Time Out Until Fall

There are not likely to be new posts here until sometime this fall. Am involved in some rather lengthy literary projects that take up considerable time which would otherwise be spent on shorter discourses.

The 16 worst of Asinine Politics--Part 2

The 16 worst of Asinine Politics---Part Two.

9. Family values

This latest attempt to justify self serving attitudes by wrapping them in some sort of 'family values' mentality is little more than a claim that 'me and my family' are, and should be, the focus, of community and political affairs. It becomes just another variation of the circle the wagons and see others as enemies. Fairness, justice, compassion, tolerance, sacrifice all become inconvenient obstacles in the way of self serving advantages of survival. Survival is often just protecting one's social or economic status as all sorts of others try to gain their piece of a shrinking pie. There is nothing Christian about modern family values. Christ of course always sided with the less fortunate, and family to Christ meant all humankind, not genetic related enclaves.

10. Tax codes

The tax system has become an absurdity in both any fairness or effectiveness.
Those in the best affordable position to pay taxes pay the least percentage-wise. Some of the wealthiest pay no taxes at all. Any idea that the American way is to earn your own way in life has been replaced my massive incomes via inheritance. Those who own wealth the old fashioned way (earning it legitimately) are now overshadowed by those who earn vast wealth via inheritance. It would be scary to know what percentage of young Americans see their financial security now based on what mom and dad can leave them via inheritance. Wealth via inheritance is a pervasive destructive force on family togetherness, as offspring often vie to insure they get the maximum amount of money via inheritance. People who save money to care for them selves in old age often find the money instead is legally hidden away so taxpayers pay for medical care and the kids get the money. Who is now paying for what in our society is lost in a maze of a complex shell game. It is now cleverness more often than useful work which amasses wealth. It is so bad now that many American Corporations move their headquarters abroad to escape the 35% tax bracket imposed on them. Of course, in this global economy, with no minimum wages, it is true that American Corporations often need to pay no taxes to survive. So there we have it----the wealthy don't pay a good percentage in taxes, many corporations pay little or none at all, the poor have no money to pay taxes, so just where is the tax money to come from? The middle class? It is kind of hard to hit them since if they are not promised tax cuts they vote for anyone who will. Talk about funny math this takes the cake: the poor have no money, the middle class demands tax cuts, the wealthy demand tax cuts, tax, breaks, tax loopholes and ways to escape paying any taxes at all, and corporations, to compete against slave labor abroad, can't afford to pay taxes either. The Governor of Wisconsin has the wackiest idea of all: we will reduce expenses of government by finding those groups who still have decent pensions, health care, job security, and wages and do away with these perks. The logic here is darkly clear: if so many have lost all these perks why do some still have them? When these people then have less money to spend, the recession will sink lower, then unemployment will go up. But not to worry because then the question will of course be----if so many are unemployed why are some 'favored people' still employed? They will then need be fired. In the end, all will be free for everything will be worth nothing but everyone will be free.

11. Attitudes towards death and the dying process.

If any thing is personal, a person's dying process ought to be. Every person should be allowed to control their own dying process without the interference of someone else's religious beliefs or government policy. Every person, every five years, should be required to fill out health care directives about their own dying process and what they want done under this or that circumstances. Death itself is nothing to be feared, it is a natural part of life, but the dying process, or rather the lack of personal control over one's dying process, is greatly to be feared. One third of a person's health care expenses are said to occur in the last 6 months of life. The ability to prolong life is rapidly becoming a very scary and expensive phenomenon. We can now find ways to keep some cells functioning some way or another for months, years, even decades now. Who is to pay for this? What is the purpose of it? Few are willing to address these questions. Realism is replaced by charges that people are trying to kill grandpa and grandma. Aging IS the dying process and in all cases there comes a time when enough is enough, either because a person his/her self says it, or society cannot afford to humor those who have religious beliefs that life in any form is sacred. Some people now find themselves caring for a parent who has long since 'died' in any meaningful sense of the term, decades ago. What caring and reasonable person would ever want to be such a burden on anyone, let alone their own kids? Ronald Reagan, for example, had ceased to exist a decade before he was officially declared dead. Because the issue is complex hardly negates any reason to do nothing. But doing nothing, because the burning issues of today are complex, has become a global policy. Well, God's created evolutionary process and the laws which govern it, will survive. Mother Nature bats last. Always has and there is no reason known while She won't continue to do so. We can face problems and do something constructive or we can be like deer caught in the headlights and become frozen in time. No matter, we go, Time stays, God's evolutionary process continues. It is simply not an individually focused process, no matter how much we wish otherwise. We are fortunate enough to be a small part of the process but the process is not particularly focused on any of us as individuals. We can pretend otherwise, but pretending does not make it so.

12. Gun Control

Few phrases in American politics has gotten more mileage than "guns don't kill people, people do." The silliness here has gone so far that a good number, if not a majority of people, believe the way to make everyone safe is for everyone to pack a gun. Texas is currently considering a law which makes it lawful for both teachers and students to pack guns in a classroom. Can this brilliance be carried much higher? The stats, on the other hand have been consistent. The more guns loose in society the more violent deaths. No country has more citizens packing guns than Iraq and we all know the kind of security which exists there. Did you ever get the urge to kill someone? Probably. If only, at the moment you had a gun and your object of anger had a gun, you could be the quickest on the draw and poof, the SOB would be dead and it all just be self defense. Obviously, if you had waited a moment later the SOB in question might have pulled their gun and you would be dead. Wouldn't you feel quite safe if you could pack a gun strolling down some ghetto street after dark (or before dark) or you could attend school with everyone packing a gun? We all know how street robberies and home invasions happen: The robber, half a block away, announces that he/she is now approaching you to rob you. You then take out your gun and shoot the robber. Of course. Or, you are inside your home and some burglar breaks a window or knocks down your door and says "Here I come looking for the goodies". You then go to where you keep your gun and shoot the robber." You know, if I decide to kill you, my preferred modus would be to take out my gun and approach you somewhere in a situation where you have not yet taken out your gun. And of course, the street punks who want your wallet, once you feel your head in a headlock, or your ass hit the ground, instead of having just their fists or bat or whatever, will now have the gun you are packing. It is always kind of thrilling to see some hormonally charged teenager with a gun wanting something of yours. Every time someone saves their life because he/she had a gun in their home or on their body, it makes the headlines big time. And just how often do you see these headlines? Not very often. There is only one way to make this more often: have everyone pack a gun. I bet if everyone packed a gun these headlines would at least triple, which of course would pale compared to the number of people being killed by guns. And then there is the 2nd amendment which guaranteed the right of people to own guns to protect them from their government. I am trying to remember when is the last time an individual or a group of individual ever managed to overpower a police force, let alone a military army in this country. If it really came down to that. you might have an Uzii, but the government has smart missiles which can locate your ass and enter. It might be best to remember that violence begets violence and cruelty begets cruelty. We can be civilized or we can be barbarians.

14. Ownership of Professional Sport Teams by Wealthy Individuals

National Professional Sport teams deserve a bit better control than to let them be used as toys by a cabal of wealthy royalty status buffoons----often senile, often incompetent inheritors of wealth, often polished con artists of various ilk. The logic for this is surreal. Yet the vast majority of Americans, complain as they do about ticket prices, player salaries, blackmailing of cities, pampering of athletes, etc., are equally aghast that ownership should be any different. "What would you rather have done----have the government own sport teams?" is the usual response. Really, compared to what----having these rich owners and a players union jack fans and cities around forever? It makes more sense for cities to own the teams. First, cities need the revenue. Second, at least fans can once in a while vote out any mayor who misrules a team. Government is inefficient, among other drawbacks ,but no one suggests social security or military units be run by wealthy sops. When these owners are interviewed the vast majority are blithering idiots, some half senile, treated as royalty by the networks (of course), and are seen sitting in a skybox as some sort of benevolent despot. Despot for sure.

It now costs, I read recently, more than $300 for a family of four to go to a baseball game. And many other professional sports are a lot more expensive. If these are truly national sports why are they only available to attend by the affluent? If these are national sports why are we, as citizens, deprived on any say on the manner in which they are run? Why are only the owners and player union at any bargaining table? Don't the cities and fans have a vested interest in these bargaining sessions? Is Mrs. McCaskey, some sort of descendent of someone ages ago who originally owned the Bears, the best person to be running the show? Please. Hell, if my father had owned a professional basketball team I could be the owner of one and I don't know diddly about basketball. Why should individual owners and 'greed has no limit' players be allowed to bilk the public ad nausea to the point of 100 million dollar salaries, and set all the rules? While I still think cities are the appropriate entity to own their professional sport teams, if this is an annoying pill for most people, then why not let legitimate charities own these teams? Maybe the Red Cross could own a team and use the profits for charitable purposes or an environment organization, the Salvation Army, etc. Please, no religious sects, that would be worse than the wealthy sops, and an irritant to those of a different religious sect. I know several things: teams should build their own stadiums not the city they play in, there need to be legitimate salary caps, all citizens of every economic class should have some method whereby they can afford to attend some games, that corporations should not be allowed to buy up huge blocks of tickets unless no one else wants them, that season tickets should not be available unless the seats cannot be filled by non season ticket holders, that owner profits should have legitimate ceilings, and that the financial operation of these leagues (teams) should be properly regulated and monitored. What is going on now is absurd, unethical, unfair to the non affluent, and making spoiled brats out of certain high school and college athletes. Why in hell do we continue to support this farce? Frankly, compared to the present absurdity, I would rather have the owners drawn at random from the Chicago phone directory.

15. Stock Prices

Remember when the price of stocks was primarily a measure of how well a company was doing? Those days are pretty much past. While there are some remnants of this remaining, stock prices today are essentially a managed numbers game with the primary players the huge monied interests, both corporate and individual. It works this way----when stock average prices hit a certain key number this triggers a massive sell or buy stampede. The major players in this game are pretty much aligned on the same page and when the trigger goes off the selling or buying is immediate. A solitary investor of modest means will have difficulty in this game. You can decide to sell or buy but by the time your more cumbersome time consuming efforts are realized the prices have already risen hundreds of points or fallen hundreds of points. You end up selling at the end of the buying or selling spree, thereby getting none of the benefits of those who en mass created the rise or fall. Notice these huge variations have nothing to do with the value of individual stocks. For the big profits to be made one has to be part of the sell high, buy low. Over a 3-4 month period of time considerable money is made simply selling high en mass to create a profit then buying back low to create another eventual profit for the next huge fall. When these huge gyrations in prices start, the rise or fall is over in a pittance of time. The game is eventually going to be self destructive. The same billionaires are piling up more and more money, not by making anything or producing a service of any kind, but my simply manipulating this rise and fall of stock prices.

Conclusion: There hardly needs to be any search for an elusive conclusion of these 15 worst of asinine politics. Number 1 is sufficient to topple everything, and the rest just sort of fall in line like a series of dominoes. If you are my age you don't worry about it much, the terminational years---if good health prevails----are a time to go gently down the stream. If you are in your productive years you are no doubt overwhelmed by all this, mostly likely it all becomes a blur, with little seen clearly.
For those in their formative years I really am at a loss as to what must be the mental state. There are maybe a dozen young kids of school age in my high rise building. I never ever see them except getting on or off a school bus when they go through the lobby. What do they do locked inside a condo all day? They must be engrossed in their gadgets of various ilk. Reality, for them, is inside those little gadgets. I walk a lot in nature settings and in urban city centers. It is rare to see teenagers in larger groups of two or three, up to anything. I can't remember the last time I saw any teenagers loose in a forest preserve. Matter of fact, I hardly see anyone unless they are on a bicycle or jogging for exercise. Nature is passe, social interaction except via gadgets is boring, and all these 15 problems listed above are irrelevant to their mental activity. These problems, in today's atmosphere, are simply not real to hardly anyone. So there you have it, old cantankerous guys like me, who like to write, muse about all of this, but it serves as meaningless banter----useless as a witches' tit. My conclusion is more a benediction than any solution: Turn Out the Lights, the Party's Over.

16. The length of Presidential Campaigns.

It is outrageous, that in the name of so called democracy, Presidential elections are now structured so that they extend for nearly two years, are sustained now by those groups with large amounts of money to spend, and are so professionally manipulated that Solomon himself would be unable to discern any meaning to the ads and debates. Everyone knows these campaigns go on too long, are too expensive, too controlled by lobbyists with vast amounts of money, and too disingenuous on issues. It was better when party officials, with clear political issues, chose their leaders at a convention, a campaign for two months took place, and people voted. It is hard to imagine how many really good potential candidates are lost because they would be unwilling to subject themselves to this madness for two years. It becomes an endurance test, a dog and pony show, no real debate over meaningful issues. It is really appalling.


Related Quotations to Ponder:

"A tyrant is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader" . (Plato) Remind you of any Presidents?

"The remedy in the United States is not less liberty but real liberty---an end to the brutal intolerance of churchly hooligans and flag waving corporations and all the rest of the small but bloody despots who have made the word Americanism a synonym for coercion and legal crime." (Archibald MacLeish)

"For de little stealin' dey gits you in jail soon or late. For the big stealin' dey makes you emperor and puts you in de Hall O' Fame when you croaks." (Eugene O'Neil)

"I shall give a propangandist cause for starting the war. Never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked, later on whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war, it is not Right that matters but Victory. Have no pity. Adopt a brutal attitude....RIght is on the side of the Strongest." (Adolf Hitler)

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet or fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason." (Ernest Hemingway)

"You will kill ten of our men, and we will kill one of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it" (Ho Chi Minh)

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." (Voltaire)

"We are always making God our accomplice, that so we may legalize our own iniquities. Every successful massacre is consecrated by a Te Deum, and the clergy have never been wanting in benediction for any victorious enormity." (Henri Frederic Amiel)

"The enthusiasm for war, and the predatory temper of which it is the index, prevail in the largest measure among the upper classes, especially among the hereditary leisure class" (Thorstein Veblen) And of course these are the biggest supporters of a voluntary army, of which few of these people will ever be found. They are busy amassing wealth, titles, power, demanding tax cuts. Let the inferior nobodies go into a voluntary army and wander outside green zones until some road bomb or sniper sends them to the real La La land. Just like in Hitler's day these noble, but discardable wretches will be honored during half time of athletic contests while the paid fans restlessly wait for the field to clear and the game begin.

"Man is a very strange animal. In much of the world half the children go to bed hungry and we spend a trillion on rubbish---steel, iron, tanks. We are all criminals. There is an old Hungarian poem, 'if you are among brigands and you are silent, you are a brigand yourself'. (Albert Szwnt-Gyorhyi)

"The sectaries of a religion, which preaches in appearance, nothing but charity, concord, and peace, have proved ;themselves more ferocious than cannibals or savages, whenever their divines excited them to destroy their brethren. There is no crime which men have not committed under the idea of pleasing the Divinity or appeasing his wrath," (Paul Henri Thiry)

"You believe you are dying for the fatherland---you die for some industrialists." (Antole France)

"I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation has a right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another; that every one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under themselves; and that if this country could, consistently with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace, it was bound to do so by motives of policy, interest, and every other consideration." (George Washington)

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle---be THou near them!....O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells, help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief...For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their was with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it in the spirit of love, of Him who is the Source of Love, and who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all who are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen" (No, not George Bush speaking from his heart, but Mark Twain, tongue in cheek)

"Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice; for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in." (Michael Montaigne)

"We must repudiate one of the two, either Christianity with its love of God and one's neighbor, or the State with its armies and wars." (Leo Tolstoy

"These solid people of capital, the press, the pulpit----where have they ever fought? They are accustomed to find out by telegraph and telephone the results of the battles which settle their fate," (Leon Trotsky)

"All through history it's the nations that have given the most to the generals and the least to the people that have been the first to fail". (Harry Truman)

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience...In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industiral complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist". (Dwight Eisenhower)

"The greatest wealth is to be content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied." (Lucretius)

"This then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: First, to set an example of modest unostentatious living....to provide moderately for the immediate wants of those dependent upon him, and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer....the manner which, in his judgement, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community....the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for the poorer brethren," (Andrew Carnegie).

"Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty." (Henry Demarest Lloyd)

"The most dreadful of all wars, the war of the poor against the rich, a war which, however long it may be delayed, will come and come with all its horrors". (Orestes A. Brownson)

"He mocks the people who proposes that the Government shall protect the rich and they in turn will care for the poor." (Grover Cleveland)

"So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent". (Henry George)

"When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of highest virtues." (John Maynard Keynes)

"How unjust it is, that they who have but little should be always adding something to the wealth of the rich!". (Terence)

"No business which depends for existence by paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." (Franklin Delanor Roosevelt)

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism---ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." (Franklin Delanor Roosevelt)

"I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes and....a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate." (Theodore Roosevelt)

"We consider capitalism as the exploration of man by capital and Communism the exploitation of the individual by the state." (Juan Peron)

"The alarming development and aggressiveness of great capitalists and corporations, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hopeless degradation of the working masses. It is imperative, in the desire to enjoy the full blessings of life, that a check be placed upon unjust accumulation of the power of evil of aggregate wealth". (Knights of Labor)

"Indeed, the religious bodies, as the almoners of the rich, become sort of auxiliary police, taking off the insurrectionary edge of poverty with coals and blankets, bread and treacle, and soothing and cheering the victims with hopes of immense and inexspensive happiness in another world when the process of working them to premature death in the service of the rich is complete in this." (Jacques Rene Hebert)

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people". (Abraham Lincoln)

"This is a world of compensations, and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot long retain it." (Abraham Lincoln) This would apply to our current foreign slave labor force (no minimum wage) and the underground illegal immigrant slave labor force.

"Above all things, good policy is to be used that the treasure and monies in a state be not gathered into few hands....And money is like muck, not good except it be spread." (Francis Bacon)

"Centralize property in the hands of a few and the millions are under bondage to property---a bondage as absolute and deplorable as if their limbs were covered with manacles". Lewis Henry Morgan)

"Aristocracy of Feudal Parchment has passed away with a mighty rushing; and now, by a natural course, we arrive at the Aristocracy of the Moneybag.....the basest yet known." (Thomas Carlyle)

"Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of wealth; the tyranny of plutocracy". (J.P. Morgan)

"Every economic system, whether Capitalist or Socialist, degenerates into a system of privilege and exploitation unless it is policed by a social morality, which can only reside in a minority of citizens....Every Church becomes a vested interest without its heretics.....Freedom is always in danger, and the majority of mankind will always acquiesce in its loss, unless a minority is willing to challenge the privileges of its few and the apathy of the masses." (Richard Crossman)

"The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country." (John Adams)

"On one occasion Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated. 'As much', said he, 'as the living are to the dead.'" (Diogenes Laertius)

"Probably no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and esucation." (Abraham Flexner)

"There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness." (George Washington)

"The tax which weill be paiid for the prupose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people to ignorance." (Thomas Jefferson)

"Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in, That everyone may receive at least a moderate education...appears to be an object of vital importance." (Abraham Lincoln)

"Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men,----the balance wheel of the social machinery----It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich, it prevents being poor." (Horace Mann)

I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier, and more civilized on this earth, capable of becoming true men, master of his fate and captain of his soul. To attain this I would put priests to work, also, and turn the temples into schools." (Jawaharial Nehru)

"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" (Ronald Reagan)

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential cause of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxed, her consuming wars." (Will and Ariel Durant)

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." (Thomas Jefferson)

"I believe in an America where the separation of the Church and State is absolute." (John Kennedy)

"The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation, should be one uniting all working people of all nations and tongues, and kindreds." (Abraham Lincoln)

"We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it." (George Bernard Shaw)

"The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not on the doctrine taught. These doctrines may be true or false, wholesome or pernicious---it makes little or no difference.....under favorable conditions, practically everybody can be converted to practically anything." (Aldous Huxley)

"The mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges which they have succeeded in obtaining...and unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations." (Andrew Jackson)

"The press of this country is now and always has been so throughly dominated by the wealthy few of the country that it cannot be depended upon to give the great mass of the people that correct information concerning political, economical, and social subjects which it is necessary that the mass of people shall have, in order that they shall vote and in all ways act in the best way to protect themselves from the brutal force and the chicanery of the ruling and employing class." (Edward Scripps)

"Force----that grimmest and ugliest of gods that men have ever erected for themselves out of the lusts of their hearts. You will find yourself hating and dreading all other men who differ from you; you will find yourself obligated by the law of conflict into which you have plunged, to use every means in your power to crush them before they are able to crush you; you will find yourself day by day growing more unscrupulous and intolerant, more and more compelled by the fear of those opposed to you to commit harsh and violent action." (Auberon Herbert)

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the houses of its children. This is not a way of life.....Under the cloud of war, its humanity hanging itself on a cross of iron." (Dwight Eisenhower)

"To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love." (George Santayana)

"When the rich wage war it is the poor who die." (John-Paul Sarte)

"There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the war of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority (political or religious), long standing custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge." (Roger Bacon.

"Think of the dull functioning dogma, age after age. Ho many millions have been led shunted along dogmatic runways from the dark into the dark again.....endless billions, and at the gates, dogma, ignorance, vice, cruelty, seize them and clamp this or that band upon their brains." (Theodore Dreiser)

"Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on the Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics." (Arthur Schlesinger Jr.)

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." (Blaise Pascal)

"It would now be technically possible to unify the world, abolish war and poverty altogether, IF men desired their own happiness more than the misery of their enemies." (Bertrand Russell)

"Birth control, family planning and population limitation are most important in any effort to bring real peace into the world." (Margaret Sanger)

"Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God.....Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire." (George Santayana)

"The greatest power in the world today is the power to change.....The most reckless irresponsible thing we could do in the future would be to go on exactly as we have in the past ten or twenty years. I can imagine no more dangerous policy than the conservatism that exists today." (Karl Dutsch)

"(Violence) has no head and cannot think, no heart and cannot feel. When she moves it is in wrath; when she pauses it is amid ruin. Her prayers are curses, her God is a demon, her communion is death, her vengeance is eternity, her decalogue written in the blood of her victims, and if she stops for a moment in her infernal flight it is upon a kindred rock to whet her vulture fang for a more sanguinary desolation." (Caniel O'Connell)

"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.... A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness....It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Imitation is suicide. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. "Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood." Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileao, and Newton, and (Terrell Owens) and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing". (Thomas Huxley)

"Persecution if the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it." (Howard Mumford Jones)

"The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie---deliberate, contrived and dishonest----but the myth----persistent, persuasive and realistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. (John Kennedy)

"Those who make peaceful revolutions impossible will make violent revolutions inevitable." (John Kennedy)

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." (John Locke)

"A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search for truth and perfection, is a poverty stricken day, and a succession of such days is fatal to human life." (Lewis Mumford)

"A dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half remembered glory." (John Steinbeck)

"Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant......violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness." (Rollo Max)

"A devotion to humanity....is too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously blood thirsty." (James Baldwin)

"If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him" (James Baldwin)

"In the same way let us judge the religious organizations which we see all around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which they have accomplished, but do not let us fail to see clearly that their idea of human perfection is narrow and inadequate; and that the Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion will never bring humanity to its goal." (MAtthew Arnold)

"I came to the conclusion long ago...that all religions were true, and also all had some error in them." (Gandhi)

"Prayer: to ask that the laws of evolution in the Universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy." (Ambrose Pierce)

"And we all have known
Good critics, who have stamped out poet's hopes
Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state
Good patriots, who for a theory, risked a cause
Good kings, who disemboweled for a tax
Good Popes, who brought all good to jeopardy
Good Christians, who sat in easy chairs
And damned the general world for standing up
Now may the good God pardon all good men!." (Elizibeth Browning)

"The question before the human race is whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles." (John Adams)

"The moralist preaches reason, because he believes it necessary to man; the philosopher writes, because he believes truth must sooner or later prevail over falsehood; theologians and tyrants necessarily hate truth and despise reason because they believe them prejudicial to their interests." (Paul Henri Thiry)

"All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government are compatible with liberty." (Henry Clay)

"Man is a religious animal. He is the only Religions Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion----several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight." ( Mark Twain)

"If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have nothing in it mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous." (Blaise Pascal)

"The mob that would die for a belief seldom hesitates to inflict death upon any opposing heretical group." (Ellen Glasgow)

"What kind of truth is this which is true on one side of a mountain and false on the other? (Michael Montaigne)

"There is nothing men more readily give themselves to than pushing their oown beliefs. When ordinary means fail, they add commandment, violence, fire and sword." (Michael Montaigne)

"The hope of science is the perfection of the human race. The hope of theology is the salvation of a few, and the damnation of almost everybody." (Robert Ingersoll)

"Christendom has done away with Christianity, without it being aware of it. Therefore, if anything is to be done about it, the attempt must be made to reintroduce Christianity." (Soren)

"Let us worship god again in simplicity, instead of making a fool of him in splendid edifices." (Soren Keirkegaard)

""Minorities need the majority to free them from their fears. The majority needs minorities to free them from their guilt." (Paraphrased from Martin Luther King)

"People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first worship him afterwards." (Oscar Wilde)

"How many things which served us yesterday as articles of faith, are fables for us today?" (Michael Montaigne)

"You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us....Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it?" (Redjacket)

"There is no creed so false but faith can make it true." (Henry David Thoreau)

"The death sentence is a necessary and efficacious means for the Church to attain its ends when rebels against it disturb the ecclesiastical unity, especially obstinate heretics who cannot be restrained by any other penalty from continuing to disturb ecclesiastical order.....to despise legitimate authority, no matter in whom it is invested, is unlawful, it is rebellion against God's will....women, again, are not suited for certain occupations; a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, and it is that which is best adopted at once to preserve her modesty and promote the good bringing up of children and well being of the family." (Pope Leo XIII)

"Men have broad and large chests, and small narrow hips, and more understanding than women, who have but small and narrow breasts, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children...Either God must be unjust, or you, Jews, wicked and ungodly. You have been about fifteen hundred years, a race rejected of God....what shall Christians do now with depraved and damned people of the Jews? I will give my faithful advice. First, that one should set fire to their synagogues...then that one should also break down and destroy their houses....since we punish thieves with the lather, murders with the sword, and heretics with fire, why do we not turn on all those evil teachers of perdition, those popes, cardinals, and bishops, and the entire swarm of the Roman Sodom with arms in hand, wash our hands in their blood.....because the sword is a very great benefit and necessary to the whole world, to preserve peace, to punish sin, and to prevent evil....whoever wants to be Christian should tear out the eyes of Reason....Reason, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid to the aid of spiritual things but ----more frequently than not---struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." (Martin Luther)

"All great religions in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely." (Henry Mencken)

"No miracle has ever taken place under conditions which science can accept. Experience shows, without exception, that miracles occur only in times and in countries in which miracles are believed in, and in the presence of persons who are disposed to believe in them." (Ernest Renan)

"When the state intervenes to insure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favor of that doctrine." (Bertrand Russell)

"That they (the dogmas of religion) do little harm is not true. Opposiiton to birth control makes it impossible to solve the population problem and therefore postpones indefinitely all chance of pwrld peace." (Bertrand Russell)

"Always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice and corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty." Joseph Pulitzer)

"To cling to the principles of the Judeo-Christian ethic---honesty, integrity, compassion, love, ideas of hope, charity, humility---is an integral part of any person's life no matter what his position in life may be.....My prayer is that my life be meaningful in the enhancement of His Kingdom on earth, enhancement of the lives of my fellow human beings; that I may help translate the natural love that exists in this world and do simple justice through government." (Jimmy Carter).

"The great law of culture is, Let each become all that he was created capable of being; expand, if possible, to his full growth, resisting all impediments, casting off all foreign, especially all noxious adhesions, and show himself at length in his own shape and stature, be these what they may." (Thomas Carlyle)

"Living is not the good, but living well. The wise man therefore lives as long as he should, not as long as he can. He will think of life in terms of quality, not quantity." (Lucious Annaeus Seneca)

"It is a cruel crime thoughtlessly to bring more children into existence than can be properly taken care of." (Rabindranath Tabore)

"Creeds must become intellectually honest. At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world. That is perhaps the most stupendous fact in the whole world situation." (Bernard Shaw)

"The Popes, like Jesus, are conceived by their mothers through the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. All popes are a certain species of man-gods, for the purpose of being able to conduct the fuctitons of mediator between God and mankind. All powers in Heaven, as well as on earth, are given to them." (Pope Stephen V)

"Of all religions, Christianity is without doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. (Voltaire)

"Still, instead of trusting what their own minds tell them, men have as a rule a weakness for trusting others who pretend to supernatural sources of knowledge." (Arthur Schopenhauser)

"Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one." (Thomas Jefferson)

"This is what you should do; love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men....reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem." (Walt Whitman)

"I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world,
And upon all oppression and shame....
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and prisoners....
I observe the sights and depredations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon others who are different,
All these----all the meanness and agony without end
I sit looking out upon,
See, hear, and am silent" (Walt Whitman)

"They (the clergy) believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." (Thomas Jefferson)

"....it cannot be lawful for the press, under the pretext that it is free, to make daily and systemic attempts on the religious and moral health of mankind." (Pope John XXII)

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.....He that never compares his notions with those of others, readily acquiesces in his first thoughts, and very seldom discovers the objections which may be raised against his opinions; he, therefore, often thinks himself in possession of truth, when he is only fondling an error long since exploded." (Samuel Johnson)

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot....they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose." (Thomas Jefferson)

"I never came across anyone in whom the moral sense was dominant who was not heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid, and entirely lacking the smallest sense of humanity. Moral people, as they are termed, are simply beasts. I would sooner have fifty unnatural vices than one unnatural virtue." (Oscar Wilde)

"Christian,n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teaching of Christ so far as they are no inconsistent with a life of sin." (Abrose Bierce)

"I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The Still, sad music of humanity." (William Wordsworth)

"In order to see Christianity, one must forget almost all the Christians...the efficacy of religion lies precisely in what is not rational, philosophic, nor eternal; its efficacy lies in the unforeseen, the miraculous, the extraordinary. Thus religion attracts more devotion according as it demands more faith---that is to say, as it becomes more incredible to the profane mind>" ( Henri Frederic Amiel)

"Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but---live for it." (Charles Colton)

"Religion has lost itself in cults, dogmas, and myths. Consequently the office of religion as a sense of community and one's place in it has been lost." (John Dewey)

"There is only one step from religious fanaticism to barbarism". (Denis Diderot)

"Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand." (Frederick the Great)

"As a general rule the classes that are low in economic efficiency, or in intelligence, or both, are peculiarly devout---as for instance, the negro population of the South, much of the lower-class foreign population, much of the rural population, especially in those sections which are backward in education, i the stage of development of their industry, or in respect to their industrial contact with the rest of the community." (Thorstein Veblen)

"Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be forced into unbelief". (Sigmund Freud)

"A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives." (Albert Schweitzer)

"Even those who do not regret the disappearance of religious illusions from the civilized world of today will admit that so long as they were in force they offered those who were bound by them the most powerful protection against the danger of neurosis." (Sigmund Freud)

"Nothing in the whole world, or even outside of the world, can possibly be regarded as good without limitation, except a good will. No doubt it is a good and desirable thing to have intelligence, sagacity, judgment, and other intellectual gifts, by whatever name they may be called; it is also good and desirable in many respects to possess by nature such qualities as courage, resolution, and perseverance; but all these gifts of nature may be in the highest degree pernicious and hurtful if the will which directs them or what is called the 'character' is not itself good." (Immanuel Kant)

"Fear of death was the first thing on earth to make the gods." (Lucretius)

"But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable fo the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes." (John Adams)

"No one can walk backward into the future". (Joseph Hergesheimer)

"The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.....it is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority." (Lord Acton)

"Let them innovate in nothing, but keep the tradition." (Pope Stephen I)

"To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often." (John Henry Newman)

"There is danger in reckless change, but greater danger in blind conservatism" (Henry George)

"Western thinking has become conservative; the world situation should stay as it is at any cost; there should be no changes. This debilitating dream of status quo is the symptom of a society that has come to the end of its development." (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

"Every great scientific truth goes through three states: First, people say it conflicts with the Bible; next they say it has been discovered before; lastly, they say they always believed it." (Louis Agassiz.

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." (John Kenneth Galbraith)

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are rearranging their prejudices" (William James)

"There is nothing permanent except change". (Heraclitus)

"A religion that requires persecution to sustain it is of the devil's propagation." (Hosea Ballou)

"There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning---devotion to individuals, to groups or to causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work....One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion." (Simone De Beauvoir)

"In the best sense of the word, Jesus was a radical...His religion has so long been identified with conservatism...that it is almost startling sometimes to remember that all the conservatives of his own times were against him; that it was the young, free, restless, sanguine, progressive part of the people who flocked to him." (Phillips Brooks)

"Our country, right or wrong! When right, to be kept right; when wrong to be put right." (Carl Schurz)

"...the seed of imperial ruin and national decay---the unnatural gap between the rich and poor---the exploitation of the boy labor, the physical degeneration which seems to follow so swiftly on civilized poverty---the horrid havoc of the liquor traffic, the constant insecurity in the means of subsistence and employment---the swift increase of vulgar, jobless luxury---are the enemies of Britain." (Winston Churchill).

"All that is necessary to make this world a better place to live in is to love---to love christ loved, as Buddha loved." (Isadora Duncan)

"To criticize one's country is to do it a service...criticism, in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism---a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar rituals and national adulation". (William Fulbright)

"Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established." (Ludwig Feuerbach)

"Famine seems to the the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to provide subsistence....that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race." (Thomas Malthus)

"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking: where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless. (Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy).

"We come inevitably to the fundamental question: What are people for? What is living for? If the answer is a life of dignity, decency, and opportunity, then every increase in population (at this point in time) is a threat to every single being." (Marya Mannes)

"Truth is compared in scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pastor says so., or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy." (John Milton)

The 16 Worst of Asinine Politics--Part 1

The 16 Worst of Asinine Politics--Part 1

Humans are most distinct from other species in their ability to reason and their innate sense of ethics. Contrary to common notions, ethics is not dependent on religious inherited dogma, but an inherited trait, like many other inheritable traits which are developed by reason and practice. The Golden Rule is the universal end point of such reasoning about ethics. Unfortunately, humans suffer the fate of believing a lot of notions based on 'faith' not reason. A lot of faith based malarky is harmless enough, and may be provide the emotional strength to handle the stresses of life. Anecdotal medicine and inherited religious beliefs are prevalent everywhere, and are harmless enough unless they are allowed to ruin one's health or harm the rights of others who become the target of religious intolerance.

In the arena of politics, some policies or lack of policies are bad and the worst of the bad policies I have tried to identify in this musing. Worst is based mostly on the severity of damage such policies cause. Written with the United States in mind, there may be policies in other countries which would make the list if I lived in these other countries. But I do not, and therefore all this has a distinct American bent, albeit most apply on a global basis. There are 3 overriding influences on this selection of the worst. Empires in human history come and go including Greek, Roman, Ottoman, British, French, American, etc. Most all of them collapsed because some sort of global empire became too expensive to maintain and too much of the wealth at home accumulated in the hands of too few at the expense of others. Today, one has to include policies which feed the rapid environmental effects of human overpopulation. There is no attempt to go into a lengthy discussion of each worst policy past pointing out the main reason it is listed.

l. Lack of any policy to enforce responsible reproduction.

The global population has doubled in my life time. For unchecked human population to proceed is disaster WRIT LARGE. While we are able to precisely define overpopulation of all other species, we are blind to the same standards which define human overpopulation. Instead, all the many problems being caused by human overpopulation are instead defined in terms of form of government, human rights, religious beliefs, culture bias, nature of parenting, etc. There is not an effective responsible reproduction program in place anywhere on the globe, albeit China has at least tried somewhat. Mindless reproduction remains a sacred right, albeit it would be hard to define what is sacred about it. Some religions even make it a sin to practice birth control outside the absence of sex. Fortunately, many people in religious sects manage to ignore some of the more outrageous and nonsensical religious dogmas. Those who are against enforcement of responsible reproduction are, by any logical standards, a bit off in la la land. Quality of life counts. And the same people who scream about abortion are quiet as a herd of mouses when it comes to the millions who now live in refugee camps, have no land, no job, etc. And in the last analysis, the abortion issue is really over---it just takes a pill to abort these days; so what makes these tunnel visioned faith based religious dogmatics think they can stop someone from getting a pill anymore than they have been able to stop anyone from getting marijuana if they want it? More La La land reasoning.

The rest of the worst would be hard to put in order of worst to least worst, but the absence of any control over irresponsible reproduction is easily the absolute worst of the worst.

2. The expenditure of money on military matters which exceeds the military budgets of all the other industrialized nations combined.

Defense against military invasions by other countries seems reasonable enough. Still, there are countries in the middle of all the war zones across the globe which have survived quite nicely without military mania to protect them. Switzerland comes to mind. Canada comes to mind. New Zealand comes to mind. It mostly comes down to this: those countries whose attitudes and greediness tend to impose interference in the affairs of other countries, need to have military defenses in order to protect against reprisal. The U.S. has taken military defense to absolute absurdity. I can't really think of any country on the globe which remotely contemplates capturing the United States via military means. Yet every invasion of every country is always portrayed as an invasion to protect the security of the United States. What the United States really seems to want is the ability to control the politics and economic policies of other countries. Any loss of this is then defined as a security threat to the United States. Ironically, most of the costly weapons of mass destruction, which we lavishly spend money to produce, and all the military bases all over the globe, which we lavishly spend money to maintain-----so much of this is now irrelevant in modern wars. We arrive in mass in some distant country, with soldiers and equipment and smart missiles, drones, surveillance cameras, and what not----only to find there are no uniformed armies to attack, little way of identifying the enemy and so we are forced to hunker down in established 'green zones', venturing outside these green zones at the risk of being blown up by roadside bombs, suicide bombers, and sniper fire. Essentially, we financially bankrupt ourselves to build weapons and maintain military bases which are almost useless in modern day conflicts. In the 'old days' the country with the most soldiers and most guns could win a war. We killed 2 million Vietnamese and lost only 35,000 American Soldiers and lost the war. And after we lost the war, to the best of my knowledge, Vietnam has never been any threat to the security of the United States. So what was the purpose of the war?. Why do we continue with this mindless nonsense?

3. The police war on drug abuse.

There are a good number of medical experts who understand why people abuse recreational drugs. These experts understand why anyone ever uses a recreational drug: it simply alters the drug users mindset, to boost their spirits, or release inhibitions, or reduces the feelings of stress, etc. Different recreational drugs appeal to different people based on the different mental needs at the time. Many people simply have no real need to alter their mental state and don't use recreational drugs at all or use them sparingly. But way back in the mid 20th century the notion began to gain popularity that those people who used recreational drugs outside of those used by the majority were to be criminally prosecuted. And thus began the police War on Drugs. The underlying cause of recreational drug abuse is medical. Yet we have allowed this whole issue to become one of criminal behavior. It doesn't take an Einstein to understand that if someone needs to take a drug in order to feel better, to bring on some sort of mood they can tolerate better or enjoy more-----that if you tell them to stop, they won't. The solution is not so complicated, albeit difficult. To stop the abuse you have to change the environment which is causing the mental state being altered by the drugs or provide them medical help to alter their brain chemistry. Everything about this issue is medical, social, or economic. But instead we continue to support a police War on Drugs that costs an astronomical amount of money, ensures that the United States has a greater percentage of people in jail than any other country (at a cost of $30,000/inmate), and virtually ensures these incarcerated inmates, once released, will become dredges on society for the rest of their lives.

4. The inability to tax the wealthy in a way which prevents too much wealth accumulating in the hands of too few.

It seems rather obvious that for any country to have a healthy economy the distribution of wealth cannot be allowed to become too skewed in favor of the rich. This tendency happened back in the late 1800's and early 1900's in this country. Back then people had the good sense to impose steep graduated income taxes up to 90% and steep inheritance taxes. It worked. It worked so well that this country had an economic prosperity unmatched across the globe. Today it is a whole new ball game. The wealthy control elections via funding candidates, lobbyists control Congress to be sure the wealthy get endless tax breaks, tax cuts, tax shelters, tax deferments, and the list of perks goes on and on. Even when 2-5% of the people own 90% of our wealth the issue is simply ignored. Even I, at the shallow end of the affluent pool, pay around 10.7% as my tax rate. And everyone wonders why both state and federal debts are so high? If the affluent pay less percentage wise in taxes, just where is the money to come from to run government? It is really bad now----meaning that the poor and those of modest incomes have nothing left for the wealthy to take in order to make the wealthy wealthier. So, now to save expenditures, pensions, health care, salaries, job security etc are the target. We have pathetically entered the stage where if any group still has decent pensions, health care, salaries, job security----well they have become the political targets to have such 'perks' removed. After years of building up these benefits as 'desirable' we now refer to them as perks which must go. There is a new kind of freedom on the horizon, and already exists for many across the globe---even in our own country----a kind of freedom where there is nothing left to lose, and nothing is worth nothing, but it is free. Wow.

5. An education system that spends 3 or 4 times more to educate some kids than others.

The right wing conservative and religious segment of our population has convinced most Americans that the children of our urban, rural, and suburban ghettoes---these ghettoes, in large part a product of our War on Drugs----are not victims in need of a level playing field, but rather mere budding dregs of society who need to be locked up as soon as age makes them eligible, preferably with mandatory sentences for crimes, most often related to drug/gang trafficking. Certainly every religion would support the need for government to spend equal amount of money to educate all our children. Whatever children are, they are not responsible for their own youthful environment. Whatever would be the Christian or any other religious dictate of conscience, it certainly would support providing all children with an equal amount of money being spent on their education. Using property taxes to fund education is nothing more than a deliberate act of injustice to innocent children. It is understandable that their own children are first and foremost to parents, but it is equally understood that God, whatever anyone perceives God to be, would consider all children deserving of a good education. On this basis our current method of funding the education of children, all God's children, is unjust. Period.

6. Permitting wars to be fought on borrowed money.

It has to be the height of irony that the political and religious right have been the strongest supporters of every invasion of other countries by the U.S. over the last 4O-50 years. There has never been a war during this time which this segment of our population has not supported. Strange, but this patriotic commitment does not come from any willingness to sacrifice on their part for these wars. Imagine a country going on for decades invading countries, maintaining military bases all over the globe, spending more on military matters than all other industrial nations together, and doing it not only by borrowing the money to do all this, but simultaneously insisting that the wealthy be given tax cuts, and using a voluntary army to fight these battles. When is the last time the U.S. went to war and everyone sacrificed to pay for the war? Probably World War II. In fact, all these wars have made the rich even richer while many of the poor, which make up most of the voluntary army, are made dead. It just seems a cruel and disrespecting attitude to exploit so many of our own citizens in this fashion. My generation ought to be ashamed of ourselves for doing this. Whatever happened to everyone sacrificing and armed service be via a draft?

7. Blaming the poverty levels across the globe on political systems

The bull shit is at least consistent. Every country would be prosperous and peaceful and full of freedom and justice IF democracy were the form of government. I don't know, they have been voting in countries like Haiti for decades and their situation just gets more dire. There is no form of government on earth which can, by itself, save Haiti. Haiti is a perfect example of what happens when human overpopulation passes a certain level. They destroyed all their forests for the wood; in the absence of trees, the topsoil went to the sea, and in the absence of good topsoil, food becomes scarce, and with natural resources depleted, jobs are scarce, and with all this resulting chaos, brutality rule via thugs becomes the reality. Yet the prevalent political mentality is that if Haiti, and other countries like Haiti, could just have clean free elections----well, everything would just be ok. Wow. This La La land politics gets annoying.

8. The inability to keep Church and State separate---all of History has repeatedly shown what happens when any kind of religion becomes the power behind the state. Almost, if not every one of the founders of our Constitution, insisted that religion be kept out of our government. As George Washington said, we are not a Christian government. Jefferson and others were even more blunt about clergy of any sort meddling with governing. The matter is plenty simple enough. Religion is based on beliefs, every person has a right to their own religious beliefs, and no one's religious beliefs should ever be made the law of the land. The Golden Rule suffices rather nicely as an ethical guide for good government.

Part 2 will follow (9-16 + assorted quotations)

Happy Occasions

Happy Occasions:

I have written a musing on happiness earlier. But here I attempt to identify the happiest times in my life. I think I'll skip the unhappiest since we fortunately tend to shove these experiences deep in our psyche. I think I'll leave them there.

It would be difficult to rank from the happiest down in any kind of accurate order, so I will go chronologically.

Pets have always meant a lot to me. And I have had a lot of pets right up to now. Making a pet happy makes me happy. But pets die too soon.

Sports have always been mostly happy adventures for me, especially the sandlot games in childhood. If arguing can be titled happiness sometimes, then those sandlot games were happy times. Setting the local crosscountry track record was high on the happiness level (relatively new course so not an earth shattering record) but it came so suddenly (the first time I finished a race) and I still remember the kids in my homeroom class, upon hearing this over the loudspeaker, turning around and staring in disbelief. The jocks in the school began to speak to me, that was cool.

Winning the neighborhood Morningside Olympics was a happy thing, although it was structured so the achievement was more luck and manipulation than any real athletic accomplishment. Going to country and western shows were real happy events for me. So was the time later on when I, along with a boyhood friend, promoted our own country and western show, and I met the Louvin Brothers in person. My dad was wrong about the need for a Brinks truck to haul the money away. We actually lost a little money.

I was ecstatic about receiving a major scholarship to the college of my first choice. It was my high school track coach that really convinced them to give it to me. A lot of good things one owes to others.

Being appointed the senior Biology Department Assistant in undergraduate school was up there as a happy moment. I wasn't the best biology student by far, so this too came out of nowhere. So much in life is luck and dependent on others that it's hard to be serious about any "I earned it" mentality.

Being a track and crosscountry coach was a happy and challenging experience. Myself and a lot of students accomplished a lot in a short time, and I think we all remember that in highly positive terms. I got fired for all the turmoil generated from the efforts, but it was not tragedy at all as it forced me to go back to school and get a doctorate in physiology. I learned never to take a job where you are not allowed to do your job your way. For most jobs this is not possible so I lucked out again.

I was allowed to do my doctoral thesis while teaching at another university. This is rather unheard of in science, and once again I don't know why the Chairperson of Physiology let me do such a thing. I think sometimes a person gives you some slack if you are a bit off the wall in a good sort of way. Earlier, when getting my Master's in that department, I refused to put down a particular dog (for experimental purposes) being kept up in animal care by my advisor. I stole the dog out of animal care and kept him in in the Graduate Assistants Office complex. I threatened to go to the Humane Society if anybody touched that dog. The dog tore up the Graduate Assistant Office during a violent thunderstorm. I still remember so well the Chairperson of the Department calling me in and telling me "There is a rumor someone is keeping a dog in the Assistants Office. I would like you to investigate this and hopefully within a month you can report back that there is no dog being housed there". The dog and I made a crosscountry train trip back to my parents and they got the dog as a surprise. Some surprise, but they grew to love the dog too. The point is I sense the Chairperson let me do my Ph.D. thesis off campus because of the dog thing. My guess is he liked dogs and admired what I did. My advisor did not like it at all.

I guess being elected by students as teacher of the Year at every place I taught was up there in my happiest moments. But it was also embarrassing. I was not the smartest teacher, not the best lecturer, not the most organized, not an easy grader, and not very sociable in the normal sense. I think my talent was in getting students to try exceptionally hard to pass, some sort of ability to endlessly make a mountain out of a mole hill. I also took serious a high school teacher who lectured constantly about FANAFI---Find a Need and Fill It----as a life mantra. In teaching there are endless needs of students in a zillion different ways. Life is full of trade-offs. Never once did I ever get chosen by administrators for teaching awards which came with monetary rewards. Well, they say you can't please everyone. I think it is better to serve the needs of those under your supervision than the needs of those above you. I recently established a FANAFI Fund in memory of that high school teacher to distribute some of my money over time to worthy causes. This makes me happy.

Genuinely falling in love is no small feat for someone of my personality and plain looks.. So that has to be at the top of my happiness list. Unfortunately love is not something that can occur in a social vacuum and it was not destined to last, primarily because I was not strong enough to make it last. To let down someone you really love is a character deficiency of major sorts. Love for me became the Best of all possible worlds and the Worst of all possible worlds. For some failures one has no right or ability to forgive oneself. I guess it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. God's created evolutionary process gives no real evidence of being centered around any particular species, let alone any individual of a species, and so we really are 'our brother's keeper' if the less fortunate are to have a better life. Praying is not the mode to bring more justice to human lives.

Meaningful social friendships bring happiness. My own personality does not mix well with non meaningful social banter. If I am not going to see someone again, or very often, I have difficulty being genuinely interested in knowing much about them or telling them much about me. Somehow it seems mostly irrelevant. Others thrive on this kind of thing. Thus, my happiest encounters are not social groups of any sort. One could count on one hand how many groups I have ever joined. Not good or bad, just the way I am. This is not to say I have had little contact with all sorts of people. It is just the opposite. My students in class became an intimate group to me almost immediately. They became like my family for the semester or year, whatever the case. People that worked for me became like family. Outside of my parents and a select group of formative years neighborhood friends, family to me is always those with whom I interact with at any given moment in my life. That worked out well for me-----I do what I can, they do what they can, and then we all move on, like ships passing in the night. STILL, these kind of interactions, albeit temporary had a big impact on me as a person, and I would hope had an impact on these other people. I doubt most of them will ever forget me or me them. People build people, they really do. Those whose whole life is a close family unit, to me, have reduced the quality of their life, and by limiting their meaningful interactions to a few genetic relations, will never develop any true appreciation of diversity. If one cannot truly appreciate diversity one cannot be a happy contented person. Some sort of US vs THEM will invariably develop. The only long term group interaction I can be proud of is the 'gang' of my youth. We continued to get together every year for over 50 years, and managed somehow to have meaningful interactions over those years. Distance and time have changed the dynamics of the group and the same kind of interaction in our current lives has diminished, but a few of them are going as strong as ever. One has to admire that. Anyway, special friendships, mostly transient, have brought a good deal of happiness and contentment to my own life.

Retirement is right up there as a happy moment. One definitely feels "Free at Last". A lot of contentment for me revolves around being able to understand the many aspects of life. To understand these matters one has to read a lot, observe a lot, ponder a lot, and in my case----write down my thoughts in a deliberate slow paced, logical manner. Different people arrive at different conclusions about the same topic, but one feels contented only when one has arrived at his/her own personal conclusions.

I understand God's created evolutionary process is governed by chance, diversity, environment, luck, and genetics. In a world where misfortune out numbers good fortune, I consider my self quite lucky. Happiness is, to a degree, a product of being lucky. That there are others luckier than myself in life is of no importance. This is expected. For every person who wanted to see me fail---more often than not, there were others whose kindnesses and loyalty were definitely note worthy; sometimes from someone titled and powerful, and other times from the commonest of common people. I learned early on that if the battle I fought was for others least able to defend themselves, you can stand tall and force more powerful elements in the battle to yield---at a personal price. They will wait eagerly for the chance to pay you back. In my case, never seeking further advancement, they waited forever, and their ass was gone from the scene before mine. People who spend too much time chasing titles and power and financial gain live stressful lives, have to look over their shoulders constantly, and lose a good portion of their soul in the process---not to mention their title of the moment. I think my peculiar oddness, used in ways to help the less fortunate, gave me a pass with some administrators who admired my manipulative abilities for good causes and the audacity I had to confront those not used to being confronted. I have, as a consequence, endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice intended and have received a great deal of kindness, not always quite free from ridicule.

SIMPLE THINGS bring me more contentedness than anything else. Lucky again, but these simple things make me happy: walking, eating good meals, music, pleasant friendships, assisting underdogs attain some justice, reading, musing about life, writing, sleeping, limited traveling to nature places, pets, joking around, horse racing, football (fading away some), and being retired. There was a time when titles, power, money, competition, and material wealth mattered more, but I never was consumed by any of it. Enough is as good as a feast and that helps one's happiness index to rise. It seems to be true that those who are satisfied with little are happier than those for whom enough is never enough.

I have seen a lot of tragic things in my time, as have most others. I have always felt bad to see underdogs of most any ilk get squashed by those more powerful than them. Part of my empathy with these less fortunate came from my inquisitiveness about diversity among human cultures and personalities. This appreciation of diversity has enabled me to get along with a wide assortment of personalities and ethnicities. It is always makes me happy to see others receive some justice in their lives. Furthermore, people with whom you come in contact really do know whether you are on their side or against them. You cannot hide this no matter how politically correct your verbiage. To some extent, kindness towards those who least expect kindness from you will be rewarded by genuine friendship and respect. It brings happiness to be respected by those different from yourself. You feel more attuned to the nature of the evolutionary process. And that is about as close as one will get to God. All other communication is illusionary.

As I have said elsewhere I have learned that happiness is related to contentedness, and contentedness is measured by the extent to which one uses reason, not faith, not culture, not inherited religious dogma to govern ones life. Reason and the reasoned universal principle of the Golden Rule bring happiness to yourself and justice to others. Fair enough.

Planetary Perspective: The Big Picture

Planetary Perspective: The Big Picture---Seeing the Forest for the Sake of the Trees.

It is not easy for me to be concise. With this topic the challenge is daunting.
Our planet and life on it is millions of years old. All of us living on this planet today are but a brief and miniscule portion of the life having existed on the planet before us. We do our best to invent notions that try to make us more important in the whole scheme of God's created evolutionary process, but these are defensive efforts to assuage our fear of death. None of us wring our hands over not having been present in the past and none of us should spend time wringing our hands over our future after our death. All we have, for sure, is the present. The past could not affect us personally and neither can the future of the planet after our death.

I sense most people, everywhere, realize something huge and tumultuous is about to happen on our planet. But we can't see the forest for the sake of the trees. This discourse is about the forest, not the trees. I kind of separate the new factors facing our planet and societies, and the old, usual factors. In the interests of being concise I will refrain from any elaborate discussion of any of these factors. Books are written about each. The object here is not to get lost in detail.

THE NEW FACTORS:

Overriding everything is human overpopulation of the globe. Global population has doubled in my own lifetime, and for it to double again will be catastrophic for all species on the planet. To date, humans---for all our cleverness----have not been able to practice responsible reproduction. We still pretend the individual right to reproduce like rabbits overrides the welfare of planetary life as a whole. Of course individual rights never trump the rights of society as a whole. And more amazingly, politicians of almost every ilk won't even talk seriously about this topic. Of course not, people just don't want to hear it. This is a brand new factor in the history of evolution---human overpopulation on the globe. In the past there was always frontiers of some sort, some place to run and start anew. Not anymore. Where would one run to?

Consequent to the above all sorts of natural resources are becoming depleted, whether it be gases in the atmosphere, life in the oceans, species extinction, loss of arable land, depletion of fresh water sources, energy sources. building materials, fish in the ocean, trees on the land, etc. Right now, today, there are not enough natural resources for all humans to live the kind of lifestyle the affluent now live.

To deny any of these two NEW FACTORS is purely a faith based denial, much like many people accept their inherited religious beliefs on faith. What separates humans from other species is our ability to reason and our inherent ethical nature.
Whenever humans fail to use reason to solve problems or fail to practice and develop their inherent ethical nature, the eventual consequences will be grave. All humans everywhere understand the Golden Rule. For the most part, it is not a question whether we understand right from wrong, but whether we will do the right instead of the wrong.

THE OLD FACTORS:

Every civilized powerful society has collapsed and most of the time it has been for two reasons: the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many, and the financial burden of trying to maintain a global empire of some sort.

To this old factor has been added a NEW TWIST: In the past societies were relatively self sufficient. Not anymore. We now have a global economy. That may or may not be a good thing, but it probably is not an avoidable thing. HOWEVER, to have a global economy without minimum wages will reduce every national economy to a third world type economy with production of more and more things being done with slave labor (without plantations). The price of all these 'bargains' will be self destructive in the not so long run. Freedom will be reduced to nothing left to lose because we have nothing with which to purchase anything. For millions and millions of people, they are already there. Even in the United States, right now 30% of children are being raised in poverty; not the old fashioned type of poverty where a family lived off the land peacefully and healthfully. No, many children today live in refugee camps or urban/rural/suburban ghettoes, socially isolated, over stressed, undereducated, and fearful of personal harm from others.

The social fabric is changing rapidly, even in our own country. The social unit now is rarely the neighborhood, the community, an economic class---but the family unit. Family values has been promoted as an ethical concept when it is really an excuse for circling the wagons and viewing all matters as self serving family challenges. The concept of spreading wealth around or taxes around, or anything else around has become passé. In our own country we wage war on borrowed money, we fight drug addiction with an expensive police War on Drugs instead of treating it as a medical problem, we give tax breaks to the wealthy and reduce benefits to the poor, we have eliminated the steep graduated income and inheritance taxes on the wealthy to ensure none of the money gained gets returned to the society from which it came, and we spend three times as much to educate some of our young and three times less to educate most of our young, the very ones most in need of a good education.

Regulation, and 'enough is enough are no longer legitimate and necessary restraints on free enterprise. The concept of "I earned it" is being replaced more and more by inherited wealth. To pay off state and national debts we use political clout and maneuvering to pit one group against another as to who is going to pay off the debt. Ironically, in many cases those who supported all the wars, and military expenditures on weapons of little use in modern warfare, and the police War on Drugs, on maintaining military bases all over the globe, are the very ones who demand the debts incurred be paid off by others and they get a tax break. Greed flourishes and fairness becomes something only on a personal basis.

To me, all of the above is the big picture---the context from which all the particulars we address are being fought. We see today, for our immediate self interests, and have no objective view of the future. All forms of government seem to be failing, for different reasons, and the multitude of complex endangerments to our planet have left us relatively paralyzed. In some respects we are like deer in the headlights, we see it coming but until it hits us we cannot bring ourselves to act. Of course then it may be too late.

The good news, which we as individuals need accept, is that the process of God's evolutionary process will continue. Our 'free will' can help make our personal lives better, but in the big picture, we are but one species participating in moulding the future nature of the planet, and it will be the laws governing this process which determine the future. We are not, as individuals, or as a species, any kind of end product nor do we have any reasonable basis to assume we are a favored species, or a favored individual member of our own species. Believing otherwise does not bring any real contentment (the religious right of any religion are not exactly known as happy campers brimming with contentment). What we have received, by chance, and our environment, is a chance to exist as part of this evolutionary process for a very limited time. Humans are blessed with the ability to reason and an inherent sense of ethics. To the extent we use both in all aspects of our life we can be contented. Remember, it is ethics which allows the less fortunate to reach a level of life for which to reach contentment. Yes, we are our brother's keeper both for his sake and our own sake. One can choose not to help the less fortunate as much as we help ourselves, but in so doing we can never be a really contented person. We are wired to use reason and we are wired to be ethical. Success in these areas is the basis for contentment, and never one without the other.

Team Chemistry Part 2

Team Chemistry Part II

This issue of team chemistry is less a difference of opinion about the value of team chemistry as it is about the purpose of team chemistry. Team chemistry, according to my take on the issues, is a bonus benefit of winning, not in itself a major cause of the winning. Most all teams at the Professional level have coaches and organizations which stress team chemistry. And of course one of the major benefits of participating in any kind of team sport is to learn that no individual, by themselves, can bring victory. Even a sport like cross country cannot have success with one good runner. It takes 5 or 7 good runners to win a meet. It may well be as difficult a feat for someone to finish 5th in the race as it did for someone to finish 1st.

Be all this as it may, one cannot get carried away with the team chemistry bit---after all, only one team in the NFL can win the Superbowl. That means, out of 32 teams participating only one team gets to go on national TV and deliver the obligatory message of how great each person on the team is, how much of a family they are, how the credit goes to everyone on the team etc. And this is just before the exuberant credit sharing goes to parents, God, the fans, etc. All of this is good, and is not untrue to the extent of just how they feel at that moment.

Before the Super Bowl a small army of experts and commentators debate which team is the better team. Considering all the uncontrollable factors that occur in a football game, this debate is a bit silly. Yet non of these debates ever center around team chemistry. No one said, for example, that Green Bay would win because they have better team chemistry. For one thing the term is so vague that it is hardly definable. IF team chemistry could be defined and measurable the issue could be resolved. Every team has some sort of chemistry and that chemistry is going to be defined by the team players and coaches. I always love to use the Chicago Bull's trio of Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman as an example at the extreme side of the issue. No one can define team chemistry in a way which would make any of these players the kind of team players portrayed by the victory speeches. Dennis didn't talk to his teammates, Jordan was focused on Jordan, and Pippen seethed that his contributions were not acknowledged enough. And the coach had to find a way to get them to accept that reality and that what mattered and what would make them appreciate each other in the end, was for each to perform their respective team assignments well. If they win then each of them will be up on the podium graciously thanking their teammates for the great 'team effort'. If they lose, the same generous attitude will not likely prevail. After all, there had to be weak link somewhere, and all parties involved will try to cover their ass, so to speak. Those least fitting the image of a team player will be the first target. Dennis hurt the team because he didn'teven bother to talk to his teammates, Jordan needs to understand there are others on the team and not hog the ball so much, Pippen needs to quit pouting and just concentrate on playing etc.

The stated goal of the Super Bowl is to find out who has the better players on their team. There is no attempt to claim beforehand that the game, or all those before it were really about the team chemistry of the various teams. How the hell would you even start to measure that? Team chemistry operates in all social and employment enterprizes. Most people work in situations which involve team chemistry. Team chemistry is most important in order to make the working conditions more palatable. Everyone would rather work in a job where the workers get along.

In Professional Football talent is pretty much where it starts and where it ends. Add the quality of the coaching and all the uncontrollable variables, and therein lies success or failure. The question becomes one of do you have the talent? Then do you have a coach who can develop the talent, put in the right plays, and keep them focused on their individual assignments, not be too occupied with external family or social activities. Team chemistry is a given---it will be there of some sort. And because the individual personalities vary, the chemistry will vary.

Granted, some coaches are better suited than others to deal with particular personalities. Most people have certain personalities with which they have difficulty dealing. So you avoid hiring them or coaching them. A different coach or employer will form a successful relationship with them. That is just the way life is.

To get the best out of certain team members may take the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job. Favre, in retrospect, was no ideal team chemistry contributor. Favre is Favre, and he had the needed talent. So, team chemistry gives, the owners, the coaches, the other players, all know Favre is treated with kid gloves and allowed to get things his way. That, for such a team, is the price to be paid for winning games. As long as 'Hot Stuff' is irreplaceable everyone just accepts the reality. It was only when age caught up with Favre and he kept changing his mind about retirement that they decided he was expendable. Team chemistry was never the issue.

Condensed, team chemistry exists in a zillion forms, and is important. At the professional level this means the coaches have to find a way for the varied, sometimes difficult personalities to co-exist and stay focused on their individual assignments. IF winning results then some real appreciation for each other amongst the players will develop. If winning does not come the focus changes, and scapegoats sought by everyone on the team. Teams that win Championships do not look to clean house. Those who fail to win Championships do look to clean house. The teams that win face a different dilemma. Now all sorts of team members believe they deserve a huge raise, I mean after all, they heard all the speeches by their own teammates and commentators of all sorts, and it all gives testimony of just how important they are to the team. Salaries for the next year become a nightmare.
And the players have increased market value---I mean other team administrators also heard all these laudatory comments about all these players. Now lets get real one more time here. If this team chemistry stuff and all this 'we are family' stuff had the meaning we all want to think it has, then why do so many of the players go where ever the money trail leads them? What happened to 'family'? For many players to varying degrees, when all the hoopla dies down they decide, often for money, that all the 'shit' and pressure that goes with being a professional football player can be put up with just as well one place as another.

After thoughts: When a player says on the victory podium "We are like family" one need give pause for thought about that. Like whose family? Some families don't get along together at all. In some family certain family members get along and certain other ones do not. In some family all family members get along just fine. And then what do we mean 'get along'? That would be hard to define also. I think most people in any group try to get along---at work, with church members, waiting in lines, etc. This 'team chemistry' under different titles, is pervasive in all our lives. And then there is the numbers game. A football team has 17 different assistant coaches and like 50 different players and then all the support staff. And they are only together half of the year. The amount of genuine personal interaction between most players is cursory. Then there is the age factor. A college coach one time told me he missed high school coaching because in high school you get to really develop raw talent. In college he felt most of the job was recruiting talent and then just ensuring that the effort in practice was going to play a big role on who is a starter. When a professional football player reports to a team, these days maybe the 4th team, they are primarily motivated by salary and public approval of their performance. Kids in high school are going through a difficult social stage in their life---and they really do need to learn the importance of respecting others on the team. If a coach wants to feel like he has turned raw talent into something special, including getting along with diverse personalities, then high school is were he will maximize this kind of satisfaction. In a professional sport like football these guys are adults---maybe pampered, sometimes irresponsible, oversized egos, etc. All coaches preach team unity, tolerance for each other etc. I suppose it is a version of Rodney King's plea "Can't we all just get along?". But in the last analysis it is money and fame which drives these players to be the best they can be.

There is this saying which says, "God gives us our relatives, thank God we can choose our friends." I reckon a football player could say, "Management gives us our teammates, thank God we can choose our friends." Families are bound by genetics and law. Professional football teams are bound by contracts and skill. Whether Mary becomes a good doctor and Harry becomes a good lawyer is not closely related to family chemistry. They are almost separate issues, related but not in any clear way.

Sport arguments, which is what they are, serve a good purpose in that it forces one to take impressions, some assorted observations, combine all this with some stats, and come to a formed opinion. We then defend our opinions with all the tools at our disposal. Rarely do sports opinions change. The arguments are seldom about facts, like exactly how many points did a team score, but about things which are not facts---who is the better player, which team is better, which team is going to win a game, why did this or that team win the game, etc. All this if fine, healthy and dandy---as long as one realizes opinions are not likely to change. And there is little need to. Sports is entertainment. Whether I am right or wrong on any of my opinions about sport debates has no bearing on the rest of my life. No harm is done. It is in the area of politics and religions where the harm is done. Big time.