LOVE
Even those who like to write shy away from essays on or definitions of love. The word is used all the time but if any word probably has an individualized meaning, love must be that word. To start with Love is a feeling and feelings are hard to define. Also, feelings by definition are distinct from reality. I may feel safe someplace but that doesn't mean I necessarily really am. Of course we 'love' our parents, our friends, our pets, maybe our job, our community, our country, our God, our neighbors, and the list goes on. Lotta lovin' goin on. Really? Well, maybe at least to some degree some of the time. Maybe there are degrees of love. Maybe sometimes to love someone simply means you don't hate them. And perhaps sometimes we use the word love more as some sort of obligatory appropriate social habit, like we don't eat spaghetti with our fingers due to social expectations.
I'll start here with 'true love'. Even if I get through that, does this mean any other kind of love is 'untrue'? Damn, am getting tangled up here already. When 'true love' occurs I guess marriage then follows. Well, I guess sometimes not if your 'true love' is already married, or you are gay, or there is a religious barrier, social barrier, etc. Practically speaking most people really don't marry their 'true love'. If we could, most of us would marry the most beautiful/handsome person we have ever met who had the most perfect wonderful and charming personality. The problem is, most of us can't compete in either category. So, in adolescence we begin the tortuous process of finding where in the suitability order for marriage we fit in. Most everybody is not in the Superior group. Or even the Quality group. Maybe the Above Average group. Most likely in the Average group. But many are in the Somewhat Below Average group. Too many are in the Grungy group, and the least lucky are in the Ghastly group. Like it or not---for most people---the quest for 'true love' is really amongst the group to which they belong. There are occasional exceptions, but not that many. 'True love' gets reduced to the best you can get from your genetically and environmentally assigned group. To me, that kind of takes the edge off the meaning of 'true love'. It ends up being some sort of "well, that's the best I can do". Then to top it off, a marriage ceremony is held and in some form or fashion the clergy will say "what God has put together, let no man put asunder". " A hah! God stuck me in my group pool of possible mates. Why didn't he put me in the Superior Group? Did I sin before birth? And of course if God puts married people together, why are there so many divorces? What kind of judgement does God have anyway? Why do we always create an image of God which is petty, irrational, and absurd? Not to mention mean-spirited.
Be all this as it may, does 'true love' ever last? I doubt love is ever a constant thing. It changes with time. Of course it does, just about everything changes with time. Half of marriages result in divorce and I wouldn't hazard any guess as to what percentages of marriages last till death do us part ONLY BECAUSE neither one wants to risk losing what they know they have, and not sure of what they might get, if anything, were they to divorce. I doubt most age ripened spouses find it difficult to get down the grocery isle for want of those chasing after their body and personality in search of 'true love'. Just sit in an airport some time and count the number of people who go by with whom you would want to have sex. Doubt it will be a high percentage. But of course, 'true love' may have nothing to do with sex. You see weddings sometimes in which one or the other is a grotesque mismatch. And if it is, money or power is probably the basis for the marriage. I don't think that qualifies as 'true love'. Maybe, if logic is the basis for approval, civilizations like the Arawak Indians are the most realistic. In their society (now extinct) marriage was nonexistent. Both males and females hooked up and split up as the situation changed, with no anger, hostility, or difficult divorces. Some sort of musical chairs, and when the love was gone (the music stopped) they switched partners. Am I endorsing this? In matters of love only a fool would jump to endorse anything. The dating game, for many people, is difficult enough without it being an ongoing life challenge ("Honey, I found my 35th 'true love' in the elevator late last night. See you!" In the end true love remains a mystery: "The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment...Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up" (James Baldwin).
"Love thy neighbor as thyself". I guess it is a nice goal, but hardly achievable. Those who learn to appreciate diversity are most likely to achieve the most progress toward this goal. Appreciating diversity is intimately tied to love. Far right religious groups are not exactly radiating with Love. Love is extremely difficult to assess. When someone says "I love you" or "I love him/her" or "I love this or that" how the hell do you really know to what extent they mean that. Some people, myself included, don't go around verbally expressing the word love like a shotgun. Matter of fact, I feel uncomfortable saying I love anyone, since I feel like, "What the hell am I saying?" Love is a matter of degrees, so if I have loved someone the most in my life, how can it mean the same thing to say I love someone else? To be correct one would have to say, "I love you somewhat" since you don't love them as much as you loved the person you loved the most in your life. There are 'huggers' in life and there are 'non huggers' in life. Which ones are filled with the most 'love' of others? Beats me. Hugging in some schools became quite fashionable, a replacement for saying hello. Sounds good, everyone hugging in the hallways between classes---except not so good for those no one wanted to hug. I know who those would have been back when I was in high school. I am not sure how much I support blatant and frequent identification of those least lovable in our society----especially young kids. Maybe we should throw out the term 'love your neighbor' and replace it with appreciation of diversity, tolerance, respect, understanding, and cooperativeness. I think I can appreciate diversity without having to love everyone.
The worse abuse of the word love is those who go around expressing 'love' for their country by waving flags, pledging allegiance, and wearing patriotic lapel buttons while singing the national anthem at every event imaginable. Real allegiance to one's country is summed up by James Baldwin: "I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually". A lot of Baldwin's thoughts relate tangentially to patriotism. "Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law...... I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.......It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have....Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch....People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead....It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be....For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out". True patriotism uses the Golden Rule upon which to judge public policies. True patriotism is wanting your country to be the one to most closely follow the Golden Rule, which is the basis for all ethics.
People rush to 'love' a lot of things. Like they may say they love football. Because you enjoy watching or participating in something it is love? I don't think it fits. Enjoyment and love are not the same thing. One is frivolous and one is monumentally intrinsic to our well being. Can one be content without love? I really don't think so. Love is really an experience---and such experiences are the basis for contentment. Past love is never really gone from your psyche. Experiences of love, in the broadest sense, become the emotional drive which enables one to cope with the present, to judge yourself and your own behaviors, to understand others, to have empathy, to be tolerant, to be cooperative. That is, after all, what love teaches us, and we are forever grateful to those who helped teach us so much through their gift of love to us---a love at various levels, but love nevertheless. Of all the creations of God's evolutionary process, love may be the most exalted and wondrous.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
HISTORY AS PROPAGANDA
HISTORY AS PROPAGANDA:
The basic problem with history is that whomever is writing the history writes it from a particular perspective. I do not know how this can be avoided. Thus, what you read invariably has certain religious, political, ethnic, and cultural biases. Objectivity is limited in anyone's peculiar world. Except, of course, for you and I and often I wonder about you.
When I was growing up Columbus was a revered historical American figure with a national holiday. Of course he wasn't American, he didn't discover America, and he was essentially a low class thug with endless greed for money, titles, and power. Like many such thugs he wrapped all of his unethical behaviors behind a cloak of self proclaimed religious piety. He was a Pat Robertson, a Reverend Jackson, a Jerry Faulwell, and a typical Pope with an added tough risk taking adventurous spirit.
I can't help but wonder what kind of American History might have evolved if a different sort of person had 'discovered' America. We know quite a bit about Columbus from his own words. When he first came ashore in the Bahama Islands the natives, called Arawaks, ran to greet Columbus and his men, brought them food, water, gifts. Columbus wrote in his log:
" They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned...They were well built, with good bodies and handsome features.....They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They would make fine servants....With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
I guess one can read into this a lot of things. But I say to myself, "Wow, and these are the people Europe is going to send missionaries to save them and make them Christians." Many of the Indian tribes, when first encountered by the invading Europeans, had similar cultures---cultures remarkable for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. They didn't own land personally, they shared it. They didn't worship in temples or invent imaginary tribal Gods----they worshipped nature, God's creative process of which they were a part. Columbus was from Spain, a culture dominated by the religion of the Popes, the government of Kings, the frenzy for money, and an appetite for torture.
Columbus writes: "As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts." Columbus wanted to know where the gold was.
Next, our charming American hero, sailed to Haiti and the Dominican Republic where our pious religious hero reported that the natives "are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone" He wrote to his Majesties back home that he "would bring home to them as much gold as they need and as many slaves as they ask".
He added, "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives us victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities." Onward Christian soldiers!!!!!
Columbus then built a fort in Haiti and left behind some soldiers to guard the fort. On his next voyage, when he returned he found all the soldiers had been killed after they roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor. The Indians were slowly becoming savagestized and learning how to kill. On his second voyage Columbus rounded up 500 of the best Arawak men, women, and children and sailed back to Spain with his bounty. Although half of them died en route, the rest were were put up for sale in Spain. Columbus wrote: "Let us, in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold".
The Spaniards descended now on Haiti with pent up religious and patriotic furor. Those natives who could not cough up some gold were simply slaughtered. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with casava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards and I guess the work of the 'Holy Trinity". In two years, half of the 250,000 Indians in Haiti were dead. With no Gold to be found these Indians were then taken as slave labor. By 1515 there were maybe 50,000 Arawak Indians left, by 1550 there were 500. By 1650 none of the original Arawaks or their descendants were left on the island. God, everybody's inherited real God, works in mysterious ways, or so it is always claimed. As was to be so common---missionaries aside----natives were eliminated. Missionaries always mean well, in a narrow sense of the word, but for the most part what do religious missionaries to other countries ever really achieve? Domestic religious turmoil in the targeted country is almost always the end result.
One missionary who lived in Haiti during this period described the Arawak Indians thusly: Aside from their kindness and willingness to share everything, they treat women very well, so well as to startle the Spaniards. On sex relations the missionary wrote: "Marriage laws are non existent; men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy, or anger. If women tire of their men they give themselves abortions with herbs that force stillbirths. Indian men and women look upon total nakedness with as much casualness as we look upon a man's head or at his hands." The missionary recounted numerous examples of how the Indians were treated. "Two of our so called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys....Indian attempts to defend themselves failed, and those who didn't commit suicide suffered and died in mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help."
History is full of these kind of sad and cruel episodes. Myself, I become quite jaded about organized religion because behind most of this 'man's inhumanity to other humans' is some sort of religious zeal. I think of the Taliban, I think of Americans in Vietnam, of the Muslims and Christians in Darfur, of the religious right in this country and you see the same kind of intolerance for others who are different, who fail to worship the right God, and you just sense, if ever the laws and police which protect the targets of their hate are ever loosened, these despised people will be treated with the same hatred those two boys were with their parrots.
On Columbus Day I am not going to honor Columbus at all. I instead will wonder what kind of History might have emerged if there had been a different kind of Columbus who happened upon the Arawak Indians. You know, someone who had some kind of real religion, some kind of adherence to the Golden Rule, someone who respected others, especially others who are kind and peaceful and sharing. No, to hell with the likes of Columbus---seemingly some kind of testosteronized Sarah Palin--- and instead I shall honor those two Avarak boys with their pet parrots, and all the other hapless and helpless nobodies across the globe whose lives to me are beyond comprehension---mired in the kind of desperation and hopelessness that bears reality to Lincoln's oft felt sadness at how much real sadness there is in our world.
To be fair, the level of cruelty, in general, has decreased over time, perhaps part of human evolutionary progress. We still have isolated acts of senseless cruelty---the Taliban, our own religious right, and of course the renowned 5-time deferment cowardly self proclaimed warrior Dick Cheney who thinks returning to torture is the way to reduce violence in the world. He and his ilk have no real comprehension of life in places like Afghanistan. Reporters who have been in the area over any period of time explain Afghan fighters this way: For most Afghanistans the priority is to survive. Religion, politics, right and wrong, are all luxuries they can ill afford to spend time on. A young man might be fighting with the Taliban one month, with the local Mushadeen war Lords a different month, and with the government forces another month. It all depends on who is in charge at gunpoint at the time. Death and violence has been a way of life for centuries now. So when we capture one of these Taliban 'for the moment' soldiers (if I can use the term soldier loosely) what prey tell, is there to torture them for? One has to be substantially dense not to understand that if we can torture captured enemies, our enemies can feel the right to torture captured Americans. When you start capturing chauffeurs, and messengers, etc. and torture them you reveal more about your own ethics than theirs. And of course if you capture a real high up leader, anything he knows his sponsors know and will be sure what he knows is no longer operative. And of course torture simply produces whatever the one being tortured thinks you want to know. I think I will keep in my back pocket a list of people I really dislike and if I am ever captured and accused of being an American spy, I will readily, upon being tortured, use this list to identify these secret top level American war planners.
When I think about the Arawak Indians and the Columbus invaders it is hard to identify Columbus as the more civilized and ethical party. It just seems Christ, Buddha, Confucius, Moses, and most any other original prophet of a major religion, would choose the Arawak culture over the Spanish/Italian culture from whence Columbus sprung. No matter the ethical principle applied, the Arawak are more admirable. The Arawak have long since become extinct, I guess some version of the survival of the fittest. Sadly, Haiti never has recovered from the cycle of violence and cruelty imposed on that country by Columbus and his followers.
Whenever I see religious fanatics with Bibles of some sort waving in the air, armed with guns and blind patriotic and religious fervor, I cringe. They are not much different from Columbus. They love weaponry, huge defense budgets, military shows, support every invasion their government undertakes, support the death penalty, torture, and like Columbus, are driven into a frenzy by the accumulation of material wealth. "Where is the gold" is still the engine which drives much of their behavior. It is private property and personal wealth which comprise their priorities, never sharing. Their world is always one of 'us' vs 'them', a mentality of conflict which fuels their discontent which radiates from their pronouncements and actions. You can tell those outside their family or neighborhood enclaves by the hunted look in their eyes. Their message to others is always some sort of "Someday we will get you and when we do our God will be pleased and reward us for our efforts". Whatever.
Me, I have more admiration for the Arawak Indians than the Europeans who invaded them. Heaven was turned into hell and we know who did it.
The basic problem with history is that whomever is writing the history writes it from a particular perspective. I do not know how this can be avoided. Thus, what you read invariably has certain religious, political, ethnic, and cultural biases. Objectivity is limited in anyone's peculiar world. Except, of course, for you and I and often I wonder about you.
When I was growing up Columbus was a revered historical American figure with a national holiday. Of course he wasn't American, he didn't discover America, and he was essentially a low class thug with endless greed for money, titles, and power. Like many such thugs he wrapped all of his unethical behaviors behind a cloak of self proclaimed religious piety. He was a Pat Robertson, a Reverend Jackson, a Jerry Faulwell, and a typical Pope with an added tough risk taking adventurous spirit.
I can't help but wonder what kind of American History might have evolved if a different sort of person had 'discovered' America. We know quite a bit about Columbus from his own words. When he first came ashore in the Bahama Islands the natives, called Arawaks, ran to greet Columbus and his men, brought them food, water, gifts. Columbus wrote in his log:
" They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned...They were well built, with good bodies and handsome features.....They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They would make fine servants....With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
I guess one can read into this a lot of things. But I say to myself, "Wow, and these are the people Europe is going to send missionaries to save them and make them Christians." Many of the Indian tribes, when first encountered by the invading Europeans, had similar cultures---cultures remarkable for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. They didn't own land personally, they shared it. They didn't worship in temples or invent imaginary tribal Gods----they worshipped nature, God's creative process of which they were a part. Columbus was from Spain, a culture dominated by the religion of the Popes, the government of Kings, the frenzy for money, and an appetite for torture.
Columbus writes: "As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts." Columbus wanted to know where the gold was.
Next, our charming American hero, sailed to Haiti and the Dominican Republic where our pious religious hero reported that the natives "are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone" He wrote to his Majesties back home that he "would bring home to them as much gold as they need and as many slaves as they ask".
He added, "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives us victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities." Onward Christian soldiers!!!!!
Columbus then built a fort in Haiti and left behind some soldiers to guard the fort. On his next voyage, when he returned he found all the soldiers had been killed after they roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor. The Indians were slowly becoming savagestized and learning how to kill. On his second voyage Columbus rounded up 500 of the best Arawak men, women, and children and sailed back to Spain with his bounty. Although half of them died en route, the rest were were put up for sale in Spain. Columbus wrote: "Let us, in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold".
The Spaniards descended now on Haiti with pent up religious and patriotic furor. Those natives who could not cough up some gold were simply slaughtered. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with casava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards and I guess the work of the 'Holy Trinity". In two years, half of the 250,000 Indians in Haiti were dead. With no Gold to be found these Indians were then taken as slave labor. By 1515 there were maybe 50,000 Arawak Indians left, by 1550 there were 500. By 1650 none of the original Arawaks or their descendants were left on the island. God, everybody's inherited real God, works in mysterious ways, or so it is always claimed. As was to be so common---missionaries aside----natives were eliminated. Missionaries always mean well, in a narrow sense of the word, but for the most part what do religious missionaries to other countries ever really achieve? Domestic religious turmoil in the targeted country is almost always the end result.
One missionary who lived in Haiti during this period described the Arawak Indians thusly: Aside from their kindness and willingness to share everything, they treat women very well, so well as to startle the Spaniards. On sex relations the missionary wrote: "Marriage laws are non existent; men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy, or anger. If women tire of their men they give themselves abortions with herbs that force stillbirths. Indian men and women look upon total nakedness with as much casualness as we look upon a man's head or at his hands." The missionary recounted numerous examples of how the Indians were treated. "Two of our so called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys....Indian attempts to defend themselves failed, and those who didn't commit suicide suffered and died in mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help."
History is full of these kind of sad and cruel episodes. Myself, I become quite jaded about organized religion because behind most of this 'man's inhumanity to other humans' is some sort of religious zeal. I think of the Taliban, I think of Americans in Vietnam, of the Muslims and Christians in Darfur, of the religious right in this country and you see the same kind of intolerance for others who are different, who fail to worship the right God, and you just sense, if ever the laws and police which protect the targets of their hate are ever loosened, these despised people will be treated with the same hatred those two boys were with their parrots.
On Columbus Day I am not going to honor Columbus at all. I instead will wonder what kind of History might have emerged if there had been a different kind of Columbus who happened upon the Arawak Indians. You know, someone who had some kind of real religion, some kind of adherence to the Golden Rule, someone who respected others, especially others who are kind and peaceful and sharing. No, to hell with the likes of Columbus---seemingly some kind of testosteronized Sarah Palin--- and instead I shall honor those two Avarak boys with their pet parrots, and all the other hapless and helpless nobodies across the globe whose lives to me are beyond comprehension---mired in the kind of desperation and hopelessness that bears reality to Lincoln's oft felt sadness at how much real sadness there is in our world.
To be fair, the level of cruelty, in general, has decreased over time, perhaps part of human evolutionary progress. We still have isolated acts of senseless cruelty---the Taliban, our own religious right, and of course the renowned 5-time deferment cowardly self proclaimed warrior Dick Cheney who thinks returning to torture is the way to reduce violence in the world. He and his ilk have no real comprehension of life in places like Afghanistan. Reporters who have been in the area over any period of time explain Afghan fighters this way: For most Afghanistans the priority is to survive. Religion, politics, right and wrong, are all luxuries they can ill afford to spend time on. A young man might be fighting with the Taliban one month, with the local Mushadeen war Lords a different month, and with the government forces another month. It all depends on who is in charge at gunpoint at the time. Death and violence has been a way of life for centuries now. So when we capture one of these Taliban 'for the moment' soldiers (if I can use the term soldier loosely) what prey tell, is there to torture them for? One has to be substantially dense not to understand that if we can torture captured enemies, our enemies can feel the right to torture captured Americans. When you start capturing chauffeurs, and messengers, etc. and torture them you reveal more about your own ethics than theirs. And of course if you capture a real high up leader, anything he knows his sponsors know and will be sure what he knows is no longer operative. And of course torture simply produces whatever the one being tortured thinks you want to know. I think I will keep in my back pocket a list of people I really dislike and if I am ever captured and accused of being an American spy, I will readily, upon being tortured, use this list to identify these secret top level American war planners.
When I think about the Arawak Indians and the Columbus invaders it is hard to identify Columbus as the more civilized and ethical party. It just seems Christ, Buddha, Confucius, Moses, and most any other original prophet of a major religion, would choose the Arawak culture over the Spanish/Italian culture from whence Columbus sprung. No matter the ethical principle applied, the Arawak are more admirable. The Arawak have long since become extinct, I guess some version of the survival of the fittest. Sadly, Haiti never has recovered from the cycle of violence and cruelty imposed on that country by Columbus and his followers.
Whenever I see religious fanatics with Bibles of some sort waving in the air, armed with guns and blind patriotic and religious fervor, I cringe. They are not much different from Columbus. They love weaponry, huge defense budgets, military shows, support every invasion their government undertakes, support the death penalty, torture, and like Columbus, are driven into a frenzy by the accumulation of material wealth. "Where is the gold" is still the engine which drives much of their behavior. It is private property and personal wealth which comprise their priorities, never sharing. Their world is always one of 'us' vs 'them', a mentality of conflict which fuels their discontent which radiates from their pronouncements and actions. You can tell those outside their family or neighborhood enclaves by the hunted look in their eyes. Their message to others is always some sort of "Someday we will get you and when we do our God will be pleased and reward us for our efforts". Whatever.
Me, I have more admiration for the Arawak Indians than the Europeans who invaded them. Heaven was turned into hell and we know who did it.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
THE SCARIEST STATS
The Scariest Stats:
Some claim you are what you eat. Cute, but not so. Maybe you 'are', instead of dead, because of what you eat, but at some point in age there is so little of the 'real' you left that the 'real' you is sometimes gone long before you are physically dead. Besides, the 'real' you is a changing piece of work. I am not the same person today I was 40 years ago, and to be picky, not even the same person I was yesterday. Any continuity is more an 'essence' of ourselves. Of course the same changing hands of time effectuates changes in families, friends, neighborhoods, countries, and all of humanity. God's evolutionary process, whatever else, is not static.
In the minds of many I am some sort of Professor Doomsday. Well, evolution is full of doomsdays. We speak of the age of plants, the age of dinosaurs, the age of humans, etc. I can't really visualize what is next---neither could the dinosaurs----any doomsday mentality reflects the notion of change with lots of individual tragedies, but a trajectory of progress ever upward. Even when we celebrate our own democratic history we like to pretend the founding fathers assembled a perfect Constitution and this perfectness should be the bench mark for all determinations of justice. We do the same thing with religion. A belief established in the past becomes etched in stone and is declared sacrosanct for evermore. What is civil rights if not the continuous battle to bring justice and fairness to more and more? Or to destroy and discard these once sacrosanct beliefs? And what is religion if it is not the Golden Rule? So doomsday essentially means, in the shifting sands of evolution, that change is inevitable, that one species having dominion over another is meaningless, that what may seem sacrosanct in one age becomes history in another. Doomsday is the fate of all INDIVIDUAL living things. The sanctity of life has meaning only in the sense that living cells continue to replicate and reproduce in ways which keeps 'life' itself, a concept beyond human comprehension, continuing on in an ever more complex and advanced fashion. We can no more understand where God's evolutionary process is heading than could the dinosaurs.
Life, as we know it today, is doomed. This is of personal sadness to all of us, but hardly any doomsday for the evolutionary process. The stats today, no matter how hard we try to put a positive spin on them, are not good news for life as we have grown accustomed. It is we ourselves, not God, who created man in God's image; we ourselves who gave us 'dominion' over other species; we ourselves who insists God speaks to us through inherited religions; we ourselves who bestowed upon America some sort of 'manifest destiny' and other sorts of egotistical divine notions. In the evolutionary process CHANCE is king, not divine intervention on behalf of individuals or nations. This is no directionless drift in that the survival-of-the-fittest life forms really do set the stage for future chances.
Evolution is a great and wonderful process for the long run, but never for the short run for ANYBODY, ANY NATION, or for domination of any species. Many species become extinct. What we have before us today are stats, stats which the human species has the intelligence to comprehend somewhat. The dinosaurs may not have had the intelligence to visualize their own demise while humans groups---national or religious in nature---use protective illusions which enable them to be positive and upbeat in the face of impending disaster. Many people my age often admit they are glad they won't be around when the 'shit' hits the fan. I never felt so good politically than when Obama won the Presidency, but the forces which drive the evolutionary process are beyond the control of any species, let alone any individual of any species. HOWEVER, humans are advanced enough mentally to alter the RATE or DIRECTION of evolution. We can buy some time. We, could if we were bright enough, and strong enough mentally, prevent our own demise. I don't mean to imply here that humans will become extinct, but the manner in which we 'rule' the earth today, is doomed. Mother Nature always bats last. That we are God's favorite species is kind of a presumptive notion, let alone any, even worse, presumption that God created man to have dominion over all other species and our environment. That would be like asking someone, "Who are your favorites, your smartest friends or relatives or your pets?" If all life forms are the product of God's evolutionary process, it seems a risky and egocentric mistake to declare your own species God's favorite. Some go even further and insinuate that God likes them and their ilk best. They are, in their minds, God's chosen tribe. I consider this egotistical nonsensical tripe.
Life as we know it now is doomed based on the following stats: (Where anyone, or any nation, puts their priorities tells you more about them then what they may insist they are about). It seems there are two general groups in every country---the "if you don't like it here you can leave" and those who constantly push for more justice through change. I agree with James Baldwin: "I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."
The question is, if you only knew this country by the following stats, what image would you arrive at, and what changes would you make?
80 text messages----avg number sent and received by the average American teen every day. Wow. This is more at the level of "Polly wants a cracker" than intelligent discourse.
Amount of money spent in 2008 to upgrade military forces: U.S.= $607 billion; the next 9 biggest upgrade spenders (China, France, U.K. Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Saudi Arabia, India)= $476 billion.
With 5% of the world's population we have 25% of the world's jailed prisoners, and 25% of them are for nonviolent recreational drug offenses. I am quite sure we have the highest percentage of white collar criminals with probably no more than a handful in jail. In 2007 there were 872,720 marijuana arrests, 775,000 of them for possession, not selling. If we just had more police we could manage more arrests! One can only hazard a guess how many police promotions were achieved through mostly marijuana arrests. I know I feel a lot safer. Most of the crimes committed by others against me in life probably were marijuana induced criminal acts! 70% of illegal drug trafficking profits were from marijuana. If marijuana were legal and taxed, the savings from this War on Drugs and the tax monies would would be enough to provide adequate quality health care for every American. Naw, let's keep the game going and lock the SOB's up---but only lock up the poor who use marijuana.
1 out of every 31 adults in the U.S. is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release.
42%---percentage of college students who feel 'down, depressed, or hopeless'. This is the American Dream?
44%---percentage of teen boys surveyed who said they've seen at least one nude photo of a female classmate online or via cell phone. Wow. Maybe someday down the road the pictures in the Class Yearbook will have a different kind of 'reality' look.
In 2004----1.3 million new jobs, 26% of which went to non-citizens. I wonder if this has anything to do with' slave labor' wages? By 2008 our whole wage and benefit structure was under collapse.
The legal status of abortions in various countries does not predict the number of abortions but just the percentage of safe abortions. Not too different from the legal status of marijuana does not predict the number of users just the number of people in jail.
Development assistance globally as percent of GNI: United States is in 21st place at .2%. U.S. government assistance = $23.5 billion. U.S. Private giving=$34.8 billion. Amount of private aid giving: Universities and colleges= 3.7 billion; Foundations=4 billion; Corporations = 5.5billion; Religious organizations = 8.8 billion; private and voluntary organizations=12.8 billion.
Charitable giving by average percentage of family income contributed: Those making more than a million dollars = 3.2%; those making between $100,000 and $124,000= 2.3%; those making $10,000 to $19,000= 2.4% Thus, the ability to contribute to charity has little impact on the percentage a person gives. Put another way, if your income at $15,000 goes up 67 times, the percent you give to charity rises .8%. Onward Christian soldiers.
Our Iraq War: number of displaced Iraqis= 4.5 million (1 in every 6 citizens); percent of households with clean water = 40%; percent of children in Baghdad that cannot attend school= 70%; number of Iraqi war widows = 1-2 million; number of orphans=5 million; number of dead Iraqis= 1 million one way or another. I wonder how many Iraqis even appreciate OUR sacrifice in this war? Ungrateful bastards. The number of decades the remaining Iraqis will remember what we did to them=who knows? What happened to the sanctity of life? Which country is the undisputed King of the killing fields abroad? This is staggering to me. We lost 40,000 in Vietnam, I think in Iraq it is like 4000, and I don't know the figure in Afghanistan. We killed directly, or indirectly, 2.1 million Vietnamese and so far over a million Iraqis. Hitler's Germany killed 2 million Jews. I mean like where is the Vietnamese Holocaust Museum? For what legitimate reason were they killed? And why was I such an enthusiastic supporter of that war for so long? How can seemingly 'good' 'Intelligent' people commit or support such atrocities on others? And it seems every group except Hitler claimed THE REAL God supporting them. Just baffling.
Were I to continue this, the stats would become tedious and endless. Of course there are some good stats too, but their significance seems overshadowed by the consequences of the bad stats. Whether it is education, health care, the environment, global warming, depletion of natural resources, human overpopulation, accumulation of more and more global wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people percentage wise, number of terrorism deaths (whether by road side bombs, suicide bombs, smart missiles, modern weapons, just plain hacking your neighbors to death,) or homelessness, or death from curable diseases---this big global picture is ghastly, if it is anything.
The original hypothesis here was that what a country does with their money tells you a lot about that country. What a person does with their money tells you a lot about that person---what he/she values, what priorities he/she has, how sharing he/she is, and how much respect others have toward him/her. I suppose one can argue it makes no difference what others across the globe think of us. I mean, for most countries, what have they to brag about compared to us? Much like in the days of slavery in this country the slave owners could similarly say, "Who cares what the slaves really think? What do they have to brag about anyway? And if they know what is GOOD FOR THEM they will stay in line and do as told". Of course our country paid a terrible price for that attitude and change eventually came. Perhaps when we say to other countries, "We don't care what you think. What do you have to brag about anyway? And if you know what is GOOD FOR YOU you will stay in line and do as we bid you do." OR ELSE! The trouble is, OR ELSE is becoming a less effective threat to others. The nature of conflict has changed so much today that our massive accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, including smart bombs, have become, for all practical purposes, more and more useless. What good did all this firepower do us in Vietnam? In Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Somalia? in Darfur? etc. We can claim that terrorism is unethical and cowardly, but on what basis? We killed 2.1 million Vietnamese---a high percentage of them civilians. They killed 35,000 American soldiers, no American civilians. In Iraq it is like 4000 American soldiers, and a million Iraqis killed, mostly civilians. It just seems, on the face of it, it is all terrorism by both sides. We are just better at it. We lose because we are the only side with the option of leaving at some point since we are the invaders. I find all of this crazy, senseless, achieving nothing----while the expenditures to do this kind of thing leaves domestic needs like health care, energy innovation, environmental protection, etc. all left underfunded. Thus we fall further and further behind other industrialized countries in just about all areas except the accumulation of military weapons of mass destruction and invasions of other countries.
Blind patriotism, like blind religious fervor, in both cases an inherited phenomenon----are self destructive forces. When people run around demanding we all show support for our troops, I feel very patriotic. After all, I opposed sending troops into Iraq and now that they are there I support them by favoring bringing them home. I feel this is the best way I can remove them from harm's way and bring an end to our participation in such slaughters. My support of the Vietnam War was an abomination. It was not patriotism at all. When people say how can the Germans have supported Hitler and the murder of 2 million Jews, I ask myself how could I have supported my country killing 2.1 million Vietnamese. What did our soldiers and the Vietnamese die for? It was senseless slaughter.
When I look at the Republican Party these days I am totally baffled and dismayed. Many of these individuals seem pleasant enough on the surface. They are the ones that drape flags over balconies to show their patriotism, want flag burning illegal, and love singing the national anthem at sport contests with marching bands, wounded veterans, and spirited oratorical defenses of every massacre in which we have ever participated---whether it be the Indian Wars, Vietnam, Iraq, dozens of South American countries, Cuba, Philippines, Hawaii, or the more legitimate Wars like World War I, World War II, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, etc. This is their patriotism---"My country, right or wrong".
These same type people fight or fought integration of races, laws to protect children (parents should be the deciders), minimum wages, social security, medicare, worker protection laws, environmental protection laws, equal money spent to educate all children, voting rights, women's rights, universal health care, equal marriage rights for gays, abortion rights, birth control rights, populations control measures, curtailing depletion of natural resources, greater gas mileage efficiency, etc. What they thrive on is making their own religious beliefs the law of the land, the right of everyone to purchase and carry around assault weapons, unregulated capitalism, the right of the wealthy to accumulate unlimited wealth even when it results in 1-3% of the citizens of the U.S. owning 90% of our nation's wealth. When they get on a podium they don't talk about real people with real problems or any real solutions for those with these problems-----no, we get babble about our manifest destiny, about 'family values', about 'freedom', about 'good and evil', about God fearing Christians, about long past glories of conquest and subjugation, and never ever talk about the Golden Rule. Somehow, the Golden Rule escapes all their religious and patriotic fervor.
A typical approach of mine when these people get going about their focal points, is to bring up specific cases of injustices so prevalent around us, and invariably they snap, "I don't want to talk about it!". And they mean it. FAITH--inherited FAITH---is the basis for their ethics, never the logic buried in the Golden Rule. Their FAITH is in THEIR God, almost always an inherited God, and dogma etched in stone by human designated emissaries from God. Thus, in their minds, God has spoken, and if God has spoken, the matter is closed. Thankfully for history, matters of injustice and fairness are never really closed, and many injustices they supported, even in their own lifetimes, have been corrected, over---so to speak---THEIR DEAD BODIES. That is not correct, they have only been dead from the neck up.
No matter, for us as individuals, the band plays on---God's evolutionary process continues---change driven, always eventually reaching higher and higher plateaus physically, mentally, and ethically. The Golden Rule may yet reign some day.
Some claim you are what you eat. Cute, but not so. Maybe you 'are', instead of dead, because of what you eat, but at some point in age there is so little of the 'real' you left that the 'real' you is sometimes gone long before you are physically dead. Besides, the 'real' you is a changing piece of work. I am not the same person today I was 40 years ago, and to be picky, not even the same person I was yesterday. Any continuity is more an 'essence' of ourselves. Of course the same changing hands of time effectuates changes in families, friends, neighborhoods, countries, and all of humanity. God's evolutionary process, whatever else, is not static.
In the minds of many I am some sort of Professor Doomsday. Well, evolution is full of doomsdays. We speak of the age of plants, the age of dinosaurs, the age of humans, etc. I can't really visualize what is next---neither could the dinosaurs----any doomsday mentality reflects the notion of change with lots of individual tragedies, but a trajectory of progress ever upward. Even when we celebrate our own democratic history we like to pretend the founding fathers assembled a perfect Constitution and this perfectness should be the bench mark for all determinations of justice. We do the same thing with religion. A belief established in the past becomes etched in stone and is declared sacrosanct for evermore. What is civil rights if not the continuous battle to bring justice and fairness to more and more? Or to destroy and discard these once sacrosanct beliefs? And what is religion if it is not the Golden Rule? So doomsday essentially means, in the shifting sands of evolution, that change is inevitable, that one species having dominion over another is meaningless, that what may seem sacrosanct in one age becomes history in another. Doomsday is the fate of all INDIVIDUAL living things. The sanctity of life has meaning only in the sense that living cells continue to replicate and reproduce in ways which keeps 'life' itself, a concept beyond human comprehension, continuing on in an ever more complex and advanced fashion. We can no more understand where God's evolutionary process is heading than could the dinosaurs.
Life, as we know it today, is doomed. This is of personal sadness to all of us, but hardly any doomsday for the evolutionary process. The stats today, no matter how hard we try to put a positive spin on them, are not good news for life as we have grown accustomed. It is we ourselves, not God, who created man in God's image; we ourselves who gave us 'dominion' over other species; we ourselves who insists God speaks to us through inherited religions; we ourselves who bestowed upon America some sort of 'manifest destiny' and other sorts of egotistical divine notions. In the evolutionary process CHANCE is king, not divine intervention on behalf of individuals or nations. This is no directionless drift in that the survival-of-the-fittest life forms really do set the stage for future chances.
Evolution is a great and wonderful process for the long run, but never for the short run for ANYBODY, ANY NATION, or for domination of any species. Many species become extinct. What we have before us today are stats, stats which the human species has the intelligence to comprehend somewhat. The dinosaurs may not have had the intelligence to visualize their own demise while humans groups---national or religious in nature---use protective illusions which enable them to be positive and upbeat in the face of impending disaster. Many people my age often admit they are glad they won't be around when the 'shit' hits the fan. I never felt so good politically than when Obama won the Presidency, but the forces which drive the evolutionary process are beyond the control of any species, let alone any individual of any species. HOWEVER, humans are advanced enough mentally to alter the RATE or DIRECTION of evolution. We can buy some time. We, could if we were bright enough, and strong enough mentally, prevent our own demise. I don't mean to imply here that humans will become extinct, but the manner in which we 'rule' the earth today, is doomed. Mother Nature always bats last. That we are God's favorite species is kind of a presumptive notion, let alone any, even worse, presumption that God created man to have dominion over all other species and our environment. That would be like asking someone, "Who are your favorites, your smartest friends or relatives or your pets?" If all life forms are the product of God's evolutionary process, it seems a risky and egocentric mistake to declare your own species God's favorite. Some go even further and insinuate that God likes them and their ilk best. They are, in their minds, God's chosen tribe. I consider this egotistical nonsensical tripe.
Life as we know it now is doomed based on the following stats: (Where anyone, or any nation, puts their priorities tells you more about them then what they may insist they are about). It seems there are two general groups in every country---the "if you don't like it here you can leave" and those who constantly push for more justice through change. I agree with James Baldwin: "I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."
The question is, if you only knew this country by the following stats, what image would you arrive at, and what changes would you make?
80 text messages----avg number sent and received by the average American teen every day. Wow. This is more at the level of "Polly wants a cracker" than intelligent discourse.
Amount of money spent in 2008 to upgrade military forces: U.S.= $607 billion; the next 9 biggest upgrade spenders (China, France, U.K. Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Saudi Arabia, India)= $476 billion.
With 5% of the world's population we have 25% of the world's jailed prisoners, and 25% of them are for nonviolent recreational drug offenses. I am quite sure we have the highest percentage of white collar criminals with probably no more than a handful in jail. In 2007 there were 872,720 marijuana arrests, 775,000 of them for possession, not selling. If we just had more police we could manage more arrests! One can only hazard a guess how many police promotions were achieved through mostly marijuana arrests. I know I feel a lot safer. Most of the crimes committed by others against me in life probably were marijuana induced criminal acts! 70% of illegal drug trafficking profits were from marijuana. If marijuana were legal and taxed, the savings from this War on Drugs and the tax monies would would be enough to provide adequate quality health care for every American. Naw, let's keep the game going and lock the SOB's up---but only lock up the poor who use marijuana.
1 out of every 31 adults in the U.S. is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release.
42%---percentage of college students who feel 'down, depressed, or hopeless'. This is the American Dream?
44%---percentage of teen boys surveyed who said they've seen at least one nude photo of a female classmate online or via cell phone. Wow. Maybe someday down the road the pictures in the Class Yearbook will have a different kind of 'reality' look.
In 2004----1.3 million new jobs, 26% of which went to non-citizens. I wonder if this has anything to do with' slave labor' wages? By 2008 our whole wage and benefit structure was under collapse.
The legal status of abortions in various countries does not predict the number of abortions but just the percentage of safe abortions. Not too different from the legal status of marijuana does not predict the number of users just the number of people in jail.
Development assistance globally as percent of GNI: United States is in 21st place at .2%. U.S. government assistance = $23.5 billion. U.S. Private giving=$34.8 billion. Amount of private aid giving: Universities and colleges= 3.7 billion; Foundations=4 billion; Corporations = 5.5billion; Religious organizations = 8.8 billion; private and voluntary organizations=12.8 billion.
Charitable giving by average percentage of family income contributed: Those making more than a million dollars = 3.2%; those making between $100,000 and $124,000= 2.3%; those making $10,000 to $19,000= 2.4% Thus, the ability to contribute to charity has little impact on the percentage a person gives. Put another way, if your income at $15,000 goes up 67 times, the percent you give to charity rises .8%. Onward Christian soldiers.
Our Iraq War: number of displaced Iraqis= 4.5 million (1 in every 6 citizens); percent of households with clean water = 40%; percent of children in Baghdad that cannot attend school= 70%; number of Iraqi war widows = 1-2 million; number of orphans=5 million; number of dead Iraqis= 1 million one way or another. I wonder how many Iraqis even appreciate OUR sacrifice in this war? Ungrateful bastards. The number of decades the remaining Iraqis will remember what we did to them=who knows? What happened to the sanctity of life? Which country is the undisputed King of the killing fields abroad? This is staggering to me. We lost 40,000 in Vietnam, I think in Iraq it is like 4000, and I don't know the figure in Afghanistan. We killed directly, or indirectly, 2.1 million Vietnamese and so far over a million Iraqis. Hitler's Germany killed 2 million Jews. I mean like where is the Vietnamese Holocaust Museum? For what legitimate reason were they killed? And why was I such an enthusiastic supporter of that war for so long? How can seemingly 'good' 'Intelligent' people commit or support such atrocities on others? And it seems every group except Hitler claimed THE REAL God supporting them. Just baffling.
Were I to continue this, the stats would become tedious and endless. Of course there are some good stats too, but their significance seems overshadowed by the consequences of the bad stats. Whether it is education, health care, the environment, global warming, depletion of natural resources, human overpopulation, accumulation of more and more global wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people percentage wise, number of terrorism deaths (whether by road side bombs, suicide bombs, smart missiles, modern weapons, just plain hacking your neighbors to death,) or homelessness, or death from curable diseases---this big global picture is ghastly, if it is anything.
The original hypothesis here was that what a country does with their money tells you a lot about that country. What a person does with their money tells you a lot about that person---what he/she values, what priorities he/she has, how sharing he/she is, and how much respect others have toward him/her. I suppose one can argue it makes no difference what others across the globe think of us. I mean, for most countries, what have they to brag about compared to us? Much like in the days of slavery in this country the slave owners could similarly say, "Who cares what the slaves really think? What do they have to brag about anyway? And if they know what is GOOD FOR THEM they will stay in line and do as told". Of course our country paid a terrible price for that attitude and change eventually came. Perhaps when we say to other countries, "We don't care what you think. What do you have to brag about anyway? And if you know what is GOOD FOR YOU you will stay in line and do as we bid you do." OR ELSE! The trouble is, OR ELSE is becoming a less effective threat to others. The nature of conflict has changed so much today that our massive accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, including smart bombs, have become, for all practical purposes, more and more useless. What good did all this firepower do us in Vietnam? In Iraq? In Afghanistan? In Somalia? in Darfur? etc. We can claim that terrorism is unethical and cowardly, but on what basis? We killed 2.1 million Vietnamese---a high percentage of them civilians. They killed 35,000 American soldiers, no American civilians. In Iraq it is like 4000 American soldiers, and a million Iraqis killed, mostly civilians. It just seems, on the face of it, it is all terrorism by both sides. We are just better at it. We lose because we are the only side with the option of leaving at some point since we are the invaders. I find all of this crazy, senseless, achieving nothing----while the expenditures to do this kind of thing leaves domestic needs like health care, energy innovation, environmental protection, etc. all left underfunded. Thus we fall further and further behind other industrialized countries in just about all areas except the accumulation of military weapons of mass destruction and invasions of other countries.
Blind patriotism, like blind religious fervor, in both cases an inherited phenomenon----are self destructive forces. When people run around demanding we all show support for our troops, I feel very patriotic. After all, I opposed sending troops into Iraq and now that they are there I support them by favoring bringing them home. I feel this is the best way I can remove them from harm's way and bring an end to our participation in such slaughters. My support of the Vietnam War was an abomination. It was not patriotism at all. When people say how can the Germans have supported Hitler and the murder of 2 million Jews, I ask myself how could I have supported my country killing 2.1 million Vietnamese. What did our soldiers and the Vietnamese die for? It was senseless slaughter.
When I look at the Republican Party these days I am totally baffled and dismayed. Many of these individuals seem pleasant enough on the surface. They are the ones that drape flags over balconies to show their patriotism, want flag burning illegal, and love singing the national anthem at sport contests with marching bands, wounded veterans, and spirited oratorical defenses of every massacre in which we have ever participated---whether it be the Indian Wars, Vietnam, Iraq, dozens of South American countries, Cuba, Philippines, Hawaii, or the more legitimate Wars like World War I, World War II, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, etc. This is their patriotism---"My country, right or wrong".
These same type people fight or fought integration of races, laws to protect children (parents should be the deciders), minimum wages, social security, medicare, worker protection laws, environmental protection laws, equal money spent to educate all children, voting rights, women's rights, universal health care, equal marriage rights for gays, abortion rights, birth control rights, populations control measures, curtailing depletion of natural resources, greater gas mileage efficiency, etc. What they thrive on is making their own religious beliefs the law of the land, the right of everyone to purchase and carry around assault weapons, unregulated capitalism, the right of the wealthy to accumulate unlimited wealth even when it results in 1-3% of the citizens of the U.S. owning 90% of our nation's wealth. When they get on a podium they don't talk about real people with real problems or any real solutions for those with these problems-----no, we get babble about our manifest destiny, about 'family values', about 'freedom', about 'good and evil', about God fearing Christians, about long past glories of conquest and subjugation, and never ever talk about the Golden Rule. Somehow, the Golden Rule escapes all their religious and patriotic fervor.
A typical approach of mine when these people get going about their focal points, is to bring up specific cases of injustices so prevalent around us, and invariably they snap, "I don't want to talk about it!". And they mean it. FAITH--inherited FAITH---is the basis for their ethics, never the logic buried in the Golden Rule. Their FAITH is in THEIR God, almost always an inherited God, and dogma etched in stone by human designated emissaries from God. Thus, in their minds, God has spoken, and if God has spoken, the matter is closed. Thankfully for history, matters of injustice and fairness are never really closed, and many injustices they supported, even in their own lifetimes, have been corrected, over---so to speak---THEIR DEAD BODIES. That is not correct, they have only been dead from the neck up.
No matter, for us as individuals, the band plays on---God's evolutionary process continues---change driven, always eventually reaching higher and higher plateaus physically, mentally, and ethically. The Golden Rule may yet reign some day.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Useless Babble
Disingenuous Useless Babble
I suppose this sort of bullshit is a necessity but the absurdity of it all is grating. Here is a perfect example of what I am alluding to:
"In their half-hour private audience at the Vatican, the two (the Pope and Obama) reviewed Mideast peace and anti-poverty efforts, aides reported. They also discussed abortion and stem cell research at length, subjects of disagreement between them."
Let me understand, 30 minutes of serious discussion about Mideast Peace, plus anti poverty methods, plus abortion, plus stem cell research. If nothing else was discussed that leaves roughly 7 minutes for each topic. And this is labeled as an 'at length' discussion. Huh? Add the fact the Pope is far along in his terminational years, and thus not too swift in pace verbally or physically, and one wonders what exactly would be the appropriate term for such a 'full length' discussion. Let's be a little honest here. This is merely a photo opt, some sort of pandering and posturing for pure image purposes. It has no meaning to the issues listed. No meaning whatsoever. Just like on Christmas Eve when the Pope, like clockwork, always prays for Peace. Is there anyone on Earth who can't sleep Christmas Eve waiting to see if the next day Peace has come? Is there anyone on Earth who thinks the issue of Mideast peace, poverty, abortion or stem cell research was impacted in anyway by this 'at length' discussion about these issues?
You can almost bet your ass (I always wonder who bets to win an ass?) that the appropriate aides pinpoint in advance which topics get to be MENTIONED in a 30 minute audience. Let's not even contemplate the cost of this charade. YET, having said all this, I guess one could say it is a nice gesture, a good symbol of unity, albeit a kind of silly one, and if it makes some people feel good---well, I am not going to be against that.
I suppose this sort of bullshit is a necessity but the absurdity of it all is grating. Here is a perfect example of what I am alluding to:
"In their half-hour private audience at the Vatican, the two (the Pope and Obama) reviewed Mideast peace and anti-poverty efforts, aides reported. They also discussed abortion and stem cell research at length, subjects of disagreement between them."
Let me understand, 30 minutes of serious discussion about Mideast Peace, plus anti poverty methods, plus abortion, plus stem cell research. If nothing else was discussed that leaves roughly 7 minutes for each topic. And this is labeled as an 'at length' discussion. Huh? Add the fact the Pope is far along in his terminational years, and thus not too swift in pace verbally or physically, and one wonders what exactly would be the appropriate term for such a 'full length' discussion. Let's be a little honest here. This is merely a photo opt, some sort of pandering and posturing for pure image purposes. It has no meaning to the issues listed. No meaning whatsoever. Just like on Christmas Eve when the Pope, like clockwork, always prays for Peace. Is there anyone on Earth who can't sleep Christmas Eve waiting to see if the next day Peace has come? Is there anyone on Earth who thinks the issue of Mideast peace, poverty, abortion or stem cell research was impacted in anyway by this 'at length' discussion about these issues?
You can almost bet your ass (I always wonder who bets to win an ass?) that the appropriate aides pinpoint in advance which topics get to be MENTIONED in a 30 minute audience. Let's not even contemplate the cost of this charade. YET, having said all this, I guess one could say it is a nice gesture, a good symbol of unity, albeit a kind of silly one, and if it makes some people feel good---well, I am not going to be against that.
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