Go Team!

Go Team!

I seem to be on a tear these days about words that are tricky to define, if they can be so at all. Those who follow sports all use the word team. But we rarely mean the same thing with the term. My cousin and I have gone at each other about this on several occasions. Like many sport discussions, perceptions are everything and hard facts are elusive. In the end it seems each person uses their own experiences and feelings as the 'facts' to cement a conclusion. This elusiveness of consensus is what drives interest in sports. In the end of any vigorous debate about sport matters, in one form or another, it always kind of ends with some version of "If I want any shit out of you I will squeeze your head". Anyone present not interested in the topic at hand finds the whole scene 'a lot of ado about nothing'. I guess to them the answer is "What difference does it make to anything what either of you think about all of this?" But, to a sport fan on the matter at hand, put simply, "how does one not care?".

I once got a D in a Science Methods course because when the Professor asked me in front of the class how best to teach a particular science concept, I replied "there is no best way". He went through the roof, demanding an explanation for such an outrageous answer and just for what did I think the course existed? I replied that if I listed the 10 best teachers in my life their methodologies would differ substantially, that a good teacher has to find a method which plays to his/her strengths and protects his/her weaknesses. Fortunately for me the guy went on sabbatical the next term when I practice taught and the substitute professor gave me an A. The poor substitute got absolute hell from the regular Professor for that. Life is full of weird stuff like that.

Anyway, I kind of view teams in the same fashion. A good coach has to play to his strengths and protect his weaknesses. Good coaching therefore differs widely and this means the nature of good teams vary accordingly. You can accurately describe a particular good team and what makes the components work together well, but any broader application is probably useless. Phil Jackson is valued as a coach because he is good at finding ways to mesh varied personalities together to accomplish specific athletic goals. Tony Dungee and Dick Juaron are good coaches who are low keyed and depend on their supportive role to their players to get a good effort and cooperation from each in return for that personal support. It is not really clear how far that really goes since one could argue that, without Payton Manning, Dungee only gets good teams, not outstanding teams. Dick Juaron doesn't have any Payton Manning. A Vince Lombardi or a Bill Parcels achieved success in a rigid dictatorial abusive sort of relationship to their players.

The word team has a really varied significance depending on the sport. On a track or bowling team maybe it is a bit silly to emphasize team. Each person does the best they can in their event and that is about all one can write. Baseball is not far behind. If each player can hit and field well, that is about it. Personal interaction is pretty much limited to preventing them from assaulting each other in the dugout or club house. Football is not really much different. Each player has a particular task, has a particular position coach, and the turnover rate is high. Each player either does their task well or they are gone. Most of the positions are pretty cut and dried. A few, like quarterback, receivers, and running backs need to find ways to convince coaches to get them the ball. Their ability to do this determines their salary. These will always be the tension positions because of the nature of such a football beast. Football players all know it is not how well the team does which determines their future and salary, but how well they do. There are so many players on a football team all off being trained by their position coaches that most players have little chance for much serious personal interaction. Each player is being trained to do this or that in a multitude of situations. To the extent the 17 coaches succeed in getting all these players to do what they are suppose to do in particular situations, if they have the talent to do it, then you have a good 'team'.

Coaches know if each player does his job well, the team will win. That is the bottom line. For most sports the sum is simply the addition of the individual parts. That the individual players need to be soul mates marching lock step and barrel off the field, in the locker room, or dressed like cloned identical bobbydolls is rather overblown. A few sports, like basketball and hockey, are a bit different in that the number of participants is limited, especially in the game itself, and the players do have a lot of instances when they have to make decisions relating to each other (like who to pass to) etc. Some kind of personal rapport is desirable, but not always essential even there. Dennis Rodman rarely spoke to his teammates in Chicago, not in games or practice. The talent of the Coach, in this instance, was not to force it, but get widely discordent personalities to co-exist with each other. They won championships twice. This is a clear example of the reality: if each player does his job right and has the ability to do it effectively, the TEAM wins. A lot of fans and sport writers like to go on and on about this or that player being a distraction. This might have some truth in high school and to a lesser degree in college, but in professional sports this is kind of silly. You don't get to the level of professional sports if you don't clearly understand what YOU are expected to do during the game. If YOU do it, and every other YOU on the team does it the TEAM wins. The classic example here is Terrell Owens. I can't take serious these media analysts who say Terrell is a distraction and destroys the 'team chemistry', thereby destroying a team. They scream no 'team' would ever want him on their team, he would destroy the team, or so it goes. It is not for me to be the source of any answer here. But the facts seem not to fit their hypothesis at all. Every team Terrell has been on has been good and was not as good after he left. When Terrell had his contract dispute with Philly, and then it escalated to a personal feud between Terrell and Donovan (the quarterback), Terrell did what Terrell does as well as play football, and that is become Attila the Hun over perceived injustice to his personhood. Terrell is Terrell. Right or wrong, whether others like it or not, I haven't seen anyone stand on principle to the extent of Terrell. Most fans get angry at Terrell. I kind of say 'Wow'!. Most of his teammates say "Wow" too. What other sport figure ever takes on the entire NFL corporate powers, their lawyers, and the media, and wins every time. Almost all of us take similar injustices in our jobs on the chin, dust our selves off, eat crow, and meekly move on. Terrell is the ultimate Right makes Might. But of course I wander off here; the applicable observation here is that when Terrell said he would no longer talk to Donovan, the pundits all said this could not possibly work, that there has to be solid team chemistry between a quarterback and his receiver. Wrong. Their play on the field continued to be superb. In a game, each depends on the other for their own reputations and future. They each did what their position coaches worked with them to do and the clockwork hardly missed a beat. I repeat myself here, but if each player does his job correctly and well, the team wins. Distraction? I suppose, to a coach like Parcells who perceives himself to be the team 'persona', the team media attraction, the genius and sole decision maker behind every plan---a player like Terrell is a distraction, to put it mildly. Imagine a defensive lineman claiming, "I just can't tackle as good anymore because Terrell isn't speaking to Donovan". Am I saying the distraction was not a problem? Of course it was a problem---for the coaches, the management, the League, and was fodder for the media. Last I checked they are are not the team football players. Terrell created the problem exactly where he intended to create the problem---to those he felt were abusing or using him personally.

Frankly, team is often a more valued fan concept. The old Brooklyn Dodgers were a team and essentially the same team year after year. Players move around so much now that teams are often unrecognizable from year to year. Let's be real here. If team chemistry was remotely as important as some claim, all this player movement from team to team, season after season, would never occur. If loyalty were a valued priority, such breakups could not possibly occur with such frequency. Frankly, as a fan, I prefer each player to be his own personality, speak his mind within reasonable limits, and not be like a parrot spewing forth trained rehearsed answers to questions. One gets sick of fawning pabulum after a while. Humility can be overdone. Pretending one is a round peg fitting neatly into some round hole if one is a square peg needing a separate hole for a fit, is no applaudable virtue to me. When corporate, media and fan Terrell haters press his teammates to say something bad about Terrell, with precious few exceptions they come up empty. Most say something along the lines, "I got nothing against Terrell. He ain't never done nothing to me." Terrell stays to himself, what else can they be expected to say? His haters argue that his teammates won't say anything bad about him because they don't want to be disruptive to the team by saying something negative about a team member. Terrell is 34 or 35 years old. Probably 95% of those who have been a teammate are not currently a teammate. Certainly they are free to let loose if they disliked Terrell or felt he was bad for their team. It would certainly make headlines. Any such comments I have seen from former teammates have been remarkably similar: "None of us could get very close to Terrell. He stays to himself mostly. Never hangs out after the games, drinks with the guys, parties with them, none of that. Terrell is Terrell. He did his job. He was good at it. The team was better for him being on it. You just tried not to cross him because he doesn't forgive easily. Whether happy or sad his presence is kind of overpowering. Like the press, we players watched, you don't really interact much."

At any rate I define a good team as a bunch of talented players who all perform their respective tasks well resulting in a successful season. If they do this it matters little to me how happy media, fans, coaches or management are about it all. This other stuff is what social circles, friends and marriages are for. I defend the right of anyone not to like Terrell. But when they go on about what a distraction and bad teammate he is, I think that decision lies with his former and present teammates. If so, once again Terrell wins. The guy most often cited as an example of a teammate abused by Terrell, is Garcia, a former quarterback of Terrell. Trouble is, this is what Garcia has said: "I would jump at the chance to be on a team with Terrell again. He is a play maker. I have nothing against him." Oh, what the hell does Garcia know about all this? If he were as smart as Terrell's critics he'd feel differently. I guess.

All Hail the New Home Run King!

All Hail the Home Run King:

I haven't really been a baseball fan for decades. When I was a kid I rooted for the 'Bums' and Duke Snider. I once planted myself between the stadium player exit and the gas station where Duke parked his car and about got trampled. But I still got my picture. I thought he was the home run King and the nice thing about baseball you can argue and argue about a lot of stuff with no real basis for any accurate comparison. Duke had a real short right field fence and was left handed, but no matter, to me he was the home run King. Bush, by most any honest measure is probably the worst President ever but no matter, to millions he is still some sort of adored King.

So I belatedly join preparing to hail or hate the about to be next home run King. I used to tell students, "I am not prejudiced at all, I hate everybody". It takes little effort for me to hate Barry Bonds even though I know less about him than most anyone else getting geared up for this hailing. I have seen brief interview clips of Bonds and he seemed surly, superficial, and irritating, but appropriately steroid induced blown up in all the right places. As I understand it, this steroid stuff is the crux of the matter. I guess there is no legal proof and we are left with if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

Maybe it is a bad thing to set the home run record. The last guy, Henry Aaron, was mostly hated for breaking Babe Ruth's home run record. A lot of people I guess threatened to kill him. He seemed a fake too---like how could a shy, quiet, mouse of the wrong color break Babe Ruth's record? I guess Henry changed over the years since now everyone seems to have admitted him to some sort of likable, personable sainthood. Babe Ruth was before my time but the clips of him always impressed me for how unathletic he looked---more like someone's alcoholic beer bellied uncle. I wanted the home-run King to look more like Charles Atlas with dimples and maybe a Johnny Carson like personality. I seem to vacillate in heroes between the 'oh gosh' embarrassed to be so good type, and the Terrell type who emerges from the pile like Godzilla with anyone who stood in his way dangling amidst his wreckage. Terrell anoints himself King. I guess always surviving so far makes him King of something.

Home run King. What does that really mean? Like so many baseball records there is, in fact, little basis to pick a King. The distance you have to hit the ball to get a home run varies considerably from park to park. Over times the bats change, the ball changes, the pitcher's mound changes, the number of games per season changes, umpires vary in their strike zone, age the person gets their first major league start varies, who hits in front or behind you matters quite a lot, etc. On top of all that, athletes of every generation have always been faster, stronger, and bigger than prior generations. Track and Field records get broken with each new generation. Now we add drugs to the mix and I suspect few records anymore are achieved in the absence of drugs of some sort. If not already, there certainly will be some sort of steroid which attaches to the proper receptor and then immediately gets metabolized into some non steroid substance which will not be detected in a drug test.

The sad thing is that all drugs have side effects, and especially steroids. They impact on more than just strength. To eventually be the best this steroid use will start earlier and earlier, just like even regular training in most skilled sports, to be optimally effective, must start very early in life. If my parents had been more concerned about my being a home run King and acted early enough, like maybe shortly after getting home from the hospital, I might have been the first to break Babe Ruth's record---5'6" and all muscle. All I got was a big head, maybe from the pounding I took at Ryder Field as a kid.

I guess all eyes are on Bud Selig. Will he attend or not attend? Doesn't the record happen whether he does or not? Like all good Commissioners elected by wealthy owners, Seligy is a lap dog there to protect the integrity of the game. For those who might not understand Commissionerspeakese, this means keep the money coming in so the owners can pile it higher and higher. This is a tough one for the commissioner. I guess about half the fans want Bonds to get the record and half hate him to get the record. Seligy will no doubt try to straddle the proverbial fence and say, "regardless how I might feel about any of the issues involved here, it is the duty of the Commissioner to attend the game where a new home run record is established. I will simply do my duty." I guess, like Martin Luther he might add, "I can do no other".

Enough, I have made my mind up and know how I will root. Bonds is still playing baseball and therefore he is entitled to become the new King. If Bush can be President by what logic can Bond be denied Home Run King? But I do hope it takes him many many weeks to hit another home run. I want to see Seligy traipsing all over the country doing his duty. Even lap dogs need a little exercise.

Life As A Museful Hermit

Life As A Museful Hermit:

I have always found people interesting: at arm's length for the most part. Arm's length protects me from them and they from me. It is hard to understand why I, or anyone for that matter, become what they become. Part of it is kind of clear: our looks we get from our genes, our religion we almost always inherit---after that it starts to get increasingly obtuse and muddleheaded. Most of us realize at some point we should have picked our parents more carefully. Too late. It's all their fault and we really knew that early on. But they wouldn't listen. Parents can be so dumb.

Once on our own we found out dumbness seemed too oft all around us, and to be pervasively annoying, mixed with varying degrees of malice--- directed more so, of course, towards us than any of our malice towards them. How many times have we all felt, "stop the world, I want to get off and rest a bit". It seems most of life is a long tiring exercise in perfecting our logical nature only to find logic itself an elusive variable. The only unanimous conclusion reached by everyone seems to be that there are more horse's asses in this world than horses.

Love, happiness, justice, purpose of our lives, achievement, priorities---all these kind of things dance around in our minds until we get dizzy and we just rest a bit. Then we get up and make ourselves dizzy with 'stuff' over again. Space. I have always seemed to need a lot of that. Always, since I can remember, I have been a kind of crowd avoiding reclusive nonsocial aloof educatee of diverse personalities, cultures, and ethnicities. Teaching was probably a good profession for me---it gave me new populations of people to observe at a decent distance, the opportunity to contemplate the essence of others so that maybe I would eventually master an understanding of human nature. Unfortunately, I am not that Lincolnesque and whatever pitiful little I ever learned on my own is unimpressive. That is probably why I read a lot: to absorb knowledge about things from the greater brilliance of others. But I don't think any of us ever learn enough to really live or understand things to any level of real satisfaction. Plodders, every one of us, and when we try to gallop we fall on our face. Watching others fall on their face is mostly humorous, probably the original origin of ha ha. My cats don't laugh. Nothing is ever funny to them. I tend to be just the opposite---I see humor in most everything. Why not? I think those who rarely laugh get touched with some kind of insanity---get all depressed or angry to the point of hurting others, etc. Sometimes it is best to laugh in order not to cry or become some sort of suicide bomber. I guess I can picture myself at the wheel of a car all packed with explosives but am too indecisive---like which bastards do I take with me to la la land? Frankly I don't have a lot of trust in la la land anyway. Sometimes I wonder if my parents were smart enough to have signed on to the right religion. Of course they didn't sign on either. Hey, well somebody did at some point in my family history. Recently the Pope reaffirmed Catholicism as the only true religion. A lot of Muslims make the same kind of point. Pat Robertson certainly does. God talks to Pat, maybe we better pay more attention. Buddhism instructs its' followers to listen to no one and go find their own 'nirvana'. I've tried that, but nirvana is always just around the next corner. I have had my share of good luck in life, relatively speaking----so hope I land in heaven via the same basis. Sometimes it scares me to think that maybe those of us lucky in this life have already had our Heaven and the afterlife Heaven is for the unlucky in this life. What a revolting development that would be. Maybe I will ask to be buried dressed in tattered hand-me-downs. Then pop up and tell God, "Ha, ha, fooled you". Yeah, sure.

I think I EQUALLY like nature, solitude, and people (at arms length). It wouldn't take many fingers to count those people I ever let real close or trust. And sometimes the list changes, just like time changes. Change seems to be the engine which drives the creative process. Maybe that is why I have little use for words like fundamentalist, purist, true believer, conservative (depending on how the word is defined), hard-core, faith based, doctrinaire, prejudice, committed, family-values, braces-on-the-brain patriotic, devout, un-bending, rigid, and now I just realized this list could go on and on. I prefer words like tolerant, diverse, honest, sympathetic, helpful, encouraging, justice, freedom, flexible, humble, deserving, and this list too could go on and on too. I hate a rule-is-a-rule-is-a rule when in reality only the objective for which any rule exists is worth committing to. Fairness and justice tops rules any time with me.

If there is any concept I place in the forefront of human obligation it is leveling the playing field. This, to me, is the basis for religion, for politics, for friendship, for making things right in the world. Leveling the field is not possible without sharing and sacrifice. Sharing and sacrifice is not socialism. And limits are not stifling but necessary for justice to reach all. Adults may be mostly responsible for their own future, but all kids, in any just society, should be given a level playing field to the extent possible. Amongst nations, cultures, ethnic groups, religious groups---live and let live should be the operative mode. Primitive past cultures had it basically right---worship nature. Forget ornate cathedrals, dandy attire, important titles, silly-ass rituals, and trying to dominate other humans or other species. Our mission is not to dominate anything but to meld as best we can with the rest of God's creative process, using our mental acumen to achieve this.

The first page of my final exams at the University often included the following. I still feel the same way.

A Final Word From Your Instructor:

"Now the end is upon us, and so we face the final curtain. We have been like ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing: Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness: So on the oceans of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence." (Longfellow)

As your world expands you will see so many people, so many opinions. Nevertheless, I encourage you to adopt an expansive philosophy and not be consumed by conflict. In this little chapter of your life you have toiled to learn some basic principles of physiology. To some, I suppose, the course has been just one damn thing after another. And sometimes it seems instructors are the bones on which students sharpen their teeth.

I like to keep things simple. "There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us." (Hoch) My final advice to all of you is don't stand still and passively watch the world go by, because if you do---it will. "It is not doing the thing we like to do but liking the thing we have to do that makes life get better. We do our work and sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't. And when it doesn't we feel low. We pause for a moment, say a prayer in church, drink a beer in the backyard, go to a psychiatrist, or smoke grass if we are young. The granite mass of time cracks and we feel wonder at the world. We go on." (Taylor) As time passes you will eventually realize the best things in life aren't things. Be afraid only of standing still, for the "greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." (Confucius)

"Reality isn't the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are. Either you acknowledge reality and use it to your benefit, or it will automatically work against you." (Ringer) This is the end of the course, but this course is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

"There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of behaving towards other men and your fellow creatures, towards all living things, towards the whole earth and the sky and the sun that is based on love, on compassion, on respect, on cherishing everything there is around you because it is wonderful, unique, it's natural and good and it evolved that way by itself, it's got to be cherished and if we think like that and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness, we can all feel the sun and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with appreciation." (Davis)

WHY DO THEY HATE US?

Why Do They Hate Us?:

For me, as I suspect for most Americans, it is an irritant to realize just how widespread and growing is this feeling of hostility toward America. When global polls show the popularity of Bin Laden to be higher than George Bush it is startling. It didn't seem to be that way right after 9/11. When in most countries Americans cannot safely wander off clearly demarcated resort areas, one begins to realize just how serious is this hostility of 'common folk' in so many countries toward Americans. Then again, there are growing areas in our own country where most of us would be scared to death if we accidently got lost driving.

The first reaction, I think for most of us, is this: "well, if that is the way they feel, we should stop all this foreign aid we send abroad". I mean, where would they be without us? We do send more non military foreign aid than any other country. On the other hand, on a per capita basis, we spend less money on non military foreign aid than almost any other industrialized nation. But perhaps it is a mistake to quibble over who sends how much money where. The problem is probably not that simple. Even in our own country we throw at least a good amount of money at the least amongst us, and it seems the size of the problems and the hostility just gets worse. I probably am one of the few who feel very uncomfortable about the growing size of our disenfranchised population, a population that is also heavily armed. Sometimes I fear we have become an Iraq waiting to happen, that the protective wall between the affluent and the destitute is about as protective as the levies were in New Orleans. I know in my neighborhood the number of Uzi's per square mile dwarfs the number of Uzi's in poorer neighborhoods. History has shown the veneer of civilized behavior is never very thick, and that the more complicated and top heavy the power in any great civilization, the greater and faster the fall. There does not seem to be any real evidence any TYPE of government can sustain itself when the disparity between the rich and poor passes a certain level. There does not seem to be any real evidence any TYPE of 'empire' can sustain itself when the attempt to control more distant lands is overreached. Every civilized empire has fallen for the above two reasons far more so than any type of governing system. When George Bush says "Democracy is the answer" I doubt he is any more brilliant here than with any of his other dumb ass cliches. One thing for sure: George Bush is not the answer. The question is whether, after another 17 months of George's "bring 'em on" arrogant attacks on the ever growing number of dissidents and destitute across the globe---whether the damage will be reversible. Just where the point of no return is to the use of violence to solve conflicts is a legitimate question.

But the bigger questions remains, "why do they hate us"? Up to some point past World War II America was the beacon, the hope, the shining example for all those wanting a better life for themselves across the globe. Americans could go most anyplace on the globe and feel the universal friendship. Most everyone wanted their country to be like America, the land of the free, the land of opportunity, the melting pot of the world. Recent global polls show America is now the most feared nation and the country most resented. Is this just simple jealousy? Clearly, if given the chance, most would still elect to live here not where they live now. Interesting. It seems unusual for people to elect to be in a country they fear and resent. I have thought about this and the only answer seems to be the ever growing tension between the have's and the have not's across the globe. Most, I guess, would rather be a Have in their native land, but seeing that as highly unlikely, would prefer to be a Have in America.

While the above may reflect reality, it doesn't really explain all the hostility and resentment. I wonder what percentage of those who get here, one way or another, outside of those with professional skills in short supply in America, ever really manage to become one of the Have's. Myself, given a choice, I would rather hire a native born American. At least for a decent paying job, not one of the slave labor 'guest worker' labor intensive get it done cheap endeavors. Then, in one of my more mellow moments, a Lincolnesque type insight, I wonder why we should be using slave labor under any disguise?

In the days of slavery the slave owners lived in constant fear the slaves would rebel. The fear was real, despite all the rhetoric depicting slavery as the best system in the best interests of the slaves and besides---without the owners whatever meager food and shelter they had would be gone. Without the generosity of the slave owners the slaves would have nothing. You simply don't bite the hand that feeds you. But the rhetoric was hollow, self serving, and unethical. With the exception of a favored few slaves with unusual privileges, the vast majority despised their lot in life and those who imposed on them such a life.

It is trite, but not without merit that the more things change the more things stay the same. Slavery of course is no longer legal in this country, but 'guest workers' or illegal workers or whatever other term used, are in reality a kind of slave class labor. When American corporations move their operations overseas it is for one of two reasons or both----to gain access to slave labor or escape taxation. We can pretend otherwise but slavery is alive, well, and growing across the globe. Even in this country the purchasing power of the minimum wage is 30% less than 40 years ago. The slave owners today are the giant corporations. They retain their status because they now control our politics, our judicial system, our TV and radio stations, and our sport teams. They own all of these aspects of our society. I don't really know what percent of the nation's wealth the original slave owners held, but the top 1% of our current slave owners own as much of our nation's wealth as the bottom 90% of our population. But hey, I am not in the top 1% and yet am doing quite well so I should quit this bitching. I suppose it natural to conclude if one is doing well, then all is well, and those not doing well could do well if they just would show some initiative. Furthermore, if those not doing so well think they can mount some sort of effective revolution to topple the money lenders in the corporate temples, well they better realize the vast array of military weapons ready to put down any kind of rebellion anywhere on the globe. This is law and order 101. He who has the biggest and better weapons wins the war. Ask the former American slaves and the American Indians. John Wayne may be dead but George Bush lives. 'Bring 'em on".

The truth really is that the more things change the more things change. There are two flaws in the above. First, once the disparity between the affluent and the poor passes a certain point, every such civilization in history collapsed and collapsed rather rapidly. That kind of disparity is not sustainable. If ethical or religious principles are not strong enough to stop such disparity, the civilization collapses under it's own weight of injustice. Second, the vast array of military weapons at our disposal, are increasingly less and less of any use. Our military weapons advantage in Iraq must be something on the level of 100 to 1. Yet we are losing, the dead body counts not withstanding. Our military weapons advantage in Vietnam was similar. We easily won the killing contest but lost the war. The Russians had a similar military advantage in Afghanistan but they too killed the most but lost the war.

One might legitimately ask, "well, why then didn't the former American slaves effectively rebel and free themselves?". The answer is simple. Most couldn't read, they had no way to communicate with each other, and their skin color made them stand out in any gathering. None of that exists in the current 'slave' rebellion. Today's slaves have the internet, they often are well educated, and they blend in with any crowd. The troops of the modern corporate 'slave owners' can do little besides parade around, toss bombs into suspected enclaves of slaves (now known as rebels or terrorists), and wait to be picked off by road bombs, snipers, or suicide bombers. If all this seems to paint the rebels or terrorists in some sort of noble light, such is not the reality. When the senseless killing on both sides commences, thugs take over in the chaos. Law and order collapses. It becomes gangsterism gone wild and unchecked. The educated, the affluent, the more reasonable elements of the disrupted society have little choice but to flee. Many will be killed in the attempt to flee. In most cases they have no where to flee. Distant from the chaos there is endless babble about democracy, religion, freedom fighters, terrorists----but all such babble becomes totally irrelevant to the reality of the situation.

Three questions remain. Are there really that many hopelessly trapped destitute 'slaves' or landless, homeless, unemployed humanesque scavengers across our globe and perhaps amassing in our own country? And if so, why is their anger directed towards us? In most cases we are so far away. Finally, are they all or mostly members of al Qaida and if so, why and what is the goal of al Qaida anyway?

Perhaps it all starts with an observation by Karl Polanyi: "To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment......would result in the demolition of society." To this might be added the impact of allowing technology to permeate every aspect of our lives. Let's be real here, a purely market economy is a predatory economy. When the Rockefellers, Vanderbuilts, and other assorted corporate barrons amassed huge fortunes back in the late 1800's the people still controlled our politics, and hefty estate taxes with no loop holes were passed which forced most of their amassed fortune, upon their death, back into the society from which it came. This no longer happens, in part because the modern day corporate barrons own our political process by essentially financing them and controlling media outlets. We virtually have a corpocracy now, not a democracy. This happened because the average American was sold the idea that any kind of capital controls were contrary to individual liberty, a stifling of the enterprising spirit which makes America great. Really? This is like arguing disciplining a child destroys his spirit and limits his potential. Whatever the child wants he should have and have as much as he wants as long as he wants however he wants it. If someone devised a scheme whereby the charges to all bank accounts could be set so that one person reaped millions of dollars profit, people would demand the culprit be prosecuted for bilking the public. Well, nice a guy as Gates may well be, he still bilked the public, not for millions of dollars, but for billions. Professional sport owners do the same thing.

"So what", one might contest, a lot of us are doing quite well thank you. Maybe so---but others aren't, and we too are likely to pay the piper quite soon. From 1973 to 2000 the average income of the bottom 90% of American taxpayers fell by 7%, while the income of the top 1% rose 148%. These huge profits have to come from somewhere and it is clear from where they come. Between 1990 and 2000 the compensation to the CEO of Citicorp (now Citigroup) grew 12,444%. At the same time these bountiful blessings fell on the top 1%, the percent of people living below the poverty line rose to 15%, 2 million people are now in jail, the highest per capita incarceration in the world, the homeless population jumped 13%. In New York City almost 30,000 homeless sleep in city shelters every night. To this situation the growing conservative movement in our country demands that we cut the support to the bottom tier of society and give some more tax cuts to the wealthy. As long as the middle class gets some kind of tax cut, however meager, it becomes ok to give a bigger tax break to the wealthy. It is like we need strike a deal with our corpocracy managers---a deal which kind of says, "ok, give yourselves mountains of money as long as you give me a little". Idiot's payola.

"Enough" you say, what does this have to do with why others across the globe increasingly hate us? The connection is this: In this relatively new global economy corpocracy rules and controls. The form of government is substantially unimportant. Money is King. Materialism is the religion. Power is the mental state which gives meaning to lives. Those hurt the most in this top heavy game are the weakest. By 1998 the richest 400 people on the planet had as much wealth as the bottom half of the population while 3 billion people lived on less than $2 a day. In the corporate driven global economy more than 100 countries have suffered a per capita income that is lower today than it was 15 years ago, 1.6 billion people live in worse conditions than they did in the early 80's. One sixth of the world's population now live in slums. Most countries no longer are in control of their own destiny. Corpocracy now rules the world and America not only drives this corpocracy but enforces the implementations and protects the interests of the well heeled corporate players. Justice has become passe, the accumulation of wealth becomes the scale by which actions are driven, and freedom for more and more people becomes another word for nothing left to lose.

When the disenfranchised destitute across the globe look to place the blame for their predicament, they increasingly have figured out who is the major force behind all this. Often it is near impossible to hold their own government accountable because their own government is often propped up and guarded by American military bases and forces within their own country, and if their country is not awash in the amenities which provide a quality of life, it is awash in guns supplied by America. These are the billions across the globe with increasingly less to lose---often nothing left to lose. The root cause is overpopulation coupled with a technology which depends less and less on human labor. It is the American protected global corpocracy which sustains the ever widening disparity between the affluent and the poor.

There are essentially 3 factors which will lead to chaos and the destruction of civilization as many of us now live it: Irresponsible human reproduction; the innability of Lincoln's 'common man' to control the corpocracy; the ability now for dissidents across the globe to easily communicate amongst themselves and blow up the human and material infrastructure of the 'privileged' recipients of corpocracy. It will not work to call these dissidents 'terrorists', insist they are few in number, or pretend there is any real protection from terrorist attacks. Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq are vivid pictures of the limitations of any American ability to any longer control distant countries. Even the most conservative supporters of American control over the destinies of others will soon tire of providing fodder for terroristic attacks. Sadly, terrorism may well be the cruel answer to overpopulation, and in the process, force local inhabitants across the globe to find a way to tolerate each other and spread the limited resources amongst themselves---or holocausts across the globe are going to spread like forest fires during a drought.

These are the best of times for some and the worst of times for others. The future for any of us has never been so uncertain. What is certain is that Nature bats last and God's created evolutionary process will proceed. In the past for every catastrophic species ending there has always been a new beginning. Fasten your seat belts, this could be a bumpy ride. Be prepared to crash.

Unsettling Cognizance Part 2

Part 2 Unsettling Cognizance:

"Be fruitful and multiply". This has to be one of the most absurdly abused passages in scripture. Never mind that this encouragement was given at time when only a handful of humans existed on our planet. If a priest or minister were to congratulate newly weds, wish them well, and comment "may you be fruitful and multiply", does that mean he is instructing them to have 12 kids or as many as they can have? I doubt this would be a reasonable interpretation of the comment. Clearly, from the minute human religious leaders began to write their own interpretations of scripture they became obsessed with sexual matters. On the other hand, if one focuses only on the quotes from Christ in the Bible about sex, He was hardly obsessed about it. Sex, to Christ, was mostly an emphasis on loyalty, responsibility, and love. In addition, Christ never equated the word love solely with sex or reproduction. Love was to be the basis of human interaction, including acts of sex. A person should never use or take advantage of another person in any situation and indeed we are all to be our brother's keeper---that is the message Christ was obsessed with, if the word obsession must be used.

That sex is a legitimate activity only for reproductive purposes is totally a creation of certain religious leaders. Only abstinence, in cycles (or totally) as legitimate birth control got invented by some religious leaders. Of course if the only purpose of sex is producing children, and in a fruitfully multiplier fashion, then any other sort of sexual acts are by definition sinful. The rest became history---guilt ridden lovers feeling their sexual actions with each other were going to be their tickets to Hell. Anyone who has ever surfed the internet to find out what people are into regarding sex realizes immediately sex is a hopeless grab bag, that people are so different regarding their sexual feelings and inclinations as to make any attempt to label most of it right, wrong, or normal becomes solely a function of personal perspective. Probably most everyone finds most forms of 'deviate' sex unappealing. I, for example, cannot fathom why anyone would find making love to someone's foot to be sexually appealing. But in the last analysis so what? Unless someone is being forced to do something or is underage, what the hell difference does it make to anything or anyone else? Of course clearly these 'deviates' are not attempting to be "fruitful and multiply". That I am willing to grant. I tend to wonder how the hell did they find each other? Like, "pardon me, do you mind if I suck on your toes for a bit?" Of course this is one of the milder forms of 'deviation'. I prefer to be like Christ (if I can use this comparison loosely) and just ignore the whole business of sexual variations. Some lamely fume, "We have to put a stop to this or that form of sexual activity or it will spread and contaminate our children". Really? Just think about your own sexual nature---did perverts hiding in bushes form your sexual nature? Did reading about or seeing certain sexual acts in books or movies or the internet really form your sexual nature? All the evidence points otherwise. Look, if it were not so then logically parents would be wise to leave out in the open all kinds of graphic pictures of the kind of sex they want their kids to 'learn'. I mean why take a chance? Perhaps to really imprint the right sexual activity on them the parents could have sex out in the open. Ok, ok---I am getting a bit silly here, in fact it might make sucking toes a more appealing option. As usual, I find humor in most topics. Otherwise one goes nuts. The serious point is that Christ wasn't hung up on particular sexual acts and neither should the rest of us.

If "be fruitful and multiply" made sense when the earth had few humans, it sure as hell makes no sense in our current era of overpopulation. Can anyone seriously envision God, gazing down on the current massive irresponsible reproduction of humans across the globe, cheering us on, "2, 4, 6, 8---populate, populate". I am against any interpretation of scripture which makes God appear dumber than George Bush. If there is going to be anything fruitful about the human future, we better stop reproducing like rabbits.

In the God created process, human life appeared on the planet between 1 and 2 million years ago. From that beginning until 1750 the human population grew to a billion. 180 years later it was 2 billion. Then 40 years later (1970) it was 3 billion. Thirty years later it became 6 billion. Well, for those who think domination and multiplying is really a God given directive we are really on a roll. Metaphorically speaking, we are like the dinosaurs---stomping everything to death. Species extinction is now proceeding at a record clip, natural resources are being depleted with abandon, and the air is being filled with pollutants because as George the Sapient Sage Bush explains "it is too expensive to curtail". Bad for the economy. It limits the profits of the 1 percenters who own more of our wealth than the bottom 90%. It is not only other species and our natural resources which are taking this vicious hit, but humans are organizing in two basic groups----the few with a living standard out of sight and the many in dire poverty often without property, food, medical care, clean water---living like dump rats off the garbage heaps of the affluent few. I guess, no matter---they don't live all that long.

At any rate, to me, real religion dictates that human life is not the only kind that matters, and whatever it takes to support human life to the detriment of other life on this planet is not an acceptable religious stand. Let's not pretend the Jewish holocaust is an isolated, never to be repeated type of carnage. What about the American Indian holocaust? What about the holocaust in Rhodesia? In Somalia? In Iraq? The disease preventable holocausts across Africa? And yes, the subhuman holocaust rampant right now for other species. Maybe the most apt name for this current era is the Age of Holocausts.

The truth seems to be that this errant religious human manufactured interpretation of "be fruitful and multiply" is, as Spong calls it, "a prescription for human genocide". To those fundamentalist Christians it means just the reverse: "abortion is the human genocide". Painting an abortion in clear cut terms of right or sinful is to show a lot of disrespect for those who are faced with such a painful decision. I suppose there must be a few people having abortions like a mild nuisance to their lifestyle, but there are idiots amongst us in other areas of life decisions as well. To the extent we are all responsible for our personal decisions God will be the Judge. All scripture assures us of that, over and over and over. How strange that anyone professing to be religious would want to pre-empt God's role here. Jesus spent his whole life among the multitudes assisting and advising the needs of the least amongst that generation, and to my knowledge never suggested making laws against any of the stuff in question here, but used personal interaction to help improve the lot of those in need. It would be hard to confuse a Pat Robertson with Christ, or Christ with elaborately costumed Pontiffs, Bishops, Cardinals, Ayatollahs, etc issuing vague useless proclamations for peace, prosperity, and love among mankind from alters in gilded cathedrals. Every Christmas Eve since I was a kid the newspaper headline always has read: "Pope Prays For Peace". Considering our position on the evolutionary scale, we can be embarrassingly obtuse---believing what we want to believe. If praying for peace effectuated anything this would be the most peaceful planet in existence. If praying for the poor eliminated poverty there would be no poverty. If praying not to die from cancer worked, their would be no deaths from cancer. These babblements from ornate pulpits begin to sound at some point more and more like oil, gas, and electric company Ayatollahs pitching calls for energy conservation. You know, say the right thing but really, through inaction, promote just the opposite. It probably is no coincidence that it is the religious right who are the biggest proponents of the War in Iraq, just to mention one example. I guess to be fair, maybe this is their program of population control. Maybe Will Rogers was right. I will paraphrase him: "If you shot 100 hundred people in Iraq at random, probably 90 of them deserved it." See, the fundamentalist just see things more clearly. Sometimes it makes you wonder---maybe the only effective way to reduce overpopulation would be to have everyone pack a gun. We're getting to that point here and across the globe if I can include homemade bombs as guns.

I agree that life is certainly precious. All life exists as part of a God created evolutionary process mired in complex interrelations of the many species and the environmental resources needed to sustain life. Humans have a self serving interest to protect our natural resources and the complex interrelations between species. While this created evolutionary process leads to change and beneficial progress, there is no evidence God messes very often with our position in this process via intervention in any human's daily life, nor is there any evidence that humans, as humans exist now, have any special protection as individuals, or as a whole, against self destruction. Across the eons of time the mix of life forms has varied from era to era. However, with some temporary setbacks and stale periods, the overall progression of life on this planet has been upward. I suppose, in the last analysis, whatever will be will be. Nevertheless, how many amongst us would ever wish we, as individuals, never had the opportunity to be a miniscule part of this process?

True-To Life WillRogerisms

Timeless Depictive True-To-Life WillRogerisms:

"As a matter of truth, no nation wants any other nation exerting 'Moral Leadership' over 'em---even if they had one. We mean well but wind up wrong, as usual." Sound familiar anyone?

"If America ever passes out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone: America died from a delusion she had Moral Leadership." Sound familiar anyone?

"What's the matter with us? No country ever had more, and no country ever had less. Ten men in our country could buy the whole world, and ten million can't buy enough to eat." Sound familiar anyone?

"There is nothing greedy Americans won't carry off. The Grand Canyon is the only thing they haven't carried away yet, and that's only because it's a hole in the ground."

"America has a great habit of always talking about protecting American interests in some foreign country. Protect them here at home! There is more American interests right here at home!" Sound familiar anyone?

"All America has to do to get in bad all over the world is just to start out on what we think is a Good Samaritan mission." Sound familiar anyone?

"Imagine with all our crime, and all our immorality in the papers, and our small attendance in our churches, and about as much contentment and repose as a fresh-caged hyena, we go to tell the whole world: we are the only one with the right idea." Sound familiar anyone?

"Our President delivered his message to congress. That is one of the things his contract calls for. It's one of the few stipulated duties of the president---to tell congress the condition of the country. This message, as I say, is to congress. The rest of the people know the condition of the country, for they live in it, but congress has no idea what is going on in America, so the president has to tell 'em."

"America is just like an insane asylum; there is not a soul in it will admit they are crazy. The president, being the warden, us inmates know he's the one that's cuckoo." Sound familiar anyone?

"It's not a disgrace not to be able to run a country nowadays, but it is a disgrace to keep on trying when you know you can't." Sound familiar anyone?

"You know Lincoln's famous remark about 'God must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them?' Well, you are not going to get people's votes nowadays by calling 'em common. Lincoln might have said it, but I bet it was not until after he was elected."

"I am not a member of any organized political party---I'm a democrat." Sound familiar anyone?

"The Democrats and the Republicans are equally corrupt---it's only in the amount where the Republicans excel." Sound familiar anyone?

"It's getting so if a man wants to stand well socially, he can't afford to be seen with either the Democrats or the Republicans." Sound familiar anyone?

"Republicans take care of the big money, for big money takes care of them." Sound familiar anyone?

"Politicians are doing the best they can according to the dictates of no conscience." Sound familiar anyone?

"I am just like a politician---the less I know about anything, the more I can say". Today this done over cell phones everywhere, all the time, reflexly, in loud voices, like parrots in love with their own parroted phrases in some kind of dull Gregorian chant, over and over, blah, blah, blah.

"Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously, and the politicians as a joke, when it used to be vice versa." Sound familiar anyone?

"It looks to me like any man who wants to be president in times like these, lacks something." Sound familiar anyone?

"A clean campaign is one where each side cleans the other of every possible vestige of respectability." Sound familiar anyone?

"Robberies! Where they used to take your horse, and if they were caught, they got hung for it; now they take your car, and if they are caught, it's a miracle, and they will perhaps have the inconvenience of having to go to court and explain." Sound familiar anyone?

"(These backer of the Iraq War) get their schooling from an Irish history book, you shoot anybody. The theory is---and they are just about right---that everybody that ain't been shot, should be shot."

"Never a day passes in (this country) without some innocent bystander being shot. You just stand around this country long enough, and be innocent, and somebody is going to shoot you." Sound familiar anyone?

"One day there were four innocent people shot (in Iraq). That's the best shooting ever done in the war. Hard to find four innocent people in (Iraq)."

"Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock, and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it."

"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects."

"There is nothing as stupid as an educated man if you get him off the subject he was educated in" Sound familiar anyone?

"You know, Americans have been getting away pretty soft, up to now. Every time we needed anything, why, it was growing right under our noses. Every natural resource in the world, we had it. But with them getting less, and national debts getting more, there is going to be some work going on in this country some day. Something will happen and we won't be doing well." Sound familiar anyone?

"For a (Drug war ravaged urban dweller), he died a natural death---he was shot in the back." Sound familiar anyone?

"There is no argument in the world that carries the hatred that a religious belief one does." Sound familiar anyone?

"I have a solution to the problem of traffic and that is to raise the speed limit to (90) miles an hour, and make everybody go that fast, or be arrested. That would eliminate the slow, and kill off the fast."

"Another way to solve the traffic problems of this country is to pass a law that only paid-for cars be allowed to use the highways. That would turn our boulevards into children's playgrounds overnight."

"What's the matter with the world? Why there ain't nothing but one word wrong with everyone of us, and that's selfishness." Sound familiar anyone?

Will Rogers died in 1935 in a plane crash in Alaska. Strange, but he sounds so contemporary.

Unsettling Cognizance

Unsettling Cognizance:

Considering the endpoint (no one gets out of the world alive) maybe our meager success to learn much of anything about life (by the time you do you are old enough to die) is puerile uselessness at best. At some point it really doesn't matter anymore. The few times I have wandered through a cemetery I am always fixated by the thought that for most everyone, after one or two generations, the grave stones mean nothing to anyone. When is the last time you gave thought to your great grandaddy? How could you? I suppose, if you have a family tree you might be aware he was carpenter in such and such a town in such and such a state. When all you know about a person is what they did for a living and where they lived you really know nothing of any matter about them. Thus, to those offspring who follow, these deceased really don't matter anymore.

I suspect any child raised in a Christian home in our era who went to Sunday School or attended a religious grade school learned to accept Biblical text as the "word of God". The 'stranger' passages were never read aloud in church services or in Sunday School lessons. If you read these passages on your own you saw strange sentences but as an act of faith you simply refused to pay any attention to them. For all practical purposes they simply weren't there. It is not like you rushed to Sunday School and asked why the Bible says if a child does this or that they are to be stoned, etc. I don't recall anyone asking why God had a chosen people, and if he did, why were they always getting banged around? These kind of disturbing questions could have been asked right and left. Let's face it, much of what is in the Bible is dated and barbaric measured against more modern civilized standards. Of course, buried amongst all of that are some really uplifting, enlightening, universally ethical guidelines. These are guidelines found in all major religious texts. When all is said and done, right and wrong, in most instances, is never beyond human understanding. When right is not done it is almost exclusively for self-serving reasons, often involving some sort of 'tribal' patriotism---using the word tribal in the broadest context.

Clearly, if the Bible is the 'Word of God' then everything in it would have to be true. Even the most rigid fundamentalist doesn't accept that premise, and they too ignore what they choose to ignore. Like most raised to believe in the Bible I just let the unsettling passages slide. After all, there are plenty of good passages on which to concentrate. But then again, how weird would it be for God to have the Bible written as the 'Word of God' and then leave people to pick and choose which words to believe or follow. Like most others, it was just too unsettling for me to face the possibility that the Bible or any other religious tractate is simply not the 'Word of God'. For one thing, if the Bible is not the "Word of God" then where does that leave us? And just exactly how should one view the Bible?

Hardly anyone thinks God does not exist. After that, it is kind of a religious free-for-all. The number of differing sects of differing religions must be in the thousands. By any rational definition that is quite a circus. But unlike the Barnum and Bailey variety of circus, this religious circus is not fun filled or entertaining. In this circus there has always been a whole lot of dead serious killing going on, and depending on the time and place in history a lot of persecutory hatred. When people have that hunted look they oft are members of the wrong religious sect.

I recently read a book titled: The Sins of Scripture by John Shelby Spong, former Episcopal Bishop of Newark. A lot of what I now believe ethically and what follows is really a combination of Lincoln, Spong, the Bible, and Peter Singer. I now look on the Bible as epic history, not the 'Word of God'. None of the New Testament books, for example, were even written until some 40-70 years after the death of Christ. Of course Christ existed, of course Buddha existed, etc. We also know Christ impressed his peers as a man of God, much like all of us would so like to be known metaphorically as a man of God. And of course those who years later wrote books about Christ probably embellished the basic facts and events, much like many have done with Lincoln. How far one can embellish depends on the historical culture and sophistication of the times. Back in earlier biblical times people were receptive to a divine figure walking on water and miraculously healing the sick, etc. In later times, for example, no matter how impressed one might have been with Lincoln, there is no way an author could claim Lincoln walked on water or healed the sick, parted the waters of the Potomac, etc. The fact some have chosen to embellish the life of Lincoln is no reason why anyone should toss aside the essence of Lincoln. The fact that the authors of the Bible have chosen to embellish the life of Christ is no reason to toss aside the essence of Christ.

"Ok", one might argue, "how then can one distinguish the essence from the embellishment?". For a start, the essential message of Lincoln is repeated over and over in various ways and from varied sources. If, for example, a singular source claimed Lincoln said "The only good Indian is a dead Indian", there is no good reason to accept this as valid, especially since it goes against the grain of everything else Lincoln said about others and how he treated others. The essence of Christ's teaching are repeated over and over in the various New Testament books. This is the core of Christianity. Using obscure isolated statements in scripture to justify actions or attitudes which are antithetical to the basic and oft repeated tenets of Christ's teachings, is sacra-religious. Therein lies the 'devil' so to speak of scripture. All sorts of unethical and persecutory behavior can be justified by dragging out some isolated lines from scriptural text only if one views scripture as the literal 'Word of God'---every line of it. Once scripture is viewed as epic history the value of scripture as an ethical guide rises immensely.

Religion and science continue to be pictured as some sort of competing or incompatible
venues. When scriptures are viewed as epic history, there is no conflict. Epic history is written with the level of scientific understanding at the time. If the bible doesn't help us with abortion, birth control, how to deal with dying in an age of modern medicine---how could it possibly do so if scripture is epic history? It could only do so if scripture indeed was the word of God. To insist scripture is the Word of God would be to make God a scientific ignoramus. That would really be a kind of silly stretch.

Those who reject evolution in favor of individual species creation are really insisting that science is an illusion. Obviously people can believe anything and often do. A lot of gangsters go to church regularly and obviously believe they are going to Heaven. What an amazing cop out---do whatever you feel like and believe you are going to Heaven. If gangsters can do that imagine the extent to which more 'angelic' characters do it. People believe in any one of the thousands of religious sects in the world and believe that sect is a ticket to Heaven. And even worse, they don't even, in the vast majority of cases, choose a religious sect at all-----they are born into it. Isn't that a bit ludicrous? Doesn't that make Heaven a by-genetic ticket?

I do not, at this point in my life, believe it humanely possible to understand the nature of God or fully understand the nature of the creative process. We can only understand the creative process in so far as science can lead us. When someone says to me that God has enlightened them about the creative process I always want to say, "Really, well explain to me what he has told you about the creative process of which we are a part." Science, after all, is part of our created process. Creationists seem to be on an endless ego trip. God created humans in His own image; God gave man dominion over all other creatures; God controls the life of every individual, at least those born into the right religion; God is some kind of vindictive abusive being whose vengeance will be unmerciful to the sinners, the unsaved---whatever. But of course God loves the 'saved' and everything in a saved's own lifestyle which the 'saved' love about themselves. The 'saved' and their ilk alone are worthy, others are unworthy. Interestingly, the saved rarely are content to let God punish, but as God's faithful soldiers, marching en route to Heaven, they are eager to punish heathens in the name of God. God, of course will be pleased to have his killing load and persecutory load lessened by these blessed disciples. Maybe so, but after listening to the words and viewing the actions of these 'saved' religious 'purists' I find them more and more misguided. I think it must be a combination of their hate filled oratory, the glazed look in their eyes, their waving bibles in the air, their blind patriotic faith, their self serving sense of justice, their aloofness to others outside their own immediate family, and the rigidity of their thinking which offends by better sensibilities.

I don't find the evolutionary process, as best we understand it today, an affront to religious faith at all. This evolutionary process, in operation for millions of years, reflects the complexity, endurance, and general direction of God's creative process. There is nothing static about this process at all---change is the operative word. And over the long haul, the changes are good and thus we have progress. Humans are a part of this amazing created process, a small piece in the chain linking other forms of life. That we are dominant over other forms is, based on the science involved, an absurdity. For us to exist we need the sustenance of other life forms, including plants. Our arrogance towards other forms of life is rapidly leading us towards partial or total extinction. I suppose, in their own dumb way, the dinosaurs thought they were the dominant life form on the planet. They could pretty much stomp on any other species at will. Well, they were dominant for a while. Maybe their religion wasn't straight. Where was Jerry Faulwell when the dinosaurs needed him?

The value of Spong's insights lie in his willingness to directly confront our confusion about the bible in a way few, including myself, have been able to do. Condensing his concerns to a few examples Spong asks if we want to worship a "God who plays favorites, who chooses one people to be God's people to the neglect of all the others?" "Will our modern consciousness allow us to view with favor a God who could manipulate the weather in order to bring the great flood that drowned all human lives save for Noah's family because human life had become so evil God needed to destroy it?" "Can we really worship the God found in the Bible who sent the angel of death across the land of Egypt to murder the firstborn male in every Egyptian household in order to facilitate the release of the chosen people?" Do we really want to worship a God who says in the Bible "if children do not obey their parents, if they overeat or drink too much, they are to be stoned at the gates of the city"?. Spong concludes that "institutional Christianity has become so consumed by its quest for power and authority, most of which is rooted in excessive claims for the Bible, that the authentic voice of God can no longer be heard within it." "My hope is that we.....can return to that vocation which is, I believe, the essence of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. We are to build a world in which every person can live more fully, love more wastefully and be all that God intends for each person to be. In that vocation we will oppose everything that diminishes the life of a single human being, whether it is race, ethnicity, tribe, gender, sexual orientation or religion itself. That is what I see Jesus as having done, and because he did exactly that, people were able to see, to meet and to experience God in him in a radically different way." Part 2 to follow.

Terminational Years Check List

Terminational Years Summary Check List:

"After all is said and done more is said than done." I think in my case this is too often true. Planning is the easiest hard part, following through is the hardest hard part. After all the time drawn out verbal discursiveness about terminational living as it applies to my own circumstances and personality, I have assembled the following check list as my self guide to contented terminational years.

____rather than depend a lot on others to provide a source of contentment I will seek to generate my own activities, things I can enjoy independent of others.

____use the fortunate blessings and successes of my productive and formative years as the source of gratitude for life. Based on this, life doesn't owe me anything and it is illogical for me to feel otherwise in my terminational years. "You can never go home again". Only fools try.

_____support political positions which tend to level the playing field for all. Rooting for those for whom the cards are stacked against is a kind of ethical bath good for the soul and the spirit.

_____never support violence as a solution to conflicts unless it is a defense against territorial aggression or genocide some place on the globe. Then, extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

______LIVE AND LET LIVE. There can be no contentment when one fails to appreciate diversity, and this diversity includes all forms of life, varied cultures, varied races, varied religions, varied personalities. Failure here generates internal anger, bitterness, persecutory impulses, self centered scheming, and just removes any possibility of a contented state of mind since there will always be someone or some group who needs to be taught a lesson or two.

_____Let go of activities and/or relationships of your past which cannot be sustained at a level which will bring satisfaction and contentment. The future is not what it used to be. Accept it.

_____Do not be a burden to others, especially those in their productive years, or friends who for varied reasons have drifted away, gone down different paths, etc. Good friends are valued for their past contributions to your life, and will always be considered friends for that reason, never some sort of "what have you done for me lately?". Whether good friends drift away, go down different paths, now live in distant places, become bored with you, die, or whatever---you will lose them all in your terminational years, only the order of who loses who when varies. Roses die. Always. When relationships become inane or superficial or interests become divergent don't blame others. Times change, people change, situations change. Most marriages don't last, let alone all good friendships. What should not change is a commitment to help a good friend, past or otherwise, in a time of need. A person deserves reward for the years of friendship, not denial of past good times. Those friends who fade out of your life should be fondly remembered for the enrichment and support in earlier times. Period.

_____Do not be a pest to others. Far too many older people spend too much time being a pest. I have seen this so much in life, sustained only by a sense of duty on the part of the pestered. The legitimate question becomes, how do you know when you are being a pest? The answer I think is simple. Let others set the frequency of contact. Record the date of all phone calls, e-mails, letters, visits----whatever----from friends. If they tend to communicate once a month on their own---follow suit, let them set the time span. If it is once a week follow suit, if it is once a year follow suit. If it is never follow suit. It is good to remember that the kind of response obtained from a pestered target will never enrich your own sense of contentment, and in the broader sense it is no tragedy when others can live a meaningful life on their own. If they can so can you. When all else fails, for varied legitimate reasons, a pet may end up a real old person's best friend, the only one who really needs them. If you live long enough you will have trouble seeing well, hearing well, getting around well, and your immediate caregivers become your "family". If you can't get along with them, then contentment will vanish. Plan out in advance what you want done if your mind fades away, get it in writing---never ever leave the burden to others to make such a personal decision. Find a way through earlier planning to get any of your accumulated wealth into the hands of those in need who still have a life ahead of them. Don't let the government or religious driven loonies force your wealth into measures to keep you an essential vegetable for any length of time. Don't let friends or relatives of any kind siphon off your accumulated wealth to themselves. In a just world each person should build their own wealth. All accumulated wealth should be returned back to society in ways which will create a more level playing field for all. That is the ethics of religion. All else is invented bullshit.

____Start returning throughout your terminational years any accumulated wealth to the society from which it came. Don't pass it on to those who are fully capable of generating their own wealth. It doesn't even do them any favor. Those most contented in life achieved their status and wealth on their own. I think all my closest friends made it on their own and that is part of why I respect them. The support base needed by those who have no support base of their own, to give them some sort of level field, depend on a support base from those already affluent in society. Just throwing money doesn't work. People build people. When 1% of any society own more of the wealth than the bottom 90%, that society will shortly implode on itself. The have-nots always win and Nature always bats last. Rather than be a perpetual or part-time pest to those already blessed in life find "pictures from life's other side" and befriend them with emotional and financial support. The over 65 is the wealthiest class in America. The over 65 have the most time on their hands of any age group. Those over 65 with the mostest have an ethical responsibility to help those less fortunate, those with the leastest. Hell, you are going to die. Do it right. There will not be a second chance.

____I am no longer going to invest any of my income. What is already invested I will let grow until death and then give it all away to worthy causes. There is no need, after this year, to keep spending money like crazy. There is no reason I shouldn't live modestly. I have accumulated more than enough. My cup runneth over. With modest spending each year I should have thousands of dollars available to help those deserving, but less fortunate, find a path to financial and career success. You know, what the hell, in 10 or fifteen years I will be dead or limited in what I can do, or God forbid, be dead from the neck up. I have no intention of being suckered into some sort of 'live it up while you can' mode. The time to live it up is in your formative years and productive years. If you did a good job of it then you should be spent and entitled to relax, appreciate simple pleasures, and in my case observe the wonders of nature, read, fall asleep, then wander on to the next wonder to ponder, and try to seek paths less traveled---I call it tonic for the mind.