The "personalities" who subordinate us in fact play a very small part in the life of the Planet. Still, it seems curious how few of the "Chief Executives", the CEOs who take for themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in "earnings" and "salaries", have provided solutions to problems. Precious few of those who assert "leadership" over us have led us. None provide succor or salvation. Our "leaders" -- whether in Africa or in America -- seem hell-bent on stealing, seizing power, but have completely neglected the opportunity their power gives them to Solve Problems.
We need protection from "our enemies". So often, the worst predators are the same "Chief Executives" and "Presidents" who run our companies and countries -- into the ground.
For example, let's look at our political sphere -- and the two men who claim to be the leaders of the most people on the Planet. The claims, of course, are absurd, but look at what they are claiming:
Osama Bin Laden claims to be the Caliph of the most pure and correct Religion. And he seeks war in its name. Is peace a "problem"? Has peace created a difficulty which needs his war to solve? He wallows in the "fragrance" of blood sacrifice, although looking at his longevity, it is clearly not his own bleeding that seems to fill him with joy. In the name of Islam, all means are justified, including criminal ones. And by criminalizing Islam, he has destroyed it. Few "believers" make it through the exposure to fraudulent "lending industries", blood diamonds, and opium harvests with any sense of righteousness intact. Still, Bin Laden is the most popular leader in the Islamic world. In fact, there are NO others revered as he is.
If one simply reads or listens to George Bush, it is just as clear that he also seeks war. His "solution" to every thing is to send America to war. He has caused and presided over the disintegration of civilization and the quality of life on the Planet. There is hardly a Constitutional principle -- free elections, informed citizens, a free market, a just legal system, a strong defense -- which he has not destroyed. Bush has certainly cost much more than Osama Bin Laden, billions of dollars simply going directly to the bank accounts of his appointees and minions.
The only conclusion we can make, we are forced to make, is that the two self-appointed leaders looked to by the People to make us safe, have in fact created the very situations which make us unsafe. War, perpetual war.
So we have "leaders" who do not solve problems, but are themselves the problem. The costs and burdens of this type of "leader" who prey upon the Umma, and upon the fears and gullibilities of citizens, are enormous. Ironically both Bush and Bin Laden claim to be even more than mere "leaders", they claim to be our Commanders, and even our Saviors. They have both achieved the exact opposite of their claims. They have solved no problem but they have each increased our burdens ten-fold. Their actions have significantly delayed liberation and development, and fill us all with fear.
Last October 2007, UCI professor and co-founder of CODA Genomics G. Wesley Hatfield announced that a strain of yeast which now makes beer, wine and bread for us, has been put to production of bio-fuels. A new version of Saccharomyces, long devoted to processing glucose, is now working on ethanol, with other fuels and medical pharmaceuticals not far behind.
We have Yeast which is offering more succor to mankind than Bush or Bin Laden put together.
We need fuel. We need allies, not tyrants. Let the Pope canonize this lovely yeast. Pay no attention to the drums of hatred and exclusion. There is no "us" and "them". The scientists who are actually solving problems are our leaders. Instead of destroying the world, they have introduced the gifts offered by this world to us.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
How Pitiable, and Glorious are the Natural Urges
I am deeply offended by people who pretend that they are in any ANY ANY way "above" Nature. For example, people are entitled to wear WHATEVER they want to wear. And if they choose to join a group that wears UNIFORMS, good for them. However, there really is NO excuse or rationale for requiring a Dress Code that is UN-NATURAL.
Specifically, the wearing of disguises in public is not only offensive, it can only be taken as a deliberate affront. To REQUIRE a woman to wear a SACK covering her entire body -- including her ears, head, nose, and eyes -- her BREATHING organs! -- is simply one of the most evil means of subordination ever devised. It is ONLY justified as an effective means of oppressing a subordinated population.
I realize that "Religious" authorities have invoked various texts to justify such oppressive Dress Codes. While "modesty" is a legitimate criteria, there is in fact nothing modest about oppressive Dress Codes or enforcement of oppressive and un-natural coverings. There is NO WORD in the Torah, the Bible, or the Qoran which comes even remotely close to UN-Natural apparel requirements.
Males will look for women, no matter what women are wearing, and no matter whether the women are imprisoned, or locked up. To claim that women are covered and locked away for their own protection, is to add invidious irony to the perversion. Covering the women in sacks does not diminish, it keens, the natural impulse of the male. Whether males and females are CREATED by Allah, or are the result of evolution from tardigrades and apes, ALL clothes should meet Natural requirements. If an article of clothing is UN-attractive, one should think twice, many times, before donning it.
Attractiveness is the Point. It is Natural for us to gaze upon each other. We have an extraordinary number of "expressions" in our faces, built by an elaborate number of delicate muscles. We are SUPPOSED to look at each other. And the reason the practitioners of Religion spend an inordinate amount of time talking about Dress Codes is that the desire to see a naked person is a universal. The awe one feels in seeing the movement, the astonishing talent or grace of an arm, an eyelid, or to hear a voice, is what we do and should hope for.
Males will jump through hoops to smell, or just imagine, or to be overcome with awe over the peculiar GRACE, the way each woman MOVES. And some mullah is not "permitting" these Natural hopes? How frustrating it must be to a man who is constantly scheming to get a few million sperms next to just one egg. And the man is a priest, a pope, an ayatollah, a man of authority and grace, we must respect, and yet he has no respect for his own Natural instincts?
The more a Religion devotes itself to clothes, the more pitiable the sight. Pathetic is the effort to put a finger into the tide of Nature, and pretend to prevent its rise. A veil is like being buried alive. There is nothing modest about wearing a grave. I have seen women gathering roots in the marshes wearing nothing but string skirts, and they were at once more modest, and more comely, than the queens of piety, showing their pretentions for all to see.
No man is uglier, and less worthy, than the one who takes things and people to himself as his possessions. As if he has "special needs". No mouth can form another credible word, after it has promised "virgins" as a reward in an After-life, for a man condemned to live in This Life without the kindness of sex. The Wine, the Women, the Song -- bring it on!
Specifically, the wearing of disguises in public is not only offensive, it can only be taken as a deliberate affront. To REQUIRE a woman to wear a SACK covering her entire body -- including her ears, head, nose, and eyes -- her BREATHING organs! -- is simply one of the most evil means of subordination ever devised. It is ONLY justified as an effective means of oppressing a subordinated population.
I realize that "Religious" authorities have invoked various texts to justify such oppressive Dress Codes. While "modesty" is a legitimate criteria, there is in fact nothing modest about oppressive Dress Codes or enforcement of oppressive and un-natural coverings. There is NO WORD in the Torah, the Bible, or the Qoran which comes even remotely close to UN-Natural apparel requirements.
Males will look for women, no matter what women are wearing, and no matter whether the women are imprisoned, or locked up. To claim that women are covered and locked away for their own protection, is to add invidious irony to the perversion. Covering the women in sacks does not diminish, it keens, the natural impulse of the male. Whether males and females are CREATED by Allah, or are the result of evolution from tardigrades and apes, ALL clothes should meet Natural requirements. If an article of clothing is UN-attractive, one should think twice, many times, before donning it.
Attractiveness is the Point. It is Natural for us to gaze upon each other. We have an extraordinary number of "expressions" in our faces, built by an elaborate number of delicate muscles. We are SUPPOSED to look at each other. And the reason the practitioners of Religion spend an inordinate amount of time talking about Dress Codes is that the desire to see a naked person is a universal. The awe one feels in seeing the movement, the astonishing talent or grace of an arm, an eyelid, or to hear a voice, is what we do and should hope for.
Males will jump through hoops to smell, or just imagine, or to be overcome with awe over the peculiar GRACE, the way each woman MOVES. And some mullah is not "permitting" these Natural hopes? How frustrating it must be to a man who is constantly scheming to get a few million sperms next to just one egg. And the man is a priest, a pope, an ayatollah, a man of authority and grace, we must respect, and yet he has no respect for his own Natural instincts?
The more a Religion devotes itself to clothes, the more pitiable the sight. Pathetic is the effort to put a finger into the tide of Nature, and pretend to prevent its rise. A veil is like being buried alive. There is nothing modest about wearing a grave. I have seen women gathering roots in the marshes wearing nothing but string skirts, and they were at once more modest, and more comely, than the queens of piety, showing their pretentions for all to see.
No man is uglier, and less worthy, than the one who takes things and people to himself as his possessions. As if he has "special needs". No mouth can form another credible word, after it has promised "virgins" as a reward in an After-life, for a man condemned to live in This Life without the kindness of sex. The Wine, the Women, the Song -- bring it on!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Where do we go from (no) here?
We are clearly going to end up where we are headed. How does it look? What can we do that has not already been done, and done, and done in spades?
COHERENCY is not enough. We are heirs to Scholars who have devoted lifetimes to marshaling the facts and composing the rational arguments which derived from those facts. Other scholars have sifted through and prioritized the Learning Points. Great Minds have compiled mountains of coherent conclusions. It is not enough.
PASSION is not enough. We are heirs to the efforts of devoted guides and their disciples who have expressed faithful and heartfelt expressions sufficient to inspire immovable objects and indifferent mountains. Great hearts have leaped upon sweating galloping legions of zealots and the ebb and flow has ebbed and flowed. And it is not enough.
MONEY is not enough. The riches of the world have from time to time been plundered and consolidated and gathered into hands eager for more. And what was achieved in this achievement? It is not enough, Ozymandias, never enough.
POWER is not enough. We have stood in honors before a parade of Caesars, we have sacrificed life and limb, and sons and daughters, to and for the Kings and Popes and Ayatollahs who assumed GOD's power over all the forces and influences at their disposal. We have put entire civilizations to death. And now look, look at the result of that power. To anyone with an feather of judgment left in the quiver, it is not enough.
DIVINE GRACE is not enough. We have prayed to the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-resourceful. We have gone to the Source. Golden altars of petition floating on rivers of tears. Our best martyrs, our purest saints, our most sanctified sacrifices of our most chosen people. The Gospel has been broadcast to every person with a dollar to contribute to its promulgation. Yet, here we are: 7 billion people on the planet, every possible dogma has its day, and not one example of salvation.
KINDNESS is not enough. Even the extremities of friendship, the most intimate associations among the closest tribes, the kinship of twins and paternities have seen betrayal. Under color of charitable motives we have seen predators emerge with billion-dollar booty seized from the gullible, the hopeful, the living and the dead. We have drunk cups of tea to oblivion, shared draughts of kindness, and smoked peace pipes to extinction. Yet suffering has moved in and builds every palace. It is not enough.
Even RUTHLESSNESS and ILL-MOTIVES are not enough. Did Machiavelli manage to send the Borgian Prince to the deepest aperture of Hell by offering him a prescription? Does the Captain of Industry have a name whose manipulation of some rival or mass consumer, or government agency, has laid up some enjoyment which he was able to enjoy more than any meal enjoyed by the lowest grasshopper? Is there a tribe or family more fruitful and happy than that of the innocent tardigrades?
COHERENCY is not enough. We are heirs to Scholars who have devoted lifetimes to marshaling the facts and composing the rational arguments which derived from those facts. Other scholars have sifted through and prioritized the Learning Points. Great Minds have compiled mountains of coherent conclusions. It is not enough.
PASSION is not enough. We are heirs to the efforts of devoted guides and their disciples who have expressed faithful and heartfelt expressions sufficient to inspire immovable objects and indifferent mountains. Great hearts have leaped upon sweating galloping legions of zealots and the ebb and flow has ebbed and flowed. And it is not enough.
MONEY is not enough. The riches of the world have from time to time been plundered and consolidated and gathered into hands eager for more. And what was achieved in this achievement? It is not enough, Ozymandias, never enough.
POWER is not enough. We have stood in honors before a parade of Caesars, we have sacrificed life and limb, and sons and daughters, to and for the Kings and Popes and Ayatollahs who assumed GOD's power over all the forces and influences at their disposal. We have put entire civilizations to death. And now look, look at the result of that power. To anyone with an feather of judgment left in the quiver, it is not enough.
DIVINE GRACE is not enough. We have prayed to the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-resourceful. We have gone to the Source. Golden altars of petition floating on rivers of tears. Our best martyrs, our purest saints, our most sanctified sacrifices of our most chosen people. The Gospel has been broadcast to every person with a dollar to contribute to its promulgation. Yet, here we are: 7 billion people on the planet, every possible dogma has its day, and not one example of salvation.
KINDNESS is not enough. Even the extremities of friendship, the most intimate associations among the closest tribes, the kinship of twins and paternities have seen betrayal. Under color of charitable motives we have seen predators emerge with billion-dollar booty seized from the gullible, the hopeful, the living and the dead. We have drunk cups of tea to oblivion, shared draughts of kindness, and smoked peace pipes to extinction. Yet suffering has moved in and builds every palace. It is not enough.
Even RUTHLESSNESS and ILL-MOTIVES are not enough. Did Machiavelli manage to send the Borgian Prince to the deepest aperture of Hell by offering him a prescription? Does the Captain of Industry have a name whose manipulation of some rival or mass consumer, or government agency, has laid up some enjoyment which he was able to enjoy more than any meal enjoyed by the lowest grasshopper? Is there a tribe or family more fruitful and happy than that of the innocent tardigrades?
Thursday, January 03, 2008
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