sniff-test: (noun) the test of an electronic circuit during which the experimenter applies power and attempts to detect the success or failure of the circuit by the absence or presence of the smell of something burning. Usually the scent of a component burning indicates failure.

Barbara Ehrenreich, in her new book, has busted "the magical thinking" of The Secret wide open during the tour for her new book Bright-sided
How the Relentless Promotion of Positive
Thinking Has Undermined America. And given permission to cynics like myself to air our long held misgivings and problems with the fad and the book.

There has been entirely too much controversy about whether or not President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, and not enough clear and critical thinking. Apparently pundits get paid by the word.

I find it hilariously hypocritical of those on the right to hold up Martin Luther King as an example of the "ideal" recipient of the award, when only "yesterday" they opposed just about everything Dr. King supported.

I'm thoroughly enjoying listening and watching them flail about their lack of influence over the Nobel committee.

As well, people on the left are pissed at the President because he has continued the country's involvement in two wars despite his campaign promises.

Last night Caryl and I attended the Community Summit on Health Care in Prince George's County. To say that we were disappointed with the direction the meeting took would be an understatement. The panel offered no immediate solutions and presented a Massachusetts-esk mandatory coverage plan that, like the Obama plan, still keeps the corporate scoundrels in charge. In fact it insures (pun intended) the continued profiteering of the insurance companies because it gives them the entire population of Maryland with little or no strings attached.

Ask a group of Unitarian Universalists why they became part of the faith--or movement as some would say, and you will often hear stories about early traumas at the hands of abusive or neglectful religious leaders, teachers, or laity. Indeed, I have my own stories about the invasion of my old church by a series of right-wing minsters that eventually succeeded in turning it into a house of hate and fear. But I would not be telling the whole story if I offered escape as the only reason for "signing the book" and becoming an UU.

I may have come to UU as a refugee, but I chose to become an UU because I share in the faith's contagious, optimistic belief in a diverse, positive, and just future.

In the past few weeks, Caryl and I have been on CNN and NPR talking about the problems with our COBRA health insurance. I was glad to have done these stories, but I feel the need to revise and extend a few details that fell off on the cutting floor when they were produced:

• We're paying $1140.00/month, not $1300.00
• I am underemployed (part-time seeking full time), not unemployed
• We are still on COBRA because private insurance costs are as high or higher. We are told that this is because of our pre-existing conditions: height/weight ratios, high blood pressure, and the fact that we're over 40.
• COBRA will end for us in July 2009. At which time we will be forced to take "high risk pool" insurance with the Maryland Health Insurance Program.

I first got involved with Linkedin.com because many of my colleagues at a former software client were connected and it seemed like a great way to stay in touch with them after I was laid off. It was...and then some!

Since then, I've found colleagues that I had lost track of years ago, connected with people I hadn't heard from since college, and added new business contacts and friends to my list! What great fun!

But slowly but surely, I began to get connection invitations from more and more people who I came to call "Networking Ho's":

Ok folks, let's put our imagination caps on and imagine what an employment agency would look like. I'm not talking about an unemployment office that pays out a pittance to people whose companies suddenly decide that they are excess or obsolete two months after hiring them. I'm talking about flipping the script, tossing "practicality" to the winds, and imagining a humane way to help people transition their jobs and careers.

It's January 1st at 6pm and I'm on the phone with Verizon for the fifth or sixth time. I'm explaining that I can't break dialtone on the phone when I dial out, and there's that strange clicking noise hear when I dial the house phone from my cell.

The friendly Verizon tech confirms that he sees weird alarms on his end and he'll have to roll a technician, again. sigh!

A few years ago, during a company dinner party discussion about pastimes, a coworker asked me about my amateur radio hobby and involvement in the Amateur Radio Emergency Service/Radio Amateur Civilian Emergency Service. She wanted to know specifically about how she, as an individual citizen, could "access" amateur radio "services" during an emergency and, I didn't have a good answer for her.

I gave her the usual line about how I support government (FEMA, Department of Homeland Security) and non-governmental agencies like the The Red Cross and Salvation Army's SATERN group, but both of us knew that my answer was far from adequate. Frankly, under the current public service model, she could not access my services directly because I would be deployed in support of these organizations--not members of the general public.

Enough with your political analysis. Enough for with the endless dissection of every sneeze, burp, and fart of a presumably important or famous person. Enough with the cult of personality.

Tell me a story. Sing me a song. Chant a psalm.

Awaken within me the archetypal, incorruptible hero.

Enough with the corporeal "heros" with their feet of clay and their twitches and bad habits.

Enough with the phony, legless demand that creation myths be sold to children as reality. Instead, teach them the meaning of the myth--that all of us are creators, that all of use have a responsibility to the earth and to the future.