If you've managed to find your way to this site, you obviously can see that I'm no longer updating it. Just another one of the abandoned blogs that litter my writing past.

An old friend of mine once commented that he couldn't find his way back to a post he had stumbled upon because I had "so many damn blogs." Some people collect cars, trophy wives, and other accoutrements of American privilege. Lacking that capacity, I collect blogs.

My newest blog and one I hope has a run like this one is located at the Jim Baumer Experience. It's where I'm posting what I have to say from here on out. I hope you'll become a regular over there.

I've loved posting here and in fact, it's where I cut my blogging teeth. I still find my way back here from time to time to follow the bread crumbs of my writing back to an earlier time, checking on my views and things I was thinking about at the time, five, six, and even eight years ago.

An example of a former post that I've been going back to regularly is this one, a piece that I consider one of my best, at least on politics.

Cheers!

Endings...and a new beginning

For the past five years, and 832 posts, some fair, the occasional unhinged rant, and some that were good and even great, I've decided to call it quits, at least here at Words Matter.

I've been looking for a way to consolidate my online profile and my writing, and I've done that over at jimbaumer.com.

From here on out, if you want to read my blogging (which will continue, in a somewhat altered format), then the home page at that site is where to find me.

I've appreciated the many visitors over my time here, as well as the handful of regulars that have come and gone. I remain passionate about many things that prompted me to get rolling and embrace the blogging platform, and I'll continue to share them from to time via my blog at the new site.

News matters

I no longer subscribe to a daily newspaper. I once had dual sources of news delivered to the house. Then it was down to one, and for the past two years, my news tube, sitting lonely at the edge of the road, serves as a beacon and reminder of what once was.

I still enjoy news, and reading good writing. I find my news fix online, as many people now do. I also enjoy keeping up on what's going on as print journalism changes, with some saying that it is spiraling to its death.

A regular source for reading about the media has become the Columbia Journalism Review. I even think I'm breaking down and adding a subscription (as a replacement for my expired WSJ news allowance).

A recent article on how newspapers alienate those (like mine did with me) that actually read them, by Lisa Anderson, was particularly good. I also thought this comment was pertinent to the piece, by someone that posts as MB. This person compares the demise of newspapers to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, an interesting analogy, I thought, and one I've never considered:

So I've given this whole issue a lot of thought and my current take on the situation is to not buy into the myth that technology killed the newspapers. I am now looking at the newspaper crisis as like that of the Dust Bowl in the '30's. The Dust Bowl was an agrarian, human, and economic catastrophe that had multiple consequences and causes. But no one would ever say that our civilization no longer needs farming or its products because the economic model failed in the 1930's. The Dust Bowl was caused by climate change in combination with damaging farming practices such as the failure to rotate crops. Their drought might be comparable to the collapse of advertising which supported print media so well for so long. And as farming developed an exploitative relationship with the land, it may be fair to say that media consolidation resulted in comparable consequences that could not sustain good journalism when the soil dried up and the wind blew away the shallow roots.

One enduring aftermath of the Dust Bowl is the collapse of family farms and the rise of giant agri-business, which Michael Pollan links so compellingly to our nation's energy and obesity crises. Good journalism might be comparable to the practice of crop rotation; it's failure might be one important factor contributing to journalism's dust bowl. I think an overlooked climate change issue is the collapse of advertising which may have been a canary in the economic coal mine suggesting that the real economy began to decline much earlier than its official onset in 2007/2008 (and might be far worse than officially acknowledged). If our culture shifts swiftly and entirely to electronic media, I believe we will experience troubling outcomes such as an unwitting apartheid of important information that reaches the desk-based workforce but leaves out other, important groups of our population. So I recognize the significance of the disruptive changes of our time but it's too easy to blame the internet.

If you are a fan of Twitter, Jay Rosen's feed there is another good source for staying current on the conversation about all things media.

Ditching Dirigo

There are some things that a state wants to be a leader in--quality of life, abundant natural resources, jobs that pay a living wage--I’m not sure that having Allen’s Coffee Brandy as your drink of choice is one of those. Then again, Maine’s been carrying the torch for the “syrupy 70-proof liquor” for more than two decades now. There are probably several reasons for this, I’m sure much of it socio-economic.

You wouldn’t gather that from the Allen’s company site, and their marketing “happy talk,” of course. Here’s their take on why Mainers love the taste of the brand. Of course, the company is quite pleased that Mainers love Allen’s:

Coffee is extremely popular throughout New England. People in Maine love coffee and products with a genuine, pronounced coffee flavor. Allen’s probably has the truest coffee taste. Coffee liqueurs and some other coffee flavored brandies tend to be sweet, Allen’s focuses on the coffee flavor not additional sweetness. Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy uses a natural extract from Brazilian coffee beans.

People in Maine have found that Allen’s CFB makes the perfect sombrero. Sombreros were first made with coffee brandy, sombreros made with coffee liqueurs came later. Consumers may also consider Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy to be a great value as opposed to imported coffee liqueurs.

If you do a Google search for “Allen’s Coffee Brandy” and “Maine,” it brings you to an investigative set of articles, probably one of the most thorough journalistic pieces done on the Allen’s phenomenon in Maine. Interestingly, it was done over a decade ago, and was part of a series in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, when the newspaper was still a viable newspaper, and practiced journalism.

In one of my interviews for Moxietown, John Leheney, chief historian for the New England Moxie Congress shared with me a popular drink with the Maine Moxie crowd, and of course it involves both the diet version of their vaunted tonic and Allen’s Coffee Brandy. It’s called a “Welfare Mom.” (see #3)

Maybe Maine should scrap the Dirigo symbol and adopt a jug of Allen’s as our state symbol? What are some other dubious "honors" that states would rather not publicize, like Maine and Allen's?

The Obama jobs plan

President Obama visited neighboring New Hampshire yesterday, announcing a plan that provides $30 billion in loans for small businesses designed to stimulate hiring and create jobs.

The political event, staged at Nashua North High School, played on a theme, one that has become a chosen vehicle for politicians--the faux town hall.

Mr. Obama told the crowd that creating jobs is his number one priority. He also made it clear he was not backing away from health care. The crowd gave him several standing ovations when he talked about the importance of passing health care reform.

[Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images / February 2, 2010 ]

Here's the interesting thing about all this rhetoric about jobs, healthcare, and whatever else the politician of the day is sputtering on about. Rarely does talk translate into action. Campaigning and electioneering is vastly different than governing. Regardless of how skilled someone is on the campaign side of things--and Mr. Obama is certainly a persuasive and charismatic campaigner--getting Congress and the opposition to buy into your plans, and putting together programs that actually work are a horse of a different color.

Not everyone is convinced that the President's jobs plan will work. Even among progressives, generally sympathetic to Mr. Obama and his policies, there are doubts about the efficacy of this recent loan plan.

John Schmitt, an economist for the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), said that extending more loans to small businesses may not have as big an impact as some might hope. While a lack of credit is clearly a problem for small businesses, he said, a much bigger problem they face is a lack of customer demand.

"Without demand in the economy for the goods and services of small business, the availability of credit is just not sufficient," he said.

Dean Baker, co-director of CEPR echoed Schmitt's concern about the demand side affecting small businesses in the U.S. Baker indicates that studies show that demand for labor isn't affected much by lowering the cost to employers, which is what the $5,000 tax credit for each new hire essentially does.

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says many questions remain about how the government could actually measure an increase in credit availability to small businesses.

In an email to ABCNews.com, O'Neill posed the following questions about the plan.

"How will we be able to see and measure incremental credit availability to small businesses? How much credit availability currently exists for small businesses? Are there credit worthy businesses that are being turned down?"

O'Neill also cited additional concerns he had.

"Credit worthy means there is a high probability the borrower will pay back the loan in the agreed time with the agreed interest payment. How will the community banks be selected to receive the incremental money? How long will it take to get this money into the system?"

The urgency is great for the president to be able to show something tangible to the American people. Eight million jobs have been lost in this current recession. With 27 million either unemployed or working in jobs with too few hours, there is a need to add about 10 million new jobs just to return to the prerecession unemployment levels of 4.9 percent. As the Economic Policy Institute explained, "Each month we need to create 127,000 jobs just to keep unemployment from rising. Therefore, we actually need 10.9 million new jobs to get us back to 4.9 percent unemployment."

Politics is one thing, but our current predicament and excessive unemployment calls for much more from the President.

Music for moving forward

A small percentage of people are interested in moving their lives forward. A smaller group are actually taking steps towards making that happen.

Maslowe himself estimated that the number of those people might be as small is two percent!

Singer/songwriter Kasey Anderson is probably one of those people. Back in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, after spending eight years in Bellingham, Washington, Anderson's new record chronicles the process of change. According to Anderson, Nowhere Nights is "equal parts charge, benediction, apology and indictment,” chronicling his artistic coming of age.

From his website's bio section, Anderson lays out in song the circumstances behind, and the reasons for, his own personal renewal.

"For almost a decade I lived in this insulated little community,” Anderson says of Bellingham, Washington, where he spent eight years before moving back to his hometown of Portland, Oregon in 2007. “I woke up one morning and just knew it was time. I was numb all over. I was just a perpetual fuckup, y’know? Burning everything around me and then wondering why I smelled like smoke. I had to get out.”

I love that last line, especially since I know all about "smelling like smoke."

The face in the mirror

It's important to periodically take a personal inventory and assess what's working, and what's not. If this rare event does take place, I'm guessing that it tends to occur at the beginning of a new year. From this process, new resolutions are made, and occasionally, real change does ensue for a few.

I just completed W. Somerset Maugham's book, The Summing Up, which was his autobiographical accounting of his life, including Maugham's thoughts on writing, literature, philosophy, and religion. Maugham, on the other hand, insisted that it wasn't an autobiography.

The book was much better than I thought it would be. One of a stack of books that my son left in his room upon returning to his MFA pursuits after a visit during the holidays, I perused the worn, dog-eared cover and set out reading through the 189 page book (at least the Signet Classic version).

Like Maugham, I've been reminiscing about my life. While he was 64 and set out to leave a more extensive account than I'm planning, the book and my 48th birthday have given me the push to perform an extensive accounting of the positives and not so positive aspects of my own life.

Additionally, I'm in the process of updating my online presence and soon will have a new website up that I hope will finally pull together my somewhat scattered digital profile and disparate blogging activity. That undertaking has forced me to reevaluate my brand, revisit my bio, and reconsider what services on the writing/publishing side are worth marketing, and the ones that best leverage my skills and strengths. All of this has been very positive for me. It's helped me see how far I've come over the past eight years, providing me with important perspective that all of us should have. Unfortunately, I think most people are unreflective in general and remain content (or maybe, not so content) to get pulled along by the current.

Interestingly, when I first began this journey to reinvent myself back in 2001, I never envisioned I'd be in the place where I'm at today. I could never picture myself motivating other people to move forward in their own lives, by offering nothing more than my own example. Rather than mere rhetoric and talk, my own pathway and progression is a clear example and demonstration of walking the talk. Instead of offering, "do what I say," I prefer to put forth an idea based in experience and reality. More of, "here is something that I think will work because I've seen the success demonstrated in my own life."

As we travel along life's thoroughfare, we learn of new areas that we need to take a fresh look at. In my own life, despite experiencing success with my writing, my career, and embracing a more optimistic outlook, I recognized an area that I had neglected.

We're so much more than spirit and soul--we also have a physical body. I had neglected to care for my own body, and its fitness needs for over a decade. My weight had been trending upward for years, and like many men approaching middle age, I knew I looked like crap, but had believed the lie that being overweight was part of aging.

I'm happy to report that it's possible to reverse many negative aspects of aging by focusing on one area and targeting it for improvement.

While I'm certainly not a medical professional, and nothing that I offer should be construed as medical advice, I would encourage readers to do some reflection and self-assessment from time to time. Committing to self-improvement is a worthwhile goal.

Even better, I think one of the reasons that we have the societal problems and challenges that we do is less about politicians and policymakers, and more about our own inability, or unwillingness to take an honest look at our own lives and embrace positive change. It's far easier to blame others for our problems.

Food, now beer

What’s going on with Portland, Maine? Nationally recognized magazines continue lining up to sing their praises about the amazing culinary diversity Portland possesses, and now the latest aria now cites Portland for its craft beer.

Maine's closest thing to a city first gets written up late in the summer in renowned food mag, Bon Appétit, knighting Portland as “Foodiest Small Town in America.” So what if city folk consider a place with 60,000 people a small town? Size is relative, I guess.

Then in September, NY Times food writer, Julia Moskin, spent a week eating her way around town. Her article was effusive about the cornucopia of innovatively great restaurants in what I'd call Maine's only city—most of them new and decidedly offbeat.

Good food needs good grog to wash it down with. Along comes another respected publication, The Atlantic, and this time, writer Clay Risen, trumpets Portland’s beer and breweries. Allagash gets mentioned, along with Shipyard, and Peak Organic. Several drinking establishments like usual suspects Gritty’s and Sebago Brewing get a mention. So does Novare Res, which I have yet to try, but plan to do soon.

Portsmouth gets a mention for Smuttynose, a craft brew I really like. Risen notes it as a strategic “pit stop” on that two-hour drive between Portland, and Boston to the south. I concur, as I’ve had some great times involving food and drink in Portsmouth.

Maine’s winters are long, and given today’s blast of rain and wind, fickle and unpredictable, but Portland and other communities up and down the state's landscape offer up a wealth of places to eat and drink away our darkest season.

A year older

Change and self improvement is mostly a journey of one. While there are significant numbers of people that have chosen to do the necessary work to move forward on their yoyage to wherever--success, self-actualization--regardless of how you unpack the process, there are many others that remain content to stay stuck in their rut. These people wallow in their own pathetic misery, and sure as hell don't want to hear about your weight loss, successes, books you've completed, and goals you are striving for.

That's the double-edged sword that comes when you make positive changes in your own life. If you share it with others, some will want to throw it back in your face, mock your accomplishments, and belittle any attempts not to stay in the same small little place.

January 23 is my birthday. I looked up celebrities that share this symbolic date with me. Most of them are people I know little, or nothing about, and appear to be D-list celebrities at best. I did note that two amazing guitarists--Johnny Winter and Django Reinhardt--as well as Cheap Trick lead singer, Robin Zander were born on this date. I liked learning this, given my interest in music and love of the guitar, an instrument that I occasionally pick up for a season and enjoy noodling around on.

2009 has been a good year, at least its second half. Actually, let me back up. I've been on a journey now for the past seven years. If pressed to characterize where I'm headed, I'd tell you it's to be the best that I can be. Even that doesn't do justice to, or capture my intentions exactly.

I'm somewhat reluctant to expand on that riff right now for several reasons that I prefer not to elaborate on for now. One being that it's early in the morning and I'm not looking to write an extensive post.

I've been pleased with the progress I've made on the fitness front. Losing 52 pounds and getting in shape for the first time in over a decade has been positive for me. By and large, the work I do to make a living is fulfilling and provides me with a meaninful outlet for the skills I've managed to acquire, often by living, and learning from past mistakes. I have a partner that loves me and does her best to understand me in my complexity and allows me the space to breath and grow.

As I move out into the new year, I sense I'm at some kind of crossroads with my writing. I haven't had my usual spark to write that I've had in the past. This may have something to do with having a finite pool of energy and possibly some of that has been siphoned off by my physical pursuits. I think, also, I've been censoring myself. Too often, I find myself thinking about who might be reading what I write, and what would they think of me, particularly if I just unloaded everything, much in the way that I used to, when I started the blog back in 2004, as a place to vent and air my frustrations, which were legion.

I just picked up a book on writing by Nelson Algren, Nonconformity: Writing on Writing. Algren takes aim at timid writing and writers that lose their vitality, in order to conform to society's conventions and mores. The words bite, and seem directed in my way. What is the role of the writer in the world? Are writers still vital, or has any remaining life been bled from the written word by technology's demands for brevity, reducing everything to a cliche, or a 140 character string? I'm not sure Algren's book can answer that, but I hope that it helps in refocusing me and points me in a direction that offers clarity.

My birthday horoscope:

Today's pragmatic Taurus Moon reminds us to use our common sense before embarking on an unrealistic venture. We may feel as if we are at odds with others because the Moon squares the Sun, Venus and Mars, stirring up discord in relationships. Luckily, the dynamic energy can encourage creativity if we aren't overly stubborn. The Moon's easygoing trine to interactive Mercury indicates that communication is the key to resolving the problems of the day.

Panic on the left, paranoia on the right

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

[from "The Paranoid Style in American Politics"
By Richard Hofstadter
Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86.]

Anger and the mediocrity of the ruling class

I’ve begun reading W. Somerset Maugham’s The Summing Up, part autobiography, blended with Maugham’s philosophical observations on life, as well as reflections on religion, morality, and the human condition.

Today, I couldn’t help recalling the passage I read the other night, considering all the hoopla about the special election to our south, in Massachusetts. Written in 1938, Maugham’s observation still rings true, given our usual choice of tweedle dum, or tweedle dee, come election time.

I have known in various countries a good many politicians who have attained high office. I have continued to be puzzled by what seemed to me the mediocrity of their minds. I have found them ill-informed upon the ordinary affairs of life, and I have not often discovered in them either subtlety of intellect or liveliness of imagination.

I keep hearing reports that the voters are “angry.” Angry, angry, angry! What are they so angry about? Maybe these voters need to do some work on themselves and figure out why they’re so pissed, instead of thinking that Scott Brown will be their Mr. Smith.

I’ve given up believing that elections and the politicians that they inflict upon us matter much anymore. I’d much rather focus my energies on the people that matter to me, pursuits that bring me pleasure—like reading and writing—and trying to minimize stress and strife in my own life, which politics inevitably increases. Oh, and stay as far away as I can from angry voters intent on inflicting their ideological anger on me.

This is not a food blog

The world of weight loss is fraught with advice on how to shed excess pounds. Some of it works. Established methods, like Weight Watchers, seems to work for many Americans. My mom is a lifetime member and is as trim at 71 as she has ever been. A close friend of Mary and me just lost 69 pounds utilizing the Weight Watchers program.

For others, all the advice in the world seems to do little, or nothing to move them from the world of weight gain and fretting, to loss and then, the hard part, maintenance. The reasons for this, I think are fairly complex. One person's weight loss success story is another one's recipe for disaster. That's why everyone has to find something that works for them.

Sometimes I think the answer lies less in denying ourselves food than finding a way to enjoy good food, in smaller amounts. Michael Pollan touches on this in his books, most notably, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. Notice that "eater's" is in the title.

For both Mary and me, we're less about cutting foods from our diet than eating smaller portions, giving exercise a prominent place in our lives, and enjoying food in a way that we haven't before. Good food is good fun. Locally grown foods, particularly plant-based have found their way into our diets in many new combinations, and methods of preparation.

One of my favorite sandwiches is a Reuben. Not a new food, and certainly not a low calorie one, or low fat by any stretch of the imagination. Corned Beef is a fatty meat. Swiss cheese isn't too bad as cheeses go, and sauerkraut might be one of the healthiest toppings you could add to any sandwich. Russian dressing isn't going to make it onto any top ten lists for diet condiments.


Not only do I like Reubens, I love french fries with it. That means that a meal with a Reuben can be loaded with calories and wouldn't be something that weight conscious folks would keep around, right?

Actually, I enjoy a Reuben fairly regularly. I still like french fries, although Mary and I have tended to make our own oven fries, courtesy of a recipe from one of the Moosewood cookbooks.

This weekend, we added a new twist to our Reuben and fries routine. Mary went to the farmers' market in Brunswick and at my insistence, picked up turnips from our friends at Six River Farm, in Bowdoinham.

As a German, I have an affinity for root veggies--carrots, turnips, rutabaga--all of them are wonderful to me.

Several weeks back, we sliced up some white turnips, drizzled them with olive oil and baked them in the oven. They were a wonderful accompaniment to pork chops. Amazingly sweet, and a lot less calories than traditional potatoes.

Well this week, we used regular turnips (not as sweet as the white turnips, we thought) and sliced them like french fries and did the olive oil and baking routine (with a dash of sea salt).

What an awesome alternative to traditional french fried potatoes, and a new accompaniment to the Reuben sandwich.

I enjoyed a nice Belgian dark ale with my meal.

This might not work for everyone looking to lose weight, or maintain a 52 pound weight drop, but it's working for Mary and me.

Calorie count:

Reuben sandwich 425 calories 44 grams of fat
Turnip fries 250 calories 20.5 grams of fat
Belgian dark ale 155 calories

Failed resolutions

New Years Eve and it's hard to believe, another Zodiac's gone around
While you drank yourself high on hoping, and watched the ceiling spin from the ground

Counting down from ten it's time, to make your annual prayer
Secret Santa in the sky, when will I get my share

Then you tell yourself, what you want to hear
Cause you have to believe, this will be my year
[From Semisonic’s “This Will Be My Year,” from the album, Feeling Strangely Fine]


Planet Fitness has been running a special in January where new members can join for $1. This promotion intersects perfectly with the New Year’s resolution mindset that characterizes the crowd making a few feel good changes early in 2010. Most of these will be gone by the wayside come the first of February, casualties of their noble intentions that didn’t count the costs associated, or understand what it takes to be successful.

How do I know this? Because New Year’s resolutions are the crutches that I used to try to prop up my own pathetic attempts to make changes each and every roll over of the calendar, or as Dan Wilson of Semisonic sang, “another Zodiac's gone around.”

I’ve been a regular at Planet Fitness since the first of November. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to moving my fitness activities indoors in late October, but the days were shortening, and I knew my cycling was coming to a close for 2009. With resignation, I reluctantly began searching for a gym to continue the level of physical activity I knew I would need to engage in if I wanted to stay fit, and keep my newfound slimness intact.

The word on the street was that the Auburn PF location was a good one, and for the past 10 weeks, I’ve been working out like clockwork, three times each week. Given the demands of life and work, I knew early mornings would be best for me, although I did experiment with some other options, like lunchtimes, and mid-afternoons.

Since the Auburn location opens at 5:00 a.m., Monday through Friday, that’s the time I shoot for as I’ve become locked into showing up each Tuesday and Thursday, and am able to get in an hour of cardio and an hour of weights. Then, Sunday morning, I’m there at 7:00, when they open. I wish they were open earlier, as I’d love to be able to keep with my 5:00 a.m. time slot I have during the work week.

One of the benefits of these early morning workouts is that the group that is able to roll out of the sack at this early hour tends to be a bit older, and is mostly made up with the kinds of gym members that have been working out for a long time. What this means for me is that this crowd has a similar mindset as I do—get in, get busy, and get out. As a result, I’m actually enjoying my early morning chances to huff, puff, sweat, and push some weights around.

This past week has been a bit of a challenge, however. Tuesday morning, when I arrived a bit late, at 5:15, I could see the parking lot was already quite full. Entering the well-lit gym, most of the cardio equipment, particularly the treadmills, was being utilized. I figured that many of these were enticed by the $1 offer to get fit, as I didn’t recognize them as regulars.

My wife, who works out at Coastal Fitness in Westbrook has been complaining all week that she’s had trouble getting on the cardio equipment because of the flood of new members who have shown up. I imagine that if I went in the PM to PF in Auburn, I’d run into the same kind of cattle call.

An early morning appointment in Fairfield prevented me from keeping my customary morning fitness appointment this past Thursday, so I went yesterday morning instead. The gym was virtually deserted when I jumped on the elliptical trainer at 5:10. By 5:30, there were 15-20 people working out. I was pleasantly surprised. I knew that most of the $1 set would be gone by early February, but after one week? So much for sticking with those New Year’s fitness plans.

I found it somewhat comical watching two rather large women who I guessed were two of the 100 new members who have been joining daily in Auburn. Apparently by Friday none but these two were motivated enough to get up early on a bitterly cold morning to sweat off some fat. While these ladies were at the gym, they weren’t doing much to raise their heart rate and burn calories. In fact, when I walked by the wall of exercise equipment near the locker rooms, they were lounging on the back equipment, doing nothing but talking. After working working their gums, they made their way to the arc trainers where they spent about 15 minutes and barely broke a sweat. Then, after another 10 minutes on the treadmill, both were out the door, just as I was readying to hit the weights after my 30 minute cardio warm up.

I’m betting that they felt good about burning their 250 calories each, and probably both treated themselves to a carbo death wheel, aka, a bagel, surely loaded with cream cheese and some high calorie coffee drink with whip cream.

Since I began coming to Planet Fitness, there has been a group of men, some my age, a few older, and one younger gentleman that lift a lot of weights each morning when I’m there Monday-Friday. I can tell by the amount of weight they lift, their demeanor, and their upper bodies that these guys are serious. They have become a fitness comfort blanket of sorts for me.

Interestingly, I haven’t seen them since just after Christmas. I’m thinking that they’ve taken a sabbatical until after the fitness wannabes clear out.

New Year’s resolutions don’t work. Lifestyle changes do, however, which is why I’m down 51 pounds, and have been maintaining my weight loss for the past six weeks. It’s based on a simple formula. Reduce calories, increase calories burned, by increasing my level of activity intensity, and stay consistent with my commitment.

Rural matters

Yesterday, I drove north and spent a portion of the day in Jackman, in northern Somerset County, not far from the Canadian border. This represents the far reaches of the workforce district that I cover with the Local Workforce Investment Board that I work for.

I went at the behest of a community partner who belongs to a group that I also am part of that meets monthly in Skowhegan, after she chided our group that "Skowhegan is not Somerset County." Her point resonated with me, as I realized that in three years in my position, I had never taken the time to visit the Moose River Valley, assess some of their issues on the workforce development side, and meet some of the key members of the community. Shame on me for this.

This behavior is clearly not acceptable for someone that has written regularly about rural Maine, and in fact, my first book detailed how small communities have been affected by a variety of changes since WWII, using the metaphor of baseball to track many of the shifts occurring in small town Maine (and by extension, small town America). Yet, in an official capacity, I had neglected a portion of my region. My colleague's point was an accurate one, as I learned from during my four hour visit.

Spending time in Jackman, and having the opportunity to meet some key leaders in town--school officials, a manager from Moose River Lumber, and other community movers and shakers--as well as being granted a chance to speak to the Jackman Leadership Group, which meets monthly to work on key initiatives in the town--made yesterday a worthwhile visit. There is a positive energy present in the community, one that I wouldn't have known about without visiting. Their school and its principal and superintendent are developing innovative programs, some of them with the potential to act as economic incubators. Moose River's mill is one of the most technologically advanced facilities east of the Mississippi. All of this wasn't surprising, based on my experiences visiting other rural areas of the state.

I plan on unpacking some thoughts I have, mainly about workforce development, over at Working in Maine in the near future. I also plan to touch on some of the struggles affecting rural communities not only in Maine, or nationwide.

Unfortunately, both federal and state policies often work against promoting economic vitality for the almost 60 million Americans living in areas classified as local. Nowhere is this more obvious than with rural schools, which are often the centerpiece of life in this small towns. In Maine, its been the insistence of the current administration to consolidate schools. This plan is misguided at best, in my opinion, as I've stated before.

Understanding the culture of people and place is important. I think one of the primary reasons that some journalists miss the real story, and politicians and state and federal policymakers often get it wrong when it comes to laws and regulations affecting rural America, is that they either don't care, or rarely take the time to really understand that culture. Merely making a campaign stop won't provide the depth of understanding required, and neither do perfunctory visits to pseudo-rural communities.

More to follow on this topic.

God's people snowed in once again

What is it about snow that's become the 21st century's version of a biblical plague for church people? When it starts to snow, you can be sure that the people of God are incapable of mobilizing and making it to church.

I've touched on this before in greater detail, but it still seems like the greatest of ironies. Don't tell me about how great your God is, how he's blessed you with riches because you've got the power of positive visualization going on, and then, when a few flakes begin falling, the cancellations of chuch services start filling the scroll at the bottom of my nightly newscast, made up almost entirely of Sunday services being called off.

When I was a member of a band of bibical literalists during my fundamentalist wanderings, preacher after preacher railed against us for our lack of belief--usually the context involved some variation on trusting God to take care of us, after we gave our last dime to him, or his church--with a wealth of scriptural examples of God's people trusting him for their safety and deliverance. Apparently, snow has become God's kryptonite, as any weekend snowstorm inevitably means that Sunday services will be the exception, rather than the rule.

I think this illustrates really well how irrelevant that Xianity has become in the 21st century (if it hadn't already shown its ineffectiveness as a system prior to now). If your organization gets grounded from snow, and winter weather, how effective are you really? The reality in all of this for me, is that I rarely, if ever meet anyone that self-identifies as a Xian that inspires me. Mainly, they're either about positive affirmations, or telling me what I can and can't do, and worse, trying to dictate government policy propped up by a set of rules and regulations that were ineffective two centuries ago.

Here's my charge to you; if you want to be taken seriously as a societal force, don't let something like a winter snow storm derail you from what I was taught was a weekly duty--attending Sunday services.

Oh, btw--my friends over at the Shiloh are cancelled due to another winter storm.

Shuffle play Friday-Let the countdown begin

Hot Tuna-I See The Light/The Phosphorescent Rat

There have been a wealth of bands and performers over the years occupying my personal upper shelf of favorites. While it’s difficult to isolate and name a solitary artist/band as my all-time favorite, Jorma Kaukonen and Hot Tuna would give the #1 slot a strong push—and depending on the day, Hot Tuna may be the one artist I’d take with me if given one catalog of music to take with me to a remote location—like the proverbial dessert island.

I was a high school freshman during the fall of 1976. Dana Aspinall introduced me to his senior football teammate, and Hot Tuna fan, Paul Bohunicky. I didn’t know much about the band at the time, and wasn’t aware that they were Jorma’s Jefferson Airplane side project. Bohnucky was cranking what I’d later learn was America’s Choice from his Jensen’s perched in the back of his ’69 Rambler. Given that I was always interested in new music, I made my own mental note to check out the record bin at DeOrsey’s the next time I was in Lewiston.

By the end of my sophomore year, I had acquired the entire Hot Tuna catalog, all of it on vinyl, which was the preferred music format of the era, and still my favorite way to listen to music when I have a turntable nearby. Unfortunately, the draconian dictates of the fundamentalist sect I got wrapped up with looked unkindly on rock and roll, and I eventually unloaded my carefully acquired record collection for pennies on the dollar.

I’ve begun reacquiring some of the best of my former collection, picking up the odd gem, and adding back classics like Hot Tuna’s Burgers, America’s Choice, and Yellow Fever on vinyl.

Realizing how much I love music, my lovely wife gave me a gift certificate at BullMoose Records. Ironically, owner Brett Wickard once worked for the long departed DeOrsey’s, before starting his original BullMoose store in Brunswick, while a student at Bowdoin back in the early 1990s.

I still love browsing my way through music (to me, always “record”) stores, and BullMoose still maintains a great physical selection at stores like the one I visited in downtown Brunswick. This is no small fact in our age of iPods and other digital music devices, given that younger (and older alike) listeners no longer believe they should have to pay for others creative genius, causing sales to continue plummeting downward.

When The Phospherescent Rat was released in 1973, Hot Tuna no longer was a sideline endeavor for Kaukonen and bassist extraordinaire, Jack Casady. Jack and Jorma were now fulltime and full throttle committed to the band. Jorma’s songwriting shows it, and Casady’s bass playing is amazing, with few modern players coming close to creating the textures, and even foghorn effects that Casady was getting from gear that is far from today’s technologically advanced equipment.

While many of Tuna’s current fan base clamor for the acoustic, Rev. Gary Davis-style finger-picking songs in the band’s catalog, I’m one of those that loved the heavy, effects-driven mid-70s period. It was during this time that the band was known for three plus hour shows, combining both acoustic, and electric in separate sets, and extended jams. This album was transitional, with songs like “I See The Light,” along with “Sally Where’d You Get Your Liquor From,” hearkening back to the previous Burgers style of folk-rock, and “Easy Now” foreshadowing the full-blown electric inclinations of Jorma and Co.

Jorma and Jack performed in South Portland two weeks ago. I was on the fence about seeing them, but decided against it at the last minute. One of the reasons was that I knew they’d play a lot of great acoustic stuff. For me, however, the electric days are gone, as the amplified storm generated 30 years ago just doesn’t seem the same coming from an older musician, which Jorma certainly is, at this juncture in his career. That’s not a criticism, it’s just part of conundrum of rock and roll, baby boomers, and the nature of what the music once was about, and often is tough to pull off for stalwarts like Kaukonen, Neil Young, the Stones, and others, as they age, some not very gracefully.

Sonic Youth-Teeage Riot/Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth represents the break I made with the music I listened to throughout high school, and the DIY-influenced music that I embraced after coming out the other side of a difficult period immersed in fundamentalist ideology. Bands like Sonic Youth provided a new way of seeing music, even processing personal experiences at the time.

Another piece of recorded music that I once owned, originally possessing it on cassette, released on the Enigma label. As would happen occasionally with a cassette recording, particularly longer recordings (Daydream Nation clocked in at 70:47), the cassette would jam, and sometimes get “eaten” by the cassette player. At some point, my cassette copy became unlistenable, and disappeared from my music collection.

My new copy is on CD. I listened to the first half on my ride to work Wednesday morning, finishing the first run through on my commute home, at night. Subsequent listens defy a sense that this recording is 21 years old.

“Teenage Riot” is anthemic in the best sense of the word’s usage. Driving, propelled by Steve Shelley’s always solid drumming, with paired vocals from Thurston and Kim, this song is fairly straightforward, but not typical, given the band’s penchant for feedback, noise, dissonance, alternate tunings, and guitar skronk.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember the bleakness that many of us felt back in the late 80s, at the tail end of the Reagan presidency. This disc reminds us a bit about the dark days of those years, and cuts through so much of the historical revisionism that’s taken place since.

Here are a portion of German artist/musician/critic Jutta Koether’s liner notes that appear on the CD version I picked up at BullMoose.

Daydream Nation: a picture of a moment, taken with a Polaroid. Though the colors are faded, they were faded when the album was first released…remember? Hearing this music now reveals the power of memory-conceptually dreaming, thinking along with the flow. For that moment, it appeared as a stylized recording, a conceptual work, which allowed for spacey “light listening.” [light listening, indeed!—JB]

Koether, again:

Others thought of Daydream Nation as a perfectly laid out demonstration of the paradox of underground music, a dialectical meltdown, a moment in utopia and regression. To a quite a few people, the whole thing looked and sounded good as well. A breakthrough of unique but also somehow generic independent music.

Sonic Youth have continued making solid and even some excellent subsequent recordings, but nothing approaching the sprawling epic sweep that was Daydream Nation.

Todd Rundgren-Just One Victory/The Very Best Of Todd Rundgren

It might be difficult to truly appreciate Todd Rundgren’s musical genius, removed from the late 1960s/early 1970s context, which saw his star reach its commercial zenith.

While not an obscure talent by any account, as time spent listening to oldies formats will probably allow a listen to one of a string of Rundgren’s hits from the 1970s, it’s rare to find anyone that recognizes his name in a conversation about music. During the 1970s, however, you couldn’t pick up a major music magazine without reading an article on Rundgren.

Rundgren was someone that I was somewhat familiar with during my formative musical development as a pre-teen, browsing, and occasionally buying what I remember as Creem, Circus, or possibly even Rolling Stone, at Robert’s Pharmacy in my hometown of Lisbon Falls, or Victor News, in Lewiston.

Later, my best friend, Dave Gray (who taught us all to think [inside joke]) would tell me of Rundgren’s musical prowess as a mult-instrumentalist, his spiritual inclinations, and other qualities that I obviously had missed in my reading.

Most of my musical purchases over the last 20 years have primarily been rock of the independent variety. The last few years, however, I’ve allowed myself to be less focused on maintaining the self-imposed militancy against so-called corporate rock, and I’ve begun occasionally picking up recordings that seem a bit eclectic, and even mainstream, compared to most of my current CD collection.

Browsing BullMoose, I saw TVBOTR and realized that many of the songs were ones I recognized, and actually really enjoyed. Once in my car, after grabbing a cup of coffee at Little Dog (a great locally-owned coffee shop on Maine Street), it was Rundgren’s CD that found its way into the CD player.

There are wonderful tunes on the CD, in fact, all of the 16 tracks are of the quality that I could listen to them over and over again.

“Just One Victory,” however, contain lyrics that uplift, and promote an optimism that might seem hokey in 2009/2010, but in 1973 still seemed possible, as our sense of what was possible hadn’t been wrung out of us yet.

The Rural Alberta Advantage-Edmonton/Hometowns

My last tune, on the last day of 2009 (most of this is being wrapped up an hour before midnight) is by yet another Canadian band, a special discovery from the last half of 2009. I now know there is a wealth of musical talent north of the U.S. border. The Rural Alberta Advantage is one of several artists that I’m learning about.

The band’s music is rooted in a sense of place—in this case, the vast prairies and mountain ranges of western Canada. I think the music also has a timeless appeal to that sense of geographic rootedness that we all yearn for, and continue to search for. As homogeneity continues to be pushed upon us, from Edmonton, Alberta, to Portland, Maine, songs like the ones that the RAA play connect.

Much of the material was written by Nils Edenloff, the band’s lead singer, and chief songwriter. Edenloff had relocated to the more cosmopolitan and artistically viable Toronto, a journey that countless creative Canadians have made before. What comes across in many of the band’s songs, is that sense that you can take the boy out of the prairie, but you can’t take the prairie, and the distinctiveness of Alberta, out of the boy.

The band plays music that’s acoustic, but rocks as well as anything electrified and cranked to 10. In fact, the driving nature of many of the tracks indicates that rock and roll is an attitude, as much as it is amplification. The arrangements of strummed acoustic guitars, synthesizers, even glockenspiels, work, and make for a rich mix of musical mastery.

Well, 2009 is history, and we’re on to bigger and better things in 2010—music will continue to be part of that journey.

Happy New Year!!

Staying true, and keeping fit

Just before Christmas, I hit a milestone on my fitness journey I began June 23. I have now been walking (as well as biking, lifting weights, and participating in other cardio and strength building activities) the path towards fitness for six months.

What began as disapproval (seeing my weight at 259.5 on the digital scale display), then shifted into the planning stage (how do I lose some weight), and eventually became part of my lifestyle. Changes take time to become personal. For me, personalizing my routine happened almost immediately. By that I mean that I quickly embraced my initial plan of exercise, calorie reduction, and then, as the weeks rolled by, I became acclimated to portion sizes, foods I could eat, and foods I preferred not to eat.

Here are a few things that I have learned in arriving at this stage, with my weight loss fluctuating between 47-50 pounds:

• Change requires positive reinforcement--

Rather than deciding what foods I couldn't eat, I started out by figuring out what my caloric intake should be to maintain my weight where it was, and not gain one additional pound. From there, I then ratcheted back my calories, tracking them via Fitday, which has been a great site for me.

• Find foods that you enjoy, and don't overindulge--

I love cheese. I also like snacks that are salty. I found a great cheese made by Cabot, which has 50 percent less fat. I allowed myself one serving (which was one ounce) in my lunch for work. I also found that pretzels, particularly the mini ones are fairly low in calories and are a nice compliment to my cheese, and my Sara Lee turkey ham.

• Pack your lunch everyday--

I can't emphasize this enough. There are very few options for lunch that are as low-calorie and generally as healthy as packing your own lunch. By the time you can get away from work for lunch, you are generally hungry and when you're hungry, you overindulge. Not a good place to be. Plus, most quick lunch options are heavy in calories, not to mention expensive.

One of the nice perks of packing my own lunch everyday has been the money that I've saved (a minimum of $5-6 a day, which is being conservative, multiplied by two, as Miss Mary has also joined the pack-a-lunch-for-work club), which in these economically trying times, is not a bad thing.

• Find a way to exercise vigorously 3-4 times per week--

I can't emphasize enough the importance of vigorous exercise. For me, I need to burn about 3,500 to 4,000 calories per week to support my love of food and occasional higher calorie outings.

When I began my weight-loss regimen, my calorie intake was about 1,800 to 2,200 calories per day. Over time, I've allowed it to increase to around 2,400 to 2,600 per day (particularly on workout days). Occasionally, usually one day per week, I'll allow myself an extra beer, and a snack of some kind, or Mary will make a meal on the weekend that might be a higher-calorie choice and I'll approach 3,000 calories on the intake side.

Because I've been doing this long enough, I know that given my current routine of going to the gym three times per week, which includes an hour of cardio and an hour of weights, plus one to two sessions on the treadmill on my non-gym days, I can support my current calorie intake schedule. This is a key to where I'm at, which has become a maintenance phase.

Today I'm off from work. Instead of taking the day off from exercise, however, I spent 35 minutes on the treadmill, running for 12 minutes, and maintaining an average of 5.0+ miles per hour intensity level, which burned 375-400 calories.

• Find a weight range you're comfortable with and stay there--

I'm now trending in a weight range that fluctuates between 207 and 210. My goal is to stay south of 210. I have had a couple of upticks over Thanksgiving and recently, over the Christmas holiday, although this morning's weigh-in (prior to my treadmill session) found my weight at 210 on the button!

I generally weigh-in on Monday and then again on Thursday, although sometimes I can't help jumping on the scale more frequently.

Joining the gym has been a pleasant surprise for me. I'm not someone that generally enjoys gyms, but Planet Fitness in Auburn has been a good fit for me.

I'm in my ninth week of gym membership. I now workout early. Two times during the week, I'm at the gym at 5:00 a.m. Then, on Sunday, I arrive at 7:00 (when it opens) and this is usually my most vigorous workout of the week.

While diligence is required and I have to remain focused on staying the course, it's also exciting to be heading into 2010 without having to make a resolution to lose weight.

Invalidation Nation

The range or spectrum of discussion and debate in the U.S. is a narrow one. One could argue that our nation’s corridor of communication continues to contract, mainly along ideological, religious, and even cultural lines, inculcated via changes that are being pushed by technology.

In my own life, I have experienced the difficulty engendered by the pinched parameters of dialogue. Never one to stay rooted in any one place, I first investigated and embraced fundamentalist religion during my early 20s, found solace in political/ideological right-wing posturing during my late 20s and into my 30s, and then, pendulum swinging back to the left after the previous administration’s failure to clearly articulate their position for waging war. These journeys to and fro across the realm of what’s acceptable have provided me with a unique perspective, I think.

Spending time in multiple (often opposing) camps over the course of my adult years, compounded by not growing up in an environment that cultivated thought and exploration of ideas, propelled me to desire a deeper understanding of movements, organizations, and whatever else I decided to become involved in and with.

Regardless of what my affiliation was at the time, I quickly realized that most of the people around me—family, friends, co-workers—knew very little about my frame of reference at the time. Whatever they might know about my religious choice, political leanings, or books and ideas I was interested in and exploring, was miniscule, and often, laughable, if it wasn’t so deeply rooted in a fierce anti-intellectual sense of pride.

I enjoy observing people. Because I don’t travel with your typical coterie of friends and acquaintances, I regularly find myself in solitary situations, sitting in a coffee shop, browsing in bookstores, or having a drink in a bar, taking in the conversations of others. Listening to friends chit chat, weigh-in on national issues, or make small talk about their children, marriages, television shows, and thoughts on food/fitness, to name but a few of the topics I’ve overheard being discussed during the past 30 days, reinforces my own anecdotal belief that 85-90 percent of Americans know little or nothing about anything substantive.

My previous point begs the question, then; what are the substantive topics of debate that you are looking for?

Well, how about something as basic as how are government works? Rarely, if ever, do I run into anyone, ideological hardliner, or not that can outline our tripartite system of governance. Yes, some of the right-wing types that I seem to regularly run up against, think they have the solution to all of the nation’s ills. They know the problem, and they are quick to tell me and anyone else that government can’t solve them—because Rush Limbaugh, or some other talking head told them so.

A case in point is the current debate (if you care to call Fox News, and the WSJ harangues against anything that will remove the least bit of control from large insurance companies, a debate) over health care reform. What percent of Americans do you think have read one, long form narrative journalistic treatment of the subject? I think I’ve read five, at least, that have looked at various aspects of healthcare, its attendant issues of cost, doctor’s responsibilities in this, technology’s role, etc. Even the handful of colleagues that I rub elbows with in my day job—people that are bright and knowledgeable about government policy—didn’t follow through in reading one of the better pieces, about health care costs, after I sent them the link.

I’ve made a point of trying to read as widely as I can, on as many subjects as I can find the time to pursue, in an attempt to be an intellectual person. I don’t hold and advanced degree, and I have never even risen to the level of D-list stature in my writing, blogging, or any other attempt to get my thoughts on ideas into the public square. However, I can honestly say that for the past 10 years, I’ve tried to take a more nuanced view of the world, although, my initial attempts to distance myself from religion, and right-wing ideologues, found me overcompensating with wild swings to the far fringes of left-wing thought and ideas. This is a nether world just as dangerous, in my opinion, with Kool-aid drinking required.

What I am beginning to understand is that distant regions of thought tend to be places where the ideological weeds grow the thickest, and can deprive you of valuable air and vitality required for ideas to flourish. Better, spending too much time hard right, or lunatic left, diminishes the ability to think critically. This I have come to accept as a fact. These far flung regions require straitjacketing via ideology that restrict, rather than encourage open-mindedness.

This topic of free thinking and ideas is one that I rarely stray too far from these days. I now understand this as a consequence of my time spent deep within the inner sanctums of movements, and organizations that regularly demanded strict adherence to a narrow parameter of ideas and thought. Because of this, I now recoil when well-intentioned, and others, not so benign in their intent, tell me that truth lies only within the circumscribed confines of their religion, political party’s platform, or corporate parameters required for inclusion.

I just picked up Barbara Ehrenreich’s newest book, Brightsided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Undermined America. This is the kind of example of an idea, which Ehrenreich appears to have again trained her investigative antenna towards, which when I’m done reviewing, and reading parallel books, studies, etc, I’ll have a better understanding of. In this case, Ehrenreich sets out to shatter the myth that all we need to be happy and successful, is a happy outlook. That’s total BS, but the cult of Pollyanna is so entrenched in the U.S. that if you dare to offer a contrary opinion, you are immediately labeled as a cynic, crank, misanthrope, or worse. What is frightening, as I make my way through the first few chapters of the book, is how Ehrenreich’s clear-headed prose resonates with me, based upon years of experience being told not to feel the way I feel, or hold my particular view on a particular subject, because it wasn’t in line with what was “accepted.”

The other day, after posting my thoughts about Oral Roberts, I had a discussion with two co-workers. One, a lukewarm Catholic, with his own fucked up brand of theology that he was sticking to, and wasn’t being budged by anyone else; the other, I later would find out, was a true believer, who attended a Baptist church I once visited and found too narrow for my open-minded religious views at the time.

The first one, a fat idiot (I know, a needless ad hominem attack), who regularly throws out his opinions with the kind of dogmatic certainty, honed by a daily diet of sports talk radio, faux local news, and 15 minute liturgies once a week that irritates the shit out of me, said to me, “boy, are you cynical,” when I launched my missive on Roberts and religion.

Afterwards, I felt somewhat sorry about being so forceful in my condemnation of religion, particularly as perpetrated by religious hucksters like Roberts, in light of finding about the latter co-worker’s Baptist proclivities. Not necessarily because what I said didn’t contain a good measure of truth, sprinkled with firm (and accepted) theological underpinnings, but because I actually like him, and have found him to be thoughtful, and open-minded, at least compared to the other blowhard. This is a good example of the censoring nature of groupthink.

Hence, my ongoing dilemma in trying to think my way through life, and routinely, running up against legions of others that don’t. What I find so difficult, is that these individuals that don’t think, and don’t see a problem at all with their irrational, anti-intellectual parsing of the various issues, regularly indict my views, which have been framed, more often than not, by honest attempts at arriving at a nuanced understanding.

Are you into Facebook, or Twitter?

Created by Oatmeal

This could have been higher--my intuition towards not being "addicted" to social media led me to answer questions a certain way.

I'm actually embarrassed by some of my answers to the questions, like, have I tweeted while on the can ("yes," he sheepishly replied)? At least I haven't tweeted what I was eating, while I was eating it.

Social media is here to stay, and while I was initially very cold on Twitter as a communications tool, I've warmed considerably, while maintaining my general disdain for Facebook. A recent article in the Washington Post considers the merits of Facebook vs. Twitter.

Interestingly, most of the people I rub elbows via work in Central/Western Maine are pro-Facebook, and many know little or nothing about Twitter. I tend to go the other way on this, given the number of Farmville acolytes inhabiting Facebook, and the general "FML" patois that is rampant there.

Holiday randomness

Anyone who has ever toiled on a diamond, whether Little League, sandlot, or at a higher level, always dreamed they'd have a baseball card of their very own, at least back when baseball cards were all the rage.

On my BlackBerry, I have several Google Alerts set up, one of them alerting me if my own name gets mentioned. Occasionally, something actually comes across the transom that relates to the Jim Baumer of Words Matter. Most often, however, it's some Baumer in Iowa, getting married, or in this case, another Jim Baumer, a former rookie shortstop for the Cincinnati Reds, in 1961, the year before I was actually born. On the left was his very own rookie card, which apparently is fetching $3 on today's baseball card market.

Here is a profile of this Jim Baumer's professional baseball playing career, a somewhat checkered one. He later became a major league GM with Milwaukee, and I occasionally got some joy out of pointing this out to my friends who were baseball fans.