I’ve been a vegetarian, more or less, since 1987. I still eat some egg and milk products (in cookies and cake) and I eat clams sometimes. I read somewhere that true vegetarians give clams “the benefit of the doubt” as to whether or not they have any feelings and consciousness. I guess that I give my own appetite the benefit when I’m in doubt. Nonetheless, my daily diet is still pretty far from the standard American diet. And that works for me. I eat what I like and I like what I eat.

It occurred to me that vegetarianism, whether perfect or somewhat compromised like my own version of it, is made possible by the modern industrialized world (I’m gonna give it credit for once). Because of our extensive trade, transportation and distribution networks, most of us Americans can buy a wide variety of foods cheaply and conveniently. We have access to fresh fruits and vegetables and grains all year long. We have available a wide variety of food items that substitute for meat protein, like nuts and soy products and pasta. Even without meat or animal products, we can still eat a wide variety of foods available in the typical supermarket. And if we do have a problem with a vitamin or nutrient (I have the typical vegetarian deficiencies in calcium and B vitamins), we can buy supplements pretty cheaply.

So, for better or worse, vegetarianism is made practical and possible by modern society. Just go back 200 years or so and you absolutely had to eat meat to get by in a lot of places on this planet. There just wasn’t any other way of getting calories and nutrients down your gullet for many months. In warm places, especially near a lake or an ocean, you could get a fairly wide range of grains and veggies and nuts; but in the colder places (like Poland, where my ancestors came from) or up in the mountains or deserts, there just wasn’t a whole lot of stuff that you could grow and store. Maybe you had some potatoes or cabbage, but not much else. So you had to take advantage of all the proteins and fats and minerals that your near-by animal friends had stored up in their flesh, for your own survival.

It sometimes amazes me how humans have occupied pretty much every corner of this planet, no matter how cold or dry or nasty the environment. But then again, they couldn’t have done it without having animals to eat. Before the advent of supermarkets, you could only be a veg-head in places like Italy or Africa, where plenty of beans and vegetables and fruit were always available. In Norway or the high Andes Mountains of South America, you had to rip into flesh in order to get enough energy to stay alive. Which makes me wonder, as an imperfect vegetarian, why even settle in such crappy places? I guess that the inner drive to control your own plot of soil is strong, even stronger than the urge to have something more than meat and potatoes on the table every night.

Here in modern America, land and houses are terribly expensive; which proves that the primal urge to control one’s own domain is still strong. But at least food is plentiful and relatively cheap, allowing those of us who can overcome the other primal urge (i.e., to rip into flesh when the stomach starts growling) to follow our enlightened wills. I’m glad to be one of the enlightened . . . .

Uh oh . . . . .

The other day I was thinking a bit about Plato and his notion of “The Forms” (i.e., the perfect ideal behind every crude and imprecise concept here on earth; e.g. the perfect circle, perfect harmony, perfect love, or maybe perfect justice). This was the basis of Plato’s metaphysical view; in effect it was his religion. The Forms supposedly exist in a heavenly realm where everything is perfect. Our souls come from the World of The Forms, and after we die they return home to that World. While here on earth, our souls are pretty much lost in the muck of decay and the struggle of daily existence. However, once in a blue moon they experience something that reminds them (if just for a moment) of the perfect world from which they came. When it happens you feel a thrill, a deep-down sensation, a religious experience.

For people like me, the way of having such a religious experience is through learning and education. Reading and studying are generally pretty boring. But once in a while you have an “ah ha” experience, a moment of great insight when the pieces all come together and you feel thrilled by the rush of understanding. That’s the kind of thing that an eternal student (like myself) lives for. It’s a bit like a drug trip or like falling in love, but without the hell to pay afterward.

Not to say that moments of love aren’t also temporary visions of an ideal. It’s just that reality and basic human needs and misunderstanding so quickly intervene in human relationships. Perhaps where and how you “follow your bliss” (as Joseph Campbell would say) is a matter of individual temperament. People who are extroverted and sensory-oriented will find their visions of heaven in physical moments (including, but not always through sex; it could also be a mother’s rush of joy in holding her baby, or an embrace among teammates after a great play in a sports game). People who are introverted and intuitive, however, will tend a bit more towards study, thinking and abstraction as their window on the holy.

I’m in no hurry to die, but I hope that Plato is right and that there is an eventual reunification with the forms. (Plato said that the ultimate purpose of philosophy, which means love of wisdom, is the preparation for death.) But I’m sometimes worried by a recurring thought, a rather silly one — that the forms are really “Colorforms”, those vinyl shapes that I played with as a child. So after death, your soul would then go to a place with a dark background having bright, colorful shapes floating about, e.g. red triangles, green squares, blue rectangles, and orange circles. Arg, sounds a bit like a bad acid trip. Say it ain’t so, Plato.

TV TIME: I try to keep up with 2 or 3 TV shows a year. That isn’t easy, as there aren’t very many good shows out there. I was a big Fraiser fan, but that show finally bit the dust two years ago. However, The West Wing has kept me in touch with the tube. I’m glad that Martin Sheen and company are hanging in there. At the moment, in fact, the West Wing literally leaving us hanging. President Bartlett/Martin Sheen’s term is just about up, and Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda are fighting it out on the campaign trail to succeed him. Fortunately, whoever the scriptwriters pick to win the election, the show will go on; either one of them could keep The West Wing interesting for years to come. A live debate between Santos (Smits) and Vinnick (Alda) is coming up this Sunday; that should be great . . .

As with most West Wing junkies, I’ve taken interest in Commander In Chief, a new drama offering from ABC. In case you’re not familiar with CIC, it features Geena Davis as the first female President. According to the plot, Congresswoman Mackenzie Allen (Davis) was selected for the VP spot as the token female on a conservative Republican ticket, as to steal the womens vote from the Democrats. It worked, but the true blue GOP President (true red, actually) unexpectedly dies soon after taking office. Since “Mac” wasn’t really a true-red Republican, they encourage her to step aside and allow the Speaker of the House, played by Donald Sutherland, to “take the purple” (as the Romans used to say about new Emperors). She was ready to comply, but then Congressman Nate Templeton (Sutherland) had to go and say some stupid, chauvinistic things about women in front of Mackie. Next thing you know, she’s the Commander In Chief. And in doing so, she gains an instant enemy in The House, where Templeton / Sutherland will have to remain.

Templeton aside, the really big crisis is this: President Mac has a husband and three kids, and they are all in the needy mode. They all want her attention; they all want her to keep the family intact just as before. And she’s trying her best. But now she’s got the world’s last great superpower to run. Thus, the show becomes a desultory mix of The West Wing and All My Children. Can Mac have it all? Can she be a good wife and mother, and still have the time and energy to run what we used to call “the free world”?

Even if the writing and acting and plot lines thus far have not been Emmy material, Commander In Chief does raise an interesting question. It pushes the female career and family issue to the limit. Well, almost anyway. Thus far, every episode gives President Allen a limited set of challenges: the Speaker gives her a political headache; her husband or one of the kids gives her a mommy crisis; and wouldn’t you know it, some nasty terrorist or tinpan dictator out there in Blahdististan gives her a military / diplomatic situation to deal with. (Or maybe mother nature spits out a hurricane or an earthquake at the wrong time.) Superwoman Mac gets pretty frazzled by all of this, but somehow she sorts it out by the end of the day, and is ready for whatever craziness tomorrow might bring.

If you’re a West Wing fan, or if you just follow current events and presidential politics, you know that this is more than just a bit contrived. Where is the rest of the government? Where are the cabinet members, the speechwriters, the media people, the generals and admirals, the foreign diplomats, the political advisors, and for that matter, any other member of the House or Senate? The Commander In Chief here doesn’t seem to have all that much to command. As such, she has time to attend to her daughter’s indiscretion with boyfriends and her son’s fighting at school. The West Wing — and everything I’ve ever read or heard regarding the Presidency — makes it pretty clear that there isn’t time for that. You keep the family around for the photo ops so as to satisfy the American myth about home and hearth; but in reality, someone else has to tend to the kids. And the first lady (and someday, the first guy) just have to keep themselves busy (albeit, with a staff and a budget to help). I think that the cold, hard truth is that you can’t be President and raise kids at the same time; no one even tries. Maybe they should; if Bill Clinton had in fact given more time to Chelsea’s homework, he might have avoided the Monica Lewinsky hijinks.

So, is Commander In Chief unintentionally saying that women generally don’t do as well when faced with the cruel choice between duty to the family and duty to the world? Is it asking whether it’s right that men traditionally choose worldly duty over family needs? If it is, then CIC needs to do a better job of it. The show has created an interesting tension, but it avoids the ultimate consequences. If Commander In Chief can’t be another West Wing (which I would have liked), then at least it should do a good job with the “soap opera” issues that it takes on. Perhaps it should be honest about the fact that Mackenzie Allen / Geena Davis can’t be both soccer mom and Madame President, and is going to hurt someone (or maybe everyone, including herself) by trying. Maybe this show could convey to guys like me the wrenching personal and social dilemmas that women face when they try for career success and family life. Maybe that would make us ponder whether it’s fair that men get a pass on this issue, while women are held accountable if their kids or their husbands go wacky because they work late. Bring on the psychological intensity.

But CIC is not set up for psychological intensity. Nor political intensity. Nor dramatic characterization and realistic dialog. It sets up a good story line and an interesting situation, but doesn’t seem to do too much with it; just basic, easy-to-swallow entertainment. I think it’s another thin-veneer, one-season-and-out show at best (which is so typical for ABC; this is something that CBS might have done better with). And that’s too bad, when you consider what could have been done here with the right actors and the right writers and the right direction.

PS — On metacritic.com, they summarize a variety of newspaper reviews of Commander In Chief, and have a board for write-in reviews. The write-ins each give an opinion score of 0 to 10. I decided to list the scores, broken down by the reviewer’s sex, and take the averages. It turns out that the female average is 8.7, and the male average is 6.2. Not a very surprising result. What is surprising is that 7 women sent in reviews, whereby 19 men took the time to make a comment. So the guys are taking this show seriously, even if they don’t always like it.

Halloween has become a lot like Christmas. When I was a kid, there was plenty of trick-or-treating. But other than having some candy at the ready on the big day, parents didn’t make such a big deal about Halloween back then. Other than an occasional pumpkin on the porch here or a cardboard window print of a witch or a ghost there, we didn’t have much preparation for “spooky season”. Today, houses are decorated in early October with orange and purple lights, along with figurines of skeletons and spiders and tombstones. Much like Christmas, just different colors and symbols.

Halloween has become more like Christmas over the years, and at the same time Christmas has become more like Halloween. As with trick-or-treat day, Christmas is now mostly a children’s holiday. It’s something that adults do for kids, not something that has any other meaning to them (not that doing something for kids is such a bad thing; I can understand that children are a very big part of many adults’ lives). To the degree that adults do celebrate “the season”, it’s mostly thru drunkeness and maybe even lust (think about the sterotypical office party; I can almost see the Christmas episode of The Office right now). In other words, it’s the worst of both childhood and adulthood.

Both Christmas and Halloween are now secularized versions of what were once major Christian religious holidays. And in turn, both of these Christian holidays were co-options of ancient pagan festivals. The early Christian church set Christ’s birthday in late December so as to coincide with the Roman winter solstice festivals; and All Saints Day (called “All-Hallows Day” in olde English, the eve of which became “Halloween”) replaced the Celtic new year of November 1, when the worlds of the living and the dead were said to temporarily blur together (giving people the creeps). I’m surprised that the religious groups that urge us to keep Christ in Christmas haven’t started running ad campaigns about “putting the Hallows back in Halloween”.

As an aging adult, Halloween seems more and more ironic each year. At least Christmas offers adults the ideal (however unfulfilled) of peace on earth and goodwill towards men (yea, it’s sexist, I know). But I really can’t share the kiddies’ delight in all the fake cobwebs and gravestones and skeletons and all the other cute little reminders of death. I can get all the fright I need and more these days by going to the doctor’s office and talking about biopsies and colonoscopies and blood test results and HMO coverage policies. I hope that the medical establishment becomes a bit kinder and gentler by the time the little trick-or-treaters of today have to start worrying about their cholesterol count.

I saw a lot of kids out with their treat bags during my ride home from work today. That was nice. Nonetheless, I always feel better once Halloween is over. Thanksgiving is coming soon, but it ain’t such a big deal. Thankfully, Christmas and New Years are still a ways off, along with the miserable cold and snow of January and February. For about 3 or 4 weeks, it’s back to just plain weather and just plain life. And that’s just fine with me.

TOUCHING THE PAST: I’ve been studying the history of the Roman Empire a bit lately. In a lot of ways, it was the United States of two thousand years ago. There were plenty of great empires that came and went after Rome fell in the Fifth Century. One was the great Islamic caliphate of the 11th and 12th centuries, which inherited the southern and eastern part of the Roman Empire and merged it with the former Persian Empire. Al Qaeda and its imitators draw much of their inspiration from this, just as we here in the USA unconsciously draw inspiration from Rome. Maybe that’s why we can’t get along with the new Islamic imperialists; deep down, we’re just too much alike.

But in the west, there really wasn’t anything like Rome until the USA conquered the Pacific frontier in the 19th Century. Sure, there was the British Empire and the other European colonial expansions. But they were mostly inspired by trade and by natural resources, by the establishment of an exclusive right to exploit the timber, minerals and people of far-off lands in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Like the United States, Rome didn’t just want your copper and gold and frankincense; they wanted your soul. They wanted to turn all the barbarians into good Romans, not simply into slaves (although that was certainly part of it too).

That’s still our policy today; consider the situation in Iraq. We could leave right now and declare victory, having successfully deposed a vicious dictator. But no, we want to turn the Iraqis into responsible voters. Is that good or bad? As with Roman assimilation, it’s a mix of both. Rome started going downhill when it lost the strength to keep forcing the tribes beyond the borders into the Roman mold (mostly because of all the civil wars it fought in selecting new Emperors). It’s uncertain whether America has the strength to stay in Iraq long enough until everyone gets to like our way of doing things.

Thus my interest in the ancient Romans. I was surfing thru eBay the other day and I checked out the ancient coins section. It turns out that old Roman coins are pretty common, and thus you can pick them up for between 5 and 10 dollars. I decided to buy one, given my interest. It turns out that the bidding is rather competitive; you’ve got to be a little Roman yourself to avoid getting outbid. But I finally managed to win this provincial bronze coin with a portrait of emperor Severus Alexander, from about 225 AD. You see it below in the palm of my hand.

It’s pretty neat to touch something that was actually a small part of what you are studying. That coin was used day to day by common people, folk who were depending upon the Roman system for their jobs, their food, their security — just as we depend upon the United States of America today to provide us with civil order and economic opportunity. The Roman system would continue to work for another 200 years after my coin was minted. When I look at those nifty quarters that our government mints today with tributes to the provinces (the newest one I’ve seen is Kansas), I can’t help but wonder, how much longer does our empire have?

Now that I’m deep into the second half of my career life and it’s crystal clear that I’m never gonna be much more than an all-star paper pusher / major-league bureaucrat, I often think about what could have been. When I was young and in college, I had a pretty good mind I’ll have you know, sonny boy. I pulled down a 3.89 GPA, which might have been a 3.91 if I hadn’t got caught in a senior year feud between a prof. and the department head. Thus, I wonder if things would have been more challenging and more rewarding had I gone the ivory tower route. When I was young, I wanted to stay out of the protected environs of academia and get out there into the real world. Academians seemed like a bunch of wooses. But in doing so, I found out that real world people consider guys like me to be wonderful candidates for paper-pushing bureaucrats. In other words, I couldn’t escape woosdom. But hey, somebody’s gotta dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s while the policy guys and the movers and shakers get all the glory and do all the interesting stuff.

Yea, so maybe I should have stayed in school and gotten a PhD (instead of a law degree). Maybe I would have gotten involved in some really interesting research, and would have been one of those guys who get interviewed on NOVA. Sometimes I almost see myself on TV explaining some new kind of mathematical concept or expounding upon the inner programming structure of the brain or laying out the implications of string theory for the interference of gravitational waves. Yea, that might have been fun.

But then again, there was a reason why I didn’t go into academia. I was aware that a whole lot of academians are in the pocket of the military, especially those like me who had good quantitative skills. Lately I’ve been interested in the subject of consciousness and the interaction of the brain and the mind. Well, guess who’s also interested in such research? DARPA, the Pentagon’s technology wizards. There was an article in the local paper the other day about how DARPA is sprinkling some big bucks on the college campuses (including my alma mata, Rutgers) to study human thinking and awareness. They’re trying to come up with weapons that work more like the flexible, teachable human mind, and less like structured robots. As with the military’s co-option of atomic energy, I’m sure that ain’t going to lead to kinder and gentler warfare.

Yea, maybe it’s just as well that I’m spending my life popping out cost reports and chasing down purchase orders in a county office. It ain’t much, but at least I’m not channeling my technical fascinations to make the world an even crueler, deadlier place than it already is.

I think that everyone in America would start to feel better if the stock market started going up again. (Yes, this is the materialistic side of me talking; I’d also like to see a spiritual enlightenment here, but so would conservative Christians and Islamic jihadists …. one person’s enlightenment is another person’s apostasy, so we will let that go for now). No, not the crazy returns of the 1990s, but maybe 6 to 10 percent per year. I’d feel a little bit better myself given that I have retirement funds invested in stocks (albeit through social responsibility funds). I know that people still feel wealthy here because of the housing price boom, which kicked in after stocks stopped rising in 1999. But that’s probably a bubble waiting to break.

Back to the stock market, I heard a report on NPR the other day saying that on average, the stock market does quite a bit better in years following National League victories in the World Series. Here’s a good link from Shaeffer Investment Research. (Ah, I remember the days when Shaeffer meant beer, not investment advice. They had some great jingles. I can still remember: “Shaeffer is the one beer to have when you’re having more than one . . . . .” A great beer to watch the World Series with, once upon a time.) Well, I’d like to see the White Sox get the flag this year, but I hope that won’t bring on a market crash.

It probably won’t. This is probably a spurious correlation, something that doesn’t mean anything. The largest gains since 1951 (over 25%) are split evenly, 5 each. Also, the largest of all gains (45% in 1954) came after an American League victory. And the best gain since 1958 came in the year after there was no World Series (34% in 1995). So enjoy the games, and root for whoever you want, no matter where your money is (or isn’t). But as to why the market isn’t going anywhere when America is supposedly in the middle of an economic boom, well . . . . that is something to think about. While watching the games, will Mr. Bush wonder why his Social Security privitization plan isn’t exactly setting America on fire? He will obviously be rooting for the Astros, for more reasons than one. (Darn, I tried to relate that line back to the old Shaeffer jingle …. just couldn’t get it to work).

I was in the doctor’s office a few days ago for a physical. I was past the usual 30 minutes in the waiting room, and was in the second phase of delay, linger & wait, i.e. in the examining room. My blood and urine test results had arrived, so in addition to the usual thump and jab and cough and drop your pants and grimace, the doc was going to review the numbers with me. Twenty years ago I seldom went in for check-ups. On the few occasions when I did, it was a snap. They didn’t test for all that much back then, and I knew that I was plenty healthy enough to get past anything that they did test. But now, at age 52 and carrying a set of questionable family genetics, everything is in the lurch. Sitting on the examining table, I could imagine it: “I’m a little worried about this, I think we’re going to have to . . . ”

I wish he would just come in already and get it over with. But no, the wait drags on. After my twentieth time scanning the boring little white room that I’m cooped up in, my mind starts getting rather philosophical, perhaps even a bit spiritual. I start wondering about my life. Has it been worth anything? Have the good and positive things that I’ve contributed to this world even slightly outweighed the bads? (I know that my fan club has told me a number of times that I’m clearly in the plus column, but it sure doesn’t feel that way). What’s left to live for? Why does the future seem just like a big blank? How did I wind up making a living doing things that really don’t interest me much, amidst a group of people that I have little in common with? Just when did the old days, when I looked at the future with excitement and hope, come to an end? They obviously did come to an end, but I can’t quite remember the morning when I woke up and the excitement was gone.

Still no doctor. I look at the floor. I want it to feel like it’s all part of something that’s right and true, no matter how dismal the immediate circumstances seem. I want to know that there’s some bigger meaning to it all, even if the doctor tells me that I’m going to spend the rest of my life engaged in a pitiful, ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the white hell that is the medical establishment to fight off some unfortunate condition in my body. I want to know that it will yet translate into something bigger; not just me and my little life, but all the people who died ungloriously amidst the confusion and chaos of the hurricane in Louisiana and Mississippi, or the sudden earthquake in Pakistan, or in front of a car bomb in Iraq, or from the tsunami in Indonesia, or in the World Trade Center four years ago . . .

If only there was a God. If only we could somehow know . . . . if only we knew it in our hearts, even if we can’t know it in our heads . . . . it would all definitely be better. There could still be music to existence even in the worst of circumstances, even when human life is treated like worthless trash by mother nature, or even worse, by humans themselves. I used to be quite sure about God. When did that also drift away? What catastrophe or absurdity or bit of human stupidity convinced me that there probably isn’t a conscious and caring presence behind the wheel of the universe?

But then again, something hasn’t drifted away. I still want there to be a God. I want it even if God can’t promise me or anyone else a happy ending anytime soon. Even if that God can’t send me out of this doctor’s office feeling like a new man, and not the old man that I am rapidly becoming.

They say that true religion is experienced in a battle trench, not in a church. I’ve never been in the military, so waiting alone in a doctor’s office with a sputtering middle-aged body and a doubtful, cynical mind is about as close as I can come. But after that little moment of intense reflection, I do feel, down inside, that the God question is still open. For now, that’s about as close to faith as I can get. But it’s probably better than nothing.

NASTY BY NATURE: The other day I saw a TV commercial encouraging people to help old folk understand the new Medicare drug benefits. The spot begins with scenes of not-so-old folk being nice to one another; the announcer says that helping each other is “what we do” here in America.

Hmmm. I suppose that there is a lot of niceness and good deeds. But when push starts coming to shove, people put the niceness aside pretty quickly. Just get in your car and you’ll see how quickly courtesy and patience disappear amidst people trying to get somewhere. I’ll admit that I’m not much better; I try to be a safe driver, but only occasionally do I give other people a break (e.g., let somebody pull out from a side street onto a crowded road, or stop to let a pedestrian cross). The thin veneer of niceness washes away pretty quickly once traffic builds up a bit.

The bare truth appears to be that we’ve got selfishness in our genes. Biologist Richard Dawkins published a book in 1976 called The Selfish Gene, which postulates that the process of evolution could care less about the good of the species. The bottom line is whether or not a particular set of genes is good at survival and replication. Since selfishness and aggression frequently provide an animal with the best opportunity to mate and have children in a challenging environment, selfishness and aggression have become common animal traits; and that includes the human animal too. Dawkins’ theory does allow for some cooperative and altruistic behaviors to evolve too, if they help to promote survival and reproduction in a particular environment. But given that the world is a tough place to survive in, selfishness and aggression are stronger instincts than niceness. Or at least that’s what it looks like here in Northern New Jersey.

But then again — we do have brains. We are not completely locked in by our genes and our instincts. We can “do the hard thing” and go against our selfish nature if we can convince ourselves that civilization and cooperation are the better part. I recall a debate from years ago where some people thought that humankind’s only hope lie in intellect and rationality. Obviously, some other people thought that thinking too much was the root of all evil and that humans needed to get back in touch with their basic instincts, which were fundamentally good. (Obviously this implied our “getting back to nature” to learn the ways of proper living, something like the way Native Americans lived before the Euro invasion). From what I know now about the “selfish gene” hypothesis, I’ll have to stick with the rationalists. Yes, the rationalists did invent the H-bomb, but they also determined that it was wrong to use it. And Native Americans scalped each other long before they did it to land-hungry white people.

Avoiding nuclear warfare and scalpings — it’s what we do. Let’s hope.