MYSTERIES OF THE INTERNET: PHLEGM

I've always been fascinated by the internet, particularly things like google. It's difficult to wrap my brain around the concept of millions of people doing millions of searches all the time. I've read about some of the large server facilities - huge warehouse buildings filled with computers and HVAC systems, humming away 24/7, using massive amounts of electricity. The Cloud.

So it was with awe and wonder that I made a discovery today that set my imagination whirling. I checked the traffic on my blog using StatCounter; I do this once in awhile just to see where the hits (the few I get) are from. StatCounter has a google maps link that displays a symbol on a world map for the location of every server from which my blog has been visited during the past few weeks. (I use the free version of StatCounter, so I have a limited amount of data storage.) There are a lot of symbols from all over the world displayed today for my blog - cool.

Then I looked at the statistics display that lists the city and country for each hit, and for most hits the post that was viewed. And there it was, a wondrous mystery of the internet unfolding before my eyes. Of the 48 hits listed for October and November (I told you, it's not a popular blog...), 16 - that's one third - were on a post I'd made on February 28, 2009, over 8 months ago! And what was this suddenly popular (relatively) post? It was The Importance of being Phlegmish, of course!

These hits on my phlegm post were from:
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA
Bronx, New York USA
Portland, Oregon USA
San Antonio, Texas USA
Vienna, Austria
Winnipeg Canada
Lawrence, Massachusetts USA
Littleton, Colorado USA
Artarmon, New South Wales Australia
Middleton, Ohio USA
Boulder, Colorado USA
Fort Wayne, Indiana USA
Kenya (no city listed)
Chatham, New Jersey USA
Killingworth, Connecticutt USA
Louisville, Kentucky USA

Once my laughter subsided, I began to investigate further. For many of these hits, StatCounter shows a link for the source, and these in turn show what search terms led the searcher to my post. I looked at a number of these links. One search was for "coughing up clear sticky fluid in the morning." Seems obvious enough. But the majority were for: "old man lucas had a lot of mucus." Yes, the title of a song by Kinky Friedman, often performed by Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew Boys. (By the way, looks like Kinky is running for Governor of Texas in 2010.) I mentioned Kinky and his song in the Phlegmish post.

So I know what people were searching for, but why? Why are so many (again, this is relative) people looking on the internet for a song by Kinky Friedman about an old man with a lot of mucus? It remains a mystery, but here's my guess: some world radio program or internet site did a story about Kinky Friedman, and played or mentioned his famous song (you've heard it many times, right?). And this prompted folks to search for it on the internet. And their search led some of them to my humble blog.

I only hope that these people I don't know from far corners of the Earth read the post, instead of clicking away from it without stopping to read it, to learn a little bit about me, to marvel themselves about the wonders of the internet, a place where weirdos can post strange scribblings that are forever out there, in the Cloud, 24/7 - until the world goes dark.

IS OBAMA DOING OK?

Folks - we need to chill out, and we need to heat it up. I, like many of you, am a news junkie. I read the newspaper every day (well, almost every day), and I usually end up being upset, pissed off, and gloomy about the state of the world around me. (In fairness, I sometimes find articles about good things happening, and this lifts my spirits.)

But I have to tell you, the incessant chatter about "Obama is not doing such and such," and "Obama isn't keeping his campaign promise about so and so," is starting to get on my nerves. Yeah, I have some questions about what the guy is doing and why, but then - hang on a second - look at what he inherited from the Cheney-Bush Cabal. I'm serious about this; Cheney and little Bush wreaked incredible havoc on this country and this world, and these things don't just go away on the day a new administration is sworn in. If we stop for a minute and consider the state of affairs Obama inherited, it's a wonder the man isn't just wandering around in circles babbling incoherently to himself!!

The Obama administration has been in office for 10 months, that's 10.4% (one tenth) the time Cheney-Bush was in office. Look carefully at the Obama administration record to date; they have accomplished a lot, considering the mess they walked into. We elected Obama; now we need to give him our continuing support. Will he always do everything each of us wants? No. Will he be as progressive, liberal, radical or whatever each of us wants him to be? Never. Will he represent the values and goals of the people who elected him better than Cheney-Bush did? Every time!!

So people, let's chill out in the ranting and raving and bloviating department, and let's heat up in the activism department. The Republican Party, and especially the right wing of the Party, have truly lost their way - or maybe they've found their way - when it comes to the good of the people. But if we sit back and let them grab the headlines, let them sow the seeds of doubt, let them control the conversation, well....then they'll win the game. If we let down our guard, they win. And we know the kind of world they want - we lived in it for eight long, brutal years.

Yes we can. Yes we will. Keep saying it - keep doing it.

ANIMAL STORIES

Do Frogs get Lonely?

One day last summer, Sherry came back from the Fred Meyer garden store with a tray of small bedding plants. When we removed the small plastic pots from the cardboard tray, there was a small green frog huddling in the corner. It was a chorus frog (formerly known as a tree frog). The plants were from a nursery in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, and this is a native species. Well, we don't keep pets anymore, and we live in a very urban area, so what to do with the little guy/girl? I carried her/him to the backyard, our Garden of Tranquility, and released him/her on a flat rock in our water feature. She/he crawled under a rock and hasn't been seen since.

However, over the past few weeks, there is a frog calling from the corner of the Garden of Tranquility where the water feature is. It's a very plaintive call, almost haunting in it's loneliness. Is our frog lonely? Is it trying to find a companion, a mate? What should we do to help? Is it legal for me to capture another wild chorus frog for our garden, and if so, how do I know if we need a male or female - how do we even tell the difference?? Life has knotty problems.

Eats Shoots and Leaves

A panda walks into a bar...... Well, no, actually that's just a joke. But I think about pandas every time I have to thin our bamboo landscape screen next to the house. Bamboo is an amazing grass. Ours, the black bamboo, sends new shoots out of the ground every May (we call them "the Aliens"), and these things grow about 10 feet in 3 weeks. Amazing! Every year I spend a day or more thinning - which is the easy part. Then I have to cut the bamboo thinnings into pieces small enough to fit in the green yard debris recycling can. This takes hours of tedious work.

Our sister-in-law Jill volunteers at the zoo. I asked her once to ask the zoo folks if they want my bamboo cuttings for the pandas, or the giraffes, or anyone. I knew they wouldn't - and they didn't - because, well, how do they know I haven't sprayed the heck out of the bamboo with poison?

I need a panda. Not as a pet - remember, we don't do pets anymore - but maybe once or twice a year. A panda yardwork helper, with an appetite. Anybosy know one I can call?

GUILTY OF ECOCRIMES?

OK, this is a confession - I think I've committed a crime against the environment, but I'm not sure.

I was puttering around the house the other day, and looked under a bathroom sink for something. For some reason, I decided to take everything out from under the sink - you know - cleaning mode set in. And there they were, several almost-empty plastic bottles of shampoo, liquid soap, hair conditioner. I hesitated. The correct thing to do is rinse them thoroughly and recycle them. But it takes a lot of time, and water, to get all that sudsy stuff out of each bottle. "Which is worse" I pondered, "throwing the bottles in the trash (egads), or using so much water?"

I threw them in the trash, thus saving water and time.

But now I feel guilty. Every time I hear a car door close outside our house I get nervous - is it the Portland Eco Cops? Will they just give me a warning, or will I do hard time? What should I plead: temporary insanity? Conflict of eco-logic? Not guilty? Or should I confess my crimes and take whatever punishment I deserve?

Oops....gotta go hide, I just heard a car door slam.

BLINK...BLINK...BLINK...BLINK...

The power went out for about 30 seconds this morning. Now I'm sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee, reading the NY Times, and trying to ignore all the damn blinking digital clocks!! From where I'm sitting I can see 4 appliances blinking at me, begging - no, nagging me to reset them. Luckily we have one battery powered clock on the kitchen wall, so I know what time it is. Now, the age-old question, can I get all the digital readouts to display the exact same time?

I'll then need to go through the house and reset the DVD player, the clock radio in each bedroom, and other gadgets I can't remember we have. (Actually, I have a confession - I have never set the clock display on the DVD player, so it always just displays "12:00....12:00....12:00....12:00.....")

If I ever go shopping again for an appliance with a digital read out, I'm going to look for one that has a setting for "Turn Off the Damn Digital Clock." I don't need these. I don't want these. I'm tired of paying for the electricity they use.

Oh well, it's a beautiful cold, crisp, grey Portland autumn morning. I'll just relax with my second cuppa, and.....blink.....blink.....blink.....blink.....blink.....blink.....blink.....blink.............

BOYCOTT DAVID BYRNE

David Byrne is speaking right now at the Bagdad Theater near our house. I like David Byrne, although I'm not that familiar with his work after Talking Heads. He's speaking about bicycling tonight - it figures - right here in "The Amsterdamn of America."

But here's my beef: David is one of many film personalities who signed an open letter protesting the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) for highlighting the city of Tel Aviv, Israel. Some filmmakers withdrew their films in protest. It's complex, of course, but to me the underlying issue is censorship with a political motive. The signers of the open letter, a lot of familiar film personalities, take issue with TIFF spotlighting Tel Aviv because they felt this plays into Israeli propaganda, Israel is an apartheid nation, Israel mistreats Palestinians, etc. No matter that some of the Israeli films are critical of Israel.

I have not understood the movement by some to protest and censor academic and artistic work by Israelis. Some academics have protested the inclusion of Israeli colleagues at professional meetings, as if Israeli scholars are the same as the Israeli government or policies. I think this kind of "political action" is narrow-minded and misplaced. The greater danger is that it fans the flames of anti-Semitism, which has been surging world-wide recently - and yes, even here in the U.S. (just ask any Jewish student at Portland State University, Lewis and Clark College, etc.).

As I've said before on this blog, the Israel-Palestinian situation is very complex, and it's easy to pick out the bad guy and side with the underdog. But guess what folks - reality isn't that simple. The good are bad and the bad are good, there's ample blame to go around, and a solution is, in my mind, not going to happen in our lifetimes.

So let's get back to David Byrne. By his own reasoning (and that of the other signers of the letter), we should boycott his works because he is from a country that tortures prisoners, illegally invades and occupies sovereign nations based on lies, is guilty of numerous human rights abuses, refuses to sign important international treaties, is the largest supplier of weapons to the world....shall I continue?

Let's support free expression, and let's not drag art into the mud of global politics.

THE KILLING OF ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ-APALE

I didn't know Alexander Hernandez-Apale, I only saw his name and photo in the newspaper one morning. He was a young man with a pleasant smile in the photo accompanying the article about his death. Alexander was almost 19 years old. He was attacked by two teen gangsters who probably thought he was in another gang, and they stabbed him to death on the street. Alexander was not in a gang - he was a victim of random violence on the streets of Beaverton, Oregon.

We read about and see death every day in the media, so much so that I think we - I - become habituated to the point of either ignoring or accepting it as "normal." I can't explain why this particular death grabbed me the way it did. Maybe it's because I have a teenage grandson; maybe it's because I took the time to read the entire article and in a small way got to know this young man, and could feel the pain and heartbreak in his parents' words.

In addition to the sadness I feel for Alexander, his family and friends, I am profoundly
perplexed by the capacity of humans to enact this kind of senseless brutality. What part of the human mind allows people to kill?