Wearing Off My Fingertips

Well, the world is not coming to an end this week but boy, I tell you what, I'm not sure about some of my stock picks. I thought Rio was a good long-term buy (and given a long shot for a robust recovery of the economy by 2012, it will be) but news today implies that Rio's debt sinks the company like Somali pirates after finding a ship full of jungle camo parkas -- with no ransom, to boot.

So be it. I want cheap stocks to buy and that's what I get. Rock-bottom, in the cellar, down in the mine shaft CHEAP!

Anyway, I haven't had a lot of time to search for good stock deals this month. Instead, I've let my fingers fly over the keyboard piling bad phrase upon tired anecdote in an effort to complete a new novel for NaNoWriMo 2008. And I did it! Since I now have no fingerprints after typing like a coffee-coddled medical transcriptionist for the past few weeks, maybe now's the time to start of life of crime. Just kidding. In any case, mission accomplished for this month -- 53,467 words and counting.

Time to start thinking about a delicious lasagna meal for Thanksgiving!

Wooo, Pig, Sooie!!

This was my "culture hog" weekend (you know, when you go from one art trough to another, soaking in, slopping up, and stuffing yourself on the high culture, low culture, folk culture, or popular culture). Saturday, I saw the Metropolitan Opera perform "La Damnation De Faust" by Berlioz via HD theater. Definitely a blued-hair crowd at the Regal Hollywood 18 in Huntsville but that's okay. The music was classic Berlioz with a set similar to the multilevel jail set from the movie, "Chicago," with acrobatics and infrared-controlled video projection a la Cirque de Soleil (during one of the intermission interviews, I found out the opera's director, Robert Lepage, also directed the set of a Cirque de Soleil show). Glad that opera has been modernized for us young folks. LOL

The only negative about the opera was the lead female singer, Susan Graham, who looked a decade (or two) older than the character she was portraying, Marguerite. John Relyea as Mephistopheles clearly upstaged and out-acted Marcello Giordani, a decent-acting Faust with a bland face but an even better singer with a good French accent.

Sunday morning I attended a local Methodist Church in Huntsville, built in the style of wood-and-brick European cathedrals, to enjoy singing the old-time harmonious church hymns, hear a halfway decent choir and hope for a good organ solo (and a bonus! -- the boring annual "time to pledge your money and services" sermon by a newly ordained minister).

Last night, I watched the swingin' performance of the Miss Tess Trio (a smaller version of Miss Tess and the Bon Ton Parade) at the Flying Monkey Arts Center in Huntsville. Wow! They had three to six couples toe-tapping and dancing on the floor at any one time. I felt like I was back in the Jazz Age, what with the brown-baggin' going on and moonshine jug sitting on the table nearby. The opening act, Helen Keller's Ukulele was more interesting, as far as music style goes (imagine a mix of circus music and Tiny Tim) but not something to dance to -- that music was more appropriate for a soundtrack, in my opinion -- the lead singer wearing what I call grandma glasses, shoulder-length hair and a green scarf, sang with a soft voice. I drank a bottle of old-fashioned ginger ale from the Buffalo Rock company -- great fizzing sensation!

Anyway, the band inspired me to sketch them in action. The band members autographed the sketch after the show and asked me to scan and email it to them because they thought it was cool (so do I, knowing I drew it in dim light from the stage!). I forwarded the sketch to the band this morning.

Helen Keller's Ukulele inspired me to rewrite my novel and retitle it from "Passing The Time" to one of the following:

· Rational Exuberance
· A Period Not Yet Justified
· A Space Not Justified
· Capitalized and Justified
· No Photos Outside Tourist Areas
· A City Goes Silent
· A Space, A Period and A Capital

The novel is a prequel to the next one which will star the illustrious Kay (a/k/a Belle) and Phyllis (a/k/a Sofia).

Here's a sample from the novel:

A few weeks later I found myself at home alone, with my wife gone on a business trip and my cats just wanting to be left alone sunning in the dining room. Bored, I drove over to Fredirique's house so I could once again heave open the ancient garage door and face the daunting task of solving the mystery of Japanese rice burners. I knew Fredirique wasn't home so I could work on the bike in meditative peace, sort of like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, only I haven't read the book so I know about as much about it as I did fixing the bike.

Sitting on the concrete floor in the suffocating heat of that day was bad enough but here I was trying to be a backyard mechanic, skillfully whacking at a stubborn bolt with a broken pair of pliers. After two hours of banging and cursing, I leaned backed, letting my neck rest on the cool vinyl of the weight bench. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, but only momentarily.

In my half-awake state, I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle whose engine noise reminded me of an old Volvo. Didn’t Fredirique own a Volvo, I wondered. The engine stopped and a door opened. With my eyes closed, I couldn't see the person coming but I imagined someone getting closer.

"Lee, are you all right?" a concerned voice said into my left ear. I looked up to see Fredirique leaning down over me. Caught as I was half-asleep, my mind raced through a multitude of personalities like a cat in a room full of catnip. In the same moment, panic swept through my mind, then relief when I realized I was not under attack by an invisible voice. At first, my platonic self looked at her sisterly eyes but then my caveman self took over and I glanced down at her shirt hanging open, exposing her white bra which, of course, led down to her hips shrink-wrapped in a pair of tight shorts. My eyes continued to slide down her thin white thighs until my self-conscience self took over (pretty well stereotyped by the psychiatrist-obsessed Woody Allen) and I found myself looking down at my hands stained with grease and engine oil.

"Uh, yeah, I just can't seem to get the engine case open," I managed to say out of my dried-out throat.

"Why don't you come inside for a minute and cool off? I can turn the air conditioner on for a little while."

"Okay," I mumbled.

"I've got some juice leftover in the fridge, if you want some," Fredirique yelled from her bedroom as she unpacked her suitcase. "There may be a beer or two in there, too."

"No thanks," I managed to say, sprawled out on the couch.

"Are you sure?"

I lay there in the cool silence.

"I'll get it for you, for a price," she said as she walked up to the couch from behind.

I leaned forward, craning my neck and cocking my eyebrows. "Like what?"

"Well, considering that I've let you keep your bike here for over a month and...well, you can see that the air conditioner doesn't do that good a job."

"It feels fine to me."

"Lee-e-e-e," she said in a nasally, whining voice, "I mean it. When you stop sweating like a pig on my couch, you'll see what I mean. You won't feel cold anymore."

"So, uh, you want me to fix your air conditioner."

"No, I had something else in mind," she said in a quiet voice, while beckoning me to the bedroom hallway with her finger.

I sat up on the couch. "So what do you have to drink?" I said as I got up and walked toward the kitchen.

"Lee, come here for a minute, will you? I have something to show you."

I stopped at the kitchen doorway. What exactly was going on here? Either I was misreading the signals or Fredirique didn't know when to stop teasing me. I shrugged my shoulders and turned back toward the living room. "What do you want?"

"Come on into the bedroom," her voice called out.

I stepped into the small hallway and stuck my head in her bedroom. Seeing her unmade bed with the covers piled up made me smile. Miss Architectural Digest didn't make her bed.

"No, over here," she said behind my back. I turned around to see Fredirique standing in the bedroom at the other end of the hallway.

I walked up behind her.

"Give me your honest opinion of what you think," she said, putting her hands on her hips with pride.

"Of what," I asked timidly.

Fall in a Maturing Maple Forest

Mid-day sun, an orchestra conductor warming up and delighting the crowd, a diverse group of beings, including shabby (some say a bit nutty) shagbark hickory trees, cedars always dressed for the occasion, stately oaks with their well-weathered skin, and the vast majority, young, fashionable maples showing off their golden, amber, and persimmon coats worn in late fall; chickadees, thrushes, and tufted titmouse birds, like children at their parents' feet, enjoy the 54 deg F air, restlessly flying from tree to birdfeeder and back, with tasty treats in their mouth. Red berries of a deciduous holly hang in undetected suspension, envious of the popular sunflower-and-safflower deluxe seed mix from Wild Birds Unlimited.

In this cozy atmosphere, I look down at the three tomes I recently purchased from Woodward Books, a "premium" used bookstore on 108 E. Jackson Avenue in the historic Old City area of Knoxville, TN:

Sophie's Choice by William Styron
The Limerick, edited by G. Legman
Crashing the Party (first edition) by Ralph Nader

Before I dive into discussing those heavy volumes, I pick up a book I have read and reread, laughing at the timeliness of human folly that I remembered from Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," that is summarized in other books like Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," but seemingly satirized best in Machiavelli's book written around 1513, "Il Principe" (better known as "The Prince"), which I hold in my hand.

While the U.S. President-elect assembles his advisory staff, perhaps he can learn from the ageless wisdom and observation of previous advisors, as in the final section of Machiavelli's 500-year old political treatise, Chapter XXVI, "An Exhortation to Liberate Italy from the Barbarians" -- [substitute "United States" for "Italy," if you will]:

HAVING carefully considered the subject of the above discourses, and wondering within myself whether the present times were propitious to a new prince, and whether there were the elements that would give an opportunity to a wise and virtuous one to introduce a new order of things which would do honour to him and good to the people of this country, it appears to me that so many things concur to favour a new prince that I never knew a time more fit than the present.

And if, as I said, it was necessary that the people of Israel should be captive so as to make manifest the ability of Moses; that the Persians should be oppressed by the Medes so as to discover the greatness of the soul of Cyrus; and that the Athenians should be dispersed to illustrate the capabilities of Theseus: then at the present time, in order to discover the virtue of an Italian spirit, it was necessary that Italy should be reduced to the extremity she is now in, that she should be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians, more scattered than the Athenians; without head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, overrun; and to have endured every kind of desolation.

Although lately some spark may have been shown by one, which made us think he was ordained by God for our redemption, nevertheless it was afterwards seen, in the height of his career, that fortune rejected him; so that Italy, left as without life, waits for him who shall yet heal her wounds and put an end to the ravaging and plundering of Lombardy, to the swindling and taxing of the kingdom and of Tuscany, and cleanse those sores that for long have festered. It is seen how she entreats God to send someone who shall deliver her from these wrongs and barbarous insolencies. It is seen also that she is ready and willing to follow a banner if only someone will raise it.

Nor is there to be seen at present one in whom she can place more hope than in your illustrious house [Historical note: refers to Giuliano de Medici. He had just been created a cardinal by Leo X. In 1523 Giuliano was elected Pope, and took the title of Clement VII.] , with its valour and fortune, favoured by God and by the Church of which it is now the chief, and which could be made the head of this redemption. This will not be difficult if you will recall to yourself the actions and lives of the men I have named. And although they were great and wonderful men, yet they were men, and each one of them had no more opportunity than the present offers, for their enterprises were neither more just nor easier than this, nor was God more their friend than He is yours.

With us there is great justice, because that war is just which is necessary, and arms are hallowed when there is no other hope but in them. Here there is the greatest willingness, and where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great if you will only follow those men to whom I have directed your attention. Further than this, how extraordinarily the ways of God have been manifested beyond example: the sea is divided, a cloud has led the way, the rock has poured forth water, it has rained manna, everything has contributed to your greatness; you ought to do the rest. God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.

And it is not to be wondered at if none of the above-named Italians have been able to accomplish all that is expected from your illustrious house; and if in so many revolutions in Italy, and in so many campaigns, it has always appeared as if military virtue were exhausted, this has happened because the old order of things was not good, and none of us have known how to find a new one.
And nothing honours a man more than to establish new laws and new ordinances when he himself was newly risen. Such things when they are well founded and dignified will make him revered and admired, and in Italy there are not wanting opportunities to bring such into use in every form.

Here there is great valour in the limbs whilst it fails in the head. Look attentively at the duels and the hand-to-hand combats, how superior the Italians are in strength, dexterity, and subtlety. But when it comes to armies they do not bear comparison, and this springs entirely from the insufficiency of the leaders, since those who are capable are not obedient, and each one seems to himself to know, there having never been any one so distinguished above the rest, either by valour or fortune, that others would yield to him. Hence it is that for so long a time, and during so much fighting in the past twenty years, whenever there has been an army wholly Italian, it has always given a poor account of itself; as witness Taro, Alessandria, Capua, Genoa, Vaila, Bologna, Mestre [Note: The battles of Il Taro, 1495; Alessandria, 1499; Capua, 1501; Genoa, 1507; Vaila, 1509; Bologna, 1511; Mestre, 1513].

If, therefore, your illustrious house wishes to follow those remarkable men who have redeemed their country, it is necessary before all things, as a true foundation for every enterprise, to be provided with your own forces, because there can be no more faithful, truer, or better soldiers. And although singly they are good, altogether they will be much better when they find themselves commanded by their prince, honoured by him, and maintained at his expense. Therefore it is necessary to be prepared with such arms, so that you can be defended against foreigners by Italian valour.

And although Swiss and Spanish infantry may be considered very formidable, nevertheless there is a defect in both, by reason of which a third order would not only be able to oppose them, but might be relied upon to overthrow them. For the Spaniards cannot resist cavalry, and the Switzers are afraid of infantry whenever they encounter them in close combat. Owing to this, as has been and may again be seen, the Spaniards are unable to resist French cavalry, and the Switzers are overthrown by infantry. And although a complete proof of this latter cannot be shown, nevertheless there was some evidence of it at the battle of Ravenna, when the Spanish infantry were confronted by German battalions, who follow the same tactics as the Swiss; when the Spaniards, by agility of body and with the aid of their shields, got in under the pikes of the Germans and stood out of danger, able to attack, while the Germans stood helpless, and, if the cavalry had not dashed up, all would have been over with them. It is possible, therefore, knowing the defects of both these infantries, to invent a new one, which will resist cavalry and not be afraid of infantry; this need not create a new order of arms, but a variation upon the old. And these are the kind of improvements which confer reputation and power upon a new prince.

This opportunity, therefore, ought not to be allowed to pass for letting Italy at last see her liberator appear. Nor can one express the love with which he would be received in all those provinces which have suffered so much from these foreign scourings, with what thirst for revenge, with what stubborn faith, with what devotion, with what tears. What door would be closed to him? Who would refuse obedience to him? What envy would hinder him? What Italian would refuse him homage? To all of us this barbarous dominion stinks. Let, therefore, your illustrious house take up this charge with that courage and hope with which all just enterprises are undertaken, so that under its standard our native country may be ennobled, and under its auspices may be verified that saying of Petrarch:

Virtu contro al Furore
Prendera l'arme, e fia il combatter corto:
Che l'antico valore
Negli italici cuor non e ancor morto.

Translation:
Virtue against fury shall advance the fight,
And it i' th' combat soon shall put to flight:
For the old Roman, valour is not dead,
Nor in th' Italians' breasts extinguished.
--Edward Dacre, 1640.

==========================================

While researching medical companies worthy of my investment, a friend asked me if there were solar companies that might give us a better ROI. I think she's got me there. From a quick look at the industry, including a blog, industry news, and analysis, it appears that the price of solar and other alternative power stocks has dropped significantly lower than the general market, offering a good buy opportunity, IF AND ONLY IF the alternative energy market will recover anytime soon. I don't see that happening, assuming history is correct. We saw the same thing back in the 1970s, when the oil embargo pushed Americans into thinking that alternative energy might save us from the influence of foreign oil. For a few years, solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave energy, nuclear and human power gained the attention of the general public. Many people found a way to adapt their daily living to alternative energy sources but the vast majority continued to use oil and coal-based power to fuel their lives.

My father taught energy efficiency courses for Virginia Tech in the late 1970s and showed me then what I still know today -- when it comes to sources of energy, the average American citizen wants something cheap, reliable, and easy-to-use (e.g., an electric car will not work for the family that likes to travel long distance; the noise and vibration of neighborhood-located wind turbines is unacceptable). I perfectly understand -- I live in the woods but I've found a way to use solar at home (photovoltaic cells to re-energize rechargeable batteries). We use CFL bulbs in the house. We close off heat pump vents and doors to unused rooms. On the other hand, I drive a used 1995 6-cylinder BMW 325i that gets 34 MPG on the highway at 57 MPH, not a hybrid Prius that gets 50 MPG, simply because I can't justify new car payments for what boils down to a slight decrease in monthy gas bills. With the recent plummet in oil prices and the tightening of the credit market, I doubt many Americans will adopt alternative energy on a large-scale basis unless the U.S. government heavily subsidizes or mandates it. Therefore, until I see concrete evidence that the Obama administration will add alternative energy to the budget deficit, I will continue to watch the solar market but not invest in it.

Now, returning to my crystal ball and the investigation of the medical business. Hmm...medical supplies or medical services? Health insurance companies or outpatient physical therapy clinics? Tough decisions, indeed.

Meanwhile, back to helping a team of engineers get their invention to market, all while working on my NaNoWriMo novel. Life is fun on this warm fall day! Hope yours is, too.

A Match for the Ages

Some of us got to watch the match via the wonders of the Internet. For those who were there (and you know who you are), the match between Munster and the All Blacks (New Zealand), where Munster led 16-10 at the half and 16-13 until late in the game, cheering for the tired, courageous, injured and wornout players in red must have felt like the kind of fun and fable we long to tell our children about.

Although the Munster team lasted as long as they could, they lost 16-18 in a match we will tell our children about.

Thirty years after the famous 1978 match, Munster can still hold its head high:

To the brave and faithful, nothing is impossible.

Long live the 2008 Heineken Cup champions!

Dusting Off The Crystal Ball

A coworker named Joe once told me, "Saying I'm a millionaire is easy -- getting there was even easier...and fun, too!" He bought, lived in and sold homes back during the Internet bubble at the turn of the 21st Century. When the Internet bubble burst, he gave up his "easy" job as a day trader and returned to the workforce as a computer programmer. A few years ago, I heard from a friend who'd received Joe's resume and asked if I would hire him. I said sure, he was a good guy and seemed to know what he was talking about. I have no idea if my assessment of him was true but I was willing to back it up by stating that Joe's air of confidence stood for something.

In these unsure economic times, unconfident people hope for a simple solution to their woes.

In 2006, I joined an international group of folks who dedicate their time during the month of November to complete a 50,000-word novel in 30 days in an event called National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo). The winners simply have to tell a story in 50,000 words or so. I've successfully completed two novels during NaNoWriMo 2006 and 2007 by putting fingers to keyboard and telling a straightforward story, including a satisfactory ending.

Everyone likes a good story. I guess that's why we see and hear the concerns from citizens all over the world. Their local news media tell stories about the sluggish economy, including bankrupt companies, job redundancies, etc., that don't have a happy or satisfactory ending right now (unless you're a sadist or masochist).

I dug through our storage room at the house this week, looking for some old writing material that might spark a memory for a plot for this year's participation in NaNoWriMo. Not only did I find a great storyline (an idea for intertwining story about a couple of old flames, one from high school and one from college) but I also found an old crystal ball I'd forgotten I'd acquired in 1984 from a soothsayer who had "retired" to the life of a homeless alcoholic on the streets of Knoxville.

I saw the crystal ball in his Army surplus canvas bag while he was digging for aluminum cans in the dumpster in front of my house and offered him some beers and cash for the ball. When the fortune teller sold me the crystal ball, he told me that his mother had entrusted the oracle to him on her deathbed, telling him never to use it unless he found himself in dire straits. He had never used the sphere for fear he'd see his future, something he was not interested in. Instead, he preferred to tell other people's futures through Tarot cards.

So here I am, sitting here with the crystal ball in my lap. Last night, I bought some incense sticks to try to simulate the conditions you see when wise men and women peer into their crystal balls (okay, maybe it's just special effects smoke machines you see in the movies but go with me here).

I set the ball on a fleece blanket and polish it to remove my oily fingerprints. As I polish it, I see an image appearing in the ball, kind of like a portable LCD TV the day after the digital TV transition February 2009, or a shaken snowglobe -- white clouds spinning around, a virtual tornado. Wait, wait...I see something appearing. It's...it's...well, it's a stethoscope? No, no, it's a staff with a snake wrapped around it. Yes, that's it. The classic medical symbol, the rod of Asclepius. I shake globe and rub it and it still displays the snake and staff.

What does that mean? Hmm...well, I don't predict the future and certainly have no confidence that a crystal ball I traded for some fermented hops is going to tell me the future. However, I think I see what's going on. In the midst of a shakeup in the way people have chosen to pad or protect their portfolios, one thing is clear: we want our lives and the lives of our loved ones to contain good health. What better way to ensure we're healthy than to invest in the medical industry?

I'll play with the crystal ball and see if there are any specific medical companies that I should buy (and maybe Joe should, too). Meanwhile, I'll keep working on my NaNoWriMo story.

A Sporting Mood

While we grow up, we play with our mates. We behave like any other animal - pushing, shoving, biting, rolling around, hitting, hugging, poking...you name it, we do it.

Eventually, we capture the attention of our adult caretakers who direct us toward organized physical activities like ball tossing, block stacking and body tagging.

Those of us who display exemplary talents for throwing and chasing after balls often get promoted into organized team sports like soccer (i.e., futbol), baseball, basketball and football (with its American, Canadian and Australian versions).

The majority of us who play these organized sports do not progress to the next level of play, moving on to something else in which we excel. That is, a large population of youth may play football in secondary school but only a portion of those with superior football skills will continue playing football in primary school and even fewer will play the sport on college or semipro teams.

Therefore, the further the player progresses, the better we presume the player has become. Also, the player's value to society increases, giving the player the option to convert the combination of talent and skill into a usable trade in the open marketplace of job opportunities, including the amateur "job" of college scholarship-funded student-athlete.

For the past 19 years, my wife and I have watched American-style football from the same seats in Neyland Stadium on the campus of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. We have enjoyed the drama of the game as well as the increasing maturity of the players as they grow from boys to men in their three to five-year college stint. We continue to marvel at the ability of the players to take bruising hits week-in and week-out while still finding a way to attend college classes, study class material after or in-between classes and improve their ability to play football the next game through weight room training or team practices.

Most importantly, we appreciate the players who understand the team concept, putting egos and superior talent aside in the drive to win football games.

During this football season, we have observed the inability of the group of players to overcome talent shortcomings or poor individual efforts on the field in order to win each week's game. Many theories regarding this year's team have been touted by fans, boosters, former players, current players, former coaches, current coaches, news media and current athletic administrators. We watched as the most common consensus among this diverse group of people coalesced into the desire to get rid of the head football coach, the adult who has personal responsibility for attracting the players' attention in primary school to come play football for him in exchange for a college education. The coach was forced by the director of the athletic department to resign last week. No matter what people thought about the man himself, they now face a future without him coaching and leading the football team. The football players responded by proclaiming they would win the rest of the games to show their respect for the coach and prove the athletic director's decision was wrong. However, they lost their next game, 13-7, while hosting a typical "weak" homecoming team, an opponent favored to lose to the Tennessee football team by 27 points.

In business, we use group dynamics to make our company move forward toward a set of common goals. Every person in the company has a set of job duties that contribute in part to those goals. When the employees fail as a group to perform their duties in a way that makes the company successful, how long should we wait to place the blame for their failures on the company's CEO, president, or department VP? This question follows a CEO or president every day, whether employees, stockholders and the board of directors consciously think it.

Not every adult gets to play professional sports on a team but every one of us participates in team activities, no matter what we do.

So, when you work with others, observe the team's group dynamics and ask yourself these questions:

• Am I tuned in to the team and the individual efforts of the team's members?
• Can I put aside my ego to assist a member of the team I do not like personally but needs my help in order to get the team to succeed?
• In the depth of misery (i.e., the team is collapsing from loss of control or intense conflict), can I use humor to pull the team back together again?

HINT: You should respond, "Yes!," without hesitation. After all, the chances that your team is sitting on a field in front of 100,000 screaming fans are fairly slim. More than likely, you're sitting in a room with less than 10 people where team decision-making is easy. Therefore, no matter what your team struggles with, remember the sports teams that have to make decisions in front of thousands or even millions of people -- they practice team continuity on a daily basis in order to achieve their team-based goals -- like the successful sports teams, no matter how great your talent, you should always put the team first and be the one to show others how to achieve the team's goals by disregarding ego-driven or externally-initiated conflicts. Don't wait for a leader to get fired for you to be the one to make a difference.

Gesundheit!

Gesundheit! You just sneezed. If sneezing is contagious, does the simple act of saying, “Gesundheit!,” make one sneeze? There you go again – Gesundheit! – I guess it does.

We learn our behaviors through imitation and repetition. We learn our behaviors through imitation and repetition.

As the paragraph above demonstrated, we sometimes repeat a behavior without knowing why. In primary school, I discovered the works of the behaviorist, B. F. Skinner. [Before that, I read books by psychology and psychiatry “gurus” such as Freud, Adler and Jung but always felt their works about the animal mind (especially, the human mind) missed the vital aspect of animal behavior – after all, we do not respond to other persons’ thinking but to their behavior, either immediately in their presence or delayed by communications devices (notes, letters, telephones, televisions, computers, etc.). Thus, to me, the Freudian focus on what occurs at the thought level reflects more about the history of human culture and the expected behavior of specific humans in a given culture/subculture than it does the actual functioning of the whole human body, including the brain (and unfortunately, the almost universally accepted concept of a mind sitting somewhere in the area behind our eyes and between our ears).] I felt relieved that someone else agreed with me that a “mind” does not exist. Or, at least if we’re going to study humans, we should look only at their behaviors and not build elaborate schemes for second-guessing how a person’s brain (synapse-based storage and processing system) was arranging and rearranging sets of symbols in a higher-order, invisible mind.

Today, the people in the world who are tuned in to their local media outlet are responding to the news that Barack Hussein Obama will be the 44th President of the North American continent’s political organization called the United States of America. If we observe the people’s behavior, we see a range of facial expressions, vocal cord utterances and arm, torso and leg movements. We respond to their behaviors in various ways, including my typing this blog one-handed while holding a sleeping cat in the other arm.

But my responding to the outcome of the election does not concern me. Instead, my interest lies in our behavior in the days ahead. With a new U.S. Presidential administration moving into the White House in 2009, we can change our behavioral patterns of the past and establish new ones. We can stop repeating behaviors that have no purpose other than to show we still use our bodies to imitate, store, retrieve and repeat learned behaviors.

As you get a moment away from your daily set of normal routines, use this change in Presidential officeholder to look for new behaviors that will change and enhance your daily life:

· Turn off the television or step away from the computer to give an evening to greeting a neighbor you’ve never met before and learn about one of his/her unique behaviors/skills like fly fishing, flower arranging or painting; turn around and teach that behavior to someone else on your next “free” evening.

· Take an inventory of your work skills to see if there’s a skill such as file sorting, carpentry, or negotiation you could offer and teach to a volunteer / charitable organization; teach that skill to someone else and then get that person to teach it to another.

· Teach your child a behavior that he or she can use to make life better for anyone, including how to sew a button, change an automobile tire or cook a simple meal on a stove; then get your child to teach that behavior to someone else.

In other words, we can do a lot for each other when the contagious behavior we share is more than just sneezing. Hope we run into one another at a neighbor's house or local charity one day soon. And I know you'll recognize me when I hear you sneeze, because you know what I will say. No, it's not "Gesundheit!" – it's "Teach me more!"