The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Food / Drink ... Society ... Zen ...

There’s a reflection on the evolution of ice cream into “frozen dairy desserts” in today’s New York Times Dining and Wine section. The “De Gustibus” column writer, Dan Barry, had a case-in-point with Breyers Ice Cream. In Mr. Barry’s younger days (which were also my younger days), Breyers was what a middle-class family bought for special occasions. It was real ice cream with lots of butterfat. Today, Breyers mostly offers concoctions of milk, corn syrup, whey, carrageenan and various vegetable gums; real ice cream is left to the high-cost snobs and “artisanal” producers such as Haagen Dazs, Ben and Jerrys, and Glace. Allegedly, the masses want cold stuff that is very sweet and very smooth, more so than the rich stickiness of high-fat ice cream.

And so “frozen dairy desserts” is mostly what they get, most of the time. As in the days when Breyers was real, most people still like to splurge now and then, and thus may stop at Cold Stone or pick up a quart of Turkey Hill premium. But more and more freezer space in the supermarkets is taken up by those “frozen desserts” (including some Turkey Hill offerings).

Mr. Barry regrets this trend. To be honest, though, I don’t. Sure, the big food producers are making a ton of money » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:43 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, April 14, 2013

◊ A Zen Life, Going To The Dogs

Personal Reflections ... Zen ...

In Zen practice, one of the most well known koans is the Dog-Mu story. At least that’s what I call it. In a nutshell, a Zen monk asks a master, “do dogs have Buddha nature?” Can they become enlightened, like the Buddha? (Or as the Buddhists on a deeper level might say, are they already enlightened as all humans are, but mostly don’t realize it yet, as most humans don’t?) The master’s answer was “mu”, which is sometimes taken to mean “no”. But “mu” is also taken to mean . . . all sorts of things. For serious Zen students who go thru a multi-year study of koans with a master teacher, the Mu koan is a big milestone. Supposedly, most students spend 3 to 6 months pondering it and offering various explications to their teachers, before the teacher will give a “pass” and let the student go on to a different koan.

I myself am not in a formal koan study at my zendo. I’m considered something of a rebel, someone not in the inner circles, albeit someone who is still valuable enough to be part of the mix. Our high command has no thought of sponsoring me as a future “sensei”, though. That bothered me for a few weeks, but I’ve learned to somehow get on with my life, along with my Zen practice (actually, the formula for my practice is that Zen = life and real life = real Zen). Nonetheless, I occasionally get out a random koan to ponder on my own, and I listen to our sensei discuss the meaning of various koans in his talks. Not too long ago he reflected on his own experiences studying the dog-mu koan under his own master. That got me to thinking on my own about the dog-mu koan.

I’ve heard that many students get hung up on the “mu” part of it; i.e., what the heck does the master mean » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:07 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

◊ End of Another Winter

Photo ...

We’re now past the first week of April, the unofficial end of the snow season around here. It’s going to be warm for the next 8 months or so. It’s finally time to put the snow shovels and driveway salt away. Here are some of those things basking in the sun on a fine spring morning; waiting to be stashed in a dark corner of a garage or shed, to lie in wait until the cold breezes, long nights and dingy gray clouds find their way back to this corner of the world. As they surely will. For now, though, it’s time to ignore such thoughts and enjoy the sun, trees and flowers, once again.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 2:54 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, April 7, 2013

◊ Mad Men And Facebook

Economics/Business ... Society ...

Even though I’m in the final decade of my working life (my so-called “productive years”), I still read articles and listen to radio programs about the many doings in the business world. Many years ago I tried to earn a living as a business economist, and I have a masters degree in the subject; despite the passing of time I still wonder at times what it is that makes the wheels of money, commerce, jobs and the overall economic infrastructure spin.

Lately, I’ve been hearing and reading a lot about social media, about why digital things like Facebook, MyLife, Pinterest and Twitter are of such concern to big business. Why do social media enterprises like Facebook have any economic value at all? (At last look, Facebook common stock shares were trading above $27, about halfway between the initial offering price of $38 and the low reached a few months ago of $18; implying a total enterprise value of around $75 billion.)

The answer, in a nutshell: advertising. Advertising is what allows “monetization” of social media. Big business sees social media as a potential » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:41 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, March 30, 2013

◊ We Could be Heros – But Usually Aren’t

Personal Reflections ...

At times I wonder, what might be a person’s biggest disappointment with their life, looking back from old age? (Which I’m rapidly entering.) Perhaps for some, it is that they weren’t more “saintly”. I.e., that they didn’t act upon something deep within their sub-conscious, that called them to less concern with self and more concern for others. Perhaps that they did not or would not have been the hero, the person who tried to tackle a crazed gunman in a school, theater or temple, or someone who would jump onto the subway tracks as a train approached to rescue a dazed person who stumbled out onto the path of the train. That they would have listened to the voice of reason in their heads and not taken a severe and yet passionate chance with their own life.

I don’t know if we all have such regrets (or if you are one of the few who actually did do such a thing — and lived to ponder it in your old age). But I sometimes do. Sometimes it seems comforting to take an eastern viewpoint and attribute my failing nature to “karma”. In some past life, or in some sub-conscious conveyance of “vibes” over the course of my life from others about me, I just didn’t accumulate enough good karma to appreciate the preciousness of being. I didn’t get over the existential numbness that many people complain of (while paying $100 per hour to a professional therapist to listen to such complaining). If there is such a karmic process, then it wasn’t all my fault. We are all part of a network with wide-ranging ties between the multitudes, spanning the past and present.

It would be nice to think that at least some little things can be done. It’s too late to jump down onto those subway tracks. Or even if such a chance did occur, I know that I still wouldn’t do it. But I could at least ponder why » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 6:53 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Friday, March 29, 2013

◊ Paschal Moon, 2013

Photo ... Religion ...

Every Easter, the full moon shines bright in the early Spring skies. The Church designed it that way. In some ways the “Paschal Moon” custom for setting the date of Easter relates to the lunar cycles that determined the Passover celebration for early Judaism; in some ways it helped ancient pilgrims going to holy sites for Holy Week by making their journeys a bit safer; and in some ways there is spiritual significance, e.g. Christ’s resurrection reflecting the turning of winter into spring and the light of God shining in the darkness.

That all may well be. For now, though, I’ll just take the Zen view and simply enjoy the bright moon shining through the clouds on a cool but no longer freezing night.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 1:44 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, March 23, 2013

◊ Fun Days At the House that Ruth Built

Photo ... Society ...

An article in the NY Times sports section on the 1965 NY Yankees brought back some memories for me. That was the year that the Yankees fell from grace; their streak of winning seasons and frequent World Series appearances from the 1920’s came to an end after 1964 and the Yanks wouldn’t be back again until 1976. They ended 1965 at 77-85 and started a decade of seasons where they finished under .500 or barely got over, usually by less than 5 games (save for a somewhat hopeful 93-69 season in 1970 and and a second place finish 2 games out in 1974). Various sports commentators wonder if this year will be a 1965 repeat for the Yanks, given how several of their biggest stars (Jeter, ARod, Rivera, Pettite, Suzuki, etc.) are finally feeling their age.

To be honest, I’m not much of a Yankee fan anymore, so I can’t really comment. But I can say a few things about the Yankees of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. They lost a lot of games, but I still had fun as a teenager making frequent Saturday or Sunday afternoon trips to the Bronx with my cousin to watch the Yanks play. Sure there was a lot of heartbreak, but because the team was so inept, things around Yankee Stadium got a good bit more informal than today. Thus, one could get away with stuff that modern Yankee fans could never imagine.

My cousin and I would buy the cheapest seats we could get inside the stadium (and you never had a problem buying day-of-game tickets at the park even if the game was starting in 10 minutes). Then in the later innings we would » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 3:09 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, March 17, 2013

◊ Databases and Relationships

Psychology ... Technology ...

I learned the rudiments of computer programming while in college, back in the mid-1970s. That was back in the dark ages of computers, when we keyed our programs on punch cards and brought them to a desk to be run. The output would come back in the form of a stack of thin 11 x 18 inch pages, listing all the stupid errors you made, along with all sorts of other computer system gibberish. So you’d re-punch some of your cards and try again; maybe in an hour or two you’d get your next set of results, hoping for a column or two of output numbers that made sense. That was my introduction to Fortran.

I didn’t make a career out of computer work, but knowing basic computer logic did help me in my various jobs over the next three decades. Still, I really only knew one half of the world of computer usage, as I never took a class on databases (COBOL, back then). To me, databases were like the dark side of the moon. I figured that they really weren’t all that important, and even if they were, how hard could it be? You just put numbers in indexed boxes, according to rows and columns. How complicated would it be to retrieve the number in row 1035, column 215 — say, sales of washing machines on July 23, 1974 at the Wichita store?

Only later in life did I come to know just how important the world of databases is. In 2000 I took a mid-life career hiatus and went through some classes at the now-defunct Chubb Top Gun program, which gave me » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:18 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, March 14, 2013

◊ Wrong and Right on Pope Francis

Current Affairs ... Religion ... Society ...

So we have a Pope. How did my predictions from this past Tuesday do? The bottom line is, terrible. In the end of my note I concluded that the stodgy old Cardinals would give in to politics and go with a Scola, Oullet or Scherer. They actually had a bit of a surprise in store for most of us. Cardinal Bergoglio had been mentioned in passing by some Vatican analysts, but his odds on the European betting sites never got much better than 25 to 1.

And yet . . . at the beginning of my post, I imagined the Cardinals making some room for an eventual new wind to blow in the Church. I forecast that the new Pope would be old and Italian, and prove to be a transitional figure who would pave the way for a Southern Hemisphere man to follow, a younger and energetic pope who would define a new sense of Catholic mission in the 21st Century.

Too bad that I then cast doubt on my forecast. What actually happened was not terribly far from that scenario. Cardinal Bergoglio’s election certainly does set precedent » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:23 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

◊ The Popestakes

Current Affairs ... Religion ...

Looks like the new Pope contest begins today, Tuesday! Anything could happen, but my prediction, for what little it’s worth, is that an old Italian will get it, someone around 78. Perhaps Cardinal Bertone, despite some rumors of his incompetence as Vatican Secretary of State, and his tie-ins with all the bad stuff going on in that little fiefdom. Or 79-year old Cardinal Re (not mentioned as a front-runner, admittedly, but who was taken seriously in the 2005 papal conclave).

In my opinion, the cardinals should want to play for time. They know that a “southern hemisphere” pope is inevitable, but may want to give the leading candidates a few more years to mature. So they will — or should, anyway — elect an interim, so as to buy maybe 5 or 6 years. The new/old Pope could profitably spend that time mopping up the Curial mess that is being left behind by Benedict, then imitate his predecessor by quitting while he’s ahead (if he hasn’t conveniently died by then).

When that day comes, I’d say that the top 3 in the race would be Turkson from Ghana, Tagle from the Phillipines and the German fellow from Brazil, Cardinal Scherer. I’d venture that Tagle is the true “Holy Spirit” candidate, but it depends » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:15 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

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