Let's be clear about our incentives.
Saint Francis, apparently alone among the "spiritual leaders", and one of the few who was both, pointed out that greed is really not a very appropriate incentive for genuine salvation. Belief must stand upon Truth, even Love, before it turns to vengance and aggrandizement.
Yet today -- perhaps in the Past as well -- all that can be seen on the "religious" horizon is the naked appeal to greed: The call to "heaven" to avoid "hell". Take the eternity of ease, while others suffer. And honor the images of "success" -- the biggest, the best-selling, the mullah-monopolist god-given right to prosperity exercised over the poor and the suffering of this world -- by GIVING your money to the most unproductive and richest people on the planet: The Saudis, the Crouches, the Osteens, the Warrens, the Pope.
This dynamic beggars "belief". Rich people, under color of religion, ask for money from working people, with the promise that the gods -- a panoply, for monotheism has never been established free of the angels -- will open the gates of heaven to them. For the rest of us, it is Hell -- operated by that other god, the Devil, who is apparently the book-end, and the answer to any pretense of monotheism.
Surely, a "spiritual leader" would NEVER EVER EVER EVER ask for money from a poor man. Ever. Surely there is no creator or potent God who blesses the rich and comfortable, or assigns wealth based on virtue. Are the Rich more humble than the poor? Are they more generous than the middle class? Have we been promised a bigger library in Heaven? Are we to suffer now, and give our property to the Crystal Wahabi Pope Cathedral for the pleasure of the richest people on planet so that we can be rich in The Hereafter?
Does ANYONE have a problem with the fact that Greed, our own manure, is being shoveled back upon us?
I would be all for praising a loving father, a nurturing mother, and a just God. But I have no praise for those who are envious, greedy, and manipulative, and eager to condemn the innocent, or point a finger at scapegoats instead of stepping up to the plate of responsibility in a world of suffering.
Let me suffer with those who suffer. If it is an eternity of suffering, I know I will be standing with Saint Francis who drew the same line. I do not have the stomach for glory, when I know others more deserving than I have suffered to give me what achievements have come to me. I will have no songs of praise cross my lips, while others are screaming or gaping with hunger. There is, and will be, no Heaven for me.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Religion: Chumps and Believers, Tyrants and Deceivers
Historians can document the sure reliance upon Religion placed by every tyrant. There are no exceptions. Every dictator intent upon deceiving others, will turn to Religion. Under color of "belief", loyalty to power is secured.
"In their greed they will exploit YOU with false {Greek 'plastok'} words." 2 Peter 2:3.
And the "believers" -- those who take up the false words? They are the slaves not only of their own appetites, but of those who have preached to them. Romans 16:18. They are the chumps. Again, no exceptions.
The apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was an eyewitness to the fact that almost no one was a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. He observed and predicted that most people would follow a materialist path and malign the way of truth. 2 Peter 2:2. Compare the great "Simon the Magician" who conducted self-improvement and business seminars in Samaria. Acts 8:9-11.
Very few of the "leaders" of ANY of the Religions today, are speaking TO power. Virtually all of these folks from so-called spiritual traditions continue to speak FOR power, and for the richest, FROM power.
These pseudo-leaders are not content with Love, or Peace, or Heaven. They want Stuff. Now. For themselves. The most "successful" are the worst -- look at the Wahabi alliance with the Saudi rulers in the misnamed "Saudi" Arabia. Look at the intimacy and the "Photo-Op" relationship between Billy Graham and every US President he could find. Observe the "crystal cathedral" of the Schuler dynasty, the global outreach into purse and pocket of the Crouch-occupied Trinity Broadcasting Station. Joel Osteen, with his Best-Selling (let me repeat "Best SELLING") books and the largest Church in the USA. Follow the Money. Really. Follow, the Money.
When tyrants take our stuff to themselves, they can no longer claim to be our "leaders" and they are certainly not "spiritual". They are our oppressors. We give them our stuff just like chumps. They are taking OUR stuff.
"In their greed they will exploit YOU with false {Greek 'plastok'} words." 2 Peter 2:3.
And the "believers" -- those who take up the false words? They are the slaves not only of their own appetites, but of those who have preached to them. Romans 16:18. They are the chumps. Again, no exceptions.
The apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was an eyewitness to the fact that almost no one was a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. He observed and predicted that most people would follow a materialist path and malign the way of truth. 2 Peter 2:2. Compare the great "Simon the Magician" who conducted self-improvement and business seminars in Samaria. Acts 8:9-11.
Very few of the "leaders" of ANY of the Religions today, are speaking TO power. Virtually all of these folks from so-called spiritual traditions continue to speak FOR power, and for the richest, FROM power.
These pseudo-leaders are not content with Love, or Peace, or Heaven. They want Stuff. Now. For themselves. The most "successful" are the worst -- look at the Wahabi alliance with the Saudi rulers in the misnamed "Saudi" Arabia. Look at the intimacy and the "Photo-Op" relationship between Billy Graham and every US President he could find. Observe the "crystal cathedral" of the Schuler dynasty, the global outreach into purse and pocket of the Crouch-occupied Trinity Broadcasting Station. Joel Osteen, with his Best-Selling (let me repeat "Best SELLING") books and the largest Church in the USA. Follow the Money. Really. Follow, the Money.
When tyrants take our stuff to themselves, they can no longer claim to be our "leaders" and they are certainly not "spiritual". They are our oppressors. We give them our stuff just like chumps. They are taking OUR stuff.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Rumination and the "unlived life" a la Philip Roth
Not boasting, but "worrying" does not come naturally to me. And the related activities, such as obsessing (chafing, concern about picking the best of the lot, and all the infatuation or addictive behaviors) are really not my strong suit. First of all I am entirely too lazy to go to such efforts -- addicts are extraordinarily committed to their habit, and I have neither habits nor commitments to concerns which orbit around a cognizable Self. There is not enough "there" there. Nothing inside me is wringing its hands. Even when I weep and pray, it is vague and general. More lamentation than grief. More anger than petition.
But back to worrying: Before I married into the Burton family, the word "Pfaffing" was not in my vocabulary. Not for lack of time, but for lack of ability, I spend little time making decisions. In fact, I suspect that a decision-making process that tries to evaluate each fact may be so hag-ridden by detail that it distorts the priorities which facts have, the hierarchical architecture. Anyway, for me, intense immersion in the myriad of facts impedes observation. I try to remove obstacles and observe the Facts as keenly as possible. And then compare alternatives, make a selection, and move on. And the last step is enhanced by a native ability to forget -- as if the "fog of war" is not merely the excuse for confusion, but is also a redemptive cover, a chance for moments of repose in what would otherwise be an unbroken continuum of consciousness.
Here is where I was led to a new "window" into Consciousness by Philip Roth. I am now embarassed to admit, I had always avoided reading his work, right up until I actually read it. In my quick exposures to the "Nathan Zuckerman" character which lies at the center of his oeuvre, I just could not connect. The character is apparently, or claiming to be, in a struggle to define the Self. This is an agonist protagonist, engaged in internal dialogue, the watermark of meaningless. There is no "care" there. Writers who accomplish nothing but writing, and then they write autobiographies, or novels that are thinly-veiled Self-servers. That type screams "So What", to an ear I do not even have.
However, Philip Roth is now past the Zuckerman trilogy {THE GHOST WRITER (1979) depicted a 23 year old writer; cf. GOODBYE COLUMBUS, PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT}- and writing into his 5th decade -- Roth continues work in or on his imagination. And that connects with me. Roth's 2006 EVERYMAN, and his latest, EXIT GHOST, are still self in a struggle to define itself, but now it is opened to the landscape of death. It is not merely the narrative of Self.
Now the dimension of RUMINATION is opened up. Although it is still related to neurotic "worrying" and ego-display, the ruminating imagination has wings which lift it above the mud-puddle of infatuation. True, the life he describes is still the UNLIVED life. But it is the life of imagination, and in many ways MORE living than life lived without consciousness of itself.
Now I say this, almost with dismay, that Philip Roth is clearly in The Pantheon. No longer merely brilliant and notorious, with spotty appearances, unfurling in clever flashes the red cape in front of our thick bull of life, he has now graced us with Aging and the immensity and intimacy of Death. Zuckerman reenters from a retreat in the Berkshires, getting stability and distance from "everything I'd determined I no longer had use for" as a 73 year old who is no longer certain of his literary powers.
At the end of life, we observe the retraction of our powers by means of the retracting organs -- the forgetting brain behind eyes dimmed. This time, the description of a man becoming sexually fixated with a young woman rises above mere unseemliness. The grizzled introspection of Roth, as he describes an impotent elder becoming fixated by the physical charms of a much younger woman, is a kind of message to us, that is clearly more than "being" about himself. He is "reporting" from the longevity Front. Giving us notice, that "life" urges, continue. We age, we forget, but the last thing to fade is our horny urge. It outlasts our anatomy -- this is an incontinent Zuckerman, a survivor of prostate cancer and surgery. Zuckerman feels that he is UNABLE to pursue a relationship, and yet, he proceeds to do so, IN HIS IMAGINATION.
But back to worrying: Before I married into the Burton family, the word "Pfaffing" was not in my vocabulary. Not for lack of time, but for lack of ability, I spend little time making decisions. In fact, I suspect that a decision-making process that tries to evaluate each fact may be so hag-ridden by detail that it distorts the priorities which facts have, the hierarchical architecture. Anyway, for me, intense immersion in the myriad of facts impedes observation. I try to remove obstacles and observe the Facts as keenly as possible. And then compare alternatives, make a selection, and move on. And the last step is enhanced by a native ability to forget -- as if the "fog of war" is not merely the excuse for confusion, but is also a redemptive cover, a chance for moments of repose in what would otherwise be an unbroken continuum of consciousness.
Here is where I was led to a new "window" into Consciousness by Philip Roth. I am now embarassed to admit, I had always avoided reading his work, right up until I actually read it. In my quick exposures to the "Nathan Zuckerman" character which lies at the center of his oeuvre, I just could not connect. The character is apparently, or claiming to be, in a struggle to define the Self. This is an agonist protagonist, engaged in internal dialogue, the watermark of meaningless. There is no "care" there. Writers who accomplish nothing but writing, and then they write autobiographies, or novels that are thinly-veiled Self-servers. That type screams "So What", to an ear I do not even have.
However, Philip Roth is now past the Zuckerman trilogy {THE GHOST WRITER (1979) depicted a 23 year old writer; cf. GOODBYE COLUMBUS, PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT}- and writing into his 5th decade -- Roth continues work in or on his imagination. And that connects with me. Roth's 2006 EVERYMAN, and his latest, EXIT GHOST, are still self in a struggle to define itself, but now it is opened to the landscape of death. It is not merely the narrative of Self.
Now the dimension of RUMINATION is opened up. Although it is still related to neurotic "worrying" and ego-display, the ruminating imagination has wings which lift it above the mud-puddle of infatuation. True, the life he describes is still the UNLIVED life. But it is the life of imagination, and in many ways MORE living than life lived without consciousness of itself.
Now I say this, almost with dismay, that Philip Roth is clearly in The Pantheon. No longer merely brilliant and notorious, with spotty appearances, unfurling in clever flashes the red cape in front of our thick bull of life, he has now graced us with Aging and the immensity and intimacy of Death. Zuckerman reenters from a retreat in the Berkshires, getting stability and distance from "everything I'd determined I no longer had use for" as a 73 year old who is no longer certain of his literary powers.
At the end of life, we observe the retraction of our powers by means of the retracting organs -- the forgetting brain behind eyes dimmed. This time, the description of a man becoming sexually fixated with a young woman rises above mere unseemliness. The grizzled introspection of Roth, as he describes an impotent elder becoming fixated by the physical charms of a much younger woman, is a kind of message to us, that is clearly more than "being" about himself. He is "reporting" from the longevity Front. Giving us notice, that "life" urges, continue. We age, we forget, but the last thing to fade is our horny urge. It outlasts our anatomy -- this is an incontinent Zuckerman, a survivor of prostate cancer and surgery. Zuckerman feels that he is UNABLE to pursue a relationship, and yet, he proceeds to do so, IN HIS IMAGINATION.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Lawyers - Ian Ayres - author of SUPERCRUNCHERS
Lawyers contribute to our society in many surprising ways. Here is a professor at Yale Law School, writing a book on econometrics: SUPERCRUNCHERS; Why Thinking-by-the-Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart.
Ayres tells us there is some good news about data-gathering. In this only recently-enabled technology, "evidence reigns supreme": it is "data". He gives us a tour of this data-driven world.
Two statistical tools propel the screws: REGRESSION ANALYSIS ("RA") run on raw data which uncovers connections between different "subjects" or patterns, and RANDOMIZATION ("RZ") which reveals the influence of a single factor in the presence of multiple effects.
For example, RA can determine which characteristics such as gender, age, income, job, or pet food purchase are involved, influence, or correlate with people defaulting on mortgages. RZ is used by medical scientists to identify a life-saving therapy via randomized controlled trials offering alternative modalities.
Ayres is enthusiastic -- he likes "data" as a basis for making decisions. He also offers examples of the GIGO caution, and that "correlation is not causation". For example, several States changed laws to encourage gun ownership because of a putative correlation to lower crime rates, but this "evidence" was shown to be spurious.
Ayres tells us there is some good news about data-gathering. In this only recently-enabled technology, "evidence reigns supreme": it is "data". He gives us a tour of this data-driven world.
Two statistical tools propel the screws: REGRESSION ANALYSIS ("RA") run on raw data which uncovers connections between different "subjects" or patterns, and RANDOMIZATION ("RZ") which reveals the influence of a single factor in the presence of multiple effects.
For example, RA can determine which characteristics such as gender, age, income, job, or pet food purchase are involved, influence, or correlate with people defaulting on mortgages. RZ is used by medical scientists to identify a life-saving therapy via randomized controlled trials offering alternative modalities.
Ayres is enthusiastic -- he likes "data" as a basis for making decisions. He also offers examples of the GIGO caution, and that "correlation is not causation". For example, several States changed laws to encourage gun ownership because of a putative correlation to lower crime rates, but this "evidence" was shown to be spurious.
Abramowitz QUOTING the great Actor Ashraf Bahrom
It does not get better than this:
The veteran in-depth Hollywood interviewer, Rachel Abramowitz {LA Times 9/23/2007}, has caught and highlighted the significance of THE KINGDOM. And she quotes one of the great Galilean stars in that film, ASHRAF BARHOM:
"I'm a mammal at the end. I breathe out and breathe in and eat.
"At the end when we go to sleep, nobody lives this political definition. It's something we connect by and we try to understand each other by, but at the end, we know that this is not who we are. We are more simple. I don't see much differences. We talk different languages, eat different foods, but all huymanity has one ancestor, which started from one person, which started from one God. I don't think politics can bring a better situation. They try, but you see how much corruption there is. I believe change should come from the real leader, who can make a real peace, and his name is God."
The veteran in-depth Hollywood interviewer, Rachel Abramowitz {LA Times 9/23/2007}, has caught and highlighted the significance of THE KINGDOM. And she quotes one of the great Galilean stars in that film, ASHRAF BARHOM:
"I'm a mammal at the end. I breathe out and breathe in and eat.
"At the end when we go to sleep, nobody lives this political definition. It's something we connect by and we try to understand each other by, but at the end, we know that this is not who we are. We are more simple. I don't see much differences. We talk different languages, eat different foods, but all huymanity has one ancestor, which started from one person, which started from one God. I don't think politics can bring a better situation. They try, but you see how much corruption there is. I believe change should come from the real leader, who can make a real peace, and his name is God."
Arabs and Jews - Media Tribes
Nations have fallen. We suffer no more nationalities, no more pretensions to Kingdoms where there are no Kings, no States where there are no "moi" L'Etats {insert bow to the last fictional Sun, King Louis XIV}.
Sure, there remain the empty invocations. Remnant Nazi sympathizers still people the globe with scapegoats for their own alarming defalcations and failures -- for example, even IF there was a "bad Jew" somewhere doing something, is there anything WORSE than what Hitler/Himmler/Goebbels directly did TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE? Now, we appreciate the fact that Hitler's grandmother was Jewish, but it is not Justice to blame the victim for being the victim while claiming the predator is the victim.
There is great news coming out of the Media Tribes. Great news in terms of world peace, and the hope that men and women really love their families and want to prosper, that is, want peace, rather than suffering in constant war. The Media Tribes have supplanted the "nations". Granted they have the chaotic limitations of tribes, but the new tribes are inspired in ways that "nations" are not.
The new Media Tribes which form around the grand enterprise of making Movies, for example, have over-powered the narrow and self-defeating provincialisms of the old tribalisms. But one example, THE KINGDOM, a film made by a Hollywood tribe which has accreted a wonderful cast and team from around the world. Whether the film as film is any good is beside the point -- it took a magnificent tribe to make it. And this making is in the millions, and arches over borders and hatreds and old wars. Ironically, of course, it depicts the old wars.
ASHRAF BARHOM is an intense 30-year old Christian Arab-Israeli actor/poet who plays a Saudi Colonel "Al-Ghazi" teamed up with an FBI Agent Ronald Fleury, played in turn by the brilliant black American, JAMIE FOXX. The Islamic terrorist mastermind of the film is played by a Jew, and it was shot in Arizona, with exterior driving dub-shots done in Dubai.
Just the fact that this has happened, that this film-making is a consummated reality, is wonderful news from The-World-is-a-Better-Place-Than-It-Appears front. We are seeing waves of these new tribes-people -- new associations, new invasions, new nomads, new settlers. They are bringing their gifts and talents and hopes into areas of spent tyranny: Ironically, the "kingdom" referred to here is "Saudi Arabia". This is complicated, but Hollywood has found geopolitics. At last.
We are all Arabs. We are all Jews. We are all mongrel tribes, trying to raise our families in peace and looking for prosperity. We are all minorities -- especially those of us in Power at the Top. Minorities. And we move in a mob: The Pack, the Tribe, with its own hopes for the best.
Sure, there remain the empty invocations. Remnant Nazi sympathizers still people the globe with scapegoats for their own alarming defalcations and failures -- for example, even IF there was a "bad Jew" somewhere doing something, is there anything WORSE than what Hitler/Himmler/Goebbels directly did TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE? Now, we appreciate the fact that Hitler's grandmother was Jewish, but it is not Justice to blame the victim for being the victim while claiming the predator is the victim.
There is great news coming out of the Media Tribes. Great news in terms of world peace, and the hope that men and women really love their families and want to prosper, that is, want peace, rather than suffering in constant war. The Media Tribes have supplanted the "nations". Granted they have the chaotic limitations of tribes, but the new tribes are inspired in ways that "nations" are not.
The new Media Tribes which form around the grand enterprise of making Movies, for example, have over-powered the narrow and self-defeating provincialisms of the old tribalisms. But one example, THE KINGDOM, a film made by a Hollywood tribe which has accreted a wonderful cast and team from around the world. Whether the film as film is any good is beside the point -- it took a magnificent tribe to make it. And this making is in the millions, and arches over borders and hatreds and old wars. Ironically, of course, it depicts the old wars.
ASHRAF BARHOM is an intense 30-year old Christian Arab-Israeli actor/poet who plays a Saudi Colonel "Al-Ghazi" teamed up with an FBI Agent Ronald Fleury, played in turn by the brilliant black American, JAMIE FOXX. The Islamic terrorist mastermind of the film is played by a Jew, and it was shot in Arizona, with exterior driving dub-shots done in Dubai.
Just the fact that this has happened, that this film-making is a consummated reality, is wonderful news from The-World-is-a-Better-Place-Than-It-Appears front. We are seeing waves of these new tribes-people -- new associations, new invasions, new nomads, new settlers. They are bringing their gifts and talents and hopes into areas of spent tyranny: Ironically, the "kingdom" referred to here is "Saudi Arabia". This is complicated, but Hollywood has found geopolitics. At last.
We are all Arabs. We are all Jews. We are all mongrel tribes, trying to raise our families in peace and looking for prosperity. We are all minorities -- especially those of us in Power at the Top. Minorities. And we move in a mob: The Pack, the Tribe, with its own hopes for the best.
Preserve us from those who would "save" us
Do you see a rise of "finger-pointing"? The recent welter of Rovian "attack ads" are nothing more than the application of mob-mongering scape-goating from the Dark Ages of every previous political disaster. Yet, in pointing this out, am I also doing that which I accuse Karl Rove of doing -- that is, "attacking" him?
The difference is that I BLAME HIM, not a scape-goat. I do not blame a Race, a party, a group with unalterable characteristics. He is to blame. He vigorously applied the "strategy" -- not original to him -- of spreading false rumors about other candidates so as to distort every campaign he touched. At the time he spread the defamation, he knew the truth -- for example:
(1) on the eve of George Bush's first race for Governor of Texas, Karl Rove knew that Ann Richards was not and never was a "lesbian";
(2) during the party nomination for President, Karl Rove knew that Senator McCain was not a "traitor",
(3) in the election of 2004, Karl Rove knew that John Kerry acted honorably in discharging his duties as an officer on a Swiftboat; and
(4) when Karl Rove, who never served in the military, never served his country in any capacity, and has lost no limbs or undertaken risks on its behalf, smeared Max Cleveland as a "sniveling defeatist", he knew the truth that Cleveland was a war hero.
Why has this man been able to "accomplish" so much for himself at the expense of the public? Because Rove spread the defamation under color of righteousness -- by claiming to be saving us from the Bad Thing he rumors of his opponent. And surely we need the redemption.
But now, what saves us from the false redeemer?
The difference is that I BLAME HIM, not a scape-goat. I do not blame a Race, a party, a group with unalterable characteristics. He is to blame. He vigorously applied the "strategy" -- not original to him -- of spreading false rumors about other candidates so as to distort every campaign he touched. At the time he spread the defamation, he knew the truth -- for example:
(1) on the eve of George Bush's first race for Governor of Texas, Karl Rove knew that Ann Richards was not and never was a "lesbian";
(2) during the party nomination for President, Karl Rove knew that Senator McCain was not a "traitor",
(3) in the election of 2004, Karl Rove knew that John Kerry acted honorably in discharging his duties as an officer on a Swiftboat; and
(4) when Karl Rove, who never served in the military, never served his country in any capacity, and has lost no limbs or undertaken risks on its behalf, smeared Max Cleveland as a "sniveling defeatist", he knew the truth that Cleveland was a war hero.
Why has this man been able to "accomplish" so much for himself at the expense of the public? Because Rove spread the defamation under color of righteousness -- by claiming to be saving us from the Bad Thing he rumors of his opponent. And surely we need the redemption.
But now, what saves us from the false redeemer?
The Rise and Fall of Scape-Goading
Goading the mob, invoking a tribal hatred the embers of which have always warmed our fears, is a sure sign of tyranny afoot.
A bully, the one parading in the sand-lot of his infantilism, will always pick on the vulnerable, the tolerant, the ones whose humiliation brings no immediate consequences. Do you ever see bullies "picking on" the powerful?
It appears that certain people are out looking for a "scape-goat". Why? What oversight or error of their own are they trying to hide? Why goad the mob with fingerpointing and accusations against "others"?
We face the scape-goaders on all sides of the extremes:
The goaders from the CONSERVATIVE soap-box try to blame a "conspiracy" of change, as if anything ever stays the same. These goaders only replace others in power with themselves and nothing is preserved as a result of their false restorations.
The goaders from the COMMUNIST soap-box try to blame a "conspiracy" of stasis, as if anything ever changes. These goaders only replace others in power with themselves and nothing changes as a result of their false reforms.
A bully, the one parading in the sand-lot of his infantilism, will always pick on the vulnerable, the tolerant, the ones whose humiliation brings no immediate consequences. Do you ever see bullies "picking on" the powerful?
It appears that certain people are out looking for a "scape-goat". Why? What oversight or error of their own are they trying to hide? Why goad the mob with fingerpointing and accusations against "others"?
We face the scape-goaders on all sides of the extremes:
The goaders from the CONSERVATIVE soap-box try to blame a "conspiracy" of change, as if anything ever stays the same. These goaders only replace others in power with themselves and nothing is preserved as a result of their false restorations.
The goaders from the COMMUNIST soap-box try to blame a "conspiracy" of stasis, as if anything ever changes. These goaders only replace others in power with themselves and nothing changes as a result of their false reforms.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The sudden disappearance of Great Rulers - the Moche
We have seen so many "civilizations" which have fallen. All people have "classes" -- the plebians and the patricians who rule them. But the "rulers" are rarely wise, rarely deserving of the special treatment they require. Tney "spell out" for us how worthless and empty the pretense to superiority is.
In South America, I have seen the Huacas. In the desert, the Moche built great cities. The Huaca del Sol and de Luna are the greatest structures built in the New World before 1500 A.D. The Moche were also the greatest craftsmen of the chaleolithic peoples. Their food was grown using wonderful brick aquaducts. But what do we know of their disappearance?
They left a record of images and stories on pots and walls, including the slow blood-letting and "sacrifice" of prisoners captured live in battle.
Dr. John Verano, Tulane University, was the bone specialist who studied a field of skeltons to determine cause of death. Thin slash marks to the front of the neck bones, some with hundreds of marks -- indicating the muscle was cut and removed from the bone. The images on the pottery were not "stories", they were pictures of actual sacrifice.
Around 650 A.D. the Moche quite suddenly vanished. El Nino - the name we give to the wet weather that hits the coast of Sur America -- strikes every five years or so, but at exactly the same time the Moche collapsed, the weather was going haywire. A major El Nino on the coast, with flooding and landslides, occurred, and drought and dust conditions followed in the mountains -- a mega-drought.
Here is a clear example of a huge and specialized civilization which was powerless before an epic change of weather.
In South America, I have seen the Huacas. In the desert, the Moche built great cities. The Huaca del Sol and de Luna are the greatest structures built in the New World before 1500 A.D. The Moche were also the greatest craftsmen of the chaleolithic peoples. Their food was grown using wonderful brick aquaducts. But what do we know of their disappearance?
They left a record of images and stories on pots and walls, including the slow blood-letting and "sacrifice" of prisoners captured live in battle.
Dr. John Verano, Tulane University, was the bone specialist who studied a field of skeltons to determine cause of death. Thin slash marks to the front of the neck bones, some with hundreds of marks -- indicating the muscle was cut and removed from the bone. The images on the pottery were not "stories", they were pictures of actual sacrifice.
Around 650 A.D. the Moche quite suddenly vanished. El Nino - the name we give to the wet weather that hits the coast of Sur America -- strikes every five years or so, but at exactly the same time the Moche collapsed, the weather was going haywire. A major El Nino on the coast, with flooding and landslides, occurred, and drought and dust conditions followed in the mountains -- a mega-drought.
Here is a clear example of a huge and specialized civilization which was powerless before an epic change of weather.
Conquest of the Inca - by women, and Atahualpa's enemies
We are told that the pig-sty maker Pizarro, wielding steel and harquebus' from horseback, conquered tens of thousands of warriors and seized the Inca Empire. In fact almost everything taught about this event is untrue and so implausible that it is monument to human gullibility that it has stretched over our "education" for almost 600 years. Perhaps the true story some day will be told, and it will be revealed from two sources:
(1) archeology - which will reveal how the warriors in the great armies of the Inca actually died (Hint: few were killed by steel weaponry, most by native stone clubs and spears), and
(2) the law suits in which Pizarro's children, who were born of the great and largely unknown "wife" taken by Pizarro at the outset of his "conquest". His wife was a princess of one of Atahualpa's enemies. Curiously, the legal records completely contradict the so-called historias of the priests who recorded Pizarro's conquest.
(1) archeology - which will reveal how the warriors in the great armies of the Inca actually died (Hint: few were killed by steel weaponry, most by native stone clubs and spears), and
(2) the law suits in which Pizarro's children, who were born of the great and largely unknown "wife" taken by Pizarro at the outset of his "conquest". His wife was a princess of one of Atahualpa's enemies. Curiously, the legal records completely contradict the so-called historias of the priests who recorded Pizarro's conquest.
Trumpeters - one of the mirroring leitmotifs of a culture
Most of us honor the Sunday Park "airing" of Arban in developing the trumpet as an outdoor instrument; we still use his book.
Then the black New Orleans/Chicago influences - brought mainstream by Bix Beiderbeck, and opened internationally with Sachmo - Louis Armstrong. A Big Band golden age led by Sachmo and "Big Bop" Maynard Ferguson, Dizzy Gillespie. Still dancing zydeco java jazz - Al Hirt.
Ralph Mendez - warmed up the Latin influences and showed that trumpeters could play continuously using circular breathing. The Cubano, Arturo Sandoval with the most beautiful sound, and Latin jazz.
Maurice Andre reached up into the C and G ranges, and the piccolo and classical trumpet. Maurice also gets credit for bringing out the "charm" of the instrument -- smooth, easy-listening, supple phrasing.
Tijuana Brass sound of Herb Alpert. His 1965 Album, "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" sold more than 14 million copies, and by 1966 he was bigger than the Beatles. From dancing to nervous breakdown and later, serious consciousness raising, always improvising off interesting melodies and rhythm structures.
Doc Severinson made it nightly with Johnny Carson's Tonite Show. One of the first of the great Monsters, and showing the power of space-age pop.
Jack "trying to get good" Sheldon broadened the play as Merv Griffin's superior sideman -- not only as a jazzman, but with a 17-piece orchestra, as a balladeer, goldening the age of Los Angeles Hollywood.
Miles Davis influenced Chet Baker, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Herb Pomeroy, Alan Dawson, Dave Lambert, Charlie Mingus. Eventually the incredible "screamers" (Ferguson) were surpassed with jazz fusion and smooth jazz.
Hugh Masekela - In the 60's introduced the 8-quarter runs echoed in traditional drum-song, and became a global music legend (with his sweet former wife vocalist). In 2000's he is still show-casing with the Chissa All-stars.
Chuck Mangione - opened up the range between elevator background and fluegel horn concert arrangements.
Finally, a kind of apotheosis: Wynton Marsalis - the first musician to win Grammy's in both Classical and Jazz performance. Top improvizations. Maybe the greatest combination of ear, talent, heart and intelligence.
Now, a new generation is stepping up. The English-woman, Alison Balsom is performing in 2008 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Walt Disney Concert Hall, not only from her Andre-influenced easy-listening honey-coated effortless high notes, but also with avant-garde jazz. Debut on Prairie Home/Keillor January 2008, showing how a gold trumpet can deliver "folk" melodies.
WADADA LEO SMITH. Leading brass instrumentalist composer and teacher. Working free jazz and world music for decades.
FESTIVAL OF NEW TRUMPET MUSIC. Trumpeter Dave Douglas has sponsored "FONT" for now its Sixth Year in New York City. Strong performances and compositions with Taylor Ho Bynum and Jeremy Pelt, Eddie Allen, Ralph Alessi, Mark Isham, Pheeroan ak-Leef, John Zorn. www.fontmusic.org.
CHRIS BOTTI. Album "Chris Botti in Boston" {Boston Pops}. With Josh [Berman? tenor], Sting (both had the nerve to start over on improvs that do not go right, and audience appreciated/remembers "Shape of my Heart" - squared, harmon mute), John Mayer, etc.
GREG ADAMS - works with mesmerizing vocalist Daryl Walker, composer, producer, player. Mix of jazz, pop, San Francisco funk since the 1970's, and just played Laguna Festival of Arts on 2010 tour. Soulful touches.
Then the black New Orleans/Chicago influences - brought mainstream by Bix Beiderbeck, and opened internationally with Sachmo - Louis Armstrong. A Big Band golden age led by Sachmo and "Big Bop" Maynard Ferguson, Dizzy Gillespie. Still dancing zydeco java jazz - Al Hirt.
Ralph Mendez - warmed up the Latin influences and showed that trumpeters could play continuously using circular breathing. The Cubano, Arturo Sandoval with the most beautiful sound, and Latin jazz.
Maurice Andre reached up into the C and G ranges, and the piccolo and classical trumpet. Maurice also gets credit for bringing out the "charm" of the instrument -- smooth, easy-listening, supple phrasing.
Tijuana Brass sound of Herb Alpert. His 1965 Album, "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" sold more than 14 million copies, and by 1966 he was bigger than the Beatles. From dancing to nervous breakdown and later, serious consciousness raising, always improvising off interesting melodies and rhythm structures.
Doc Severinson made it nightly with Johnny Carson's Tonite Show. One of the first of the great Monsters, and showing the power of space-age pop.
Jack "trying to get good" Sheldon broadened the play as Merv Griffin's superior sideman -- not only as a jazzman, but with a 17-piece orchestra, as a balladeer, goldening the age of Los Angeles Hollywood.
Miles Davis influenced Chet Baker, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Herb Pomeroy, Alan Dawson, Dave Lambert, Charlie Mingus. Eventually the incredible "screamers" (Ferguson) were surpassed with jazz fusion and smooth jazz.
Hugh Masekela - In the 60's introduced the 8-quarter runs echoed in traditional drum-song, and became a global music legend (with his sweet former wife vocalist). In 2000's he is still show-casing with the Chissa All-stars.
Chuck Mangione - opened up the range between elevator background and fluegel horn concert arrangements.
Finally, a kind of apotheosis: Wynton Marsalis - the first musician to win Grammy's in both Classical and Jazz performance. Top improvizations. Maybe the greatest combination of ear, talent, heart and intelligence.
Now, a new generation is stepping up. The English-woman, Alison Balsom is performing in 2008 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Walt Disney Concert Hall, not only from her Andre-influenced easy-listening honey-coated effortless high notes, but also with avant-garde jazz. Debut on Prairie Home/Keillor January 2008, showing how a gold trumpet can deliver "folk" melodies.
WADADA LEO SMITH. Leading brass instrumentalist composer and teacher. Working free jazz and world music for decades.
FESTIVAL OF NEW TRUMPET MUSIC. Trumpeter Dave Douglas has sponsored "FONT" for now its Sixth Year in New York City. Strong performances and compositions with Taylor Ho Bynum and Jeremy Pelt, Eddie Allen, Ralph Alessi, Mark Isham, Pheeroan ak-Leef, John Zorn. www.fontmusic.org.
CHRIS BOTTI. Album "Chris Botti in Boston" {Boston Pops}. With Josh [Berman? tenor], Sting (both had the nerve to start over on improvs that do not go right, and audience appreciated/remembers "Shape of my Heart" - squared, harmon mute), John Mayer, etc.
GREG ADAMS - works with mesmerizing vocalist Daryl Walker, composer, producer, player. Mix of jazz, pop, San Francisco funk since the 1970's, and just played Laguna Festival of Arts on 2010 tour. Soulful touches.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Alan Greenspan documents the abandonment of fiscal restraint by the Republican Party leadership
Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman who served as the leading economist of our once-respected Republican Party for 3 decades, has capped his service in his book, The Age of Turbulence. He documents the fact that President George W. Bush, and the entire GOP under the leadership of his cabal, completely abandoned the "conservative principle" of fiscal restraint. He expressly honors President Clinton for his intelligence, principles, and antideficit policies.
According to Bob Woodward (Washington Post), Greenspan has repeatedly expressed deep disappointment with the Bush-Cheney-Rowe Administration and its out-of-control spending. Greenspan frankly viewed the 2000 election "as a golden opportunity", with the GOP in control of the Courts, Congress, the Presidency and the Media. Like the rest of us who feel that the Republican Party was taken over by pirates, he feels betrayed. Like only he could do, however, he has documented the facts of the betrayal -- the occasions missed and miss-steps taken.
According to Bob Woodward (Washington Post), Greenspan has repeatedly expressed deep disappointment with the Bush-Cheney-Rowe Administration and its out-of-control spending. Greenspan frankly viewed the 2000 election "as a golden opportunity", with the GOP in control of the Courts, Congress, the Presidency and the Media. Like the rest of us who feel that the Republican Party was taken over by pirates, he feels betrayed. Like only he could do, however, he has documented the facts of the betrayal -- the occasions missed and miss-steps taken.
On his Watch - US Attorney General, Alberto R. Gonzales
"Over the past 2 1/2 years, I have seen tyranny, dishonesty, corruption and depravity of types I never thought possible."
Mr. Alberto R. Gonzales, appointed US Attorney General by his long-time friend, George W. Bush, at the ceremony "in his honor" on the occasion of his resignation from the scandal-scarred Justice Department. Under previous Administrations, the Department had the mission of ferreting out injustice. Now, it appears, we had an individual in charge of prosecuting injustice who by his own account was observing it.
Mr. Alberto R. Gonzales, appointed US Attorney General by his long-time friend, George W. Bush, at the ceremony "in his honor" on the occasion of his resignation from the scandal-scarred Justice Department. Under previous Administrations, the Department had the mission of ferreting out injustice. Now, it appears, we had an individual in charge of prosecuting injustice who by his own account was observing it.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Personal Motto - official announcement of abeyance
Jahresbericht or Soup d’ Journal : REGARDING THE PERSONAL MOTTO
Maybe it’s a bad idea to have a personal motto. When it’s not a senseless burden, it gets me into trouble. I started with JURIS PRAECEPTA SUNT HAEC: HONESTE VIVERE,; ALTERUM NON LAEDERE; SUUM CUIQUE TRIBUERE (“The precepts of the law are these: to live honorably; to hurt nobody; to render everyone his due”). Of course, that never worked: my peers thought I thought I was better than they were. My superiors thought I was trying to hurt them by making them look bad. As for people subordinate to me, all of them seemed to think that I was trying to take away the nothing they had. Both of them savagely accused me of trying to render to them what they deserved.
So, I took as motto what became my shibboleth : SEEK TRUTH, BE LOVED, AND MAKE A LIVING. At least this motto was not in Latin, a language of arenal failures, and ancients who erst-whiled away their time burning libraries, and crucifying Zionists for which they blamed the Jews, triply victimizing their victims. Secondly, it contains a vector of direction from the tension of an expanding trinity, a sort of Hegelian dialogue, suggesting that in practical action (the artifice of “making” a living out of Doing and Being) can be found the common ground between the incompatible antipodes of Truth and Love.
But this has not worked either. A motto becomes a rut, a sewer, and not in a good way. The motto only reminds me of my flush, epidemic, broad, and abundant failures - my axle-broke cart dragged to the sunken shoulder. I am road killed, over-run by a million, count ‘em, Sport-Utility Vehicles. What I thought had utility has become someone else’s sport. My wheels are not merely broken, they do not fit any known chassis. I have not found truth. I have not glimpsed even a passing resemblance.
As for the second clause, it is harder to be Loved than I ever imagined. It feels like an un-natural act. It may even be that “crime against Nature” which is so often discussed in the literature of pricks. It is clear to me, it is often spelled out and spoon-fed to me, that I am not loved outside my immediate family members, a dwindling group which is calling in help as we speak . Most people have never even “liked” me – we are hardly in the swill ball-park of Love. The mutuality of open hostility appears to be growing. Large parts of me seem to have joined the “other” side of this issue.
As for my livelihood, it has never risen to the level of being a “livelihood”. There is no “there” there. I struggle for existence, overwhelmed by the details of survival. Just the other day I was accosted by a man who owes me money for services I performed at his request – and he wanted to know when I would pay him. Whatever I seem to have made, is not a “living”.
It does not appear productive to pretend to a motto more painful than aspirational. So, I am looking for a new motto, something more appropriate to a man of my station: A terminal station at the end of a parallel line of rust in a jungle of desert at the bottom of a dry sea. A slogan suitable to someone who has been handed the remote which controls no known appliance.
I am thinking of “To sow the sea, reap the tears, and fake a dying”. This ought to give pauze to myself as I plunge into the rigors of remorse, remonstration, and regret. It may also give bone to that jaw of steps, a run of landings in that “hindsight” of the brain – its espirit d’escalier – which can see patterns of Guilt emerge from the shadows of the past, and which is really the only window in my log-cabin.
Or perhaps the cheery bon-mot “Memento Mori”, for those of us who love life, but not particularly this life. Unfortunately, I do not think there is any other “life” – after, or extra-terrestial, or otherwise – so perhaps this adversion to death, as if it has consequences, is too hopeful.
Well, I have not found a suitable replacement. And having lived so long with the “tape” of a motto, replaying the worm so to speak, with the having of a motto, I will try to find one before I jettison my old one. But you should know, for the record, or for the DVD in the sky, that my old motto – Seek Truth, Be Loved, and Make a Living – is no longer, if it ever was, invoked.
Under the circumstances, no decent burial arrangements are being made. We cannot afford the fuel for a pyre. We were thinking of exposing it to the sky and letting eagles tear out its liver every day. Eagles eat fish and this one is fishy enough.
Maybe it’s a bad idea to have a personal motto. When it’s not a senseless burden, it gets me into trouble. I started with JURIS PRAECEPTA SUNT HAEC: HONESTE VIVERE,; ALTERUM NON LAEDERE; SUUM CUIQUE TRIBUERE (“The precepts of the law are these: to live honorably; to hurt nobody; to render everyone his due”). Of course, that never worked: my peers thought I thought I was better than they were. My superiors thought I was trying to hurt them by making them look bad. As for people subordinate to me, all of them seemed to think that I was trying to take away the nothing they had. Both of them savagely accused me of trying to render to them what they deserved.
So, I took as motto what became my shibboleth : SEEK TRUTH, BE LOVED, AND MAKE A LIVING. At least this motto was not in Latin, a language of arenal failures, and ancients who erst-whiled away their time burning libraries, and crucifying Zionists for which they blamed the Jews, triply victimizing their victims. Secondly, it contains a vector of direction from the tension of an expanding trinity, a sort of Hegelian dialogue, suggesting that in practical action (the artifice of “making” a living out of Doing and Being) can be found the common ground between the incompatible antipodes of Truth and Love.
But this has not worked either. A motto becomes a rut, a sewer, and not in a good way. The motto only reminds me of my flush, epidemic, broad, and abundant failures - my axle-broke cart dragged to the sunken shoulder. I am road killed, over-run by a million, count ‘em, Sport-Utility Vehicles. What I thought had utility has become someone else’s sport. My wheels are not merely broken, they do not fit any known chassis. I have not found truth. I have not glimpsed even a passing resemblance.
As for the second clause, it is harder to be Loved than I ever imagined. It feels like an un-natural act. It may even be that “crime against Nature” which is so often discussed in the literature of pricks. It is clear to me, it is often spelled out and spoon-fed to me, that I am not loved outside my immediate family members, a dwindling group which is calling in help as we speak . Most people have never even “liked” me – we are hardly in the swill ball-park of Love. The mutuality of open hostility appears to be growing. Large parts of me seem to have joined the “other” side of this issue.
As for my livelihood, it has never risen to the level of being a “livelihood”. There is no “there” there. I struggle for existence, overwhelmed by the details of survival. Just the other day I was accosted by a man who owes me money for services I performed at his request – and he wanted to know when I would pay him. Whatever I seem to have made, is not a “living”.
It does not appear productive to pretend to a motto more painful than aspirational. So, I am looking for a new motto, something more appropriate to a man of my station: A terminal station at the end of a parallel line of rust in a jungle of desert at the bottom of a dry sea. A slogan suitable to someone who has been handed the remote which controls no known appliance.
I am thinking of “To sow the sea, reap the tears, and fake a dying”. This ought to give pauze to myself as I plunge into the rigors of remorse, remonstration, and regret. It may also give bone to that jaw of steps, a run of landings in that “hindsight” of the brain – its espirit d’escalier – which can see patterns of Guilt emerge from the shadows of the past, and which is really the only window in my log-cabin.
Or perhaps the cheery bon-mot “Memento Mori”, for those of us who love life, but not particularly this life. Unfortunately, I do not think there is any other “life” – after, or extra-terrestial, or otherwise – so perhaps this adversion to death, as if it has consequences, is too hopeful.
Well, I have not found a suitable replacement. And having lived so long with the “tape” of a motto, replaying the worm so to speak, with the having of a motto, I will try to find one before I jettison my old one. But you should know, for the record, or for the DVD in the sky, that my old motto – Seek Truth, Be Loved, and Make a Living – is no longer, if it ever was, invoked.
Under the circumstances, no decent burial arrangements are being made. We cannot afford the fuel for a pyre. We were thinking of exposing it to the sky and letting eagles tear out its liver every day. Eagles eat fish and this one is fishy enough.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Pechanga Casino Indians are denying membership to documented clans
Pechanga Indian leaders hired anthropologist John Johnson in 2004 to determine whether or not the Madariaga clan were members of the tribe.
Generations of Madariagas had grown up on the reservation. Family patriarch Lawrence Madariaga, 90, built his home there. He also built the local clinic, served on tribal committees and lived on Hunter Lane, named after his great-grandmother, Paulina Hunter. He received a lifetime achievement award from the tribe.
However, now that the tribe receives significant monthly checks from casino profits, there is a motive among Members to restrict Membership. When tribes are paid royalties from oil or the BIA by head-count, then Membership was inclusive. Now, when the pot stays the same, and the more Members, the less each receives, some family members were found to be frauds unfairly pocketing income. Most receive $20,000 each in monthly checks from casino profits.
John Johnson, the curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, hired as an expert witness on Luiseno genealogy, concluded that the Madariaga family was indeed descended from Hunter. He presented the proof that Paulina was a Temecula Indian from the Pechanga reservation. He showed her lineal descent from an original tribal ancestor.
However, the tribal enrollment committee, chose to ignore the facts. Ignore the facts, and keep more money for themselves.
Apparently rich people are pretty much the same, whether they come from poverty, spiritual traditions, or have access to the clearest expertise and wisdom. When people get rich, they want to keep it, and they want to be better off than others. Why keep the eggs if you can kill the goose?
FOOTNOTE on the Law. In cases around the country, the State and Federal Courts are "deferring" to the Tribal Councils who are excluding competing clan members they don't like, even when the decision is clearly contrary to the facts. Funny, the courts never deferred to the Councils when they were claiming lost land, resources, damages for broken treaties. All of a sudden Federal Courts no longer have jurisdiction over disputes between local sovereignties?
Generations of Madariagas had grown up on the reservation. Family patriarch Lawrence Madariaga, 90, built his home there. He also built the local clinic, served on tribal committees and lived on Hunter Lane, named after his great-grandmother, Paulina Hunter. He received a lifetime achievement award from the tribe.
However, now that the tribe receives significant monthly checks from casino profits, there is a motive among Members to restrict Membership. When tribes are paid royalties from oil or the BIA by head-count, then Membership was inclusive. Now, when the pot stays the same, and the more Members, the less each receives, some family members were found to be frauds unfairly pocketing income. Most receive $20,000 each in monthly checks from casino profits.
John Johnson, the curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, hired as an expert witness on Luiseno genealogy, concluded that the Madariaga family was indeed descended from Hunter. He presented the proof that Paulina was a Temecula Indian from the Pechanga reservation. He showed her lineal descent from an original tribal ancestor.
However, the tribal enrollment committee, chose to ignore the facts. Ignore the facts, and keep more money for themselves.
Apparently rich people are pretty much the same, whether they come from poverty, spiritual traditions, or have access to the clearest expertise and wisdom. When people get rich, they want to keep it, and they want to be better off than others. Why keep the eggs if you can kill the goose?
FOOTNOTE on the Law. In cases around the country, the State and Federal Courts are "deferring" to the Tribal Councils who are excluding competing clan members they don't like, even when the decision is clearly contrary to the facts. Funny, the courts never deferred to the Councils when they were claiming lost land, resources, damages for broken treaties. All of a sudden Federal Courts no longer have jurisdiction over disputes between local sovereignties?
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Cahokia and the 53 women in Mound 72
I am an apologist for the native and the immigrant, the builder of cities, and the nomad wanderer, or the brave immigrant looking for a place to raise a family. Still, let's accept the tangibles, the facts you can hold in your hand.
We have only recently unearthed the Mississippian cultures which reached a kind of apex in Cahokia -- at the confluence of three great rivers, and the soft riparian "bottom land" of America. The grayware is beautiful, the stone-ware stunning, the lay-out -- with its own solar Wood-henge -- is impressive. The symbols are almost all around the sun and fertility, almost none about war, and nothing has yet been unearthed that looks like blood-letting and human sacrifice.
Except there is that deep pit inside a charnel house with 50 men tossed contemporaneously and carelessly into it. There is the door-less stockade built by itself which appears to be a prison. While there is little evidence of war-loving or anthropophagous habits, there is this evidence of at least intermittent reprisal and severe punishment.
And Mound 72 -- at the edge, and askew by 90 degrees. The burial of a Lord, accompanied by four men whose hands and heads were removed, and by 53 women, laid in in two ranks, and apparently strangled.
There are many mysteries, but there should be no mystery about our Lords. They manipulate us with beliefs they themselves do not cherish, and they behave entirely differently than they require of us.
And we have only excavated less than 5%...? The past is the thing that haunts us. Is it possible to live? Knowing what comes out of the dirt of our past? The facts are damning.
We have only recently unearthed the Mississippian cultures which reached a kind of apex in Cahokia -- at the confluence of three great rivers, and the soft riparian "bottom land" of America. The grayware is beautiful, the stone-ware stunning, the lay-out -- with its own solar Wood-henge -- is impressive. The symbols are almost all around the sun and fertility, almost none about war, and nothing has yet been unearthed that looks like blood-letting and human sacrifice.
Except there is that deep pit inside a charnel house with 50 men tossed contemporaneously and carelessly into it. There is the door-less stockade built by itself which appears to be a prison. While there is little evidence of war-loving or anthropophagous habits, there is this evidence of at least intermittent reprisal and severe punishment.
And Mound 72 -- at the edge, and askew by 90 degrees. The burial of a Lord, accompanied by four men whose hands and heads were removed, and by 53 women, laid in in two ranks, and apparently strangled.
There are many mysteries, but there should be no mystery about our Lords. They manipulate us with beliefs they themselves do not cherish, and they behave entirely differently than they require of us.
And we have only excavated less than 5%...? The past is the thing that haunts us. Is it possible to live? Knowing what comes out of the dirt of our past? The facts are damning.
Choice - choosing the Chooser
There are many perfectly helpful concepts for which we have no "word". There are many words we actually use, but which have lost all usability; they no longer "apply". Choice is clearly a residual "word" used by people who no longer believe in the concept. Or we do "believe", but we understand that the "chooser of the chooser", or the chemistry of desire, and the inner embedded story-teller, are all things that negate or neutralize the concept of "choice". It is of no consolation that the concept of "belief" is also horning the dilemma of our sit.
I want to suggest that the brain/personality is up to the task of finding "choice". Do not let yourself off this hook: You are choosing your life. Look at the exceptions that prove rules. And those desires -- how many of us would lose a head if our dreams were judged? How bitter, how salted, how merciless are our whims. Are they to be irresistable as well?
We are inside our story. Still, that next page is blank. There is really no law, no chemistry inside, and no judge, no tyrant, which can force the ending. Who knows.
I want to suggest that the brain/personality is up to the task of finding "choice". Do not let yourself off this hook: You are choosing your life. Look at the exceptions that prove rules. And those desires -- how many of us would lose a head if our dreams were judged? How bitter, how salted, how merciless are our whims. Are they to be irresistable as well?
We are inside our story. Still, that next page is blank. There is really no law, no chemistry inside, and no judge, no tyrant, which can force the ending. Who knows.
Larry Craig, booked and pled guilty, taking a "wide stance" in a men's room
Curiously, a Republican Party which almost unanimously took the position that a Blow Job was "sexual intercourse" -- which would surprise most people who look up actual definitions and the definitions which were in play during Clinton's deposition -- is now claiming that expressly signaling for a Blow Job from a cute blonde police decoy is not "solicitation". I do not know why we bother with "definitions". People make up their minds based on ideology, prejudice and politics.
It is obvious that "family values" are not, and probably never have been, maintained by the elites who run things.
Where is the "moral outrage" of the Conservatives now? Jesus never directly decried the practices of Man-Loving. Read carefully about John the Beloved. It is not good enough to say that he adverted to the teachings of the Prophets, and some of them lived in a society which made homosexuality a capital offense. Or not -- there is a huge translation issue here, but it should be obvious to everyone that homosexuality is simply NOT one of the Ten Commandments. By ANY interpretation.
Jesus was not subtle, however, in condemning hypocrisy. Or untempered condemnation -- "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone", is the sound bite most of us come away with.
It is obvious that "family values" are not, and probably never have been, maintained by the elites who run things.
Where is the "moral outrage" of the Conservatives now? Jesus never directly decried the practices of Man-Loving. Read carefully about John the Beloved. It is not good enough to say that he adverted to the teachings of the Prophets, and some of them lived in a society which made homosexuality a capital offense. Or not -- there is a huge translation issue here, but it should be obvious to everyone that homosexuality is simply NOT one of the Ten Commandments. By ANY interpretation.
Jesus was not subtle, however, in condemning hypocrisy. Or untempered condemnation -- "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone", is the sound bite most of us come away with.
Pavarotti and the Requiem, Panis Panorum
The Music at Pavarotti's Funeral -- in Italy which adored him and had time to prepare -- these things do not always provide that luxury coupled with political opportunity -- should be listened to. I think they performed the LIBERA ME from Verdi's Requiem. It is almost an Opera on its own. The Introit, Dies Irae, the joy of the Sanctus. I think Placido Domingo was conducting it. Sting was there - did he sing? And I hear they played a video of two Pavarottis singing the Panis Panorum -- done as a duet with his Pappa. Andrea Bocelli sang deeply. And then there is that final C-major chord of the Requiem.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Origins of Language - and the Brain
How much of human language is actually "innate"? People seem to be able to speak "automatically", replaying tapes, much akin to the pigeon coo, the cat caterwaul, the wolf howl, and the monkey chatter. Elephants, bats, cetacea, and three orders of birds (parrots, hummingbirds and songbirds) have the ability to remember and reproduce sounds.
Yet humans, at least when young, are able to do more than "imitation", and can create different meanings from new sounds, a skill set no other creature has. The response of horses and dogs to specific vocal commands, the "sign language" learned by some Bonobos, and the mimicry of mynahs, all come short of the mastery which is the unique cultural artifact of humans, our Language.
Still, chemistry seems to lie at the heart of Language. Are there other brains we can study which would reveal the chemistry involved in producing Speech?
Enter the Zebra Finch. A native of Australia, with a brain smaller than most seeds, it has much to teach us about "vocal learning". The bird brain is in many ways more similar to a mammalian brain than first thought.
Erich Jarvis, 41 year old neurobiologist out of Duke University, is studying the chemistry of the Finch's songs. He asks: "What's the most complex thing a brain can do? Language." He says: "I am starting from the naive position that if you can decipher the most complex thing about how the brain works, everything else will fall into place."
Yet humans, at least when young, are able to do more than "imitation", and can create different meanings from new sounds, a skill set no other creature has. The response of horses and dogs to specific vocal commands, the "sign language" learned by some Bonobos, and the mimicry of mynahs, all come short of the mastery which is the unique cultural artifact of humans, our Language.
Still, chemistry seems to lie at the heart of Language. Are there other brains we can study which would reveal the chemistry involved in producing Speech?
Enter the Zebra Finch. A native of Australia, with a brain smaller than most seeds, it has much to teach us about "vocal learning". The bird brain is in many ways more similar to a mammalian brain than first thought.
Erich Jarvis, 41 year old neurobiologist out of Duke University, is studying the chemistry of the Finch's songs. He asks: "What's the most complex thing a brain can do? Language." He says: "I am starting from the naive position that if you can decipher the most complex thing about how the brain works, everything else will fall into place."
Fashion and the Renaissance we are inhabiting
In our contemporary times, we are sharing an enormous number of attributes that arose during the European Renaissance of the 1400's, including lack of central authority, creativity across a number of "arts", danger and disorder.
Take "fashion". Four hundred years ago, textile manufacture and arts were reaching "extreme" forms in Italy, France, England, Austria and Germany, breaking out of the black robes and white ruffles of medievaldom. In the last 50 years, again, we see extraordinary creativity in Fashion -- with the dominance of Fashion Houses and the living legends of Valentino (red evening gowns), Giorgio Armani (chic suits for men), Karl Lagerfeld (reinventing the Chanel suit), and the international powerhouses of Dior, Lacroix, Prada, Gucci as brands.
It is insensible, but it is part of "renaissance".
Take "fashion". Four hundred years ago, textile manufacture and arts were reaching "extreme" forms in Italy, France, England, Austria and Germany, breaking out of the black robes and white ruffles of medievaldom. In the last 50 years, again, we see extraordinary creativity in Fashion -- with the dominance of Fashion Houses and the living legends of Valentino (red evening gowns), Giorgio Armani (chic suits for men), Karl Lagerfeld (reinventing the Chanel suit), and the international powerhouses of Dior, Lacroix, Prada, Gucci as brands.
It is insensible, but it is part of "renaissance".
Unsung role of Dinner in the Historical rise of Cooperative Action
Why is it that at particular times and places, a certain collection of individuals set aside their competitive natures, their feuding, and take collective action? The otherwise inexplicable "union" of disparate peoples into Mongols (from feuding tribes), or British, or Americans, for example, how does this happen?
We know that Ghengis Khan met with the man who had killed his father and who, by all the traditions of race and tribe, he should have avenged in blood. We know that instead of combat, the two met over Dinner, again and again, and invited others to the feast, and instead of continuing centuries of blood feuds, they formed a new and unitary concept -- the "Mongol" meme was formed.
More recently, we are able to give names to the people who were in charge of the unifying Dinner. For example, the American Colonies were extremely fractious. Even after cobbled together in the sinews of War and Treaties of Trade, each "State" was jealous and a creature of its native and competitively loyal sons. In particular, the "Southern" Virginians (Jeffersonians) and the "Northern" New Englanders (Federalists) were riven by major cultural and economic divisions. Yet the "United" States held together through the War of 1812 in spite of the total destruction of its capital, its economy, its Navy, its military, and the loss of every possible ally. France did not come on this occasion. The best explanation for the residual survival of the Americans as a unified country is...Dinner! Dolly Madison, the wife of the President during this "final" destruction of the Revolutionary impulse, was such a great hostess, we are still familiar with her name to this day as a Dinner enabler.
Again, a hostess serves as the best explanation for the ascendence of the "British" people in their most golden hours. At the turn of the century in the 1800-1900's, Dinner became a profound event in England. The viciously competitive scions of the nasty little prep schools -- widely and uniformly described by a variety of writers (C.S. Lewis, Shaw, Chesterton, Dahl) -- set aside their squabbles and dominated the world in a thinly-spread unitary action. Why? In the same period, it was the golden age of Dining. Jenny Churchill would deliberately invite arch-enemies to dinner, and somewhere between the chery and the cheroot, they would put aside their hostilities, and proceed to govern ungovernable India, build railroads in Bolivia, and trade centers in Africa and Hong Kong.
Of course, the hostess was a woman, and the "event", Dinner, was hardly monumental. Nothing is left in stone. Still, the China is there.
Speaking of "the China", the discovery of ceramic techniques in China is itself a large and as yet unexplored explanation for how the Chinese civilization unified. Again, it was a Dinner event. The appeal to graces and the belly, under the auspices of a hostess whose name, and whose critical role, has been overlooked.
We know that Ghengis Khan met with the man who had killed his father and who, by all the traditions of race and tribe, he should have avenged in blood. We know that instead of combat, the two met over Dinner, again and again, and invited others to the feast, and instead of continuing centuries of blood feuds, they formed a new and unitary concept -- the "Mongol" meme was formed.
More recently, we are able to give names to the people who were in charge of the unifying Dinner. For example, the American Colonies were extremely fractious. Even after cobbled together in the sinews of War and Treaties of Trade, each "State" was jealous and a creature of its native and competitively loyal sons. In particular, the "Southern" Virginians (Jeffersonians) and the "Northern" New Englanders (Federalists) were riven by major cultural and economic divisions. Yet the "United" States held together through the War of 1812 in spite of the total destruction of its capital, its economy, its Navy, its military, and the loss of every possible ally. France did not come on this occasion. The best explanation for the residual survival of the Americans as a unified country is...Dinner! Dolly Madison, the wife of the President during this "final" destruction of the Revolutionary impulse, was such a great hostess, we are still familiar with her name to this day as a Dinner enabler.
Again, a hostess serves as the best explanation for the ascendence of the "British" people in their most golden hours. At the turn of the century in the 1800-1900's, Dinner became a profound event in England. The viciously competitive scions of the nasty little prep schools -- widely and uniformly described by a variety of writers (C.S. Lewis, Shaw, Chesterton, Dahl) -- set aside their squabbles and dominated the world in a thinly-spread unitary action. Why? In the same period, it was the golden age of Dining. Jenny Churchill would deliberately invite arch-enemies to dinner, and somewhere between the chery and the cheroot, they would put aside their hostilities, and proceed to govern ungovernable India, build railroads in Bolivia, and trade centers in Africa and Hong Kong.
Of course, the hostess was a woman, and the "event", Dinner, was hardly monumental. Nothing is left in stone. Still, the China is there.
Speaking of "the China", the discovery of ceramic techniques in China is itself a large and as yet unexplored explanation for how the Chinese civilization unified. Again, it was a Dinner event. The appeal to graces and the belly, under the auspices of a hostess whose name, and whose critical role, has been overlooked.
Friday, September 07, 2007
The Legacy of a Secret Regime
A curious paradox has emerged from the heretofore VOLUME of books written by the officials who have fled their erstwhile positions in the Bush Administration: First of all, the expositions fly in the face of the insularity which characterized their office. It is so bizarre to hear this spectacle of song -- blabbing like gossips gathered at a watering hole -- after their service in the obsessively secret and press-shy administration of Bush-Cheney-Rove.
As Tim Rutten noted in his Bush-of-the-Month Club suggestion, "It's impossible to recall an administration in which quite so many people -- from the President on down -- were so eager to rat each other out." LAT 9/7/2007 book review.
Secondly, the number of song-birds are UNPRECEDENTED. In history, has there ever been such a wholesale effort to exploit Public Service -- however paltry the accomplishments, however insignificant the achievements -- for private gain? Even to the degree of trying to sell books "about" this Administration for royalties!
Apparently the secret is out. There were No Secrets. There was never a Plan, never a Good Idea, never a Vision. We were hoping, behind the non-disclosures, the secrecy, that our leaders had a vision. That hope is now in the waste-bin, put to rest by a tidal wave of eye-witness accounts giving comprehensive details to an Administration which has destroyed America with deliberate, consistent, and unflinching incompetence. It is a secret no more.
As Tim Rutten noted in his Bush-of-the-Month Club suggestion, "It's impossible to recall an administration in which quite so many people -- from the President on down -- were so eager to rat each other out." LAT 9/7/2007 book review.
Secondly, the number of song-birds are UNPRECEDENTED. In history, has there ever been such a wholesale effort to exploit Public Service -- however paltry the accomplishments, however insignificant the achievements -- for private gain? Even to the degree of trying to sell books "about" this Administration for royalties!
Apparently the secret is out. There were No Secrets. There was never a Plan, never a Good Idea, never a Vision. We were hoping, behind the non-disclosures, the secrecy, that our leaders had a vision. That hope is now in the waste-bin, put to rest by a tidal wave of eye-witness accounts giving comprehensive details to an Administration which has destroyed America with deliberate, consistent, and unflinching incompetence. It is a secret no more.
The Invasion of Iraq - Clear Error; an equipoise of Idiocy
There is a part of me still carrying DE OPPRESSO LIBER in my pocket. This is not only to honor my Green Beret brother, Hayden, but also because I know there are many victims of tyranny whose only hope is that someone will SHOOT the tyrant. There is no "dialogue" of words which a tyrant can understand. Tyranny is all about Power. Getting physical. That is the only language which tyrants speak.
So many of us were openly in favor of invading Iraq after 9/11. We were told, by the Bush Administration, that it was an appropriate action to take. We were dealing with a tyrant who was oppressing the people of Iraq, and he had clearly telegraphed his intentions to extort wealth from others. Thus, the Bush "rationale" appeared to be plausible.
It is now time to be Real Clear about Why the invasion of Iraq was exactly the Wrong Thing to do.
Those of us who thought that the President of the United States had a Plan and was surrounded by intelligent people who could understand Public Policy, were not only misled by the express lies of President Bush, but also by our own assumptions. But our assumptions were informed by the lies. For this, the Administration is quadruply responsible -- they were idiots (making decisions without information), they held Public Office only to benefiting themselves (in the actions and failures to act), they made us believe a "scapegoat" was the danger, and they lied to us.
Our knowledge that we are in dire straights and in danger is continually corroborated . Now add to this, the knowledge that our Administration is not going to help, is not capable of helping, and cannot "understand" the concept of Public Good. We are in REAL danger.
The only thing that "saves" us is the fact that virtually all the so-called "Terrorists" coming out of the so-called "Islamic tradition", are ALSO idiots. They are not "real" Terrorists -- most of these losers could not terrorize a nursery school. They are incapable of fighting and so they resort to blowing up unarmed civilians and children, in their own villages. They should not be elevated by comparison with real warriors -- for example, the American Indians on their Warpaths, the kidnapped Unitarian children in the Janissary cavalry of the Ottoman Empire, the Bedouin raiders, the Roman Infantry.
Iraqis are a brave people. Many are warriors. Real warriors have a distaste for arbitrary killing of unarmed women and children -- it is not honorable, it is a perversion of battle -- marketplace bombings are not worthy of a plan, monuments will not be built in commemoration of perverts and cowards. A bombing of a Mosque during prayers is not something a "believer" could do. It almost defines "idiot" -- sort of equivalent to the bombing of Saddam Hussein's palaces by Bush, who destroyed the country he was invading.
So what we have, what we end up pinning our hopes on, is the equipoise of idiocy. We who are caught between idiots, are only saved by the fact that on both sides the perpetrators of idiocy are hag-ridden by their own ignorance, incompetence, and wild devotion to blaming others. Their attention seems to drift except when finding fault. Whether it is Bush, or Bin Laden, or their utterly depraved minions, the only thing they seem to accomplish is blame. What are they capable of building?
So many of us were openly in favor of invading Iraq after 9/11. We were told, by the Bush Administration, that it was an appropriate action to take. We were dealing with a tyrant who was oppressing the people of Iraq, and he had clearly telegraphed his intentions to extort wealth from others. Thus, the Bush "rationale" appeared to be plausible.
It is now time to be Real Clear about Why the invasion of Iraq was exactly the Wrong Thing to do.
Those of us who thought that the President of the United States had a Plan and was surrounded by intelligent people who could understand Public Policy, were not only misled by the express lies of President Bush, but also by our own assumptions. But our assumptions were informed by the lies. For this, the Administration is quadruply responsible -- they were idiots (making decisions without information), they held Public Office only to benefiting themselves (in the actions and failures to act), they made us believe a "scapegoat" was the danger, and they lied to us.
Our knowledge that we are in dire straights and in danger is continually corroborated . Now add to this, the knowledge that our Administration is not going to help, is not capable of helping, and cannot "understand" the concept of Public Good. We are in REAL danger.
The only thing that "saves" us is the fact that virtually all the so-called "Terrorists" coming out of the so-called "Islamic tradition", are ALSO idiots. They are not "real" Terrorists -- most of these losers could not terrorize a nursery school. They are incapable of fighting and so they resort to blowing up unarmed civilians and children, in their own villages. They should not be elevated by comparison with real warriors -- for example, the American Indians on their Warpaths, the kidnapped Unitarian children in the Janissary cavalry of the Ottoman Empire, the Bedouin raiders, the Roman Infantry.
Iraqis are a brave people. Many are warriors. Real warriors have a distaste for arbitrary killing of unarmed women and children -- it is not honorable, it is a perversion of battle -- marketplace bombings are not worthy of a plan, monuments will not be built in commemoration of perverts and cowards. A bombing of a Mosque during prayers is not something a "believer" could do. It almost defines "idiot" -- sort of equivalent to the bombing of Saddam Hussein's palaces by Bush, who destroyed the country he was invading.
So what we have, what we end up pinning our hopes on, is the equipoise of idiocy. We who are caught between idiots, are only saved by the fact that on both sides the perpetrators of idiocy are hag-ridden by their own ignorance, incompetence, and wild devotion to blaming others. Their attention seems to drift except when finding fault. Whether it is Bush, or Bin Laden, or their utterly depraved minions, the only thing they seem to accomplish is blame. What are they capable of building?
When a "scapegoat" is persecuted, we are in danger
Sad day. I happened to Google "Jews", and discovered that many nakedly "anti-Jew" points of view are current. Why is this of Great Concern? Because in history, when someone starts picking on someone else who is for whatever reason relatively defenseless, it is a Very Bad Sign. It is a sign of tyranny.
In the last few centuries in Europe, The Jew has been a target of calumny. The defamers have used the Jew as a Scapegoat to avoid their own responsibilities as persons in Power. Scapegoating is NEVER a solution, final or otherwise, to any actual problems. The Tyrants always have an ulterior motive, and in the case of calumniation against the Jew, a fiendish cowardice. For centuries, tyrants have been picking on a group who are for the most part unarmed, poor, and powerless. The exceptions -- the Rothschilds, the Zionists -- actually prove the rule.
One of the first and largest sites with this invidious interest in "Jews", claims to be "the Internet's Largest Scholarly Collection of Articles on Jewish History". However, instead of being scholarly or historical, it meticulously reprints the most fiendish frauds and vicious calumnies. The result is to create an irrational hatred against an "other" group. Why would anyone do this?
First, because unlike attacking Power, an attack on a race almost guarantees that a warrior will not seek reprisal or justice against the defamer. No direct physical "counter-attack" is likely. Thus, the perpetrators of race calumny are the ultimate cowards.
Secondly, the calumny justifies theft. Describing the oppressed group -- the native people, ex-slaves, starving Irish, Huegenots, Moros, gypsies, Jews -- AS IF THEY WERE THE OPPRESSORS is done specifically so that a private person can benefit himself at their expense. A tyrant will get the mob to terrorize the victim into abandoning everything and fleeing. And then who gets the abandoned "stuff"? It has always gone directly into the private pockets of the defamer. This is Theft.
The bottom line here is that there are CURRENT attempts to duplicate the Nazi achievement: Hiding their cowardice behind the bullying of those who are helpless--making false accusations against "scapegoats" -- tyrants seek to enrich themselves at the expense, ultimately, of all of us. Will it work?
Thank God for Jews. They continue to serve as the "canary in the mine" of liberty. When they are attacked, we should all take immediate action. The air is souring, we are losing oxygen. It is getting dark. Life and Liberty for all is threatened. "The Jews" have never been the CAUSE of all the wars, diseases, famine and plagues. In fact, as relatively powerless and formerly stateless people, they suffered MORE from these events. The gratuitous name-calling of course, simply aggravates the suffering of poor people.
For the record, WE ARE ALL JEWS. We are all native people. We are all immigrants. We are Gypsies, Apaches, Aboriginals. We are Arabs. We are all a proud and distinguished race.
I am a Welsh Guardsman at the bridgehead, a Scottish claymore swung at the throat of tyrants, and a gentle Buddhist monk with his tire and a can of gasoline. I stand with the oppressed. If a tyrant thinks, for a minute, that he will ever, ever, take the stuff belonging to another, or benefit himself at the expense of others, or cause harm to another person, then he must also KNOW that he will never have peace while I live....
In the last few centuries in Europe, The Jew has been a target of calumny. The defamers have used the Jew as a Scapegoat to avoid their own responsibilities as persons in Power. Scapegoating is NEVER a solution, final or otherwise, to any actual problems. The Tyrants always have an ulterior motive, and in the case of calumniation against the Jew, a fiendish cowardice. For centuries, tyrants have been picking on a group who are for the most part unarmed, poor, and powerless. The exceptions -- the Rothschilds, the Zionists -- actually prove the rule.
One of the first and largest sites with this invidious interest in "Jews", claims to be "the Internet's Largest Scholarly Collection of Articles on Jewish History". However, instead of being scholarly or historical, it meticulously reprints the most fiendish frauds and vicious calumnies. The result is to create an irrational hatred against an "other" group. Why would anyone do this?
First, because unlike attacking Power, an attack on a race almost guarantees that a warrior will not seek reprisal or justice against the defamer. No direct physical "counter-attack" is likely. Thus, the perpetrators of race calumny are the ultimate cowards.
Secondly, the calumny justifies theft. Describing the oppressed group -- the native people, ex-slaves, starving Irish, Huegenots, Moros, gypsies, Jews -- AS IF THEY WERE THE OPPRESSORS is done specifically so that a private person can benefit himself at their expense. A tyrant will get the mob to terrorize the victim into abandoning everything and fleeing. And then who gets the abandoned "stuff"? It has always gone directly into the private pockets of the defamer. This is Theft.
The bottom line here is that there are CURRENT attempts to duplicate the Nazi achievement: Hiding their cowardice behind the bullying of those who are helpless--making false accusations against "scapegoats" -- tyrants seek to enrich themselves at the expense, ultimately, of all of us. Will it work?
Thank God for Jews. They continue to serve as the "canary in the mine" of liberty. When they are attacked, we should all take immediate action. The air is souring, we are losing oxygen. It is getting dark. Life and Liberty for all is threatened. "The Jews" have never been the CAUSE of all the wars, diseases, famine and plagues. In fact, as relatively powerless and formerly stateless people, they suffered MORE from these events. The gratuitous name-calling of course, simply aggravates the suffering of poor people.
For the record, WE ARE ALL JEWS. We are all native people. We are all immigrants. We are Gypsies, Apaches, Aboriginals. We are Arabs. We are all a proud and distinguished race.
I am a Welsh Guardsman at the bridgehead, a Scottish claymore swung at the throat of tyrants, and a gentle Buddhist monk with his tire and a can of gasoline. I stand with the oppressed. If a tyrant thinks, for a minute, that he will ever, ever, take the stuff belonging to another, or benefit himself at the expense of others, or cause harm to another person, then he must also KNOW that he will never have peace while I live....
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Keeping the pig in the epigram - archeology
The pig is not only an intelligent creature, remarkably similar to homo sapien in many ways. We share a similar digestive tract, omnivorous diet, curiosity, and ability to live alone or in herds.
We also share a long history of living together, although this relationship is recently betrayed on our part, now we are raising pigs in "factories". Pigs were probably the first "domesticated" animal after humans first domesticated themselves. In the Near East (Sumer, with possible earlier domestication at sites in Israel and Scythia), agriculture began 10,000 years ago, and only after a relationship with pigs was begun.
The migration routes of humans into Europe -- mainly along the Mediterranean and the riparian banks of the Danube -- are marked with pig bone. The Near Eastern pigs reached the Paris area in the heart of Europe around 4000 BC, and were thereafter displaced by a domesticated European boar, which was then taken back down the migration routes to the Near East and the rest of the world. By 600 BC the European pigs, the ancestors of our modern friend, had spread throughout the Near East and beyond, into Asia.
The earliest voyagers in the earliest ships, from the Phoenicians plying the Mediterranean, to the Portugese exploring Africa, to the fleet led by Ferdinand Magellan which first circumnavigated the globe in 1519, all carried pigs.
Today, many people, from Switzerland, through Turkey, and as far off as Indonesia, the Philippines, and South America, live with pigs in their homes. They are more than pets, and the relationship remains crucial to human survival.
You can hardly speak of human history without noting the fact that we share it with so many other creatures. Only three species on the planet lived so closely together, grew so attached, and are now no longer capable of being feral or living independently: the domestic human, dogs, and hogs.
Linguistically, our ancient connection to pigs survives to this day. Second only to the "dog" words, the "swine" words and expressions are the most commonly invoked animal words we use: pig in a poke, pig's eye, piggyback, piggybank, pigtail, hog-wild, whole hog, hogshead, hogtie, high off the hog, roadhog, pearls before swine, etc.
The Biblical expression "fat of the land" actually refers to the swine that provided lard for light and heat, and thick leather for shoes, even for those whose diet did not include pork. In fact, the relatively recent dietary restrictions by the Semites (Hebrews and Arabs, among others) apparently reflects a hatred of the Hittites, whose homes were entirely shared with the domestic pig, and an independent recognition of the economic value of pigs. The Bible is filled with proverbs and accounts of "swine-herders" -- showing that the relationship is more complex and nuanced than a simple dietary exclusion.
"Pork-belly" and "hog futures" have long been and continue to be one of the leading growth areas of the Markets across the planet. Unfortunately, some piglets are raised in horrid factories. We torture our food. This is surely unnecessary and ultimately unwise. Not just from the moral POV, which apparently does not exactly shine among us, but from the economics. How long will our late experiment with Urban Life last, where we have excluded our closest allies of 10,000 years of domesticity.
Our friendship is obviously betrayed. To what extent is this wholesale betrayal ultimately self-defeating? We are exposed to "market" forces which do not preserve long-term values. Piglet is hidden away with a million sows in a NIMBY factory polluting our water. The scale is distorted. We have become the fat of our land, overweight and useless people apparently destined for the same restricted "factory" life. We seem to have become our animals.
We also share a long history of living together, although this relationship is recently betrayed on our part, now we are raising pigs in "factories". Pigs were probably the first "domesticated" animal after humans first domesticated themselves. In the Near East (Sumer, with possible earlier domestication at sites in Israel and Scythia), agriculture began 10,000 years ago, and only after a relationship with pigs was begun.
The migration routes of humans into Europe -- mainly along the Mediterranean and the riparian banks of the Danube -- are marked with pig bone. The Near Eastern pigs reached the Paris area in the heart of Europe around 4000 BC, and were thereafter displaced by a domesticated European boar, which was then taken back down the migration routes to the Near East and the rest of the world. By 600 BC the European pigs, the ancestors of our modern friend, had spread throughout the Near East and beyond, into Asia.
The earliest voyagers in the earliest ships, from the Phoenicians plying the Mediterranean, to the Portugese exploring Africa, to the fleet led by Ferdinand Magellan which first circumnavigated the globe in 1519, all carried pigs.
Today, many people, from Switzerland, through Turkey, and as far off as Indonesia, the Philippines, and South America, live with pigs in their homes. They are more than pets, and the relationship remains crucial to human survival.
You can hardly speak of human history without noting the fact that we share it with so many other creatures. Only three species on the planet lived so closely together, grew so attached, and are now no longer capable of being feral or living independently: the domestic human, dogs, and hogs.
Linguistically, our ancient connection to pigs survives to this day. Second only to the "dog" words, the "swine" words and expressions are the most commonly invoked animal words we use: pig in a poke, pig's eye, piggyback, piggybank, pigtail, hog-wild, whole hog, hogshead, hogtie, high off the hog, roadhog, pearls before swine, etc.
The Biblical expression "fat of the land" actually refers to the swine that provided lard for light and heat, and thick leather for shoes, even for those whose diet did not include pork. In fact, the relatively recent dietary restrictions by the Semites (Hebrews and Arabs, among others) apparently reflects a hatred of the Hittites, whose homes were entirely shared with the domestic pig, and an independent recognition of the economic value of pigs. The Bible is filled with proverbs and accounts of "swine-herders" -- showing that the relationship is more complex and nuanced than a simple dietary exclusion.
"Pork-belly" and "hog futures" have long been and continue to be one of the leading growth areas of the Markets across the planet. Unfortunately, some piglets are raised in horrid factories. We torture our food. This is surely unnecessary and ultimately unwise. Not just from the moral POV, which apparently does not exactly shine among us, but from the economics. How long will our late experiment with Urban Life last, where we have excluded our closest allies of 10,000 years of domesticity.
Our friendship is obviously betrayed. To what extent is this wholesale betrayal ultimately self-defeating? We are exposed to "market" forces which do not preserve long-term values. Piglet is hidden away with a million sows in a NIMBY factory polluting our water. The scale is distorted. We have become the fat of our land, overweight and useless people apparently destined for the same restricted "factory" life. We seem to have become our animals.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
The purposes of language: Thoughts, Feelings, AND....
It is a warm day. Wife is off creating Quilts with a dear friend. Stunning textile tiles, BTW. So it occurs to me that my Aristotelian-Hegelian diadic dialogue is just another one of my categorical imperatives which should be gently shown the door, or I will brake another wheel in the great mud-rutting of my already swung-too-low ram-chariot and be further nowhere faster.
I am caught, of course, on the idea that Language is the handmaiden of Thought and Feeling - according each in their measure, as the candle flickers its light and sputters heat. This is surely a mistake. Another "theory" which hag-rides the Data, distorting the actual facts. It should be obvious to anyone actually trying to herd the word-cats, that The Great Communicator, Language, gives a rat's ass for either thinking or feeling. Nobody thinks about what others say or write -- most of what Plato wrote was lost out of indifference, and what remains, is it guiding our lives?
It is as obvious as gravity that our leaders are as ignorant of any wisdom tradition as it would be possible to be, and our "artists" are more concerned about expressing themselves through their agents for a bigger shot at wealth than about any contributions to beauty or esthetic "experience". No. Language is not the servant of Thinking and Feelings. Most people go blank, they play tapes, they speak what they learned as 4 year olds in a sandbox magically contracting grammar like a disease. We spend out lives in an echo-chamber, like birds "winging it", and profiling our Who-ing we Are-ing, largely for the purpose of perpetuating genes, breeding the breeding of our breeding. As lofty as any other life form. As responsible as a worm, and with as many clues about the sources of validation, the meaning of life, the arc of choice growing like a wild rose on the tangle-trellis of choosing.
Language. No. It is not necessary to quote Buddha/Socrates/Jesus/Mohammad/Smith, none of whom wrote ANYTHING. It is not necessary to invoke the experts, the Harvard faculty, the Blue-bloody Ribbon Committee, the Congressional Record. Each Word is another brick in the Wall. Words are no more vehicles of "thinking" or "expression" than they are obstacles to thought and feeling. Words are more Are than the linguists admit. The Language has much more to do with Singing, with being able to "go on" after a death, with moving into Imaginary Worlds, with the disposition of "a" on the XYZ dimensional grid, with foreplay. The Words just Are. There was the Beginning of them, and the painting of them on skull-caves, and the elaboration of them in giant Guilt-tiles we sew together in color and in designs and in patterns we can explain we do not know why.
Language has a lot to do with us. The television of it is an insult to your residual intelligence and my hopeful dreams. The radio of it falls on my head and suddenly the gravity of words motivates a thousand Newton you's to devote all of them/yourselves to algorithmic mad math-ness, to "prove" the core, to score the more and worry the less. The computering of words is the General Rule that proves the exceptionals, the purple people-eating hypothemus, the death of understanding and long-live understanding!
Eat my syllables. Got milk? Eat in rememberance of milk. The language you learned at the nipple, hoping for more.
I am caught, of course, on the idea that Language is the handmaiden of Thought and Feeling - according each in their measure, as the candle flickers its light and sputters heat. This is surely a mistake. Another "theory" which hag-rides the Data, distorting the actual facts. It should be obvious to anyone actually trying to herd the word-cats, that The Great Communicator, Language, gives a rat's ass for either thinking or feeling. Nobody thinks about what others say or write -- most of what Plato wrote was lost out of indifference, and what remains, is it guiding our lives?
It is as obvious as gravity that our leaders are as ignorant of any wisdom tradition as it would be possible to be, and our "artists" are more concerned about expressing themselves through their agents for a bigger shot at wealth than about any contributions to beauty or esthetic "experience". No. Language is not the servant of Thinking and Feelings. Most people go blank, they play tapes, they speak what they learned as 4 year olds in a sandbox magically contracting grammar like a disease. We spend out lives in an echo-chamber, like birds "winging it", and profiling our Who-ing we Are-ing, largely for the purpose of perpetuating genes, breeding the breeding of our breeding. As lofty as any other life form. As responsible as a worm, and with as many clues about the sources of validation, the meaning of life, the arc of choice growing like a wild rose on the tangle-trellis of choosing.
Language. No. It is not necessary to quote Buddha/Socrates/Jesus/Mohammad/Smith, none of whom wrote ANYTHING. It is not necessary to invoke the experts, the Harvard faculty, the Blue-bloody Ribbon Committee, the Congressional Record. Each Word is another brick in the Wall. Words are no more vehicles of "thinking" or "expression" than they are obstacles to thought and feeling. Words are more Are than the linguists admit. The Language has much more to do with Singing, with being able to "go on" after a death, with moving into Imaginary Worlds, with the disposition of "a" on the XYZ dimensional grid, with foreplay. The Words just Are. There was the Beginning of them, and the painting of them on skull-caves, and the elaboration of them in giant Guilt-tiles we sew together in color and in designs and in patterns we can explain we do not know why.
Language has a lot to do with us. The television of it is an insult to your residual intelligence and my hopeful dreams. The radio of it falls on my head and suddenly the gravity of words motivates a thousand Newton you's to devote all of them/yourselves to algorithmic mad math-ness, to "prove" the core, to score the more and worry the less. The computering of words is the General Rule that proves the exceptionals, the purple people-eating hypothemus, the death of understanding and long-live understanding!
Eat my syllables. Got milk? Eat in rememberance of milk. The language you learned at the nipple, hoping for more.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Hegelian Dialectics, where is it when we need it?
What I loved about Hegel (1770) was the understanding that opposites are not merely "attractive" or repellent; opposites are generators: They create new things. This creativity is what makes a conversation fun, as opposed to simply a dialogue of replayed tapes and recitations of tiresome details. The "thesis" -- what one person says, anything -- leads to "anti-thesis" there is always the "other" thing -- and then as it swings back to the thesis, there is that new thing SYNTHESIS.
For Hegel, the conversation was about sin and salvation, earth and heaven, church and state, finite and infinite. The emphasis of Jesus on love as the chief virtue was because love can bring about the marriage of opposites. Love aids the conversation, the charism for A and B, for their co-existence, is what brings C into play. Bring it.
The Hegelian dialectic, in which human progress is generated by the meeting of opposites, has almost been forgotten. Synthesizing dynamics barely survived the stormy unilateralism, intolerance, and virulence of the Nazi/Communist Party. Where Hegel argued that each political movement is imperfect and therefore gives rise to a counter-movement, which, if it takes control, is also imperfect and therefore gives rise to yet another counter-movement, and so on to infinity, what actually occurred was imperfection locked into its errors -- because imperfections did not "give rise" to an effective means of balancing.
Where has the "conversation" gone? People speak in one-liners, and devote themselves to their things, telling us about the Stuff....Where is the dialogue upon which Civilization depends? Gone to gamers, gone to extremists.
For Hegel, the conversation was about sin and salvation, earth and heaven, church and state, finite and infinite. The emphasis of Jesus on love as the chief virtue was because love can bring about the marriage of opposites. Love aids the conversation, the charism for A and B, for their co-existence, is what brings C into play. Bring it.
The Hegelian dialectic, in which human progress is generated by the meeting of opposites, has almost been forgotten. Synthesizing dynamics barely survived the stormy unilateralism, intolerance, and virulence of the Nazi/Communist Party. Where Hegel argued that each political movement is imperfect and therefore gives rise to a counter-movement, which, if it takes control, is also imperfect and therefore gives rise to yet another counter-movement, and so on to infinity, what actually occurred was imperfection locked into its errors -- because imperfections did not "give rise" to an effective means of balancing.
Where has the "conversation" gone? People speak in one-liners, and devote themselves to their things, telling us about the Stuff....Where is the dialogue upon which Civilization depends? Gone to gamers, gone to extremists.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Haleh Esfandiari, imprisoned in Tehran's Evin torture block
Since May 8, 2007, Haleh Esfandiari has been held in Section 209 of Tehran's prison for political prisoners. Esfandiari is a scholar, affiliated with the Wilson Center. The Center is not only not an arm of the United States or any government, it is remarkably hostile to the present administration. Esfandiari is herself a grandmother and was in Iran visiting her 93 year old mother. For the government of Iran to accuse her of "spying", in the absence of any motive, opportunity, benefit, or evidence, is not merely criminal. It is "proof" that there is No God, that these thugs in Tehran are not Believers, and any one who authorizes the interrogations of grandmothers is not a religious by any definition. These men are not motivated by spiritual values. Her interrogators could not possibly have any genuine "religious" beliefs.
I can but be reminded of the fact that Mata Hari was accused of "spying" by another group of thugs claiming to be pious. In France, when things were not going well on the war front, some religious fanatics went after Mata Hari, an independent woman who had introduced Middle Eastern "belly dancing" to the corsetted and bustled society of Paris. Ironically, with no evidence against her other than that she loved men and women, she was executed by firing squad as the World War began taking its pointless toll. There was never any evidence of espionage on her part, and few women in Europe were LESS conspicuous than this theatrical performer.
Now the "Ministry of Intelligence" in Iran goes after another independent woman. Apparently, war mongers find it convenient to go after UNARMED WOMEN. The Ayatollah claims to find some justification in the Quoran for doing the worst things to an unarmed grandmother? They have insured the immortality of this great martyr to truth, the scholar, the seeker of evidence and truth, who could have served as a great bridge of understanding between civilizations. Tney put her in a filthy prison.
I can but be reminded of the fact that Mata Hari was accused of "spying" by another group of thugs claiming to be pious. In France, when things were not going well on the war front, some religious fanatics went after Mata Hari, an independent woman who had introduced Middle Eastern "belly dancing" to the corsetted and bustled society of Paris. Ironically, with no evidence against her other than that she loved men and women, she was executed by firing squad as the World War began taking its pointless toll. There was never any evidence of espionage on her part, and few women in Europe were LESS conspicuous than this theatrical performer.
Now the "Ministry of Intelligence" in Iran goes after another independent woman. Apparently, war mongers find it convenient to go after UNARMED WOMEN. The Ayatollah claims to find some justification in the Quoran for doing the worst things to an unarmed grandmother? They have insured the immortality of this great martyr to truth, the scholar, the seeker of evidence and truth, who could have served as a great bridge of understanding between civilizations. Tney put her in a filthy prison.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Tenacity and Success?
This is another pathetic belief, which is peculiar in its "hold", the way it is repeated, and which is demonstrably wrong: If you want success, just keep at it; there are smart, talented, resourceful failures, but even without intelligence, talent, or good looks if you just have tenacity...you will succeed!
Tenacity. Sure. I know dozens of people living in poverty, whose lives are abject failures, and there they are still clinging "tenaciously" at it. What part of this is the "success" part?
Tenacity. Sure. I know dozens of people living in poverty, whose lives are abject failures, and there they are still clinging "tenaciously" at it. What part of this is the "success" part?
Some People are never lost, never not Home
This is one of the odd and most consistent things my father taught me just by the way he lived: He was always never "lost", and never "not home". It was not just Not Planning. He would plan. He would have objectives. But he was never single-minded about it. I would be on a Quest, looking for something important, and he would just be looking. And there would be something offered, something half-full that he would fill, and then there it was, overflowing.
Civil Rights and Duties
One of the universal values--expressed in virtually all mature cultures--is the Basic Right to "do as you please" so long as what you do does not cause harm to others. What is curiously defended against, however, is any respect for the Basic Duty, which is, to take responsibility for what you do.
How many institutions, how many officials, how many "corporations" are doing this?
How many institutions, how many officials, how many "corporations" are doing this?
Mata Hari's Dance, old Flamenco, new Lumbres and Alegrias
This is the 100th anniversary of Mata Hari's execution in 1917. Under her married name, she is the most famous of the MacLeods, and although well-known, completely unsung and misunderstood.
The MacLeods were a Scots clan that pretty much annihilated the Keys, a sept of the McKay clan, but by some oversight, they missed my progenitors on that branch of the tree. Still, I remember all MacLeods, with a kind of gratitude that they have calmed down considerably. And Mata Hari is simply one of the greats.
And this comes up opportunely in 2007, with the first biography I have seen of her. Pat Shipman authored a significant Biography of our dearest MacLeod, known to us by her stage name, "Mata Hari". [Shipman, Femme Fatale; Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari]. Born in Holland in 1876, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle married Rudolf Macleod, an army officer stationed in Indonesia. She eventually returned to the Netherlands, divorced, and penniless, sought the attention of wealthy men. With an instinct "for what would succeed", she developed a series of "sacred dances" ostensibly learned in the Indies. The Malay phrase she adopted as her name, means "the eye of the day", or "sunrise".
As World War I broke out, the Belle Epoch tied off, and it got hard for a dancing lady to earn a living. She was approached by French and German diplomats, all males, with advances in cash and kind. Eventually she was hounded mercilessly by a French double agent, Georges Ladoux--he was himself playing both sides--and prosecuted for spying, although the evidence was completely based on her supposed "immorality", her transparently eager willingness and patent ability to drain men of their bodily fluids. Her skills had really nothing to do with espionage, and it is difficult to imagine a lady less likely to be able to go un-noticed than Mata Hari.
She was imprisoned in the filth of the prison at Saint-Lazare until her execution by firing squad in 1917. And this is but another example of a miscarriage of justice in the magistrate system under the Napoleonic Code; see also Dreyfus. Preconception and scapegoating, religious piety, the need to do "something" when another thing--the War--is not doing well, all tainted the pretense of a trial.
Now, about the dancing....!
The costume alone, of course, was worth the price of admission: Beautiful brunette in a shining metal bra, spangly tiara, and transparent veils. We have no choreographic descriptions although the men who watched her have related fairly specific bits. Their journals were set atremble by the intoxicating mixture of exotic music, striptease, and veiled anatomy. These accounts, all by men, "are a hoot" in their way, but we have no way of reconstituting the dances. Nejla Y. Yatkin is one professional who does a great contemporary depiction.
I want to suggest something more. The descriptions of the rhythms--from slow liquid gestures to swirling and shaking--are in many forms of dance. However, it is hard for me not to think of Romani women and small flamenco performances. First of all, the performance itself was a series of alegrias, with taranto stylings, at one with the music, sumptouous. From her poverty in the Spanish portions of the Netherlands, and in Europe, there would be exposure to the Gypsy solo dances. And the veils? This is not really a "sacred" or traditional element in Indonesian dance. It is moorish, Arabesque, belly-dancing. She provided content to the interest Europeans had in the Middle Eastern cultures -- with veiled women.
It is documented then (!): Mata Hari drew from the nyai traditions of Malaysian mistresses, gypsy performers, and Middle-eastern exoticism, to capture an audience.
The MacLeods were a Scots clan that pretty much annihilated the Keys, a sept of the McKay clan, but by some oversight, they missed my progenitors on that branch of the tree. Still, I remember all MacLeods, with a kind of gratitude that they have calmed down considerably. And Mata Hari is simply one of the greats.
And this comes up opportunely in 2007, with the first biography I have seen of her. Pat Shipman authored a significant Biography of our dearest MacLeod, known to us by her stage name, "Mata Hari". [Shipman, Femme Fatale; Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari]. Born in Holland in 1876, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle married Rudolf Macleod, an army officer stationed in Indonesia. She eventually returned to the Netherlands, divorced, and penniless, sought the attention of wealthy men. With an instinct "for what would succeed", she developed a series of "sacred dances" ostensibly learned in the Indies. The Malay phrase she adopted as her name, means "the eye of the day", or "sunrise".
As World War I broke out, the Belle Epoch tied off, and it got hard for a dancing lady to earn a living. She was approached by French and German diplomats, all males, with advances in cash and kind. Eventually she was hounded mercilessly by a French double agent, Georges Ladoux--he was himself playing both sides--and prosecuted for spying, although the evidence was completely based on her supposed "immorality", her transparently eager willingness and patent ability to drain men of their bodily fluids. Her skills had really nothing to do with espionage, and it is difficult to imagine a lady less likely to be able to go un-noticed than Mata Hari.
She was imprisoned in the filth of the prison at Saint-Lazare until her execution by firing squad in 1917. And this is but another example of a miscarriage of justice in the magistrate system under the Napoleonic Code; see also Dreyfus. Preconception and scapegoating, religious piety, the need to do "something" when another thing--the War--is not doing well, all tainted the pretense of a trial.
Now, about the dancing....!
The costume alone, of course, was worth the price of admission: Beautiful brunette in a shining metal bra, spangly tiara, and transparent veils. We have no choreographic descriptions although the men who watched her have related fairly specific bits. Their journals were set atremble by the intoxicating mixture of exotic music, striptease, and veiled anatomy. These accounts, all by men, "are a hoot" in their way, but we have no way of reconstituting the dances. Nejla Y. Yatkin is one professional who does a great contemporary depiction.
I want to suggest something more. The descriptions of the rhythms--from slow liquid gestures to swirling and shaking--are in many forms of dance. However, it is hard for me not to think of Romani women and small flamenco performances. First of all, the performance itself was a series of alegrias, with taranto stylings, at one with the music, sumptouous. From her poverty in the Spanish portions of the Netherlands, and in Europe, there would be exposure to the Gypsy solo dances. And the veils? This is not really a "sacred" or traditional element in Indonesian dance. It is moorish, Arabesque, belly-dancing. She provided content to the interest Europeans had in the Middle Eastern cultures -- with veiled women.
It is documented then (!): Mata Hari drew from the nyai traditions of Malaysian mistresses, gypsy performers, and Middle-eastern exoticism, to capture an audience.
Sabotage and Terrorism
Suppose a terrorist decides to blow something up. Say a bridge, or a building that took years to build. And he blows it up and people get injured. He would be culpable. We would not hesitate to hunt him down and hold him responsible.
Suppose a terrorist runs for Congress. And he gets elected by promising to reduce taxes and the size of Government. However, instead of reducing the size of Government, he actually reduces its regulatory functions but increases its budget. He votes so as to cut funding for the repair and maintenance of a bridge, or a building. But he increases taxes and redirects tax money into the coffers of a "capitalist" company to do nothing at great public expense. (I have to put quotation marks around ANY "private enterprise" company which is set up to take money from the Government, because any company that takes public money while pretending to be engaged in private enterprise, is a scam.)
For example, say the company operated as a "power broker" like Enron--whose "service" did nothing but increase the cost of electricity without providing any other value or producing any product whatsoever. Or like one of VP Cheney's multi-national corporations. Halliburton buys fuel oil in Iraq and sells it to the US military for more than twice as much as fuel oil costs anyone else in Iraq--another company that actually offers no service and produces no product except to expense the Government.
Anyway, your terrorist Congressman, dismantles the infrastructure of this country, each Government Department at a time, by defunding the regulators. No one inspects the bridge, no one repairs the bridge....and because of Entropy, and because earthquakes, floods and droughts occasionally do occur, pretty soon the bridge just collapses. Or buildings burn down, or for lack of Air conditioning or plumbing repairs, it just becomes unusable.
Now, are we going to hunt down this terrorist? Hold him responsible for his deliberate acts? Can we fix blame and responsibility for his Votes, his grip on our Public Purse Strings? Hunt him down and hold him responsible. Hold his "leaders" responsible. Hold his voting machines responsible?
One after another of the Bush appointees have been found to be incompetent at best, and deliberately predatory in benefiting themselves at public expense. The fact that Kenneth Lay was not only the founder of Enron but a long-time family friend of the Bushes reveals the complicity of Bush in terrorism. Another one of President Bush's relationships is with a billionaire Saudi Prince. These relationship reveal the scale of Bush's complicity with predators. It is true that the Saudi royals and the Lays are not "suicide bombers", but they are effectively WORSE in terms of the billion-dollar damage they have caused.
Suppose a terrorist runs for Congress. And he gets elected by promising to reduce taxes and the size of Government. However, instead of reducing the size of Government, he actually reduces its regulatory functions but increases its budget. He votes so as to cut funding for the repair and maintenance of a bridge, or a building. But he increases taxes and redirects tax money into the coffers of a "capitalist" company to do nothing at great public expense. (I have to put quotation marks around ANY "private enterprise" company which is set up to take money from the Government, because any company that takes public money while pretending to be engaged in private enterprise, is a scam.)
For example, say the company operated as a "power broker" like Enron--whose "service" did nothing but increase the cost of electricity without providing any other value or producing any product whatsoever. Or like one of VP Cheney's multi-national corporations. Halliburton buys fuel oil in Iraq and sells it to the US military for more than twice as much as fuel oil costs anyone else in Iraq--another company that actually offers no service and produces no product except to expense the Government.
Anyway, your terrorist Congressman, dismantles the infrastructure of this country, each Government Department at a time, by defunding the regulators. No one inspects the bridge, no one repairs the bridge....and because of Entropy, and because earthquakes, floods and droughts occasionally do occur, pretty soon the bridge just collapses. Or buildings burn down, or for lack of Air conditioning or plumbing repairs, it just becomes unusable.
Now, are we going to hunt down this terrorist? Hold him responsible for his deliberate acts? Can we fix blame and responsibility for his Votes, his grip on our Public Purse Strings? Hunt him down and hold him responsible. Hold his "leaders" responsible. Hold his voting machines responsible?
One after another of the Bush appointees have been found to be incompetent at best, and deliberately predatory in benefiting themselves at public expense. The fact that Kenneth Lay was not only the founder of Enron but a long-time family friend of the Bushes reveals the complicity of Bush in terrorism. Another one of President Bush's relationships is with a billionaire Saudi Prince. These relationship reveal the scale of Bush's complicity with predators. It is true that the Saudi royals and the Lays are not "suicide bombers", but they are effectively WORSE in terms of the billion-dollar damage they have caused.
Road Kill -1.2 million - the facts of vehicular slaughter and maiming
Why are people willing to spend trillions of dollars and years of "waiting" at airports and court houses waiting to pass through "weapon" inspections, when it is thousands of times more likely that any one of us will be killed or maimed by a car than by a terrorist? Each year since 9/11/01, more pedestrians have been killed in cross-walks than in the entire death toll in the buildings attacked by terrorists.
There are Islamic Arabs all over the world. Many of them drive cars and trucks. As drivers, they are thousands of times more likely to kill and maim, than as "jihadists" or bombers. Put another way, America IS under attack, but not from Arabs. The world is under assault from manufacturers. From drivers.
Let's look at the actual numbers:
UNITED STATES - TRAFFIC DEATHS. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 42,642 Americans DIED in traffic accidents in 2006. (NHTSA was de-funded by the Bush Administration and placed in the hands of appointees with no expertise, so the numbers must be considered extremely "conservative" and unreliable on the low side.)
GLOBAL - TRAFFIC DEATHS. Traffic deaths are the fastest-rising cause of death in the world, in every nation, and exceed 1 million per year for the last 5 years. By comparison, last year's combat deaths have been estimated at 100,000. Roadways pose a greater danger to human beings than war.
VEHICLES AND RAILROAD CROSSINGS. In America, a train collides with a vehicle every two hours. It is never pretty. In 1996, there were 415 deaths and 1554 serious injuries. The average victims were sober, driving within 25 miles of their homes. Since 2004, there has been almost no "infrastructure" improvement, and the crossings are worse than ever, with more traffic exposures.
VEHICLE MILES. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in the last three years, vehicular travel has increased 170% in the last three decades in America. (The EPA was de-funded by the Bush Administration and placed in the hands of appointees with no expertise, therefore the figures should be regarded as extremely conservative.) Mobility is clearly linked to prosperity, productivity, and even freedom. However, this is not true of the vehicle mile increase in the last 6 years, during which America has suffered decreased prosperity, less vacation time, reduced productivity, and less freedom.
FATALITIES PER MILE. Curiously, in spite of dramatic improvements in vehicle safety engineering--anti-lock brakes, air bags, impact engineering, inclined roadbeds--casualties per mile traveled have not significantly fallen. (Note, fatalities are slightly decreased, but injuries have actually increased.) It appears that cell phone usage and other driver distractions have increased. In addition, the horsepower has dramatically increased. Twenty years ago the average consumer vehicle had 119 "under the hood". Now, almost doubled, to 210 horsepower. The Porsche Cayenne SUV has 520 horsepower. The 2008 Toyota Camry with 268 horsepower does zero to 60 in 5.8 seconds, equivalent to the acceleration of a racing Corvette of a generation ago. Thus, we are STILL killing and maiming people at the same pandemic rate in spite of the additional and extraordinary "safety" features.
THE MYTH OF PROSPERITY AND PRODUCTIVITY. The transportation-industrial complex dominates the lion's share of advertising, and is an important contributor to the diversification and prosperity of the world. This complex, consisting of vehicle manufacturers, roadway builders, fuels, and insurance, is also a major lobbying power. Government regulators are run by appointees of the Executive branch which has de-funded and marginalized scientific expertise across the board. Just as significantly, the complex is responsible for suppressing the facts, and promulgating distortions--for example the myth that lax regulation of transportation contributes to prosperity.
It is of course true that mobility and transport are critical to prosperity. However, it is criminal to make decisions based on only partial truths. The fact is, Medical Treatment costs have sky-rocketed. Why? More people need more care, because THEY ARE INJURED. 2.6 million Americans were injured in traffic crashes in 2006. JUST IN ONE YEAR. Many of them suffered spinal injuries which leave them in chronic pain for decades.
I was rear-ended three times in a three-year period, and I have never recovered. I live in constant pain. And my "productivity" rapidly declined, although I continue to work and appear presentable. My pain is not in any statistics. The fact that I am producing 1/10th what I used to before the accidents is not going to influence the policy of studied indifference to 2.6 million injuries per year. And the traffic deaths-- 1.2 million in the world, annually.
The suggestion that the "convenience" of taking a car to pick up groceries should include a statistically significant risk of death and maiming is insane. If I hear anyone suggest that the pain is worth twice the horsepower I will ever need, or that our nation is prosperous because it ignores traffic casualties, I am very likely going to physical with that person.
At the least I will leap up and breathe into their nostrils--and tell them that whiplash is contagious. Well, it isn't really. And I would not wish debilitating whiplash pain on anyone. Still, it might help my chronic pain to get the message out.
There are Islamic Arabs all over the world. Many of them drive cars and trucks. As drivers, they are thousands of times more likely to kill and maim, than as "jihadists" or bombers. Put another way, America IS under attack, but not from Arabs. The world is under assault from manufacturers. From drivers.
Let's look at the actual numbers:
UNITED STATES - TRAFFIC DEATHS. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 42,642 Americans DIED in traffic accidents in 2006. (NHTSA was de-funded by the Bush Administration and placed in the hands of appointees with no expertise, so the numbers must be considered extremely "conservative" and unreliable on the low side.)
GLOBAL - TRAFFIC DEATHS. Traffic deaths are the fastest-rising cause of death in the world, in every nation, and exceed 1 million per year for the last 5 years. By comparison, last year's combat deaths have been estimated at 100,000. Roadways pose a greater danger to human beings than war.
VEHICLES AND RAILROAD CROSSINGS. In America, a train collides with a vehicle every two hours. It is never pretty. In 1996, there were 415 deaths and 1554 serious injuries. The average victims were sober, driving within 25 miles of their homes. Since 2004, there has been almost no "infrastructure" improvement, and the crossings are worse than ever, with more traffic exposures.
VEHICLE MILES. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in the last three years, vehicular travel has increased 170% in the last three decades in America. (The EPA was de-funded by the Bush Administration and placed in the hands of appointees with no expertise, therefore the figures should be regarded as extremely conservative.) Mobility is clearly linked to prosperity, productivity, and even freedom. However, this is not true of the vehicle mile increase in the last 6 years, during which America has suffered decreased prosperity, less vacation time, reduced productivity, and less freedom.
FATALITIES PER MILE. Curiously, in spite of dramatic improvements in vehicle safety engineering--anti-lock brakes, air bags, impact engineering, inclined roadbeds--casualties per mile traveled have not significantly fallen. (Note, fatalities are slightly decreased, but injuries have actually increased.) It appears that cell phone usage and other driver distractions have increased. In addition, the horsepower has dramatically increased. Twenty years ago the average consumer vehicle had 119 "under the hood". Now, almost doubled, to 210 horsepower. The Porsche Cayenne SUV has 520 horsepower. The 2008 Toyota Camry with 268 horsepower does zero to 60 in 5.8 seconds, equivalent to the acceleration of a racing Corvette of a generation ago. Thus, we are STILL killing and maiming people at the same pandemic rate in spite of the additional and extraordinary "safety" features.
THE MYTH OF PROSPERITY AND PRODUCTIVITY. The transportation-industrial complex dominates the lion's share of advertising, and is an important contributor to the diversification and prosperity of the world. This complex, consisting of vehicle manufacturers, roadway builders, fuels, and insurance, is also a major lobbying power. Government regulators are run by appointees of the Executive branch which has de-funded and marginalized scientific expertise across the board. Just as significantly, the complex is responsible for suppressing the facts, and promulgating distortions--for example the myth that lax regulation of transportation contributes to prosperity.
It is of course true that mobility and transport are critical to prosperity. However, it is criminal to make decisions based on only partial truths. The fact is, Medical Treatment costs have sky-rocketed. Why? More people need more care, because THEY ARE INJURED. 2.6 million Americans were injured in traffic crashes in 2006. JUST IN ONE YEAR. Many of them suffered spinal injuries which leave them in chronic pain for decades.
I was rear-ended three times in a three-year period, and I have never recovered. I live in constant pain. And my "productivity" rapidly declined, although I continue to work and appear presentable. My pain is not in any statistics. The fact that I am producing 1/10th what I used to before the accidents is not going to influence the policy of studied indifference to 2.6 million injuries per year. And the traffic deaths-- 1.2 million in the world, annually.
The suggestion that the "convenience" of taking a car to pick up groceries should include a statistically significant risk of death and maiming is insane. If I hear anyone suggest that the pain is worth twice the horsepower I will ever need, or that our nation is prosperous because it ignores traffic casualties, I am very likely going to physical with that person.
At the least I will leap up and breathe into their nostrils--and tell them that whiplash is contagious. Well, it isn't really. And I would not wish debilitating whiplash pain on anyone. Still, it might help my chronic pain to get the message out.
Nazi Gold
According to a report released by the US government in December 1997, less than 20% of the gold looted by the Nazis across Europe and placed into officially "neutral" national banks has ever been returned. Nazi officers and German government agents deposited GOLD (not including cash) into national banks in Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. Those countries' banks STILL HAVE THE GOLD.
In addition, Switzerland only recently reports that it has $475 million worth of GOLD which was removed from other countries and deposited in Swiss banks during the war. $132 million was removed from occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia, and $146 million from Jews. Argentina is also reported to have Nazi Gold, all of which it has kept.
The Report was presented to the 41-nation conference on Nazi gold, giving figures FOR THE FIRST TIME.
In a separate revelation about the origin of the looted Gold, as a result of recent investigations begun by the World Jewish Congress, newly-discovered documents now confirm that 60 tons of gold were stolen from the Jews. Does it seem just crazy that no one went after these records earlier? And that even now, only Jews themselves, the disenfranchised victims, have to put the investigation together?
To put this in perspective (?), the Allies recovered 337 tons of plundered gold, and returned all but 5.5 tons to the Central Banks of the respective countries from which the removals were traced. None of this gold went back to any individuals, although significant amounts were looted from "private persons" [Jews].
Negotiations with the "neutral" countries continue--and they continue holding over $170 million in looted gold.
These are "GOLD" figures. Not cash, or the cash from the sale proceeds raised by the Nazis when they sold the property confiscated from millions of people. Where did the cash go?
In addition, Switzerland only recently reports that it has $475 million worth of GOLD which was removed from other countries and deposited in Swiss banks during the war. $132 million was removed from occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia, and $146 million from Jews. Argentina is also reported to have Nazi Gold, all of which it has kept.
The Report was presented to the 41-nation conference on Nazi gold, giving figures FOR THE FIRST TIME.
In a separate revelation about the origin of the looted Gold, as a result of recent investigations begun by the World Jewish Congress, newly-discovered documents now confirm that 60 tons of gold were stolen from the Jews. Does it seem just crazy that no one went after these records earlier? And that even now, only Jews themselves, the disenfranchised victims, have to put the investigation together?
To put this in perspective (?), the Allies recovered 337 tons of plundered gold, and returned all but 5.5 tons to the Central Banks of the respective countries from which the removals were traced. None of this gold went back to any individuals, although significant amounts were looted from "private persons" [Jews].
Negotiations with the "neutral" countries continue--and they continue holding over $170 million in looted gold.
These are "GOLD" figures. Not cash, or the cash from the sale proceeds raised by the Nazis when they sold the property confiscated from millions of people. Where did the cash go?
Reward for Killing Taslima Nasrin is $2400
What is wrong with True Believers? Today, clerics in eastern India offered a cash reward of 100,000 rupees ($2,400) to anyone who murders TASLIMA NASRIN. This is really appealing to easy money greed, since the beautiful TASLIMA is an unarmed helpless woman without guards, army or police protection. She does not even have a political protector or the aegis of the Press. The Death Warrant is also money-grubbing on the part of the mosques, since her life is worth, frankly, millions.
TASLIMA is a writer. Novels, little stories. The novels barely touch upon any "religious" criticism. She certainly does not criticize clerics with the passion exercised by Mohammed against pretenders. Her life is worth more than Bin Laden. If the clerics seriously want to appeal to money greed, and they clearly are, surely there are a thousand money-grubbing clerics to kill a thousand Bin Laden's for the $50 million dollar reward, before even one would kill TASLIMA. They should offer at least $100 million to kill an unarmed woman.
What decent self-respecting warrior would kill an unarmed woman for less? Especially when a righteous warrior would be willing to fight honorably against a formidable and dangerous opponent for free?
I can just see the expression on the faces of the brave jihadists in heaven. And their astonishment when they come across this woman-killer among the peerage of valiant Warriors: "Ah, here is Hussein who killed the Great Devil. And Saladin, lived for years in combat against hordes of heavily-armed Crusaders. Yes. Oh, and you? What? You murdered an unarmed woman who was writing stories? For Money? Well, was it for a Lot of Money? No? Just 100,000 rupees! [Big Pause.] Do you know how that makes US look? Do you think that the Great Warriors of Heaven are assassins of women for money?"
Clearly some of the Mullahs are so deeply depraved, so caught up in hatred, they cannot be trusted to understand their own instincts. Their greed, their hysteria, their wild jeering at a person who has done them no harm, and is harmless, their need for a scapegoat in the crisis of their own management of the mosques....
The life of one TASLIMA NASRIN is worth so much more. Alive or dead, for she will never die. Never. Never. She has already entered into the pantheon. She is not threatening the clerics, not with stones or guns. She has terrified them with understanding and courage.
TASLIMA is a writer. Novels, little stories. The novels barely touch upon any "religious" criticism. She certainly does not criticize clerics with the passion exercised by Mohammed against pretenders. Her life is worth more than Bin Laden. If the clerics seriously want to appeal to money greed, and they clearly are, surely there are a thousand money-grubbing clerics to kill a thousand Bin Laden's for the $50 million dollar reward, before even one would kill TASLIMA. They should offer at least $100 million to kill an unarmed woman.
What decent self-respecting warrior would kill an unarmed woman for less? Especially when a righteous warrior would be willing to fight honorably against a formidable and dangerous opponent for free?
I can just see the expression on the faces of the brave jihadists in heaven. And their astonishment when they come across this woman-killer among the peerage of valiant Warriors: "Ah, here is Hussein who killed the Great Devil. And Saladin, lived for years in combat against hordes of heavily-armed Crusaders. Yes. Oh, and you? What? You murdered an unarmed woman who was writing stories? For Money? Well, was it for a Lot of Money? No? Just 100,000 rupees! [Big Pause.] Do you know how that makes US look? Do you think that the Great Warriors of Heaven are assassins of women for money?"
Clearly some of the Mullahs are so deeply depraved, so caught up in hatred, they cannot be trusted to understand their own instincts. Their greed, their hysteria, their wild jeering at a person who has done them no harm, and is harmless, their need for a scapegoat in the crisis of their own management of the mosques....
The life of one TASLIMA NASRIN is worth so much more. Alive or dead, for she will never die. Never. Never. She has already entered into the pantheon. She is not threatening the clerics, not with stones or guns. She has terrified them with understanding and courage.
Lonely, Un-tethered, Un-loved, as a waste of...Freedom
I seem to be surrounded by people living productive lives with warm and loving families. They really ARE thriving, although few are "ambitious" or striving. They "struggle" with minor ailments, chores, and even relationships, schedules, and occasional death. But the natives are remarkably happy. These are cheerful and helpful people. They are prepared for their lives.
Still, there is that low-level depression, some of them, only some, seem to suffer. And they do not seem to know exactly Why. In an entertainment age, they seem a bit bored. Is there almost a "waste" of Freedom here? People have it "for granted", and do not feel engaged in the urgency of its preservation?
Seeing sadness fills me with empathy and great concern. I get edgy. When I see suffering it makes me really really edgy. Every suffering person is a canary in the mine. This is Our Mine.
Fortunately, my wife and most of our family friends and neighbors do not seem to mind having an "edgy" guy in town. I am just grateful that the Inquisition and Party Members have calmed down and I do not have to fend off packs of Red Guards, wolves, lynch-parties or witch-burning villagers. Real grateful.
Still, there is that low-level depression, some of them, only some, seem to suffer. And they do not seem to know exactly Why. In an entertainment age, they seem a bit bored. Is there almost a "waste" of Freedom here? People have it "for granted", and do not feel engaged in the urgency of its preservation?
Seeing sadness fills me with empathy and great concern. I get edgy. When I see suffering it makes me really really edgy. Every suffering person is a canary in the mine. This is Our Mine.
Fortunately, my wife and most of our family friends and neighbors do not seem to mind having an "edgy" guy in town. I am just grateful that the Inquisition and Party Members have calmed down and I do not have to fend off packs of Red Guards, wolves, lynch-parties or witch-burning villagers. Real grateful.
The Two Solutions to Political Conflict
Offering "peace" or "justice" is never a Political Solution, where a conflict is in play. All sides are always in favor of general ideals, which have universal appeal. The Nazis and Saddam Hussein constantly invoked Justice, and Pol Pot made a "theme" of Peace, a leitmotif of the Killing Fields.
Conflicts tend to break down into two competing strategies, both equally available to all sides: Unity and Partition. All sides will invoke both strategies. Both sides attempt to "unify" enough people to prevail, and to "separate" themselves from those they want to be seen as fighting.
It turns out as a matter of genes, "personality" profiles, and even "culture", a person will have more in common with a large segment of the population in any part of the world, than with his or her immediate neighboring group. In other words, if you take a statistically significant group of people out of ANY fighting element, many of the individuals will have MORE IN COMMON with their assigned "enemies" than with their designated fellow-combatants.
This is why UNITY almost always makes the most "scientific" sense. However, where there is injustice, there is always the tendency to revolt, and this leads to revolution, the "separation" dynamic. For people to be free, they must free themselves FROM a coersed "unity".
In spite of the fact that the "groups" overlap, Partition remains a vital strategy, and in the absence of a political opportunity for participation of a minority group in the Unity, it should be recommended. Partition was used by European colonial powers in 1920 in Ireland, in South Asia in 1947, in Palestine in 1948, in Cyprus in 1974, and in the Balkans in the 1990's. Should it be used in Iraq? Sudan? Chechnya? Montana?
Conflicts tend to break down into two competing strategies, both equally available to all sides: Unity and Partition. All sides will invoke both strategies. Both sides attempt to "unify" enough people to prevail, and to "separate" themselves from those they want to be seen as fighting.
It turns out as a matter of genes, "personality" profiles, and even "culture", a person will have more in common with a large segment of the population in any part of the world, than with his or her immediate neighboring group. In other words, if you take a statistically significant group of people out of ANY fighting element, many of the individuals will have MORE IN COMMON with their assigned "enemies" than with their designated fellow-combatants.
This is why UNITY almost always makes the most "scientific" sense. However, where there is injustice, there is always the tendency to revolt, and this leads to revolution, the "separation" dynamic. For people to be free, they must free themselves FROM a coersed "unity".
In spite of the fact that the "groups" overlap, Partition remains a vital strategy, and in the absence of a political opportunity for participation of a minority group in the Unity, it should be recommended. Partition was used by European colonial powers in 1920 in Ireland, in South Asia in 1947, in Palestine in 1948, in Cyprus in 1974, and in the Balkans in the 1990's. Should it be used in Iraq? Sudan? Chechnya? Montana?
Holy City of Karbala, Ashura festival
As many as 2 million mostly men gathered in Karkala, south of Bagdad, just last March. They shared cell-phone and TV images of themselves, flagellating their modestly-exposed shoulders, heads, and backs with bundles of chain "zangeel", and cutting into their heads and necks, to mourn the 7th century defeat and killing of Hussein during Islam's civil war of the 7th century. The grandson of Muhammad PBUH was pushed aside by the lords of Mecca and Medina. But what is the meaning of the Ashura today? The Golden Mosque in Samarra was destroyed by Al Quada militants in February 2006. Al Quada is Sunni. Now the devotees are shouting KUL YOM ASDHURA! KUL ARD KARBAL! "Every day is Ashura! All land is Karbala!"
Americans seem to keep wondering when the Iraqis will "step up" to fight for their country. This is a terrible question. Iraqis are already fighting, bravely, thoughtfully. And savagely. They are imbedded in a history which is not taking prisoners.
The Bush-Cheney-Rove trinity will be forgiven by the merciful Arabs and the remarkably civilized Persians long before they will ever be forgiven by "religious" Americans. No follower of Jesus Christ is permitted to lie, much less to harm so many innocent people pretending to fight enemies who are in fact unscathed and strengthened. In other words, no follower of Christ would invoke Christs' name as a cover up or excuse for stupidity and greed. Bush could not "lead" a penitent to a wailing wall. Even one Word, a single Zangeel of remorse and humility, even one step toward a pilgrimage of peace, would help.
Americans seem to keep wondering when the Iraqis will "step up" to fight for their country. This is a terrible question. Iraqis are already fighting, bravely, thoughtfully. And savagely. They are imbedded in a history which is not taking prisoners.
The Bush-Cheney-Rove trinity will be forgiven by the merciful Arabs and the remarkably civilized Persians long before they will ever be forgiven by "religious" Americans. No follower of Jesus Christ is permitted to lie, much less to harm so many innocent people pretending to fight enemies who are in fact unscathed and strengthened. In other words, no follower of Christ would invoke Christs' name as a cover up or excuse for stupidity and greed. Bush could not "lead" a penitent to a wailing wall. Even one Word, a single Zangeel of remorse and humility, even one step toward a pilgrimage of peace, would help.
Animals not in the Ark: griffin, basilisk, unicorn
Unforgivable. Noah was clearly commissioned by God to float the progenitors of ALL forms of life out of harm's way. Why did Noah-thinks-he's-God turn away the majestic griffin, the intense basilisk, and the graceful unicorn? What was he thinking when he refused them entry, and let in the flies? The mosquitoes? The chiggers. The fire-ants. Ticks! Now it is reported that bed-bugs are making a big come-back. If only Noah had not taken the trouble to furnish nasty little compartments in the Arc for blood-suckers!
Give someone a fast blog; someone willing to go into harm's way....
John Paul Jones went to the Continental Congress--which was meeting in black sessions under cover of night and secrecy, with his ragged commodore hat in hand, with a plan to break the blockade imposed by the Royal Navy. The illegal body was moved to provide funds to outfit a clipper ship by these words: "Give me a fast ship. For I intend to go into harm's way!"
Someone needs to go into the face of pirates, of tyrants, of fear itself. The thing that gives me the most fear is that we are surrounded by the craven quaking paltry fear -mongered alarmists on the one hand, and the be-numbed sleeping short-termers on the other, and so very few, so few are stepping up to the plate of responsibility, the launching wharf, asking for a fast ship!
We are far more likely to be slain by ignorance as by any other means -- dysentery from bad water, vehicles that should never be built, diseases ramping up in over-crowded cities -- more are killed and maimed by these than by wars and terrorism.
Someone needs to go into the face of pirates, of tyrants, of fear itself. The thing that gives me the most fear is that we are surrounded by the craven quaking paltry fear -mongered alarmists on the one hand, and the be-numbed sleeping short-termers on the other, and so very few, so few are stepping up to the plate of responsibility, the launching wharf, asking for a fast ship!
We are far more likely to be slain by ignorance as by any other means -- dysentery from bad water, vehicles that should never be built, diseases ramping up in over-crowded cities -- more are killed and maimed by these than by wars and terrorism.
"The law" pretends to be what it is not.
At all levels of adjudication, the judge tries to appear as a "standard bearer" or even the "servant of law", as if his or her discretion was bound by its letter. Rule of Law is often presented as the alternative to a Tyrant's Will. In fact, however, the "rule of law" is not well understood. Like "justice" it is a concept that all sides invoke, simultaneously and from conflicting interests. There is universal and profound ignorance of "The Law", an abstraction, no matter how lengthy its recitation.
And if a Rule appears to apply, it has subjective exceptions which can, and often should, swallow it up. For example, there is the principle that the specific rule "prevails" over the general expression -- which is an admission that the law is swiss cheese. Semantically, words have no objective meaning - not a single word can survive deconstruction, and nor can the law.
In addition, judges are keenly aware of the maxim that "the spirit prevails over the letter" of the law, which is another way ultimately giving sway to the subjective will of the judge over any possible theoretical objectivity in the realm of semantics.
And of course, one is always left wondering what the Legislative Law-maker intended in the first place? Where lobbyists write most of our laws, where many of the laws are simply reactions to extreme cases of abuse, where there is No Lobby willing to fund objectivity, order, common sense, and "public good" where factions write the rules.
However, there are a number of institutional self-correcting mechanisms "at work" in the legal system. One is the Separation of Powers, the "independence" of the judiciary from legislative and executive power. Another is the "due process" cluster of rights in which the conflict is ventilated by professional advocates with Notice and Opportunity to respond to each other; this creates a kind of "record" or precedence which give validity to the derivative decision.
Finally, there is the concept of EPIKEIA, which dates back to Classical Greece. This is rooted in fairness -- whatever the law says, its application must go beyond mere policing its margins, or automatically spitting out a result. Epikeia commands the consideration of application: In addition to the letter of the law, the executive police work, the matching up of the facts of the case to the laws which "apply", the Epikeian Step requires consideration of the result in the particular case in its possibly unique circumstances. Without throwing out or amending the law, is it sensible and fair to apply it to the parties before the court now?
Modern courts, however, are paralyzed by the accusation of "subjectivity" -- most judges want to hide the political facts of their appointment, the lack of merit in the "choice" made in seating them. They are sensitive, after all, to the mystery of how they ended up in such a seat of power; they understandably do not invite scrutiny into that example of a process of "application". Judges cling to the appearance -- and it is pure fiction -- of "objectivity". Now, Judges rarely discuss "fairness". Chief Justice Earl Warren was one of the last great judges to test the outcome against this segment of the franchise of the court. He understood the Epikeian burden, the importance of that pause before application of the Rule, to ask if it works appropriately in the particular case.
Just as Plato wrote that "Without an Absolute, the particulars are meaningless" -- and 2500 years of philosophy is the footnote consequence, and the phenomenon of angst is as fresh today as then-- so is every judgment meaningless without Justice.
And if a Rule appears to apply, it has subjective exceptions which can, and often should, swallow it up. For example, there is the principle that the specific rule "prevails" over the general expression -- which is an admission that the law is swiss cheese. Semantically, words have no objective meaning - not a single word can survive deconstruction, and nor can the law.
In addition, judges are keenly aware of the maxim that "the spirit prevails over the letter" of the law, which is another way ultimately giving sway to the subjective will of the judge over any possible theoretical objectivity in the realm of semantics.
And of course, one is always left wondering what the Legislative Law-maker intended in the first place? Where lobbyists write most of our laws, where many of the laws are simply reactions to extreme cases of abuse, where there is No Lobby willing to fund objectivity, order, common sense, and "public good" where factions write the rules.
However, there are a number of institutional self-correcting mechanisms "at work" in the legal system. One is the Separation of Powers, the "independence" of the judiciary from legislative and executive power. Another is the "due process" cluster of rights in which the conflict is ventilated by professional advocates with Notice and Opportunity to respond to each other; this creates a kind of "record" or precedence which give validity to the derivative decision.
Finally, there is the concept of EPIKEIA, which dates back to Classical Greece. This is rooted in fairness -- whatever the law says, its application must go beyond mere policing its margins, or automatically spitting out a result. Epikeia commands the consideration of application: In addition to the letter of the law, the executive police work, the matching up of the facts of the case to the laws which "apply", the Epikeian Step requires consideration of the result in the particular case in its possibly unique circumstances. Without throwing out or amending the law, is it sensible and fair to apply it to the parties before the court now?
Modern courts, however, are paralyzed by the accusation of "subjectivity" -- most judges want to hide the political facts of their appointment, the lack of merit in the "choice" made in seating them. They are sensitive, after all, to the mystery of how they ended up in such a seat of power; they understandably do not invite scrutiny into that example of a process of "application". Judges cling to the appearance -- and it is pure fiction -- of "objectivity". Now, Judges rarely discuss "fairness". Chief Justice Earl Warren was one of the last great judges to test the outcome against this segment of the franchise of the court. He understood the Epikeian burden, the importance of that pause before application of the Rule, to ask if it works appropriately in the particular case.
Just as Plato wrote that "Without an Absolute, the particulars are meaningless" -- and 2500 years of philosophy is the footnote consequence, and the phenomenon of angst is as fresh today as then-- so is every judgment meaningless without Justice.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Without an Absolute...footnote 43: A. Personal attachments, B. Dreams, C. Beauty
The Platonic Particulars are Meaningless. And there is not a Moment to Lose.
People with time--never too much, tirelessly infinite--on their hands are necessarily confronted with the meaninglessness of their lives. Not life in general, but in particular. We draw three solutions from what others have found:
A. PERSONAL ATTACHMENTS. As gentle as starlight, the twinkling of a hot ball at far remove, there is the comfort of personal attachments. We may be born alone, sharing no limbs, no organs, or even undertanding, and yet, there is no one and nothing "complete". Everything is incomplete. Even Unity is undone. So your life has meaning in its exile from the womb, from its being part of that partition, that multiplication off the introduction of sperm and egg, that contact. And contact continues. As gentle as starlight, however great the remove.
B. DREAMS. The meaning is not only in the twinkling massage of starlight. The consciousness goes to sleep and awakens to its Dreams -- and why is this? Why is Dreaming happening? The meaning of life is bundled with the exilic mass, and sits astride the saddle of the corpus colosum, as a headless horseman holding his head, holding in his hands the meaning of his ride. In our sleep, we work out the route of our purposes. In the tidal cycle of sleep and awakening, one draws out the other, which pushes in turn. This is the hall of mirrors bespoken by poets, the reflection of of the push to pull virtual to virtual, sleep/awakening. The meaning is in the rising and falling, in the reflection of the cycle on itself.
C. BEAUTY. And why does the imagination have the ability, the desire, to appreciate moments of beauty, often so fleeting? The Inuit family trapped in the dark privations of winter, minutes from death, will resort to Art - from child-like giggle songs, to story-told scrimshandering. Beauty is a refuge in difficult times. And so the explanation for the phenomenal impulse of wealthy people to pay millions to other wealthy people to acquire mosaics made by slaves (the Greek decorations displayed in the nonpareil Roman ugly Getty Villa) and the stretched and colored canvas of poverty-ridden painters (Van Gogh). How can beauty be bought? And its accumulation is so mandatory for the powerful, not because they can, for they cannot, but because they must, for they are not living without it.
People with time--never too much, tirelessly infinite--on their hands are necessarily confronted with the meaninglessness of their lives. Not life in general, but in particular. We draw three solutions from what others have found:
A. PERSONAL ATTACHMENTS. As gentle as starlight, the twinkling of a hot ball at far remove, there is the comfort of personal attachments. We may be born alone, sharing no limbs, no organs, or even undertanding, and yet, there is no one and nothing "complete". Everything is incomplete. Even Unity is undone. So your life has meaning in its exile from the womb, from its being part of that partition, that multiplication off the introduction of sperm and egg, that contact. And contact continues. As gentle as starlight, however great the remove.
B. DREAMS. The meaning is not only in the twinkling massage of starlight. The consciousness goes to sleep and awakens to its Dreams -- and why is this? Why is Dreaming happening? The meaning of life is bundled with the exilic mass, and sits astride the saddle of the corpus colosum, as a headless horseman holding his head, holding in his hands the meaning of his ride. In our sleep, we work out the route of our purposes. In the tidal cycle of sleep and awakening, one draws out the other, which pushes in turn. This is the hall of mirrors bespoken by poets, the reflection of of the push to pull virtual to virtual, sleep/awakening. The meaning is in the rising and falling, in the reflection of the cycle on itself.
C. BEAUTY. And why does the imagination have the ability, the desire, to appreciate moments of beauty, often so fleeting? The Inuit family trapped in the dark privations of winter, minutes from death, will resort to Art - from child-like giggle songs, to story-told scrimshandering. Beauty is a refuge in difficult times. And so the explanation for the phenomenal impulse of wealthy people to pay millions to other wealthy people to acquire mosaics made by slaves (the Greek decorations displayed in the nonpareil Roman ugly Getty Villa) and the stretched and colored canvas of poverty-ridden painters (Van Gogh). How can beauty be bought? And its accumulation is so mandatory for the powerful, not because they can, for they cannot, but because they must, for they are not living without it.
Friday, August 10, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, August 03, 2007
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?
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?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)