Exposing Them

There really are toxic people floating around that you can't get rid of.  Most annoy you, some do some harm but until recently they were easily called out for who they were and had little support.

That's changed.  We now promote a culture of us against them, winner take all, so it's perhaps time to accept the new rules and win.  One of the other phenomenon has been that while our politics thrives on division, our religions too sometimes, our businesses depend on a large inclusive tent.  So that when one of these toxic, threatening people gets identified through a photo gone viral, the profile of that individual becomes retrievable by Google or LinkedIn.  Corporations don't want troublesome people and quickly dispatch them.  The people who work for those companies may be crazy but they're not dumb and protect their enlightened self-interest.  People who volunteer to be public figures understand they will have opposition.  People who are hotheads or passive-aggressives can be real cowards.  The fear of loss far exceeds the anticipation of meaningful acceptance of their often odious rhetoric, so create a loss and they will go away.

How much random targeting does one need to assure voluntary compliance with expected norms?  It's hard to say.  Fish stay in schools and animals in herds and birds in flocks, knowing that some will get picked off but it doesn't change what the remaining individuals in a herd do.  Police cannot trap every speeder.  If they want to earn revenue for the town they put the radar behind a billboard, if they want voluntary compliance with speed limits they put the radar unit in front of the billboard.  The IRS has probably been the most adept at this, auditing a fairly small sample of returns based on suspicion and just enough randomly without suspicion to assure people don't take their chances with more than minimal underpayment or non-reporting.

You don't really need to expose people, just make undesired public scrutiny a plausible possibility.

I remain optimistic that the White House will turn over and with some good fortune so will the Senate Majority.  That leaves the incoming President at a serious branch point.  How much reprisal and on who?  Richard the Lion-Heart may be a good historical example with an American parallel.  He inherited a malignant division with Norman superiority and entitlement at the expense of the Saxons but wanted to erase the social gradient.  He could have the end vision but it would take until the reign of Edward III for a unified English people to emerge about 150 years later.  But Richard had to start.  He exiled some, hanged a handful, and gave amnesty to some key players, most notably his ne'er do well brother John, who became king, was still a control freak and ended up forced to sign away power through the Magna Carta.

The next President will have a lot of repair work to do. Some virtual guillotines, some exiles, some reconciliations.  But the dossiers and the plan needs to start now and it needs to include those toxic passive-aggressives who thought themselves too individually unimportant to justify any lasting reprisal.

Sorting the Big Basket

This past year, I've done rather well with dealing with objects that have an inertia.  For better or worse, my wife is unlikely to touch her stored stuff again so the best I can do is transport it out of pathways, which I've mostly done.  Our laundry room is clear, our basement has open spaces, though some of the paths could be better.  Our upper hall has been literally empty for two weeks.  The lower hall has almost been addressed, except for a big basket that I resolved to remedy this week.

I emptied it, sorted it into just a few categories:  wife's, upstairs, downstairs.  One of my favorite caps, not seen in a while got soiled by what looks like plant food.  I'll try to salvage it by hand washing because it is a favorite, an orange Lancer's Rugby cap.  That basket holds a lot of stuff and it will again hold stuff, though more selectively.  Some things have an obvious home: a basket for note pads, places on my desk for paper, a drawer for file folders.  Other things really don't but one can be created as often as necessary.  My basket for My Space.  By week's end.

I Got Bored

t was an unrestricted day.  I could do anything I wanted.  A scheduled recovery day off from the treadmill to rest my calves.  Nothing scheduled other than an AJC Seminar from France at mid-day which turned out to be superb.  No shortage of worthwhile things to do but I kept feeling like I was artificially trying to stay busy.  Could have gone fishing but it was too hot and humid. Took care of some minor grocery needs early in the morning, real stuff, no junk, from a short list.  Checked the gardens, all's well.  Added some diluted nitrogen supplement to the outdoor gardens in anticipation of serious rain the following day.  Indoor plants progressing well.  Dishes done.  Wanted to move a few boxes to better places, which I did early in the day.  Harvested some packing foam that I need to take to the state collection center.  Even finished the Book of Revelation which completes my reading of the New Testament.  Didn't really understand it much.  Guess the symbolism gets taught in parochial school.  So it wasn't a day of sloth, but it wasn't a satisfying use of a large block of time either.

What went undone, even shunned, were two projects of creative thinking, my two semi-annual goals least likely to be fulfilled, yet most challenging.  Starting requires an activation energy which just wasn't there. Instead, I got a series of easy boxes to check off as the illusion of accomplishment, maybe not really an illusion as some were serious initiatives, but much less satisfying when completed than the creative thinking would have been, even if incomplete.

Another go on the hard stuff today.

I

Post-Platelet Crash

My state had its Presidential primary yesterday.  I thought it was just the primary and there is a state senatorial candidate I wanted to vote for so I schlepped a few miles just after polls opened, already a line to stand on with Covid-19 mandated spacing that made that line look longer than it really was, and waited my turn.  To my disappointment, only the Presidential candidates were on the ballot.  No uncertainty over who will prevail in each party, so I could have just stayed home and not have to rush to keep my Blood Bank of Delmarva appointment.

I arrived with more than ample time, hung out at the Home Depot lot, surfing the web on my cell phone a while, then headed over to the Blood Bank.  They changed their eligibility a bit.  Potentially infectious behavior exclusions have been reduced from 12 to 3 months, a very recent amendment that will make more people eligible, particularly those with body piercings.  Basically an uneventful session, one that needed a repeat finger Hemoglobin to assure adequacy.  I set the TV for Dirty Jobs, including a session on making scrapple at a factory in my home state.  No unusual soreness as the transfer of blood from my left arm to the pheresis separator to my right arm took place over 90 or so minutes, or about 1.5 shows.  On removal of the needles, though, I found both elbows frozen, unable to flex either for a couple of minutes with less effect at the right wrist.  Onward to the snack station where I just got coffee and their complimentary promotion of flip-flops.  Gray, entirely plastic, probably too flimsy for beach but ok for pool.  Very unobtrusive Blood Bank of Delmarva printed at each heel.

Typically, if I complete the session before noon, I drive someplace other than home, but with Covid-19 restrictions there's really no place to go.  I could have had my glasses adjusted, maybe even purchase the new prescription at the nearby Costco's.  No interest in the regional mall.  Had just been to Cabela's.  Don't want to go all the way to Lancaster, a common post-donation detour, to find nothing open.  Home being the best option, I returned non-stop.

I did not expect the physical crash that followed.  Normally I omit the treadmill on platelet days, but I could not have done it even if I wanted to.  Too sore for housework, even finishing the dishes I had started before heading off.  Mind not in gear for anything mentally taxing.  Already had my quota of coffee.  Just an off-afternoon with no serious redemption.  I did not feel sore enough for naproxen.  I was not sleep deprived.  Just a day to stare into space, read the Forward, grapple with tying a fluorocarbon leader to a fishing line which still did not succeed.  I did not feel depressed, just achy and unmotivated, and unfocused.  

I still have things I want to do, so a second go round today, off to a better start.

Struggling with the Difficult

Bright new day, planned out week, projects for today that contribute to a six month composite in writing, prioritized, and staring at me.  Some are easy, like weighing myself or measuring waist circumference but contribute to a SMART goal directly.  Same with washing my duvet, taking down comforter to cleaners and rotating my mattress for the first time.  My bedroom will be my sanctuary and it takes some effort.  I opted for The Forward as my second subscription and volunteered for the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware as one of my two organizations.  All direct components of larger goals, though all that I've done today are easy with the exception of rotating the mattress which was a two person job.  Once done, it doesn't return for another six months.

And then there's the hard stuff: thinking, writing, creating.  That finds me floundering today.  Even  my allotment of reading, something that usually has me ahead of schedule has played second fiddle to household chores of little mental effort.  Weeding my garden and checking water of my plants is pleasant, needs to be done, and ultimately productive but anybody can do it.  The things unique to me, my mind, my insight, my ability to organize thoughts and express them has had this morning off.  Give it second run later.

Repairing Fishing Rod

It's been a tough season for my not quite fulfilled fishing hobby.  To clean for Pesach I moved all my rods to the car, some trunk, some back seat.  I lost one rod and reel which slid off a pier as I was packing up to go home.  One ultralite rod got caught in trunk door, snapping off the tip.  It was an inexpensive one, so I harvested the reel, tossed the rod and replaced it, unaware that a tip can be replaced.  Another rod, a more costly one, never used, still with receipt attached, met a similar fate with a car door.  This one being less disposable, I contacted Cabela's which confirmed their service at rod repair.  I can take it over for an estimate, but likely not to be cost effective.  What I learned, though, is that replacement tip eyelets can be purchased for a few dollars and do not seem all that hard to install, which would have been nice to know before tossing the ultralite rod.

My new ultralite rod, purchased at Dick's for about $30, seems a little lighter than the one I discarded.  It did not come already spooled, so I bought some #4 clear monofilament which turned out to greatly challenge my near vision and finger dexterity, but I got it spooled.  At the pond, threading it through the full extent of eyelets, then tying a jig with plastic grub challenged not only my dexterity but my patience.  Once done, I had a pleasant half hour or so casting from a pier and learned something from the junior high boys who had better vision than me.  They could see a fish, targeted it with a live goldfish as bait, then hooked it long enough to see it flop around at the surface before divesting itself of the hook, which was either not adequately set or unbarbed.

I returned with my all purpose rod and reel, only to find the line tangled when I tried to thread it through the eyelets.  I had spent a good deal of effort adding a fluorocarbon leader to this one.  No fishing, back to car to home to remove the tangled part, then see if I can relearn to do a blood knot to attach a new leader.

And I've still not hooked a fish, but not ready to abandon what has been good time by myself.

My New Half-Year

My virtual starting pistol has sounded.  Twelve SMART initiatives for the second half of 2020 replace twelve less SMART initiatives mostly undone in the first half.

1. Participate in 2 Organizations
2. Take 3 day trips in 3 different states
3. Visit a National Park
4. Purchase 2 subscriptions from publications whose free ration I typically exceed
5. Write 100 pages of the book that will make me famous
6. Create a means of identifying despicable people from public  photos and cataloguing them
7. Read 3 books distributed over specified categories
8. Achieve weight and waist circumference targets
9. Make 2 new friends
10. Attend my son's wedding
11. Process financial statements at 2 specified times a month
12. Transform my bedroom into a sanctuary

Being an old chemistry major, I remain very familiar with activation energy and often need for a catalyst or enzyme to bring processes from starting to end points.  All projects I think have 

SPECIFICITY METRICS ATTAINABLE RELEVANT TIME-SPECIFIED

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Week used to have a New Year's Eve show in which invited panelists on the screen and the full cast of regulars off the screen would make a list of recommended purchases to be reviewed the following New Year's Eve.  They could not trade their recommendations during that time interval.  What looks good now doesn't always look as inviting when you see it's progress move from one stage to the next.  I never abandon my projects, but the vigor or pursuit loses enthusiasm and sometimes relevance.  But it's my best assessment right now of the best use of my time and talent.