, is completing her Junior year of high school. At the high school academic awards breakfast, when she was on stage as one of the Top Ten students in her class, the speaker reminded us from that group of 10, will be the Valedictorian of the Class of 2009. Sarah will graduate and on to the rest of her life.

Where has the time gone? In 20 days, I’ll have been in business for 21 years, married for 28 in 6 months, and in August, taken 58 trips around the sun.

Where has the time gone?

It’s painful and sad to see a horse go down during a horse race. I’ve watched it several times and each time it happens, I shudder. The joy and pleasure of the Kentucky Derby was diminished a bit upon hearing that Eight Belles, the talented filly who ran second to Big Brown, had gone down on the gallop out and had to be euthanized.

Since that harsh event, there has been a bit of an uproar about the death of Eight Belles. Photos and videos of her falling appear daily, although I’ll watch none of them. There are cries of animal cruelty, banning the jockey, Gabriel Saez, punishing the jockey for animal cruelty, banning horse racing. The list goes on and on.

I love horse racing. I hate to see these beautiful animals die when such an event occurs. I’m am not going to be an apologist for this sport either. There are dangers in racing both to horse and rider. Most jockeys have broken many bones in their bodies during their careers of riding on top of 1200 pound animals traveling at 35-40 miles and hour. Several have been paralyzed for life, and others have died during a race.

I’m not even sure they know when or how the injury to Eight Belles occurred. Most racing injuries are to one leg, Eight Belles painfully broke both ankles. That’s very rare.

The answers are not simple. There are some positive safety results in using a synthetic racing surface such as the one at Keeneland. Three year-olds are young animals, their bodies are not completely developed yet. Horses are bred (and significantly inbred), favoring speed over strength and stamina. Performance altering drugs are rampant in the industry.

Horse racing is dangerous for all participants. So is car racing and football. The argument about those sports is that the participants in those sports make a choice, where horses do not.

I will continue to love and enjoy these beautiful animals in racing. I’ll celebrate their achievements and be saddened by their deaths. I’m glad, in some respects, that a discussion is going on about racing. It is needed. On the other hand, a knee-jerk reaction is not.

Paul Daley, a columnist for the Lowell Sun (Mass.), whose words on the subject of horse racing I respect, recently published a column on the topic.

Your comments are welcome.

Opening Day, that rite of spring whereupon the first baseball game was played, is a holiday in the Cincinnati area. Since the Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first professional baseball team, Major League baseball used to commemorate that tradition by having the now Cincinnati Reds play the first baseball game of the season. Until they sold out to television, which decided it preferable to play the first game during prime time on Sunday night before the “official” Opening Day. Cincinnati commemorates the day with a parade from Findlay Market, a party on Fountain Square, marching bands, and a baseball game that gets sold out in minutes to the scalpers, I mean, ticket resellers.

I don’t enjoy baseball much anymore. It’s not because my favorite teams, the aforementioned Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates are so darn lousy. Baseball was always so rich in tradition with strong appeal and connection to the fans. Much of that has been lost on me for quite some time now. Escalating ticket prices, poor pitching, spoiled players, as well as prevalence of performance-altering chemicals cause me to look elsewhere for my entertainment.

However, it is Opening Day of a new season. It’s spring and “hope springs eternal” (Alexander Pope). Winter is over, the smell of spring is in the air! The Reds will get some pitching this year. The team won’t be out of the division race by June.

At the time of posting of this article, the score was Diamondbacks 4 - Reds 4.  Middle of the 7th.

Seen on the rear bumper of some vehicle on the commute home this evening. Note: blogger rendition of actual image.

A recent article in The Washington Post on the crisis in the US financial markets ended with the following quote:

“Capitalism without losses is like religion without hell”

While it certainly makes sense that losses are a innate part of an economic system of capitalism, is it similarly true that hell is an innate part of religion?

Can people celebrate a religion without believing there’s a hell? Can people celebrate religion without believing in God?

It’s those questions that caught my attention considering the quote.

I’m going to try not to go into a long dissertation on my religious beliefs, which are steeped in liberal Judaism, with a smattering eastern philosophy, and an evolution towards the independence found in being involved in a Universalist Unitarian congregation.

My moral compass is driven from within, and not from the threat of the eternal damnation of a hell. Religion that imposes that threat of eternal punishment seems controlling and dogmatic, not supportive of the essential humanity of its participants.