Leveraged Intelligence

The Birthday of My Uncle Con

The name Conrad in my family has been passed down through many generations, beginning in Germany in 1737.  This is my Uncle Con – Edwin Conrad Hake – for whom I am named.  We each carried as our first names the names of our fathers; Edwin in his case, Joseph in mine (although my father is actually Joe, not Joseph … and, no, I am not a junior).  We each have always been called by our middle names, although Uncle Con was called Ed in the US Air Force, in the service of which he lost his life as a bomber pilot over Germany in 1944, I believe on the day that we lost more pilots than any other, a day when it is reported that a cross appeared in the sky.

He would have been 89 yesterday, had life turned out differently, and I always wondered what it would have been like to have known him as my uncle.  I think it would have been marvelous from everything I have heard.  He was an amazing athlete (all-state basketball player) and a natural leader, the type of man who quietly commanded respect by his behavior, not by his insistence.

Clearly a very handsome man, the above picture was taken of him reading a newspaper in England during the war.  The women absolutely loved him.  He could have been arrogant with his qualities of physical attractiveness and athletic prowess.  Not to mention the status of becoming an air force bomber pilot.  He obviously had the top coin in the realm of American popularity.  He could have gotten away with mistreating those “below” him.  But, he didn’t live life that way.

My father, his younger brother, became frustrated at some teasing when they were young and popped his older brother in the nose – bloodying it!  But, Con didn’t cry, didn’t retaliate.  He laughed!  And, told my dad that was a pretty good shot.

Editors note: like with most family stories, there will be some details about this one that I don’t have quite right, LOL.  However, I think this is substantially accurate.

My point is this: I never got to meet you, my namesake.  I was born five years after your death, Uncle.  All I know is this – I would have loved knowing you!  I also know that your loss was SEVERELY felt by your family.  While it is normal to idealize those we lose so young, I think there is a lot of substance to your legend.

I have one last bit of knowledge about you that you would love – I know that you were not EXACTLY six feet tall!

Laughing ‘til the Tears Roll Down

There is cerebral humor, the type that you really enjoy, the type you comment upon, the type that often makes a point and makes you think.  Then … there is humor that goes so immediately to something so primitive, so deeply seated, that all you can do is laugh ‘til the tears roll:

Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Harvey Korman – they were masters of this.  Enough said, for here is another of my favorites from their show.  Enjoy:

A Person, Place, Thing or Idea

They call it the Annus Mirabilis of Albert Einstein, the year 1905.  In one burst of genius virtually unparalleled,  he produced four papers that year and a doctoral thesis.  Every one of the papers was Nobel Prize caliber and every one of them helped shape our modern world.

The first three papers, remarkably were all published in the same journal, Annalen der Physik 17.  This is what they each essentially accomplished:

Explanation of the Photoelectric Effect – for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 – described light as composed of photons and led to the quantum revolution in physics.

Explanation of Brownian Motion of small particles in liquids.  This indirectly confirmed the existence of atoms and molecules.

Special Relativity.  Perhaps you have heard of this one!  It ushered in a whole new way of understanding space and time and tossed our understanding of what we perceive on its head.

His fourth paper was a further work on Special Relativity and introduced the famous E = mc2.

And, did I tell you he also did a Doctoral Thesis that year?

Years later, after the Nazis had run him out of Germany in 1933, he was courted by the best American academic institutions.  He was at Stanford and they were showing him all the magnificent scientific instruments and tremendous facilities they had and he was like a kid in a candy shop.  When one of the professors turned to his wife Elsa and asked her if she thought he was impressed, she told them that he loved it – but that they needed to realize he could do more than all that on the back of a postcard.

From his theories, nuclear energy has grown, the LASER – which he spelled out as possible – was developed, and the list of derivative inventions in many ways frame the Twentieth Century and beyond.  But, he only invented and patented one item himself – a refrigeration unit.

Just think.  Instead of all that academic stuff in his head … we could be seeing a quite wealthy Einstein legacy of Frigidaires with his picture right on the front!

This is another Friday offering in the Loose Bloggers Consortium, the list of whom are on the left.  The Magpie came up with this topic – so I tried to channel him in its creation!  Please take some time to enjoy the writings of the others on such a broad theme.  I have no idea what they will write, but it is always interesting, fun and thought provoking.

My Little Warrior

She isn’t very big, just a smidge over 5 ft. tall (about 153 centimeters).  A smidge is just about this much – ||.  And, she can seem quite civilized as you can see above.

Yet, we find that going to New Zealand has brought out a different side: a mini Maori Warrior Princess!  She texted this message to me on Sunday:

I’m about to dress in warrior clothes, get my face painted with traditional markings, and do the haka!

I show you the Maori Haka from YouTube:

She said that only the men stick out their tongues – as though that would make me feel better.   Her group was videotaped performing it (not the group above, no) and then put on a DVD that she will be bringing home in June.

But … I’m almost afraid to bring her home …

A Visit … To The Barber

Our LBC topic this week is on a Visit or Visitors.  You can read the takes of others on this topic, suggested by Grannymar, by using the links to the Loose Bloggers Consortium members on the left.

Each week we take a single topic tossed in by a member and then we write on it totally independently, posting simultaneously.  This might yield anything from the silly to the sublime.  But, what you can guarantee is that it will be fun and unique!

My idea is to write on the American ritual chore right behind mowing the lawn in regularity and popularity – visiting the barber.  It takes time, it takes money, and often the result isn’t exactly what you were hoping for.

I have found a solution to this that works very nicely for me, thank you very much and I thought I would present it to you in the following video:

Excuse Me … NOT!

Kinman Chan, a 30-year old man from San Francisco, has claimed that he ransacked an airplane bathroom and emerged with his pants down, screaming and then grappled with flight attendants because he had take TWO marijuana cookies rather than his customary ONE marijuana cookie.  It forced the Philadelphia to Los Angeles flight to land in Pittsburgh.

According to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh, this doesn’t have far reaching implications.

"I think everybody knows that marijuana doesn’t cause this sort of behavior," he said. "I don’t think this guy’s claims are going to have much affect beyond this little story."
Regarding Chan’s medical marijuana cookies, a chuckling Smith adds, "Maybe it was the sugar."

I’m glad, because I just got this prescription filled from my accountant:

Just Play the Hand You Are Dealt

Friday I went for my semi-annual physical.  My numbers were pretty good.  But, I described the last two months of 2009 to my physician and what I experienced from them.  So … he took me to the woodshed …

Let me back up a bit for you.  My father had his first heart attack at the age of 46.  Then in 1984, he had a triple bypass – and the doctors told Mom that his prognosis was probably about five years.  So, he’s already beat them by about twenty-one years and he is cranking along as we speak, mostly because he has followed a strict physical regimen of exercise and diet.  It’s always been more struggle than he would have wished since that heart attack, though.  And, he passed a whole lot of those genes along to me!

Like him, I am determined to hang around as long as possible.  I have a lot that I want to share with my family and friends, a lot that I want to experience and learn – and I’ve really got some questions about how this world will turn out!  Add to that the fact that I didn’t have Carly until I was 40 and would like to watch her and her kids go as far as possible.  Besides, if she feels anything about me like I do my folks, I want to be here for her as long as I can.  I want to be healthy enough to travel to where she is, too, as far as that goes.

So, I am shooting for my nineties with an option to extend the warranty.  That’s why I took all the stern advice my physician gave me on Friday to heart!  He said that with my family inheritance (genes), he already was treating me in the same way that he treats people who have had a heart attack and he wants me to do the same.  So, he told me to control those factors that I can control and control them strictly.  To underline the importance of rest, exercise and diet, he told me that if I find a time constraint where I can’t eat and exercise both during the day – skip eating!  And, if someone requires me to work late hours to make money or keep people in a warehouse in business – go poor and let others find a way to keep going temporarily by other means.  And, last, he told me to keep my emotions under control.  To stay calm.

These are all things I can and will do.  And, I add another healthy hand to this, dealt to me by Maynardo the Magnificent:

I’ve got to see how these characters grow up.

As Ramana would say, “Thathaasthu.”  Or, as we would say in America – Amen to that Brother!

Groundhog Day!

Every year on February 2nd, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a groundhog named Phil is taken from his den to see if he sees his shadow.  If he does, there will be six more weeks of winter – although, a grey day would seem to indicate that to me, but .. – and this is obviously important to our people, our agriculture, our economy, etc.  Well, I had heard that the original Phil died last year or the year before.  So, they put in a new groundhog.

I couldn’t get a clear picture, but I think I may recognize this groundhog in PA …

Gentle Humor: Frank and Ernest

One of the beauties of ripening like a fine wine – also known as aging – is the growing appreciation of gentle intelligence.  We have spoken a bit about religion and Christianity lately, but I think it is in the small everyday things that we find peace accomplished, not just in the sanctuary.

Gentle humor isn’t a bad place to start.  Some think that humor must be cutting to be intelligent.  They would miss the intelligence of a Johnny Carson.  And … they would miss the quiet gentle humor of a Thaves.

The Perfect Life

This piece is part of the Loose Blogger’s Consortium series that appears on Fridays.  And, these are a blast.  This topic really was a stumper, Ramana Rajgopaul!

You can find the other members’ names – and they will be tackling this same subject – on the left.

As I write this, there are approximately 6,980,353,928 answers to the question, “What is a perfect life?”  Everyone is born with different circumstances, different abilities and different challenges.  We try to approach the question through so many of our disciplines, to give guidance that all can follow even though each fulfills unique values in life. So, let’s look at three sources.

———————————————————————–

Matthew 5:48 – Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. – From Christ’s Sermon on the Mount

The above picture is Bloch’s painting of The Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount is the core teaching of Christ’s ministry.  Even for those quite opposed to religion, it is worth reading, as it would seem to be the most succinct guideline to “perfection” from Christ’s pronouncements.  It might also make you wonder how we derived the Christian religion as practiced after you have read it.  It is in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapters 5, 6 and 7.

It is the realization of how far short that we fall that most Christians take as our lot in life and that only through the salvation of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross that we can gain entry to what would be called a perfect life.  However, this seems to me to, in part, be an avoidance of a direct commandment from Christ to His followers.

———————————————————————–

Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu – chapter 16

The following is a translation by Jane English with Gia-Fu Feng.

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

I’ve always liked the Tao Te Ching.

———————————————————————–

The Perfect Height

The best, however, I save for last,  insight that came from a very unexpected source.   When my uncle, my father’s brother lost over Germany in World War II – my namesake – was in high school, he was asked by an older woman how tall he was.  When he answered, “Six feet tall,” she had to correct him.  “Oh no, dear.” she said, “Only our Lord Jesus was exactly six feet tall.”

From this, we can see that we have ONE truly objective measure of perfection in life – you must be precisely six feet in height.  I assume this is true for women also.  It is also clear that anyone currently taller than six feet, unless they were momentarily perfect, discretely jumped from five feet eleven+++ inches to six feet zero+++ inches skipping over the perfect height.  Alternately, you must assume not only that they were temporarily perfect, they were actually Jesus momentarily, which seems unlikely.  However, God does work in mysterious ways.

Somehow, I find this last definition of perfection to be the best I have ever heard.