Cafe Leone

Please do not roll your eyes at the fact that this is a political post. I understand that the only people that read political blogs are those that have a political blog already. This is not that type of post. I will flat out tell you that my politics are very liberal, but nothing in my life is etched in stone and I am ALWAYS open to different ways of looking at issues. I am definitely not so eloquent as to be able to defend all my positions but if you have anything to offer as a valid argument opposed to my opinions, then please feel free to tell me. I will post any opposing views as I know I am not the Keeper of the Truth. The only thing I ask is that you are civil with your comments. I am in control of so little in my life and cafeleone.net is one of those things. So, nothing would thrill me more greatly than to hit delete on any comment I think is offensive and doesn’t help the cause any. I really want to be a “nice guy” on the internet. I want people to see me as genuine and open. The problem is that I am an atheist and a liberal and that occasionally leaves me wide open for angry comments. Sorry, that I am being defensive.

OK, back to the point of this post: I just finished Al Gore’s latest book, The Assault on Reason. I am certain I read somewhere that this book was touted as relevant for all people “no matter what side of the political spectrum you fall in.” That is rubbish, of course. This book does not hesitate to attack the current administration for its continued failures on its policies in Iraq and other issues. If you are a supporter of George Bush and the direction he is taking America, then obviously this book is not for you. You will learn nothing and the point of the book will be lost. The flip side of this is that Gore is preaching to the choir for most of the people reading it.

This fact is fine because this book is not about Bush’s failures. This book is about the slow diminishing of rational public discourse in America. Essentially what this means is that we have lost the ability to rationally debate the issues and that the opinions of the people matter less than the opinion of those in power. Those in power will do whatever they need to do to consolidate their control over the opinions of others including, as Noam Chomsky puts it, “Manufacturing Consent;” essentially, making people believe what those in power want them to believe.

My opinion is that Gore does an effective job at presenting his case. I have a few problems where I don’t trust some of the physiology of the brain that allows people to become malleable in their opinions and Gore seems like he has figured out his way around quotations.com website because his writing is interspersed with many quotes that at times seem contrived. These are just my feelings as I am not even sure that “opinion” is the appropriate word for it.

The really nice thing is that Gore gives props to the blogging community specifically and the internet in general. He states that blogging is a great “point of entry” for the average citizen to express and, more importantly, share their opinions with others and to form communities of people with similar views.

So, here is my proposal, if BoMR (Both of My Readers) will allow. Occasionally, I want to post a relevant issue on my blog, provide some links that can express the issue better than I and just put it out there to get your thoughts on it. Any issue from Bush, Hillary, Iraq, the world’s view of America, immigration, the marriage of politics and religion, whatever seems relevant. I am not smart enough to discuss world politics as I barely understand U.S politics, but I would LOVE to hear what others from around the world have to say, if anything.

By doing this, I hope we too can have a small public forum where different opinions can be expressed. At 7 hits a day, 5 from me, I bet this could really take off.

Don’t worry, I will still write about the Baby Goats and other nothings that keep you both coming back for more!

What do both of you think?

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I know this is a depressing topic, but it is what is on my mind. Unfortunately, being an insomniac, makes me wake up at all hours and allows me to start my day way too early. Of course, I will crash just before having to leave for work. Healthy.

I am actually typing this blog outside under my father’s grape arbor. It is dark and relatively quiet. I know, but cannot prove, that there is a raccoon watching me not 20 feet away so I am beginning to get nervous. I live on a typical busy residential street in Boston so I hear the occaisional delivery truck roar by and am instantly awed at how my kids ever learned to sleep at all here.

It is one billion degrees with a humidity of wet and the clouds are sitting on me. I wish the stars were out. The only advantage to being awake at odd hours is that I get to look at the stars, both of them. I LOVE astronomy. I used to pride myself on remembering the constellations and the mythology of their names. Now, I am lucky to remember the names of about 6 constellations. I could point out individual stars and name them and awe no one with a description of their size or distance. I used to be able to speak in terms of light years and solar systems. I am really good at the “used to be’s.” In fact, the older I get, the better I used to be. My son and I enjoy an occaisional night out where I point out some of the obvious constellations such as Orion, Ursa Major and Minor and my favorite constellation (whatever that means), Scorpio. Scorpio is best viewed in the Summer months and early in the morning. The heart of Scorpio is the giant red star, Antares. It is the absolutely enormous and the first astronomy fact that I ever learned growing up was that if you brought Antares here, it would easily swallow our sun, and the orbits of all the inner planets (up to Mars)! If our sun were the size of the period at the end of this sentence, Antares would be roughly the size of a large softball. I can point it out in a matter of seconds in the sky. I cannot tell you how often that star has guided me on my early morning runs. I don’t believe in astrology any more than I believe in the boogey man, but the reputation of Scorpios of being passionate must have something to do with that giant red heart, Antares.

[OK, now I am inside as whatever pair of eyes that were staring at me took on a haunted glow]

As I sit here I am thinking of an image I recently witnessed with my parents. As far as I am concerned, my parents are immortal. At least that is what I believed until recently. My mom, who is only in her 60s has had trouble with her knees lately. She has arthritis and they swell up causing terrific pain. She works behind a deli counter at one of the local supermarkets which cannot help her knees any. My parents live in the upstairs apartment and as I was leaving for work, she was coming down the stairs. But the sound of her steps were different than the usual sound. I looked up and noticed that she has taken to coming down the stairs backwards, one step at a time. She told me it was easier on her knees.

When I went to visit her that same day, I noticed that the couch in the TV room was physically higher off the ground. It turns out that since she was having issues getting off the couch, my father placed these raisers under each leg. This is making it easier for my mom to lift herself.

So here I am, faced with something I have never had to deal with; the slow drum beat of time as we begin accommodating our physical degradation. When we are younger, we fight that process. We work out harder, scramble to eat better and schmear creams on our face to “defy aging.” But at some point, in our 60s, 70s, 80 or later, we can no longer fight. We resolve ourselves to our fate and the best we can hope for is to accommodate the dying process. We try to make it more comfortable as we tuck ourselves in before our really, really long sleep.

I am reaching out to BoMR (Both of My Readers). How do you handle this? Are your parents still alive? How do you face the reality that your parents are mortal? Do you embrace it, accept it, ignore it or try to help fight it? Is part of it the fact that you see yourself in your parents?

As always, I am eternally grateful all your wonderful, thoughtful comments.

Have fun…Time to go to bed now!

Dan

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