Friday, June 06, 2008
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.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, April 04, 2008
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.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, March 31, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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.
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?
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?
Sunday, March 02, 2008
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!
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!
Monday, February 18, 2008
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?
How often is it too late? When is "starting" just completely over?
Sunday, January 20, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
How Pitiable, and Glorious are the Natural Urges
I am deeply offended by people who pretend that they are in any ANY ANY way "above" Nature. For example, people are entitled to wear WHATEVER they want to wear. And if they choose to join a group that wears UNIFORMS, good for them. However, there really is NO excuse or rationale for requiring a Dress Code that is UN-NATURAL.
Specifically, the wearing of disguises in public is not only offensive, it can only be taken as a deliberate affront. To REQUIRE a woman to wear a SACK covering her entire body -- including her ears, head, nose, and eyes -- her BREATHING organs! -- is simply one of the most evil means of subordination ever devised. It is ONLY justified as an effective means of oppressing a subordinated population.
I realize that "Religious" authorities have invoked various texts to justify such oppressive Dress Codes. While "modesty" is a legitimate criteria, there is in fact nothing modest about oppressive Dress Codes or enforcement of oppressive and un-natural coverings. There is NO WORD in the Torah, the Bible, or the Qoran which comes even remotely close to UN-Natural apparel requirements.
Males will look for women, no matter what women are wearing, and no matter whether the women are imprisoned, or locked up. To claim that women are covered and locked away for their own protection, is to add invidious irony to the perversion. Covering the women in sacks does not diminish, it keens, the natural impulse of the male. Whether males and females are CREATED by Allah, or are the result of evolution from tardigrades and apes, ALL clothes should meet Natural requirements. If an article of clothing is UN-attractive, one should think twice, many times, before donning it.
Attractiveness is the Point. It is Natural for us to gaze upon each other. We have an extraordinary number of "expressions" in our faces, built by an elaborate number of delicate muscles. We are SUPPOSED to look at each other. And the reason the practitioners of Religion spend an inordinate amount of time talking about Dress Codes is that the desire to see a naked person is a universal. The awe one feels in seeing the movement, the astonishing talent or grace of an arm, an eyelid, or to hear a voice, is what we do and should hope for.
Males will jump through hoops to smell, or just imagine, or to be overcome with awe over the peculiar GRACE, the way each woman MOVES. And some mullah is not "permitting" these Natural hopes? How frustrating it must be to a man who is constantly scheming to get a few million sperms next to just one egg. And the man is a priest, a pope, an ayatollah, a man of authority and grace, we must respect, and yet he has no respect for his own Natural instincts?
The more a Religion devotes itself to clothes, the more pitiable the sight. Pathetic is the effort to put a finger into the tide of Nature, and pretend to prevent its rise. A veil is like being buried alive. There is nothing modest about wearing a grave. I have seen women gathering roots in the marshes wearing nothing but string skirts, and they were at once more modest, and more comely, than the queens of piety, showing their pretentions for all to see.
No man is uglier, and less worthy, than the one who takes things and people to himself as his possessions. As if he has "special needs". No mouth can form another credible word, after it has promised "virgins" as a reward in an After-life, for a man condemned to live in This Life without the kindness of sex. The Wine, the Women, the Song -- bring it on!
Specifically, the wearing of disguises in public is not only offensive, it can only be taken as a deliberate affront. To REQUIRE a woman to wear a SACK covering her entire body -- including her ears, head, nose, and eyes -- her BREATHING organs! -- is simply one of the most evil means of subordination ever devised. It is ONLY justified as an effective means of oppressing a subordinated population.
I realize that "Religious" authorities have invoked various texts to justify such oppressive Dress Codes. While "modesty" is a legitimate criteria, there is in fact nothing modest about oppressive Dress Codes or enforcement of oppressive and un-natural coverings. There is NO WORD in the Torah, the Bible, or the Qoran which comes even remotely close to UN-Natural apparel requirements.
Males will look for women, no matter what women are wearing, and no matter whether the women are imprisoned, or locked up. To claim that women are covered and locked away for their own protection, is to add invidious irony to the perversion. Covering the women in sacks does not diminish, it keens, the natural impulse of the male. Whether males and females are CREATED by Allah, or are the result of evolution from tardigrades and apes, ALL clothes should meet Natural requirements. If an article of clothing is UN-attractive, one should think twice, many times, before donning it.
Attractiveness is the Point. It is Natural for us to gaze upon each other. We have an extraordinary number of "expressions" in our faces, built by an elaborate number of delicate muscles. We are SUPPOSED to look at each other. And the reason the practitioners of Religion spend an inordinate amount of time talking about Dress Codes is that the desire to see a naked person is a universal. The awe one feels in seeing the movement, the astonishing talent or grace of an arm, an eyelid, or to hear a voice, is what we do and should hope for.
Males will jump through hoops to smell, or just imagine, or to be overcome with awe over the peculiar GRACE, the way each woman MOVES. And some mullah is not "permitting" these Natural hopes? How frustrating it must be to a man who is constantly scheming to get a few million sperms next to just one egg. And the man is a priest, a pope, an ayatollah, a man of authority and grace, we must respect, and yet he has no respect for his own Natural instincts?
The more a Religion devotes itself to clothes, the more pitiable the sight. Pathetic is the effort to put a finger into the tide of Nature, and pretend to prevent its rise. A veil is like being buried alive. There is nothing modest about wearing a grave. I have seen women gathering roots in the marshes wearing nothing but string skirts, and they were at once more modest, and more comely, than the queens of piety, showing their pretentions for all to see.
No man is uglier, and less worthy, than the one who takes things and people to himself as his possessions. As if he has "special needs". No mouth can form another credible word, after it has promised "virgins" as a reward in an After-life, for a man condemned to live in This Life without the kindness of sex. The Wine, the Women, the Song -- bring it on!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Where do we go from (no) here?
We are clearly going to end up where we are headed. How does it look? What can we do that has not already been done, and done, and done in spades?
COHERENCY is not enough. We are heirs to Scholars who have devoted lifetimes to marshaling the facts and composing the rational arguments which derived from those facts. Other scholars have sifted through and prioritized the Learning Points. Great Minds have compiled mountains of coherent conclusions. It is not enough.
PASSION is not enough. We are heirs to the efforts of devoted guides and their disciples who have expressed faithful and heartfelt expressions sufficient to inspire immovable objects and indifferent mountains. Great hearts have leaped upon sweating galloping legions of zealots and the ebb and flow has ebbed and flowed. And it is not enough.
MONEY is not enough. The riches of the world have from time to time been plundered and consolidated and gathered into hands eager for more. And what was achieved in this achievement? It is not enough, Ozymandias, never enough.
POWER is not enough. We have stood in honors before a parade of Caesars, we have sacrificed life and limb, and sons and daughters, to and for the Kings and Popes and Ayatollahs who assumed GOD's power over all the forces and influences at their disposal. We have put entire civilizations to death. And now look, look at the result of that power. To anyone with an feather of judgment left in the quiver, it is not enough.
DIVINE GRACE is not enough. We have prayed to the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-resourceful. We have gone to the Source. Golden altars of petition floating on rivers of tears. Our best martyrs, our purest saints, our most sanctified sacrifices of our most chosen people. The Gospel has been broadcast to every person with a dollar to contribute to its promulgation. Yet, here we are: 7 billion people on the planet, every possible dogma has its day, and not one example of salvation.
KINDNESS is not enough. Even the extremities of friendship, the most intimate associations among the closest tribes, the kinship of twins and paternities have seen betrayal. Under color of charitable motives we have seen predators emerge with billion-dollar booty seized from the gullible, the hopeful, the living and the dead. We have drunk cups of tea to oblivion, shared draughts of kindness, and smoked peace pipes to extinction. Yet suffering has moved in and builds every palace. It is not enough.
Even RUTHLESSNESS and ILL-MOTIVES are not enough. Did Machiavelli manage to send the Borgian Prince to the deepest aperture of Hell by offering him a prescription? Does the Captain of Industry have a name whose manipulation of some rival or mass consumer, or government agency, has laid up some enjoyment which he was able to enjoy more than any meal enjoyed by the lowest grasshopper? Is there a tribe or family more fruitful and happy than that of the innocent tardigrades?
COHERENCY is not enough. We are heirs to Scholars who have devoted lifetimes to marshaling the facts and composing the rational arguments which derived from those facts. Other scholars have sifted through and prioritized the Learning Points. Great Minds have compiled mountains of coherent conclusions. It is not enough.
PASSION is not enough. We are heirs to the efforts of devoted guides and their disciples who have expressed faithful and heartfelt expressions sufficient to inspire immovable objects and indifferent mountains. Great hearts have leaped upon sweating galloping legions of zealots and the ebb and flow has ebbed and flowed. And it is not enough.
MONEY is not enough. The riches of the world have from time to time been plundered and consolidated and gathered into hands eager for more. And what was achieved in this achievement? It is not enough, Ozymandias, never enough.
POWER is not enough. We have stood in honors before a parade of Caesars, we have sacrificed life and limb, and sons and daughters, to and for the Kings and Popes and Ayatollahs who assumed GOD's power over all the forces and influences at their disposal. We have put entire civilizations to death. And now look, look at the result of that power. To anyone with an feather of judgment left in the quiver, it is not enough.
DIVINE GRACE is not enough. We have prayed to the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-resourceful. We have gone to the Source. Golden altars of petition floating on rivers of tears. Our best martyrs, our purest saints, our most sanctified sacrifices of our most chosen people. The Gospel has been broadcast to every person with a dollar to contribute to its promulgation. Yet, here we are: 7 billion people on the planet, every possible dogma has its day, and not one example of salvation.
KINDNESS is not enough. Even the extremities of friendship, the most intimate associations among the closest tribes, the kinship of twins and paternities have seen betrayal. Under color of charitable motives we have seen predators emerge with billion-dollar booty seized from the gullible, the hopeful, the living and the dead. We have drunk cups of tea to oblivion, shared draughts of kindness, and smoked peace pipes to extinction. Yet suffering has moved in and builds every palace. It is not enough.
Even RUTHLESSNESS and ILL-MOTIVES are not enough. Did Machiavelli manage to send the Borgian Prince to the deepest aperture of Hell by offering him a prescription? Does the Captain of Industry have a name whose manipulation of some rival or mass consumer, or government agency, has laid up some enjoyment which he was able to enjoy more than any meal enjoyed by the lowest grasshopper? Is there a tribe or family more fruitful and happy than that of the innocent tardigrades?
Thursday, January 03, 2008
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