"Do something great for your country. Leave."

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

Well, I did exactly that -- I moved from Canada to the USA. Is that what the poster meant?

I'm having a hard time accepting that I need long stretches of quiet
contemplation to become truly centered and grounded. I just wish it
weren't true. I wish I could instantly jump from one situation to
another with effortless "context switching" and be fully immersed in
each task from the start. Isn't that the dream of a society hooked on
"continuous partial attention"? I've been attracted to the "Getting
Things Done" system for that reason. As the Wikipedia explains:

GTD rests on the principle that you have to get
things out of your head and recorded into a system you can trust. That
way, your mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that you
need to do, and can concentrate fully on actually doing those things.

GTD has certainly helped me get better organized, but it hasn't been a
panacea. I don't blame GTD for my problem since it never promised to
let me squeeze five elephants into a clay jar. Instead of aspiring to
grow large enough to envelope elephants, I need to accept that I am
just an ordinary clay jar.

shadows in Albany

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

Even though I was sick with a cold, I was so happy to get out in the sun and see shadows such as these yesterday afternoon.

What mountain is this?

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

I took this picture on the flight from Oakland to Portland. Is this Mount Hood or Mount Shasta or something else altogether?

cheese @ Berkeley Bowl

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

I used to live a block away from Berkeley Bowl. Now that I live in Albany with my lovely wife, I don't get to hang out at Berkeley Bowl so often. When I do get there once or twice a week now, I do make a point of sampling the cheese of the day -- both for old time's sake but also to live in the presence of tasting the darn good cheeses being hawked. It's really quite interesting to me how popular the cheese tasting is at Berkeley Bowl. One wouldn't think that people like me, who don't need any more food during the day, would be so into sampling the cheese. But that's not the point of the sampling, is it?

Dramatic clouds

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

On my afternoon walk, I saw these clouds overhead. The picture captures but a small part of the drama outside my office (and inside my mind).

I'm pleased to see that the New York Review of Books decided to provide free access to a number of articles in the February 9, 2006 issue that I wanted to point out to friends:

• Jimmy Carter & the Culture of Death is Gary Wills' review of Jimmy Carter's new book, Our Endangered Values : America's Moral Crisis.

• The Passion of C.S. Lewis, which I found entertaining because unlike many of my friends, I have never liked the Narnia books or film(s). I've read only one of the seven books (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and then only as a disenchanted adult. Alison Lurie offers plenty of insight into Narnia as children's literature. Unfortunately, she overreaches in the concluding paragraphs with:

  It is no surprise that
  conservative Christians admire these books. They teach us to accept
  authority; to love and follow our leaders instinctively, as the
  children in the Narnia books love and follow Aslan. By implication,
  they suggest that we should and will admire and fear and obey whatever
  impressive-looking and powerful male authority figures we come in
  contact with. They also suggest that without the help of Aslan (that
  is, of such powerful figures, or their representatives on earth) we are
  bound to fail. Alone, we are weak and ignorant and helpless. Individual
  initiative is limited—almost everything has already been planned out
  for us in advance, and we cannot know anything or achieve anything
  without the help of God.

  This is, of course, the kind of mindset that evangelical churches
  prefer and cultivate: the kind that makes people vote against their own
  economic and social interests, that makes successful, attractive, and
  apparently intelligent young men and women want to become the
  apprentices of Donald Trump, or of much worse rich and powerful
  figures. This mindset could even be called deluded, since in this world
  a giant lion does not usually appear to see that the right side wins
  and all the good people are happy. In Narnia faith in Aslan, who comes
  among his followers and speaks to them, may make sense: but here on
  earth, as the classic folk tales have told us for generations, it is
  better to depend on your own courage and wit and skill, and the good
  advice of less than omnipotent beings.

  Nice rhetorical flourishes here -- but associating The Apprentice
  with Narnia and conservative Christians?? Is Lurie saying that
  anyone who believes in a God who will ultimately set things right is "deluded"?
  Figuring out what authority is and what authority to follow are not easy
  tasks. Some of us do believe in ultimate authority that looks like neither
  Donald Trump or the "giant lion" that Lurie delights in poking fun at.

• Genocide in Slow Motion is a review of two books on the genocide in Darfur. I miss reading Nicholas Kristof's columns in The New York Times (but not enough to pay for TimesSelect.
  It was through Kristof's writings that I first learned about Darfur.
  I'm grateful for writers such as Kristof who help to keep the Darfur conflict
  in front of people like me, who are so prone to forget. I've been
  meaning to write a letter to the editor about Darfur but have not been
  able to do so. A good starting place as I look to act is A Million Voices for Darfur.

Laura and I both read and discussed with great interest, "Prairie
Fire," an article by Eric Konigsberg in the Jan 16?? issue of the New Yorker.
(The article is not available online.) It is a terribly sad article
about Brandenn Bremmer, the super high IQ boy from Nebraska who
committed suicide at the age of 14. Have any one of my readers also
read the article? I'm thankful for the Web that allows one to read what
others have to say about magazine articles that we read:

• emdashes: Eustace Google: The strange, sad case of Brandenn Bremmer

• Gifted Exchange: The Life and Death of a Prodigy

The article was also the second mention for me of "indigo children." The first came from the New York Times:

Are They Here to Save the World? - New York Times:
If you have not been in an alternative bookstore lately, it is possible
that you have missed the news about indigo children. They represent
"perhaps the most exciting, albeit odd, change in basic human nature
that has ever been observed and documented," Lee Carroll and Jan Tober
write in "The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived" (Hay House).
The book has sold 250,000 copies since 1999 and has spawned a cottage
industry of books about indigo children.

sky and clouds over Berkeley

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

I like to take walks in the afternoon to get away from my desk and to clear my head. Sometimes I feel down when I leave the building. I was reminded yesterday by these beautiful clouds and the winter light that there's a lot more going on in the world than my own preoccupations. I sigh at the recognition, delight in the view, and then head back to my office, re-energized.

cross in the sidewalk

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

This pattern on the sidewalk outside of Tolman Hall caught my eye.