The Tao of Wu? How about the Tao of Me?

Sure, we all know the Tao of Lao Tzu, the Tao of Steve, the Tao of Pooh and the Tao of goodness knows who else, but now the “abbot” of Wu-Tang Clan and awesome nickname owner Robert “The RZA” Diggs (The RZA? Yes, I believe a nickname pronounced “Rizz-a” is pretty awesome.) has offered us the Tao of Wu. Really. Well that’s just fine but I think it’s high time I stood up and shared the Tao of Me.

So what are my qualifications for flaunting my own, unique Tao? Well, mostly that I’m anything but unique, really. That is to say that basically I’m a young-ish guy who’s a husband, father of two and all around regular guy. And unlike Mr. Diggs who is, apparently, chock full of Tao, I’ve never had to overcome any great obstacles such as race, gender or disability. Everything in my life has, quite frankly, come pretty easily.

To put a finer point on it, I’ve never had to work very hard. Well... I did spend twenty years in the trenches of the food service industry, but I hardly think the difficulty of my career trajectory matches, say, coal miners, single moms, factory workers in South America, child laborers in Asia or even Victorian waifs selling pencils on snowy street corners. So in the scheme of things, working a job where I catered to cranky old people who liked to pretend they were still in the Catskills was, in short, a cake walk. Sometime literally, but that’s a different story.

Anyway, to summarize what otherwise might be an unnecessarily long winded treatise, the Tao of Me pretty much boils down to these two things:

1: Be nice to people. It’s not that hard and even if you don’t believe in Karma, you will, over the long term, feel better. (Except of course if you’re a douche bag, in which case never mind.)

2: Share. Or, put much less simply: even if you’re tempted to feel like an entitled libertarian because you don’t think your tax dollars should go to undeserving people or be used to light streets you don’t drive on… just stop. Stop feeling all persecuted because some government services are inefficient and there are some people who take advantage of them. And just because you don’t personally use a particular service doesn’t mean that it’s unnecessary or has nothing to do with you, because it does.

And how is that, exactly? Because even if you’re the sort of dismissive jerk that’s frightened by anything you think is liberal or touchy-feely… bear in mind that we’re all connected. How? What do you think happens if no one with dark skin can get a loan for a car, house or business? What happens if kids in struggling families can’t get access to meaningful higher education? What happens if everyone who’s born into a crummy neighborhood is allowed to fail? Chaos, that’s what. It’s the recipe for the creation and preservation of a permanent underclass. Remember the Watts riots? Sure you do. And if you don’t, look it up. ‘Nuff said.

Anyhow, I once again seem to have gotten far enough afield that there’s no obvious way to turn this little intellectual safari around. And that’s fine, really, because I actually like it here and it’s time for lunch anyway. Tao out.

Cognitive Dissonance.

There are few guilty pleasures I enjoy as much as reposting some of the shiny baubles I happen across on the interwebs each day, and that pleasure isn’t dampened in the slightest by the fact that it’s very likely that everyone has seen them already. And, as I also harbor a love of all things ironic with an ardor that may border on the unseemly, the following bit is sort of an exacta, if you will. =(Although to be fair to Irony, this piece is really more of an exercise in full-blown cognitive dissonance… so there you go.)

Anyway, enjoy:

"I am a conservative.

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level
determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its
valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right."

More Yummy Links? Really?

As I may have noted not too long ago, there are few things as satisfying as a little bit of shameless self promotion. Well, I suppose there are always things like flying to Vegas for the weekend and… well, that’s actually pretty different, isn’t it? Never mind. Anyway, I guess some more shamelessly yummy links will have to suffice:


The 10 Best Ways to Lose Weight and Keep it Off

Healthy, Delicious Recipes for Your Labor Day Celebration
Three Recipes that Add Up to One Great Meal

Indoor Rock Climbing in New York City
Three Places to Get Off that Boring Treadmill and Start Climbing

Mmmm, delish.

Routine? Not today, baby.

Although there are few things as reassuring as routine, occasionally breaking out of that routine can be enlightening. Or weirdly entertaining, or even liberating. So this afternoon I found myself on an elliptical machine at the gym a full three hours later than usual which meant that I was exposed to a whole new world of bad TV; as opposed to the bad TV to which I’ve already grown accustomed.

Anyway, it seems that a part of that world is someone named Bonnie Hunt who has a talk show (who knew?) which, this very afternoon, featured an overly-enthusiastic audience engaged in a karaoke competition. Normally my default reaction would have been something predictably smug like muttering “really?” while rolling my eyes, but in this case I was transfixed by a young couple that got up and sang Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. They shook. They shimmied. They gave themselves to this performance as though it was a life-defining moment, which it may well have been. Ultimately though, not only was the performance cringe-worthy in both a meta and specific-to-them kind of way, but my heart also went out to this young woman who... wait for it... has no idea that she’s married to a gay guy.

Or maybe she does. Or maybe he isn’t actually gay, but just super-thrilled in an especially fabulous way to be in front of an audience singing an Elton John song. Who knows? More to the point, I guess, is that this couple clearly broke out of their routine for an afternoon and had a great time. So go on, turn off the machine and go do something different for a change. Just like I’m doing right...



P.S. - Oh yeah, and as always, Calvin has something trenchant to add:

Mmmm, smells like fresh links. Yummy.

There are really very few reasons that come to mind when trying to justify keeping a blog going while you’re busy writing here and there for other spaces; but of course there’s always shameless self promotion.

Not the sort of shameless self promotion that’s even aimed at real people exactly, but more of the sort that relies on tossing up links to work in as many places as possible just to give the All Powerful Search Engines something to chew on and index. (Yeah I’m looking at you, Google, Yahoo and yes, even you, little Bing. So cute!)

So then, on to business:

Review of the New Hard Rock Cafe in Yankee Stadium

Three "One-Tank-Getaway" Vacations from New York City

Day Hikes in the Lower Hudson Valley

Have a nice day!

The Race to the Bottom Continues.

The new bank down the street from us doesn’t think I can figure out their ATM. At least that’s what I’m guessing, judging from the great lengths they’ve gone to make it as blinky, flashy and generally exciting as it is. Actually I think they’ve done such a good job of removing even the slightest hint of mystery as to how the contraption works that even our dog must be tempted to grab a cash card and give it a try.

Really:



I guess the next time I see that old guy on the floor next to the ATM I’ll have to consider that he may not be a hobo after all. For all I know he may just be a victim of a flash induced seizure. I really need to find a new bank.