Notes From A Bear's Journey

    As one ages, it is always tempting to feel that one doesn't...age, that is.  Certainly one can't help but notice that the body features and the once-insurmountable strength has changed, but keeping up with the times stays rather easy...until it doesn't.  So here's one rather (or so I thought) simple example: 4K.  Walk into the electronics section of any large department store and it's usually quite easy to get lost among the labyrinth of televisions, each displaying the same picture like a house of mirrors; prices here in the U.S. have dropped to about $400 for a 55" UHD television (Ultra High Definition which replaces the old HD television category).  As for those 70" television going for a bargain price (we noticed several at $700 including an LG), well, those are likely headed for the antique pile as well, ready to join their 50" and 60" cousins.*  Okay, getting ahead of you?  Step back for a minute and think of that solo television genera...

    It was tempting to title this "compassionate anger," the term used by the Dalai Lama in his recent book title Be Angry .   Nothing unusual there in the title, especially if news outlets and election tampering threats  are to be markers of our moods.  But seeing that the author of Be Angry was His Holiness, the Dalai Lama?  It was enough to cause the publisher to open with these words: It seems antithetical to use "angry" and "Dalai Lama" in the same sentence, much less the same book. After all, the Dalai Lama's lifelong teaching is about the cultivation of love and compassion.  But however much the Dalai Lama has to say about avoiding anger, he also recognizes that it is an inevitable part of the human condition.  The Dalai Lama has observed: "Generally speaking, if a human being never shows anger, then I think something's wrong.  He's not right in the brain.    Said the Dalai Lama in his book: Society is formed through its...

Is that a profile of a face hiding in the cloud?   Clouds have always fascinated me, the way that they simply float high above, always changing shapes and often not seeming to care if anyone looks at or even notices them.  Their job is simply to move on, to shift water or be loosely directed by the wind to a new location.  From a cloud's viewpoint, the earth must seem rather small, rather confining, perhaps even puzzling.  How can whatever life it is below not notice, not feel moved by its grandeur or its motion, or what is hidden behind it?  And who hasn't sat on a hillside as a child or a teenager fresh in innocent love and just stared at clouds overhead, trying to make them into lions and faces and other things that tweaked your imagination?  So with all of that in mind, imagine me coming across and stopping at a recent review of a fiction book in the New York Review of Books .  For some unknown reason I decided to give it a peek, which was very...

   On virtually every vacation or getaway there comes a point where the realization arrives that your trip and fun and excitement will soon be coming to an end.  You can still be days away from the ship docking or having to board the flight home, but somewhere in the back of your head it is there...only a set number of days remain before you're back in your home.  It's a mixture of both denouement and anticipation, a reflection back at how much fun it has been so far (and likely still will be) and also a readiness to just get home and sleep in your own bed, to get your clothes washed and to yes, face the pile of bills that will follow you home as surely as the dust on your shoes, for try as you might to pay as you go there are always charges and often many which you've completely forgotten such as that bar tab on the ship that makes you think you might be on the edge of being an alcoholic (we had how many drinks?).  But that wasn't us; my wife and I had visited...

   The descent in the cliff dwellings is a bit less dramatic than one would think, a feat likely necessary due to the variety of people wanting to make the journey.  One has to take into account that people overweight or physically out of shape fare equally well with children (not babies) and some who are quite elderly, a far cry from the original inhabitants who had only small carved-out holes in which to place their hands and feet as they climbed or descended into these areas; picture yourself gazing over a steep ledge and then lowering yourself slowly over it while you felt for that first foothold.  One slip (which must have happened) and your fall would be tragic (for you and the community) or lethal.  Now picture yourself not as a young warrior or farmer, but a child or a mother carrying a baby.  Gazing at the plush and sturdy log ladders set up by the Park Service, the ancients would have likely scoffed at as well as envied the new access routing; or ...