Author: Neil Hanson

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Tour of the West – A Bicycle Adventure

Sunset at Carmel - Day 1

For three weeks in June, I rode my bicycle down the coast of California through Big Sur, turned left to cross the mountains, rode across the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, then northeast through Navajo, Hopi, and Ute lands, finally crossing southern Colorado and the Continental Divide at Wolf Creek Pass, ending up in Walsenburg, CO. I rode the first 60% or so by myself, then met my friend Dave in Flagstaff for the last 40% or so of the ride.

Big Sur Coastline Climbing Out

This ride connects with a ride Dave and I did last summer across southern Colorado and Kansas. Our hope is to extend the ride next year on to the east coast, completing a coast-to-coast journey over 3 years. Here’s a link to a summary of that Colorado and Kansas ride last summer.

A coast-to-coast ride is a nice thing to check off “the list” for sure, but I’m learning the checkmark on the list is something that gets the ride started, but the ride always turns into something much bigger than the checkmark. The goal of the checkmark is a good motivator to get me into the saddle, and get me planning and executing the trip, but it’s never the “why”. Continue reading “Tour of the West – A Bicycle Adventure”

Book Review – Coming of the Storm

Coming of the Storm – Contact – The Battle For America – Book One

By Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear

This is the first book I’ve read by this husband and wife team, and I’ve gotta say I’ll be reading more.

I love historical fiction, and love reading about other cultures, so this book had a leg up. The writing style really intrigued me, and I found it quite enjoyable and engaging. In addition, the authors seem to have created an extremely believable world that sounds like it could be very true to the world that they write about.

The characters are well-developed and easy to fall into stride with and identify with. In particular, I like the joint effort, in that it allows characters to be developed from both a male and female perspective.

I’d recommend this book to anyone, but I’d particularly recommend it to folks who – like me – enjoy reading something that’s a bit like historical fiction.

Twentynine Palms Rest Day

Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been in the midst of a nice little bicycle ride, headed down the cost of California from Monterey, turning left at LA and heading east across the desert.

Sitting in Twentynine Palms today, on the edge of the Mojave Desert and the Joshua Tree National Park, enjoying air-conditioning and a nice pool.

The ride down the coast and through Big Sur was pretty amazing. Definitely a ride anyone should consider. I’ll do some postings on the ride soon with pictures, but this is my quick rest-day update.

The thing that had the greatest impact on me over the first few days was the trees I think. On the western side of the range, it was the Redwoods, but then on the inland side of the range, and through the Paso Robles wine country and along the way up into the mountains again at Frazier Park, there were these massive Oak trees that I couldn’t get over. These things must me many hundreds of years old to have grown so massive in the climate. I couldn’t get enough of spending time with both these types of ancient trees.

Now, in the desert, things have changed dramatically. Spending time in the shade by the pool this morning, I noticed several little (warbler type) birds that I haven’t noticed as I’ve been riding, though I’m sure they’re around. And hummingbirds of course.

The wind here is insane. In can come up suddenly and ferociously, and I can tell you it’s something you don’t want in your face while you’re peddling a bicycle. Have had several stints of barely maintaining 7mph into the teeth of that deafening wind, curse words pouring out of my mouth.

Tomorrow I end my day in AZ, after crossing a pretty big section of highway with no water (about 100 miles or so). Cross your fingers for a west wind – I know I am!

Another update soon.

Book Review – The Collectors

The Collectors by David Baldacci

The second in the “Camel Club” series, this is a fun read. Like the first one, I listened to this one, and think the narrator is good. The male actor could do a better job of differentiating between characters, but overall they did a good job with the audio, not taking away from what is (in my opinion) a good story. Personally, I like the narrator so well that I think the audio version would be better if they just let him do the whole thing, and skipped the actors, as they did in the first book in this series.

I suspect this book would have the greatest appeal to guys like me – past the mid-century mark in age – the age of the primary character. We love to be able to identify with a guy who’s “still got it” and does heroic things.

Hats off to this one, and I’ll be reading more for sure, though I won’t buy the next audiobook until they get the price down to reasonable – maybe the next one goes on the Kindle…

Book Review – The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel

I give up.

I tried hanging with these books, and after 3, I just can’t do it anymore. I hoped – after my last review, that things would improve, but they’re getting worse.

The author takes 50 pages of story, and packs it into hundreds and hundreds of pages. A good bit of these hundreds of pages is rehash of what we already know – both from within the current book and from previous books. Over and over and over again…

And frankly, the sex is just over the top. I’m no prude – I have no problem with explicit sex for the most part. It’s just that the way it’s presented here seems uncomfortable in this story. I don’t know how this isn’t classified as pornography.

So, after 3 in the series, I’m throwing in the towel. They’re getting worse not better. Which is too bad. If the editor would have helped the author winnow this down to the essential story, these first 3 books could have made a nice 200 to 300 page novel, and it would have been quite a good read. In those places where the author gets on with the story, she’s quite good. Her editor should be ashamed that this didn’t happen.

Don’t Pray

Continuing the theme of “how we deal with loss” that I started in my last post – especially the notion of trusting G-d to be G-d, and and being faithful enough to focus wholly and completely on doing my work as a human being.

When I see loss and pain around me, what if I don’t “pray” in the traditional sense? What if I don’t bow my head and ask G-d to fix everything and mend every pain? Does G-d need my instruction on how Creation needs to be run?

Prayer in the traditional sense here implies two entities – one entity petitioning a different higher entity. Yet, there is great tradition within most faith teaching, (certainly within my own), instructing us to live as or strive toward “oneness and unity” with G-d.

How does that change the nature of prayer? What if prayer becomes an act of connection with that oneness, rather than an act of petition to a separate entity?

In making this connection, we become a conduit for the energy and goodness and healing that is divine to move through us and out into the world around us.

There’s a difference, isn’t there? On the one hand I’m asking for someone or something else to do something, and on the other hand I’m seeking the strength, the guidance, and the will to be an agent of change myself – to be a force of human kindness and goodness.

When there’s loss and suffering around us, perhaps the best thing we can do is to stop praying for G-d to do something, and start connecting with G-d for the strength, wisdom, and will to be a force of pure and simple kindness to those around us who are suffering.

 

The Heresy of Human Kindness

I corresponded with someone recently who lost everything in the flooding that so many folks are experiencing in the Mississippi River Valley and other places out east. Their spirit of acceptance and forward movement impressed me, and got me thinking quite a bit about “loss”. Then yesterday evening, my son and I spent some time in the garden of a friend and customer who had just lost her husband. Afterwards my son mentioned that he really hadn’t spent much time around “loss” before, and that he was learning more about how to deal with those around him when they experience loss.

How do we deal with loss that those around us experience? What are we called to do when our neighbor feels the crush of loss?

I like words I wrote down once, attributed to the late Baal Shem Tov. Keep in mind that I wrote this down after hearing it second hand, so I’ve probably messed something up…

In responding to a discussion of “heresy”, he said:

“Because when you see a person suffering, you don’t say, ‘G-d runs the universe. G-d will take care. G-d knows what is best.’ You do everything in your power to relieve that suffering as though there is no G-d. You become a heretic in G-d’s name.”

Fitting wisdom in a world where too many use religion to wrap a veil around their essential humanity. Religion can too easily become and insulating cover that keeps us from feeling the pain of those around us, or from reaching out with pure acts of human kindness and caring.

If I believe that G-d is in everything around me, and that He plays a part in the flight of every sparrow, then do I trust Him enough to leave G-d’s work to G-d? Am I faithful enough to focus wholly and completely on doing my work as a human being? Can I give all of me to feeling the loss my neighbor feels, and offering the help I can offer, or will I hide behind pious grumblings of “god’s will”?

 

Review – Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry

Comanche Moon was the fourth book to be written in the Lonesome Dove series, though it is chronologically the second part of the 4-part series.

While Comanche Moon is good, it’s not as good as Lonesome Dove. It could stand alone as a decent (not great) read, the fact that it’s meant to be a prequel to Lonesome Dove is actually a detractor.

First, there are storyline continuity details that don’t match between Comanche Moon and Lonesome Dove. I admit that I’m a bit of a compulsive weanie about this sort of thing, but these inconsistencies are significant enough that I suspect they’ll bother nearly anyone.

Second, while Lonesome Dove develops characters masterfully, Comanche Moon does a slightly less good job. In keeping with the storyline continuity issues mentioned above, the characters that appear in Lonesome Dove don’t always appear to be the matured version of the characters developed in Comanche Moon. In fact, they don’t appear to be EITHER matured versions of the characters developed in Dead Man’s Walk, OR younger versions of the characters developed in Lonesome Dove.

I did enjoy the characters as the author developed them in this book, in particular the interplay between Inish Scull, Famous Shoes, and Kicking Wolf. In fact, the development of the Comanche characters alone makes this a good read for western geeks like me.

As a critique of the entire series, the lack of continuity from one book to the next is truly astonishing to me. As a series, I’d probably have to rank it with 2 stars only. If you tackle this book, do so as a stand-alone novel, and I suspect you’ll be less frustrated and perturbed by how poorly the storyline across the series fits together, and how dramatically different the same character can be from one book to the next.

I’d recommend this book to western geeks like me, especially those fascinated (like me) with stories of the southern plains and the great Comanche nation. However, for the rest of the reading public, it probably doesn’t rise to the level of “highly recommended”.

Moral Dissonance and Torture

In my last post I talked about the concept of moral dissonance, relating to our ability to accept the idea of the death penalty, specifically using our assassination of Bin Laden as the center of that discussion.

I wasn’t sure if “moral dissonance” was even a concept in use. I’ve googled it a bit, and found that (as you would expect) it is a phrase that’s used. Here’s an article on Wikipedia discussing cognitive dissonance, and tying it to the idea of moral dissonance.

We all find ourselves faced with decisions we need to make, or positions we need to support or condemn. Sometimes the decisions we make or the positions we support are at odds with our core moral compass. In those cases, we can either recognize, accept, and live with the moral dissonance, or we can justify our decision in some way – building a case that makes it an acceptable exception to our moral compass.

I think the latter is standard human behavior – it’s what we all want to do. There’s a great danger in that path though, because the better we get at building those walls of justification around our deep moral compass, the more likely we (and our society) will devolve into behavior that is increasingly destructive, immoral, and downright pathological.

Case in point: As a country, we’ve allowed our leaders over the past decade to ignore moral taboos against torture, and have joined nations like North Korea and Libya who are happy to use torture if they think it might help them in some way. I doubt that even 1% of the US population believes that inflicting torture and pain and torment on another human being is moral behavior. Yet, a large minority of Americans support our government’s evolution to a torture state, and I would argue that even a majority of Americans tacitly support the idea when we elect any leader not willing to denounce the practice.

Look at the headlines lately, and the vociferous justifiers of torture claiming that the lead to Bin Laden came from a GTMO detainee – presumably tortured. This is strong medicine to help us to take the torture we allow our government to perform in our name, and move that torture into a safe category of “justified” – carefully isolated from the moral compass that tells us it’s not OK. Never mind the rest of the facts – that using torture makes it more likely that our citizens and soldiers will be tortured, and that the vast majority of information derived from torture is less than worthless. We’re willing to ignore all facts except the ones that allow us to justify the immoral behavior.

Am I being clear here? We ALL behave in ways counter to our moral compass – we do it all the time. The issue I’m raising is the difference in how we deal with this internally when it happens.

The lack of tolerance for moral dissonance drives us to justify our actions when they are at odds with our moral compass. Doing this allows us to continue to behave immorally with (internal) impunity, as we’ve build walls of isolation around our moral compass as it relates to our own behavior.

The alternative? Accept the fact that we sometimes choose to behave in ways that are at odds with our stated moral beliefs. Each time this happens, it should force the recognition that the decision we’re making is immoral. I can then take a stand that accepts my behavior AND accepts the moral incongruity, or I can do the hard work of evaluating the moral positions that I’ve taken, to see if I still believe them to be correct.

This is essential work – both as an individual and as a society. I’ve pointed out a couple of places where we – as a society – need to do this hard work. Are there places in your personal life where you need to confront moral dissonance? I know there certainly are in my own.

On the death penalty, I choose to accept the dissonance, and live with it. I accept that I think it’s morally wrong, and I live with the fact that I support it in some cases. Carefully managed and humanely administered, it allows us to eliminate a few of the chronic threats to society.

On the issue of torture, I choose to oppose torture in all cases – I can’t accept it under any circumstance. If there was some evidence that it consistently “worked”, I would probably change my mind. But there isn’t any such evidence, and quite a bit of contrary evidence. The damage it causes far outweighs the gains it brings.

Where are your big moral dissonance issues? How do you deal with them when your moral compass threatens to expose them?

Next, I’ll bring up some questions on this topic as they relate to a real hot-button issue – abortion.

 

Moral Dissonance and the Execution of Bin Laden

The execution of Osama Bin Laden a week ago caused me to reflect again on the death penalty thoughts I posted just prior to that.

At its most simple, the assassination mission was simply a death penalty carried out. As I said before, I happen to support the death penalty in theory – when it’s used by society to terminate a force that is a significant threat to society.

This was exactly that – Bin laden was the self-professed mastermind of attacks on this country that killed thousands. He had confessed, was delighted with his actions, and was hiding from us to avoid execution. He didn’t seem to believe in “due process” himself, based on the delight he seemed to take in killing innocent people.

There are calls from some that his assassination was wrong, in that it failed to live up to the ideals and beliefs of this society. In denying him “due process”, our actions were wrong. The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch made these comments a week ag0.

He’s right of course. A strong moral argument can be made that killing anyone is wrong, and I’d agree with his comments that execution without due process is morally wrong.

This is where we all need to find our level of comfort with the moral dissonance created when we support an action that is immoral. For the good of society in general, I absolutely support the execution of this man who had caused many deaths and who would like to cause many more. There was no doubt of his guilt – he had proudly proclaimed his guilt over past actions and his intent for future action.

At the extremes, there are two reactions a person might have:

  1. A person can take the approach that the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch did, and simply stick by the moral argument, with no consideration of anything else.
  2. A person can justify the actions as “moral” in their mind – check out any of the right-wing blogs for examples of this perspective.

Both of these actions are the result of a low tolerance for moral dissonance. People who fall into these extremes want to see the world as very black and white, with no space for gray. They want to believe they have the complete and accurate set of universal moral rules programmed into their moral compass, and their way is the one and only way to see the world. If they support an action, it MUST be moral, and if it’s not, they’ll find a way to make it sound moral in their mind. Or they refuse to support it, no matter how “right” the decision is.

Our assassination of Bin Laden simply isn’t moral. Justify all you want. We invaded a sovereign country with our weapons and assassinated him and the people around him, and that’s simply not “moral”.

But in my mind, it’s OK. I have no problem with it. It was the right thing to do, as it removed an extremely harmful element of threat from our society – one that would surely cause grief and destruction in the future.

Moral dissonance might not actually be a phrase that’s commonly used – I just made it up because it seems to fit this dilemma. Look inside yourself, and ask yourself how much tolerance you have for moral dissonance. Your reaction to this assassination might be a good clue for you…