Nothing is Entropic; Peace is Inevitable

Ever since Georgescu-Roegen introduced -- more, he physiologically implanted it under the skin -- the concept of ENTROPY into economics, we have had to pay attention. Pay and pay attention. Of course that's entropic -- it is the exaction of existence, the paying and the pain. The Entropic more is extracted than is given.

It is not a mystery that everything gets Colder, Slower, Darker, and Older; it is Law. The reality fixed by the structure of thermodynamic existence.

Of course, the key to this one-way vector is the "older" part -- the irreversibility of Time. Time is functioning as the growing medium of Entropy. We can variously make wine and vinegar out of grapes, but we cannot make grapes out of wine.

We have to wonder, however -- observe the rising bread of mystery -- whether Time could exist without motion, at maximum entropy. Mathematically, we have not shown that Time exists independently. Clearly, we have conservation of energy, but not of Time. Even in a low-entropy state, would there be confusion, or even a gradient, between yesterday and tomorrow?

The point here, is What is the point of a Big Bang? Was there a high-entropy state behind the low-entropy origin of our Universe?

And may I suggest, with irony of course, that there is Peace through Entropy. For ALL of us who decry religious wars, is there salvation in Physics? In a world populated with men and women dreaming of a Heaven for themselves and a Hell for the rest of us, if only all aspirant bombers and child-murderers would pause in their endeavors, to explain What God would reward them for destroying what has been "created" in and over such a brief and enduring Time?

The crab sitting on the horse

The interconnectedness of things is underlined by the living. The spinal chord is but the tail of the shelled crab of the brain which sits atop the great horse of the body. What was once the gill of the floating fish is now the voice-box, pulsing the laryngeal linguistics of gloating expression. It was the trees that taught the brachiating primate the advantages of an opposed thumb. And the elegant earthworm continues to crawl over all the bones of the world.

Frederick Turner and "natural classicism" - the BASIS for giving Hope a Chance

The Culture of Hope; a New Birth of the Classical Spirit, by Frederick Turner (1995), English born son of Anthropologists. The book blurb says: ..."Its highly controversial positions have been attacked by both the right and the left; the right because of its foundational use of evolutionary theory and its defense of liberal freedoms, the left because it systematically refutes the logical and evidentiary underpinnings of much contemporary academic feminist, multiculturalist, environmentalist, and deconstructionist social theory. It welcomes a new era of evolutionary hope."

http://benturner.com/genesis/book_culture.html

Another scholar working outside the narrow confines of academia and politics, and contributes to the recognition of the ideas of EMERSON, the contributions to a nascent American Renaissance revival.

Unlike the current and late Nazis, and the hatemongering ilk of any day, and to the extent that Obama is expressing a philosophy of Hope, Obama has a scientifically valid and culturally authentic BASIS for his oratorical presentation. When Hitler pounded the podia, the tables, the air...he invoked feelings,, "You know in your heart this is true; you feel its correctness!" Yet, although he asserted power and sought to conquer everyone, and although many SS PhDs were awarded for teutonic studies, there is not a page of scientific vindication of his race-theory, and not a sentence of "cultural" authenticity. There has never been a "pure" culture, much less a "white" culture. ALL culture is semitic...and white, black, brown, yellow, red and blue and green. The intermixing is HOW "it" became culture.

We see this in NATURE. Emerson, for example, decades before Darwin, and a century before the sociobiologists, observed that "from any one object the parts and properties of any other may be predicted", because each part contains the "code" of the whole reality. There is no "other". No "there" here.

Now 200 years after Emerson, we are indebted to the author of The Culture of Hope (1995) for reminding us of the enormous depth of validity and authentication behind the message of Hope resurrected by Senator Obama in his political campaign.

Western Bluebirds in Orange County

As I was emerging from one of my morning Hesychasms, I heard a bird call that I believe is a Western Bluebird: Churr churr chuck cheer lee! I have had only one sighting....

After an extemely stressful week, and feeling the brush of those "other" wings not worn by a small thrush, the soft foreshadowings signaled by two traffic accidents, elevated cholesterol markers, confirmed high blood pressure, and the reported sudden deaths of several famous 58 year olds (Journalist Russert, Pastor Vandyken), I was overcome with gratitude that the decades of pain would certainly end.

Selected for Prosecution: Spitzer, Scruggs, Lerach - Conspiracy and Coincidence

After the shock of Dickie Scruggs' guilty plea for bribery, Eliot Spitzer's call-girl denoument, and the sentencing of Bill Lerach to prison for what was essentially capping, it is necessary to evaluate the implications. Is it coincidence that all three of these lawyers were "consumer advocates"? All three have caused real pain to the Fortune 500 billionaire CEO oligarchs. Now, they have been rendered harmless. Coincidence?

Half-way through the year 2008, as the Bush-Cheney-Rove term is expiring, we see the results of 7 years of prosecutorial efforts by the Executive Department coming to surface. They are now celebrating a trifecta in their twist on "tort reform".

You recall the Bush-Cheney-Rove appointment of foxes to guard the henhouse gates, the latitude given to the Lays and their Enrons (and other stratospherically-salaried CEOs), the purging of the Federal Attorneys General, the refusal to protect consumers, the failure to enforce environmental standards. Now add the selected prosecutions of Eliot Spitzer, Dickie Scruggs, and Bill Lerach which have all come to flower in the last year. Of course, all three of these successful advocates for public interests really did commit wrongdoing. But there is a quality of bogus-ness to the raft of "charges" they faced.

My instincts are to give little weight to Conspiracy theories, and to chalk up many events, without condemnation, to the arbitrary eruption of Coincidence. Is it just coincidence that three of our most powerful consumer attorneys are now neutralized?

There are three reasons to re-visit this question.

THE TOBACCO CASES. I am one who studied the "conspiracy" of Tobacco. I documented the "sweet heart" suits in 9 States in which Tobacco Companies paid a drunk incompetent lawyer (nine of them!) to sue themselves and obtain victories appealed to the Supreme Court of each State so that they would have "precedence" against any plaintiff.

THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. I also documented 20 years of publications by the John Birch Society accurately reporting the misfeasance of selected Negro men and Jews, while failing to report any of their achievements. This is racism hiding behind a veil of "truth", and it shows the invidiousness of this form of hatred.

STATE BAR PROSECUTIONS. I am also reminded of the prosecutions against me. While the State Bar has yet to disbar any attorney who counseled the pirates of Enron in pillaging the consumers of billions of dollars, the State Bar has yet to prosecute any attorney representing a criminal CEO whose depradations were enabled by hordes of lawyers who set up the off-shore shell corporations. The State Bar has gone after dozens of naive and impoverished Sole Practitioners, while ignoring the stench of the dead horse of corporate malfeasance in the profession. When I was a hungry and poor attorney just starting out, the State Bar came after me. Their "complaining witness" actually stated in Deposition that "the attorney did nothing wrong" and "I have no complaint with him". I gave the State Bar transcripts which showed that a rich attorney, Wolf Stern, had perjured himself in court. I gave the State Bar records which showed rich attorneys had joined their clients and enabled criminal CEO's to pillage the public and shareholders. The State Bar elected not to prosecute.

The point is that the Prosecutor (State Bar, or Attorney General of any State or Federal Agency) has DISCRETION for who they go after and which laws they enforce.

When Bush-Cheney-Rove hijacked the Republican Party and stole the Presidency, one of their goals was to remove the exposure of the rich to law suits brought by the victims of their Big Business concept of "opportunity". They called this effort to close the court house door, "tort reform". Not content with merely appointing unqualified judges who shared their ideology, the cabal went after the leaders of the plaintiff's bar.

I realize Spitzer, Scruggs and Lerach were all culpable. When the State Bar prosecutor went after me, after 21 hearings, financially exhausted, I gave up and compromised with them. By contrast, when Big Business went after Ralph Nader -- with prostitutes, hush-money, offers to persuade the jury with bribes -- Ralph Nader spurned their efforts. He passed that test of being a righteous man and did not compromise with the nastiness and insinuations. Many others, they really DO take the low road, they fall and deserve their fall. And I fell, because I was naive and weak.

Still, there is some significance here. It is not coincidence that the corrupted Big Business targeted the top, the most successful, the billionaire attorneys of the plaintiffs' Bar. The robber barons at the US Chamber of Commerce who were in bed with Enron, WorldCom, and Philip Morris, must be thrilled. But it is more than that. They must be seeing the return on their investment in "tort reform" -- the program of Bush in going after the people who were fighting for the rights of the oppressed.

Prokaryotic microbes 1 mile beneath the sea bed

Life seems to flourish even in unlikely places.

Canadian and French scientists have discovered prokaryotic microbes in searing hot sediments over one mile under the seabed off Newfoundland. This is twice as deep as the previous depth record of 2,760 feet.

y-Larvae - mystery of the "young"/ missing adults

We have puzzled over the identity of a tiny marine organism which is clearly a larval or immature form of an "adult" form which has never been found. The curious thing is that although smaller than a period, they appear in every ocean, and may play an important role, just from their sheer numbers.

As for the "adult" form, none has been found. Nobody knows what these babies become.

For more than one hundred years, we have resorted to classifying these creatures as "y-larvae". All attempts to raise them to adult forms have failed. Known as shrimp-like "facetotectans", they are the only crustacean with a taxonomy based solely on its larval stage, of which more than 40 varieties have been collected. What sort of abundant creature "disappears" completely when it grows up?

Biologist Henrik Glenner, University of Copenhagen, acting on a hunch, exposed the larvae to a hormone that causes other crustacean parasites to metamorph into juvenile adult forms. The result was that eyeless, limbless, juveniles lacking digestive tracts, wiggled out of their larval carapaces. It appears probable that the "adult" lives as a parasite inside the digestive tract of its host. That host has yet to be found.

We find yet another "niche" in which Life somehow manages to flourish. Life in the guts of other forms of life.

Love...Harmony...Peace...Gratitude -- these are the Taught Values

The CORE of what we call Christianity today was summarized in a variety of letters composed by the Roman Paul of Tarsus during his efforts to build a community of believers. In his letter to the Colossians [chapter 3], a large community of Christians who lived in what is now Turkey, he wrote:

"Above all, clothe yourselves with Love which binds everything together
in perfect harmony...and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts...
and be thankful."

The Church Fathers ever since have recognized this letter as a true and inspired grasp of the message of Jesus Christ, who is referred to by name. It spells out what Christ taught people to DO, and BE, and How.

It is only left to us to recognize that the authentic "Religious Fundamentalist" must be one who acts to achieve harmony out of Love and gratitude. Nowhere, did Christ teach us to deceive, defraud, cheat and steal. Nowhere, did Paul construe any teaching point or rule of Christ, so as to justify misleading anyone, or in any way burdening others to the benefit of yourself.

Those who benefit themselves at the expense of others IN THE NAME OF CHRIST are NOT "Fundamentalists" in any sense of the word. They are the Hypocrites, the false leaders, the miscreants who who been consistently excoriated in detail since the days of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, and Jesus Christ. One simply cannot injure, disenfranchise or insult others AS A CHRISTIAN.

Just as we must recognize "liberal" for what it is and always has been, we must also recognize what "fundamentalist" is and always has been. And do not forgive or forget the crimes committed by those who have distorted the meanings of these words for their own mean-spirited ends. The days of spin-politics are numbered, simply by the reckoning brought on by the collapse of the Bush-Cheney-Rove take-over of the Republican Party.

Blaming Bush-Cheney-Rove

Make a note to just "get over" seeing the guilty hand of Bush-Cheney-Rove in every disaster civilization now faces. Just because they usurped the office in which we otherwise would have had someone helping us, rather than weakening us....is no reason to step into that BOX, the enclosure, in which blame resides.

Even the most ignorant and vicious cabal must be forgiven. Not because they deserve forgiveness. Few do. But because we who must live with consequences must see clearly, must move to action in the face of real disasters, foreign and entropic. The impulse to blame is almost never helpful.

For example, we huddle in the bilge of a ridiculously small boat, most of the oarlocks broke and the paddles lost. Huge waves rock the world, and sheets of wind-fisted rain conspire with the sea itself to drown out our last hoarse voices. Perhaps the remorseless hunger of a Leviathan has keened its predatory eye upon us. Our fellow oarsmen are in shock, or clinging to themselves, or foolishly falling upon the weak to drink their fatal blood. Now, now, does it do ANY good to rail against the pirates who captained away the ship and set us adrift?

No.

Look to the remaining oars! Shelter the weak, and let everyone bail who can cup disaster in his hand, or sluice it away! Secure the remaining stores. And above all, turn to the last young men and women of vision, speak to them of science and hope, and put all your love and confidence into their shoulders.

Of course, if we survive the Troubles, we do not rest until Justice is done.

Burning Man

Build a fire for a man, and he'll be warm for an evening. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Another Bush Defector: Scott McClellan

...These are the same people who were screaming 10 years ago that we should impeach a President if he is A LIAR....

On the occasion of the publication of a book by Bush's former Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, the Times Staff Writer, Tim Rutten, introduces his review: "The evidence seems to suggest that you'd have to go back to the Borgia court to find anything close to the miasma of feral self-interest that must hang in the air during one of this administration's staff or cabinet meetings. If you worked for this crew, you'd want to wear a Kevlar undershirt to the office."

McClellan did not publish this monument lightly. His book, WHAT HAPPENED; Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception (2008), clearly and repeatedly documents examples of LIES and deceit as a practiced lifestyle of this Administration.

McClellan has worked with Bush since Texas. In his confessional, he notes that Bush spent almost no time investigating actual crises, and was devoted to a kind of "permanent political campaign" of distortion. The following points appear undisputable -- fully and long-ventilated, with uncontested public domain documentation:

* The War. The President KNEW that each reason given for going to war against Saddam Hussein was pure fabrication -- there was no evidence of links to international terrorism or weapons of mass destruction (except for the poison gas that Cheney/Halliburton cynically sold to Saddam 20 years earlier).

* Karl Rove and Cheney's Chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, lied to McClellan about their roles in leaking false information in the Valerie Plame affair. In turn, McClellan ADMITS that he lied to the public and the media.

* Karl Rove's influence led Bush to play power politics even in the face of and in spite of other priorities such as national security, natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina), or moral imperatives.

* Vice President Dick Cheney raised the VP office to unprecedented levels of secrecy, expense, and arrogance, either with delusion, lies, or both. He seized unprecedented power, demanded unprecedented secrecy, and ran rough-shod over the concept of balancing power with separation of Powers ("checks and balances").

* The two campaigns in the national elections were filled with fraud. The slogans were designed to deceive. For example, "no child left behind" while stealing from education budget, betrayal of the "Christian coalition", lies ("Swift Boating"), distortion (Reaganomics, tort reform), criminal influence (Secretary of State of Florida announcing result before counting ballots). At bottom, Bush was not actually elected on either occasion. The office was stolen.

Perhaps history would have wanted to be kind to a President who will claim to have been elected, twice, by the American People. This book should put that possibility to rest. These are the same gentlemen who were screaming, screaming, "IMPEACH!!!" when Clinton denied "having sex" with Monica Lewinsky and the accuser's attorneys defined "having sex" as penile-vaginal intercourse. Semen stains in the breast area of the infamous blue dress is actually PROOF that Clinton did NOT lie.

Pollution, the heavy price to pay for Business

Is there a lobby for victims of pollution?

Once again, we find another price that we (and future generations) will be paying for the irresponsibility of the Bush Administration. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was one of the first Federal agencies to be eviscerated by Bush-Cheney-Rowe. The EPA has yet to complete studies on lead paint, mercury, or even Dioxin, which were ordered by Congress many years ago.

After control was captured by pirates, the Republican Party has beaten a drum, constantly, about how environmental regulations drive jobs and industry out of business. Do we ever hear about the cost -- in jobs and money -- of pollution?

POISONING. Regardless of socioeconomic factors, children exposed to lead dust or particles, develop smaller brains, and are more likely to suffer ADD, and learning disabilities. The higher the concentration of lead in the blood, the more likely a child will commit crime as an adult. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 310,000 preschool-age children in Los Angeles have levels of lead that exceed the minimal Federal guidelines. 80% of the homes they live in were built while lead paint was still in use.

The public does not want to hear about what it will end up paying for having polluted the brains of the children.

Teaching

How did that work for you?

I loved learning, and was always grateful for the kindness and stout-hearted courage of teachers committed to a task which can only be Sisyphean at best.

Half of all the new teachers recruited by Teach for America leave the profession within five years, usually emotionally drained.

As for school Administration, the Bush Administration has put into place a Testing regime which punishes the Principals of schools that do badly on the tests, with the predictable result that NO ONE WANTS TO BE THE PRINCIPAL in those schools, resulting in high turn-over and even worse school administration.

And although there is no law that requires the Tests be administered without making each Taking event itself a "learning" event, that remains how the Tests are administered -- diagnostic, punishing, each student in isolation, removed from any pretense that the "answers" are interesting, worthy of study, or can trigger the curiosity in any way. The student learns that Tests are bad. Sickening.

The Gleaners of Faith in the Fields of No God

It cannot be said any simpler: Without Faith, we are not Human. But of course, there is No God. There is only the abundance of Nothing to have Faith In.

In a letter written one year before his death, Einstein wrote: "The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and produce of human weaknesses...". That letter, curiously sold at auction in London on May 15, 2008 for $404,000. Somehow this controversy, and this price, further reflects upon our wont for "childish superstition". We gladly and continue to pay dearly for it.

Turning to another milestone in Faith, the Templeton Foundation published the responses to its call: "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" Most of the respondents did not fall upon the sword of their Yes. The more we indulge Science, the more we find ourselves Believers. Ecce Homo. Of course, Science has left no place at all for even a remnant of "the God of our Fathers". That part of what we once took to be real is gone.

Finally, it is clearly wrong to claim that "God cares" or "Science is neutral". There is no tenable position which either supports or finds use for a "divinity" which is moral, or a science which is "immoral". The reality is that "God" is demonstrably indifferent, and that Science has overwhelming moral valence.

Increasingly, we look to Physics, or the science of Volition, for guidance in what is right and wrong. History and Archeology are filled with blind alleys into which our forebears thronged in attempts to "follow" a revenant ghost with a promise of righteousness. That was clearly the wrong track. No moral precepts have survived the practitioners of religion.

There is, and always has been, a rationale for "listening to one's conscience" -- one's body/mind, the sine qua non, the interactive social connectivity of our lips and our cities, our eyes and our judgment, our walk in space and time. Moral fiber is not molded from Olympian spit. The steel of a man, the eagerness of a woman, the bold curiosity of child, the wonder of wisdom across cultures and generations, are all artifacts of being human.

The Walls of the Present

I remain in the generation of my Generation. We are all "here" and "now" in different places and times -- everywhere at all times. When I see someone being here and now, I have to suppress laughter: a human being fools no one pretending to have no history or hopes.

Edmund Wilson (b. 1895), that Red Bank critic born of an attorney who went insane and a mother who went deaf, provides a succinct explanation for Why:

When describing the impact of Yeats, Proust, and Joyce -- his selection of authors was somewhat arbitrary but served the immediate context of his review at that moment -- he wrote that they "break down the walls of the present and wake us to the hope and exaltation of the untried, unsuspected possibilities of human thought and art."

Wake us. Exalt the trying. Open the infinity of art. Think of origins, middles, and never-endings.

Compare the Branch Davidians and the Yearning for Zion Ranch in ElDorado Texas

In early April 2008, prosecutors for the State of Texas announced a raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch. The State took "legal custody" of 401 children who had been raised in the 1,700 acre double-gated locked "19th century prairie" compound. By the second week a third person was arrested, Leroy Steed joining Levi Jeffs, and Warren Jeffs the founder, in jail.

It is interesting to recall the action taken by one of the finest Federal Attorneys General in the history of the United States, Janet Reno, in attempting to liberate a few dozen children in Waco, Texas, from a heavily-armed cult of Branch Davidians. The right-wing was screaming invectives at Ms Reno for each step taken in a slow transparent attempt to disarm the Davidian leaders. Now, after a wholesale raid and the taking of custody of 400 children from their community, not a peep of complaint from the right-wing.

The Federal Government, of course, is not involved. The Government has been deaf and witless in the face of the known and accumulating dangers with which civilization is faced. The Bush administration is not interested in the welfare of 400 children. Well, it is NOW time to scream. Who is taking care of these children? The children have been taken from the 19th century (weaving their own clothes), and from their homes.

It is not possible to forgive those who savaged the administration of Janet Reno, a prosecutor who at least addressed the dangers. Her critics are now hypocritically silent. They show no concern for an even worse and much much larger "cult" endangering the lives of even more children. Why is our Right Wing taken over by ideological hypocrites? Since extreme idiologues took over, we can no longer count on the wisdom of the Right Wing.

Finally, the news coming out seems to share the same tone and perspective which the FLDS Founders espouse: Males are important and females are reproductive drudges. Behind those "important" males are very significant females. We have not heard from any of them in any capacity. Apparently the State of Texas -- violating its tradition of having had five female governors and equal and independent citizens -- has been too much infected with the Bush legacy.

Looking for Hope on all the wrong faces

Once upon a time, an old warrior was wounded falling upon his own trope after a battle of no significance at a place I do not care to recall. All about him were heroes trying to get the credit for wringing the most blood out of the turnip of their own fear. But he tried to remain anonymous, falling back after the tide of the attack was receded, and as others delayed from the vanguard in its heat, suddenly advanced to plant their stanchions over the fallen. The old warrior knew there was no possible Hope -- not because the dead die in vain, but because the living only achieve metonymy. This is what you see in the eyes: The veteran of the battle never looks ahead. The opportunist of the battle, never looks behind.

There was no Torah, no Gospel, no Q'uran, no Holy Writ

OK, the gloves have to come off.

The Believers get my unending deference and respect. I grew up with the finest people in the world living "Christian" lives of great kindness and principle; they were worthy of their Lord, Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, I will be an apologist for the Religious every time, having studied the Atheists who seized power -- Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Castro. These non-believers have killed more and ruined more lives single-handedly than any historical identifable group of Rabbis, Priests, Preachers, Mullahs or Monks did collectively.

Of course, there is that minor detail: There is no actual God.

There is no historical evidence of a "spiritual" existence. No "chosen people", no Thunder God transmitting Ten Commandments to any Moses, no Christ redeeming anyone, no Prophet predicting anything, no vibration, no transmutation of no soul, no re-birth in another Lama.

Why mention this now?

Because the Fundamentalists are telling us they want to kill everyone. It is simply WHAT they are all saying. The Christian Fundamentalists have been talking this way for many years: Armageddon, the Rapture, Apocalypse. Fortunately, after the Huns and Vikings and Janissaries calmed down, the over-reading and over-reaching of the Church Militant also took a rest. And the whole Renaissance and New World opportunity provided venues for Science and Artistic endeavors. Believers stopped killing eachother for their beliefs. It stopped being "OK" to make other people die for their beliefs. It became OK not to kill everyone.

Now, Fundamentalism has once again emerged, dripping with blood. Islam is being used by those who claim to be its adherents as a means of stealing from the weak or uninformed.

Curiously, there is not a single publicly recognized Religion thriving today which was founded by a person who ever required his or her apostles to kill Non-Believers. For starters, Moses (an Egyptian married to an Arab woman) did require Joshua to kill Philistines (other Semites), but not because they were Non-believers. And the abundant and relatively recent archeology of Egypt and Judea clearly shows no evidence of erstwhile slaves rising out of Egypt and slaughtering Canaanites. Most of the origin legends developed by the world's tribes just never happened.

Jesus Christ taught and embodied kindness, the exact opposite of slaughter and militance. There is no physical or documentary evidence such a man or god-man existed. His cult first began teaching universal love approximately 100 to 200 years after all of his "disciples" were dead. No "original" Gospels or Letters of St Paul have ever been found. Note: "The God Who Wasn't There", puts the facts about the figure of Christ into perspective: http://www.thegodmovie.com/trailer.php.

There is no physical evidence that a man named "Buddha" ever existed. There is no School where he taught, no house in which he lived, no text he ever wrote.

Mohamed is one of the few "historical" figures now associated with a Religion. However, like Socrates, Jesus, and Buddha, he wrote nothing and was probably illiterate. The earliest copies of the Koran are clearly Arabic translations of Syriac/Chaldean Christian teaching texts. Mohamed never mentioned starting a Religion.

Another great and genuine historical religious figure is the Founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith. While Smith clearly existed, and is clearly the source of the Book of Mormon, for its part, the Book is not a "history". It is not what it claims to be -- dictated by an angel, translated by two rocks, composing a history of the lost tribes of Israel. There is no historical evidence of the "tribes" described in the Book.

Again, we are fortunate to live in a period of time when the Believers have generally calmed down. Yet, the exceptions are significant. There are trends. A cadre of pirates took over America and pillaged its treasure and sent 4000 of its finest warriors to their deaths, IN THE NAME OF RELIGION. The cost of THREE TRILLION is not insignificant. The election of Bush-Cheney was not a harmless swing to the "right". It was a wholesale rout of the treasury and resources which would otherwise have been available to enable free citizens to defend themselves and insure the survival of civilization, a matter now in doubt.

The other great danger is Islam. The last great expansion of Islam was the largely peaceful sweep through Indonesia all the way to the Philipines. Learning nothing from this historical success, the present expansionists of this most graceful of Religions, ardently demand bloodshed. Unarmed men, women, and children are the almost exclusive targets of this form of Fundamentalism. Ironically, most of the people being killed by Islam's Martyrs are other Islamic "believers".

Islam today is not "expanding" at all. The "ideas" of the Koran are not taught in schools, since as a text it is completely confusing -- the most learned scholars disagree about what it means. No one can "convert" to Islam since it is impossible to agree on its principles. No one can claim to understand the Koran in any language. It was first written in Syriac, a language now extinct. Scholars do not actually agree on WHAT the Koran should be -- various texts having been compiled from the teaching workbooks of Chaldean Christians and from collected battle lore inscribed on pieces of bark about 200 years after Mohammed, and ALL of his wives and apostles, were dead.

It is of course true that Arabs are reproducing. Inhabitants of desert regions are raising large families as a result of wholesale adoption of "Western" medicine coupled with prosperity accrued from oil extraction. Since their desert homelands cannot support large populations, these desert people are leaving their homelands.

Islamic religious practices are appearing in the West because Arabs, desert peoples, and Turks are appearing in Europe; they simply bring their Beliefs with them. These great people are the migrators of the 21st century -- enabled by oil wealth and an infant survival rate not previously enjoyed by their Bedouin grandparents.

In the Sudan, and in other large regions of Africa from the Horn to the Gold Coast, the expanding Arabs are slaughtering other tribes who occupy land they want. The fact that the murdered villagers also practice Islam does not give pause to the invaders. Thus, it is not Islam which is expanding, it is the over-populated Arabs who have chosen to leave their homelands to take over the homes of other tribes.

It is time to stop giving religious fanatics a free pass. Stop calling killers "religious". They cannot, cannot, can not, be "martyrs" in any sense.

And stop honoring those who enable murderers and thieves to claim a Religion.

No one is "religious" who fails to separate themselves from thieves and murderers. There is no hijab, no religious artifact, with any sanctity which survives the stain of blood. There is no "modesty" among those who kill others for their property.

No one can kill another human being in the Name of Islam. Call it what it really is: Murder, Theft. There are people who want to plunder what little other people have, and they do it in the name of the Holy. Such pillage is of course, utter blasphemy: It is proof of the non-existence of Allah, that a Mullah would be permitted to exhort one of Allah's creations to murder any other of Allah's creations.

Who kills what Allah has enlivened?
Who usurps what Allah gave to another?

These are not questions. What appear to be two simple questions, are indictments against murderers and thieves. They are explosives. These words are the road-side bombs that accompany every murdering mullah and martyr to the Heaven that is Not There, and the Hell that is.

Death in the Family, and the living Word undone

In the troubling history of our troubled peoples, many of the dead would return to speak to the living. We were not wanting for mediums and priests to describe the presciptions of the dead for our comforts and fears.

For whatever reason, with the advent of science the heretofore voluble dead fell silent; none speak. The faith-based mediums replaced by befuddling media. As if by strange coincidence, as the means of recording and verifying became available, all messages and voices across the barrier of death became unavailable.

Death now seals the lips of the dead. One suspects that this has always been the case. Yet there is the ancient residue left by tradition. And we long to hear what the dead have to say, perhaps with far more patience than we have for the words of the living.

Historiography - the balancing between academic work and popular audience

The Purpose of the Past; Reflections on the Uses of History, (2008)
by Gordon S. Wood

At last, a recognized authority calls for hostilities to cease between the pompous academics (deliberately writing for other professors bulked up with quantitative social science data and theory) and the trendy popularizers. For our generation, Wood is the prize-winning dean of American historiography. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969) won the Bancroft Prize. The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991) won the Pulitzer.

Collection of long-form praise and criticism of works by American historians published by Wood in NY Review of Books and New Republic, to each of which Wood has added an afterword, analyzing the significance of the subjects in hindsight, and reviewing his own reviews.

Wood seems to admire: Charles Royster, “The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company”; David Hackett Fischer, “Albion’s Seed”. He champions historians who have not earned advanced degrees but who communicate the story, such as David McCullough, Stacy Schiff, and Barbara W. Tuchman.

Wood is critical of those whose modern political views infect their work: Simon Schama, John Patrick Diggins, Richard K. Matthews. He is not as dismissive as other academics are of the “popularizers” such as Ron Chernow, Walter Isaacson and again, David McCullough.

Wood decries the academic “hyper-specialization” which turns off the public and deprives them of what would be a “sense of where we have come from and how we have become what we are”. The social science trend, for example, his brought historians closer to the sciences, but while enrollment in higher education was booming from 1970 through the 1980's, history majors declined by almost two-thirds.

As academic historians embraced theories of “deconstruction”, “textuality”, and “essentialism”, and incorporated compilations of quantitative data and technological tools of analysis, they communicated only to other tenured faculty. The university presses became obsessed with Derrida techniques and the structuralism of Michel Foucault. The academics lost the Story.

Ironically perhaps in light of the title and subtitle, Wood is critical of the attempt, especially by popularizers (Tuchman, McCullough), to make history “useful”. The Story is not for spinning. He seems to be an umpire of political shifts, calling ideologues out, but doing all he can to bring more people to the game.

Renewal of the Mind - Romans 12:2

"And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind...".

Paul of Tarsus, Letters to the Romans 12:2

What will it take for Christians to understand that their hopes and fears have been betrayed? The Cheney-Bush-Rowe crowd, crowing over the billions of dollars they have appropriated to themselves, are not merely traitors to the United States whose coffers they emptied.

They are not merely hypocrites, claiming to act in the name of the Christ while violating virtually every precept of Christ ever uttered.

There are not merely criminals, acting under color of the Law and the Constitution which they have sought to re-write and ignore, in order to engage in public plunder.

I ask every day, what MORE could the triumvirate do to destroy the Dream of America and the hope of prosperity and peace in this vale of tears? Surely the landscape is exhausted. There is not an institution, a cultural or political power left which they have not corrupted and destroyed. They took the legislature, the Courts, and the Presidency. They destroyed corporate America. They took the schools, converting them to content-free test-taking factories. The Churches, a moral wasteland after their pilfering and immorality.

Still, it seems that every day, they find a new icon to compromise, to steal from. Today it was announced that Bush is going to "restructure" the financial institutions, which, just last month, he had declared to be "structurally sound".

No longer content with stealing all the money, now he is going after the Credit. He is stealing from tomorrow. When the Nazis realized they were losing Berlin and the War, they ordered their generals to destroy everything. Just so, Cheney-Bush-Rowe are resigned to losing Power, and not content with destroying the Republican Party, they want to make the next Presidency impossible. An irrelevancy.

I am only hoping for a small renewal of mind.

Your Point is a Rough Draft

People act upon their beliefs.
They believe they act in their own self-interest.
Most of their beliefs are wrong.

I am a rough draft.

Almost all beliefs are false. And your point is...?

Almost everything we believe is false, but we are Believers....

1. RELIGION. Religion is a continent in the landscape of credulity, and all of its content depends on the existence of Divinity. Yet, the only Truth about the Divine is that Any God is un-name-ably beyond vocabulary, is Not a He, and is nowhere or everywhere.

The threshold question is why this or that Any God is so spectacularly indifferent to the prayers of even the Most Pure Most Suffering Saints, not to mention the daily supplications of yours and mine.

The next question is why we believe it is necessary or even possible to “believe in” such an indifferent Creature (as it is “created” for us as an artifact of every culture).

No one ever examines the existence of God any more. While this was the Huge Inquiry before Galileo-Newton-Darwin and our understanding of Physics, the proof lies in the pudding already cooled in the wake-up window: God serves only Fund-raisers who need to buy something else for themselves. And the Fund-raisers themselves do not raise the question – even for evangelism and jihad, the existence of God and Hell and Heaven and the 74 Virgins is moot. The divines are the Last to bring up the Subject, seeking only the subjection of the Believers, who of course, are immune to proof.

2. SUBSISTENCE. One would think that people would place a robust premium on correct information about What They Eat. In fact, almost no one knows what they are eating or where it came from.

Who would recognize a sesame seed in the wild? Who would eat a strawberry that no insect will touch because it has been poisoned?

Who could imagine that Salmon caught in Norway, is frozen and shipped to Qingdae in China for removal of the pin bones with tweezers wielded by low-paid women in cold rooms, and then distributed to Supermarkets in Europe and America.

What parent would serve their children at home the food that both public and private schools provide daily to their students, and with no choice, filled with sugar and trans-fats? How many eaters know the calories in a Big Mac (600c)? A sugar-drink?

3. HEROES. One would think that those we admire are worthy of admiration – the Great Ones of history, the leaders of our respective communities. In fact, however, our “role models” are either complete fictions or we are entirely ignorant of the facts of their lives.

Islamic Youth from the barrios of Spain through Morocco to Egypt report the following three heroes atop their pantheon: (1) Soccer star Ronaldinho, (2) Osama bin Laden, (3) Arnold Scharzenegger “the Terminator”, and in that order. 99.9% of these adherents know absolutely no facts about the personal life of these three living icons.

How about American icons? Most of us sensible educated people now deeply appreciate ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Among his peers, however, he was widely reviled and not more than a few even in his family thought he was a Great Man while he lived. Lincoln was a lawyer. He first ran for political office, knowing he had little chance of victory, just to get a name for himself. He began making speeches publicly, simply because so many of the Judges thought he was a simpleton.

4. THE IMPORTANCE OF MONEY? One would suppose that Money matters to people. Apparently, however, it doesn’t. Examples: Gambling, Foreign Aid, WWII plundered gold, oil revenues, Iraq:

Gambling. Given a chance to gamble it away – to hand it over to a complete stranger who has 100% control of the risk and pay-out – most people will roll dice or stupifyingly pull the handle on a box of spinning baubles. Billions of dollars are handed over to dictators, to privatized utilities, without accountings or evidence of how they spend the money.

Gold. After the thugs of Nazi Germany and the Imperial Japanese seized 80% of the world’s known gold reserves to themselves, their control was shattered and their conquests were rolled back. Books about WWII abound, and we know the maneuvers of every Division, and most of the Companies engaged in the combat. However, the gold has never been publicly accounted for. Where is it? Simple question.

Haliburton. Libyans live in poverty while oil revenues pour into the coffers of Khadafi through the entrenched constructions of a Texas-based company named Haliburton. Billions were distributed to Pakistan through Haliburton operatives, with no visible difference in the lives of Pakistanis or the security of the world.

War Spending. Two Trillion dollars have been spent so far on a War in Iraq, and you can count on one hand the members of the US Congress who seem inclined to think someone should account for some of it.

No accounting. Clearly, people do not really believe that money is important. The IRS cannot account for its collections -- it has never balanced its books. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, with a fiduciary duty to act in the interests of very dependent and poor people, has never been able to account for its income and expenditures. It is rare that any citizen, journalist, lawyer, or even a paid investigator “Follows the Money” trail. They all stop. No one has ever obtained a real "accounting". Money must not be important?!

5. DRUGS. Speaking of money, the top-selling drugs in America are “mood enhancers” – cocaine and crack (un-prescribed), and Valium and Prozac (prescribed).

Curiously the drug companies claim to be curing AIDS and cancer, but in fact they devote their resources to the development of copy-cats of Thorazine, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI). Thorazine had been shelved as an ineffective allergen remedy until French scientists tried it on psychiatric patients and found it to be efficacious.

The biggest agricultural producer is California and its biggest crop is Marijuana. Marijuana is the largest crop exported from California -- beating out rice, fruit, etc.

Americans spend more on money on “recreational drugs” and mood-enhancers than all other medications combined. This expenditure has made billionaires out of scofflaws, and neuro-pharmaceuticals suck the academic and financial resources out of our medical schools and laboratories.

Americans believe they get good medical care. They don’t. What they get is what the pharmaceutical industry and poppy-growers produce. In the 1990's the most profitable industry in the world was pharmaceuticals, and antidepressants were the most profitable of the most profitable. For over a hundred years, a Mexican farmer above the age of 8 has had a longer life expectancy than an American-born man being “treated” with block-buster copy-cat pharmaceuticals. Valium was the top-selling drug in the 1970's, and Prozac is now the top-selling drug in history.

With industrial medicine, Doctors are required to see a new patient every 8 minutes – and any actual “treatment” is monitored by drug salesmen and insurance protocols. Phen-Fen and Vioxx were marketed like candy to millions of people, most of whom suffered and many of whom died of known side-effects.

Government and Corporate Medicine have divested themselves of almost all “care” facilities, and neighborhood clinics were wiped out by HMO’s. When I was a teenager in Orange County, there was literally a medical clinic on every block of the towns that had a "downtown". The clinics are completely gone. The monthly cost of “medical care” for a household is as high as the inflated mortgage payments, and no one is “treating” patients in America. The meaning of "treatment" has been hollowed out by Prescription. Doctors dispense the drugs that industrial pharmaceutical companies "prescribe"; that's it.

6. ENERGY. What do people believe about “energy resources”? Surely they understand that prosperity depends upon access to energy. But how many people actually contribute to producing or adding value to things and services?

Most people would be surprised how spare the producing percentage of the population is. Farmers are now less than 3% of the population, and almost all “industry” and labor is either off-shore or performed by subcontractors who hire illegal aliens.

The “security industry” – which includes soldiers and sailors as well as police and watchmen – does not produce anything and it is the big growth sector in employment. The wealthiest and most robust unions in the country are the Prison Guards.

Enron was the fastest growing and one of the largest companies in America when President Bush took office. Enron drew billions of dollars out of the economy as a “energy” company, but it did not produce energy and did not make anything. It bought power from utilities, manipulated the price, and sold it back to the same utilities who were producing it. The cost of electrical power has decimated since the utilities were de-regulated, but no new sources of Power and no new Power infrastructure has been built.

Most people understand that Oil is a depleting resource. Do people believe that somewhere, a great leader is setting aside a portion of petrol profits for the development of “alternatives”? The biggest energy companies in the world have just enjoyed 7 years of the biggest profits in their history. Is there any plan? What do people, or the billionaire energy executives, believe will happen as the price of Oil products continues to escalate?

Gasoline from waste

Great Idea "#43". Biogeneticists in Emeryville (Amyris) and San Carlos (LS9), California, are developing bacteria which produce OIL. The modified bacteria actually excrete hydrocarbons. http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=biofuels&id=19128&a=.

Let's be clear: It is scientifically possible and economically sensible to gather Human Waste from sewers and feed it to our industrial bacteria who will convert it into hundreds of different types of hyrdocarbon molecules we can use for everything from jet fuel to roof tar to plastic.

The technology is already several years old. Apparently we are strung out on the "politics": The crisis-profiteering, the power-mongering, these things just have to get worked out. The "fix" from Science, with a bit of help from our old friends, the e coli, is IN.

Soon, we will be treasuring our population centers (old folks homes, schools, skyscrapers) for their PRODUCTION of the necessary raw material!

Starting Over. Never.

You realize that someone close to you has no respect for you. They have a complete mis-impression of your career, capped with a certainty that you have never worked and are not "good" with money. You are horrified, not only because these allegations are simply false. But by the fact that it is your own failure to have communicated your successes, your steady and energetic work. Thus, it is not your detractor's fault that she believes completely false things, but yours, for having failed to share the details of your life with those around you. And now it is too late. It is too complicated. There is water under the bridge. Huge.

How often is it too late? When is "starting" just completely over?

Saccharomyces - the savior of civilization

The "personalities" who subordinate us in fact play a very small part in the life of the Planet. Still, it seems curious how few of the "Chief Executives", the CEOs who take for themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in "earnings" and "salaries", have provided solutions to problems. Precious few of those who assert "leadership" over us have led us. None provide succor or salvation. Our "leaders" -- whether in Africa or in America -- seem hell-bent on stealing, seizing power, but have completely neglected the opportunity their power gives them to Solve Problems.

We need protection from "our enemies". So often, the worst predators are the same "Chief Executives" and "Presidents" who run our companies and countries -- into the ground.

For example, let's look at our political sphere -- and the two men who claim to be the leaders of the most people on the Planet. The claims, of course, are absurd, but look at what they are claiming:

Osama Bin Laden claims to be the Caliph of the most pure and correct Religion. And he seeks war in its name. Is peace a "problem"? Has peace created a difficulty which needs his war to solve? He wallows in the "fragrance" of blood sacrifice, although looking at his longevity, it is clearly not his own bleeding that seems to fill him with joy. In the name of Islam, all means are justified, including criminal ones. And by criminalizing Islam, he has destroyed it. Few "believers" make it through the exposure to fraudulent "lending industries", blood diamonds, and opium harvests with any sense of righteousness intact. Still, Bin Laden is the most popular leader in the Islamic world. In fact, there are NO others revered as he is.

If one simply reads or listens to George Bush, it is just as clear that he also seeks war. His "solution" to every thing is to send America to war. He has caused and presided over the disintegration of civilization and the quality of life on the Planet. There is hardly a Constitutional principle -- free elections, informed citizens, a free market, a just legal system, a strong defense -- which he has not destroyed. Bush has certainly cost much more than Osama Bin Laden, billions of dollars simply going directly to the bank accounts of his appointees and minions.

The only conclusion we can make, we are forced to make, is that the two self-appointed leaders looked to by the People to make us safe, have in fact created the very situations which make us unsafe. War, perpetual war.

So we have "leaders" who do not solve problems, but are themselves the problem. The costs and burdens of this type of "leader" who prey upon the Umma, and upon the fears and gullibilities of citizens, are enormous. Ironically both Bush and Bin Laden claim to be even more than mere "leaders", they claim to be our Commanders, and even our Saviors. They have both achieved the exact opposite of their claims. They have solved no problem but they have each increased our burdens ten-fold. Their actions have significantly delayed liberation and development, and fill us all with fear.

Last October 2007, UCI professor and co-founder of CODA Genomics G. Wesley Hatfield announced that a strain of yeast which now makes beer, wine and bread for us, has been put to production of bio-fuels. A new version of Saccharomyces, long devoted to processing glucose, is now working on ethanol, with other fuels and medical pharmaceuticals not far behind.

We have Yeast which is offering more succor to mankind than Bush or Bin Laden put together.

We need fuel. We need allies, not tyrants. Let the Pope canonize this lovely yeast. Pay no attention to the drums of hatred and exclusion. There is no "us" and "them". The scientists who are actually solving problems are our leaders. Instead of destroying the world, they have introduced the gifts offered by this world to us.

How Pitiable, and Glorious are the Natural Urges

I am deeply offended by people who pretend that they are in any ANY ANY way "above" Nature. For example, people are entitled to wear WHATEVER they want to wear. And if they choose to join a group that wears UNIFORMS, good for them. However, there really is NO excuse or rationale for requiring a Dress Code that is UN-NATURAL.

Specifically, the wearing of disguises in public is not only offensive, it can only be taken as a deliberate affront. To REQUIRE a woman to wear a SACK covering her entire body -- including her ears, head, nose, and eyes -- her BREATHING organs! -- is simply one of the most evil means of subordination ever devised. It is ONLY justified as an effective means of oppressing a subordinated population.

I realize that "Religious" authorities have invoked various texts to justify such oppressive Dress Codes. While "modesty" is a legitimate criteria, there is in fact nothing modest about oppressive Dress Codes or enforcement of oppressive and un-natural coverings. There is NO WORD in the Torah, the Bible, or the Qoran which comes even remotely close to UN-Natural apparel requirements.

Males will look for women, no matter what women are wearing, and no matter whether the women are imprisoned, or locked up. To claim that women are covered and locked away for their own protection, is to add invidious irony to the perversion. Covering the women in sacks does not diminish, it keens, the natural impulse of the male. Whether males and females are CREATED by Allah, or are the result of evolution from tardigrades and apes, ALL clothes should meet Natural requirements. If an article of clothing is UN-attractive, one should think twice, many times, before donning it.

Attractiveness is the Point. It is Natural for us to gaze upon each other. We have an extraordinary number of "expressions" in our faces, built by an elaborate number of delicate muscles. We are SUPPOSED to look at each other. And the reason the practitioners of Religion spend an inordinate amount of time talking about Dress Codes is that the desire to see a naked person is a universal. The awe one feels in seeing the movement, the astonishing talent or grace of an arm, an eyelid, or to hear a voice, is what we do and should hope for.

Males will jump through hoops to smell, or just imagine, or to be overcome with awe over the peculiar GRACE, the way each woman MOVES. And some mullah is not "permitting" these Natural hopes? How frustrating it must be to a man who is constantly scheming to get a few million sperms next to just one egg. And the man is a priest, a pope, an ayatollah, a man of authority and grace, we must respect, and yet he has no respect for his own Natural instincts?

The more a Religion devotes itself to clothes, the more pitiable the sight. Pathetic is the effort to put a finger into the tide of Nature, and pretend to prevent its rise. A veil is like being buried alive. There is nothing modest about wearing a grave. I have seen women gathering roots in the marshes wearing nothing but string skirts, and they were at once more modest, and more comely, than the queens of piety, showing their pretentions for all to see.

No man is uglier, and less worthy, than the one who takes things and people to himself as his possessions. As if he has "special needs". No mouth can form another credible word, after it has promised "virgins" as a reward in an After-life, for a man condemned to live in This Life without the kindness of sex. The Wine, the Women, the Song -- bring it on!

Where do we go from (no) here?

We are clearly going to end up where we are headed. How does it look? What can we do that has not already been done, and done, and done in spades?

COHERENCY is not enough. We are heirs to Scholars who have devoted lifetimes to marshaling the facts and composing the rational arguments which derived from those facts. Other scholars have sifted through and prioritized the Learning Points. Great Minds have compiled mountains of coherent conclusions. It is not enough.

PASSION is not enough. We are heirs to the efforts of devoted guides and their disciples who have expressed faithful and heartfelt expressions sufficient to inspire immovable objects and indifferent mountains. Great hearts have leaped upon sweating galloping legions of zealots and the ebb and flow has ebbed and flowed. And it is not enough.

MONEY is not enough. The riches of the world have from time to time been plundered and consolidated and gathered into hands eager for more. And what was achieved in this achievement? It is not enough, Ozymandias, never enough.

POWER is not enough. We have stood in honors before a parade of Caesars, we have sacrificed life and limb, and sons and daughters, to and for the Kings and Popes and Ayatollahs who assumed GOD's power over all the forces and influences at their disposal. We have put entire civilizations to death. And now look, look at the result of that power. To anyone with an feather of judgment left in the quiver, it is not enough.

DIVINE GRACE is not enough. We have prayed to the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-resourceful. We have gone to the Source. Golden altars of petition floating on rivers of tears. Our best martyrs, our purest saints, our most sanctified sacrifices of our most chosen people. The Gospel has been broadcast to every person with a dollar to contribute to its promulgation. Yet, here we are: 7 billion people on the planet, every possible dogma has its day, and not one example of salvation.

KINDNESS is not enough. Even the extremities of friendship, the most intimate associations among the closest tribes, the kinship of twins and paternities have seen betrayal. Under color of charitable motives we have seen predators emerge with billion-dollar booty seized from the gullible, the hopeful, the living and the dead. We have drunk cups of tea to oblivion, shared draughts of kindness, and smoked peace pipes to extinction. Yet suffering has moved in and builds every palace. It is not enough.

Even RUTHLESSNESS and ILL-MOTIVES are not enough. Did Machiavelli manage to send the Borgian Prince to the deepest aperture of Hell by offering him a prescription? Does the Captain of Industry have a name whose manipulation of some rival or mass consumer, or government agency, has laid up some enjoyment which he was able to enjoy more than any meal enjoyed by the lowest grasshopper? Is there a tribe or family more fruitful and happy than that of the innocent tardigrades?

Electoral Vote Predictor 2004

Electoral Vote Predictor 2004

This is the link to Electoral vote Predictor - update for 2008.

Mother Teresa recognized she had no "Soul"

The letters of Mother Teresa were published in 2007, a decade after her death. In MOTHER TERESA: COME BE MY LIGHT, her confessors published her sometimes desperate, devoted, and canny letters which she specifically requested be destroyed. She writes in detail to her confessors and ecclesiastic superiors of the constant crisis of faith which plagued her mission from beginning to end. Of particular interest is how she turned to the Church Fathers for help, and they gave her NOTHING. She told them from the outset "Where is my Faith--even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness and darkness--my God--how painful is this unknown pain--I have no Faith...". And the Confessor suggested she address himself AS IF talking to Jesus. She responds: "I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul."
Mother Teresa's "superiors" then replied, recommending that she view all of this "as a sign" that she was sharing Jesus' suffering on the cross.
Talk about cold. This recommendation hermetically seals the suffering of Mother Teresa, using doubt to confirm a belief. The true color of this recommendation is also revealed by background information -- the Church was embarassed by Mother Teresa: She was doing what the Fathers talked about doing. The Church never supported her work. The Popes and Cardinals and Bishops all despised her for revealing their own hypocrisy and greed.

Tardigrades - the oldest and most successful inhabitant of earth

Water bears are the most successful life form on earth. Over 750 distinct species, with their own Phylum, and no other creatures so ubiquitous or continuous. They survive man's exploitation of nature, thriving in cities. Scientists have found bear packs in hot springs, on top of the Himalayas, under 5 meter layers of ice, and in deep ocean high-pressure sediments. They can "resurrect" after a decade of freeze-dried dessication. Many species are found in a mild environments like lakes, ponds and meadows, while others prefer stone walls and roofs. But their most typical grazes are moss cushions.
Curiously, this life form is unknown to almost everybody. Even my Britannica Encyclopaedia has only 2" devoted to the water bears, with a poor gray tone photo of these colorful animals. The scientific name is Tardigrada, i.e. slow-walking animals. Although microscopists have been fascinated by the water bears for several hundred years, their size makes then hard for us to observe --just below unaided vision but too big for slide microscopes.
Finally, there is the aspect of Time. They have been found in ancient amber and are one of the oldest forms of life. Their lives are so small, so atomic, as to have less time at their disposal, and more. Time deconstructs as mass is reduced. Chris Impey writes in THE LIVING COSMOS, "Time's arrow seems to be an emergent property of large collections of atoms". The water bears, in their little moss gardens of Eden, are as invisible to us, but more perpetual, as any god.

Terrorism is a "policing" problem - not a "war-fighting" concern

In seven years of conducting a War on Terror, the Bush administration has yet to locate the top 150 Taliban leaders, not to mention stopping any of the top Al Queda operatives. Bin Laden remains at large. Not a single wealthy financier of the billion-dollar industries funding Al Queda has been arrested -- the blood diamonds, smuggling, opium, and oil. The Bush administration gave billions to the Pakistani military, and to various Iraqi fronts, and has operated a concentration camp at Guantanamo, and none of these efforts have produced results of any consequence.

Domestically, has the Administration located a single "terrorist"? Other than the four people who were already identified prior to the seizure of power by Bush in 2000? The Bush Administration has made much of the "necessity" for resorting to various erosions of civil rights under color of "tools for fighting terrorism". Taxpayers have apparently been billed billions for a few water-boards, and for "Homeland Security". Warrantless wire-taps are apparently needed, although Bush's Attorney General never bothered to hire Arab-speakers to conduct the listening surveillance.

So, the Federal Government cabal spends billions of dollars, violates the Constitution, and erodes civil rights all in the name of a "War on Terror".

Last week, a small suburban police force squelched a sophisticated plot by actual Islamic terrorists who planned on bombing targets in Southern California. The Torrance police did not need to send anyone on a black flight to Egypt for interrogation, and did not need any warrantless wire-taps or even a private concentration camp. They kept us safe with good hard police work, and adherence to intelligent and lawful police procedures.

How can we remain silent? There really ARE terrorists among us. We hear what Bin Laden is saying, we see the hate-mongers chanting "Death!" in their madrassas and mosques, and we have the Oklahoma City bomber to reflect upon. We foolishly elected a leader, in this time of crisis, who chose to profit himself at our expense during this "War". And the consequences continue to emerge.

The Torrance Police work is redemptive, and it exposes the criminality of the Terrorists -- the six ignorant pawns of the Saudi billionaires who were operating a terrorist cell, and the six ignorant billionaires who took over the US Government. The Bush Cabinet is a terrorist cell.

Coincidence as Proof of God's Hand

Coincidence has always played a wonderful part as proof of god. Our brains are predisposed to seek and find patterns -- we are walking metaphors, we are embodied hyperboles and we live inside mandalas. Every part of our "consciousness", which is the black box inside our incomprehensible existance, is devoted to "explaining", to "seeing connections", to linking our sites, to sorting categories of imperatives.
At the same time, Chance is rolling out its infinite die. Lady Luck accompanies us but her company is the only predictable thing about her. Yet so often, so many of the chance events in our life appear to be "more than coincidence" -- as if our lives were guided by god, even in the most mundane ways. As if a god would care if we were late to a hearing or a party, or as if our suffering is a punishment or an opportunity. Is it "God's Hand" that plays us? This thing that is all over us with serendipity?
Example of coincidence in a mundane matter: In May 1944, a cross-word puzzle was published in the London Daily Telegraph. The answers to the clues included such names as Utah, Omaha, Overlord, Mulberry, and Neptune. A few days later, those words were revealed as highly-secret code names for D-Day operations. After investigation, the extraordinary use of 5 words from classified war operations in a cross-word was ruled to be pure coincidence.
Clearly, the god of coincidence works full-time, and is not shy about war secrets or above cross-word trivia. The patterns we see in our lives may not be "real". It may just be chance, keeping its grip.

LMN Project: Law Marketing News - Journalism and democracy

Read Walter Lippmann's "Liberty and the News" as part of the LMN project. This is a small book published in 1920. It is either remarkably prescient or it just shows that nothing really changes. Lippmann invokes objective "news standards" for journalism, warning about the dangers of reporters with agendas -- in a society easily manipulated and misinformed. Shows how the press undermines democracy when it does anything other than "report" on events. The media corrupt the process if they hold themselves to ideals above clarity and directness in reporting about facts.
Lippmann was an advisor to Woodrow Wilson (and the Wilsonian Society), founder of the New Republic, spent 30 years writing a syndicated Pulitzer-prize-winning column for the New York Herald-Tribune, and later an editor of New York World. So, he was no wild-eyed romantic or naive kid.
He seems to understand the power of the press, although not all of his illustrations capture the Big Lie in the Big Picture. For example, the use of money to bribe 70 of the leading journalists of the world, by King Leopold as he pillaged the Congo. But he does note that the more the journalists lie, the more popular they often are in a mass culture, where public opinion is one of the "facts" journalists can distort.

One quote: "If I lie in a lawsuit involving the fate of my neighbor's cow, I can go to jail. But if I lie to a million readers in a matter involving war and peace, I can lie my head off, and, if I choose the right series of lies, be entirely irresponsible. Nobody will punish me...".

Joel Osteen in the eye of the Hurricane of Heresy

60 Minutes: Why are so many people flocking to Joel Osteen? The most watched religious broadcast in America, the largest congregation and he says: "I try to leave them better off than they were before". A message of hope -- God has a good plan: The Prosperity Gospel, for rewarding Believers with health, wealth, and blessings. Time and Chance are coming together for you. The key is Do the Right Thing, and you are passing the test. Most people already know the wrong they've done. Is this misleading? In tough times, you have to embrace where you are. Sports arena seats 16,000, has no overt religious symbols. The ceiling changes color. Does not ask for money on TV. $43m, and $30m in mail, with book sales ("Become a Better You"), still on Best Seller List. Not one mention of God or Jesus Christ in there. Theologians -- Rev M Horton (Escondido) calls it Cotton-Candy, telling people there is going to be a windfall in your life. No sin, suffering or redemption. He calls it heresy to say God is a resource for You. What could be dangerous about giving people Hope? Deluding and dumbing down? Or keeping it simple. Help you have the right thoughts take action today. Joel broke down in tears on the 60 Minutes Interview, humbled that he can help "give them hope". He writes and memorizes his sermons. Yes, the Religion is now officially out of Religion. We are talking about Hope, and it is Hope Now. It appears likely that out of green-back envy, the pious Right will declare him apostate. There are no real Believers. But we need Hope.

Night light, pollution of the night sky

I remember looking up and seeing Sputnik. In 1957, I was in Tumichucua, and there were no lights, no adjacent sky glow or light pollution. One night we set up a camp-lamp (with kerozene under pressure fueling a glowing silk mantle that quite rapidly tore) behind a white sheet of tucuyo to catch insects. Bugs would come to the light, get disoriented and slide down the tucuyo into the catch basin or our nets.

It occurs to me that bugs must do the same to every "night light" in the world -- circle, get disoriented, and then weaken and die. Every city, every street light, must decimate the insect population.

I have hunted birds by shining a bright flash light at them. They wake up and stare and the light, unable to move, fixated by the light. I have heard that birds migrate at night. I wonder if the illuminations pointed into the sky from the increasingly urban planet disturb their migrations.

Full sunlight on a clear day has an intensity of about 10,000 foot-candles. City streets at night are typically lit to about 1.5 foot-candles, or 750 times brighter than moonlight. Everything that sees at night, or is hatched or flying by, must be disturbed by the UN-dark, the light pollution of our night.

As the sun sets, I still look for a place to lay my head and sleep. None of the things done at night, the melatonin-challenged activities, make much sense if we are not engaged in actual war or bank robbery. And even then.

Christmas Music - "secular" commercial

My favorite part of Christmas used to be the rich musical experience. The unique celebration of a child, a mass in honor of the virgin-birth, something mysterious, and infested with arch-angel hosts, wise-men, and awe-struck shepherds, who, as we all used to understand, happened to be on the unprecedented night-shift.

Lately, I have not heard the great 17 and 18th century religious music. The radio is "going secular" -- a Santa without the saint, a "white Christmas" without the Christ, a parade of Rudolphs and Frosty's and other horribles. I am beginning to really miss the insomniac shepherds.

How can a broadcasting industry famous for permitting "pimp" lyrics and gangster posturing by millionaire pretenders think that a few of us Non-Believers are going to be offended by wonderful music that happens to have a sweet religious message?!! I do not want to Rap or Hip-Hop to anyone's "bitch" subordination of women, but I would love to Rap or Hip-Hop or Holiday to almost any Religion's music other than crass materialism.

Disappointing Frauds - the year's top scams

The schemes of Con-artists are flowering here in Orange County. Newport Beach remains the leading "home" outside of Nigeria, for scamming the world. The impunity of the perpetrators continues to parallel the scale of their ill-gotten gains, although the election of our new Attorney General (former Governor Brown) is a huge gasp of fresh air on the prosecution front.

Various "scams": (1) Phone call claims to be from the Red Cross to spouses on behalf of soldiers serving in Iraq, claiming to need information, which is then used for identification theft. (2) "Natural Viagra" with unknown or the same ingredient as real Viagra. (3) Phone call to family members of elderly, seeking identity information, for "emergecy" care. (4) The IRS refund email. (5) Fake foreclosure redeemers, collecting fees to do nothing or falsely collect "rent". (6) Certified checks, which are deposited as "available funds", but not yet cleared. (7) In wildfire areas, fake contractors promising reconstruction or utility restoration. (8) And of course, high returns promised for investments in which there is no real "business" -- actual trade for value-added services or produced goods. Millions of dollars are lost by citizens, and the money invariably going "off-shore", a hidden hemorrage of financial strength facilitated by government agencies run by Bush appointees -- in other words, government agencies that see/ hear/ do nothing.

"Business" has been redefined. Stealing is "business" if you can get away with it, and of course, any idiot can get away with it in todays' environment.

Still, I am so disappointed in the quality of the Frauds this year. Even the smartest MBA's from the best business schools are coming up with the lamest crimes. The frauds are little more than thuggish takings. The smartest guys in the boiler-room turn out to be dumb-nut thugs. QUOTE OF THE WEEK -- "We had a scheme where the rich got richer. I did it, and I feel good about it. But I'm not planning to run for office". Marc B. Wolpow, former Bain Capital director, referencing his former Bain colleague, Mitt Romney. Bain Capital was a "business" which had no legitimate business and engaged in white collar theft. Call it what it is.

Third Pary theory of Liability - as "Enablers" of Crime

It "ought" to be difficult for criminals to carry out their predation. Unfortunately, as so many directors of corporations and even government institutions seem to think that "business" or "regulation" should be blind to frauds. This is a self-defeating attitude, since it erodes the Marketplace upon which our prosperity depends.

Criminals ought to have a more difficult time victimizing the weaker, poorer, and less informed or gullible members of our society. The large institutions -- banks, insurance companies, government agencies -- at this stage of our civilization are actually part of the victimizing culture; they do not prevent fraud on consumers, they enable it.

The only obstacle to wholesale consumer deception is the existance of a few law firms which still handle business frauds, taking cases one at a time. For example, in another suit similar to one I handled 20 years ago, an Orange County jury concluded that U.S. Bancorp "should have known" about fraudulent accounts it opened for fraud operators under the name DFJ Italia Ltd. and awarded $17.6 million. The Bancorp attorneys argued that it should not be held responsible for the actions of criminals. That defense makes great sense EXCEPT WHERE THEIR BANK ENABLED THE CRIMINALS TO DEFRAUD INVESTORS USING BOGUS "ACCOUNTS". This theory of "enabling" is a very strong cause of action.

Adult films books shops

I learned at an early age, I was at least 30, that Adults are not very adult. At the drop of the least provocation, Adults will resort to the nittiest sandbox behavior with very little gritty. Adults are often sad deeply-rutted creatures ruing the lost hopes of their youth and battling low-grade depression with stern hypocrisy and bottles of booze. A few, of course, have seized the various reins of power and cling to them with a single-mindedness that gainsays any possibility that they know or much remember what they are actually doing as they pull on those antique lineaments.

Some adults are sitting upon laurels won by others and bronzed by institutions devoted to arthritic decay and entropy. The "adult" part of their behavior is negative -- they are NOT young, growing, learning, seeking, or even doing very much.

I am astonished to see the word "adult" used as a caution, as if "adult" was to be warned against. Perhaps there is some truth to that. There are so many optimal characteristics of children, and for so many, maturation is a sad disaster. All the same difference, it just seems unseemly: "Beware! This Film contains scenes of grown-up and mature behavior!" "This book is of no help for infants or larva below the age of 21." Or the shop offering "Adult Toys" -- as if monished by a forbidding heaven that adults might be playing nearby.

Even more surprising, the "Adult" admonition usually flags pornography. This is even nuttier. Pornography is usually not mature. At its best it depicts the naked fantasies of juveniles. More often it simply displays preposterous postures and unlikely ordeals of endurance engaged in by childless people for money. The level of intercourse ranges from play to torture, and almost none of it is "Adult" behavior.

Admittedly, the audience for pornography is huge. And it crosses all borders and penetrates all age groups. Little children are curious about naked. Little elders are curious about naked. Everyone flies into reflection and longing at the sight of sex.

"Adult" is often coupled with the word "themes". When you have "adult themes", then the material is usually not pornographic enough to attract the huge audience for infantile fantasies. And that is also counter-intuitive. Fantasies around youthful or even (chillingly) "first time" sexual display are almost universally interesting. Do mature people REALLY want to be "young" again? Do they remember that when they were young, the one thing they most wanted was to be "adult"?

Does anyone, other than a few adherents of unnaturally pious apostles of a cult, WANT to be a Virgin? Is it actually a "turn on" to be fumbling with a person who is filled with uncertainties, concerns, or even fears? How "adult" is that?

zeitgeist - the movie

"An organism at war with itself is doomed."

http://voiceyourbelief.blogspot.com/2007/09/zeitgeist-movie-truth-or-propaganda-you.html

The Leading Cause of Death - the Cost of Velocity

It always makes sense to look closely at Death; after all, our lives depend on it.

The phrase "cause of death" is deceptive, and invites serious second looks. Most of us die of SHOCK, as a result of trauma or disease, in turn caused by negligence or micro-organisms whose impacts are aggravated by a pre-existing condition, and all of which occur naturally.

The world's leading cause of death among adults is "heart disease"; the pump stops, and for lack of circulation, death ensues. The leading causes of death among children under the age of five years old are neonatal causes (37%), respiratory infections (19%), and dysentary (17%). Malaria kills one million people (and disables 500 million) annually. (Reference: World Health Organization Report 2005).

However, second only to heart disease as the world's leading cause of death is...{drum roll}...TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS. Based on projections from the number of passenger miles and manufacturing data on trucks and cars, in 2008 it is almost certain that 1.3 million lives and $500 billion in damages will be suffered as a result of increasing traffic carnage. Most of this harm is preventable, but almost none of it will be, and very little will be compensated. Millions of people's lives will be altered forever in the course of mundane traveling.

The carnage is deliberate, anticipated, and certain: Get in a car, increase your risk of death and crippling injury. These casualties are entirely artificial, having little to do with insect vectors, disease, or biology. It has everything to do with marketing -- few people would replace their bicycle with a car except for an appeal to irrational hopes and the juvenile emotional appeal of velocity.

Is there any REASON to replace "fun" (horses, bicycles) with high-risk comfort (sitting in a luxurious lazy-boy recliner moving at 88 feet per second...)?

Is it reasonable to risk your life to go to work every day? Is it reasonable to risk your life to go shopping for non-essentials? In the United States, more people are killed annually on highways than were killed in the Viet Nam War with people TRYING to kill them in a twenty-year war. More soldiers today are killed on our own highways than are killed IN IRAQ.

I will never understand why the parents and families of the dead are not screaming for compensation from automobile manufacturers. The cost of velocity is not built into the products. The people who profit from the suffering are deaf, those who benefit are indifferent and ignorant, and as a society we have not moved into the Industrial Age; we are forced to live irrational lives.

Most of what we Believe is Not True; especially in Court

Repeatedly, studies have shown that everyone believes at least a few things were are false, many believe a lot of things which are false, and a few believe a lot of things which are false.

Lets look at Courts of law -- every day, two sides of a dispute or event are put forth. A remarkable number of contests simply involve a misunderstanding. A definition of a word, or a concept of "business" that means something different to people with different expectations.

Melvin Pollner, in "Mundane Reason: Reality in Everyday and Sociological Discourse" wrote that we build our sense of reality "inside a bubble" made up of beliefs and assumptions. Inside this bubble is what a person believes, a version of reality that may be shared, or not. Pollner, a UCLA sociologist, thought that all of these versions of reality were subject to negotiation.

What happens when the bubble ruptures?

Lonely, misunderstood, accused falsely, and in excellent company!

Another day of false accusations, and (no big surprise) the resurrection of battles lost at the threshhold of my career when Justice Gardiner first got wind of my "multi-professional" model for practicing law. Somehow the richness of my life, and the many victories since, all seem to pale against the pain of those old wounds, the crass and unjust misunderstanding of people in authority sitting upon laurels they do not themselves remotely deserve. So, to fight off depression, what to do? To walk in beauty. Fine. After a brutal and utterly imbecilic Deposition, I took the Razor out for a spin, or a "scoot" to be precise, along the cliffs above the long beach for which Long Beach is drawn. The sun was setting over the Queen Mary, the Spruce Goose hanger, and the rippling bay. A gallery of portraits was showing in the Art Museum. And all the lonely people walking by, smiling at the bit of fun an old man is having on his scooter.... Picked up dum sum for dinner with my wonderful family. Then to the library to indulge, on this day, this particularly horrid day with a contemptible life, entering into the JUNGLE again. Find the Darwin quote - the one where he says there are no words, no way to convey the sublimity of the great rain forest. Absorb those photographs, the pictures of things that will soon be no more. No More! So dear in being here, so scarce, so magical, so real to those who have the hope of conscious existence. I remember seeing, hearing and smelling the great domino tree-fall as the swidden farmers notched the trunks along the lee, then felled the giant, and it pulled down an acre, left to dry, and then the burning. We collected orchids and ants, never again ever found. Oh where is that Darwin heart when we still forever need him! So Darwin suffered the same. Hardly anyone to share on board a boat. The Captain was treasuring his soul to a jealous God, the crew was amused but saw no "use" - the crates and boxes were bilge at best. But then in lieu of a long-awaiting celebration, to be cast out of his church community on baseless lies? Then there were the whispered accusations -- kept Darwin from publishing, delayed his marriage/family, ruined his hopes for a small fortune. And as righteous as...even as Spinoza, similarly cast out of his community of Sephardic emigrants in Holland, quietly grinding and polishing his optics, unknown really even to his landlord living below. And the ETHICS published posthumously. As if we can wait for Death? Again, the loneliness, the isolation, the accusations, the injustice never redressed. What good company it is to be among those falsely accused! And to further enjoy almost complete anonymity. This I do not share with Darwin and Spinoza, of course, but it is my special badge. Anonymity is my reward for being thick, sick, homely and having such little and so singular a talent.... I have only one talent: To be able to recognize those we must appreciate, and to distinguish those who are imbeciles. I recognize Darwin and Spinoza, for example, as people around me today, and as giants who lived 200 and 400 years ago (give or take). This is my only talent, and it is so rare today, it can hardly be noticed. We are awash with pretenders to our offered arts of appreciation, and my peer group seems to fill all available leadership posts with imbeciles. The thought that it has perhaps always been thus is of little comfort.

Military Veterans are "homeless" and wounded

The Bush Administration has created a wounded and marginalized class of poor -- the Veteran's who once fought for Liberty. One in four homeless people in the United States is a Veteran--where they are only 10% of the general adult population.

The lack of medical and transitional support for Service-persons, abandoned people, is appalling. I lobbied in Washington DC - summer of 2007.

The Necessity of Impeachment - Saving the Constitution

Representative Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) sponsored a bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. Progress has been impeded, but not for lack of evidence. Pure "politics". Congressional leaders are clearly doing their best to avoid what the Cheney ideologues are probably promising them, "a bruising floor fight".

Here is a man responsible for an illegal WAR, and the Congress is afraid of a "floor fight"? Cheney has violated his oath of office to protect the Constitution, but do not the persons of Congress also violate their oaths to the same Constitution if they fail to root out the offense?

Interestingly, the majority of the People favor impeachment. LAT 11/8/2007 letter reporting 54% according to American Research Group, confirmed. Thus, although the "political" obstacle has stalled the process, it is only temporary.

The impeachment is necessary to remove and prevent this billionaire from continuing draw "public benefits". The criminal indictment should be right behind the impeachment, and a disgorgement of his war profiteering could go toward compensating his victims.

Injustice in Court - top to bottom injustice, racism - Play: "Dawn's Light"

"DAWN'S LIGHT; the Journey of Gordon Hirabayashi", a thoughtful one-actor Play by Jeanne Sakata based on the true story of the Nipponese student in Seattle who refused to turn himself into the internment camps set up for persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II.

Hirabayashi was arrested, tried, and found guilty of violating the Enemy Alien statutes passed by the US Congress. He himself took the case to the Supreme Court, seeking to declare the law Un-Constitutional. He lost, the Supreme Court refused to question the "military necessity". However, 40 years later, proof being shown that the government had suppressed key evidence at his trial, his conviction was over-turned.

Are we learning from any of this? Our immediate past, proof that leaders lead us astray, and Courts cannot make decisions based on law, but instead cave in to racist prejudices. The "top" is not good at correcting error.

Smokers and the 20% plateau, raising $77 million for education

LAT 11/9/2007: "After declining for seven years, national smoking rates have remained steady at nearly 21% from 2004-2006" and not much change since hitting a plateau in 2002, from the significant drops in previous decades from 43% in 1965.

States like California that have restricted the marketing of tobacco products, primarily by taxing cigarettes (Proposition 99) to pay for health programs and education, have rates below 13%. This tax was $77 million in 2007.

We need a Milton (he did not blame the royalists when the republic failed, he blamed the people who failed to do what had to be done) to declaim our own inability to do what is good for us and not to do things that are bad for us. Why is this so difficult?

And where is the enormous amount of money going? Is it making a dent in Ignorance?

Neil Bush is subsidized by Federal Government

Once again, evidence that the Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal is illegally profiting from the Big Government it claims to despise, and which it now runs. They took over the Federal Government and then they direct funds to private entities which they themselves control. This is hypocritical because they got into office under color of "conservative" values. They claim to be limiting government expenditures. Instead, while in public office, they are creating their own private "entities" to which they funnel Federal money. These entities could not otherwise survive in the marketplace without government subsidy. This is "privatizing"? It is theft.

For example, look at the "educational" program these thieves have spent long hours designing. Neil Bush, the brother of George Bush, set up not one but a series of firms which in fact received money from the Federal Government through the "Department of Education". Neil Bush has absolutely no experience as an educator or education administrator. Yet, suddenly this entities, which have no other source of money other than the Federal Government, are suddenly being funded with millions of dollars of taxpayers' money.

This is a program which has no "educational" function or special expertise. It is a politically-motivated profit center.

This gets worse. The Department of Education is itself run by Bush appointees. The Inspector General of the Department is a Bush appointee. Now the Bush appointees are going to "investigate" whether the Department has appropriately spent the money it funneled into Neil Bush's "programs". They have set up their own putative "watch-dogs" to pretend to investigate themselves. They are not even looking at the "political" content of Neil's "education" programs -- IGNITE LEARNING INC.

The Trick of Writing

The auditory, and even visual, one-liner. The motto. The blurb. The trade mark phrase that "things go better with". People are working on their "language" skills. We look "it" up, and depend on "how you define it". Every commercial, a tidal wave which hunts you down and not content to find you, uproots and sells you. Every political wand, a spin-meister's spell. Every emotional outburst, an evolutionary scream for survival.

And all of this, all of "it", is manipulation. A trick. Every word is a haiku for a book for a colloseum for a universe for a god-packed Court of opinion. An under-hatted trick. Is there any REAL thing in a Word? Is there any REAL thing?

We obscure the dark with the light of words. We illuminate the ventilated with the blanket of vocabulary. Between the speaker and the speak-easy, a peep-hole of communication, of explosion, of re-birth, of coming out of the Cave in order to get drunk. The quarks and leptons of Nature are staggering into each others' charmed particulars.

All of this noise, filling up the broad-spectrum of analog digital dividings, and not a drop to think. So little time in an eternity of blink and bling. Between the ego and the cosmo, a kind of stuttering. All of this noise.

Has it been said already? Too much? Or not enough. Or?

It is true. This language is the boa of our constriction, and the bird of our release. Clad in scales and feathers, it haunts and liberates out thoughts. Positioned nowhere, released forever. Nos habebit humus, stardust. Like nothing so much as a metaphor.

Jonah Lehrer calls for a new way of seeing the world, and he accomplishes it

Jonah Lehrer is a 26 year old science journalist with a degree in neuroscience. BLOG: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/

His current book combines brain-science (a dynamic regenerating thing) with literature and the Arts, and is entitled PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST (2007). He traces the work of eight "artists" (Whitman, George Eliot, Auguste Escoffier, Proust with his re-remembered and altered memories, Cezanne, Stein, Woolf, and Stravinski) against clinical brain studies. Like his "modernist" heroes, he urges us look at the world anew. And again. Anew. And in his discovery of science and art, in which fields he reposes equal confidence and demonstrates equal appreciation for their respective beauties, he is doing himself what he urges of us.

John Gray's apocalyptic vision of ironic animals

John Gray is a professor with the London School of Economics. He has 19 books under his belt, including STRAW DOGS (2002) and BLACK MASS (2007). My notes from those two:

Primitive versions of religion are replacing the secular faith that has been lost. Gray identifies the ways secularism promotes this crude religious way of looking at the world.

Like Christianity in the past, the modern cult of science lives on the hope of miracles.

What would politics be like if science was taken seriously? No one would appeal to mastery of our destinies, no one would speak of "the progress of mankind", an abstraction cast-off from Christian hopes.

"Good politics is shabby and makeshift, but at the start of the twenty-first century the world is strewn with the grandiose ruins of failed utopias. With the Left moribund, the Right has become the home to the utopian imagination. Global communism has been followed by global capitalism. The two visions of the future have much in common. Both are hideous and fortunately chimerical."

Perhaps government can manage the tragic contingencies of life.

When a liberal society wages wars to promote its values, it corrupts those values. This corruption is the Bush Administration using torture--which had been prohibited since the 18th century--to promote democracy. The Bush Administration stands almost alone in American History side by side with the enemies of liberty, both foreign and domestic: The Saudis of Arabia (a clan which took over Arabia) are funding the terrorist camps and schools and are close personal friends of the Bush coterie. The arms-dealing war-profiteers and "privatizing" pirates pillaging the public coffers from the domestic front are also Bush appointees. This is all in corruption, in war, against the liberal values of the Founders.

Religion is a symbolic phenomenon, like culture or language. People use it to make sense of their lives.

The Greek etymology for the word "Apocalypse" shows that the End of the world was not referred to. Rather, it means "lifting of the veil", in keeping with the secret writing (Leo Strauss) of the ancients in their priesthoods, conveying secret knowledge, an excluding claim to Truth. Reference JOHN "the beloved", as the author of the gospel which begins "In the beginning was the Word", and Revelation, which is filled with inscrutable meanings inside signs. Baffling to outsiders.

Gray thinks that resource stresses (climate change, scarcities) will inspire new devotion to apocalyptic and violent religions. His vision of the future is bleak.

Yet, wonderfully, on the last page of BLACK MASS he sees the ironic fact that Judeo-Christian-Islamic Religion, with its overstatements, and its utterly false hopes, "can help humanity see more clearly". The Myth, the "story", is a vision tool:

"In the Genesis story humans were banished from paradise after eating from the Tree of Knowledge and had to survive by their labours ever after. There is no promise here of any return to a state of primordial innocence. Once the fruit has been eaten there is no going back."

Justice Delayed, Exxon Valdez, Oil Spill March 1989

Eighteen years ago, in March 1989, the Exxon Valdez tanker went aground off Alaska's Prince William Sound, and spilled 200,000 gallons of oil a minute. The trial, the inevitable replaying of disaster, the trial, took place five years later. The plaintiffs were the fishermen and natives whose livelihoods were destroyed by the spill. After months of trial and deliberation, the jury awarded 286 million, and in a separate proceeding, $5 billion in punitive damages. In 1994, Exxon quickly appealed the punitive award. Now, for 13 years the case has been on appeal. Now, the Supreme Court granted CERTIORARI (permission by a higher court to hear appeal). More delay.

Was it Gladstone who said that "justice delayed is justice denied"?