Radicals, Friends, and Hummingbirds

1. Agitating for underdogs, by any means necessary

When President Obama was campaigning for his first term, I started hearing about a Chicago community organizer named Saul Alinsky and his book Rules for Radicals. Alinsky’s biographer, Sanford Horwitt, has claimed that Obama (also a former Chicago organizer) and his 2008 campaign were influenced by Alinsky’s teachings. The book popped up so many times in political articles and commentary that I finally decided to read it for myself.

Rules for Radicals is Alinsky's treatment of how organizers (think of them as agitators for change, especially in labor actions against large corporations) should be chosen and trained, and how they should operate. He goes through the personal traits a good organizer should have, what they should expect as they get started working in a community, and what they should expect at the beginning of an organizing action. Alinsky also has the "rules", which are better called tactics for prompting change.

I was expecting Rules to be some sort of dirty tricks book. What I actually found was a common-sense tactical plan that any underdog might use against a more powerful opponent. This book was truly fascinating, and based on years of practice as Alinsky worked in various labor actions from the 30's until he died in 1972.

I did struggle trying to figure out which way Alinsky’s moral compass pointed, or how well it worked. In the first part of Rules he talks about his affinity for Judeo-Christian rights and values, the preciousness of human life, and how the moral life is the most practical life, the only road to survival. Then he spends an entire chapter on means and ends, essentially boiling it down to a question of whether a particular means suits a particular end. Alinsky talks about how in war, the end justifies almost any means; we may have to choose the good of mankind over our personal conscience. I think he dealt with any moral dilemmas in organizing by assuming that if he was fighting for the little guy, his cause was just. The struggle was akin to warfare. It then just became a matter of “winning” (Charlie Sheen would be proud), and whatever it took to win was acceptable.

I'm also not sure what Alinsky's political affiliation was. He talks about the "Have-Nots" vs. the "Haves", always taking the side of the Have-Nots in any situation. He says in one passage that revolution is a cycle: once a group of Have-Nots takes power, they turn into Haves and try to maintain their status, then need to be pushed out by the next underdog. In Alinsky's view, whoever is in power at a given time is likely the opposition. His definition of "leaders" and "organizers" is interesting: leaders are trying to gain power for their own use, while organizers are trying to gain power for others (i.e., the Have-Nots) to use.

The most interesting thing I picked up from the book is an impression that Alinsky might not be too impressed with Obama now. The President acts like a "Have" in my view, with all the gala concerts and lavish parties at the White House, plus many vacations in distant (and expensive) locations. All of this during tough economic times. I haven't researched how Obama lived while he was a community organizer in Chicago, but these days he seems more interested in keeping his lifestyle than in trying to help the Have-Nots. I wonder what changes in Washington Alinsky would be agitating for if he were still alive?

2. The multiple, mutual benefits of a few good friends

I recently read VitalFriends: The People You Can't Afford to Live Without by Tom Rath. The subtitle in particular caught my eye. It’s quick reading, but has at least three things I thought worth sharing. The first is that we don't need that many friends to give and get the benefits of friendship. Just 3 or 4 close friends may be enough. That's comforting news for introverts like me. I’ve rarely had more than a few close friends at any time (along with many good acquaintances), but I've treasured those relationships.

Second, we can sometimes make a mistake Rath refers to as the "rounding error". That's when we expect a single friend to be well-rounded enough to meet all our needs. It's a sure way to frustrate both people! Everyone has different strengths, and there may be just one strength that a friend uses to help you. You might have one friend who helps you work through your latest struggle, another who motivates you to meet that stretch goal, and a third who's just fun to be around. That's okay. Rath's encouragement is that we appreciate our friends for their strengths and not expect any one of them to meet all our needs.

Third, the research Rath performed identified eight key friendship roles. See if you spot any of these among your friends:

The Builder - a motivator and coach, someone who's encouraging you to do more but not competing with you

The Champion - someone who stands up for you, and accepts you as you are

The Collaborator - a friend with similar interests and ambitions, someone you may partner with on projects or teams

The Companion - that person who's always there for you (note this may be a mutual role)

The Connector - a bridge builder who expands your network and helps you get what you want

The Energizer - the life of the party, a fun friend

The Mind Opener - someone who expands your horizons, who asks good questions and encourages you to think about things in new ways

The Navigator - the friend you ask for advice, who helps keep you headed in the right direction

As I read through these roles I spotted a Champion, a Collaborator, and a Companion among my closest friends. I also noticed that with one friend I'm a Mind Opener of sorts, with one or two I'm more of a Connector, and for another I might be a Builder. I don't think I'm an Energizer for anybody!

The book was helpful for getting me to think of specific things to appreciate about my friends, and look for ways to be a better friend myself.

3. The strange case of the missing hummingbirds

One of the best parts of spring is the return of the hummingbirds. We put up a feeder in the birch tree close to our deck, and the hummers are easy to see from the sliding door. Knowing when to put out the feeder has been guesswork in the past, though. Last year I think I was about a month late, based on when a friend said he saw the first one of the season. Our only visitors were a male and female who stayed around until early October.

This year I'd like to have more of the little guys buzzing around. As spring approached I kept checking this map on hummingbirds.net; you can see that the first reported sightings in central Indiana were in early April. So, three weeks ago I prepared my first batch of nectar and put out the feeder.

The nectar is easy to make, along with being fresher & cheaper than store bought. Just use a 1:4 ratio of sugar to water, boil a couple of minutes to kill stuff that might grow in it, then let it cool. I use plain table sugar, 1 cup in a quart of water. I've read that sugar is better than honey since it tends to stay purer, longer, when outside. Never use artificial sweetener because there's no nutritional value for the birds.

Do you see what's wrong with the photo I took this week? That's right, no hummers! I still haven't seen one, and the nectar isn't disappearing like it would if they're being sneaky. I'm not sure how to do a better job of attracting them. Do you have any ideas?

Education, Shopping, and Flat Tires

1. A nation’s crops affect how it educates children

This month I listened to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a fascinating book with many stories and examples worth checking out. I thought the most interesting background in the book was the difference in educational philosophy between the West and Asian countries.

Western educators developed a view that a child’s mind was fragile. If school was too intense or too long, the children would be overwhelmed and actually injure their minds. This belief drove U.S. public education reform in the 1800s, including eliminating Saturday classes, shortening the school day, and creating the long summer break. That approach has been dominant in American schools until the recent increase in year-round school schedules.

In contrast, children in rice-growing countries work much harder and longer in school. There’s an attitude of constant practice and work to develop expertise, particularly in math. The language also helps (in Chinese, for example, strings of numbers are easier to remember, and arithmetic is easier to perform, due to the structure of the language).

The intriguing part is that these attitudes have been shaped by agriculture. In Western agriculture, crops must be rotated and the land must be rested every few years or it’ll become depleted. The land is also empty in winter, and the summer months are slower paced than spring and fall. In rice-growing countries, though, the more the land is used for rice crops, the more fertile it becomes. Growing rice is also much more labor intensive compared to Western crops, and two or three crops are cultivated in a paddy in a typical year.

Agriculture isn't nearly the controlling economic force that it used to be, in the U.S. at least. But back in the 1800s when 95% of Americans were involved with farming somehow, the farming analogy was a major influence on education, and we still see some of those effects today.

2. There are lots of ways to save money, if you’re on the lookout

Don’t you enjoy saving money on stuff you were going to buy anyway? It’s also fun to buy stuff you want at a cheaper price, too! I recently watched an interview with Brad Wilson of bradsdeals.com; he’s just published a book called Do More, Spend Less. Doing more with less always sounds like a good plan, so I asked the library to order a copy.

The book is divided up into three main sections: travel, shopping, and personal finance. Since Becky & I are vacationing in a travel trailer these days, I skimmed through the travel section and didn’t find much of interest to us. The personal finance section includes a number of things we’re already doing, so I flipped through that section quickly also.

I did find a couple of useful tidbits in the shopping section, though. Have you heard of Amazon Grocery? I hadn’t, either. That part of the website has over 45000 grocery items, many in multi-packs like Sam’s Club. If you have an Amazon Prime account, the shipping on most items is free. You can also start a monthly subscription to items of interest, and they’ll get shipped to you automatically. We already buy many bulk items at Sam’s Club, so I think the next step will be to compare prices on some of our staple items to see who has the best deal.

The other thing Brad mentioned in this section was the Dover Thrift series of books. These are literary classics printed as inexpensive paperbacks and available for a few bucks each. I hadn’t heard of the series before, so as a test I got on Amazon and ordered The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dubliners. They remind me of the Scholastic books that were for sale each year in grade school. Definitely cheap paperbacks, but the font looks good and if something happens to them, no big deal. More books – woo hoo!

3. Have a flat tire? Fix it yourself!

We were leaving a restaurant the other night (“So Italian!” – love that place). Our daughter, Amy, had met us there after work. I happened to glance at her car in the parking lot, and saw a front tire was almost flat. I used a mini air compressor from my truck to air up the tire, but it definitely needed attention.

When we got home, I jacked up the front of the car and removed the offending tire. There wasn’t a screw head or anything obviously visible, so Becky made a soapy water mix and we brushed that on the tread. Sure enough, a section of tread started bubbling up, and after probing with needle-nose pliers I found an embedded nail. This was Saturday evening, and Amy needed the car for work the next day, so we were on our own to fix it.

I went out to Meijer and bought a tire plug kit made by Slime, similar to this one on Amazon only a few dollars cheaper. The instructions were easy to follow, with one exception: jamming the plug through the hole using that needle-like tool is HARD. Next time I’m going to do a more aggressive reaming job first. I finally got the plug inserted, though, and the tire held pressure.

It’s now a week later and the tire is still holding pressure, so it appears to be a good repair. According to the package this is supposed to be a temporary fix. I’m not sure I’ll take it to Sam’s Club for an official repair, though. Don’t the pros use plugs to fix nail holes like this? If the tire keeps holding pressure, I’m going to leave it alone.

Progressives, Focus, and Perspective

1. “Progressive” doesn’t always lead to progress

I recently read the book Science Left Behind: Feel Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti-Scientific Left, by Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell. I’ve been dismayed by some in politics (New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg, for example) who feel comfortable dictating how we should live. The libertarian part of me just doesn’t like that. I’m a fan of the scientific method, preferring to let it tell us which theories have a sound basis instead of pushing theories that fit an agenda.

The definition of “progressive” the authors use is built on the Nolan Chart, created by David Nolan in 1971. Instead of the simpler “left” and “right” you hear about so much in politics, this approach creates 4 categories of a person's or group’s tendency toward social and economic freedom (or lack thereof).

According to this definition, the terms “liberal” and “progressive” aren’t interchangeable. It gets confusing, though, since the “progressives” of the early 1900s morphed into “liberals” in the ‘20s then back to “progressives” later in the century. What’s more important than the label is considering the economic and social control involved with a political viewpoint. This chapter helped me understand that it’s more complicated than just “left” vs. “right”, and that I’m becoming more libertarian in my views all the time.

The authors describe four mythologies progressives seem to embrace:    

1.      Everything natural is good
2.      Everything unnatural is bad
3.      Unchecked science and progress will destroy us
4.      Science is only relative, anyway

Berezow and Campbell challenge these assumptions through the rest of the book. Topics include food, conservation, clean energy, vaccines, animal testing, “progressive” Europe, gender differences, education, and journalism. They include many details, but in a style that’s easy to read.

I don’t necessarily agree with Alex & Hank on every point. They seem to have a disdain for anything outside mainstream medicine, for example; I’m in favor of whatever works, regardless of what the FDA says. I was looking for thought-provoking material, though, not just a book to agree with. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

2. How to look stupid while improving my vision

I’m a Krav Maga student, always on the lookout for something that will help me get thrashed less often by my instructors (Robert, Matt, Justin, and Frank are actually the nicest guys around. Just not when we’re sparring). While at Meijer recently I thumbed through a magazine called “Train Hard Fight Easy”. What caught my eye was a short article on how you can improve your visual focus and peripheral vision by practicing with a device called a Brock string.

It really is a string, with several adjustable beads. String lengths vary from 3 feet to 12 feet, with 3 to 5 beads. Should be easy enough to make, but I bought mine from Ronnie and Maggie Dail’s website for about $10 with shipping. This one is nearly 6 feet long and has 5 beads.

To use the string, attach one end to a door knob (I’d suggest two half-hitches). Arrange the beads at various locations along the length, with the nearest one close to your nose. The string should slope down away from you, but not so much that the beads slide out of place. Here’s my setup:

Now try to focus on each bead individually. The one closest to your nose should appear to have two strings heading away in a V-shape, if you’re focused properly. The other beads will seem to have strings in an X-shape converging on the bead when you’re in focus. Move your head slightly left, right, up, and down and try to keep focused on the bead. Also, keep the nearest bead as close to your nose as you can, as shown here:

(note that I look even more dorky now than I do, well, all other times)

It’s hard to describe exactly what this looks like; watch this YouTube video with helpful camera angles to get a better idea. I found I could see the V and X shapes without any trouble, but it did seem a good eye exercise to slowly change focus from one bead to the next. No silver bullet for Krav Maga sparring here, so I’ll need to keep looking. Or maybe just keep practicing and taking my lumps (and punches).

3. A new twist on an old genre makes fun reading

Who knows how many mystery novels have been written over the last century or two. My engineer brain likes crime fiction in particular, trying to figure out who did it while enjoying the character development. I look for stories written from a new angle. Part of it's just the fun of a new perspective, but since I'm also working on ideas for writing my own fiction, I'm curious to see how other writers do it successfully.

Becky and I were looking around in Target recently. While nosing around in the book section (where else?), I spotted Dog On It, by Spencer Quinn. The main characters are Bernie, a private investigator, and his dog, Chet. Bernie is hired to check out a missing persons case that's not at all what it initially seems to be.

What makes Quinn's story so interesting is that it's narrated by the dog. Chet leads us through the investigation while having multiple adventures of his own. His observations on human and dog behavior are clever. I laughed out loud at so many passages in the book, my sides still hurt (could be from my last Krav Maga class, though).

Quinn has written at least five other stories in this series, and I plan to read them all!

Habits, Calm, and Starlings

Habits, Calm, and Starlings

1. You might not get rid of that bad habit, but you might be able to change it

Charles Duhigg has written a fascinating book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. I listened to the audio version (10.5 hours). Books that have sociological or psychological flavor always grab my attention; I guess it's a habit.

Have you ever considered how of what you do each day is on auto-pilot? The brain likes to function that way, since the more stuff that's on auto-pilot, the more brain power is available for thinking about new or unusual problems. Habits have three components, a cue, a routine, and a reward. It doesn't matter whether the habit is "good" or "bad", it works the same way.

There's a "Golden Rule" of habits: to change a habit you don't like, keep the same cue and reward, but insert a new routine. Tony Dungy took this approach when coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Indianapolis Colts. He knew a team could be faster than its opponent by running plays automatically, without thinking each one through. Dungy worked with the existing cues (watching how the other team was setting up for a play) and rewards (executing plays well and beating the other team). His success came from training players so thoroughly on how to react to certain cues that they just ran the "routine" for certain cues. The approach took years of work, but eventually paid off with the Colts' Super Bowl win in 2007.

Duhigg uses a number of examples to show how harnessing the power of habits leads to success. Examples include swimmer Michael Phelps, aluminum company Alcoa, retailing giant Target, civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, and megachurch pastor Rick Warren.

2. A calm body is a calm mind

While looking around in the library earlier this month, I spotted a book by Gayatri Devi, M.D.: A Calm Brain: Unlocking Your Natural Relaxation System. Brain and body functioning (and the improvement thereof) is another gripping topic for me, so I interrupted my other books-in-progress to read this one.

Remember how it feels when you're alert and focused, getting things done but not anxious about it? That's actually a delicate balancing act between your body's alerting and relaxing systems. The frontal lobes in your brain are trying to rule with logic and thinking, while your "core" brain is subconsciously monitoring conditions around you. The core brain manages your instincts and triggers your "gut feelings".

Problems can start when we feed our attentiveness to the detriment of relaxing. Our culture of multitasking just makes it worse; it's possible to be so engaged with email, surfing the web, or writing blog posts that we literally can't relax. The core brain tends to get overruled by the frontal lobes anyway, so the problem can quickly get worse. It's not the sort of thing we can think our way out of.

We all have stress in our lives, but some level of stress is actually beneficial. It can help us fight off disease conditions, defend against pain, provoke creativity, and spark enhanced performance in tasks. The key is to manage the stress, not try to eliminate all of it.

At the end of the book Devi lists a number of ways you can promote more calm in your life. Several I noted to work on are: seeking long-lasting, close ties with other people, cutting down on multitasking, and never compromising on sleep (she has an entire chapter on sleep - it's truly a wonder drug!).

3. Starlings will eat all your bird food, if you let them

I love birds, and have enjoyed keeping bird feeders for years. Starlings are a problem, though. They’re the locusts of the avian world, showing up by the dozen to swarm over my feeder. Our other guests (chickadees, finches, sparrows, cardinals, nuthatches, titmice, woodpeckers, junkos, mourning doves) have better manners and don’t eat so much. The main thing is, I just don’t like starlings, and prefer they eat somewhere else.

I did some Googling and discovered that starlings don’t like obstacles. That hatched an idea (pun sort of intended). Lowe’s has plastic fence material with 2”x2” openings. Seemed large enough for the little birds to jump through, but too large for starlings. Our cardinals and doves mostly feed on the ground, so they’re unaffected. I bought some of the fencing and rigged up a barrier around the feeder, using another shepherd’s hook and zip ties (see photo).

My initial try actually worked too well. I had the fencing rigged so all the feeder perches were obstructed. The chickadees didn’t care about that (they seem fearless in general), hardly slowing down when passing through the fence. The starlings were also keeping away, but so were the nice birds. My tweak was to slide the fencing up so the bottom perches are exposed. I figured the little birds would land there, but the starlings would still see an obstacle, and that seems to be the case. Just from watching how much bird feed we go through in a typical day, it appears the likeable birds are still feeding but without company from pesky starlings. A few starlings have figured out how to feed through the fencing, but I haven’t seen nearly as many lately. Cool!