The grass flittered
while the wind stimulated
the leaves reacted
and the river
moved in diagonal
across the horizon
autumn spent the day
settling in
as the rain dabbled onto
our sweaters
by nightfall the windows
were pulled low
the blankets were scavenged
from dusty attics
the air was cool

Information

"Information itself has become relative."

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/what-socialism-means-to-the-masses/?ref=global-home

Summer of '09

It was the summer of mulling. Mulling and more mulling. People hurting each other, people being hurt. People standing up and getting hurt for doing that, people not standing up and getting hurt for that. It was the summer of turmoil. The celestial gods were angry and irritable. They were tired of all of us staying so complacent for so long. Governments argued and fought with their people. People argued and fought with those they loved. New things happened, old things ended.
People were angry and grumpy and creative and innovative all together. It was so much change it had to be an upheaval.
Those that preferred the dolphins were forced into waters with sharks, those that preferred the bite of sharks were stuck with sheen skin of dolphins.
Long living narratives cracked open, the way things were just couldn’t continue to be the way things are.

abstraction according to answers.com

The selection and conceptualization of a phenomenon, or some aspect of it. Abstraction is an essential part of model building where some aspect or part of the real world is extracted and simplified. Unfortunately, during the process of simplification, so much information has to be jettisoned that the resulting model may have very limited success.

Other abstractions are based on idealism; models are made of an ‘ideal type’ such as the Latin American city model. The problem is that it is quite possible to construct very different ideal types of the same phenomenon.

Communalism Vs Individualism again

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/mathematics-and-economics/#comment-234077

do we have it all wrong?
maybe half of it.

its gone

It was a dream
A 30 year old dream
Of escape
Adventure
Laughter
And intensity
I came home
I sat down
And then it went away
in its stead
came negotiation
compromise
frustration

East vs West

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."

Adam Smith

"What is the key to untie the knot of the mind’s suffering? Benevolent
thought, sound and movement."

Hafiz

Sinews

“Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue” (Izaak Walton).

fall

the fall light
is here now
it comes in the early
morning
when jet lag
awakes
it is pink
instead of yellow
it is soft
instead of bright
with the cool breeze
that accompanies it
it forces
a change
i wasn't quite finished
w summer

it rained

When I was 13, I was living at my grandmother's house. One afternoon it started to rain while I was walking to the mailbox to check the mail. I was in a bright orange robe that my mom had bought me. As the rain fell and the light changed, I became energized and started dancing in the rain. I was moving jumping twirling in the drive way with such energy, the cool rain fell on my eyes, down my face soaking my hair. It was a thrill.

Ten minutes later I went inside. Thirty minutes later the cops knocked on the door. "The neighbors called about someone running around outside your house in an orange robe."

lunacracy

I saw your picture from the trials the other day. It was on FARS news. Someone, one of the many friends you made while you were here, sent it to a group of us. We have an email group that simply mulls over what we should do. We use logic, trying to think about what the government would do if we went public or if we didn’t, trying to presume behavior that frankly is a funny presumption. We have no idea what to do, that’s the brilliance of lunatic leadership, they always leave everyone impotent in their ability to make decisions because there is no logic, no history, no information upon which to make decisions. All everyone does is playing a guessing game, and those that have been inside the belly of its lunacy have some better brilliance at this guessing game, but ultimately, we never know what to do, so we do nothing. I have your picture on my desk, I don’t know why. I don’t want to forget you. Where you are. I don’t think you should be alone right now.
I looked at the picture and I was surprised. To be honest, you aren’t the same guy as three years ago. You look old, angry, and obstinate. But to me, and these are all just assumptions, you look hurt. All I want, selfishly, is to have an hour with you so I can make you laugh again, in that stupid way that I would, so I could see that you are still inside there.
I always think back to our nights walking the upper west side near school. The night we were in the diner and you had your note cards out, the things you had learned in class that you were so focused on.
I remember the last lunch we had at the World Bank. You were serious as usual but curious and still pressing about the perfect match we would make if I would only give in. We laughed. I wanted you to go back with your dreams, I believed in them too. We knew we were foolish. Only they could show us how much.