Rules and rights

Rules and rights

There are two problems that need addressing and the ensuing rule is aimed at both. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect by authority figures, including policemen, teachers, employers etc. On the other hand everyone is expected to comply with orders from the police, their teachers, their employers and if the order is wrong, pursue justice later through grievance or whatever. 

The rule should be this: If one complies with an order from an authority figure (within limits) then any physical abuse by the authority figure should be prosecuted. That means if a policeman says “stop” and you stop, no physical punishment is merited at all, period.  In the latest incident a student took out a phone, was told to put it away by the teacher, she refused and instead started praying loudly. The teacher called for help, an authority figure of some sort arrived, told her to get out of her seat and come with him. She refused. He then physically grabbed the student pulled her out of the chair and physically  restrained the student and then removed the student from class. 

Why should anyone be free to defy orders from an authority figure and expect they can do nothing to you physically?  If the gal won’t get out of the chair what is suppose to happen——some sort of daylong verbal negotiation? Move the class to another room?  If a policeman says stop and you continue to run, what is suppose to be the next action?  An endless chase for blocks or miles not even knowing what kind of weapon, if any, the person running has or who might get injured or killed during the chase? The gal in the classroom says she had done nothing wrong. Really?  If so, then the time to punish the authority figure is via a filed grievance. That is what grievances are for. 

When I taught, back in the long ago days, I was not exactly built to bodily throw people out of the classroom, but it was simple, create a disturbance and the lecture is over and the students could learn the material from the book. A disturbance never happened a second time because other students would make life miserable for the student who caused the lecture to end. 

Ok, high school is different, calling off the class would probably be met with cheers, at least by a good number of students who don’t even want to be in class. If a student cannot be told by a called authority figure to get out of their chair and come with them, all is lost. Apparently a perceived student causing a disturbance is entitled to engage in a verbal debate with the authority figure for the rest of the class and then I guess the teacher is the one who is required to file a grievance against the student to achieve any kind of punishment? My heavens, no wonder the educational environment in many cases is a farce. 

These are not good days to be an authority figure. In some states every college student can be sitting in the class with a gun strapped to their side or in their purse. Discipline?  At what potential cost? Go to a social gathering or a public gathering? You might not have an enemy in the world but that hardly matters since the trend these days is to murder bunches of people at random. At least we can all be safe in our homes with our guns for protection. I can visualize the encounter now. A man wakes up and hears a noise downstairs. But he is ready, rushes downstairs and confronts the thief: “You came to the wrong house buddy. Yes siree, you are going to regret this” he bellows at the thief. But he is, unfortunately, a responsible gun owner and keeps his gun locked in a safe. So he races to the safe, but is so excited he can’t remember the combination, so he yells to his wife, “What is the combination?”  She responds, “It’s my mother’s birthdate”. The poor guy explodes: “For Christ’s sake, how would I know your mother’s birthdate?”. But all end’s well, the burglar escapes realizing people are home and awake. 

A lot of families sometimes have real angry emotional clashes. Now that people tend to have guns hidden all over the house or even strapped to their side, these emotional family arguments can be a tad more dangerous. Might get something more than a punch in the nose or a head lock. Studies show most guns are used most often to kill family members or friends. Good thing I have no immediate family or friends. Smile. Probably the safest person around. 

People ask why, since I wander around Chicago neighborhoods often, that I do not carry my pistol. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but I do understand that any robbery is most likely to be teenagers or those in their twenties, an emotional age if there ever is one, and I will not know I am being robbed until my hands are pinned to my side or a knife/gun is sticking against me, and soon these emotional young gangsters will  have my gun. It is embarrassing to be shot with your own gun. I choose to avoid this possible embarrassment. If people are going to be allowed to carry guns around in public I think the rule should be: once they have selected their target they must be a block away and announce loudly their intentions. Then maybe I would carry my pistol. Even then I would be reluctant to shoot——only the person I was aiming at would be safe. 

People sometimes encourage me to do more exciting things, socialize more. Huh? Hey, I know what kind of exciting things are happening out there socially these days. As long as Sheebiejiebee the cat doesn’t claw me to death when hungry or Riva the horse doesn’t kick me in the ass as part of her training me, I have it made in the shade. Just two days ago someone held a birthday party in a backyard for like 40 people. Two of the people got angry about something, got in their car and plowed the car into the gathering in the back yard. Happy birthday!!! or maybe “Happy Last Birthday”. Thank God parties are not my thing these days.

One last thing. If any of you have demands to make on me, like “shut up” and other such ilk, better do it gently lest I get modern and take you and others out with me on my way to Heaven. God likes me, I am not so sure about the rest of you. Besides, never bother anyone who will be dead in the short run---regardless. Now if I can just remember where I have stored all my weapons. 

Social Changes in the Last Century

Social Changes in the Last Century

With age comes an inclination to see many changes in a negative light.  Maybe it is not so much age as familiarity with the way things used to be. In addition, change affects different people in varied ways, so what is good for one, is less pleasing to another. We really can’t please everybody all the time. 

Change, in reality, is a major part of the evolutionary process—so is diversity— so is genetics—so is the environment, and so is luck. Thus, to talk about change as if we have real choice in the matter, is a bit inane. Change, in the evolutionary process, is judged by advantageousness for survival, and what the consequences are in the long run. Huge size was an advantage to the dinosaurs, at least in the short run, but huge size was not an advantage in the long run. They did not survive certain environmental changes which developed as part of evolutionary change. 

The social changes in our own species over thousands of years have been dramatic. Change, it must be remembered, is not always physical in nature. There are social changes too. We are less brutal with each other, at least most of the time in most social societies. Yet clearly, given certain circumstances, a harsh level of cruelty to others is not that far below the surface of human behavior. We need only think of Hitler, the Sunni vs the Shiites, the Catholics vs the Protestants in Ireland, witch burning in America, lynchings in America, Christians vs Muslims in Africa, The Tutsi vs the Hutus in Rwanda, American slaughter of Vietnamese, gang warfare everywhere, slavery, multi group massacres in Syria today, Muslim refugees vs Christian culture tensions in more and more places, and nervously—- current politics in America. We have social cauldrons of a vitriolic nature spreading across the globe. That is hardly good change. Humans are not adapting well to global changes of various sorts bearing down on our planet. 

Perhaps much of the above is to be expected on a planet which suffers human overpopulation. Overpopulation always changes the nature of social interactions, and not for the better. So far the human species understands overpopulation very well regarding other species, but our own species is frozen in the headlights of this problem. Humans, even today, still cannot bring themselves to seriously talk about human overpopulation. China did for a while, and implemented strong measures, but it has been too little too late, and only impacted on China itself. 

The purpose here is not to talk about the global impact of human overpopulation, but simply to note the changes in social behavior in the United States over the last century. Our country is a relatively new population growth country so the changes in American social behavior over the last century had more to do with other factors. From here on out, the same global factors are going to impact on us just as much as any other place. No nation is any longer self sufficient. It is truly a global situation requiring global regulation of human activities. The outlook is not good for this to happen. 

When I was young the social milieu was essentially family, neighborhood, and church. For some children school social activities played a role. Socialization then was limited by communication abilities. If people lived close enough communication was available through the telephone, cars, and if young, then bicycles. If there was any distance involved letter writing was often the means of communication. Long distance telephoning was minimum because of the cost. A long distance call was a big deal, and everyone participated after the call to discuss the call. With the number of people available to establish a relationship limited, there was pressure to figure out a way to tolerate diverse personalities. It was also a lot more difficult to find good social interaction if a person him/her self was ‘different’ in varied ways from most other people. 

Families tended to stay relatively local and this generated extended family gatherings, usually in the form of picnics in the summer and house gathering in the winter. My mother had six sisters and a brother yet all my cousins were close enough to attend family gatherings. Sunday was often likely to be taken up by church activities, albeit this varied a lot. But most people went to church at least some of the time. There were often neighborhood gatherings—picnics, sandlot/street games, Halloween parties, Christmas parties. Most news was via the newspapers, magazines, and TV. However, there were only a few channels and few major magazines so everyone was getting the same input of news. Today, there are hundreds of TV channels, and all sorts of internet sources for information, so the input to people is all over the place. For example, people who watch Fox news and those who watch NBC news will end up with vastly different perspectives about the society in which they live. 

Today our social life is very likely to essentially be on our smart phones and the internet via face book, chat rooms, etc. (I can’t list them all since I am not a participant to any degree). This practice generates highly specific social cabals. One legged transvestites are no longer left trapped alone with their feelings, but they can tap into other one legged transvestites across the country, or even the globe. In the past majorities, of any nature, tended to keep minorities, of any nature, in their place. That is not so easy anymore since modern communication devices enable members of particular minorities to stay in touch with each other and form a force in society. While this forces tolerance on the surface, it can also simmer a growing resentment beneath the surface. Blacks may not have to sit in the back of the bus anymore, but that doesn’t make a lot of people delighted to be sitting next to one.  

In theory most people probably would agree others should be treated equally, but emotionally many people don’t feel that way at all. They miss the days when ‘odd’ minorities had to ‘fit in’ with the majority or else. When I was young, when there were prayers in public it was only prayers of the majority religion, and just about everyone knew their ‘place’. In my town probably 20% of the population was black but friendships were almost always along racial lines. Jewish people tended to stick together, Protestants, Catholics, blacks, whites, hispanics, the poor, the affluent, and some were left very isolated—the ugly, the mentally challenged, the book worms, the nonathletic, and just about anyone considered ‘odd’ in any way. Everyone went to the same schools, but often were pursing different ‘tracks’ educationally. No student ever remotely feared being shot while in school or even out of school. People just tended to live in totally separate worlds.  I don’t recall my own friends and I ever talking that much about other groups. There was no hatred, maybe the occasional ethnic or religious joke, but that was about it. Injustices were all over the place, but most people just simply functioned somehow best they could within the established boundaries. By the time I left high school things began to unravel and we passed into the revolutionary 60’s where more and more minorities began to demand equal treatment. and opportunities. 

It is tempting to say that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. But that is not true either. I still find myself often returning from a play or activity of some sort late at night, wending my way to an EL stop or the suburban train station. There are groups of young people all over the place and what stands out is the diversity of these groups. In my day, late night groups of young people were pretty much either white, black, hispanic, oriental, straight, gay, good-looking, unattractive, female, male, or a dating-each-other group. Now it is not unusual to see a group at a table really diverse. The ugliest guy might be having an animated chat with the prettiest gal, a black with a white, oh, just any kind of combination imaginable.  That strikes me as real progress.  Then again, we all know, there are other cabals which stay to themselves and have a deep hatred or resentment to all kinds of people. They see the same picture I just described and are livid. Why we vary so much in our genuine appreciation of diversity is a difficult topic. 

One way to describe society today is that some people live socially in the best of all possible worlds, and others live disgruntled in their own worst of all possible worlds, and for different reasons. Certain things are clear. The neighborhood, the Church, and newspapers are no longer the center of social life. Neither are relatives in many cases. The community, for most people today, are the contacts on their cell phone, smart phone, or internet emails, chat rooms, face book, etc. While most people, affluent or poor, are not bored so much anymore, neither are they much of a contented lot either. Amusement and addiction to inane chatter rule the day, while any sense of immediate community or group relationships are more the exception today. 

For the elderly, at least those like me, it is great thing that we can be amused all day by gadgets instead of having to bother others to amuse us. But for the young and those in their productive years, it is a very different story. For sure everyone seems busy enough, but more like compulsive activities associated with addictive tensions. The endless video games, the text messages, the emails, the cell phone chats, the endlessly scheduled daily events all programmed into gadgets to keep one on time to a schedule, the often job insecurity, romance insecurities, marriage insecurities, economic insecurities, health matters, all centered around a zillion wants of this or that nature——all of this tends to foster feelings of frustration. We are not so much bored anymore as in the past as we are insecure, pressured, discontented, filled with vague yearnings over things we don’t have while often overworked with precious few in depth relationships—replaced with 150 people on our Facebook page who at best are vague acquaintances, no more genuine to us than people in all the films or books we see or read. When someone tells me they have 436 ‘friends’ on Facebook I let it slide. What good are those kind of friends? Well, maybe for some, numbers like that really do serve some sort of need. The word friend means different things to different people. The quantity of friends needed by different people varies too. It’s a crap shoot perhaps.

Earlier it was mentioned that size was an early advantage in the evolutionary process for dinosaurs.  But huge size was a disadvantage in the long run when certain environmental changes drove them into extinction. Do humans, as a species, have any short term advantages that might doom us in the long run?. Clearly we are smarter and more clever than other species. About as far advanced with intelligence over other species as dinosaurs were in size over other species. Perhaps the intelligence which gave us such advantage to date is going to be foiled by a human ethical weakness which is leaving all species, not just the human species, vulnerable for insurvivability. 

While most every human culture understands that the Golden Rule is an ethical principle, there is no human culture yet which really uses this ethical principle as the basis for ethics in it’s culture. Instead of using the Golden Rule as the safety net for those less fortunate in the evolutionary process, we use ‘family values’ and personal greed to gate ourselves off from the less fortunate. Combining this with our inability to enforce responsible reproduction on ourselves, and we have an impending disaster in the making. When enough is never enough in terms of money, titles, power, things, and offspring—we then overrun the planet with our own species, and by not letting the Golden Rule be the basis for providing a more level playing field for the less fortunate in society, we allow the distribution of wealth to become egregiously out of balance. What we are witnessing now is a loss of appreciation for diversity which is growing at an exponential rate, plus an increasing rate of violence growing at an exponential race, plus a widespread inability to understand when enough of something is enough. This greed for things, sharing restricted to our own genetic family, all in the midst of an overpopulated earth——might well be spelling disaster for much of life on this planet. While there is no reason to believe life on this planet will end, there is every reason to believe another major evolutionary correction is just around the corner. We are not intelligent enough to envision what kind of correction, and for how long, or what the nature of life on this planet will be when the correction ends—so what will be will be.

We have pretty much, it seems, assumed the human species, as represented by ourselves today, is the creme de la creme of human evolution, that we are the end point of species evolution, that we were ‘created’ in the image of God Himself, that God is judging us, making demands on us personally, and if we worship God properly according to the scriptures of our inherited religion, we personally will be protected and aided throughout life until we finally die and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  That seems a stretch and is obviously self-serving.  We now have even created computers that are ‘smarter’ than us in varied respects. But this ‘smartness’ can be used against us too—like the weapons of mass destruction and smart missiles which can be programmed to pretty much go up a particular person’s ass. We pretty much now can all be mass terrorists. In fact more and more people, at an exponentially growing rate, are becoming just that. It is really weird, while more and more people are gaining rights others just had, there are as many or more people determined to get whatever they want, OR believe terroristic acts will create fear and bedlam; and in the midst of the chaos and the guns which are more and more everywhere, their side—whatever that might be—will rule the streets. Of course violence begets violence, so in places like Iraq, Afganistan, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Haiti, the Congo, Nigeria, our own urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes——well, the violence is never ending in these places and the only constant is that whoever controls a geographical area at the moment will simply be the thugs of the moment. They will be toppled by the same kind of violence which put them in control for a period of time. ‘Thugocracy’ rules vast areas of our globe. Military intervention fails to solve much of anything.

 Marriage and sex habits have changed a lot too, but as always, the changes here are all over the place and not subject all that much to reasonable or logical analysis. So, accepting the mysteriousness of all this, I will just ignore it. 

If the evolutionary process is to continue on, as it has for millions of years, I sometimes wonder what will new advanced species look or act like? Maybe the gadgets we create will end up running the world. So much of what I had to do myself in the past, is now done by computers of some sort.The future for the human species, it seems logical enough to conclude, will depend on how we learn to treat each other. “Man is a religious animal.  He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion—several of them.  He is the only animal that loves his neighbors as himself and cuts his neighbor’s throat if his theology isn’t straight” (Mark Twain). Actually, there has been tremendous progress here, especially in developed countries. Just in the U.S. alone many more people have rights which before only some people had. Still, there is one huge caveat here: those  strongly against this spreading out of rights and opportunities for certain others, have the ability to disrupt society and potentially even cause social implosion. Human overpopulation just increases the tendency for this kind of anger. As the number of people increase who are trying to get bigger pieces of a pie that is shrinking—not enlarging, there will always be the tendency for many people to blame ‘minorities’ of some sort for their own failures. If only their despised ‘minorities’ were kept down, they themselves would do better in life. 

In essence, human rights have never been so spread around in so many places, and yet our social situation, most everywhere, is a simmering cauldron of emotions ready to explode. Does anyone really think American society is in good shape when 43% of Americans don’t pay any income tax because they don’t earn enough money, or earn so much money that they have an array of tax loop holes to escape paying taxes?  This is not only obviously a time bomb waiting to explode, but the rate at which it is happening has been rather fast, and is now growing at an exponential rate.  So many THINGS and the GREED for them, with no ENOUGH IS ENOUGH is driving society into the best of all possible worlds and the worst of all possible worlds. The wealthy are not yet satisfied, and want even more wealth. It can’t come from the poor, they have nothing more to give; this leaves the middle class, and to take more from the middle class just creates an increased size of the poor class. We have now become, in the ‘interest of self defense’, a very well armed nation. If an implosion happens, there is no way the “haves” can protect themselves from the ‘have-nots’. All of history has shown that it will be the have-nots who win and a whole new societal structure will have to be constructed.

In the past the poor could be poor and independent. Many could simply live off the land. And they were not reminded a hundred times a day, via electronic gadgets, of just how much better other people are living. The poorest people, in the poorest countries, are now well aware of just how many more THINGS so many people in so many places HAVE compared to themselves. It was easier in the past to be poor and yet contented. Urbanization of families brings with it massive numbers of poor who are anything but independent and have anything but a level playing field for schools, health care, job opportunities, personal safety, and so on. They may be gated off in many countries right now, including the United States, but it is only when, not if, this situation will  implode and create total chaos. Everyone is armed now, so chaos will not be a pretty picture for anyone. Churches are fading and the Golden Rule not a major ethical pathway for enough people to generate any solution. Whatever the future, it seems clear enough that peace, security, and personal prosperity will not be achieved until the dominant species is governed by widespread adherence to the Golden Rule. 

Change is to be expected, but the rate of change is starting to take our breath away. Lincoln would barely recognize this country 150 years after his death. The information overload which we all face and attempt to access all this information, cannot be reduced anymore to simple solutions for more and more serious problems facing the planet. It is not at all like the past, history does not repeat itself, and what can we do but hang on to our hat; it will be a bumpy ride—like a roller coaster, only we have no idea where this ride will end up. Actually, this being the evolutionary process, it will not end. We will, the process will not. Even our memories, for which we are mostly thankful, will be gone when the last conscious person who is part of these memories is gone. That’s all she wrote folks.  

War As a Solution

War As a Solution

A statement by Obama recently caught my attention. He stated that if he had listened to the Republicans we would have been in 8 wars during his presidency—that he had counted them up. 

Naturally this caused me to ponder the role of going to war in these times. If we are the strongest military power in the world and won’t use our military might, what good is it?  If we still believe in freedom/democracy and won’t come to the aid of other people to achieve this, what kind of ethics is this? The worst dictators and repressive regimes on the globe certainly need to be eliminated. 

The two World Wars demonstrated that weakness leads some dictators to expand their control over other countries with an appetite never satiated. These kind of empires have existed in earlier historical times. If we can stop brutal regimes from subjecting terror or injustice upon their citizens we ought to, it seems, do so. Today the problem hinges on the word ‘CAN’.

All of the above makes sense, except the times are now changed. We tried using our military might in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, a dozen other South American countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Balkans, and Grenada. The only successes have been Balkans and Grenada, while Korea ended up in a stalemate. Granted, we could, if we wished, simply blow up every infrastructure and most every person in a given country, but what kind of solution would that be? This would not exactly be a victory, at least not for the people who lived in that country. 

Are the people of Somalia, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and dozens of South American countries better off because we sent in troops or provided military assistance? The only lesson learned is that violence breeds violence. We are finding this also true at home.  Of course we haven’t learned that lesson at all.  We have spent billions upon billions of dollars on military equipment and military invasions of one sort or another. Where are the shining successes? The pattern is clear enough: we go in, we kill ten of them for every one of us killed, there are no uniformed armies for us to attack, we hang in there for many years, then tire of it all, declare victory and leave. What is left behind is tons of rubble, thousands of land mines, bands of well armed thugs in charge of the country, or at least certain segments of the country, for short periods of time. The ‘best’ of their citizenry has fled the country and create religious, economic, cultural havoc in the countries to which they flee. What kind of victories are these? 

More recently we have decided that well, we can’t just leave, we must at least leave some troops there to train these people to defend themselves from themselves. It is something similar to our police forces in our urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes. It would really be a stretch to say our inner cities are progressing just fine with this approach.  What really happens is that our troops live in ‘green zones’ for safety in these foreign countries or our ghettoes, while the real citizens of the country are left with little or no personal security at all. American soldiers are constantly irritated that they go in and ‘free’ the local population in an area only to find scant evidence of popular support. Why don’t these people express thanks for being freed from thugs? It is simple enough, they know these thugs will be back when our soldiers leave, and it will be death to those who cooperated with our temporary occupation. Same with the foreign soldiers we train. They know they are marked men and prime candidates for revenge. They like getting a pay check, but they also realize at some point they are likely to pay dearly for it. And the thugs who want to rule realize that it is possible to infiltrate these American trained soldiers.

So there it all sits. We can’t win with an invasion, we can’t win with temporary occupation, town by town, and we can’t win by doing nothing. In some sense war has become obsolete. No one can win. Our own society is starting to crack with the ability of small groups or even individuals to create serious havoc. We have smart bombs, drones, all kinds of missiles, tanks, and many ways to monitor what group is up to what, and we eliminate leader after leader of this and that group, but they get replaced immediately, and the only thing changing is the number of varied groups participating in what approaches total havoc in more and more places across the globe. 

So what, if we are the President, would we do? The universal ethical principle called the Golden Rule has been too much abandoned across the globe. The internet and media gadgets to communicate with fellow advocates of whatever cause we wish to be a part, becomes our ‘family’, our ‘community’, our source of leadership and loyalty. What does being an American or an Iraqian or any other broad category mean anymore? I know, America has always been a diverse entity, but in the past, people were obligated to go along until the next election. It is so bad now that it is difficult to get a third of the eligible voters to vote, even though voting has never been easier. For many people, their entire world is right on their smart phone and the internet; this includes myself whose world is to a great extent on the internet. But at 75 years of age perhaps that is excusable. What the hell do I have to accomplish anymore by getting back into some sort of rat race?  

In the last analysis the picture seems bleak for the short run, and yet no particular worry for the long run. The problem is—sometimes for ourselves, and for our offspring, and for billions of humans and other species alive today—-there is no escape from the misery of the present and near future. The truth is, from any evolutionary standpoint, our human species is out of control—-way out of control. We cannot control our population explosion—responsible reproduction isn’t even on the table for any serious discussion. Human activity is wreaking havoc on our natural resources, on climate, on survival of other species, while we pollute everything in sight. On top of this, all very ‘real problems’ facing our planet are global and require global cooperation for solution, but there is zero possibility of any global action on these problems. No nation, by itself, can any longer create for themselves any peace or prosperity for any length of time. All people everywhere are looking over their shoulders, sensing so many dangerous trends bearing down on them. We, as a species, have become suicide bombers, destroying so much of our planet with our self serving activities and yet when our destructive activities are effectuated, we end up killing ourselves, some sooner than others. The only difference is that our current activities take decades, not a half hour like the well publicized mass killers, and many of us have not yet got to the stage where we ourselves get eliminated. The 2-5 percenters, who own like 90% of our wealth, still are not satisfied, they want more and they have the power to create laws which allow them to get even more, simply unable to understand that when things finally implode, it will be the ‘have nots’ who will win, although it will be a strange kind of win in the sense no one will be left with personal safety or prosperity. We will then all be some sort of Iraq West or Afghanistan West, etc. Without global minimum wages, no workers anywhere can prosper. Without global enforcement of pollution and responsible reproduction, no species anywhere is safe from extinction. Without the elimination of inherited religious factions, the Golden Rule cannot be developed as the universal basis for human ethics. The differing religions, at least the purists, will all continue their crusades against perceived heathens. 

In short, war as we have known it in past times, has now become obsolete. It no longer can solve much of anything. The smallest groups have the means via modern gadgets and personal weapons of mass destruction to create havoc at will. To paraphrase Lincoln, a planet divided against itself cannot stand, the world cannot endure, permanently divided into those living in the best of all possible worlds, and those living in the worst of all possible worlds. We are living today in the midst of evolution’s 5th mass species extinction era, and this always is followed by a huge evolutionary correction. Because we function under human time, we can’t really grasp evolutionary time. Of all the species that have existed on earth, 99.9 percent are now extinct. Most of them perished in 5 cataclysmic events. What is unique now is that none of these previous cataclysmic events were caused by the activities of one species. Of the 6-10 million current species existing, we have only identified 1 million. Over normal evolutionary periods 1-5 species become extinct each year. We are now losing 1,000-10,000 species per year and human activity is behind most of it. I suppose, with our scientific knowledge increasing so rapidly, that one could postulate we shouldn’t worry—we soon will be able to recreate any species we want. But of course species extinction is only one problem bearing down on us. We have already mentioned others. 

So the picture is scary. War doesn’t work anymore. The Golden Rule, the inherent basis for human ethics, is being nullified by religious, cultural, ethnic, and economic factions wrapped in the global trap of human overpopulation. Since it is impossible for there to be enough resources for all humans to live the kind of lifestyle some of us now live, those seeking to get the same slice of pie, are going to engage in ever more desperate ways to get such a slice, and when their efforts fail, some will kill themselves, but take out as many others as they can on their way out.  Right now, this sort of mentality is growing exponentially. There is sure increasing violence taking place in more and more areas of the world. We seem to be trapped. Violence creates more violence, which creates the perfect scenario for thug-like leaders to gain control over areas for limited lengths of time, to be replaced by different thugs. There is no shortage of really good people amongst the various diversified groups, but the thugs via media communication gadgets and personal weapons of human destruction, are gaining power everywhere. 

There is no logical reason to think evolution will end, that some sort of massive evolutionary correction will not occur as in the past, but for those living in today’s human time, well, now might be a good time to become extinct via natural death. There is nothing more amazing to contemplate than this evolutionary process which has been proceeding for millions of years, but clearly this process is not focused on any individual successes. That’s a tad annoying, but it is what it is, and while I am grateful for my own situation, it is tempered constantly by my awareness of everywhere too much ‘still sad music of humanity’. With all the modern media gadgets, all this massive ‘sad music of humanity’ is up in our face all the time, endlessly. We are numbed by it all, and it becomes the new ‘norm’ and like always, we gate it all off as our only personal defense from it. The best any of us can do, is follow Lincoln’s advice, and “to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” In the last analysis I suspect most people are still glad a particular sperm, by chance, won the race to unite with a particular egg to let us all, as individuals, have a unique existence for a microcosmic infinitesimal period of time in the evolutionary process. 

We all, to varying degrees, are like deer in the middle of the road, frozen in place by the glare of oncoming headlights. The immediate solution?  “Only the Shadow knows”. Meanwhile, while you wait for the next ‘Lincoln’ to surface, you might ask the bartender if what you are drinking comes in a keg. 

While we wait for the next ‘Lincoln’ to appear on the scene we so far only get the likes of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Putin, Kim Jong-un, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bashar al-Assad, Ali Khamenei,

Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, Robert Mugabe, the Kardashians, Justin Beiber, Ndamukong Suh, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham, Kanye West, Bill Cosby,

Jane and Willow Smith and Dad, Donald Sterling, Aaron Hernandez—I am tiring of these Americans, enough to realize the pleasures of hermit-hood.  Stop the World, I want to get off. Nah, it is what it is and we can all find a little niche away from it all—for maybe a little bit longer. 

Related quotations:

Being an optimist after you've got everything you want doesn't count. ~Kin Hubbard

It's still possible to be a cockeyed optimist these days — you just have to be a little more cockeyed. ~Robert Brault,

 "Okay, we all realize that the situation is temporarily hopeless." ~Robert Brault

The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum. ~Havelock Ellis,  

After 5000 years of recorded human history, you wonder, What part of 2,000,000 sunrises doesn't a pessimist understand? ~Robert Brault,

God and Football

God and Football

Few things can appear as egregiously preposterous than a professional football player all bubbly about God helping him or his team win a football game. What kind of God do they pray to Who would actually take sides in a football game and yet let some orphan in a refugee camp starve to death, or allow massive genocidal deaths, or let some innocent person be beheaded, or a ‘witch’ burned at the stake, or let some of the finest people have horrible medical conditions?  How vain must a person be to actually believe God interceded so he or his team could win a football game? Drew Brees talks like he has some intelligence, and certainly seems to play the game as if he has some intelligence, so what happens to his brain that would let him go on and on about how God has the kicker miss an easy last minute field gold so that he (Drew Brees) could throw a long pass to score an overtime touchdown which would be his 400th touchdown pass. What a nice gesture on the part of God. 

Let’s just assume Drew Brees is right, and that he is really tight with God, and God helps him have success when he plays. But where was God the last three games when they lost?  God must be extremely fickle from game to game and from season to season. And why would any of the rest of us root for any team to win a game? Who the hell wants to root for a game in which God decides the winner. Betting against God? Doesn’t sound like much fun to me. And what fun would it be for God? 

To top it off, before and/or after the game, some players form a circle and pray for what? How big must a person’s ego be for them to really envision God teaming up with them to win a game? If one of these  players in these highly televised prayer circles has a bad game, gets injured, or his team loses, what does he do the following week to get back in God’s good graces? Help some old lady across the street?  Toss some money into the Salvation Army pot? Suppose a player on the opposing team matches his kindnesses this next week? Now what does God do? I mean, if it is a tie here does God at least tell both that he flipped a coin to see who he was going to let have a good game? 

Does Drew only get God’s help in football games?  What happens when he scores sex with someone he is sexually attracted to? Is there some sort of individual prayer circle before and/or after the sex? Why isn’t this televised?  Is he ashamed of having good sex?  And why does God so dislike some people, right from birth, by making it nearly impossible for them to ever attract sexy partners for sex?

There are dozens of athletes on both teams. How does Drew know which player got God to ensure victory for them? And why does the prayer have to be in public? Does God only hear or see prayers if they are on TV?  I think Brees is nursing an injury. Huh? If God wants Brees or, at least his team to win, why would God let Brees get injured? 

And what religion is Brees? Do players of other religions ever get God to enable them to win games? Or doesn’t God care what religion someone has inherited?  And I wish Drew would be more specific about this God assisted accomplishment. What exactly does Drew Brees do with his life that at least some players on the other team do not do? Why has no one written any book on how to enlist God to help you win football games? Wouldn’t that be the best playbook? In fact why practice all week, just spend all day in prayer circles to impress God with your endless begging. 

If only I could live my life a tad better than Drew Brees, then I could be a star football player making millions of dollars. It would sure beat the many droll years I worked to gain some money. Why is it that when something good happens so many people credit God, and when disaster happens they get mentally discombobulated, shrug, and say “God acts in mysterious ways”. Finally they exhibit some reality. I don’t even attempt to define God or even create a God in my own image of how I would like Him to be. Wherever there is a gift, there is a gift giver. Thus, I let it go a that. The gifts are all around us. The gift giver is God. I also accept the definition of Empedocies “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”

Why, I wonder, does Drew Brees and a cabal of other football players think winning football games is a priority of God? What other priorities do they think God has? Maybe arranging marriages which no man better put asunder. Whoops, that seems a tad insulting to God since half of American marriages fail. Maybe God is an infatuated ‘family values’ fanatic besides, or after, winning football games. Then again, God’s ‘family’ is all species, all natural resources, not to mention the whole universe. Why do we remotely think God wants us to be self centered around our own particular family? or religious group? Or nation? Or culture? or any other definable group? If God is such a big fan of Drew Brees or his whole team, does this extend to the players’ family members?  Probably Drew Brees would think letting his wife get run over by a car would be more of a catastrophe than losing a football game. Does he let God know this so God will prevent this from happening to his wife?  

On the other hand, it is no big deal either—this God winning football games nonsense. We all, in our own peculiar ways, act the fool. I”ve asked the little birdie who whispers advice in my ear to chirp into Drew Brees’s ear: “Don’t do this ‘God thing’ on television, if God determined the game results or any players performance, then let God go to the podium, don’t you go up there and act so talented. And certainly don’t offer up, in interview situations, an analysis of which players or teams are better than others. This is so disingenuous. Now you are claiming to know which players or teams God is going to make victorious. Just be consistent and say, “Except for me and my team, I have no idea who God favors in the other games.”