The Week

Can't believe how fast this one flew. Maybe a re-cap is in order.

Sunday, the regular season ended for Major League Baseball with the Twins ahead of the Chicago White Sox by a half game. Twins fans had little to cheer about after that. Chicago beat Detroit on Monday in a makeup game and rose to the occasion in a one game playoff Tuesday to put the final nail in the coffin for the Twins who have gone home to replay a season's worth of muffed opportunities in their heads.

Meanwhile, on Wall Street, a hurricane of turmoil hit the financial markets with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling near 700 points as Congress rejected the bailout plan that was being hammered together. Here in Ennyman's Territory it was Short Story Monday, and the second act of Terrorists Preying appeared.

Tuesday the markets experienced exuberance for a day as fireworks and "buying opportunities" lit up the sky. Emotion reigns, evidently. These market moves can't be in any way related to rational evaluations. So, life goes on.

As I woke that morning y own mind was filled with thoughts about flow. Here are my notes which became the initial basis of my Flow entry Tuesday.

Flow
Siddhartha
a river runs thru it
Watching the River Flow
meditations on how rivers flow…
time changes flows
rivers cut through rocks, or meander lazily through flatlands,
create isolated oxbow lakes

That evening I watched the movie Under the Volcano, which I had ordered through Blockbuster online more than ten months ago. Long waiting list? Or just one copy in circulation? It was worth the wait. Brought back memories of our year in Mexico, the good parts. Favorite off-the-beaten-path places: Guanajuato and Catorce. Guanajuato used to be one of the main silver mines in Mexico and rich Spaniards sought to recreate their much loved Barcelona. Unique city.

Catorce was a mine near Matehuala, a small city where Pancho Villa had a hideaway. Catorce means "14" which was the number of the mine. You had to drive through a half-mile long (or more) one lane tunnel to reach the abandoned village. The tunnel had been dug through a mountain. There stationed a man at each end who would call the other end to ask if the tunnel were clear before letting someone drive in. There were a couple very large modern homes to the left as you emerged from the tunnel, and an abandoned village on the right, all the homes connected by a network of roofless walls, rooms and corridors. Goats ambled about, and probably ghosts as well.

Since that time the tourists have apparently discovered this place and are writing about it on the Internet. Here's a New York Times travel review about this remote lost village.

Early Wednesday I wrote about bees, though daily a swarm of other potential themes seem to compete for my attention. Here are some notes jotted down as a potential blog entry catalyst, but it didn't get anywhere.

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To Save America
As everyone knows a wave of hysteria hit Wall Street Monday (9-29) as the Dow dropped an eyeball popping 700 points
or near 7 percent…

22+% in 1929

If we could turn all of our bicycles into power generating devices….
Then for one hour each day we could all get on our bicycles and power up the grid so that enough power is produced for a radio signal to reach all of the free world for three minutes during which time the President would give us all a pep talk to keep us going for another day.

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Wednesday evening I prepared my review of Under the Volcano while watching Vatel, one of my favorite all time movies, starring Gerard Depardieu. When I am not distracted by other themes I will write about it sometime. In the meantime, here are a pair of great lines by Depardieu, who plays the central character Vatel.

“The poor are honored to be the king’s creditors. Both my parents were so honored they died of it.” ~ Vatel

“Harmony and contrast, all beauty comes from those two things.” ~ Vatel

Thursday night Susie and I took in the Palin / Biden debate. Afterwards, while prepping photos for faster downloading on the blog, I began watching Good Night & Good Luck, a truly compelling film, written and directed by George Clooney. David Straithern literally becomes Edward R Murrow, the David who with truth and courage as his only weapons stood up to Goliath, the Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Before the night was over, Chicago's Cubbies had self-destructed yet again. So dominant throughout the season, it has appeared to be "the year" they finally put it all together. Now, down two games to none in the playoffs, Cub fans chew their nails, toss and turn on their beds, and strive to keep it together, hoping against hope the team will get loose and play like the champions they ought to be. Go Cubs!

This week's reading material during my commute has been China Road by NPR's Rob Gifford. It is a great book and comes to you highly recommended. Gifford at one time hoped to be a missionary to China, following the footsteps of the man who inspired him in his youth, Hudson Taylor. But, as the two roads diverged before him, Gifford's pastor suggested he might achieve greater things by not taking that path. Indeed, this book is testament that he has found a much larger hillside from which he can shine his light... rather than having it hidden in a far corner of the Gobi Desert.

Of Gifford's book and China there is much more to share... and I promise you I will indeed write more about it soon. In the meantime, it is Friday evening, and a weekend awaits with its manifold projects.

Due to a hard frost this morning I had to scrape ice off the car windows in order to drive to work. This is a signal that it is time to clear away space in the garage again, to tuck the lawnmowers into their corners, cover a few windows and button up the house for winter.

There is much more happening in the world than we've even hinted at here.... but you don't need me to tell you about it. Just get your Google going.

G O P

Last week, at the end of the Dem Convention, I made the comment that it would be interesting to see how the Republicans positioned their party in the week that followed. Turns out to have been an interesting week as predicted.

The Obama campaign has been very successful at sinking home the message of Change. Time for something new, something different in Washington. I have a friend who said his father, an old man nearly eighty, was for the first time in his life thinking of pulling a lever for a Democrat. He said to his son, "Who does not want change?" The son had no answer.

Well, this week the McCain people addressed this very hunger for change by spinning the campaign theme this way: We are the candidates of change. We, McCain and Palin, are not about going to put up with the status quo politics that has become standard fare in Washington.

I watched from the PR spin angle sidelines and see it as a brilliant position to stake out. Even though John McCain has been a Washington insider for more than a little while, he has a reputation as a maverick. (It was amusing to see a delegate on the floor of the convention in St. Paul holding a sign that read, "Mavrick"... )

The night before, the convention speakers set the table with Palin's achievements. For sure, you could not get further from the beltway with this governor from Alaska. Her reputation was staked out as being one who fights corruption, who is not afraid to take on special interests. She was not afraid of a fight. Of herself she said the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom is the lipstick.

And, of course, John McCain, it was repeatedly noted, is himself a fighter... This is where the orchestration comes in. The theme all week of McCain the fighter and maverick all connects to our grass roots "people against the machine" desires. But it was also a setup up for his bearing of the soul to reveal his motivations. Like Obama the week before, McCain told the story of how he came to care so much for his country. He shared how he had been a proud young man, but met his match under torture. What kept him going was having to live for something bigger than himself.

McCain and Palin are now claiming to be carrying the real banner for change, painting Obama and Biden as "more of the same."

GOP originally stood for Gallant Old Party. Somehow over the years Grand Old Party must have sounded better to someone.

Fortunately, there are less than two months now to the election. Hopefully there will be no hanging chads or other disputes when the votes are tallied. But comments on the future of voting (i.e. eVoting) will be saved for another day.

Y'all come back now, ya hear?