Snow -- No Snow

We went away.
We slipped out just in time and headed south.
We arrived in Miami the day before it began to snow where we left.
Up there is snowed a lot.  Then it snowed again.
And again.

We missed the snow.
Well, really, the snow missed us, I didn't miss it at all.

It is dark out now, but I can see the lights on the causeway.
I can look to my right and see the city, to my left is the bay.

Miami is a very different culture than Boston.

Boston values intellect, tradition, hard work, and now, innovation
       (and football -- Go Pats!)
Miami is international, Latin, colorful, sensual, banking, big deals, big boats
Big parties

Bostonians can give you a knowing smile
In Miami they laugh out loud

Who is better?
Depends upon where you were raised, how old you are, what your temperament is, how much money you want to spend, where you come from, and how comfortable you are showing off your body.

Miami is warmer.
That's a big plus in January.  Not so great in July.

People on the Mountain

I want to thank Forsythia for the story about Feynman and the rabbis she posted as a comment to my last post.  That story represents so many of the things I’ve been writing about here. Also, I know many people who are rabbis, and others who are physicists, and they certainly do see the world differently

I think she meant it as a good example of showing that things are not always as they seem, and how much that doesn’t matter; you get to choose your own reality.  And that is sooo true, and the reason for so much conflict.  Conflict that comes from the clashes of people’s realities; from people’s experiences.  This is what I was talking about in my post on 6/16/14.

I experienced a perfect example of this yesterday.

As part of my “next stage” I set out to do things on the days that I am now not working that I could never do when I was working.  So I drove two hours, across the state line to NH and climbed Mt. Monadnock. The path I took was about 2.7 miles long, with about a 2400 vertical rise, and a very rocky climb.  It is so difficult I think the summit was only reached by less than a hundred people that day. Actually, I have been told that next to Mt. Fuji in Japan, it is the most climbed mountain in the world, although that may not be true. But hey, it’s still a mountain and this was not a paved path, these are big rocks to climb up and over.

On the way down I spoke to a family from the plains of Texas, who were happy to find a mountain to climb.  Some of them, ages 14 to 60, had never been to New England before.  The younger ones told me how they came to New England with some trepidation.  They had heard that everything here was fast-paced and crowded, and that most people were rude and angry.  But they were visiting in New Hampshire and they found that it was full of beautiful small towns, and the folks were very nice.

I told them that since they had come this far they should go all the way to Boston.  They will find it’s a beautiful city, and that most people are friendly and helpful, but probably a bit more reserved than they are in Texas.

I imagine this is kind of a red state – blue state thing, where the image they get is one of the crowded Northeast Corridor, with everyone making deals and paying high taxes.

I hope that travel is a broadening experience. Perhaps one of those girls will now decide to go to college in North Hampton.  That will certainly expose her to different ideas.

I don’t have too many prejudices about Texas.  I’ve only been to Austin, so that doesn’t count.  I do have some ideas about folks in the Florida panhandle. But I’m probably wrong.

Crazy, Scary, Sad

That was quite a week for those of us here around Boston.

Terrorism? Angry? Psychotic? Sad? Misguided?

I saw a patient on Tuesday who said he and his two kids had watched the end of the marathon and he was about fifty yards away from one bomb and forty yards from the other.  He said he knew immediately what was going on and he just picked up his kids and ran out of the way.

We have a fried who lives in Watertown, about four blocks from where the first brother was killed.  The police came to her home, in full riot gear, with automatic weapons drawn and walked through the house making sure she was safe and no one was hiding.

Two kids, two brothers, shut down the whole Boston area, about five million people shut in their homes.

Perhaps the one brother captured will be able to give some kind of an explanation for his actions, but it will never make sense.  What allows someone to feel that they need to blow-up random people to make a point is never quite clear.  Yes, there are political grievances, where one group feels unfairly dominated and exploited by another group, and they feel the only way they can he heard or to get their plight noticed is to kill a few children, but even in those cases, if people really want to find a solution, it could be done.  But there are enough powerful people who don't want the problem solved.

History shows that there are always many people, especially those who take leadership roles, are either have a fanatical devotion to the cause, or a fanatical devotion to their own importance, to allow for any compromise.

That is happening now in our government, in several places in the Middle East, and in many other countries around the world.

The main concern of most people is first for their own safety, then for their own well-being, and then for the well-being of their family and core group.  Yes, there are many people who truly care about the welfare of people they don't know, and who may be far away.  Many of them, including myself, will do things to be helpful......to a point.... to the point where it sacrifices my own safety or well-being.  Sure, for a moment I have helped someone having a seizure, or I would pull a kid out of a lake, but probably not let them come live with me, or pay for them to go to college.

All of this still cannot explain what these boys did.  It must be more than just a psychological problem. On the reductionist end it is biological, down to the unfolding of proteins in the brain.  On the global scale it is related to the clash of cultures, ubiquitous saturation of violent images, and the well publicized examples of others who lose control.

The city, state and country must have spent millions of dollars and used thousands of people to track down and stop two young men. The forces of law and order did an excellent job -- perhaps using too many bullets.

All I can conclude from this that something like this will probably happen again within a few years. Again we will wonder why -- for the individual involved.  But the bigger causes, of people believing to strongly in things that really don't matter, will still be there.