IT - can we plug historical data into algorithms to predict future?

Software developers have long been offering "tools" for a broad range of issues. For example, we are offered programs which prepare taxes, assure compliance with regulations, route shipments, or even predict outcomes given different scenarios.

The Government (Bush administration) now claims it has software that can even predict terrorist strikes. In 2004, the Government Accountability Office revealed that our Administration was running over 199 "data mining projects", many of which involved private sector information provided by private aggregators. The National Security Agency has amassed a database upon which it supposedly performs pattern-based analyses to hunt for terrorists.

There is no doubt among the marketing cognicenti that mathematical algorithms can identify trends and patterns of consumer shopping habits. In addition, IT experts can match voter proclivities, and even reveal financial fraud and crime. However, can running algorithms through consumer data predict where a terrorist strike will occur? Of course not. The NSA is using an enormously expensive tool -- data mining of every citizen's private data -- which will never provide the results needed. The people supposedly assigned to "hunt terrorists" are now sidelined in unproductive but almost infinitely time-consuming endeavors.

Specifically, instead of learning Arabic or interviewing Bin Laden's relatives, huge truckloads of numbers are being "analyzed" for patterns that will never reveal who will hit what target with what type of destruction. The NSA does not need to analyze the phone calls of 300 million Americans, for any reason, ever. The fact that they admit they are doing so is an admission that they have lost their way. They need to analyze the phone calls of a few thousand "fund-raising" religious fanatics -- and again, they HAVE to learn Arabic. The fact that the Government has populated its database with information about every citizen in the United States, and is not accountable for what it is doing, raises serious concerns about "abuse of power".

Remember how Nixon compiled Tax Information concerning his "enemies". What precautions have been taken to prevent private information from being used by people in positions of power to harass their personal "enemies"? Has Rowe used the "data-mining" to compromise his enemies -- by threatening to disclose the fact that they have visited Porn Sites, etc. What safeguards against manipulation of IT by people in power are in place? Do you think Rowe has any kind of restraint that prevents him from using Consumer Information against Senators who might otherwise be troublesome if they spoke out?

As a matter of fact, Why is the Senate so silent? Recall that when Hoover took over the FBI, we now know that he maintained "files" on all of his enemies, and collected information to compromise them. He went so far as to plant "communist" agitators in Martin Luther King Jr.'s churches, and then accuse MLKJ of being a communist! Did any Senator or Congressman question Hoover's budget? There were Journalists who spoke out, only to be suppressed -- they lost their jobs, because their Editors were threatened.

There is virtually no institutional criticism from any person in any part of our Government who is questioning why we are spending billions of dollars probing into the private information of citizens, while Al Quada is still actively and successfully training terrorists all over the world. The CIA has not bothered to learn Arabic or engage the Mullahs on the subject of what the Quoran does nor does not say! All over the world, people are cheering Bin Laden -- while we seem to have elected a President who is incapable of understanding, much less directing, actions appropriate to the circumstances.

I have to go farther: Does it not appear true that the Terrorists who are penetrating our "soft" and exposed parts with the most potent and portentious threats to our safety and security are not Arabs, or Islamicists? Those people seem to be largely occupied with their own problems. The Arab warrior, blessings upon him, is a model of restraint, fairly and openly expressing himself and his intentions. The Islamicist, assuming some have read the text, is living for a hereafter, and the Quoran specifically proscribes suicide, homosexuality, and killing of innocents. Clearly the world has little to fear from Arabs or Islamicists as a whole -- a few idiots aside, who can be found in every region and under every Religion.

The group which can clearly be seen actively grabbing our stuff, and threatening our future, is the cadre gathered about the person of George W. Bush. The waste is criminal, but there is more going on than mere "waste of public resources". There is a deliberate plunder -- the billions going into "IT" is simply pouring into the coffers of these pirates -- there is simply no expectation that "analysis" of consumer data will ever pin-point a terrorist strike. The billions are being spent to enrich the Bush family, the secret Cheney corporations, and the "legacy" institutions set up to provide for Rowe and his minions.

Parable of the Pounds, with Slaying for Jesus

Did Jesus exhort his followers to kill his enemies? On his way for the last time to Jerusalem, Jesus tells the Parable of the Pounds. This message is broadly delivered to the crowd, not just to Zacchaeus, his host. The wisdom character in the story -- and it is clear that it is not Jesus, but this King in his parable -- says "As for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me!" [RSVP, Luke 19:27; in Phillips, "execute them in my presence"; in NEB "slaughter". Clearly it is physical, murderous, without a tribunal, and personal.]

First, we should note that this murdering bit is unique to Luke, and not any of the other Gospel authors who tell the same story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, with all which that implies.

The ending verse appears to have no relationship to the somewhat strange "Parable of the Pounds" which Jesus has just related to people who were hanging upon his every word. Remember that this parable of the pounds, given to us only by Luke, is similar to the parable of the talents related by Matthew--25:14-30. Some scholars think that Luke combined the Matthew story with another involving gaining of a kingdom. In any event neither of the related parables, nor this synthesis, seem to need to have anyone getting slaughtered, and the risk appears unrelated to the matters at stake--talents and pounds (equivalent to the Greco-Syrian mina, or about 100 drachmas, worth 20-35 dollars).

I cannot help but mention that Christian scholars for the most part simply ignore the last verse. (Harpers' Bible Commentary 1037). Perhaps during wildly retributive episodes in the past, the good Church Fathers dearly invoked this instruction. But lately, Christians have calmed down. Not much slaying, in spite of what Jesus said.

The next thing Luke turns to in his story of Jesus' final trip to Jerusalem, with all that implies, is stealing a virgin colt for the ride into town. Did we mention going into Jerusalem, with all that implies? The sight of the city moves Jesus to tears. But other than that, it is peace and joy all around. By the time Jesus mounts the colt [in Luke it is a colt, not an ass], the crowd is rejoicing and throwing their clothing down on the ground, as they do, 2 Kings 9:13. Luke does not mention olive or palm branches, but the disciples were raising a great praise, and when Pharisees tell Jesus to rebuke the noise-makers, Jesus assures them that if the disciples were silent, then "the very stones would cry out" [RSV; "burst out cheering" Phillips]. Did we mention Jerusalem? Jesus predicts that the city would be destroyed "and they will leave not one stone upon another in you". Of course Luke is privy to fact that Rome's "final solution" was to enslave all the Jews, force them to dismantle the largest fortified city in the world, and then exile all of them, and rename Judea (the land of Jews), "Palestine".

Did we mention the great entrance into Jerusalem?

My wife loves cats and jellyfish and light.

My wife loves cats and jellyfish and light. July 31, 2007

We live with three laughing cats. Well, smiling cats, not quite laughing. I have not actually heard them chuckle, but it's as close as cat-belly gets. They smile because of Rebecca's jokes and attention to comforting details. Each cat wears two whiskered jewels above their smiling jaws. These jewels are the pigmented choroid coat of their eyes, the iridescent tapetum which gathers the palest scatters of light and communicates its shapes to the relatively enormous medula oblongata of felinity. Of course, with all these collected flickers of light, the cats cannot discern the details next to them. They need to be touched, and to hear the soft mouse-munch bird-flutter kitty-food noises which are of interest to cats. And they need to hear Rebecca's voice in order to make sense of this habitat: The way she loves them and the light.

We visited an aquarium by the sea. Rebecca stood in amazement as she beheld behind glass an armada of jellyfish gently pulsing. Their many eyes were hung on streamers, all keenly observing the details of the dangle, while at the same time gathering the scatters of light under swimming waves. Here were creatures with really no brain at all, but with perfect eyes, and some part of their tented tendrils, the persistent grace part, the hydrozoan direction toward light indifferent to fate and the tides, that part, shared an understanding with Rebecca even without her touch. There was the annointing love of the luminous to which they gently aspire.

My life is shared with Rebecca. With her, even though I am without perfect eyes, and without much light, I am able to make sense of this habitat, and as close as my belly gets, I laugh at fate, and even tides. Even...tides.

Prostitute? Never met one. But I can play a few tunes....

Just got back from a trip to the District of Columbia. There are some excellent jazz clubs and sidewalk cafes. All night. And something occurred to me....

I've been all over the world, and in all but two States of the United States. Never met a "prostitute". Never been solicited. Oh, there were people dressed funny, and a guy looking for money someone else would earn, and there were people who were poor, hungry, and some just lonely and untethered. Many looked afraid, many looked like they needed help. Many had a "knowing" confidence. A few folks asked if I was "looking for a good time". I always was. So were they I suppose, and they moved on. The point is that Prostitution is a haunting, a ghost of flesh. A "sense" of "other women". http://www.drik.net/calendar2k/english/index.html. It is not fair to say it is "reality" -- it is no nowhere.

The "prostitute" is like a unicorn: rare if not entirely fictional. Granted, we push for extremes -- and there is an edge off of which, are places in which, it is impossible to be. Perhaps in a new tide of "stepfjords", or in the middle class suburbs depicted by a "John" Scissorhands, in the courtesanity we seek for balancing lives of disparity, there is this perpetual idea of paying for what we would like to want. The money does not makes it clean, so it is always something the man did not do. The money does not touch the person, so it is always something the woman is not being.

By offering our body orifices to unrelenting gods one at a time we live case by case, losing the theory, swallowing the night monsters seriatim so they go away. Following a trail, our successor covers our own tracks as we leave. Nothing so basic, so unnecessary, so un-eradicable, so common and so improper. We try to live by our instincts, but it is our instincts which try to rise above ourselves: So far, no, but -- this man will be different; this woman will satisfy me. The whip of desire turns into a whingeing complaint, the precation of hope is handed its own head on a platter of certainty as blindness fills the body and displaces the desire itself. Sensation becomes insensate.

There is no "act", no "being", no possibility of hope for consummation, no beginning and no end; hence, no Reality. This is an entire industry built upon the back of unicorns and women who are not "there". The "traffic" of sex is simply more than mere prostitution can ever bear.

The hunting/gathering tribes warring against each other around my childhood were always trying to end up with the "surplus women", the last minute attempt to get some kind of "victory" out of the effort. To get something, to come back with something. As if this part in that part was going to explain the pushing and pulling, the war-path nested in the hostility, caused by the desire, caused by the love.

When the Iroquois finally defeated the Hurons, they had captured so many widowed women, that half their warriors were actually Huron blood. When the Romans exterminated the Sabine men, they returned with Sabine women, and from that moment on, they could never return "home"; all of Rome was doomed to keep conquering, and now they were actually half Sabine when they did it.

There is that begging conversation between the egg and the sperm. You think it is Mind over Matter? The body will participate in this thought: There is the egg-flea, swimming, and the egg is the furred rock, rolling. People thrive by dancing together, rock and roll. Pay the musician, hire the hall. Ladies are free in the fireman's ball.

Getting Back to God the Forgotten Son and wholly irrelevant Spirit

The leadership of this bustly world is involved in many interesting things and most of them have "got it" that there is a connection, and probably a valid one, between their manifest notions of success and money. What is abundantly clear, of course, to anyone with eyes and ears picking up the signals all about, is that the leadership of the entire globe is busy doing things other than what was taught, painstakingly, by The Buddha, Jesus Christ, or Mohammad, to name but three of the "spiritual" leaders who continue to be invoked, and who could not be less relevant to anything that is happening.

Can this be any clearer? No one can miss this. The observation is Fact -- What was taught, the content, by the so-called Spiritual Guides, is now utterly forgotten if it was ever remembered, AT THE TOP. The rest of us, the fumbling masses, the tired and hungry, the lotus-eaters among us, the retired, the spun-dry, whether we "believe" or have Faith, or not, at least we must see that our Leaders, across continents, across cultures and classes, none of them have what could be called any "religious Faith".

An example? You were waiting to hear from George Bush? He has claimed that Jesus Christ, no less, is his "model" and "hero". Yet, in his Presidency, in his decision-making as the "Decisioner", has George Bush performed a single act consistent with The Message of that Messiah? What part of "War" do you not understand?

Bush makes empty claims to a "religious" basis or justification for what he has done. It is impossible that anyone, even he, could "believe" there is any connection however remote or slight between what he has done and what Christ taught.

Another example? Bin Laden, of course. He claims to invoke the Quran, and even more than Bush (who almost never cites the Bible or indicates the slightest familiarity with the Gospel text), often quotes from the Quran. Unfortunately, his "quotes" are often inapt or incorrect. Not a single line of God's guidance delivered to Mohammad justifies suicide, war against unarmed innocents, repression of women, drug-profiteering (opium in Afghanistan!), tribal slaughter among Sunni and Shiite, or even the outright theft from the Jews who were only recently hounded out of their ancient homes to the profit of the Mullahs and other hypocrites after centuries of peaceful and prosperous cohabitation with the descendants of Mohammad from Persia through Babylon all the way to Granada. Jews Greeks Arabs Scythians and other smaller groups lived for Centuries of peace, literally creating a Golden Age presided over by a poetic and Learned Islam which EARNED the laurels upon which the ignorant Wahabi "warriors" now seek to sit.

There is no doubt that Arabs are important people. Not their warriors -- their old men waving weapons. The important Arabs are the engineers. Building the most beautiful cities in the world. They will hang gardens in Babylon once again. Gilgamesh Found.

Wisdom project - Solway's description of something BIG. I like the "larger self" part.

"I settled on a purpose for my life: the survival of wisdom. I always wanted to do something BIG, and this was the biggest anyone could ever do. It meant that not only would I have to become as wise as possible, but I would have to drag other people with me, who are my larger self. The problem was, I had only met one or two people in my whole life who had any genuine interest in truth and wisdom. So my first task was, and still is, to get people to a level where they at least have some respect for reason and truth." - Kevin Solway, http://members.optusnet.com.au/~danrowden/Profiles/kevin.htm

When Power "acts", it creates new realities...

When Bush was first sworn into the Whitehouse, I recall several interviews with staff in which the "new reality" fix was expressed--Karl Rove boasting that they intended to "cause" the future; they moved from mere prediction to creation. David Suskind reported the neo-con nonsequitur:

"When we act, we create our own reality...
We're history's actors...and you, all of you,
will be left to just study what we do".

Of course, this generative Reality is not new, it has always been the prerogative and responsibility of Power to work and ravel with "reality". What Rove missed is that Reality is a physical "what" without which his sine is non. Even if Reality is a gerund, it is interactive and reflexive. Reality is not just a plastic fundulum of "meaning different things to different people". Reality is not Rove's dog to hunt, and now it is a chicken coming to the home he ruined to roost. Rove was as wrong as those who claim there is a "Jewish Physics" or an "Oriental medicine". Sorry, it's just Physics, or Medicine, or not. Many have taken Rove's words to be merely hubristic. Actually, they show criminal culpability.

The criminal syndicate running the Whitehouse was right about many things, mostly in an ironic fashion. Our present circumstances--our Reality--IS the result of their actions. They did MAKE history, with remarkable speed and thoroughness: When Bush came into office, the US Government had a budget surplus; now, we are faced with a larger debt than all previous administrations combined. When Bush came into office, Americans could travel virtually all over the globe with a fair degree of respect and admiration; now, we are universally despised, our values viewed as "myths", and we hate ourselves. When Bush came into office, Al Qaeda's bases in Afghanistan had been bombed (while Republican's Senators screamed "wag the dog"!) and Bin Laden went into hiding; now Al Qaeda is an international franchise of forces striking at will throughout the world which has become its training ground and Bin Laden is one of the most popular and recognizable faces on the planet--an almost Christlike figure (for those who can still stomach irony).

Of course there is more. When Bush came into office, the US Constitution was viable and invoked; now it is irrelevant and moot, and made so by our own Supreme Court. Two other great democracies -- England and Israel -- have been pulled down with America by their loyalty. Desperately-needed land reform in Africa and South America has been institutionally delayed. Genocide is practiced with impunity. Drug companies and so-called "insurance" corporations have destroyed the "health care" system so that poor care has become extraordinarily dear. Manufacturing jobs are outsourced to a degree that has become a national security concern (buying tank and aircraft parts from China). The NYSE is itself propelled into a leveraged buy-out boom in which virtually all companies are takeover targets for "flipping" with cash borrowed from lenders freed of any "regulation" or accounting. The lenders themselves extend "creative" credit to "new homeowners" who cannot afford to repay the loans because the average wage is dropping. Corporate CEO's are making stratospheric salaries unrelated to actual "business" or productivity (as those words are commonly understood). Energy and power utilities have been caught pillaging consumers on a scale never before approached. Government power and assets have been put into the hands of people who have no inkling of "public service", but who do have a robust sense of self-interest.

The point is that Rove was right about "making history". We now have a history of self-defeating greed and overreaching from which recovery is not likely or even possible in the circumscribed space and foreshortened time frame left to us. If it is of any consolation, we who are about to die have the comfort of knowing that at least we did not "elect" Bush to office. Twice. He stole the election. Twice.

Remembering the Planning, Forgetting the Gotten

So often I work with detailed and fairly fast-moving plans involving inter-connected pieces. For example, I need to do A which requires B and C and C requires D and E to complete, and now A has been set aside, and now I need to do X Y Z....Meanwhile, I am hanging onto A in my memory, although it was never done, I am remembering my Plan or intention. Soon enough, that "memory" becomes what I remember. At numerous points, then, I can actually "remember" A, although I never did it. Scarey. Meanwhile, my memory of what actually took place, what actually happened while I was making the over-run Plans, starts dimming. Memories fade quite rapidly as new details and observations take up attention. What I actually "got" out of the whole layered process insofar as it is either unintended or simply superceded, then fades. My work is completely over-run: Even I do not recognize the results of what I do.

The Wit of the Staircase 3

Gottlieb's TNYer review of the Atheists ascension

Not content with reviewing the most important of the post-911 string of best-selling books written by atheists, Anthony Gottlieb [for the love of God!], has also provided historical perspectives, statistical comparisons, and poll data....I summarize:
Since the World Trade Center was attacked by Islamicists on September 11, 2001, Religion has definitively fallen. Not a single saint or revivalist has arisen, from a single cognizable "Religion", with a single publication. The date is significant, however, for creating a publication outbreak for militant atheists throughout the world which had previously been peculiarly silent -- tolerant to the point of complete deference.
In 2004, THE END OF FAITH, by Sam Harris, was on the Times paperback best-seller list for 33 weeks. Then came BREAKING THE SPELL, by the evolutionist Daniel Dennett, and THE GOD DELUSION, by Richard Dawkins, a biologist and Britain's preeminent science writer. In 2006, Harris again entered the virtually un-opposed list, with his LETTER TO A CHRISTIAN NATION. And this year, the nonpareil columnist for Vanity Fair and Slate, Christopher Hitchens has published GOD IS NOT GREAT. Gottlieb does not expressly mention this, but there is NO OPPOSITION to the "points" submitted by this triumvirate who have disposed of the virtual reality in which Religion flourishes. Of course, the biology and the economics remain intact.
And the statistics are bizarre. A significant survey in pre-911 2001 found that more than half of the Christians belief "that Jesus sinned" -- a rejection of a central dogma of their own churches. Religious polling is now established as completely untrustworthy or verifiable. Sociologists estimate that only half the Americans who report "regular church attendance" actually do so, and belief in God is almost certain to be a small minority the world over. Curiously, even non-Christians in America responded to a Newsweek poll, telling them that "they too, expected Jesus to return", possibly within the next 50 years. In a Gallup Poll, 83% of Americans believe the Bible is the Word of God, but virtually none of them have a clue what the Bible says. Most respondents do not know who preached the Sermon on the Mount, and almost none can state what point Jesus was trying to make in his last public appearance.
Gottlieb however, is able to "balance" this one-sided onslaught with history and biology -- he himself is writing a book on "nothingness". While the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa maintained apartheit, its priests also protected protestors. While Pope Pius XII appeased the Nazis, many clerics (among the Protestants as well) were almost alone in their condemnation of the thuggery which was permitted by the Intelligentsia, the Universities, the Army, the Courts, and the Political Parties. The Communists seemed just as interested in thuggery as the Nazis. In Latin America and Brazil, the "liberation theology" of the Church, has been important in safeguarding qualities which decidedly would have been lost at the hands of "atheist" conquerors and thugs. While not mentioned by Gottlief, the great work of Las Casas, Sor Juana Inez, and Armentin under the Cross of Christ in previous centuries has been the only formidable obstacle to the Sword of Tyranny. Gottlieb points out that "The idea that people would have been nicer to one another if they had never got religion...is a strange position...For if man is wicked enough to have invented religion...[to suppress others] he is surely wicked enough to have found alternative ways of making mischief." [79b]
Gottlieb points out, with no little irony, that Christians started out as the "atheists" on the scene in the early days of the Christian era. The first surviving anti-Christian polemic consisted largely as an attack on their failure to worship the accepted Gods -- referencing Celsus, ON THE TRUE DOCTRINE, 178 A.D.
Celsus proclaimed the contradictions of a "personal God" who is in fact indifferent to the triumph of wickedness over good. He did not even send his Son to help until long after many terrible things had been happening to really good people -- "Did He not care before?" This student of Plato noted that Socrates had already expressed most of the wisdom supposedly drawn from "biblical" sources, long before Christ. And continuously, ever since Celsus, Christian and Islamic mobs have sought out and destroyed tons of wonderful Pagan and secular texts.
Gottlieb reviews the work of Voltaire, one of the "fiercest critics of superstition" who was in fact a man of deep "religious feeling". The satirical tale, CANDIDE, is an attack on the idea that all is for the best in a world watched over by a concerned God -- the work was inspired by the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon which killed some 30,000 "believers" while worshipping in crumbling cathedrals. However, Voltaire was awed by the ordered beauty of the universe which he thought pointed to a supreme designer, as a watch implies a watch-maker.
Gottlieb sums up not only the systematic ideas, but also the careful presentation style, of David Hume. In the 1779 DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION Hume prized apart the analogy between the natural universe and a designed artifact. He argues that if it is necessary to ask Who made the world, it is also necessary to ask Who made the maker. But while undermining the concept of a God, and of zealotry in general, Hume avoided inflammatory statements, never replacing dogma with intolerance.
Why does Religion persist, when the arguments against Belief have been so widely published for so long a time? Hitchens says it is born of Fear. Harris holds that there is a genuine biology in play, although the creeds are meaningless. Dawkins devotes a chapter, and Dennet most of his book, to a functionalist account of Religion. However frayed, the propensity to Belief is "hard-wired".
Of course, if Belief is hard-wired, what about the large number of Non-Believers? Phil Zuckerman, a sociologist at Pitzer College in Claremont, reviewed studies of some 50 countries with varying social pressure to believe or not believe, and puts the figure of Non-Believers at more than 500 million. While Non-Belief in a God may constitute the 4rth largest "persuasion" in the world today, it is also necessary to understand that we still may all be "believers". Looking at this landscape historically, and personally, from country to culture, and from ignorant to educated, the following facts remain clear:

(1) God does not exist.
(2) Everyone believes.

Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of suffering fools with "the intolerant zeal" which offended Hume and Gibbon 300 years ago among the Believers or their detractors known as the Philosophes. Now, the dialogue is conducted with bombs. The Improvised Explosive Devices invariably exact "collateral damage" including the loss of life and limb. Many suffer who were otherwise not interested in the conversation. The zeal which offended Hume is armed, and is not content with killing opponents. We are facing a period in which "ludicrous mammals" [Hitchens] prefer to destroy everything rather than build anything. It is not just that the "argument" is over, or that it will no longer take place. People will always argue. This is the subtle part of that "hard-wired" Belief.

The difference today is that the argument will take place in bunkers instead of gardens. Al Quada is not interested in Virgins. The Taliban is not interested in wine, women, and song -- all major constituent elements of a good conversation. The Shia and Sunni warriors are blowing up each other's communities, starting with the some of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

Of course, the Arabs are under pressure. It is demographic. It is a terrible pressure, to be faced with teenagers everywhere, and more coming. In the past, Rome endured it, the Vikings had it, the Huns went through it, and those tragic people trapped on Isla Pascua almost died from it.

Ultimately, the Arabs will reclaim the bedrock of their civilization, which is, of course, the bedrock of ALL civilized people: Wine, Women and Song! As late as 100 years after Mohammed PBUH, the Arabs were still designing the most beautiful stone, ceramics, mozaics, and fountains in the world. We know archeologically, from the evidence of the ceramics, that the Arabs made wine. We know ideologically, from the text, that neither the Bible, nor the Quran, nor any Hindu Gita, teaches anything about race hatred or bombs.

We find only evidence of the people trying to raise their families and educating their children to have a better life, here, now. Civilization has antedotes to chaos, fear, and ignorance.

Riparian: "By the shores of Gitche Gumee..."

Looking back on a busy life, one can see that certain heuristic events had great "mileage" or impact. For me, the Song of Hiawatha [Longfellow]has a resonance, a pull upon me, beyond anything that can be explained or reasoned out. A child is open to influences one cannot predict, and which may even be arbitrary or contrary.

BY THE SHORES OF GITCHE GUMMEE,
BY THE SHINING BIG-SEA-WATER,
STOOD THE WIGWAM OF NOKOMIS.

DARK BEHIND IT ROSE THE FOREST,
ROSE THE BLACK AND GLOOMY PINE TREES,
ROSE THE FIRS WITH CONES UPON THEM;
BRIGHT BEFORE IT BEAT THE WATER,
BEAT THE CLEAR AND SUNNY WATER,
BEAT THE SHINING BIG-SEA-WATER.

Of course, we CAN compare and "explain" post factum.
The poem was my first reading primer. And life is
clearly a desertified jungle, famine-flood, and gitche gummee
with beatings. So many gloomy pines later --
"no quiero acordarme" [Cervantes]-- here I am "Nel mezzo del cammin
di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura" [Dante].

Oloudah Equiano - ex-slave whose autobiography detailed horrors of the "Trade"

First of all, the term "Slave Trade" is not appropriate. Very little "exchange" was involved, on anyone's part. The very core of this criminal enterprise was theft and usurpation.

Secondly, we note that the existence of a "2d class" of humanity was and is impossible to justify, on any cognizable "ground" other than criminality -- to take what can be taken from those unable to prevent the taking.

I was amazed to see the name Oloudah Equiano resurrected in the film, AMAZING GRACE (written by Stephen Knight, directed by Michael Apted 2006). Equiano was one of the "disappeared" -- an accurate and brave historian of the facts, who wrote an autobiography detailing the horrors of the Middle Passage across the Atlantic. And then , as was done to Frederick Douglas, and countless others, those who stole the lives of those who were enslaved, very successfully deleted the evidence. Almost. Almost.

Is there a single Great Movie about our Founders?

There is no question that the Founders of the United States in the late 1700's were a brave and interesting bunch. Americans seem to recognize this fact, and its significance TO THE WORLD, by buying a huge number of books about the Founders. Does it seem odd, at all, that NOT ONE good movie has been made devoted to the achievements and sacrifices of a single one of the Founders? Methinks it would be huge, if only The Business would take the trouble to make it.

Confessions of a Bottom Feeder

Truth to tell, my reputation is bad. For one thing, this sort of "goes with the territory" for attorneys. We are drawn into conflicts where mud is currency. Even the finest characters find themselves covered with splatter, especially those with courage who are not filled with fear for their precious "reputation" as the fur begins to fly. An "attorney" who has never been savaged, never accused of ANYTHING, has probably done very little, or has never represented anyone in any kind of trouble.

Secondly, I have actually TRIED to get into trouble. I was looking for it. Interestingly, I thought lawyers had a sort of public duty to ferret out the wrong-doers. Not content with helping "victims", someone has to actually PURSUE the wrongdoer, make them accountable. Well...that is not going to go down quietly. Wrongdoers do not hesitate, in fact they are the first, to scream accusations. Oh, how "injured" they pretend to be, how the foulers cry "foul", when caught.

Finally, I STARTED my career by offending, entirely inadvertently, Justice Gardiner's highly-developed sense of self-importance. As the incorporator of the first professional "paralegal" organization in Orange County, my name was brought to his attention, and he has punished me ever since. Even now, decades after "paralegals" have become widely-accepted members of the team across every field of law practice, my name was already "associated" with an ancient impropriety -- something unauthorized THEN, albeit acceptable now.

Others are now able to benefit from the development of a more complex, layered, multi-professional practice using "paralegals". But once Justice Gardiner condemned our efforts, my career became a political football, as other judges seeking Gardiner's approval, caught the short-sighted and baseless hysteria.

As President Wilson said, if you want to make powerful enemies, just try making things better.

Hence, to shorten the long story, the reduction of my practice. From work in the office of the counsel to the President of the United States (Kalmbach's librarian when he counseled Nixon in Newport Beach), I am now picking up the cases which are resting on the bottom. And it is a surprisingly rich flow. There is more here, in the darkness, than ever meets the eye....

Theme: To screed or not to screed; why, why not?

TO NOT WRITE:

1. Great Ones do not write
For example, Jesus, Buddha, Socrates.
The more recent religious leaders who
appear to have written certain texts,
actually have an accepted tradition
to the contrary: Mohammad, Smith.

In Mohammad's case, the Quran was
dictated by him to women who could write.
He said he received the revelations
directly from the angel Gabriel.

In the case of Joseph Smith, the
Book of Mormon (1830) was a compilation of
of many ancient prophets, abridged by a
prophet historian named Mormon,
supplemented by his son Moroni (421 AD),
and revealed to Smith through translation
by two stones (the Urim and Thummim).

2. Look at the numbers. Scholars were already
at their limit in Gutenberg's day. Now, with
miles of books/writings pouring in DAILY...it
is obvious there is no great need for more.
Few can apply knowledge; few have ever
been much improved by reading of morals.
The engine of improvement has been compilations
of Science and How To Books. And it's a
bit late in the day to mark your contribution
to this deluge.

3.

TO WRITE:

1. The small and unaccomplished do not write.
As for the Great Ones who supposedly did not
write, SOMEBODY next to the Great Ones,
DID write. And it is implausible, however
it is preached, that "oral" teachings were
somehow memorized, transcribed, or taken down.
The quality of The Written is remarkable and
invariably worthwhile to someone in some function.

2. It is RELATIVELY SAFE to read and write.
As Chesterton put it:
["The Man Who Was Thursday" (7)].

..."Between us, by the peace of God,
Such truth can now be told:
Yes, there is strength in striking root,
And good in growing old.
We have found common things at last,
And marriage and a creed,
And I may safely write it now,
And you may safely read."

3. It is wildly therapeutic; nonpareiled.

4. Writing, with the benefits of speech, but
inside the alpha recording of a Time-Machine which
allows us to Go Back, reflect; in this sense,
it may even be "progressive", enabling one
to reflect on error and improve.

5. It is certainly collegial. You get a "jury"
of comments, many of which are breath-taking
in their insight.

Hope as a Strategy (when ALL is hopeless)

ceteris paribus - all other things being equal - Pandora's Vox

THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF HOPE

Two aspects of "hope"--confidence in one's ability and the
determination to succeed--are powerful predictors of performance in
teams, but determination may play a more important role in success,
according to University of Arkansas education researcher Kathleen
Collins.

Determination is what motivates individuals to use their abilities and
may be a better predictor of success in team settings than individual
levels of confidence, Collins suggests.

In studies of graduate students working in teams, Collins and her
colleagues found that groups with higher determination scores produced
higher quality work. Groups in which individuals were more varied in
their motivation scores had poorer group performances.

"Hope is not just wishful thinking," says Collins. "When we break hope
into its components and look at the senses of motivation and ability to
reach goals, we can predict how well a group will perform." She
concludes that "hope, academic procrastination, and anxiety are
inextricably intertwined in determining achievement among cooperative
learning groups" and recommends future research focusing on "the role
that these and other personality variables play in the cooperative
learning group process."

SOURCE: University of Arkansas,
http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/10544.htm

We believe things are Better/ Worse than they are

Our ability to see the world and eachother as it is and we are is much impeded by a kind of "accelerator" within our thinking. We hear what we expect, and we expect bad news and hope for recognition for our efforts. This expectation distorts every noise coming in, and that is just the beginning. Our brain processes exigent information first. Crisis comes in with the most "interest" taken. We run with it before we know what "it" is.

The world is not so bad; of course it is worse. People are good; of course, they are divine.

Library of Congress - the Monster in the Information Room

It was burned twice -- once by the British in 1812, and once by mistake in 1952. The Library of Congress has grown into the largest library in the world, with more than 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 58 million manuscripts. This should give anyone who thinks they should write something...at least pauze.

Martin Luther King Jr - the genuine leader

HATE BEGETS HATE

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violaeence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction...The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken."

POWER / JUSTICE

"Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love."

From WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE: CHAOS OR COMMUNITY?" 1967 address.

Perspectives: GAMBLING

Facts concerning Gambling:

Research shows that if you "play" the games offered in Las Vegas which have the most and best "chance" for winning, and if on those games, you "play" a perfect transaction in which at each "choice-point" you select the alternative which is best for you, over time, you will still lose.

There is only one FORM of gambling in which you have a chance of benefiting: If you open up a gambling casino yourself, and lure the suckers in to just hand over money to you.

In 2007, the major hotel-casinos of Las Vegas posted their highest profit ever -- $2.1 billion, on $5.4 billion gross up from $4.5 billion in 2005, reported by the Gaming Control Board, compiled from 271 resorts.

Perspective: The Korean Peninsula

Fact/ Trends concerning Korea:

1. The world's largest Shipyard is run by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan, South Korea. New ships, some as large as 15 stories high and 3 football fields in length, can be launched every five days. 44% of the world's largest commercial vessels are built in South Korea.

2. South Korea used to be the "farming" region, compared with the "industrial" North. Now, the South has eclipsed the North in all activities except Fawning Over Great Leader exercises.

3. Immediately after the Korean War (40+ years ago), living standards in South Korea were relatively low, with worker's earning $70/year. South Korea is now the tenth larges economy in the world, with worker's earning $16,000/year.

4. Numerous reports of slave-labor, child-labor, concentration camps, and deliberate starvation of the population have been corroborated by eye-witnesses, aerial photography, and film, concerning North Korea. There are almost no "bird calls" heard in North Korea -- a starving people have eaten all the vermin, insects, and birds.

Still think George Bush "won" the Presidential Elections?

It is now a documented fact that 100% of the Exit Polls, done by professional pollsters across the political spectrum and including the most extreme of the neo-conservative vote-mongerers, in 2000, and in 2004, came up with "results" which showed that a candidate other than Bush had won the Presidency. (In 2000, it was Gore, in 2004, it was Kerry).
The National Election Pool, which is a consortium of the five broadcase and cable networks with the Associated Press that commissions exist polls, has clearly published the data showing this fact. However, in a remarkable or at least curious inability to draw rational conclusions from this data, the NEP decided that all of the Exit Polling was somehow flawed. So they have studied the "problem" of flawed polling -- claiming that the exit pollsters had trouble getting older people to answer the surveys, or that Democrats are intrinsically more willing to participate in surveys.
In the history of Exit Polling, there are only TWO ELECTIONS which have not been accurately predicted. There are only TWO ELECTIONS in which the results as "counted" were not accurately projected from the data gathered by professional Exit Polling. Exit Polling in US Presidential Elections has not been a haphazard lark performed by amateurs since Jackson.
Why, in the face of a legion of voters who have testified that the voting machines did not respond appropriately, and with technicians logging up failed tests for the voting machines manufactured by Bush patrons, do they presume that the pollsters failed to obtain correct information? The fact that 100% of the Exit Polls had projected a NON-Bush victory, does not point to "a flaw" in the independent pollster methodology. The discrepant results clearly point to the possibility that the machines which created the "winner", are themselves flawed!
This logical conclusion is of course corroborated by the fact that the ACTUAL COUNT of the uncounted ballots in Florida in 2000 (not yet counted by the time that the Republican Registrar of Voters, declared "victory" for George Bush, but thereafter counted under the auspices of the Associated Press with bi-partizan representatives in full control) shows that Gore won the 2000 Presidential Election.

Former NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso, and Greed

The LA Times reported a pleasant congruence of newsworthy events, in its 10/20/2006 Business Section: The Dow Jones closing above 12,000 for the first time, and the release of State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos' ruling that the former New York Stock Exchange Chairman, Richard Grasso, might be forced to return $100 million to the Exchange.
Justice Ramos made a point of basing the restitution order on the fact that Grasso was serving as Chairman, an office with "fiduciary" standards owed to the organization he purported to serve while milking it with a stratospheric "compensation package" in excess of $187.5 million per annum. The Court rejected Grasso's argument that the NYSE board made up of top Wall Street executives was "informed" and approved his pay. Interestingly, Grasso contended that he himself did not know how much he was making, a fact that Justice Ramos labelled shocking: "That a fiduciary of any institution, profit or not-for-profit, could honestly admit that he was unaware of a liability ofo over $100 million...is a clear violation [of fiduciary duties]."
In the May 2004 law suit brought by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Grasso was proved to have stocked the Board with cronies and then misled them about the magnitude of his ballooning pay, including more than $100 million in retirement benefits quietly accrued in his last few years on the "job".
Greed is not necessarily good or bad, and it is not a quality which is going to disappear, not matter how much it is condemned. However, where it is compounded with fraud -- concealments, misdirection, misrepresentation, and violation of fiduciary duties -- the act of benefitting oneself at the expense of others who are in no position to object or even realize what is happening, is simply a form of theft. It is a crime, a wrong, a violation of laws, and a distortion of the "free" market. For a "business" person to indulge in thievery, instead of exchange, is to destroy the market. His act is tantamount to market murder, in that it puts fear into the marketplace, and obstructs the transactions that otherwise would occur, killing them.
Equally shocking, however, is how LITTLE the "sanction" really is, relative to the scale of the offense. As sharply critical as Justice Ramos is of Grasso's testimony, he is still limiting the sanction to restitution. His ruling seems limited to a species of disgorgement. In other words, Grasso (and future Grasso's hiding in other grass) had NO RISK: Either he gets away with stealing, or he is caught and has to give up what he stole. Mere disgorgement is not a disincentive.

Tempting Faith - believers are being USED by religious hypocrites; corroboration.

LAT 10132006 A19, Wallsten. "President Bush's top political advisors [Rowe] privately ridiculed evangelical supporters as 'nuts' and 'goofy' while embracing them in public and using their votes to help win elections."
The reviewer, Wallsten, interviewed Paul M. Weyrich, a Bush-conservative, about Kuo's book. The Bush administration denies Kuo's account of the "faith-based" program. Speech-writer Michael Gerson claims it is "laughable", and Jim Towey, another former director of the faith-based program, claims Kuo's description is unrecognizable. However, neither critic denied that politics factored predominantly into the program which has significantly failed to supplant community needs although it hosted numerous "conferences" appealing to pastors prior to elections.
Kuo is a second insider to document the political use of religious conviction by people who are themselves not righteous ones. Kuo's observations now corroborate those of John J. DiIulio Jr, the first director of the "Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives", a uniquely Rowe-based bureaucracy formed when Bush first took office. DiIulio was the first official to resign 7 months after his appointment in the Bush-Rowe-Cheney administration, stating that the White House was run by "Mayberry Machiavellians" who put political ends over everything else.
With this published corroboration by Kuo, who made the same accusation when he resigned from the same program in 2003, it appears that the leadership of our country has been "hijacked" (to use Kuo's term) by a cabal of religious hypocrites. The Christians are being fed to the lions, at their own expense inside the arena, while the lions outside the arena are gathering with impunity. In making this analogy, no disrespect to lions is intended.

The President Impeaches Himself

Columnist Al Martinez, LATimes 9/28/2006, referring to a story by Paul Richter concerning the growing alliances of people who now hate Americans:
"Richter's piece was the first time I had seen a story that laid out so clearly the predicament our cowboy leader has gotten us into. We can demand impeachment for a president's embarassing sexual dalliances but not for a president who has dragged a once respected nation into the slime. No one died when Bill Clinton reached out for Monica Lewinsky. Many have since George W. Bush reached out for Iraq."

PRJ: Insitutionalized Fraud

Washington-based SoundExchange released a list of 9000 recording artists which it claimed it was unable to locate in order to distribute $500,000 worth of "royalties". SoundExchange was creating by the recording industry to collect and distribute royalties. They could not find Rapper Mos Def, producer T-Bone Burnett, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
The artists forfeit the money to SoundExchange if not claimed.

Filmed! "King Leopold's Ghost", based on the Adam Hochschild book.

In less than 10 years since 1998, an estimated 3.9 million Congolese have died in armed conflicts. This is but the latest link in the bloody chain going back to Belgium and that peculiar "king" so carefuly described by Adam Hochschild.

Leopold killed an estimated 10 million. In the 150 years since, has anyone been able to recover? Viciousness creates such a closed circle.

Congo is now gearing up for a final round of elections -- the first in 40 years. Will the people flourish? In one of the most beautiful and naturally endowed regions of our planet?

Moazzam Begg, a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay

The LATimes 9/29/2006 printed an article by MB who was apparently taken prisoner in January 2002 by abduction from his home in Islamabad, Pakistan. He had fled Kabul, Afghanistan where he had "helped" establish a girl's school and dig water wells. Held captive for 3 years.
The use of "Guantanamo" by this Administration to avoid the Constitution fools no one. And what is the point? How can we claim to be fighting FOR the Constitution when in fact we are ignoring it?

Stateswoman Ayaan Hirsi Ali

My hat, all my hair, everything...is off to people who speak truth to fanaticism. Anybody can bad-mouth the President. But to take on the Mafioso, or the Pharisees, or to speak out against the subjugation of women, the cruelty of religious "law", and the intolerant "religions", takes even more courage, of a purer form.
The nomination of Ayaan Ali by Victor Davis Hanson for a Nobel Peace Prize is not only appropriate, but it elevates Hanson as well. He is a senior fellow and professor of military history, at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Asbestos, the "miracle mineral"

Silvery malleable but crisp, incredibly "useful". You could add it to almost any other material to make them stronger and more heat resistant. Long term exposure to asbestos is known to cause some terrible diseases, even in extremely small amounts. But not until the 1970's did we stop adding it to everything we could, even clothing, utensils, bedding. The last US asbestos mine closed (pause) in 2002.

Ants / myrmex - the Argentine ants as a supercolony

Of course I study ants. "Look to the Ant" is still a great admonition, and it still invokes many of the great Myths of our BELIEFS -- since almost everything everyone believes about ants is wrong. And since its arrival around 1891 in New Orleans, possibly aboard a coffee shipment from South America, the Argentine ant has been savaging the entire northern hemisphere. They are now the most common arthropod in California.

I was amazed to discover a laboratory right here at UCI devoted to the distillation of scents the ants use to communicate. The idea, I guess, is to try to convince them that they are not all members of one massive tribe. If they would feud amongst themselves like their South American cousins, perhaps the civil unrest in their colonies would allow natives to recover and flourish. On the other hand, aren't the fire ants already here as well? Given that choice, can't we suffer the Argentines?

Obituary: Oriana Fallaci (Age 77, 2006)

Makes one proud to be a human being, to see the courage of a questioner, a person who managed to rise above the burdens of celebrity while sharpening its cutting edge. She was both fearless and glamorous. Today, we note that she was almost alone in identifying religious fanaticism for what it is -- dangerous, intolerant, and intolerable.
Oriana was born in Florence (Tuscany), raised by a family of anti-fascists, and after a career of interviewing dicators and publishing books which are landmarks of historicism (for example, Interview with History 1976) against abuses of power, she moved to NY for a provocative retirement.
A few specific watershed achievements:
* Fought with the Justice & Liberty resistance, helping guide Allied soldiers escapes during WWII, while she was a teenager (eldest of 3 daughters of Edoardo).
* She practically invented an unsettling biographical interview style, usually taking people surrounded by sycophants by surprise. Kissinger wrote that his interview with her was his single most disastrous conversation with a member of the press.
* She was shot while covering a student revolt in Mexico City.
* She used journalism to confront abuses of power she felt were inevitable, even within journalism. "For this reason I like journalism. For this reason I fear journalism."
* She understood that often those in power simply do not deserve to be there.
* 9/11 jerked her out of retirement, although she was suffering from cancer. She saw Islam as the successor (from their own text, their own writings) of Nazi fascism. She described the dynamics of the suicide population bomber -- keeping women in the kitchen concentration camp having babies for Islam while European intelligentsia accommodate the mullahs claim that the chador is for "modesty".
* In her interview with Pope John Paul II, she acknowledged her own atheism, and asked the holy father "Is it true you apologized to the sons of Allah to forgive the Crusades? But...did they ever apologize to you?" for seizing the Holy Sepulcher.
* In The Force of Reason (2004), she described the colonization of Europe by Islamicists bent on the destruction of Western values. An Italian judge ordered her to stand trial on charges of insulting a religion. The trial was aborted by her death, and her books are now best-sellers.
* She never married, but she was an unapologetic enthusiast for love.
* She never had children, but she was devoted to those who choose life over death and annihilation.

NEW EVANGELS, FASTEST GROWING RELIGION

Unitarian Universalists, the vastest growing religious group.

There are always two dynamics in play: The force of division, and the tendency to merge. The blue-state bible-belt which we saw exploited so relentlessly in the last political epoch is now dividing. The old familiars -- Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and Richard Land -- are giving way to the fresh charisma of the new guard -- Rick Warren, Richard Cizik, and Ted Haggard. New talking heads of the Church victorious. Even inside the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest Protestant denomination), we see the platform of Frank Page moving the discourse from the cognitive dissonance of anti-abortion pro-death penalty, anti-gay pro-marriage obsessions, to the more topical and urgent and "get real" messages, such as social justice, globalization, and stewardship of natural resources.

In the larger world, forces of Unity are clearly at work in the Church Ascendant. The fastest growing congregations in the world among all religious communities based on "choice" (not merely the number of births in countries with State religions), are the Unitarian Universalist. Maybe most people who have the "choice" of beliefs, who understand who they are as human beings, maybe everyone, is a closet Unitarian.

Karl Rowe is a terrorist and we offer "therapy"....

Rosa Brooks wrote a brilliant review of three books by four distinguished authorities in our society who have addressed the 9/11 attacks. Brooks is counsel to the Open Society Institute and a law professor at Georgetown University, as well as a columnist.
In June 2000, Karl Rove came up with this sound-bite: "Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said 'We will defeat our enemies'. Liberals saw what happened to us and said 'we must understand our enemies'."
Brooks is heartsick. Despite the five years that have passed since 9/11, "we're nowhere near defeating our enemies -- in large part because we've never made the slightest effort to understand them." Brooks is too willing to think Rove/Bush/Cheney have simply erred, or that they lack understanding. Big oops. No, Ms. Rosa, the cabal KNOWS what they are doing. They are billionaires now. They never tried to defeat our enemies. They ARE our enemies.
Brooks summarizes three seminal documentations:
(1) Louise Richardson, is a Harvard Dean, who was raised Catholic in northern Ireland during bad times. In WHAT TERRORISTS WANT, she distills decades of research on terrorist movements and concludes that the Bush/Cheney policy is fatally flawed. Although terrorists are filled with invective and hatred, they are not "insane". Most terrorists believe themselves to be altruistic and noble, Davids fighting Goliaths, to reference an ancient Semitic standard. The rhetoric of "evil" and the war in Iraq coupled with genuine abuses of prisoners are tactics that backfire, not only giving Osama bin Laden more recruits, but legitimacy in the "complicit communities" required to sustain them. This point is obvious, but our administration is oblivious.
(2) Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton are two members of the 9/11 Commission who are genuine leaders. {I hope the members of the Commission find their way into public office to replace the scoundrels who have stolen our elections.} In WITHOUT PRECEDENT the Commission documents, blow by blow, how the Bush administration blocked the Commission at virtually every step. At the end of the struggle to identify the facts of why we were attacked, they were forced to ask themselves why "nobody within the government had not already done so".
The Bush adminstration thwarted all efforts, even natural ones, to understand what is needed to enhance our security.
(3) Richard Posner is an appellate judge. NOT A SUICIDE PACT is his review of Constitutional norms and he analyzes the degree to which fears about terrorism should trump civil liberties. Both his historical assessments and his legal theories are provocative, and he does not address the specific threats of "terrorism", speaking broadly of "threats" and "emergencies". He acknowledges not knowing much about the terrorists we face, and has no strategy for defeating them -- an inexcusable gap of information by an author on this subject. He has an academic grasp of the Bill of Rights, but seems to believe that torture may occasionally be useful, and he favors restrictions on individual rights during emergencies without grasping the fact that ultimately this leads to abuses of power which is what our Founders, facing terrorism and instabilities more serious than ours, seemed more anxious to restrain.
Rosa Brooks' review of these three books written by mainstream authorities with legacy research was printed 9/10/2006, LA Times Book Review, R5. I wept. We are facing the loss of all we hold dear, and people of understanding seem to know why: our government has been taken over by a cabal interested in restricting our civil rights, expanding their powers, and in the name of a "war" against impoverished people and the minions of oil billionaires abroad, our own leaders are plundering our treasury.
Is it just the money? I weep for the failure to understand our enemies, foreign and domestic. Our foreign enemies are billionaires -- their soldiers are simply desparate minions. Our domestic enemies are billionaires -- their soldiers are...well, us. Our billionaires seem to be rushing to their own aid.

PRAYER

1. Vicarious Prayer. When a Priest prayers FOR you, is it YOUR prayer? "Come let US pray" and then he or she does it all. Is that a way to talk to God? Or is he or she just talking to us?

2. Prayer en masse. A large number of people pray together. Usually "led" in prayer by a Holy Person, is this the path to God? To be on a Prayer Network with 3 million people...is this linked to God? Who is communicating? Who decides?

3. Has God ever answered Prayer?

4. Richard Peace, professor of a spiritual formation at FTS (Fuller Theological Seminary) explained nicely why we pray: "We pray because we realize that, at the core of who we are, we are incomplete. We have been created to be in touch not only with the natural, but with the supernatural. There is that longing for the divine."

That "longing for the divine". This is biodynamic. It is no mystery, it is no mere matter of "belief". It is the meat of our matter, it is our Who-ness. We pray because we realize things, and these realizations fill us with need: The vaccuum created by the inchoate consciousness of consciousness.

We long for the divine because we imagine it, and as we "see" it clothed in our own cravings, our need begins to keen. Whether gods exists or not, our need exists. Even the desire to have no desires, is a desire. What is "in touch", needs to be "in touch". Of course, there is no touch. No thing touches any thing.

5. So, prayer is IN. Prayer is the organizer, the mission statement, the operating instructions. A covenant of the spirit can be made, and perhaps should be.

6. THIS CHANGES THE ROOM: The invocutor bows his head and speaks: "Lord [Father, Vishnu, Allah, Hananim aboji, Chakami] pour out your spirit upon this place, and make it holy. Make us care for one another, and make us feel safe." Talking to US.

7. In Korea-town, Los Angeles, 500 people fill the pews of the Oriental Mission Church on Western Avenue, at 5:00 a.m. every morning.

8. John Robb, chairman of the International Prayer Council [sic], a global prayer network set up on the Net, says that he worked in 120 countries.

9. The Presidential Prayer Team, based in Phoenix, claims 3 million participants in the United States, praying daily for President Bush. This really is "proof" of something.

10. Make everything a prayer. All thoughts must be holy. Surely the extremes of righteousness are no vice. (!) Hmmm. So this is the problem. Somebody must be praying for the wrong things....and THEIR prayers are being answered. (!)

"The Path to 9/11" ABC miniseries - political fiction

On the eve of the 2006 elections, the pillaging faction has unleashed a pretty darn effective tool for bringing in the votes: A surprisingly large-scale and nicely protracted projection of narrative designed to penetrate and preempt our collective "story" of September 11, 2001.
Curiously, Walt Disney Co's ABC, which breached its distribution contracts pertinent to Michael Moore's documentary FAHRENHEIT 9/11 on the eve of the 2004 election, is now actively pre-promoting and marketing, a "drama" about 9/11. Compare, Disney's deliberate effort to delay Moore from showing FAHRENHEIT until after the election, and but for Moore's extraordinary personal initiative would have succeeded. In FAHRENHEIT, President Bush was accurately depicted. He himself said and did the things he was shown to have done. By contrast, Disney is now "dramatizing" what Clinton, Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger, and other Democrats did. The "drama" is inaccurate, and Albright claims it is defamatory. (Always promising to civil litigators.) Reputation is the most valuable asset anyone has....
Twelve years after the Republican Party took control of the Federal Legislature, and a full six years after Bill Clinton was replaced by an ideological Executive cabal, the pillaging faction is blaming Clinton and the Democratic Party for its problems. This is scape-goating, pure and simple. Clinton is the Pillagers' Jew. We are all Jews now.

What State is Legitimate: Israel or Jordan? United States?

Among the unreconstructed physiocrats, we ask What Gives the State Legitimacy? L'Etat ce moi without the Sun King. Should "the problem" of Israel be resolved, like "the problem" of Jews? Many have tried this -- solve the real problems by creating a scapegoat which can be, successfully, bullied. Of course, a light scan of history will reveal that the scapegoat technique is at best a temporary patch. Real problems will not be solved by scapegoating, by blaming a minority group, by stealing from the weak, or...by destroying Israel. There is no Arab problem which can be solved by destroying Israel or Jews.
And yet, this idea that Israel is "a problem", continues to be a popular invocation in virtually all "Islamic" textbooks, mosques, newspapers, and websites pronouncing Arab interests. It is an "anti-semitic" perspective from the other great Semitic group.
In the previous generation, Jews who came to America changed their tribal names to try to avoid the prejudice against them in virtually all private clubs and societies. For example, I just read the obituary of Gerald "Condon", the lawyer who wrote the leading estate planning practice book that we use in California. I discovered that his family arrived from Wales, where they were not so troubled to bear the name "Cohen" for generations. But when they came to Santa Monica, the family changed its name because of the prejudice against Jews.
Now Dr. Maher Hathout, the 70 year old chairman of the Islamic Center of Southern California, has been nominated by Salam Al-Marayati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, to receive a "prestigious" human rights award -- from the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission. (Commissioner Donna Bojarsky.) Hathout is a man "on record" claiming to be proud of his opinions and entitlements. His opinions include referring to Hamas and Hezbollah as freedom fighters, and Israel as an "illegal apartheit entity".
Curiously, Al-Marayati claimed that Supervisors Antonovich and Yarolslavsky supported the nomination, although both supervisors denied making the endorsements.
Is Hathout entitled to his "opinions"? Of course. Is it possible to disagree with his opinions? Not really. It is impossible to oppose racism in any effective way. Extremist opinions cannot be "opposed" without growing them on both sides. Tolerance insures more of them; opposition strengthens them, and drives them to make scapegoats. Here it is again. The scapegoat. Just scratch the surface, and there it is. Right here.
How do you deal with a person who "solves" his own problems by blaming others? How do you deal with a tribe that has only learned that it must hate its cousins? Is there enough Science to do this job? Is the First Amendment enough of a solution?
Neither Science nor a First Amendment was much help to the family of Gerald Condon. They changed their name because of people who hated their tribe, blamed their tribe for everything. And the hatred is still right here. How can we free people from oppression, so that they can lead the productive lives they really want to live?
The State of Israel is more legitimate, using any historical criterion, even using the Quoranic criterian of "conquest", than the "United States", which is now run by a President who stole two elections. Our Founders warned us about the power of factions, and the loss of liberty which will result when the "checks and balances" are compromised by a takeover by One Party.
The legitimacy of all States is at issue. The "entitlement" of anyone to a racist "opinion" is not at issue: It is scientific falsity and the basis for an action sounding in a species of fraud.

Martin Luther rose up against the Holy Roman Empire

95 Accusations in Wittenberg, perhaps invoking the 30 year War, but only AFTER the death of Luther. Somehow, while he was living, Luther kept the swords sheathed. He sought to reform, not kill.

We must do the same. Do not kill anyone, do not destroy the evidence which condemns them, their own lives. The policies, and the illicit profits, of Bush, Cheney, and Rove must be revealed, shown to be unlawful, and disgorged. All the "95 accusations", the facts must be posted on the door of every church. The hypocritical ruinous depredations of the Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal must stop.

We know that the falsities dispensed by Rove in his "72 hour squads" (operating just before the elections) are what brought the tainted "victories" to his candidates -- defeating the righteous. These falsities must become "accusations" against the perpetrators (traitors). Each lie is an Impeachment article, an indictment.

One RICH MAN pays his taxes...Walter Anderson pleads guilty to $365 million tax evasion

Bloomberg News report: Walter Anderson, the 52 year old who tried to merge Mid-Atlantic Telecomm without triggering taxes, pleads guilty to TWO COUNTS of federal tax evasion, in what the prosecutors describe as the "largest personal tax evasion case in US History". Interestingly, Anderson hired numerous lawyers who enabled and participated in his evasion using off-shore "businesses", and litigated his defenses for years.
It is not coincidence that we witness corporate CEO's in unprecedented numbers perpetrating frauds, at the expense of our country, which is AT WAR. We are harmed more by the CEO culture we harbor domestically, than by the "foreigners" who hate us. For example, the Bolivians, Bopal-ians, and Islamicists may be hostile to Americans, but are the CEO's not "responsible" by their activities for this "foreign" hostility?
And we see also that these same pirates have hijacked our own institutions as well -- we are attacked by the Islamicists, but we are impoverished by our own CEOs.
Frankly, the Arab warrior is a far braver and more honest than the Anderson "executive".

"Communist" Care...for the Rich

Nell Minnow, editor of Corporate Library (a shareholder rights advocate) gives an "F" rating to the publicly-traded NEWS CORP in which Rupert Murdock owns a 31.2% stake. She points out that "the people in the world best able to afford their luxury homes are the ones who don't have to pay for them." The "corporate state" subsidizes the rich.
This week NEWS CORP disclosed in an SEC filing that it paid $4.5 million in salary, and $21.2 million in bonuses. ON TOP OF THAT, it provides Murdock with a $50,500 per month housing/utilities "perk" -- another $606,000 value. According to Andrew Butcher, the NEWS CORP spokesman, this housing allowance is "for the convenience of the company" for Murdock to have a NY luxury apartment.
Clearly, "the Board" is not making decisions that could be justified by the Business Judgment Rule. The payment of a personal, and wildly excessive, expense of a highly paid executive who does not even live in NY, is inappropriate for a publicly-traded company. What is being traded is the gullibility of investors: I checked the paper -- NEWS CORP shares rose 16 cents on yesterday.

HALLIBURTON FRAUD - LAWSUIT

Halliburton's spokesperson, Melissa Norcross (who is not paid nearly enough), is publicly pointing out that the civil suit filed by Mr. Allen Grayson supported by the whistleblower Julie McBride "clearly demonstrates a misinterpretation of facts as well as a lack of understanding of KBR's contractual agreements with its customer, the US Army". Ms McBride's complaints were ignored by KBR before she became a whistle-blower. McBride's safety is in jeopardy and requires an armed guard.
How can the following facts by susceptible to "misinterpretation"? (1) That KBR charges its "customer" three times the cost of Gasoline/Diesel Fuel that the Army obtains from other sources. (2) That KBR bills double-time for Internet access, food, and gym services for soldiers, according to its own (and very troubling) "accounting" figures.
How can the plaintiff be faulted for not understanding "contractual agreements" which were not disclosed, remain hidden, and were never open for "bid"?
War-profiteering used to be immoral. Now, the pious Bush-men are piling onto the billion-dollar contraband wagon.

EMINEN T DOMAIN - private property rights and the future

We have a documented history of the dynamics and consequences of land development, whether administered by a government "Bureau" (eg Bureau of Land Management) or by private "homesteaders". Both forms of development have left us with disasters and a nasty Future. Ref: Fellmeth, POLITICS OF LAND.
Under the 1938 Small Tract Act, the BLM transferred thousands of small-acre parcels into private ownership. I have seen the results in San Bernardino and Imperial Counties. The desert is potted with piles of refuse, much of which is toxic (tires, motor oil), surrounding abandoned shacks.
The Classification and Multiple Use Act of 1964 classified vast areas for "recreation". This is a concept which means very different things to different people, from "hunters" (a literally extinct species superceded by Gunners) to get-rich-quick schemers, indulging perhaps the most popular form of "recreation". Over 1/7 of California has been "managed" by BLM as Multiple-Use land, often leased or sold to private parties.
We continue to face the dilemmas of How to appropriately exploit, or preserve, the Resources under our feet. The use of the powers of the government to evict or restrict owners -- the use of "blight" designations, Zoning regulations and Eminent Domain -- now driven by the hard realities of severe tax shortfalls for local governments after Proposition 13 -- has given us more layers of corruption. Ref: Greenhut, ABUSE OF POWER.
This week, as if we have no history or future, the contentious ED battle over the 17,300-acre Conaway Ranch in Yolo County, ended. The investor-developers of the pastoral island in the water delta of one of California's fastest regions are now free to build houses and sell off water rights -- although they promise not to "squander" the water supply. (!)
The Yolo County officials -- we should be thankful -- recognized that the government could not afford to "win" the Eminent Domain seizure; the FMV of the land would have been $100 million or more. We have no idea what land is WORTH. How can a government compensate an owner for its seizure?
So, what do we lack? Are we doomed to head straight to ugly in a basket of complexities which no vision of righteousness can correct?

WAR - leadership needed - Ilario Patano

Former Marine 2d Lt Ilario G Pantano was exonerated last year in a preliminary hearing conducted at Camp Lejeune, NC, of charges that he killed two Iraqi prisoners in cold blood. Although he was a veteran of the previous Persian Gulf War, serving in the front line as a sergeant, he had only been in Iraq for a few months. He had joined immediately after 9/11.
His accuser was Sgt Daniel Coburn, serving in the same rifle platoon under Lt Pantano's command. The military tribunal found that Sgt Coburn was "not credible" in his accusations. However, Pantano's military career options were ended.
Now, Pantano has written a book. Good move. It is entitled: WARLORD: NO BETTER FRIEND, NO WORSE ENEMY. The book describes the combat and the litigation.
One of the appeals of the Warrior Ethos is the fact that if you are deadly, you really can be potent as a friend. Most of us are "weak friends", and this is the place setting in which I find myself regretfully seated.
The worst that has been said of Pantano, and his response -- restraint, writing a detailed book -- convinces me of his greatness. I also notice that Pantano's former attorney, Mr. Charles W. Gittins of San Diego, is on record hoping Pantano runs for office. Attorneys know things about their clients and it's a good bet that a person who knows "things" about a former client, and having no duty or benefit to himself in expressing such a hope, would not make such an endorsement unless it was righteous.
My god it would be great to see men and women lead us who KNOW how gray and intense the choices in war can be. The LACK of military bearing on the part of Rowe/ Cheney/ Bush and their uninformed Congressional overseers may "explain" (but not justify) the chaotic disgrace which is their legacy to America.
Draft Ilario Patano into Office! Please. Now.

ENEMIES? SHOOTING THEM DOWN... ON FILM.

Soldiering seems to have drifted away from its essential slog. The Warrior cult which always looks so promising when it is dancing around the Big Fire the night before, is now in disarray.

Technology has simply outperformed the levee en masse, and the Army has become a thing of the Previous Technology, no longer able to dress smartly, much less solve, the "problems" as they arise. Of course, there is still an Op4 that needs to be eliminated. In the Blog of War, there is always a new front opening up which is little understood. The Pentagon is not just fighting the last war – the one with armies in uniforms, blowing up things – it has joined the Other Side. It conducts fire fights that burn everyone.

The Entertainment Industry understands the red weapon-shift. It does not even bother with "big war movies" anymore, except of course, by way of exception. Who cares about “million man armies” anymore? The films now are all personal combat – Miami Vice (Colin Farrell), Collateral (Cruise), Rambo type ambuscades, Bowling for Columbine (Moore), and Hero-es of various ilks going mano a mano with small arms. But this is not just a passing phase; historically the emphasis is always on the Warrior, although often he is hidden, and never more so than now.

The Entertainment Medium is the latest weapon of choice. It is penetrating, lethal, and yet does not expose your troops to dysentery. It does not wildly warm the planet or smoke entire cities. Do not be confused by its focus on action and its impact on fashion, or by its incidental "product placements" -- our "leading men" who turn out to be merely actors.

Do not be misled by the use of actual weapons in films – it is not the “weaponry” per se which is penetrating the defenses of The Enemy. For example, nobody seems to know or care that in his combat roles, Tom Cruise typically wields a .45 cal. Heckler & Koch USP fed with a 12-round clip. (That clip still throws me). The particular suit and tie, or the pair of loafers, which is out on a rampage with a sidearm, is not the “point”. The audience is swooning over the room-clearing house-pacifying impact of the Mossberg 12gauge shotgun.

All of the elements of the “scene” are replaceable – especially the movie stars themselves, and their toys, all of which are frankly over-priced. Understand that the “action” is the draw – the actors using their toys, whether they are climbing on the outside of their Adam A500 planes, or riding their Ferrari F430 Spiders or jumping out of Donzi speedboats, glancing at their IWC watches while shooting titanium SVI Infinity automatics. The “point” is not whether a man, or a machine that can put a 55-grain hollow-point slug at 2,700 feet per second into a man, is better. Both the drawing star and the drawn weapon together draw the crowd. A good pistol is designed to leap into the palm of the hand, and a hot weapon makes an actor look cool. When a Colin Farrell's Sonny Crockett delivers strategic impact with a Sig Sauer 552 Commando assault rifle, or a Jamie Foxx's Tubbs pulls the latter, and a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson, and then unloads a Benelli M4 shotgun, and gets away a Heckler & Koch 69 grenade launcher, you know you are in “action” heaven.

Compare our wars and our films. What is the vector? What impact does the mass appeal of filmed violence have on the massing of troops? Are we headed toward a better world of Technology? Or are we marching toward Death – the opposite of “action”? What is the learning of the burning, the “attacks” all over the world, the wielding of guns and rockets?

The real vector is the Medium, and the Medium is not what is being shot, but what is doing the shooting. The “real” action is behind, not in front of, the camera. Surely it is no surprise that the First Adopters of each civilization meeting another -- at any time or place in history, whether East/West, Cowboy/Indian, Arab/Persian -- are usually at the Weapon systems.

Well, do not be fooled. The modern weapon of choice is not actually the Cruise Missile or, on the ground, the always and overtly politically-self-correcting Barrett .50-caliber M107 semiautomatic sniper rifle. The real weapon of the true warrior is not an RPG, and certainly not the IED or the suicide vest. True warriors never target the weak and defenseless. The real weapon in today’s theater is the semi-cinematic wide-screen moving field of fire FILM! Headline: We shoot bulletins! The guy with the biggest CAMERA is who wins. It is not what was hit down-range from a Gun-sight, but what got the most “hits” on a Web-site, that determines who comes out ahead. The good soldier should blog, not slog.

It is true that there is always a Great War declared by, oh, shall we say, people who have power and want too much, or by people who have little and want more. Whoever seizes power, whoever understands the vacuum of power, whether George Bush, Osama bin Laden, or any of the post-Hitler post-Stalin post-Pot post-Castro contenders. Many people are still, and will always be, obsessed by things that go Boom. They are "stuck" in there. The age of "bombers" and assassins is SO pre-WWI, so pre-dot-com. People living in caves and Pentagons are still looking for Archdukes and scapegoats. The REAL WEAPONS, and the REAL WARRIORS know this, and are working the cameras and networks. They put video on their bloggerheads.

The guns are simply props. are no longer the REAL weapons. Of course, guns are bewitching. That is Why they are in the film. And Guns continue to play a role in luring us to that dream of a quick-fix, the real curative, the device which will annihilate all enemies. Of course, the weapon which will do this is not, and cannot be, a killing device. What can you annihilate with a gun? With an atomic bomb? Guns and bombs do not "destroy" the REAL ENEMY. They change nothing in the World. What the guns provide today are “special effects”. Their contribution is to the scene, basically the noise as they unload, with some visual interest particularly at night. At best, the guns are theater, extensions of the hand and a lethal personality. The suicide vest is effective as a crowd pleaser – yes, THAT crowd.

The Technology has already advanced far beyond mere firepower. Gun-running is like "farming" compared to what is now happening on the Net today: It may occur, it may even be necessary, but it is not what young men are actually trying to unleash -- Websites, MySpace, piracy on the high seas of the many-waved Web, adventure in wealth acquisition, the annihilation of enemies.....

Oh we still revel in the detonators and the infantile eagerness to “blow the bridge”, or the shopping mall, whatever. But pull on up: It is the stratospheric FILM of the missile dropping down the chimney of Saddam Hussein’s HQ that moved us, all of us.

We still remember Dirty Harry leveling that long-barreled Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum because it was a film in which Clint Eastwood played an avenging arch-angel for our beliefs! It is the Film, not the side-arm, not the star himself, which is the most effective “weapon” against the evil-doers. Theater as extension of our Mind: Make my Play.

Why doesn’t the Pentagon understand this? Why aren’t they subsidizing the use of new technology to introduce theatrical arts – compositions of music, of creativity, new ways to digitalize creation and destruction instead of actually destroying. Or...maybe they do. Maybe their combat teams are secretly billeting with film crews. Maybe the “talent” is secretly subsidized.

The tribes who have declared themselves our enemies, the Iranians and Arabs, and in various ways the Chinese and Russians. These are great peoples, with great civilizations. They long ago sent their finest to America, where these people gathered with the Indians and the Vikings, the Celts, and the kings of Ethiopia and Judea, and somehow all of them figured out how to depict their dreams on the stages of the world, on the sets they built out of historical scratch they found in their pockets, and come to digitalize it, and then to spin it on reels, and in 3-D DVD diskettes, in living room theaters everywhere, to play it, to dream it, again and again!

As violent, as funny and tragic as we get, what we are doing is sharing ... our dreams. We still have enemies, but they are personal, not tribal. Our tribal enemies can only weep. Because “we” – from every tribe of the world – have won. And now, they have no choice, to surrender and celebrate their victory.

We will blow them up. We will blow ourselves up. Again and again. Because it is a movie. It is our virtual destiny. It is not real. We can only weep and laugh. And play it again: Make my Play-Station.

COMMENTS:

Credits to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist sportsman Dan Neil for “identifying what the fashionable young man is killing people with this season” in the film industry. He has a quick eye for spotting, and indulging the pleasure of, the technological extensions we wear. My thanks to his article “Trigger Happy”, West Magazine (“magazine”!) August 27, 2006, page 45.

Myth as a Source...of What?

Now in this flowering node of time and space, at the Zwischenstufe or "between-ness" which all spans of consciousness inhabit, we continue to enjoy the story-telling of our elders, the scheming tales of our sachems, the comprehensive collections of the Brothers Grimm, the recent soupcon of the late Campbell on Heroes, and the "new" myths of Mohammed, Huehuemoxtezuma, Dante, Smith, and Mao woven into values, with appreciation for the breadth of our breathless chronicles, the invoked pastiche, the onion that flavors both the boil and the cooling broth of our bodies over which Odin's ravens -- memory and thought -- constantly circle, invisible, flying, emanating as they do, from a brain which is buried alive. Ultimately, of course, what we discover in Myth is not wisdom, but the cruelty and gratification of the hunting story. And the hunt continues....

The leitmotif of all myth is predation. The hunt is for a future. We hunt for our future, and we are greatly relieved to see that it resembles the past. But as we kill it, and our sustenance always involves death, we necessarily soak it in myth to disguise the act, to quiet the keening of the dying, the loss. Myth is our great In-source of Evil, the occupied land we are destined to call our hunting ground.

When we feed, we kill. To live, we must destroy something. We worry it to ground. For this, not for the task but for the consequences, we must find a redeemer. Redemption only comes from “feeling better” after our stomach is full. Redeemers rarely hunt, never bring wood or prey to our fire, but they eat our food, and then offer to make us "feel better" about what we had to do. It works. Because all the effective Redeemers – all our “authorities”– those we worship, respect, adore, and follow toward the promised Golden Age which is our perpetual myth – offer vengence, and revenge is the secret key to our relief. Consider this, that the hunt is about Taking life, and it is blaming or re-directing blame, which enables us to digest and keeps us alive. Vengence is the counterpoise. It is our only relief from the “sense” of justice which cries out. It muffles the screams, makes the killing humdrum. Vengence is normalcy restored.

We are trapped in Evil – on both sides of the coin, a bicameral guilt: We kill, and then we find redemption by calling the death revenge. We are deeply enamored of Evil. We are grateful to Evil. It buries our dead. The victim is always blameworthy, or worthy of killing, in an Evil homeland. Our Nibelungen hand-wringing cycle is met with a song. Myth is the marinade in which we soak our meat. Myth is our Memory working with its ravenous twin, Imagination, so that we can forget enough to successfully hunt again.

This is the badly-kept secret of all "homelands", hierarchies, “cultures”, and egos.

And now that Science has enabled as to utterly annihilate our prey, and has brought us Death on a platter, on a planetary scale, and we ourselves are hunted by "suicide bombers" with no appreciation for irony but only for Myth, for Evil, we can now clearly see what we die for. Now we arrive at the point were we require more of our Redeemers than we have in the past. We can no longer be content with vengence.

A moment of reflection:

EXPERIMENTAL REFLECTIONS: August 14, 2006

1. DIGITAL LIBRARIES. Over publishers’ protests, Google is digitalizing large library collections: Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, the NY Public Library....

2. IMPERIAL JAPANESE MILITARY. Mindful of atrocities committed in the 1930's, and while sending armed troops to Iraq, Japan continues to surprise the world, almost as if it was not a part of the rest of the world....still no actual funded reparations or “apology” for Nanking, for stockpiles of WMD poison and gas weapons abandoned in China, for “comfort women”, for Bataan. For exterminating most of the whales, strip mining the Pacific. No apology? Is it because they suffered the worst civilian bombing, and the dropping of not one but two atomic weapons, and were lined up to receive 8 more, basically treated like insects by MacArthur? Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution still prohibits its use of armed forces except for defense? Should not ALL Constitutional countries insert such a Clause? Is there a sovereign “right” to invade others?

3. WHOSE RUNNING THE WEB? In the late 1990s, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) run by the US Department of Commerce was supposed to begin turning control of the servers underlying the Internet over to...well, no one ever figured out who.

4. ARAFAT’S SUCCESSOR. In 2005, Mahmoud Abbas took over after Arafat. We still do not know how Arafat became a billionaire several times over, where his fortune ended up, how Abbas got his wealth and built a 4-story mansion on land intended as a public park. Is corruption not clearly evident? In history, has any gang other than the “leaders” of the Palestinians ever taken larger sums of money – 100's of billions from the Saudis alone – with less to “show” for it?

5. THE MISRAHI JEWS. Millions of Jews have been forced to leave all of the “Arab” lands. Many more Israelis are “refugees” than Arabs, even if you count the Arabs who are fleeing Arab countries (countries other than Israel) for any reason. If you count the Christian Arabs – the maronites, the chaldeans – and if you count the Shiites and Sunnis who have been fleeing from each other – all of these exceed the number of Palestinians who “fled” – or voluntarily left, or some combination – from Israel during a time of war.

6. ARABS. The Arabs have always been important and have long been numerous. They are like Germans – gifted, brave, and quick to resort to tribal yearnings for a glorious past that never was. More fearful than Jews of the horrors of “humiliation”. Does the world really owe any people a dignity which they seem to gain only in conquest? Can’t we just be humble together? Do we have to worry about your failures, or worse, your conquests?

7. NO MENTION OF “JERUSALEM” IN THE KORAN. The Koran is now digitized and entirely searchable. No “truth” about it is more evident than that it is not what it is claimed to be by its adherents. Most of it contains very unclear Suras, proclamations which were at one time important, and even reformist; but which are now not ‘relevent’. In spite of the name of the “religion”, there are no suras about how to make Peace happen. None. Nor does it justify race-hatred against any People. Nor does it claim Palestine; not even Jerusalem, for Arabs. Nor does it tell women and men to cover themselves completely so that everyone looks like a sack. The name – Koran -- is used for ulterior motives by ignorant and cruel men.

8. THE GOSPELS. Such Good News here: bad advice--"love everyone"-- with a good example, but, worse for wear, and entirely ignored as to its finer points. Jesus, the Zionist, hell-bent to liberate Israel from the peace of the Romans, driven to try even the most extreme weapon of all: Love. They laughed this movement off the stage – there is no record of Jesus in contemporary archeological remains. However, human “story” often has an odd “twist”, and there is no better example in the history of religion: Jesus clearly, clearly, did not claim to be divine – “why callest me Good Master? None is good, save one, that is, God”. [Luke 18.19]. Jesus admonished all, but especially the rulers, to live a life of humility and indigency: “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor...and follow me” [Jesus was living without any possessions]. [Luke 18.22.] Just before crucifiction, three instructions. You can count the “Christians” doing even one of these things today, on one hand.

9. THE KURDS / KURDISTAN. Why is it so inconceivable that the Kurds should have their own country? What threat would a Kurdistan be to Turkey, as a buffer state between Iran.

10. KARELIA? DARFUR? HURONIA? Is it too late to remediate the abuse of all minority people by building among them separate “nations”?

11. FIGHTING TERRORISTS. Keeping in mind that over 180 “lords” and noblemen lost their lives to anarchist or communist “bombers” and shooters in the year just before WWI, when Archduke Ferdinand and his dear wife were assassinated by a small revolver. I do not see much difference in the technology between the roadside or hidden bombs and small arms used today in Iraq. It also appears more sensible to fight dispersed terror networks with roving counter-networks armed with neighborhood lists of names and a “full-employment” program for young men, rather than aerial bombardment and meaningless but endless traffic inspection stops. We should painstakingly work with defectors.

12. SHIFTING BLAME. Man is a political animal. What does this mean? The largest single practical outcome of this reality is that BLAME must be assigned; it must be re-directed; blame others for what You have done. Then seize the credit for what They were doing. Ah, how many Great Men were in fact good at nothing so much as sitting on the laurels gathered by others.

13. HOMELAND SECURITY. A Trillion dollars, give or take a few billion, has been “spent” on security in the United States alone. The highest echelon of the Party talks constantly about it. Yet one of my Republican friends was recently, in response to my inquiry, unable to name one thing that has been done since 9/11 that makes me feel more secure. Richard Clarke was in charge of security under George W Bush (former Bush) and Clinton and wrote a book: “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror”. He is very critical of George Bush and the policies now in place. For example, firearms policy is dictated by the NRA, the new Energy Act gives priority to building fossil and nuclear facilities, immigration is designed to provide low-wage domestic workers, and health care of the elderly requires so many choices you have to be a full-time lawyer to be old and sick.

14. LEGACY OF KATRINA. Al Gore, still ahead of his time, now leading a fine charge against the destruction of our blue boat home. But he is still not approaching the problem “politically”. I am not sure why a small handful of boys (Bush, Rowe, Cheney) with the social maturity of 11 year olds are such a problem to adult contenders.

Simple Concepts - Simplifying Politics should not be left to the Experts (paid specialists)

Immigration and "illegal" people. It should never (ever ever) be "illegal" to work for a living; it makes no sense to criminalize labor. It should never be "illegal" to migrate -- travel, along with Free Press, is one of only two guarantees of Freedom.

School. It should never be compulsory to attend school; that turns "education" on its head, and is why schools become devoted to Control instead of discovery and problem solving.

Pollution. Build anything anywhere -- products, factories, whatever. But if what you made has an "exhaust" pipe or chimney, or a "waste product" of any kind, including any solid, liquid, gas, noise, or smell, or if it creates an environmental impact such as a bottle-neck, traffic congestion, or nuisance to a neighbor, then you pay for the cost of that impact. Mitigation by the following design principal should always be recognized: Whatever you build that has an exhaust pipe, it must vent into the face of the user FIRST, before it vents into the faces of non-users; whatever is discharged, must first be vented into the water and air system of the maker/manager/owner, before discharging into the sewer or environment.

Religion. Redemption and Rapture can only be experienced individually; no priest or principal can "save" anyone else except upon proof that they have taken their own advice and have saved themselves. Anyone who proclaims a religious basis for killing any other person should be prosecuted for murder, as plainly as any other such solicitation made without the claim of sanctity.

Theft. Title to material goods never passes by theft. You steal something by force or fraud, it is never yours to use, sell, or profit from. You buy something without title, it is the same as if you stole it from the true owner yourself.

IRAQ and a Hard Place

Raid Juhi, chief investigative judge for the Iraqi court now trying Mr. Hussein in another case, said during a visit here on Saturday that the court had documentary evidence, and statements from witnesses, showing that at least 100,000 Shiites, and possibly 180,000, died in the 1991 repression.

OBSERVATION:

"possibly 180,000"???? In a period of months? Give or take 80,000?