Pilot's Log

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of June 14, 2012

Nineteenth-century Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev once called his fellow novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky a "pimple on the face of literature." But more than a hundred years after that crude dismissal, Dostoyevsky is a much more highly regarded and influential writer than Turgenev. Use this as inspiration, Sagittarius, if you have to deal with anyone's judgmental appraisals of you in the coming days. Their opinions will say more about them than about you. Refresh your understanding of the phenomenon of "projection," in which people superimpose their fantasies and delusions on realities they don't see clearly.

I tried to resign from my officer's post in the Knoxville Modelers Association overday and the other members were trying to talk me out of the move. My reasons are as much practical as emotional; I don't know how much longer I'll stay in the area and the club is better served by somebody who can give it the effort and resources it needs. But they just tried to appeal to my sense of self-esteem and pep talk me. I don't know. If the cheerleader's heart isn't in to cheer, what good is it to the team on the field?

Somehow a spammer sent a message using my address and my Contact List. I don't know how it happened, or who to complain to. Grr.

My apologies to anyone who received the spam message.

PS: A somewhat silver lining...found out which entries of my Contact List were obsolete and cleaned them out. *shrug*

On this weekend devoted to consumerism and gluttony wrapped in a veneer of family-based sentimentality, I'm trying to look beyond to the consequences. Last night, the PBS World channel showed an episode of Independent Lens called "Objectified", about industrial design and its challenges. One of the important points from that program is the fact that most objects today are made for the 10% in this world who are "Haves" and are often designed in ignorance of the needs of the 90% of the world who are "Have-Nots".

I realize that I definitely am a "Have" and as such am in true ignorance of what it means to be a "Have-Not". But I'm sure that everybody reading this also understands that I don't want to experiment with "Have-Not"-ness just for the sake of understanding my fellow man and empathizing with him.

The Internet itself, and everybody who uses it, is by definition a nation of the "Have". There are NO voices from the "Have-Not" camp anywhere to be found, and chances are they would not be welcome. So the politics of the Internet mean nothing to the rest of the world. But at the same time, the power of the Internet can be used to make many many more people into "Haves" if it is used intelligently. I personally don't think I have the power or the resources to do any good for the "Have-Nots" in this world, but at the same time it shouldn't hurt me to try thinking in their terms every so often.