Mephistos

As someone who enjoys history, to the point that in recent years, I hardly read any non-fiction, as the real stories out there are just so interesting, I have had a hard time with the technology replacing for most people what used to be a notebook journal. Think of the number of journals or diaries that have come down to us over the years during some time of upheaval that give us a person’s perspective that was there and lived it. I could name off more then a few but Mary Chestnut from the Civil War era and of course Anne Frank from the World War II era – both stirring and very beneficial – and both give us a look at the history of the time we didn’t always see in the news or big speeches of the day. Ad to that the folks that keep journals all the time, regardless of what is happening – the Shakers of various places come to my mind; the group at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky had volumes of journals about how things were going with there farms and industries, interactions with the world, to recordings of weather and temperature throughout the day.

My point to the above nostalgic look at such journals is that we are in fact loosing journals by the hundreds of thousands in my opinion. Now don’t get me wrong, I think there are more people writing the kinds of things that go into journals now then there ever were – the problem is the media that they are using. These computer bits and bytes are so fickle as to keeping around compared to pen and ink meeting the page, be it bound or loose. Basically one key stroke to the <del> key and the bits and bytes that make up what is written are gone. Worse yet, the technology platforms change and they are no longer supported or least no longer viable. I think of the things I wrote on many different bulletin board systems (BBS – a precursor to this thing we call the web for those of you a bit younger) back during my college days and while some of it may still reside on someones old 10 megabyte drive in the back of a closet somewhere – the reality is – most of those forum messages are long lost (for which I should probably be thankful – but I do remember a few opinions that I had that should be preserved).

I think of the above and I recall the magnetic wire that was in the special collections (or was the museum?) at Transylvania of one of the presidents speaking in Lexington during the early 1900’s. It had likely declined in quality, as all magnetic recordings are apt to do, but we will never know, as there is no longer the equipment available to play back from the media.

Heck, I have even been guilty of myself. I have over the years written a few things that were journal like things, especially in regards to what was happening with the farm. Only to change the format of how things were being done a few months or years down the road. My thinking was to always go back and convert the format from before so that I had continuity – but now I have things recording in notebooks, word files of different version, a couple of different web forum formats, word perfect files, and more database file formats from the web, and even back to some loose leave paper documents, and along in there several scans of some original items. None of it together and none of it available anywhere.

However, I see a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, this recent trend called blogging, may bring us back to something akin to what we had before. It is popular, it is a simple format, there are people that have moved from one blogging platform to another, but there old blogs are still out there floating around in organized bits and bytes that make coherent sense. Ah – but then I realize the catch. Journals and diaries were written with a frankness that you just don’t get in a blog – largely because journals and diaries are written to yourself and blogs – I think every blog writer is aiming for an audience.

Well, guess in that regard, I am being a bit different. I do want people to read, but I know that I am really writing for myself. Hence why I know some folks have been aggravated that I dared to write some of the personal things that I have written here the last few weeks and months. My apologies for the offense – though those that I speak to know that I am not go change.

Suppose I should go pull out some of those old college writings and see about posting them up here in this blog – would definitely have to be filed under history.

So I am looking around at all the news of late about the impending recession or that we may actually already be in one. I am seeing all the recent news about tax breaks to help restart the economy and what more can be done to get things going. I even noticed sometime in the last 24 hours that the basic stuff we need in the grocery store has really jumped prices in the last year or so (eggs stand have has having jumped nearly $1.00, from around $2.00 to $3.00), though we already knew there had been a big jump in some stuff such as gasoline in the recent years, it too is on the upsurge again. It is really starting to sound like a doom and gloom kind of situation.

I have to admit though that I am not terribly surprised. We have moved much more toward a service (and some will say information) based economy. We, here in the grand old United States of America, outside of a few noted exceptions, just don’t make things anymore. And what things that are made or grown here, typically has such a disconnect from the originator to the end consumer that we hardly even recognize the connection – that is many other blogs I need to write someday.

Anyway, what I see, as admitted amateur economists, services are usually those things that are easiest to cut out of things when a budget gets tight. Well, we should all probably be paying more attention to out budgets then we have in the past, but with the pressures on easy money beyond our means, Americans are starting to feel that push. You cut out one service that you don’t need and so does your neighbor and so on. Now there is some body in a service industry or two that is now really feeling tight on the financial side of things, maybe to the point of laying off someone or as a really cutting back on expenses. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The interesting thing though – if the situation continues to spiral those folks that are making and growing things – those things that we all have a true NEED for like food and clothing (oh wait – that is all overseas now) will continue to do well. In fact, if it all doesn’t get absorbed by the fuel surcharges and middlemen, farmers may actually end up seeing a little bit of an increase in revenue for their product. A new concept for farmers mind you – even though food goes up at the grocery very little of that goes back to farmers.

Bottom line – I think that moving toward a service economy has it merits, but I don’t think we can all move into services or we end up being owned by someone else for our basic needs. I wonder if there is a correlation to be looked at here from great empires that have crumbled in the past? Did Rome collapse because it become fat and lazy and outsourced to much to the fringes of the empire? What about Greece – to few olive growers and to many philosphers? Bonipart’s France – was the problem a lack of people in France still doing the basics to support the basic infrastructure and have enough left over to support a massive army in the field all the time?

Recently saw the move There Will be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis. A very good American, almost epical, type of film that follows one mans life from that of prospector/miner to that of successful oil man. The movie spans thirty years, starting pre-1900 and ending in the 1920’s – though most of action takes place in the the early 1910’s, where Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) is working new oil fields in Little Boston. He uses his “son” to present himself as a family man with simple values and is the man to sign your oil deal. A quick warning to anyone that is stumbing on this and has not seen it, I have a spoiler or two below this point, so turn back now or you have been warned otherwise just in case.

In a true representation of the early version of an Enron type of dealings, it is all a lie. Reality is that Plainview picked the boy as an orphan when he was a baby to help him sell himself to the plain simple folks that he needed get the mineral rights from. In that regard, the irony of his name, Plainview, is itself something to observe and not let be lost on anyone. Throughout the movie, we see how Plainview represents himself as whatever is needed at the moment, even going so far as to accept joining a fanatical church in order to seal the deal for a piece of land he needs to desperately for his business dealings to be successful.

Plainview is the constant player, always representing himself as whatever he thinks the people want to see him as in order to get what he wants. He does have some interesting quirks that seems to come out when someone refuses to see him as he wants, where he lets loose with seeming uncontrollable rage. Most fascinating to me though is the two characters that he runs into that are most like him – a pretender (first the man pretending to be his brother, and his antagonist throughout, the prophet/preacher) – are found out by him and in a true dog eat dog world – killed at his hand. There is a seeming lesson there as well.

Overall though, this movie reminded me of exactly what it is that I think is so often wrong with corporate America and exactly why I was so happy not really being a part of that coroporate America a few years back. Why I am so often longing to return to a simplier agrarian lifestyle, why the simple way of the cowboy have such appeal. In the end despite his success in business, Plainview is a bitter lonely man because he simply lacks that connection with nature and humanity itself. It is interesting to note though, that despite beind driven the boy he took in for his purposes, breaks ranks to be in outside, in nature, in the end wether that means success or failure – and for that Plainview dis-owns him completely.

I find myself back at a Panera (note I was at a different one yesterday). I am taking a brief break between the things that I have to do today in different locations and I really needed some coffee. Panera has both good coffee, decent wireless connection, and is right along the path I had to drive anyway. It would have been foolish to pass it up.

As I was sitting here I was reminded of a conversation from some obviously very conservative gentlemen at the Panera yesterday near to me. They were all in agreement that Senator McCain was not the right guy for the repulican party. They all had the opinion that he was not consertive enough for the repulican party but the exact issue that he was not conservative enough on varied between them.

Having generally identified over the years more with the republican party I find this a bit aggrivating. First, they were holding up Ronold Reagan as a measure for McCain to achieve. Now I liked Ronald Reagan, and during his first election back when I was all of 10 years old I lead the classroom debate in his favor (incedentally in our mock election he was elected in the entire 5th grade class). I will concede that Reagan was very consertive in most things, but argueably his most conservative policies came in the form of his fiscal policies. Compare that to the republican that is currently occupying the same office and his bloated spending on a continual basis and WOW what a difference.

By the way, I heard (not directly) that the extremely conservative talk show hosts (whose names I want mention, as I personally can’t stomach most of them for the most part, especially when they try to start saying, “let me do your thinking for you”) are all saying the same things. One of them has even been quoted as saying if McCain is the republician candidate he will vote for the either Obama or Clinton as the better choice. I can’t figure that one – they obviously – like many others – are not understanding the fundamentals of what conservative means.

Anyway, I guess part of what is really getting me about this whole thing is just what the definition of conservative is. Now I am going to start with the definition I learned in political science from a Mr. McMurray back in my junior year of high school (a conservative himself, who had been around long enough to have been my mothers US History teacher in high school as well). According to McMurray, a consertive was one who did not want to interfer with the general natural workings, goverment should be applied very lightly, or conservatively applied if you will.

I will grant you that not everyone agreed with McMurray then and certainly he would not be considered an authority today. But by his definition not wanting to spend money and bloat the budget – conservative. Wanting to tell people what they can and can not do in the bar, or worse, what they can and can not do in their own bedroom – that is not the goverments business and is certainly not conservative by his definition.

Given his possible lack of authority on the matter though, I looked up conserve on dictionary.com. I started with conserve, as that is the root word. The first two definitions are applicable here, which state roughly to prevent injury, waste, decay, or loss of and to use and manage wisely; preserve; save. Now I will grant you that maybe the idea of changing a the stance on immigration is a bit of a change, but again I ask about the fiscal situation of the country. And I will note, that I am paticularly not in favor of our being in Iraq (a whole other blog – the deception that got us there) but now that we are there, we have to see it through and withdraw with respect – anyone think Obama or Clinton are up to that – but yet we know that McCain is going to see it through based on his statements.

Take this one step further with dictionary.com and look up conservative. Take the first definition: disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change. One can certainly argue that the restoration of tradional conditions and institutions fits what a lot of the extreme right are looking for today, but I would point to the last three words. I will further point out that to restore to conditions of the original, and thus, most traditional, US would be to not have the government telling us what we can and can’t do at every turn – but rather it would be a restoration of the civil and social liberties that we have allowed ourselves to lose over the last 200 years or so, especially during the last eight of those years. Keep in mind part of our break with Britian was over to many rules and laws, especially without our input. Certainly no one would have been telling George Washington or Thomas Jefferson where they could and could not have a sip of their own rye whiskey or hard cider.

The point of all this, well, I have been strongly in McCain’s camp I suppose since his stumble in 1999. I dare say if he had been elected then we would not be in the current shape we are in as a country – but that is of course just speculation. But how anyone who can remotely consider themselves a strong conservative and suggest they will vote for Clinton or especially Obama instead is just beyond my wildest imaginings. Some one tell these folks to wake up.

I was talking with someone the other day and explaining how that I was really enjoying my blog set up, how that I felt it was the thing I should have done a long time ago, that I felt that there was lot more flexibility and options by doing it myself as to using myspace or even a regular blog space. I have complete control and can do whatever, say whatever, and even make it look however I want to. However, I was also noting that the traffic to a independent blog site was a bit harder to generate. After all, if you are on myspace, you post your blog and all your friends at the very least get the notice. So during this conversation I made the comment of something like, “After all, if the tree falls in the forest and no one was there to hear it, did it really make a sound?”

I guess I no longer have to worry about the tree falling being heard. A few nights ago, I installed a WordPress plugin that counts actual traffic hitting (and presumably reading) the blog parts of the page. Yes, I was getting stats on the website from webalyzer, but a little bit harder to figure who is doing what. Anyway – the traffic is small, but about what I expected given the massive changes I have made and the general newness to this site in the last month or so.

A few things amaze me a lot though that I thought I would share. The tool does some wonderful tracking of things and reports on them. For instance, the number of folks that are using specific search terms for things and getting to this page from information that was contained on here from at least 3 or 4 years ago, if not closer to 5 or 6 is amazing. To those folks, I am apologetic. I know you were here looking for collectibles, possibly cards or model trains, or maybe even beanie babies <GAG>. Anyway, I have not been really actively involved in that for a number of years and the page has not really indicated that for while either.

Another amazing one was the number of folks that are coming here from one of my other websites. Notably the one that comes to mind is Eligius“>eligius.org, which is a the site for jousting/medieval equestrian group. There are probably some links there, but I am not completely sure about that these days.

Now this next one, it really makes me feel good, but at the same time I really have to wonder who. So one of the search criteria that showed up was “Ray Cornish” Kentucky. For those that are not familiar that is a very specific search that will only find Ray and Cornish in order and should look for them in conjunction with Kentucky. It is the kind of thing that geeks often do themselves to see how well known they are on the net. Ironically, my jousting/SCA name is much more well known then me – Raynold of Wharram.

But here is the thing, I didn’t do that search to land here this past week. So, I kind of have to assume that someone is specifically looking for me. Makes me wonder, is it some long lost friend that just happened to give it a try or do I have some secret stalker? Well, whichever, next time whoever it was that did the search drop me a note and let me know who you are.

My heroes have always been cowboys, and they still are, it seems. I am sure that a number of your recognized the title of a song by Willie Nelson, himself a certain type of cowboy/hero type, but more on him and that idea later. And yes, for those that are wondering, on one of my recent late drives I put in a greatest hits of Willie and after listening, I was inspired for at least five or six blogs.

So, as to my heroes – just as the song says, I spent most of my youth dreaming of and playing at being just like one my heroes. Not sure that I learned the little bits about taking what you need from the ladies and leaving them with a sad country song until a bit later – but I am not sure that is absolutely a requirement – though I guess in reality that lonely drifter image that is unwilling to bend to anyone or anything, including progress is part of the attraction. It is certainly the reason that they are still my heroes today.

I wonder sometimes though, just how many of those of that hold cowboys as our heroes, especially the legendary type, could still live that life today? Again, the song, own brand of misery – alone too long – dying from the cold – best days are gone – hookers – and old worn out saddles – with no one and no place to stay. A lot of paraphrasing there, but you get the best and worst of the romantic image there in the second verse. And while I sometimes dream of a simpler life like that and have maybe even come close a little bit at times, I don’t think I could just end up with basically my possessions being my saddle and boots and my connections to the world being my horse and possibly my dog. I suppose there are few folks that still come close to this deal today, I am mindful of rodeo participants especially and a few ranch hands as well – and I sure Baxter Black could tell me a few more.

Then again, as I write this I am still at the office at eight something P.M. and suddenly I realize that maybe it is not such a bad way of life. Well, okay, I would prefer to actually have the lady friend that I am fortunate enough to have continue to be my friend, so excepting the leaving her with a sad country song, I can see how this lifestyle would be very appealing. And see, even there is my caveat – I think I could deal with a horse or two, old used saddles I love and giving up a lot of other stuff sounds good – but to love and be loved is hard to give up.

Anyway, I have digressed so far from my original thought here. My original thought was something more like it takes that cowboy type to be a hero. Someone unbending, willing to do what they think is right at all cost, even if the rest of the world thinks they are wrong, which is often the case. Just think about someone who you think of as being a hero and see if they don’t have that little bit of cowboy attitude to them.

Guess I am going to go ride off into the sunset, which is what I hear old tired cowboys do – but wait – the sun went down over two hours ago, its raining, and my horse is over in the next county. Well, at least I have my dog with me.