Grandma Newman's Energy Saving Tips

Mom has never been shy. She's also always enjoyed contests. Put these together and you have a YouTube video featuring mom, her entry into a contest about saving electricity called Change a Little, Save a Lot.

Rather than being submitted to the power company (PPL is the sponsor of this contest) entries are posted online, which is actually pretty clever. The energy tips get shared with a wider audience, and the contest manager has less muss and fuss to deal with in regards to special handling of video entries. I can envision compatibility issues with in-house equipment. By uploading the three minute submissions to YouTube, compatibility becomes the problem of the contestant.

The contest is designed to help raise consciousness about the many small ways we can all contribute to reducing our carbon footprint. Whether that means much to you, there are some additional benefits of energy efficiency, including lower power bills. A few extra dollars in our pockets each month is pretty valuable. In this sense, everybody's a winner, though only one person will win the $5,000 Sears Gift Card.

Not everyone can enter though. You have to be a residential customer of PPL Electric in Pennsylvania. BUT, everyone can benefit from efforts made to change our energy habits a little.

Click here for additional contest details.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Meryl Streep was miffed that she failed to get the role of playing Brabara "Grandma" Newman in this big budget thriller.

Franklin On Whitefield

As noted the other day I have been reading Ben Franklin's autobiography, which continues to be quite fascinating. Yesterday he went into great detail about the influence and character of itinerant Anglican preacher George Whitefield (pronounced hwit-feeld), who played a major role in what is referred to as "the Great Awakening" in the years preceding out Revolutionary War.

I believe the Princeton University Library, in its archives, still maintains some of the tracts Mr. Franklin printed for Mr. Whitefield, along with other artifacts of Puritan and Colonial times. It was by means of being Whitefield's printer that Franklin's respect for the man grew, for even though they disagreed on certain matters they had mutual respect. I cite the following passage from his autobiography.

"Some of Mr. Whitefield's enemies affected to suppose that he would apply these collections to his own private emolument; but I who was intimately acquainted with him (being employed in printing his Sermons and Journals, etc.), never had the least suspicion of his integrity, but am to this day decidedly of opinion that he was in all his conduct a perfectly honest man, and methinks my testimony in his favour ought to have the more weight, as we had no religious connection. He us'd, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death."

Whitefield was an evangelist, famed for his oratory skills. On one occasion Whitefield was preaching and it came time to take an offering. Franklin says he has regular coins, silver coins and gold coins in his pocket. He resolved in advance not to give anything when the offering plates were passed, yet Whitefield was quite persuasive about the good their giving would do, and the first coins were lifted from Franklin's pocket followed by the silver and finally the gold. Another man near him deliberately left his money at home, and began asking to borrow money from his neighbor. Such was Whitefield's power of persuasion.

To lift money from peoples' pockets was not, however, his aim. And Franklin begins this section with his positive influence in the communities where he travelled. "It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seem'd as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro' the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street."

Whitefield had such lungs of leather that it was purported he could address a crowd of 30,000 and still be heard. Franklin doubt this, until he heard Whitefield speak. Old Ben kept moving further and further from the epicenter of the crowd, continually estimating his distance and the density of the crowd. In the end he was not only persuaded to change his opinion on the matter, but it also caused him to reconsider and accept the veracity of certain historical passages he had previously doubted where generals spoke to their assembled troops before battle.

Whitefield crossed the Atlantic thirteen times in his career as an itinerant preacher, also travelling to many other nations, including Scotland many times, Ireland, Bermuda, Gibraltar and The Netherlands.

If you have a couple minutes, be sure to read this fascinating account of George Whitefield as seen through the eyes of Benjamin Franklin.

District 9: Humans Are Not Welcome Here

That's the tag line in District 9. "You are not welcome here."

I rented District 9 from Blockbuster after noticing that it was #1 over where customers' favorites are shelved. I vaguely recalled the trailer at the theater, and seemed to notice that it had gotten a lot of tweets on Twitter. I also noticed that this was a Peter Jackson project and his Lord of the Rings trilogy was indeed an amazing achievement.

What really got me, however, was when the salesclerk said the story is told as a documentary. This intrigued me. As if this were something that our news crews were covering somewhere in the world, a real event. She added, "I didn't expect to cry when I saw it in the theater." That's quite an admission. Does a movie like Alien make people cry. No. Just makes you jump out of your seat a few times.

So I put on the film while doing taxes last night. Can I just say it blew me away? I found District 9 to be utterly compelling.

Here's a typical imdb reviewer's rave... "I will not go far into detail because I would prefer to not spoil anything. This is unlike any sci-fi we have seen in years. Forget Terminator 3 and 4, forget the AVP movies, forget all those laughable sci-fi movies, this film is what we have been waiting for. An original idea, an original concept, brilliantly executed, great CGI, good acting, it just has it all. We have seen many aliens come to earth movies, but this is different, I will not say why though. That is for you to find out when you see it, which I HIGHLY recommend you do."

And I agree. The original concept, brilliantly executed, with a story that offers more than meets the eye, is refreshing. My internal interaction with other questions it probes, such as race relations and social problems in Africa, also left me wondering how many layers were embedded here deliberately. Maybe like a great poem or piece of artwork, the reader or viewer takes away more than was there and adds to its depth.

The story of how the film came to be, and its origins outside the Hollywood starpulse factory, is also noteworthy. A Nikki Finke column in early November told how the 30 million dollar film came to gross more than 200 million by that point already.

"The secret of the indie's success, like Paranormal Activity, was that it was made outside the studio system and marketed outside the studio formula. The edgy and original content, the South African cast instead of Will or Adam or Brad, were thought to be integral aspects which the majors would have rejected during their own development process. "Audiences are driving the agenda and deciding for themselves what they want to see through Twitter and social networking sites," one insider explained to me. When District 9 was screened at Comicon, American Idol's Jordan Sparks alerted 220,000 followers how good the pic was. That's when the pic exploded in popularity. By the time it opened on a Friday, it was the #1 most tweeted topic."

So it was a marketing achievement as well as an achievement in film. But let's be frank, unless the product was good, the PR game would not have carried it. And this product is very good.

District 9. This one is worth seeing.

Ben Franklin's 13 Virtues

This week I began listening to The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin during my morning commute and it is a remarkably entertaining and insightful little book. Already I am desirous to own it even though only partially through. It seems like having a copy one can mark up and re-visit would be useful. Then again, it may just be a certain kind of covetousness on my part since the whole of it can be found online and re-visited any time one wished.

His descriptions of early life in the American colonies, and his various tactics and motivations for bettering himself would be useful for any of us. For example, he early decided (in his teens I believe) to avoid saying words like "obviously" and "most assuredly" because it immediately created a barrier between you and others who perceive you as an arrogant "know it all" and puts them in an adversarial position to you. The better approach is to ease into your views and hold them tentatively so they can be considered and received rather than resisted because we attempted to slam them home.

Kind reader, do forgive me for having not learned this wise counsel while in my younger years because it is, sadly, a lesson I would have done well to apply. Obviously, I have most assuredly been an idiot on many occasions where I surmised myself otherwise. Hopefully, it is not too late for me. old dog that I am. And may you learn from Mr. Franklin's counsel here rather than my example.

There were many other points at which I wished to pull my car over and scribble notes. Happily I have found Franklin's autobiography on a website which can be bookmarked and returned to now and then.

Franklin made deliberate attempts at living a virtuous life, and is honest about the challenges this presented him. Yet he applied himself diligently to the task. I thought this section to be especially interesting when I listened to it on the way home tonight.

It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I bad imagined. While my care was employ'd in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex'd to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully express'd the extent I gave to its meaning.

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were

1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg'd it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro' the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang'd them with that view, as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquir'd and establish'd, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improv'd in virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtain'd rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues; Frugality and Industry freeing me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc., etc. Conceiving then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination....

Well, if your interest has been peaked, that's my aim here. Much good can probably come from ruminating on these precepts.

Our American Narcissism

About ten years ago I wanted to write an article or book directed toward Baby Boomers with the pithy (I believed at the time) title, Boomer: Do You Know Who You Are? The main idea of the piece was to address a number of the life issues I believed boomers were dealing with including, feelings of superficiality and fakiness, having to play games; creeping deadness, lack of enthusiasm for life, work, etc.; aimlessness, lack of direction; weakness, helplessness to change situation, powerlessness; growing cynicism due to awareness that we are not changing the world, our lack of social impact.

The chief aim was to remind fellow Boomers of our tattered ideals and help them become once more the authentic, passionate, motivated, enthusiastic, purposeful, powerful, socially conscious people they were meant to be. In other words, "remember your roots and draw strength from who you are."

One of the major problems with this project, however, is that it seems to simultaneously perpetuate one of the great problems of this generation: our pervasive American Narcissism. The very act of writing such a book feels, at least for the moment, like a doomed building on a baseless foundation. I'll try to touch the core of that thought via this route.

When a Major League baseball team wins the World Series, we love calling it the World championship, even though it is only the U.S. and two Canadian cities involved. How different this is from the World Cup in soccer, which is truly a global competition.

Is our Hollywood celebrity worship something that could have originated elsewhere? I actually do not know the extent to which many of our practices extend beyond our borders. Do our celebrities really hate the intrusive behavior of the papparazzi, or do they actually feel injured if the papparazzi fail to show up when they are out and about? How did we get so grandiose about our heroes?

We call our parents' generation the "greatest generation" but we have always acted as if everything was, is and will be all about us.

I was talking with someone last week who had been to China on a business trip. He went there with the idea in his head that he was going to see exploited masses of people in a backward country making things with their hands. He did not expect to see factories with modern robotics. Or cities with five million people that he never heard of because they were the smaller cities there. He was especially struck by the quantity of construction cranes that were constructing ever more buildings to keep pace with the economic boom China has been experiencing as it rushes forward into the future.

What does it mean to be a Boomer actually? The term is itself an American term. Just like Gen X, which our media used to describe our following American generation. We have a new wave of young people whom journalists compete to define, but it is only American young people they are defining because at the end of the story it's like, "Oh, you mean the Gen Xers in other parts of the world, like Italy and Bulgaria and Brazil and Zimbabwe aren't like our Gen Xers?" As if such things could be remotely possible with their various contexts and experiences so different from our own.

In short, the whole Boomer construct is a Pop Culture construct, a product of our tendency toward superficial Pop world views. Isn't it? So how can I write a "serious" book about Boomers, for Boomers, and market it through the very Pop channels that I am deriding?

I dunno. Maybe I'm making too much of this today. But to put things in perspective, what will people be saying about Boomers a thousand years from now? "What were Boomers?" For all I know the international trade language will be Chinese and their historians will be trying to figure out why English used to be the most global language at the beginning of the third millennium. What do you think?

Crumb Does Genesis

A friend at church who likes to hang out at Barnes & Noble asked if I had seen the new illustrated Book of Genesis by R. Crumb. R. Crumb is, of course, the iconic comic book illustrator of the San Francisco hippie scene, with his famous Keep On Truckin' image, Zap Comix and the memorable Mr. Natural. Remember that Janis Joplin album Cheap Thrills, Big Brother & the Holding Company? That's the guy.

I recently heard someone say, "You can take the musician out of the Sixties, but you can't take the Sixties out of the musician." I would suggest this applies to artists as well to some extent.

Psychotherapists would have a field day analyzing the perversity of many of the images and stories in Zap Comix. But Crumb was also a keen observer of character, and had a sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbed sense of humor. Eventually, his love affair with pen and ink and LSD simply became a love affair with illustration. He escaped to France and has remained there for the duration, having left those Haight heydays behind.

The project that consumed him this past five years (the Sixties artist is now 66, so he is finally in his sixties for real) is a remarkably detailed and accurate rendition of one of the most influential books in history, the book of Genesis. Naturally, I had to check it out.

For starters, it is a big book, and in the definitive R Crumb style. Not only does Crumb illustrate Genesis, he also shares some of the insights and thoughts he had while illustrating. In this is a somewhat remarkable document. He is faithful to every word, and not shy about portraying all that the book itself tells. For this reason it would be Rated R, but he does not make any attempt to overplay the scenes. The story is what it is and the approach is straightforward. Some might find it shocking, but frankly, the stories in the Book of Genesis are indeed shocking at times.

I'm not sure when cartoon novels first took hold of our younger generations, but R Crumb's Book of Genesis is a fitting addition to contemporary literature in this regard.

I found the approach amusing when dealing with the invisible God. The panels have narration where there is narration, and when people speak, he has the usual cartoonist balloon with words in them. In portraying God as an old man with a long white beard, I do not believe he is being sacrilegious. He is simply anthropomorphizing the invisible Almighty so that the balloon with words in it can have a suitable representational attribution.

Here are a few reviews that I gathered from Amazon.com about this unique book.

From the Creation to the death of Joseph, here is the Book of Genesis, revealingly illustrated as never before. This eagerly awaited graphic work retells the first book of the Bible in a profoundly honest way....The result, four years in the making, is a tapestry of extraordinary detail, the finest work of Crumb’s legendary career. (Graphic Novel Reporter "Graphic Novel Picks for Fall 2009" )

It’s a cartoonist’s equivalent of the Sistine Chapel. It’s awesome. Crumb has done a real artist’s turn here—he’s challenged himself and defied all expectation. ... I’ve read Genesis before. But never have I found it so compelling. By placing it squarely in the Middle East—and populating it with distinctively Semitic-looking people—Crumb makes it come alive brilliantly. (Susan Jane Gilman - Morning Edition, NPR )

Starred Review. Crumb’s vivid visual characterizations of the myriad characters, pious and wicked, make the most striking impression. His distinctive, highly rendered drawing style imparts a physicality that few other illustrated versions of this often retold chronicle have possessed. The centenarian elders show every one of their years, and the women, from Eve to Rachel, are as solidly sensual as any others Crumb has so famously drawn. (Booklist )

To say this book is a remarkable volume or even a landmark volume in comic art is somewhat of an understatement.... stands on its own as one of this century’s most ambitious artistic adaptations of the West’s oldest continuously told story. (Paul Buhle - The Jewish Daily Forward )

Another called it "a cartoonist's answer to the Sistene Chapel."

Though I'm not so sure it stands up to that comparison, it does reveal a monumental effort. And before casting stones, I'd encourage you to check it out if you get a chance. I intend to go back and read more of his personal commentary. And guess what? It may be that this guy is going to get people reading their Bibles again. What do you think about that?

The Red Scorpion

SHORT STORY MONDAY

The impetus for my first novel was a dream I had in the 1980's. It was so vivid that I felt it should surely become a short story like many of my other dreams. But I began writing about the dream incident, more details emerged and it seemed, after writing near twenty pages, to potentially become the climax of a much bigger story. Thus it was that The Red Scorpion was born.

Working full time and writing a novel is no easy task, but I tried my hand at it, believing that if it took several years maybe with any luck the kids in our local high school would be reading it when my son was in school. That was my primary motivation, to see my son get on the school bus, book in hand.

It never happened. First novels are hard to write and still harder to get published. But enough of that. Let's get started.

THE RED SCORPION

-1-

He woke abruptly, jostled to alertness by the screech of brakes and final recoil as the bus jerked to a stop. He was surprised to find that he had managed to fall asleep at all. The crowded bus included peasants with chickens, crying babies and a crush of people from all stations in life.

Dr. Comstock, glancing out the window, was dismayed to find the bus had not yet reached its destination. It was picking up more passengers, even though the aisle was now full. Several villagers squeezed up onto the steps, some hung out through the doors which had been left open. The bus lurched forward, gears grinding.

A small boy eating a mango placed a sticky hand on the rail in front of Comstock’s knee. Comstock smiled at the boy, but the boy turned his face away. Comstock was a stranger and a foreigner. The boy had been trained not to trust him.

Once more the bus screeched to a stop. This time he could see they had arrived. It was the last leg of his journey, descending to Cuernavaca from the high altitudes of Mexico City. He was eager to begin his work.

Dr. Comstock, a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, had come to Mexico to locate the final resting place of Quetzlcoatl, the plumed serpent of Aztec legend. This was Comstock’s second research expedition in Mexico. He intended to develop contacts that would enable him to obtain funding for a longer trip the following year. It was Christmas break back home at the University. He could think of nothing better than being in Cuernavaca. While arctic winds chilled the Minnesota countryside, flowers remained perpetually in bloom here in the land of Eternal Spring. Red and coral bougainvillea, lavender jacaranda, flaming poinciana, and golden geraniums splashed the air with color and fragrance. The floral tapestry delighted his eyes in every direction that he looked.

His wife Adele had wanted to join him, but he balked at the idea. Her presence would interfere with his work, he said. He promised she would accompany him on next year’s trip if they could find caretakers to run the Eagle’s Nest, the bed and breakfast they owned and operated.

Comstock had an angular face with deep set eyes and thick, dark eyebrows. He wore his hair cropped short. He felt he looked too British to pass for Mexican, though occasionally it worked out that way because he tanned easily and well.

Exhausted from the journey and relieved to have arrived at all, he carried his baggage the two blocks from the bus station to the hotel.

CONTINUED