A bit of humor borrowed from psykomeyeko:

The
American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village
when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat
were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the
Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch
them.

The Mexican replied only a little while.

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time?

The
Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my
children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each
evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full
and busy life, senor.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard
MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the
proceeds buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you
could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing
boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell
directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You
would control the product, processing and distribution.

You
would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to
Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your
expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, senor?”

The
American laughed and said that’s the best part. When the time is right
you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and
become very rich, you would make millions.

“Millions, senor? Then what?”

The
American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing
village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids,
take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where
you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

On
the serious side, the only real problem I have with this picture is,
while the fisherman’s life may be idyllic, what happens to him and his
family if he is injured or gets sick?

Well, sometimes one makes mistakes. Then you have a choice – ignore it, or try and fix it.

I recently made a post
regarding the Dubliner’s mistreatment of a customer (refusing to serve
a sober blind man). One of the people in the band playing that night
said it happened and I believed them, especially as they gave up a
paying gig over the issue.

The major thing that has come to my
attention since which changes my mind about the situation: The blind
man in question was not sober. Depending on the account, not nearly
sober.

Some other factors to consider when making your mind up on the situation. Some is rumor, some is not:

The
Dubliner has been said to be quicker to cut off people who are
handicapped than people who are not. This is apparently their way of
trying to avoid lawsuits due to injuries. This doesn’t sit well with
me, but isn’t the same as refusing to serve someone at all.

The
Dubliner has had a bad time in general with festies, especially
evenings where there are a bunch of them. I guess it is a combination
of people giving drinks to underage folks in the room, open drug use,
poor tipping, bigger messes than usual, and haughty attitudes. This
tends change their attitudes for the worse on heavy festie nights.

There
is still the situation of not paying the band for playing that night,
but given the mis-communication of other aspects of the event, I’m
inclined to guess that it isn’t completely a cut and dry thing.

The
general gist of the situation seems to be that they handled the
situation less well than they probably should have, but it wasn’t
completely out of line. In any case, I am no longer promoting a boycott
of the place although I’m not feeling a driving need to go there right
away.

My apologies for misleading anyone.

Sorry.

- Jason

Normally, I try and edit my posts to be less blunt or offensive. This morning, I responded to a post in a hurry and didn’t take my normal time.  My apologies to the person who got the initial blast, but it occurs to me that its been a while since I told exactly where I stand, so here it is for all of you to “enjoy”.

A web log I read had expressed concern that so many countries seem angry with us and war-like posturing seems to be on the increase.  They were feeling better about things after speaking with someone who told them that while there is a lot to fear, we’re a good country and we know how to fight back.

Here’s my response:

I’m afraid that I must disagree. We are not in a good country. We are in a country that is founded on some good principals but that has seriously been losing its way for a long time. [Since we decided to have slavery and wipe out the indigenous population...]

One, of many, examples: We talk in fear about other countries obtaining or even using nuclear weapons. We are the only country that has ever used one on a civilian population. We have been developing battlefield nukes and are seriously proposing the use of them (bunker busters). We use nuclear waste based ammunition which leads to sickness in our own soldiers and horrific mutations in the children born there for years.

We are a country who when faced with the possibility that our actions caused the death of half a million children in one country in one decade responded to the effect of “That’s a tough price to pay, but we think it was worth it.”

Is it any surprise that on a global level we are more and more seen as a rabid dog that needs to be put down? We are a big scary rabid dog that is so caught up on our own self image that we don’t seem to realize that we are no longer loved.

And our citizenship for the most part is ignorant and apathetic. The most they can be bothered to get involved with the direction our nation is going is to get to the voting booth for a few minutes every couple of years. Over half of us can’t even manage that. The rest of the time we are managed by a small cabal that shifts a bit every election but never substantially changes and are more beholden to those who put $$ in their pockets than to those who pay $$ in taxes.

These who run this country are, with a few exceptions, kept men and women, and what our country does is determined by the corporations who run them. We are a shambles for a first world country. We jail a higher percentage of our own population than China. We execute more of our own citizens than pretty much any other “first world” nation. We have a higher disparity of wealth. Of the richest 30 industrialized nations, we have the second highest infant mortality rate.

The list goes on.

We are not what we think we are. It is scary out there and it is going to get scarier because we have willed it to be so, and while we are not as good as we think we are, we are certainly as strong.

Sorry, but what the next generation inherits will be a hell, and we, our parents, and their parents are responsible for creating it.

And there it is.  Sooner or later, the definition of “the enemy” will expand enough that I will be encompassed by it.  My only hope is that by then our armed forces have decided that their loyalty to their oaths mean more than their loyalty to those currently running the show.  There are three boxes for change.  The soap box, the ballot box, and the cartridge box.  I don’t have much hope for the first two anymore.

Link to an socio-environmental petition on my LiveJournal web log.

First, let me be clear. I’m in support of personal possession of firearms. Not because I’m afraid of people, but because I’m afraid of governments.  I WANT the government that controls the land my house is on to know that I can and will shoot back if they go too far in violating what I perceive as my rights.  I am also an omnivore who would like to limit my dependence on the meat industry and I’m a lousy shot with a bow…

That said, violence and the threat of violence are the ultimate forms of coercion.  (My philosophy says that coercion is an ungood). In many parts of the world, anyone with a couple bucks to get some automatic weapons and a box of rounds can be a two-bit warlord or worse.

There’s a campaign to at least limit the free flow of arms to anyone with the money to pay for it – nothing too invasive on a personal level – just an international arms control treaty.  Something to limit the flow of weapons across borders.

If you’re not in support, that’s OK.  The threat of lethal violence can also be used to oppose coercion.  Its a bit hard to know really what’s best, but I think a treaty is a good idea.

Frankly, someone who wants them badly enough is still going to get them, but we’ve all seen the pictures of the 10 year old African kids with guns as big as they are.  That situation just can’t go well, and we can make it a bit less likely for the gun to get to them…

If you’re in support, sign the petition to the UN. They’re looking for a million signers.  They’ve got over 900,000 signers (and over half a million that have attached their face to their signature).

http://www.controlarms.org/

From an article on CleverChimp linked via Dandalism:

In
fact, every single hour that >$20K greener-than-thou car operates,
it expends about the amount of energy necessary to ride a bicycle from
Los Angeles to New York.

Think about it.  Unsustainable.  Read the article.

(Incidentally, if I ever get another car, I may as well get a old style
muscle car or euro sports car.  I’ll enjoy it more and its only a
slightly different shade of evil anyway.)

I think that experiencing joy is an excercise of getting one’s mind
peaceful enough to allow the present moment to blow you away.  It
can be a wierd thing.  The Buddhists caution against intensity. I
think this is not because intensity is bad, but because intensity makes
it hard to appreciate the quiet moments where joy is found. 
Personally, I like to have a bit of both.

A caution: sometimes when your chest is nigh bursting over some simple
thing, the every day portion of the mind will make the cyncial
observation that you’re just looking at a duck on the river or
some-such and you may feel a bit silly.  Ah well, everything has
got its cost.

I think Tich Naht Hahn is a pretty good guide to it finding that
place.  If you can manage to find a meditation center that’s not
too cloyingly new-age or overly wannabe mystic, that can be another
path.

People look in the wrong places for it.  It is not found through
wealth and security, great entertainment, or mind blowing orgasm. 
Oddly, to experience joy, you need to be empty in a manner of
speaking.  It is found watching the seeds blow off a dandelion
and, for a moment, having there be nothing else.

Watching a loved one sleep, lying under a tree watching the sun reflect
through the leaves, gardening, simple motion, animals, children, all of
these are doorways – moments that if you stop to be only in that
moment, you find joy.  You “just” need to let go of all the
distractions that are keeping you from it for a bit.

Of course, if you can’t get that, sex, drugs, and music are all great consolation prizes.

From the MRF Friends Mailing List:

Tonight at the
Dubliner there was an incident, which caused us to decide not to
return.  Our good friend Howard Harrison was not allowed to order
a drink because he is blind.  For those of you who don’t know,
Howard is well over the drinking age and lost his sight a couple years
back.  When people found out that the owner refused to serve him,
friends of Howard went up to talk to the owner on Howard’s
behalf.  The explanation was that Howard was refused “for his own
safety”.  Keep in mind that this was the first drink he ordered
that night.

We found this to be utterly innapropriate and discriminatory.  We
decided we could no longer continue at The Dubliner.  We announced
from the stage that this was to be our final show.  Our next song
was cut off by management and we were refused our pay.

We will inform the ListServe of when and where our next gigs will be as
soon as we have them scheduled.

No one discriminates
against Howie and sees another dime from me.  Unless there are
further developments, I will no longer be going to the Dubliner.