Ties that Bind:
If a person falls in love, loses the persona of their affection, and never loves again----what does that say about their social limitations? Maybe recovery from loss is related to the circumstances of the loss. Some losses may simply be irreplaceable, or some losses very forsaken, carried out with isolated social support. Age sometimes plays a role---the old are supposed to die while the loss of a young person is more difficult to accept. Some separations are more unimaginable, others more run of the mill. Some relationships, consisting of two uncommon personalities, are destroyed by external pressures, and by their very uncommon personas, be destined for an oblivion not of their own choosing. "It is best to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all". True, but this is little consolation to the losers. It is, of course, better to have reached and played in the Super Bowl and have lost, than to never have played in a Super Bowl. The trouble is, the greater the stakes, the greater the loss; the greater the loss, the greater the personal toll. A great loss, like a great victory, often creates a great crack in a carefully fortified psyche.
Understanding the complexity of love lost demands analysis beyond the pale of human intellectual capacity. In some sense a truly SUCCESSFUL love affair CANNOT BE DESTROYED, since the essence of lessons learned and emotions felt from the relationship are permanent, guiding beacons of spirit and understanding present TILL DEATH.
We have all heard it before. Time heals all. This too shall pass. When one chapter closes another chapter opens. Still, the healing hand of time is a misnomer. Time just dulls---and only sometimes---the pain. The worst losses are those resulting from bad decisions, poor choices, and pressures from outside sources or situations. A death to a chance accident, a heart attack, etc. carries with it the unavoidableness of the parting. A parting avoidable by different choices of one or both of the participants opens the door for lasting regrets. Lasting regret does not bode well for closure, or for replaceable relationships.
A LOT OF LIFE IS LOSS. Loss, it seems, is the price for having something to begin with. Whatever it is one seeks, and then gains, will be lost---sooner or later. Everything, it seems, exists on borrowed time. Time is King. We are evolution's helots. The harder it is to achieve something, the greater the loss when it is gone. The deeper the emotional bonds, the greater the loss. Anything earned, of any preciousness, always ends, and we, in the long run, are all dead. TIME Stays, WE Go.
Of course the object is to make our lives a great run, to have had good experiences, to be lucky in health and financial security----to appreciate diversity well enough to reach a plateau of contentedness with others of varied ilk, and feel the commonality of purpose in God's created evolutionary process. THERE IS NO NEED TO KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS in order to enjoy the gift of life, or to follow the innate ethics of human nature. Creating a God in our own image, who thinks like us, who protects us individually, and connects with us through inherited religious dogma is really a self serving, self destructive, furtive grasping at straws---which too often creates massive needless turmoil---within a nation, and across the globe. There is no reason to feel God's evolutionary process will not continue for millions of years as it already has, and that, with time, the human species, or a new species, will not overcome our own current limitations and self destructive irrational nuances. This is the nature of evolution.
Love and friendship, I guess, are simply matters of degree. Love is an umbrella term applied differently by different people. Each love is unique, each friendship is unique. Neither can be guaranteed to last. Most really don't, at least not in their original form. Time changes all relationships, for better or worse, and I always admire those who can handle altered relationships without the blame game, the anger, the name calling, and the 'now you are going to pay and pay big' mentality which prevails so often. Mellowed out live-and-let live grateful people will live their lives far more contented than those of a more revengeful bent. I mean really, get even for what? The many good times? The many contributions to your own developed personality? I think the smartest people are those who are able to recognize when the good feelings have changed, and someone no longer views you with the same charitable good feelings of the past. Or vice versa. Just because someone tires of you, or you of them, does not mean someone has to receive blame. Even the best of Broadway shows cannot be popular forever. To attempt to nurture a relationship past it's time not only will fail, but just reach increasingly acrimonious levels. The only rational approach is to appreciate all the good times and support past, let the laughter and fun of the past be the fodder for your feelings, and never put down a past friend or lover to other people using a long list of their faults and shortcomings---faults and shortcomings which obviously you once either didn't see or didn't care about. It is better to live with fond memories of the relationship than a long list of critical uncomplimentary final parting shots with which people often let loose at the end of a relationship. The 'death do us part' mentality is one of the worse concepts ever created by human ignorance, and is at it's worse when we attest this longevity to be decreed by God. How many marriages, claimed by priests to have been put together by God, really last? If nothing else clearly demonstrates priests of any sort do not speak for God, therein is the proof. Consecrated by God? I think not, and if it were so, the marriage would always last.
I personally think it best to fully understand some relationships will fail because we are the one to drift away, politely or otherwise, for this reason or that reason, and other relationships will fail because someone else drifts away, politely or otherwise, for this reason or that reason. The goal, it seems to me, should be to ensure that when one drifts away, it is never done with any parting shots of ridicule, character assassination, or other shots meant to put the other person down, teach them a lesson, or give them reason to retaliate in kind. The goal of being a good friend, however long or short the friendship, is to NOT DO THAT. The only time tit for tat is justified among friends is if the friend is nicely breasted---then a tat might be in order.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
INFLATED MEMBERSHIPS
Inflated memberships:
Years ago I got this application to join the NRA. I ignored it. Several months later I got my membership card. I wrote and told them I had not joined and did not intend to join. Every year until I moved a couple of years ago I would get my membership renewal notice, and each year I would ignore it, and every year a new membership card arrived. When the NRA frightens Congress with how many members they have I always shudder to realize my name is on their membership list and I guess will always be until the NRA has a membership which exceeds the population of the country.
As a teenager I was baptized in the Baptist Church. I have never had my name removed and something tells me I am one of the current listed members of the Baptist Church. Ah, what the hell, no big deal.
Public Schools which depend on enrollment for state or local funding often inflate enrollment. State College and Universities are often the worse offenders as all they have to do is find a way to get a student to enroll, even if it is under circumstances which they know will cause the student to soon drop out. Some students enroll just to get financial aid and then drop out. This inflated enrollment is often by a hefty amount.
Prestigious Universities and Colleges often use inflated tuition figures as a tool to attract the best students. For example, if your tuition is currently at $30,000/yr you can increase tuition by $5000 and then increase scholarship grants by a similar amount and you win both ways: you impress the applicant as to how high up the ladder your University or College is, and you impress the applicant as to how much of a scholarship you will be giving them. I can remember the days when you could substantially work your way through college.
I smiled at the experience of some guy named Tom Flynn. He was a member of the Catholic Church and decided he no longer was a believer and wanted his name removed. Finding this not so easy he decided to get himself excommunicated. His research determined that excommunication opportunities for lay-people are of three principal types. He found Canon 1364 which prescribes automatic excommunication in cases of schism (leaving Catholicism and joining another church), heresy (when a baptized Catholic 'obstinately denies' a well defined Church doctrine), or apostasy ( a thorough renunciation of Christ and the Church).
Mr. Flynn visited the offices of the Archdiocese of Buffalo in Feb. 2008 and left a package for the Rev. Magr. David Slubecky, Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia. The package included his baptismal certificate, and evidence that he was no longer following certain Catholic doctrines. He requested excommunication. He never got an answer and then took his case to the diocesan office in Erie Pa. Again he got no response. Thus, at this date Mr. Flynn is a member in good standing of the Catholic Church. He is now contemplating excommunication via "desecrating the Sacred Species", which is to say he plans to take a wafer which has been consecrated by a priest and throw it in a waste basket.
The above is not an attack on the Catholic Church but yet another example of how so many organizations falsely claim members they really don't have. Well, I don't contribute to this sort of thing. If I apply to be a member of some group and they accept my membership application, I immediately decline. I don't wish to be a member of any group who would accept me as a member. I mean, how exclusive could it be?
Unemployment figures, and only God knows how many other Government figures, are manipulated figures, tabulated in such a way as to minimize or maximize the problem. Even weather reports are often misleading, worded to get attention more than be realistic. I have been on trips and dutifully followed the weather reports back home only to find, upon return, that the weather crisis, as reported on the news, was a typical thunderstorm or whatever, nothing so momentous as portrayed on the weather news across the country.
We live in a massive information age. There is very little information out there which cannot be found on the internet. I really like that. Maybe someday arranged marriages will return, only this time not by family, but by the internet. No more bar hopping, church socials, or whatever, you just fill out an accurate account of your own looks, character, priorities, hobbies, etc. and run it through some internet program and boom, just like that, comes the perfect bride or groom. Then maybe once a year both could fill out a form to determine current compatibility and boom, just like that, at the appropriate time, divorce could be declared with a print-out of who gets what---and to lessen the pain a new spiffy bride or groom be coughed up so that no more than a couple of days of loneliness be suffered through.
Of course this massive availability of the internet has downsides too. A good deal of the information is fabricated. And it provides every kook in the world (not you or I of course) to become connected through the internet with similar such kooks across the globe, allowing formerly isolated disconnected weirdos to become an effective force whether it be for good or bad. These kind of internet relationships have mostly replaced the neighborhood, the church, the schools, etc. as the social centers of our lives. People used to hang out on their porches or be busy going to club meetings or church functions, or community events-----not anymore, just block after block of houses lit up only by the dim halo of computer friendships in each person's room. Imagine telling some young person, "You have been bad you must go and stay in your room now until I tell you you can come out". You better say it quickly before they are already in the room and you better be prepared to beg them to come out after a reasonable time.
So we find ourselves in a whole new world, at least those of us who are older, and what we are to think of it is an enigma. I kind of like it, the computer certainly makes entertaining oneself a lot easier, shopping a lot easier, getting information a lot easier, organizing a political movement much easier, etc. But the downside is that we all become more isolated entities of our social and physical environment. And what this all portends from an evolutionary standpoint for life on this planet is a $64,0000 dollar question. Maybe a case of the more we know, the less we really know. From an evolutionary perspective it might be garbage in, garbage out. 100 million people are projected to starve to death in the next few years and it will happen without hardly a murmur from any of us. It is the 3000 deaths from the World Trade Center bombing which generated massive response and actions. Imagine this, there will be over 3000 TIMES as many deaths from starvation in the next few years as died from the World Trade Center bombing and absolutely nothing much will be done about it. Reality and justice are too discombobulated for us to get priorities straight, or any justice for all right. All I really know, after all these years, is that TIME stays, WE go. And sometimes we never even get a chance to say goodbye, or good riddance, whichever applies.
Years ago I got this application to join the NRA. I ignored it. Several months later I got my membership card. I wrote and told them I had not joined and did not intend to join. Every year until I moved a couple of years ago I would get my membership renewal notice, and each year I would ignore it, and every year a new membership card arrived. When the NRA frightens Congress with how many members they have I always shudder to realize my name is on their membership list and I guess will always be until the NRA has a membership which exceeds the population of the country.
As a teenager I was baptized in the Baptist Church. I have never had my name removed and something tells me I am one of the current listed members of the Baptist Church. Ah, what the hell, no big deal.
Public Schools which depend on enrollment for state or local funding often inflate enrollment. State College and Universities are often the worse offenders as all they have to do is find a way to get a student to enroll, even if it is under circumstances which they know will cause the student to soon drop out. Some students enroll just to get financial aid and then drop out. This inflated enrollment is often by a hefty amount.
Prestigious Universities and Colleges often use inflated tuition figures as a tool to attract the best students. For example, if your tuition is currently at $30,000/yr you can increase tuition by $5000 and then increase scholarship grants by a similar amount and you win both ways: you impress the applicant as to how high up the ladder your University or College is, and you impress the applicant as to how much of a scholarship you will be giving them. I can remember the days when you could substantially work your way through college.
I smiled at the experience of some guy named Tom Flynn. He was a member of the Catholic Church and decided he no longer was a believer and wanted his name removed. Finding this not so easy he decided to get himself excommunicated. His research determined that excommunication opportunities for lay-people are of three principal types. He found Canon 1364 which prescribes automatic excommunication in cases of schism (leaving Catholicism and joining another church), heresy (when a baptized Catholic 'obstinately denies' a well defined Church doctrine), or apostasy ( a thorough renunciation of Christ and the Church).
Mr. Flynn visited the offices of the Archdiocese of Buffalo in Feb. 2008 and left a package for the Rev. Magr. David Slubecky, Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia. The package included his baptismal certificate, and evidence that he was no longer following certain Catholic doctrines. He requested excommunication. He never got an answer and then took his case to the diocesan office in Erie Pa. Again he got no response. Thus, at this date Mr. Flynn is a member in good standing of the Catholic Church. He is now contemplating excommunication via "desecrating the Sacred Species", which is to say he plans to take a wafer which has been consecrated by a priest and throw it in a waste basket.
The above is not an attack on the Catholic Church but yet another example of how so many organizations falsely claim members they really don't have. Well, I don't contribute to this sort of thing. If I apply to be a member of some group and they accept my membership application, I immediately decline. I don't wish to be a member of any group who would accept me as a member. I mean, how exclusive could it be?
Unemployment figures, and only God knows how many other Government figures, are manipulated figures, tabulated in such a way as to minimize or maximize the problem. Even weather reports are often misleading, worded to get attention more than be realistic. I have been on trips and dutifully followed the weather reports back home only to find, upon return, that the weather crisis, as reported on the news, was a typical thunderstorm or whatever, nothing so momentous as portrayed on the weather news across the country.
We live in a massive information age. There is very little information out there which cannot be found on the internet. I really like that. Maybe someday arranged marriages will return, only this time not by family, but by the internet. No more bar hopping, church socials, or whatever, you just fill out an accurate account of your own looks, character, priorities, hobbies, etc. and run it through some internet program and boom, just like that, comes the perfect bride or groom. Then maybe once a year both could fill out a form to determine current compatibility and boom, just like that, at the appropriate time, divorce could be declared with a print-out of who gets what---and to lessen the pain a new spiffy bride or groom be coughed up so that no more than a couple of days of loneliness be suffered through.
Of course this massive availability of the internet has downsides too. A good deal of the information is fabricated. And it provides every kook in the world (not you or I of course) to become connected through the internet with similar such kooks across the globe, allowing formerly isolated disconnected weirdos to become an effective force whether it be for good or bad. These kind of internet relationships have mostly replaced the neighborhood, the church, the schools, etc. as the social centers of our lives. People used to hang out on their porches or be busy going to club meetings or church functions, or community events-----not anymore, just block after block of houses lit up only by the dim halo of computer friendships in each person's room. Imagine telling some young person, "You have been bad you must go and stay in your room now until I tell you you can come out". You better say it quickly before they are already in the room and you better be prepared to beg them to come out after a reasonable time.
So we find ourselves in a whole new world, at least those of us who are older, and what we are to think of it is an enigma. I kind of like it, the computer certainly makes entertaining oneself a lot easier, shopping a lot easier, getting information a lot easier, organizing a political movement much easier, etc. But the downside is that we all become more isolated entities of our social and physical environment. And what this all portends from an evolutionary standpoint for life on this planet is a $64,0000 dollar question. Maybe a case of the more we know, the less we really know. From an evolutionary perspective it might be garbage in, garbage out. 100 million people are projected to starve to death in the next few years and it will happen without hardly a murmur from any of us. It is the 3000 deaths from the World Trade Center bombing which generated massive response and actions. Imagine this, there will be over 3000 TIMES as many deaths from starvation in the next few years as died from the World Trade Center bombing and absolutely nothing much will be done about it. Reality and justice are too discombobulated for us to get priorities straight, or any justice for all right. All I really know, after all these years, is that TIME stays, WE go. And sometimes we never even get a chance to say goodbye, or good riddance, whichever applies.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
A CATCH 2 DIFFICULT CONUNDRUM
A Catch 2 Difficult Conundrum:
Economic progress has been measured for a long time by an increased GNP or other such measures of increased economic growth. Spend more and everything will be all right. But I am not sure this really works anymore. In an evolutionary era in which overpopulation reigns, natural resources are increasingly limited, global warming from atmospheric pollution is bearing down on everyone, water supplies are being exhausted, trees and species are being destroyed at levels not seen for millions of years, and more humans are finding themselves homeless, landless, and starving than ever before---well, economic expansion just accelerates every one of the aforementioned problems.
I glance around and find myself surrounded by gadgets of every sort, many quite expensive, and it just seems surreal-----like many of us are 'fiddling while Rome burns'. It is, from any kind of sane objective view, a case now---as never before in history---that quality of life MUST trump quantity. The notion that there is no such thing as human overpopulation, a notion fueled by religious human devised dogmas, and widespread human arrogance of some sort that claims a right to engage in irresponsible reproduction---this notion is human genocidal. For the masses of humans now on the globe to achieve widespread quality of life, quantity of life must be sacrificed. UNTIL population pressures can be reduced, the affluent have to live substantially less materialistic lives. The GNP need go down while the efficiency of most aspects of modern life must increase.
At this point in evolutionary history democracy and capitalism are failing and failing badly. Greed is the global religion and the amassment of monumental wealth in the hands of a few is full steam ahead. When 90% of the wealth in our country is owned by 1% of the people it becomes economic and moral lunacy. This is not even harmless lunacy, it is an evolutionary disaster for the human race. It doesn't seem to dawn on most people that humans are subject to God's created evolutionary laws just as any other species. With no evidence to support it, most people believe that humans are created in God's image, that we are God's most cherished species, that through our prayers God intervenes and exempts us from evolutionary laws all the time, even in football games, health matters, battlefield situations, and whatever, at the moment, is the want of the moment.
I suspect more and more people really, even if in a vague way, do understand much of the above, but don't really allow themselves to see it. Everything about it, to steal Al Gore's expression, is a sudden unrelenting stream of inconvenient truths. It is like evolutionary realities are bearing down on us from every direction, all at once, with each threatening unimaginable human misery . And it really is unimaginable. I read the stats which predict 100 million people are going to die from starvation in the next few years, but it can't really register, be experienced, or be seen happening right before my eyes, so it has an ethereal unreality to it. Scientists know that the water levels in Texas have fallen beyond irreplaceable levels but new houses continue to go up in record numbers. And there are comparable disasters for varied reasons being imposed on planetary life by evolutionary forces all over the globe. "Yes we can" is inspiring, but what real evidence is there that we can?
Every one of these above problems descending upon human life. as we know it on the planet, has one common denominator---at a certain point, if not already there, the damage becomes irreversible in the short run. The earth cannot be made to suddenly stop warming up---it took centuries for this process to arise and it will take centuries for this problem to recede. There are two types of water levels, one where water is easily replaceable and one where the water is irreplaceable in any kind of short run. We are now drawing upon the irreplaceable water tables in many places. How, in any kind of short run, are we going to replace trees and topsoil? We may think we can eradicate species at a rate unseen for millions of years and pay no cost, but that is not what the history of evolution tells us. The God created evolutionary process is a masterfully designed system of checks and balances, mixed with the obligatory survival of the fittest for progress to occur, and the notion that human greed and disregard for all these checks and balances will win the day is absurd. There is zero reason to believe that humans, as a species, are necessarily the end point of evolution. About the only thing certain is that TIME stays, WE go. The notion that we are the end product of evolution is surely cruel self delusion.
Humans have the potential to control some of our own destiny. That is new in the evolutionary process. Can we though? We can't if we can't control our own reproductive excesses. We can't if the notion of unrestricted capitalism is allowed to flourish. We can't if unearned wealth is allowed to accumulate in the hands of a few and the economic status of the many allowed to deteriorate. We can't if we accept ourselves as some sort of locusts swarming over the planet devouring everything in sight. We can't if we accept might makes right which is really the basis of terrorism----whether it be terrorism by hapless suicide bombers or terrorism by smart bombs. Even here the evolutionary checks and balances are coming into play. We may have all the smart bombs and sophisticated weapons imaginable, yet third World countries like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc. have found simplistic ways to make our invasions a stalemate. We can slaughter, we can demolish, we can impose a stone age existence on others, but we cannot control them. Uniformed soldiers are gone, replaced by masses of unrecognizable enemies waiting for us to simply be at the wrong place at the wrong time---venturing outside some sort of circled wagons green zone.
For the sake of contemplation, suppose the above doomsday scenario plays out--- what are we then to think and how are we to feel and what are we to do? I think each of us, individually, should behave as if our own way of life makes a difference. It does, because playing along with prevalent delusions leaves us hardly fooled deep down, and we become frustrated fools. Frustrated fools can never be contented. Let us instead follow Lincoln's advice and simply live each day as best we can understanding that contentment is ours only when we have "faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
Economic progress has been measured for a long time by an increased GNP or other such measures of increased economic growth. Spend more and everything will be all right. But I am not sure this really works anymore. In an evolutionary era in which overpopulation reigns, natural resources are increasingly limited, global warming from atmospheric pollution is bearing down on everyone, water supplies are being exhausted, trees and species are being destroyed at levels not seen for millions of years, and more humans are finding themselves homeless, landless, and starving than ever before---well, economic expansion just accelerates every one of the aforementioned problems.
I glance around and find myself surrounded by gadgets of every sort, many quite expensive, and it just seems surreal-----like many of us are 'fiddling while Rome burns'. It is, from any kind of sane objective view, a case now---as never before in history---that quality of life MUST trump quantity. The notion that there is no such thing as human overpopulation, a notion fueled by religious human devised dogmas, and widespread human arrogance of some sort that claims a right to engage in irresponsible reproduction---this notion is human genocidal. For the masses of humans now on the globe to achieve widespread quality of life, quantity of life must be sacrificed. UNTIL population pressures can be reduced, the affluent have to live substantially less materialistic lives. The GNP need go down while the efficiency of most aspects of modern life must increase.
At this point in evolutionary history democracy and capitalism are failing and failing badly. Greed is the global religion and the amassment of monumental wealth in the hands of a few is full steam ahead. When 90% of the wealth in our country is owned by 1% of the people it becomes economic and moral lunacy. This is not even harmless lunacy, it is an evolutionary disaster for the human race. It doesn't seem to dawn on most people that humans are subject to God's created evolutionary laws just as any other species. With no evidence to support it, most people believe that humans are created in God's image, that we are God's most cherished species, that through our prayers God intervenes and exempts us from evolutionary laws all the time, even in football games, health matters, battlefield situations, and whatever, at the moment, is the want of the moment.
I suspect more and more people really, even if in a vague way, do understand much of the above, but don't really allow themselves to see it. Everything about it, to steal Al Gore's expression, is a sudden unrelenting stream of inconvenient truths. It is like evolutionary realities are bearing down on us from every direction, all at once, with each threatening unimaginable human misery . And it really is unimaginable. I read the stats which predict 100 million people are going to die from starvation in the next few years, but it can't really register, be experienced, or be seen happening right before my eyes, so it has an ethereal unreality to it. Scientists know that the water levels in Texas have fallen beyond irreplaceable levels but new houses continue to go up in record numbers. And there are comparable disasters for varied reasons being imposed on planetary life by evolutionary forces all over the globe. "Yes we can" is inspiring, but what real evidence is there that we can?
Every one of these above problems descending upon human life. as we know it on the planet, has one common denominator---at a certain point, if not already there, the damage becomes irreversible in the short run. The earth cannot be made to suddenly stop warming up---it took centuries for this process to arise and it will take centuries for this problem to recede. There are two types of water levels, one where water is easily replaceable and one where the water is irreplaceable in any kind of short run. We are now drawing upon the irreplaceable water tables in many places. How, in any kind of short run, are we going to replace trees and topsoil? We may think we can eradicate species at a rate unseen for millions of years and pay no cost, but that is not what the history of evolution tells us. The God created evolutionary process is a masterfully designed system of checks and balances, mixed with the obligatory survival of the fittest for progress to occur, and the notion that human greed and disregard for all these checks and balances will win the day is absurd. There is zero reason to believe that humans, as a species, are necessarily the end point of evolution. About the only thing certain is that TIME stays, WE go. The notion that we are the end product of evolution is surely cruel self delusion.
Humans have the potential to control some of our own destiny. That is new in the evolutionary process. Can we though? We can't if we can't control our own reproductive excesses. We can't if the notion of unrestricted capitalism is allowed to flourish. We can't if unearned wealth is allowed to accumulate in the hands of a few and the economic status of the many allowed to deteriorate. We can't if we accept ourselves as some sort of locusts swarming over the planet devouring everything in sight. We can't if we accept might makes right which is really the basis of terrorism----whether it be terrorism by hapless suicide bombers or terrorism by smart bombs. Even here the evolutionary checks and balances are coming into play. We may have all the smart bombs and sophisticated weapons imaginable, yet third World countries like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc. have found simplistic ways to make our invasions a stalemate. We can slaughter, we can demolish, we can impose a stone age existence on others, but we cannot control them. Uniformed soldiers are gone, replaced by masses of unrecognizable enemies waiting for us to simply be at the wrong place at the wrong time---venturing outside some sort of circled wagons green zone.
For the sake of contemplation, suppose the above doomsday scenario plays out--- what are we then to think and how are we to feel and what are we to do? I think each of us, individually, should behave as if our own way of life makes a difference. It does, because playing along with prevalent delusions leaves us hardly fooled deep down, and we become frustrated fools. Frustrated fools can never be contented. Let us instead follow Lincoln's advice and simply live each day as best we can understanding that contentment is ours only when we have "faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
Monday, February 2, 2009
ANDY ROONEY?
Andy Rooney?
I thought I was the trouble maker! I responded below to an 'Andy Rooney' piece a friend sent me. Despite my COMMENTS there have been times in life when I have felt just like the author, but do my best not to think like that. I think our emotions and logic often get all tangled up. Of course it can be argued that it is my emotions which are on target and my logic which is off target. At any rate these issues are always guaranteed to generate a lot of heat. My comments are in quotation marks.
Andy Rooney Tells It Like It Is
(and CBS, to their credit, lets him do it.)
Andy Rooney spoke his mind on a '60 Minutes' segment.
"Note: I went back over a year and couldn't find any such 60 minute segment. And the following appears to be way too long for one of his short segments, plus Andy always pinpoints his segments. Perhaps this comes out of one of his books, but doubt it, I think this, like so much on the internet, is fabricated. Following are some of my own comments about each of these, whoever wrote them."
I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers.. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America and see what happens...Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.
"Comment: No majority ever feels a need to have such titles. In fact a majority population would be offended by such titles. Being a majority is satisfaction enough, comfort enough. Minorities of any ilk will always seek to attract their members through specially titled groups. I can't think of any good reason why the existence of any such groups should annoy anyone."
Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.
"Comment:This argument is silly, but will never be won by either side. Cars are not made to kill, when someone is killed it is called an accident. Baseball bats are not made to kill and when someone uses a bat for that the product has been misused. Assault weapons are not used to hunt animals, but to kill people. Everyone knows the widespread possession of weapons in most societies ensures there will be a lot of killing. This is especially true in third world countries and the United States. The number of Americans killed by weapons in Iraq per year pales with the number of Americans killed by Americans per year. Fortunately the killing of Americans by Americans does not run up a huge national debt and require smart bombs----yet."
I believe they are called the Boy Scouts for a reason, which is why there are no girls allowed. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts! ARE YOU LISTENING MARTHA BURKE ?
"Comment: I agree with this if girls are really trying to join the boy scouts."
I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion.I have the right 'NOT' to be tolerant of others because they are different,weird, or tick me off.
"Comment: I have no idea what this really is supposed to mean. It seems to justify all the intolerance of others present in society. Anyone can believe anything they want, but that doesn't give anyone either the moral or legal right to interfere with another's right to equal justice. People of course at different times thought that slavery was right, that women shouldn't be allowed to vote, that minors should be allowed to work long hours on a job, etc. And of course this raising the flag of intolerance up the flagpole as some sort of proud right violates the grandaddy of all ethics: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling; it is the Law of Probability.
"Comment: This too is silly. It says nothing. Racial profiling is when only certain ethnic groups are stopped or pulled out of a crowd to harass about this or that."
I believe that if you are selling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you should do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen, you should have to speak English! My father and grandfather didn't die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours.
"Comment: I think English should be the official language of the country, that illegals should not be allowed to work in this country, and that all legal immigrants should be offered the opportunity to be taught English, free if they are poor."
I think the police should have every right to shoot you if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can't understand the word 'freeze' or'stop' in English, see the above lines.
"Comment: I agree with this one."
I don't think just because you were not born in this country, you are qualified for any special loan programs, government sponsored bank loans or tax breaks, etc., so you can open a hotel, coffee shop, trinket store, or any other business. We did not go to the aid of certain foreign countries and risk our lives in wars to defend their freedoms, so that decades later they could come over here and tell us our constitution is a living document and open to their interpretations.
"Comment. I don't know what this is all about either. I am not aware there are any such government sponsored loans for any of the above targeted to immigrants. I think the question is whether an immigrant should also be entitled to such loans? I would guess if he/she is a citizen they should be. Illegal immigrants should be deported."
I don't hate the rich; I don't pity the poor
"Comment: What the hell does this mean? Not hating the rich justifies no empathy with the less fortunate? This kind of comment is usually made by those with all the inherited blessings which grease the way for them to be affluent."
I know pro wrestling is fake, but so are movies and most of television. That doesn't stop you from watching them.
" Comment: What is this? Since when do movies and television even purport to be true? Certainly if someone thinks pro wrestling is real they deserve to be called on it."
I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that's better, and put your name on the building.
"Comment:The welfare of society in general always tops individual rights. No civilized society has yet lasted which allowed it's wealth to accumulate in the hands of a few. To prevent this, graduated income taxes have been used to ensure that there are built in restraints to the accumulation of wealth while living, and inheritance taxes to ensure vast empires of wealth cannot be bequeathed to those who did not earn any of the wealth. Wealth earned is wealth respected. Unearned wealth---stolen, inherited, or otherwise unearned---need have limits placed on it so that much of it is returned to the society from whence it came, so others then have a chance to earn wealth as the original earner had such a chance. And incidently, since 1% of our population now own 90% of the wealth in the country, shouldn't they pay 90% of our taxes?"
It doesn't take a whole village to raise a child right, but it does take a parent to stand up to the kid; and smack their little behinds when necessary, and say 'NO!'
"Comment: This is dribble. We are what we are because of others, of course including good parents. People build people. Kids trapped behind barred up windows and doors and stuck with a poor parent or parents, need others for salvation. The others are the village. All affluent people also have a long list of other non parental influences which contributed to their personage. These others are the village. The 'village' provides justice, a good education, proper medical attention, opportunities, exposure to diversity, and alternate viewpoints."
I think tattoos and body piercing are fine if you want them, but please don't pretend they are a political statement. And, please...stay home until that new lip ring heals. I don't want to look at your ugly infected mouth as you serve me French fries!
"Comment: I personally find tattoos unattractive and would not care to have any. If anyone else wants one, be my guest. It has nothing to do with me. Being ugly by birth is unattractive also. Tough. They are free to walk amongst us. Insisting others must dress to please another is arrogance at it's height. I am not in favor of locking the elderly unattractive eyesores out of sight so Bozo above doesn't have to look at them."
I am sick of 'Political Correctness.' I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa; so how can they be 'African-Americans'? Besides, Africa is a continent. I don't go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was from Europe. I am proud to be from America and nowhere else.
"Comment: Really? Well fine, let's just do away with group distinctions and be done with it. We are all Americans (although why should this distinction be granted? Let's just call all homo sapiens humans. There is a novel idea). So it is agreed---no more African AMericans, no more Catholic Americans, no more gay Americans, no more hispanic Americans, no more immigrant Americans, etc.----everyone is just a human being. I think whoever wrote the above is on to something."
And if you don't like my point of view, tough!
"Comment. I like this one best: Another version of "You do it because I say so! Why do you have to do it? Because I say so". And I have been led to believe Terrell Owens had cornered the market on I, I, I."
I thought I was the trouble maker! I responded below to an 'Andy Rooney' piece a friend sent me. Despite my COMMENTS there have been times in life when I have felt just like the author, but do my best not to think like that. I think our emotions and logic often get all tangled up. Of course it can be argued that it is my emotions which are on target and my logic which is off target. At any rate these issues are always guaranteed to generate a lot of heat. My comments are in quotation marks.
Andy Rooney Tells It Like It Is
(and CBS, to their credit, lets him do it.)
Andy Rooney spoke his mind on a '60 Minutes' segment.
"Note: I went back over a year and couldn't find any such 60 minute segment. And the following appears to be way too long for one of his short segments, plus Andy always pinpoints his segments. Perhaps this comes out of one of his books, but doubt it, I think this, like so much on the internet, is fabricated. Following are some of my own comments about each of these, whoever wrote them."
I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers.. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America and see what happens...Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.
"Comment: No majority ever feels a need to have such titles. In fact a majority population would be offended by such titles. Being a majority is satisfaction enough, comfort enough. Minorities of any ilk will always seek to attract their members through specially titled groups. I can't think of any good reason why the existence of any such groups should annoy anyone."
Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.
"Comment:This argument is silly, but will never be won by either side. Cars are not made to kill, when someone is killed it is called an accident. Baseball bats are not made to kill and when someone uses a bat for that the product has been misused. Assault weapons are not used to hunt animals, but to kill people. Everyone knows the widespread possession of weapons in most societies ensures there will be a lot of killing. This is especially true in third world countries and the United States. The number of Americans killed by weapons in Iraq per year pales with the number of Americans killed by Americans per year. Fortunately the killing of Americans by Americans does not run up a huge national debt and require smart bombs----yet."
I believe they are called the Boy Scouts for a reason, which is why there are no girls allowed. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts! ARE YOU LISTENING MARTHA BURKE ?
"Comment: I agree with this if girls are really trying to join the boy scouts."
I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion.I have the right 'NOT' to be tolerant of others because they are different,weird, or tick me off.
"Comment: I have no idea what this really is supposed to mean. It seems to justify all the intolerance of others present in society. Anyone can believe anything they want, but that doesn't give anyone either the moral or legal right to interfere with another's right to equal justice. People of course at different times thought that slavery was right, that women shouldn't be allowed to vote, that minors should be allowed to work long hours on a job, etc. And of course this raising the flag of intolerance up the flagpole as some sort of proud right violates the grandaddy of all ethics: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling; it is the Law of Probability.
"Comment: This too is silly. It says nothing. Racial profiling is when only certain ethnic groups are stopped or pulled out of a crowd to harass about this or that."
I believe that if you are selling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you should do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen, you should have to speak English! My father and grandfather didn't die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours.
"Comment: I think English should be the official language of the country, that illegals should not be allowed to work in this country, and that all legal immigrants should be offered the opportunity to be taught English, free if they are poor."
I think the police should have every right to shoot you if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can't understand the word 'freeze' or'stop' in English, see the above lines.
"Comment: I agree with this one."
I don't think just because you were not born in this country, you are qualified for any special loan programs, government sponsored bank loans or tax breaks, etc., so you can open a hotel, coffee shop, trinket store, or any other business. We did not go to the aid of certain foreign countries and risk our lives in wars to defend their freedoms, so that decades later they could come over here and tell us our constitution is a living document and open to their interpretations.
"Comment. I don't know what this is all about either. I am not aware there are any such government sponsored loans for any of the above targeted to immigrants. I think the question is whether an immigrant should also be entitled to such loans? I would guess if he/she is a citizen they should be. Illegal immigrants should be deported."
I don't hate the rich; I don't pity the poor
"Comment: What the hell does this mean? Not hating the rich justifies no empathy with the less fortunate? This kind of comment is usually made by those with all the inherited blessings which grease the way for them to be affluent."
I know pro wrestling is fake, but so are movies and most of television. That doesn't stop you from watching them.
" Comment: What is this? Since when do movies and television even purport to be true? Certainly if someone thinks pro wrestling is real they deserve to be called on it."
I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that's better, and put your name on the building.
"Comment:The welfare of society in general always tops individual rights. No civilized society has yet lasted which allowed it's wealth to accumulate in the hands of a few. To prevent this, graduated income taxes have been used to ensure that there are built in restraints to the accumulation of wealth while living, and inheritance taxes to ensure vast empires of wealth cannot be bequeathed to those who did not earn any of the wealth. Wealth earned is wealth respected. Unearned wealth---stolen, inherited, or otherwise unearned---need have limits placed on it so that much of it is returned to the society from whence it came, so others then have a chance to earn wealth as the original earner had such a chance. And incidently, since 1% of our population now own 90% of the wealth in the country, shouldn't they pay 90% of our taxes?"
It doesn't take a whole village to raise a child right, but it does take a parent to stand up to the kid; and smack their little behinds when necessary, and say 'NO!'
"Comment: This is dribble. We are what we are because of others, of course including good parents. People build people. Kids trapped behind barred up windows and doors and stuck with a poor parent or parents, need others for salvation. The others are the village. All affluent people also have a long list of other non parental influences which contributed to their personage. These others are the village. The 'village' provides justice, a good education, proper medical attention, opportunities, exposure to diversity, and alternate viewpoints."
I think tattoos and body piercing are fine if you want them, but please don't pretend they are a political statement. And, please...stay home until that new lip ring heals. I don't want to look at your ugly infected mouth as you serve me French fries!
"Comment: I personally find tattoos unattractive and would not care to have any. If anyone else wants one, be my guest. It has nothing to do with me. Being ugly by birth is unattractive also. Tough. They are free to walk amongst us. Insisting others must dress to please another is arrogance at it's height. I am not in favor of locking the elderly unattractive eyesores out of sight so Bozo above doesn't have to look at them."
I am sick of 'Political Correctness.' I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa; so how can they be 'African-Americans'? Besides, Africa is a continent. I don't go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was from Europe. I am proud to be from America and nowhere else.
"Comment: Really? Well fine, let's just do away with group distinctions and be done with it. We are all Americans (although why should this distinction be granted? Let's just call all homo sapiens humans. There is a novel idea). So it is agreed---no more African AMericans, no more Catholic Americans, no more gay Americans, no more hispanic Americans, no more immigrant Americans, etc.----everyone is just a human being. I think whoever wrote the above is on to something."
And if you don't like my point of view, tough!
"Comment. I like this one best: Another version of "You do it because I say so! Why do you have to do it? Because I say so". And I have been led to believe Terrell Owens had cornered the market on I, I, I."
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