

### MUSE POOP

Perry Jewell

Copyright 2018 Perry Jewell

Smashworks Edition

This ebook is licensed for personal enjoyment . This ebook may be given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please feel free to do so but don't blame me if they look at you funny after.

Table of Contents

INNERDUCTION

Angry

Acceptance

Anger Reprise

Bigayou

BIH

Four Little Words

Good Ole Days

Heartache

Imagery

Kiss

Life

Love

Mercy

Moral Ethics

More

Mythconceptions

Neuter

Paving Stones

Problems

Sheep

Sticks and Stones

The Passion

Top Down

Troika

Where Did That Come From

Privacy

Religion

Reward and Punishment

Age of Information

Bats

Bloodlines

Boots

Broken Hearts

Dogs

Earth

Hmmmm

Table of Contents (con't)

King Kong

Life Lessons

Music

Mutts

Permanent

Rebel without a Pause

Red Flags

Safeguards

Staying the Course

Synthesis

Tabloids

The Proof

Three Reasons

Violence

Wakeup

What Do We Expect?

What Have We Done?

What If....

What is Best

Characters

Density

Perceptions

Purpose

#  INNERDUCTION

I went I went through a period where my personal Muse must have discovered espresso. For a period of years she held me in her over-caffeinated thrall with the results gathered here. They aren't in any particular order, though during compilation I did experience periods of alphabetical order but you can see my inner chaos snark lord can never be totally denied. I did, however resist the urge to edit and update, sorta Any readers can take this with a grain of salt if your diet allows. All of it is about as serious as a snark attack.

It should also be noted that these rants date back to just after the turn of the century and are in no way in any sort of chronological order. They cover many years of angst and confusion that have helped me develop into a more balanced human being but it is still a work in progress. Also, the many references to Yeshua of Nazareth pretty much mean a certain level of respect for what may or may not have been a historical figure. I also like and respect the Buddha but he hasn't had a lot of impact on Western civilization. I am currently a nonDeist in that I am basically convinced that there is no way anything resembling any of the current concept of deities running this show.

I do have some deeply held personal beliefs though. Never piss into the wind or throw shit at fans. The only thing acceptable to mix with coffee is Irish Whiskey. American Production beer is really poorly disguised horse piss, no matter what they claim. I prefer dogs as pets even though I share more personality traits with cats.

# Angry

Anger is an interesting emotion. It is an inherent part of the human psyche designed to give us a little something extra in threatening situations so we can either fight or run like hell. Over the course of time the need to actually fight has diminished and we have developed this interesting bit of ego that says running is a bad thing so we had to come with new ideas about anger. The emotion itself is physically self-limiting. The adrenalin rush can only be sustained for a short time. That leaves us with the mental and emotional aspects of anger to deal with.

Jake Stonebender says that 'anger is nothing more than fear in drag'. If anyone takes an honest, objective look at it will see this is true. Anger is a defensive emotion. When something in us feels threatened, we tend to respond with anger to defend the bulwarks. When we feel our expectations are not being met, we get angry. Not because they weren't met but because we fear that if they aren't being met our reasons for them are invalid, therefore we aren't. In the past decade or so there has developed this school of thought that we need our anger but we need to find ways to express it appropriately. I'm thinking we may need to understand the reasons behind our anger so we don't have to worry about how we express it. Granted, there are times when we can use the rush of power anger can supply but the instances are rare.

As an example, lets take Bob and Mary, your basic American couple in a significant relationship. Bob forgets to acknowledge some date that Mary figures should be significant to said relationship. Mary gets angry. This anger can be expressed in a few ways. Cold shoulder and bed or a screaming 'you don't love me' confrontation or a bitter series of sarcastic and degrading digs meant to send the pain of the incident back to its source. Bob has his own choices of responses. He can get angry in return (see the above list of responses) or he can become contrite and plead stupidity, which will involve a certain amount of begging and groveling or he can ignore the whole business and hope it goes away. (Note that this setup could easily go the other way with Bob getting angry first.)

So Mary got angry first because Bob's forgetfulness caused her to visit her fear that their relationship isn't as important to him as it is to her. She expects him to express himself in ways she finds appropriate. So she gets hurt and angry when he doesn't. Now rather than wondering if their might be something going on with Bob she may not be aware of or understanding that most men don't really have the same set of keyed expectations as women do when it comes to expression in a relationship, she grabs the anger. Bob comes home and is hit with this expression of negativity and depending on the intensity gets faced with his own level of anger. One of the first, most basic responses to anger is anger. It sort of feeds on itself. And it is a defensive emotion so out comes the defense of offense. So Bob either rolls over and exposes his soft underbelly to demonstrate contrition or he goes for the throat. We end up with one partner being beaten into submission or full fledged war, said war being either hot and direct or cold and sneaky.

And it all started with Mary's insecurity, her fear that Bob doesn't love her enough. There are infinite variations on this theme but they all have similar roots. And they all have a simple source...selfishness. We have a distinct tendency to look first to our own needs and all too frequently, we stop there. There is a positive emotion that short circuits anger. Compassion, the ability to perceive the emotions and needs of others as well as our own. One of the most interesting things about anger is that it does need negative feedback to be sustained. Anger is, in essence, a negative emotion. Its energies are draining. When we retain anger past the initial fight-or flight stage we are burning resources to maintain it. We set a field of negativity around us which is anathema to positive energy. When we are angry it is very difficult to see good things, to feel positive about anything else and so we broadcast this drain, demanding more negativity to feed the black hole. Have you ever noticed that when you are feeling pissed about something it is easy to find other people to bitch with you but hard to find any of the more positive responses?

You get what you give. If you are on a tear you can get others to join you in your anger and you will fight most who try and bring reconciliation. We _like_ our anger. We get this perverse joy in wallowing in our pig sty, throwing poop pies at whoever is foolish enough to come in range. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll eat some worms. And popular psychology tries to tell us we have a right to our anger. That, somehow, by holding our anger up to the rest of the world, it will acknowledge it and do something about it. Bovine feces. Every right carries a responsibility and since anger is entirely within the individual, it is the individual's responsibility to do something about it. The rest of the world plain doesn't give a shit. Nor should it. Anyone who thinks any part of the world will change just to keep us from being angry, just because we think it should, has been watching too much Fantasy Island. If we choose to retain the negativity of anger and let it block our quest for the more positive aspects of life around us, that is our choice.

#  Acceptance

How does that prayer go? God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Or the amended ending of the good luck not to screw up too often. Quite the prayer. And I think the interpretation of it is a basic definition of the two ends of the bell curve of people in the world. There are those who blithely (or blindly) follow along with it. Once something gets put in the first category it tends to fade into the wallpaper, forever filed as unchangeable. And that's ok because it is God's will. These folk also tend to be the ones who display the 'don't confuse me with facts because my mind is made up' attitude. All the precincts have reported in, the election is done, it is time to move on.

Then there are those at the other end of the curve who can't accept things as done, even after the fat lady has sung. Very little ever gets filed away or closed. I've often wondered why this is. What drives the questors of the world? Without them, the earth would still be flat and the center of the universe. They are the ones Bobby Kennedy was talking about when he said "Some see the world as it is and ask why. I see it as it can be and ask why not." Or Mrs. Lennon's boy, John. Imagine. It is hard to do these things when issues get closed. When one's worldview gets boundaries and limits placed on it.

How much damage has been done in the name of nationality, race, religion and all of the other artificial divisors man has clung to over the centuries? The idea that one group of people is better, chosen, smarter is probably one of the strongest pieces of evidence that Darwin had something with his survival of the fittest theory. Competing for resources is the bottom line for human survival and that is what is behind all of these ideas. Go back to tribal man and you find them competing for turf needed to supply the food for the tribe's survival. Bring it up through history and there is always a basic desire for resources behind every major conflict. Many times it is disguised by lofty fronts such as reclaiming the Holy Land but the base is always desire for resources and security.

The ironic part of this is the total lack of perception that to achieve these resources requires cooperation within the tribe. Bagging the mammoth to feed the tribe required the hunters to work together. Conquering the known world required a belief by the populace of (fill in the blank with any empire you choose) that this was a desirable thing. Dress it up in glory and money and most groups are willing to accept anything. Telling them it is their destiny as a chosen group has also been both popular and effective. This process is particularly effective because most people are in the first group, the filers. Once they are convinced of the rightness of a course or choice, it is filed away and not questioned and the less scrupulous of the questors are more than happy to take advantage of this.

A prime example of this is what happened in Germany after WWI. They had the snot kicked out of them in that little Imperial tangle and were open to manipulation in the decades between the wars. The little house painter did a good job of appealing to their injured national pride and the enforced block between them and the resources they needed. He did a masterful job of manipulating them into a course of action that he informed them would restore them to their rightful place in the resource race. Most Germans weren't fully aware of the atrocities of the elite and when they did learn of them, were as outraged as the rest of the world.

It's one thing to work a group into a frenzy about another group far away. All it takes is playing to their self righteousness. But in every war, once the soldiers get 'over there', it doesn't take long for them to realize that the people they are fighting and killing are just way too much like the people back home. After the initial fervor wears off, they see the similarities. And it comes home to roost that killing is just that, killing. It is taking away someone else's dreams and odds are those dreams are the same as their own. So when the warriors come home word starts to get around. And usually it spreads in the war zone. Those doing the killing lose their desire to continue doing it. But the leaders behind the scenes, who only see the reports, well sanitized of the blood and misery, keep driving. I would be willing to bet that if the Shrub were sent to the front lines in Iraq for one week that little skirmish would be settled in about 8 days.

One can't really blame the twisted questors. Dreams of glory and riches are heady indeed. The real blame is with the sheep, the filers. There is more than enough evidence out there that clarion calls to nationalism, religion, race, etc. are inherently suspect. Portrayals of other humans as evil, bad or deserving of attack are hype. Not to say there isn't evil in the world but no one group has a corner on that market. And odds are its because they made the mistake of listening to their own fools. It will only end when humanity realizes we are all, ultimately, of the same tribe. And that cooperation is a much better way to achieve resources.

#  Anger-Reprise

Having written some thoughts on anger and had some in-my-face experience with the consequences of said emotion I have to add to the original premise. As one of the most powerful (and common) negative emotions I'm thinking we need to rethink anger as a society. For some odd reason it is not only socially unacceptable to express anger in physical violence it is also illegal yet it is acceptable to express said anger as emotional or verbal violence. Why is it illegal to smack someone in the chops when we are angry yet it is acceptable to read them variations of a riot act that includes nasty personal comments? Ok, the official line is it isn't acceptable but you don't go to jail for telling someone they are lousy in bed, a poor provider or whatever cuts them to the quick. Is a broken jaw somehow worse than a broken heart?

Why are we willing to make excuses for anger? It is basically irrational behavior. Worse, it is emotional blackmail. What is the difference between threatening someone with bodily harm (or indulging in it) and threatening to withhold affection, approval or other emotional support until the object of the anger gives in? Is it only violence if it draws blood? Is it worse for a parent to physically beat a child or to browbeat them by telling them they are inadequate? When we confront someone in anger we are using that emotion to try and control their behavior. We aren't expressing our feelings in a vacuum, we are attacking. If you don't believe it, the next time you get angry with someone go lock yourself in a closet and express your anger at your winter coat. There is a certain amount of release but it isn't the same. Odds are that if you express your anger in a direction other than the prime target, you get to feeling either silly or frustrated.

I'm not talking about petty anger here like when you break or lose your favorite pencil. I'm talking about interpersonal anger though there are some who have a real inappropriate way of dealing with anger who go out to a bar and start fights when the Packers lose or something equally strange. The principle holds true with nutbags but one can hardly expect a psychotic to act rationally. Odds are they are already angry about something else, something personal and important when they get triggered by the strange.

Anger isn't a present or a toy. It is not something we necessarily have a right to. Anger is a personal problem that needs to be dealt with responsibly so one doesn't get the urge to take an AK47 to the local McDonalds. And we also need to get the idea that screaming hateful things at friends and loved ones is no different than taking submachine guns to strangers. Or banishing people from our lives for offenses to our supposedly perfect lifestyle and code.

# Bigayou

That should be the word instead of bigamy. This has got to be one of the silliest laws on the books and direct evidence that the separation of Church and State is not as wide as we would like to think. I ranks right up there with the new hoorah about same sex marriages. We are talking about legal contracts here, like buying a car or a house or forming a corporation. Forget about any church sanctifying such a union, it has absolutely no impact on the pure legality of a marriage contract. No matter what kind of 'marriage' contract it is.

Not so very long ago we went through several tumultuous periods where we had to decide, as a nation, just how seriously we took our Constitution. Little things like amendments about not being able to deny rights because of race, color, previous condition of servitude or gender. I am no Constitutional scholar but if we can't deny some rights based on these criteria; it should apply to other rights as well. Once the King Nazis get done bellering, it will settle out that way. (I say King because that is what Christ means in Greek. I am still puzzled why people think its Jesus' last name.) But this is getting away from the original idea.

Bigamy is a crime described as a person entering into a marriage contract with two people at the same time. Now I am not exactly sure why anyone would want to do this since one spouse is generally more than enough fun for a person to handle but so what? Does the government tell the Colonel how many people he can buy chicken from? Or who they should be? Not the last time I heard. If someone wants to enter into a marriage contract with more than one person, what does it matter? Ok, in community property states it could make divorce real interesting but other than that I can't see a problem. If said person can either support or negotiate an equitable living arrangement, where is the foul? I can understand the moralists complaining about conjugal rights with more than one person from a legalistic standpoint. Now there is an interesting conundrum, moralists spouting legalese. But where is this 'crime'?

In the past 20 years or so people have been complaining that it takes two people working to support a family. This is especially true now that we shuttle the senior generation off to retirement homes rather than have them live at home. There is no more extended family so no more built in babysitters. So wouldn't it make sense to expand the idea of marriage to a trio instead of a couple? Two parties could work and supply the funds and one would stay home and raise kids. Sounds like an equitable solution to me. The rich have been doing it for quite some time only they call the stay at home a nanny or some such. Wouldn't it make more sense to have three people in a relationship that would provide for the economic stability of the family unit as well as the emotional? Now wouldn't that idea just tighten up the pucker strings of the righteous?

Of course, with the attitudes of today, this would be virtually impossible. And it wouldn't matter if we were talking two guys and a gal or two gals and a guy. Each would have its own set of built in problems. We just haven't gotten to a place where society or individuals can accept that human beings are capable of loving more than one person at a time. From a sex standpoint, one woman would physically be capable of keeping two men happy, providing their poor little egos could handle the idea that she might just enjoy making the beast with two backs with two guys. Not gonna happen easily. And while two gals may be most guys dream even Viagra would make that one a tad difficult. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, I'm saying it can't be done under the present system. Pity because it makes sense. But we are way too self-centered and selfish to even let it have a teeny chance.

Besides, since we have made such a horrible mess of divorce with just two people, I can hardly imagine how badly we would screw up a three way divorce.

# BIH

As any good Catholic knows, this means Burn In Hell. What happens to Catholics who don't follow the rules. I was raised Catholic and from about the age of 6 or so was subjected to the various trials and tribulations associated with being a Catholic. This meant going to Catechism every Saturday morning (missing cartoons), attending Mass every Sunday and of course, the Holy Days of Obligation. This amounted to some pretty serious indoctrination. I don't remember being baptized but I do remember the whole process of Holy Communion and Confirmation. The drill was pounded into our little heads in much the same fashion as the multiplication tables were in those days. Anyone who lived in the 60's can recall that process and can probably still spout the tables from reflex more than conscious thought. Well, Catholic dogma was ingrained in much the same way so it takes a real conscious effort to get past the Pavlovian responses and actually think about things. I suspect the non-Catholic sects used a similar process, just different dogma.

So how does one go about teaching an old dogma new tricks? Keep reflex from flexing? You either re-indoctrinate with some other system which only changes the players and not the game or you spend some major time and effort taking responsibility for what goes on in your head. QED, if you don't mind being harassed by those souls who still slobber at the ringing of the bell. And the conditioned guilt that you are really dabbling in realms not meant for the individual without professional direction. Things that will definitely make you BIH.

Along with many others. I can still recall sitting in church (it was meant to be a gymnasium but funding convinced the church fathers a chapel was more necessary) waiting my turn in the Confessional and trying to come up with sins. Telling lies was always handy and easily come by. That the Commandment forbids bearing false witness against your neighbor, a very specific kind of lie, didn't diminish its use as an old standby. Not honoring mom and dad...another classic because what kid didn't sass their parents from time to time. Ok, what normal kid who wasn't thoroughly cowed into submission but that's another story. By the time I was 11 or 12, impure thoughts began to be a real goody. No one ever could tell me just what this was in violation of but it was always good for at least one Apostles Creed. It did fit nicely with the Church's attitudes about sex. So you went into the darkened phone booth and whispered your crimes in an appropriately contrite voice. Then you got a lecture about not doing those things any more and your Penance. Generally it was a list of prayers you had to repeat. Evidently by calling on the Father, Mother Mary and all the Apostles you would somehow be absolved and said Holy emanations would strengthen you so you wouldn't be tempted anymore.

It's pretty amazing how fast your basic bright 12 year old can zip through 10 Our Fathers, 20 Hail Mary's and 2 Apostles Creed. Rosaries took longer but not much and they were generally reserved for REALLY bad stuff. It helped they had been part of the indoctrination, you hardly had to think of them. And for the ten seconds it took you to walk to the door you were safe from BIH. Talk about your basic miracle. And of course, being a kid, you knew you were invulnerable and immortal so nothing was going to happen to you before next Saturday when you could get cleaned up again.

Now I can't say if all Catechism classes were like mine but from talking with other classes, I think they were close. About 85% of the teachers (the nuns in particular) were real big on the BIH bit. I remember it scaring the living bejesus out of me when I was 6 and 7 but after awhile it began to fuel the strange imagination I had. Its no wonder I love to read and write fantasy and such. Their descriptions of Hell were incredibly detailed and very vivid. Considering the list of things that earned you your ticket to Hell and how easy it is to write that ticket, I'd consider it another miracle if there were more than 20 people in Heaven. What eventually put me onto the game was the time and effort put into presenting the negative side and just how little playing time Heaven got. The stick was definitely favored over the carrot.

Not surprising when one considers the rest of the story. First they emphasized that it was pretty much all about the hereafter. This was just a testing ground, tryouts for the big time. Worldly things were to be taken with a grain of salt (except your weekly tithe) and one was to concentrate on living a pure life so you could get to Heaven. Inevitably followed with the grim admonition about BIH. I definitely got the impression that one should behave properly not for the reward but because the alternative was so gruesome. I will grant there were those who did focus more on the positive benevolent nature of God but they were clearly a minority.

So this set a new pattern for the emerging mind to follow. The contradictions. The Bible is loaded with them. Catholic dogma even more so. I started to wonder about them and by the time I was 14 I was called to a special plenary session with both pastors. I think my telling a bishop he was full of male bovine feces, in church, may have had something to do with it. Father Andy was your basic old school, hard-line, Polish priest. Father Bertheum was fresh from the seminary. We had a rousing hour of discussion that ended with Father Andy telling me I was going to BIH unless I gave up my intellectual pride. (And a faintly veiled suggestion I refrain from showing my face to him until I did). Father Bertheum told me, after Father Andy had departed, that I would make a fine Jesuit. All I needed to do was accept on pure faith. I didn't go back to church or catechism, which frightened my mother to no end because Father Andy had called her.

Being young and immortal, I wasn't terribly worried about what the Church said about my soul or its probable destination. But it did set a life long pattern, a quest of sorts, to try and reconcile what my heart learned from the basic teaching of Yeshua and the policies of various Christian religions. It included studying the history of Israel in his time. There is amazingly little information there. Very odd considering both the Roman and Jewish penchant for record keeping. Greek too for that matter. That lead to the history of how the Church formed, how it grew, how it evolved through the centuries. Pretty heady stuff and much of it colored heavily because the winners get to write the history. It has only been in the past century that conflicting presentations were tolerated. Then the Dead Sea scrolls, the discovery of the writings at Nag Hamadi, the discovery of the Gospels of Mary and Judas. So it was back to the early history and the books deemed not ready for prime time by the Council of Nicaea.

If I thought there were contradictions in the Bible before, those banned books made it even worse. But the ideas, the patterns have begun to flow. For which, I am certain, I will BIH. Probably a good thing there isn't a human on the planet who really gets a vote on that one. For decades I thought my predilection for, my need to find patterns was a curse. It certainly plays hob with day-to-day life. But there is a method to the madness.

#  Four Little Words

"Thou Shalt Not Kill." Pretty simple, direct and hard to work around. Also a pretty good rule to follow. Man hasn't quite figured out how to truly live by that simple credo though. There are always rationalizations to justify the taking of a human life. Some of them might even be considered fairly valid. Self-defense and the protection of other lives have very strong cases. The only drawback is rationalizations have a nasty tendency to be able to be made to fit just about any argument.

And what is the big deal about sending a soul back to God? If one believes in just about any religion man has concocted, once the mortal clay has been shed, the soul is freed to move on to whatever it is souls do without the body. This should be considered a good thing. Some religions even go so far as to encourage this fast lane attitude. I suppose it is more how the holy writings are interpreted on that one but it has and is being used.

Wars have been fought with many deaths for many reasons. Usually it is wealth, power, politics, nationalism and such earthly concepts that have fueled these horrors but it is amazing how many of them have claimed God is on their side and this justifies the actions. (Sometimes God is on both sides, according to the main proponents. Now there is an interesting dialectic). Man _is_ a rational creature and he is also the rationalizing creature. He is very adept at ignoring the very real conscience inside when it comes to protecting the ego.

So we have capital punishment, abortion, war (how does one declare war on something like drugs or terrorism? Who do you send the paperwork to?) and sundry other ways in which we justify killing. High priced medical care that denies treatment to those who can't afford it is killing. Ghettos, slums and villages of cardboard boxes for the disenfranchised is killing. Ignoring basic human rights in order to attain access to large and profitable markets is killing. Some of these methods are less direct than a bullet to the brain but the end result is the same. Someone who dies because they can't afford proper health care is just as dead, it just takes longer and happens out of most people's view. People die every day. That many of them don't have to gets swept under the rug because people don't want to accept it doesn't have to be that way.

So what's the big deal? This stuff has been going on for thousands of years. It is all just part of life. We are born to suffer and die, just a sort of testing ground on the way to something better. Play the game as best you can using the rules laid out for you by various and sundry agencies who have the true skinny (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and if you do, there is this wonderful place you go to. Ignore the rules and BIH. Don't knock it, it's the best game in town and has been for quite a while. You can't fight City Hall.

I'll tell you what the big deal is. The big deal is it just ain't so. It is all just smoke and mirrors to keep everyone from seeing where the rabbit really comes from. All the words about the wrongness of taking a human life, except where justified or sanctioned, is pointed in the wrong direction. It isn't about taking a life. It isn't about wronging another. Face it, the dead one is beyond the pale, out of any equation anyone can concoct. The real damage is done right here, to the soul of the one who is left behind. The real problem is what the act does to the actor. And to all of the other actors on stage. From the Iowa farm kid in the streets of Baghdad to the cop on the streets of Miami, from the corporate executive who sees spreadsheets and dollar signs instead of human suffering and need to the housewife in Oklahoma who sees alternate lifestyles as evil and threatening, each and every human on the planet is effected by every death. It doesn't matter if it is as up close and personal as seeing the target across a gun sight or reading an obituary in the paper. Every death that could have been avoided diminishes us all.

Every time we accept an action that denies the humanity of another individual or group, we lose a bit of ourselves. The act of denial within us is the true sin. When we listen to the rationalizations and accept them, we damage our own link to the divine. When we claim right at the expense of others, we close our ears and hearts to their right, to their humanity and thereby diminish our own. This is where moral decay lives in the world. And the greater portion of the responsibility for this can be laid on the very groups who are supposed to be preventing it. Yes, there is individual responsibility and yes, that is ultimately where the blame lays. The problem is the conditioning, the training we have been subjected to has masked our ability to use our own, innate muscle. Which is why we have City Hall. It is all about power. Ego and control. It isn't that the answers aren't out there or can't be found. It is that the means of doing this and the ultimate benefits that would be reaped have been obfuscated, twisted and used to maintain a status quo.

And the saddest part of it is it has been perpetuated, for the most part, by people with the right intentions. It is the old Bell Curve. A very few have influenced and manipulated the greater number claiming high ideals and the masses have bought into the scam because they have been trained to. And it is a scam. A con game of such massive and epic proportions it boggles the mind.

# Good Ole Days

It seems that once we pass 45 or so and we confused or frustrated we have this safety net of thinking about the good ole days. It isn't something new; people have been doing it since there has been leisure time to waste doing so. Since we have more leisure time these days, we can futz with it even more. It isn't unusual that the complaints about modern times haven't changed much over the years. Kids are disrespectful, always looking for the easy way, no real sense of moral values and so on. Government is getting more intrusive, things were cheaper but better made. The sad truth is, it is true. What we tend to forget as we get older is we were once those disrespectful kids. Or that there just might be a possibility that if kids are losing their moral compass, well, where do they get their directions from? Are they written in the ether somewhere? Is it magic? Or do they maybe learn by observing their world, said world being their family when they are young?

Kids are smarter than adults give them credit for. And they see much more because they haven't made their personal blinders yet. Adults have a nasty tendency to not see kids as sponges, soaking up what happens in their lives. We don't realize they see and hear how we go about making our day-to-day choices. And when we perceive something as wrong enough to complain about yet don't take a stand and do something about it, we are teaching a lesson. When we accept things without learning why, we are setting an example. Back in the late 70's and early 80's there was an awareness training business called EST. They had some interesting aphorisms about things like this and the one I find appropriate here is 'you don't get to vote on how things are, you already did'.

The good ole days were not much different than today. And if things have changed in ways we don't like, going back is not the answer. We forget that the reasons things were simpler was because they were tougher. Forty years ago there was a lot more work involved in living. Actual physical labor. Maybe I'm strange but for me there always seems to be a bit more satisfaction, a bit more proud making in actually having done something. The idea of going to an office and juggling paper lacks this. Buying and selling things that never really exist is not work. Manipulating beans to justify one's existence is about the most unsatisfying thing I can imagine.

I think one of the biggest problems we have today is we have changed our national motto. Or maybe the unwritten underlying credo of what it is to be an Amurrikin. I'm still not sure which one is more prevalent of the following: 1.) What's in it for me? Or 2.) Everyone else is doing it. And if there is any self respect left, it is entirely minimal. Accumulation of wealth and things and stuff has become our favorite national pastime. It doesn't matter if we need it or even use it, we collect it. He who has the most toys, wins is a heck of way to see life. Need an example? Take the entertainment industry and I include professional sports in that. When one of these yahoos gets to a certain level of popularity where they can demand ridiculous amounts of money for something about as productive as suspenders on a snake, most go out and spend it. How many cars does one person need? How many homes? Can a watch really cost more than some families make in a year? Is anyone worth millions of dollars for a few months effort? The lowliest benchwarmer on a pro baseball team makes more than most university professors. A second string tackle makes more than the President? Excuse me? It is excess and a total lack of self-respect. I'm picking on the more visible plunderers here but that doesn't mean the idiots who run the industries who help perpetuate the nonsense aren't rolling in it as well. They just are smart enough to keep a lower public profile.

Then there are the moguls of industry. CEO's and corporate executives who bring down obscene salaries and then cry their crocodile tears when they have to move jobs into a slave labor market so they can stay competitive. I'm thinking they can find sympathy in the dictionary somewhere between shit and syphilis. Or the insurance company head who sits in his multimillion dollar summer home and sets the policies that help make health care unaffordable to the average joe. There is something wrong with a system where an employers highest expense is providing minimal health care for his employees. The idea that we not only make money but an obscene amount of money from other peoples suffering is a sad commentary on society. I do find it ironic that even the doctors are beginning to complain about this now that the bulk of the profits go to insurance and administration instead of them. And that we can find the dollars and the effort to suck fat out of lazy people and freeze the faces of the vain but we have a hard time finding a cure for cancer or AIDS.

Sorry folks, but we can't really complain about why today is nastier than the good ole days. We made it this way and don't have the guts to change it willingly. It is going to take a depression, a mammoth economic collapse to force us to do anything about it and one is coming. The only way to stop it is for we, as a people, to stand up and say, no more. And that isn't going to happen willingly. Remember the credo? We are going to continue shopping at WalMart for the dirt cheap, foreign crap because we have really taken away the choice not to. We no longer have the ability or capacity to supply our needs with American sources. We are going to continue eating out at chain restaurants, fast food shlock shops that are poisoning us, fattening us up for the slaughter. We are going to go on forking over money to entertain ourselves because we have lost both the ability and the opportunity to do anything else. How many people actually know enough people to spend an evening playing cards? I mean people who might know how to play cards other than Texas Hold'em online? (If you are wondering about this, take a look at the stats on the number of divorces that list not going out and having fun as a reason for said action.)

World War II managed to get us out of the last major economic and moral crisis this country faced. It brought us together as a nation, as a people, in the face of tyranny. FDR did what he could with the New Deal but it was the outside threat that actually brought us together, the need for universal sacrifice to make things work. It won't happen again. There isn't going to be another massive threat backed by an evil empire. We are going be smothered by Big Macs.

# Heartache

The human heart is a fascinating creation. Not the muscle that keeps our blood pumping, though it too is pretty remarkable. I'm thinking more along the lines of that part of our soul where our feelings reside. For some it is little more than a trash receptacle holding the remains of failures and regrets. At that level it either gets ignored or guarded with a fierce unthinking anger. Then there are those who are lucky enough to be aware of their feelings but not quite lucky enough to hit the big time. Their loves and losses kind of lack the fire and substance, mostly shadowy images.

And then there are the poor damned souls who are blessed not only being aware of their heart but also by being in the path of momentous happenings. I've known some people in life who say they have never truly known love. Not the real gut wrenching reality, the whole enchilada. Its part of the Great Truth of Love. It is the most wonderful thing one can ever find and it is the most devastating thing one can find. Paradoxically opposite and both completely true.

So how is it that something so powerful can be so mistreated? Why is it we can lie to ourselves about it, deny it, lock it away and generally abuse something so wonderful? Must be part of the whole free destiny business. Personally I think it's just that the only thing more powerful than love (in the short run) is human stupidity. About the worst thing about burying love is that it has a tendency to not want to stay that way. Murphy was right. A close second is that burying it and denying it doesn't mean it is dead. Or asleep. It is still in there growing, just waiting for the moment when you drop your guard and then...WHAM!

If there is anything more painful in this world than being smacked in the chops with your own stupidity, please don't tell me what it is. I have lived through just about every major emotional trauma except terminal illness and none of them can hold a candle to the absolute agony of repressed love being released. Finding out one has been a total, complete, 100%, double dyed and double damned idiot is normally not all that bad of a thing,even if you've done it more than once. The ego gets bruised , you shrug and say oops and tomorrow it gets filed with the leftover meatloaf and life goes on. But when you find out you had found something, turned your back on it and ignored it for years and then in a weak moment have all of this explode into a questing heart...well, I would recommend a triple bypass done with a chainsaw over it any day.

There is a redeeming part to it all. It may hurt like hell to face things like this but knowing its there is worth it. Love is positive by nature. It only goes negative when we make it go there. There isn't anything I can do to rectify past mistakes and there certainly isn't anything I can do about today but I can hold the peace and beauty of it in my heart and wish them the very best.

# Imagery

Life is filled with all kinds of imagery. Some of it is more symbolic in nature than others. All of it has roots in the way our society has developed over the years. The strong patrilineal, male oriented conditioning in Western society influences our development more than any other source. It is a direct result of the policies of the Church and governments over the past few thousand years. We have constructed a society that is not only male dominated but has been destructive of the female aspect of humanity. I am not what you would call a women's rights or lib person. I don't agree with the idea that women are entitled to men's rights nor can I fathom why they would want them. If the past couple of decades have shown us anything it is that the way men have run things is not the most conducive to societal health. And having women trying to act like men just changes the boss. It doesn't change the basic problem.

I do believe women should have equal opportunity. That is a concept accidentally included by the founding fathers in our system. I say accidentally because it certainly was not their intent. When they said all men are created equal, that is just what they meant...men. Men were considered to be propertied white males. This was huge at the time but not surprising. Carving a new country out of the wilderness had had its effect on aristocracy. The respect for the lower classes was there,sort of Hard earned and begrudged but it was there. If you doubt it, just check what they did to Aaron Burr. Washington, Jefferson and company would have gone apoplectic if they had seen the results of what they had started.

Take the Civil War, the bloodiest, nastiest conflict in US history. According to legend it was fought over the issue of slavery. Noble as hell and utterly false. Not only was it false, it was hypocritical. But it sure sounds good. The other big reason was the preservation of the Union. Again, noble as all get out. And totally illegal. Abraham Lincoln has been rated as one of the best Presidents in history. He isn't even close. He was well intentioned but he certainly did use it to pave that fabled road. The South was well within it rights to secede and a sane and rational President would have let them. Mostly for the very reasons why the South lost the war. It was an agrarian society, strongly aristocratic in structure, and based to a great deal on slave labor. It is and was a historical fact that no society founded on slavery can maintain. Just as it was and is a historical fact that slavery cannot be legislated out of existence.

Slavery has been with us since the dawn of civilization. It is a natural byproduct of what Campbell described as the warrior/father-based society. In terms modern people can understand, to the victor go the spoils. The concept of the victor not dominating the loser is something we have only come to understand in the past 70 years and we still don't have it right. We certainly didn't in 1865. If freeing the slaves had even been on the list of reasons for fighting the Civil War, the Reconstruction period would have been totally different. Granted, the war tapped even the Union North's resources drastically but the horrors of the Reconstruction ranked far beyond what even Genghis Khan did when his hordes conquered. If you really think the North cared about the welfare of our colored brethren, ask yourself why northern cities had black ghettoes. And why the primary destination of the Underground railroad was Canada.

So what does all of that have to do with imagery? Maybe the image of the caring, benevolent father trying to preserve order? Maybe the need of a strong authoritative central government to keep things running. Listen to daddy. Big Brother was not discovered by George Orwell. We have been conditioned for centuries. There is a source of authority and it is above us. That has been a common thread throughout the development of Euro-based society for 1700 years. The big problem is that it has never been totally accepted. We Indo-Europeans are a rebellious lot. We tend to accept domination only when we get to do the dominating.

The Church has spent centuries building this monolithic structure, a fortress that is constantly reiterated throughout its writings and dogma. They have tempered it in the past couple of centuries in the face of rampant changes in society but the baseline remains the same. In the formative years it made sense. Society formed around and survived because of keeps and castles. They were bastions of strength. A look at their construction programs tells the tale. Massive cathedrals designed to overawe the poor peasant who lived in a mud and wattle hut. This continues to this very day. The very first thing a burgeoning sect of Christianity does is to build something impressive. It doesn't matter that said money could be used to help the poor and needy. They need to impress.

Right now the Catholic Church has resources in the billions and a great portion of this is concentrated in the works of art housed at the Vatican. They have real estate holdings throughout the world that are staggeringly valuable. And even if the estimates of value on the Vatican library are greatly exaggerated, the information hidden under the smallest country in the world rivals that of the fabled Library of Alexandria. So why is it kept hidden? Why are the riches hoarded? To me it is simple and obvious.

It's the castle mentality. The Church has built this, reinforced it, maintained it because it worked for centuries. And it shows in their adherence to traditions and policies forged in the Dark Ages. The only problem is, mankind left their castles somewhere in the Industrial Revolution. Walled cities died in the late middle Ages because the need for them slowly vanished. For the past millennia mankind has been on the trail of development. For the same time, the Church has been fighting to maintain that castles are needed. Life and society have been growing, evolving at an ever increasing pace for the past 500 years. The Pope still wears the same clothes, is still elected by the same methods. Various sects are still using the same text (edited as needed) to try to define the essence of the divine.

Sorry, but Christianity is a coelacanth. And by it's own choice. If the Catholic Church had any sense it would embrace the forgotten books. It would recant the policies of demonization and grab the original teachings of Yeshua. It would abandon centuries of debilitating dogma and use its massive resources to revitalize the spiritual. It would acknowledge that the imagery it has built no longer serves the valid purpose of its continued existence. They would walk away from the fear people will discover they have lied and admit it. They would take the hit and spark the revolution. Christianity in its present form is dying. It has been for more than a century. The only thing keeping it from disappearing is that its basic message is powerful. Even with all the crap the Church has forced on it, the message still endures.

Without change, Christianity will fade within the next century. The message will continue unless mankind manages to kill itself off. Or it figures out how to throw off the artificial shackles and embrace the message without the trappings. Life is a dynamic growing thing. Last time I checked, castles aren't. Do the math.

# Kiss

Keep it simple, stupid. We humans have this irritating proclivity for making things more complicated than they need to be. Some of it is involved in laziness. Some is enjoyment of tricks and toys. Take microwave ovens. When they first came out they had a dial for time, a dial for power level and a go button. Real simple. The problem was folks had to remember (or learn via experimentation) what power level and time was needed for various operations. The last nuke I bought had a neat collection of buttons for various choices, the lazy man's dream being popcorn. So less stuff to remember. Is it necessary? Nope. The operation has become simpler but the machine has picked up a great deal of the complexity and we humans have one less thing to exercise our brains.

You can find this in almost every aspect of modern life. I have to laugh at the bane of the average American male. The clock on the VHS or DVD player. It used to take some kind of genius (or a 6 yr old) to be able to program the thing and get it to quit flashing. I see now they are making them that tap into the atomic clock signal and set themselves. Same with clocks. No more forgetting DST. If we keep going the way we are people won't have to think about much of anything when it comes to average, mundane life. Auto-withdrawal for payments, cars that tell you when its time to change oil or get them fixed, TV's that remind you when programs are on, even record them for you, coffee pots that do everything but load the grounds, all the boring stuff is fast becoming the bailiwick of the various machines in our life. Wonderful. This should give us loads of free time to contemplate the more important stuff. And we do.

What celebrity had a tummy tuck, which sports team is going to go all the way, which bozo is going to win by shafting all his fellow castaways, which cosmetic procedure will best help us look 18 again, and so on and so on. It has even gotten to the point where people believe what they hear some talking head say, forming opinions on hype spin and advertising. Once upon a time it was possible to get a fair amount of information out of the various media sources. Nowadays the news programs actually use each other as sources. The myth of the 'liberal Left Wing press' is just that, a myth. Almost every major media source is part of some conglomerate or other and all run by big bucks. They no longer do news they chase ratings. But it makes a handy bogeyman because people are too lazy to find answers for themselves.

And we love to make rules. Laws to 'protect' our society. Did you know that in some states you can be fined $15,000 and be sent to prison for 7 years for having an accident in a construction zone that injures a worker? That is a stiffer penalty than most places have for child abuse. We have a tax code now that is impossible for any one person to know and getting worse by the day. And thanks to Al Capone and his ilk, the IRS has powers that are outside the Constitution. The government doesn't have to prove you deliberately screwed up your taxes, you have to prove you didn't.

Is it any wonder we have managed to bollix up something as basic and straight forward as the teachings of Jesus? There are a few simple guidelines that should suffice to bring even the most sadistic moron to the light (providing its something they are interested in). Things like judge not lest ye be judged, love thy neighbor as thyself, turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, are pretty cohesive and while they were very radical for his milieu, they have a staying power because of their simplicity. I'm thinking it is the inherent rightness of the message that has allowed Christianity to survive. It is so basic and powerful even the horrors committed in its name can't make it go away. The message has been twisted and tortured so many times that one would think people would have said enough but they haven't. And all of the silly codicils and addendums have distracted but there has always been the core of decent people who hold onto the basic idea and keep it going.

The powers-that-be have been living in terror for centuries that something is going to happen to cause their nifty house of cards to come crashing down and it has gotten worse in the past century. It is harder and harder to suppress information. Just as it is more difficult to get people to accept things on faith when the means to prove them becomes more possible every day. I find it sad, even tragic, that the structure has become more important than the message. Face it, Yeshua of Nazareth, was a radical, a revolutionary. And it wasn't just the Romans he was threatening. He threatened the known world order. Not only threatened but provided the means for moving beyond it.

So what happened? Why did it turn into just another means of controlling and manipulating? Probably because men hijacked it. It's pretty well proven that revolutions tend to eat their own progeny. Add to this that it is a very passive gentle message and you open the door to opportunists. It was a patriarchal world with a very low literacy rate and that continued for many centuries. That we have any writings from even close to contemporaries of Yeshua is something of a blind miracle in itself. We have the son of a carpenter, some fishermen, and no one anyone would have considered being of the upper classes. You know, the types who actually may have been able to write? Did I mention they were doing things that both the Romans and the Jews frowned on?

So over the course of the next 300 years people were writing down what was passed around by word of mouth. Does it strike anyone else as odd that this time frame is just a bit long? Think about it. In 1706 we were barely a collection of colonies. The Industrial Revolution was yet to be. The literacy level of western civilization was probably not much higher than in Yeshua's time. I mean, people were still writing with bird feathers. If you look at the differences in the intent of our nation's founding fathers and the interpretations of their actions today you will find a huge gap. When I was a kid in school, they still taught that George Washington threw a dollar across the Delaware and chopped down a fruit tree.

If the founding fathers of Christianity truly believed they had something new and true, why did they crib so much material from the competition? Why did they feel they had to make it easy for the masses to switch horses? And why did they bury so much of the material that conflicted with what they thought to be the true word? They didn't just say, yup, these are the true books and let it go at that. They did everything they could to destroy the works they thought inappropriate which quite probably included the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. There isn't much in the early history of the Church to show it was playing midwife to a new way of life but more that it was establishing a political order. This continued for many centuries with pogroms against anything deemed antithetical to 'Christian' teachings and ideals.

The good news is that these attitudes and teachings really have little to no connection to the ideas and teachings of Yeshua. The church co-opted a great deal of the fervor and bent it to their own gains. They slowed things down with their greedy sideshow but they couldn't corrupt the basic idea. We are lucky that only a small portion of mankind is truly sick and psychotic enough to ignore their hearts. Granted there are a fair number who are weak and greedy enough to go along as long as there is something in it for them but the majority still have the ability to feel what is inside. If the organized religions commonly referred to as Christian actually were to teach and encourage this process of listening to one's heart, we would live in a far different world because the flaw isn't in the message, its in the implementation.

Christianity has focused on the what's-in-it-for-me aspect of life, keeping people focused on things that are illusions. Why should someone perform an act of goodness? We have been indoctrinated for too long to do so because 1.) It will please God and it is what He wants us to do. 2.) It will help one achieve the reward of Heaven and 3.) It will keep us out of Hell. All laudable reasons but all focused on something other than the real reason. The real reason for living your life in goodness is it is what you should do, it is what your heart says is right and being good is reward enough, in and of itself alone. And it is an easy one to test for validity. If you go out and do a random act of kindness and listen to what is inside you will hear it, you will feel the warmth, the peace, the joy. Some say this is God's spirit in you and they aren't wrong. But it isn't Chuck Heston on some cloud throne going attaboy. It is the god shard, the bit of light, the divine essence in each and every living creature that is resonating with its counterpart.

That is what I feel Yeshua was trying to say and to demonstrate. We are all the same when it comes to the bit of the divine that powers the engine of individual life. And it isn't just humans, it is all life. From the lowliest algae to the great blue whale, each has its own spark, its own energy that is linked to every other bit of energy in the universe. Man just got the ability to talk about it, to manipulate it to a certain degree and most importantly (and dangerously) the gift of being consciously aware of it. Life is energy flowing through everything, interconnected and interacting in ways and on levels we haven't been able to fully perceive. Our science has given us insights at what amounts to the kindergarten level in spite of what scientists might want to think. We discover teeny pieces of the puzzle and manage to link them together.

These revelations are slowly pointing us in the direction where we begin to get the idea of equality. This equality isn't exactly equality in the legalese sense. It is mostly about basic opportunity and choice. This has long been colored with the warrior/father ideal of might makes right. In olden times the one with the bigger army, the one who was faster or stronger or better with a club got to make the rules. We really haven't gotten over that one yet. Today it isn't as much about being the better shot; it's about the one who is smarter, more manipulative who gets to decide what is good or right. The saying hasn't changed, just the definition of might. We are slowly maturing, we don't kill quite as quickly as we did in the past, but we still have a long way to go. We still have the controllers who now put on this quasi-benevolent face while they tell us 'what we need to know' and then proceed to shuck and jive their way to accumulation. They get away with it because the bulk of humanity has enough going on that they willingly listen to the conditioning that has been bred into them for the past...well, since recorded history began.

We do need rules. Actually, we only really need one, that being love they neighbor as thyself. It can be backed up with the Golden Rule, which really is just a guideline on how to implement the first. And its converse side, which puts the finishing touches on the definition. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Concise but it assumes others want to be done unto. If you need an explanation of why this can be a bad thing just study what the Europeans did unto the natives in North and South America. If you were a heathen savage you would want someone to save you, right? That's where the flip side comes into play. Do not do unto others as you would not want to be done unto. Everybody has their own path and said paths can be quite different. It seems to me it up to us to figure out how to accommodate these various paths rather than trying to eliminate them. Diversity isn't a bad thing unless someone thinks it threatens them. Which is usually the case. I've always liked what Marion Bradley said about that one. Allow others their otherness. Or the song in Pete's Dragon..."There's room for everyone in this world if everyone just makes some room."

If there was only one kind of music, one painting style, one dance, one anything, this would be a very boring world. Mankind was not made to be just one thing, follow one set of rules. Everything isn't black and white, there is no absolute definition of good and evil, there is no way to codify right and wrong. If it were possible to do so, the efforts to make it happen over the past few millennia would have made much more progress. If we learn nothing more from history, that one would be the most beneficial. This business of conquering, forcing a way of life on people, just doesn't work. Never has and never will. About the only good thing that comes of it is the blending of cultures that inevitably happens. Until the day comes when humankind has become so thoroughly mixed that there is no longer any 'pure' race or nationality, someone is going to believe they are better. And even when we are so homogenized those distinct racial traits no longer exist; there will be the other dividers. Religion, gender, sexual orientation, personal tastes and whether they think ABBA was the greatest band to ever exist or not. It isn't so much that we have to be different, it is that we have this childish desire for others to think it is so.

# Life

Monty Python did a movie called 'The Meaning of Life' many years ago. It was filled with their insane, irreverent style of humor that has always appealed to the wackier side of me. I don't think anyone could ever take their interpretation as even slightly serious though the movie offended a great many people. Python was like that. I won't be anywhere near as blatant or bawdy or risqué here, my ponderings are more of a semi-serious nature. Life has it's own way of presenting us with enough serious drama that if we didn't learn how to laugh, at least a little, we would drown in our own pathos and tears.

So what are we? Ok, people, human beings. And supposedly what sets us apart from the beasts of the fields is what is commonly referred to as our soul. Our ability to think, to rationalize, to organize and record our thoughts and pass them on to our fellow humans. It isn't the ability to feel. Anyone who has had a pet knows that one. According to many religious tomes, it is our connection to the divine. We are capable of contemplating the thousand names of God and Rover isn't. I have come to doubt that one. I sometimes think that animals are more closely in tune with their maker than we humans are. They just can't brag about it. Animals are very seldom seen stepping outside the circle of life. They have yet to do anything that mucks up their world. They have never indulged in war or killing for any reason other than to eat. They instinctively know their place in the circle and live their lives accordingly. Some may say it's because they are just dumb animals and don't know any different. Possibly but I suspect it may be they lack the wherewithal to think themselves smarter than whoever runs the show. Life works for them so if ain't busted, don't fix it.

People, on the other hand, are way too good at the rationalizing part. And having imagination and ego, way too good at fooling themselves. Logic says there is something out there that is capable of running the universe. Being a job no human can even begin to fathom and being basically egocentric and chicken, man has found many ways of explaining this phenomenon. I've always wondered why man has cast his gods in his own image. Almost every mythos and religion has been populated with divinity who have the same basic flaws as humans. Jealous, controlling types capable of all kinds of bad behavior. You would think man would want to see the divine as something better than he was. Some of the more recent attempts, particularly in the West, have made some attempts at rectifying this oversight but fall into the trap of paradox, of not quite being able to give up that last little bit of ego.

The strangest part to me is why people feel the need to find the meaning of their own life anywhere but in their own heart. It stands to reason that we have all been imbued with exactly the same kind and amount of spirit, soul, whatever you want to call it. And in that bit of energy, that shard of the divine that empowers us all, there is a template. A set of rules downloaded at the moment of conception that we all have access to. It shows in the similarities of the various holy teachings throughout the world, throughout recorded history. We don't need something written down somewhere to let us know killing is bad. All we need to do is listen to what is already inside us. Yes, there are those who can and have twisted these things, who have learned to manipulate what is engraved there. But it is within all of us, if we can find the courage, to listen to what has been given to us.

I have never liked any organized system that encourages isolation or separatism. Do things this exact way or there will be hell to pay. And anyone who doesn't believe as is dictated, well they become nonentities to be pitied or manipulated. All of that comes from the human ego. From the need to be right or better. The need to control. Those are human concepts. And any organized school of thought or belief that follows those lines is pandering to human frailty and fear. We are all the same, come from the same source and end up in the same place. There are no differences other than the pitiful limits and boundaries we manufacture out of our own fears. God doesn't love anyone more than anyone else. The divine has no need of the concept of worship or belief by we humans. If the power that runs the universe has the same ego failings that I have, there is no way it can run the entire show. If it, on any level, pays any attention to the day-to-day stuff we live, it would either be bored to tears in a nanosecond or be driven totally insane.

The world goes on. A rock will always be a rock, no matter what people think about it. The sun will come up, the tides will ebb and flow, the seasons will change no matter what we humans think. Even if we were to manage to totally screw up the planet, destroy the ecosystem, bring on nuclear winter or in some other way destroy the planet's capability of supporting the human race, life would continue. And if man were to vanish, in time the world would cleanse itself and keep right on chugging along, renew itself in some fashion. Just as the dinosaurs were obliterated and new life came to fill the void, so it would happen again. Without our let or hindrance.

Man hates the idea he isn't the end all and be all of creation. It offends our ego and need for control that we really are no more significant than the lowliest amoeba. It would really chap some to realize that the very first amoeba that ever existed is still around today. How's that for immortality?

#  Love

A word of mystic power and endless mystery that has been used, over used and abused since it was born. Its basic meaning is something about intense positive emotion towards some thing or some one. One can love just about anything, if the vernacular is to be believed and I suppose it is true. But there is a base line to love, beyond loving the Cubs or chocolate or one's parents or the hot chick at the end of a beery night. Love is one of those Great Truths. It is the most wonderful thing a person can experience and the most destructive. Opposite but equally true. But there is a level of love that goes beyond explanation or description...true love. The thing that brought Wesley back, the thing that has been touted in literature since man has had the leisure to write.

There is nothing more basic, more powerful, more elemental than true love. Not politics. Not religion. Not even family. The love one has for their children is close, separate and incredibly powerful in its own right but nothing can equal true love. It can overcome any and all obstacles with ridiculous ease. It is God's ultimate gift to the human race. In fact, it is so basic and powerful that it supersedes even the love of the Creator. It has to because it is His gift. The bushwa the political church has put out about one having to hold their love for God as primary is just politics. One must live here, by edict, and to do so a person needs to be what they were intended to be. I don't believe God had plans for many Joan of Arcs, we have to be people.

Of all the silliness that gets in the way of true love only two possibilities make much sense. The idea of turning your back on true love over political beliefs or favorite sports teams or nationality/race are so man made and so flimsy they don't even bear consideration. Only two really have the kind of power to bend the heart away from the reality of true love. One is family. It is very close in nature and involves loving so it is possible to become confused by it. If you accept all people are supposed to make their own way once they achieve an age of majority, it loses steam. If one artificially holds to family beyond adulthood, it can thwart true love for noble, if misleading reasons.

The other is religion. It has argued the supremacy of belief in it over all else for 1500 years. The saddest part of that is it has also preached about loving one's fellow travelers, but God comes first. If one has any cognitive function it is easy to see the fallacy in that. If we are all children of God, pieces of the Divine, you can't separate one from the other. If you truly love your fellow man, you can't help loving God and vice versa. And if you are capable of dividing humanity into loveable and not loveable, you can't truly love God. Raising up the righteous and dividing humanity is a human trait. Love is...period.

True love can absolutely conquer all but for that to happen one has to surrender to it. Totally, completely and without exception. Everything else builds from there. No exceptions. There are some who apply this logic to loving God first but it doesn't work that way. We, as humans, are incapable of giving that kind of love to what is an abstract. We need a focus. We need our other half here in this life before we can even truly consider anything else. We need the reality check.

# Mercy

An interesting concept. Actually one of man's better inventions. I believe it ranks right up there with the wheel because without it man would have gone the way of the dinosaur ages ago. But it is an invention of man. Or the divine that is part of man. Life itself is sans merci. It is a juggernaut, a steamroller that is going where it will go and doesn't give a rat's posterior for what we might think about it. We either pay attention and go along for the ride or get squished. Life doesn't care or notice. There is no real forgiveness, no mulligans, no second chances without a great deal of luck. I think that is why we have that little 'its not fair' built into our vocabulary. What we lack is the big picture. We are so focused on our minuscule little existence we refuse to even contemplate that our individual lives are no more important to life than that of a cockroach. Or any other individual component of life. For those of you who are saying 'but God notices the fall of even a sparrow' or however that little saying goes, maybe so. But being aware of the smallest does not mean doing anything about it. If you had your little finger caught in a trap and a giant steamroller were about to crush you, I would be willing to bet you would let the finger be separated so you could get out of the way. And yes, you would notice and mourn the loss of that member but in the long run, you would count the sacrifice worthwhile.

Man has a huge ego. We believe the entirety of existence revolves around us. Just as we once believed the universe revolved around the earth just because we were on it. We can think and communicate so we must be the most important thing in existence. And of course we have the divine right of dominion over all lesser things. Power is intoxicating. That is until we discover that the little bits of power we can claim are not only minor but also dangerous. Forget the old saw about power and corruption. That one is so obvious it hardly bears notice. Nor is it immutable. Power does not always corrupt. It is not a given. There have been as many examples of power not corrupting. The verb that should be involved is can. That is where the little invention called mercy comes in.

Power is no more the inevitable corrupter than light is always good. (Ask anyone who has suffered from a migraine about the 'goodness' of light). All things are possible, some are just more probable than others. Mercy goes a long ways towards tempering power. And maintaining it. We have developed the power to really impact our environment. We can destroy ecosystems now. That is negative power. It is always easier to destroy than to build. Sadly, it is the first type of power to be found. We have had a profound negative impact on our planet in the past 200 years. We are only just learning this. Our technology has been growing on such an exponential curve we have become intoxicated with the results. A glaring example of this is atomic energy. We first developed it as a means of destruction and its potential scared us badly enough that we have barely been able to research its more positive possibilities. Credit must be given though because it did scare us and we have indeed learned some caution.

We have also learned that the thoughtless exploitation of our world is not a given. We may have dominion but we also have responsibility. There is always a price to pay and while we are fairly slow in recognizing that, we have, so far, done so in time. Again, it is mercy that saves us. We do learn that certain actions are dangerous to our continued existence and the segments of our population who do not wield the power, do have something to say about it. So far we have been lucky enough to retain a modicum of control but we are entering a time when playing catch-up is becoming hazardously close to not enough.

In the past, it has taken longer for effects to become evident. As we develop, that lead time keeps diminishing. Cause and effect are not as separated as they once were. The consequences of our actions are not takings decades to be felt anymore. And the remedies are seldom quick either. I'm thinking that somewhere in the near future, within the next 30 years, we are going to do something incredibly arrogant that will be very difficult to change. Greed has a way of offsetting mercy. And man has never been good at denying greed. You would think we would have learned better by now. How many people today ever really stop to think about the consequences of their actions? I'm talking on an individual level. Truly take the time to consider just a few of the possible outcomes and effects their actions may have on just their own little world. And of those who may actually do this, how many would say, I can't do whatever because it would negatively impact too many others? If we can't do it on a personal level, why would we think the powers-that-be would even consider it?

Life has a funny way of repeating structures. What we have on our personal level will be reflected all the way up the scale. If we can't live ethical and caring lives ourselves, how can we even imagine those in power would? If we not only accept but indulge in less than caring, ethical lives for ourselves, how can we be affronted when our government mirrors those behaviors? It isn't a case of saying, such and such is wrong and needs to be condemned. Anyone can condemn and judge. What we lack is participation. If some action is perceived to be deleterious to what we want our lives to be, it is up to us to figure out why it exists and what we can do to offset it. Once upon a time we had a system of orphanages in this country. Places where children could be cared for until proper homes could be found for them. Granted, it wasn't always the best care but it has pretty much disappeared. Now we have literally thousands of babies and children being generated in the US with a nasty cumbersome system of foster families that is so ineffectual that people are going to foreign countries in order to adopt children. _We can't even care for our own children!_

We also have millions of people who have inadequate health care. And a growing segment of population who truly believe this is something that should be earned. The natural corollary is that it is something that should be exploited and be a source of income. Now that, to me, is seriously twisted. It was bad enough that for years one of the most lucrative professions in our society was in the medical fields. I can almost see that one. It does take a great deal of training and effort to work in the health care fields so it should bear extra compensations. Being on call 24/7 with someone's life in the balance is a tough schtick to play. I find it ironic that this has finally come to bite the butt of the arrogant. Doctors no longer hold their place of prominence, they are no longer the sole recipients of the largess of the field. It is now the insurance companies and the administrators who are running the money machine. I could almost agree when it was the doctors, they carried the responsibility and knowledge.

Universal health care is not a right. It is a mercy. One that an advanced society can offer. Or rather, should offer. It shouldn't be the monstrous profit center it has become. Making money off the suffering of others is grotesque. It is vampirism. It is extortion in its lowest form. It is worse than terrorism. It is a disgrace that any person should be forced to beg for the money needed for medical treatment for themselves or a family member in a society such as ours. We are the height of advancement, the pinnacle, to date, of civilization on this sorry planet and yet one catastrophic illness can destroy everything someone has worked to build. I have seen this in my own town. One of the oldest family owned restaurants disappeared because of such an occurrence. It took everything that they had built for two generations and more. This is wrong.

The greatest expense an employer has to deal with should not be health insurance. The most devastating event in a family should not be the cost of health care. Maybe in times past, maybe in a society with no morals or ethics (hard to imagine something like that being self-sustaining) but not in the US. Not today. Not in a land that proudly boasts, in God we trust. It should be our number one priority. It should be our boast that we care for the least member of our society. Mercy, gentle folks. There are no cracks. Our children are cared for. No one will lose everything they have worked for because of illness or injury. Our families are our first priority.

If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, the chain that is America is gone. We have forgotten our links.

# Moral Ethics

Or Ethical Morality. It has always bothered me that these things, taken separately or together (though I have a difficult time doing so) have been the bailiwick of organizations and schools of thought, which claim, divine prominence. At least here in the Western world. Why must these things come from outside, dictated by external authority? I know the Church has spent centuries building the case for this and ramming it down the throats of society with many claims of hellfire and damnation. It doesn't say much for humanity that they have accepted this _without one shred of proof_. Not to mention many exhibitions of proof to the contrary. It has been my observation that when something is true, it finds its way into our reality whether we humans want to accept it or not. Nor does it matter to the truth if mankind believes it or not. Nor does the irony of it escape me.

An example of this is the present move to ban gay marriage contracts. I can understand why the religious organizations might find ways of taking offense so if they want to keep their dogma from blessing, sanctifying or whatever these unions, that is their right. But the last time I checked we had a nation where Church and State are separate. Freedom of religion also includes freedom from religion. The legal process of entering into a contract is one of the core building blocks of democracy. Not that long ago other types of people were prevented from doing this and these egregious wrongs have slowly but surely been corrected. Women can now participate, as can blacks, Hispanics, Asians. It wasn't that long ago that society felt it immoral for people of different races to intermarry. This whole magilla is just more of the same blind prejudice. It is evidence that morality and ethics are not divinely inspired and enforced. Just as it is evidence that people are so very selective about what they believe to be God's will. If they were truly interested in the moral fiber of this country they would be more concerned about the fact that about half of all marriages end in divorce (What God has joined, let no man sunder) than the idea of a tiny number of people wanting to exercise their civil rights by making a contract between them that allows tax breaks, rights of certain legal powers (next of kin) and trying to provide a stable home atmosphere.

This happens when responsibility for either morals or ethics is not personal. It opens the door for such silliness as; everyone else is doing it or if I want to be accepted by (insert whatever group you want) I have to subscribe to their tenets. It is compounded when the sources of these morals and ethics have split in so many ways that it is impossible to find much continuity in the original concepts. Sort of like being a Democrat. There is no source so people make it up as they go along, picking and choosing from the limited and ambiguous guidelines to make things work for them. Usually in the short term. And the groups that are supposed to have the true skinny either change their tune to pander to the childish needs of the moment or fall back on the inflexible dogma that made the mess possible in the first place. This what happens when people abdicate their personal responsibilities. Christianity made this particular bed and it is slowly coming around that it is a most uncomfortable and useless one.

Part of the problem today is communication. As the song said..."Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication." It has only been in the last century that information of all sorts was made available for mass consumption. And only in the past decade or so that it has surpassed human capability to process. Prior to the printing press, people had to depend on their local padre to tell them what was in the Bible. This kept a nice captive audience. For local news it was minstrels and merchants who traveled and dispersed news that didn't come through the Church. A very slow process and easily contained and controlled. That the bulk of humanity in Europe was illiterate helped as well. Don't worry, chilluns, we will tell you everything you need to know. Which isn't much.

So enter the printing press. And Martin Luther. Now Martin was not the first to try and reform the Church. He was just luckier because he came along just after Gutenberg came up with the printing press. With information beginning to flow people were exposed to more ideas and the novel concept of thinking began to show its ugly head among the masses. It was the beginning of the end for the nice closed system the Church had built, an end that is finally coming to fruition now 500 years later. The main difficulty today is that nothing has risen to replace the old way, which is why we have this void of morality and ethics today. Organized religion is still fighting to retain old patterns that can never work in this modern age rather than searching for ways to make it grow. They are battling to keep Christianity a child when it is time for it to become an adult. Instead of embracing all of the writings of the early Christian era, they insist it isn't needed. They don't see that something has to not only be allowed to grow, it must be nurtured and encouraged to do so. Maybe mankind in the 5th century wasn't ready for more of the information.

I personally find this to be blatant apologisitic nonsense ranking right up there with our present government classifying information 'too dangerous' for general dissemination. It isn't that the people can't know these things; it is that it would upset the power structure's apple cart. The idea that we should live our lives based on some mythical concept of later just isn't cutting it like it used to. We know too much. And in some very critical areas, too little because the whole spiritual, moral, ethical aspect of man has been held in forced stagnation. Whether or not Jesus was divine really has little bearing on his message. What the afterlife will be has no impact on what now is anymore than what an individual will be ten years from now has any impact on what they are today.

That is the heart of the problem. Everyone has exactly the same amount of time on this planet, in this existence. Now. Some get to string their nows into longer runs than others but this moment is all we get to deal with at any given time. This has been construed as a bad thing under the belief that people would become selfish and immoral if all they have to work with is now. It may be partly true because it has been pounded into our heads that this would be so. That people would be capable of enlightened self-interest without threat or coercion is hard for individuals to grasp and scares the crap out of the powers that be. The very idea that a person would choose to see that certain types of behavior would be beneficial to both themselves and others without being threatened scares the bejayzus of them. Even the precious Commandments. Thou shalt not Kill. Duh. It doesn't take most people long to figure out that killing is a bad thing. And if you perceive that we are all the same, based in the same shard of the divine, it isn't much of a stretch to see that killing someone else is not only wrong and counter-productive, it just might happen to you as well. Same goes for all of the other Commandments with the exception of the first couple.

Taking the Lord's name in vain...since we don't know the name, how can we? And why would it matter anyhow? The idea we can damn someone just by saying it is beyond ludicrous. We just don't have that authority.

Keep holy the Lord's day...just which one is it? The business of a calendar is something man developed to make some sense out of the string of nows. There are many calendars out there and even the one we use in the West is horribly flawed. Seems to me, everyday is so setting one up with eminence is just another means of providing a point of dissension. Another way of separating or dividing. Like we need more ways.

So, if we are all children of God, made in his image, all equal in his eyes, etc., etc., etc., why are we not capable of accepting that responsibility? Why are we not encouraged to look within, to find that divine nature and follow it to where it must inevitably lead? Is it such a horrible stretch to think that if we truly come to realize we are all the same, we just might be able to behave in an ethical and moral manner because it just makes sense to do so? And why do the keepers of morality find it so strange and unsettling that people choose to behave in immoral and unethical ways when that is exactly the example being presented to them? We have those who set themselves up as authorities on said behavior who do not practice it. Or rather tend to follow their own brand of morality that is steeped in contradiction. To this day the Catholics still hold that theirs is the true faith and non-Catholic's are destined for hell. Protestants are pretty similar in their foolishness. It doesn't seem to bother them that they are setting themselves up as judges and ruling in an area they have no authority to rule.

There is not a soul on this planet who has any say whatsoever as to the dispensation of any other soul. What they do have the ability to do is maintain artificial standards by which people can be judged. They do have the capability of manufacturing and reinforcing differences because people have been trained to think they do. I would imagine most thinking humans on this planet have found themselves in a situation where they discovered that another human who is supposed to be on the outside is actually very much like themselves. It is a common and powerful theme in literature and media. Sort of a rite of passage. The young white man who discovers a colored is really a human being. The (whatever religion you care to name) who discovers that the person of whatever other religion happens to contradict the first suffers the same pain, dreams the same dreams. It happens over and over in every culture. Its why war seldom lasts long. One, people are not killers by nature. Two, as the two adversaries meet and blend, they come to realize their differences are not all that great. And it takes a truly sick individual to be able to maintain the ability to cause pain and death.

Every difference that has been used to cause conflict has been man made for quite some time. The old conflicts at the tribal level for resources have long ceased to be the basis for fighting. We no longer fight because we need food or water. It isn't even the idea of protecting said resources. Conflicts are mostly based on misplaced pride and ego. Race, nationality, religious belief are all manmade and have a distinct tendency to be very ephemeral in nature and yet we keep using them as a basis to assert superiority. The only thing that keeps us from total self destruction is the time proven fact that negative behavior is always self correcting. And positive behavior (no matter how self-centered and narrow) causes growth.

Case in point...the two wars in Europe in the 20th century. The first was caused pretty much by arrogant nationalism coupled with some strange imperialistic ideas. When the bad guys lost, the good guys behaved very badly and continued to punish said baddies thus setting the stage for the big ugliness of the second war. Most everybody agrees that this war was justified (from the Allied side of things at least). Granted, if the Germans and the Japanese had succeeded their success would have made the world a less pleasant place to live but their ultimate goals were self defeating. The German ideals of Aryan supremacy were foredoomed for the simple reason there were not enough of the type to ever establish and maintain supremacy. The Japanese ideals were similarly narrow and unsupportable for long term societal survival. But the good news was we learned from the first war that you can't keep punishing and not expect bad things to come of it. Sort of like spanking a child repeatedly for misbehaving. After the first time, it either builds resentment or breaks the spirit. Neither positive in nature.

Another example is the Soviet Union. Lenin and company 'telescoped the revolution' and forced the birth of a government. And for about 80 years they had to use force to maintain said government until it collapsed under its own weight. Does this means Marx was wrong in his theories? No. It means that Lenin and his successors didn't really follow what Marx said and they paid the price. I've always thought it ironic that Marxist theory and Christian concepts were so similar, one with God, one without.

But the telling part of all this is that whenever a government or society focuses on things that are beneficial for the greatest number and works at the idea of equality, said societies flourish. When they narrow the focus and encourage divisive thought and behavior, things go in the toilet. We are, at present , in one of those cycles. We have a segment of society that is indulging in very selfish behavior and it is wearing us down. The Haves are doing a very creditable job of justifying their having and are going to continue until some major event causes societal breakdown. Odds are this will come in the form of a depression that will make the one in the late 20's look like a tea party and I expect it to happen in my lifetime. Greed and callousness are clear negative behaviors and they cannot survive for long. We learned in the first third of the last century that imperialism and plutocracy are not self-sustaining. Nor is a society unevenly divided. And if anyone cared to study history, they would find this to be true in even the most primitive of cultures. The only ones that survive are the ones that adapt to concepts of equality, sharing and mutual support.

# More

The one word that describes all of the woes of mankind. Every evil ever perpetuated on this planet has been done in the name of more. More money, more prestige, more land, more control, more, more, more. It is a sickness that exists on all levels from the mightiest empire to the individual. It is the reason for stratification of society. The more you get, the more you want to keep. The more you keep, the less there is available for others. The accrual of more is a status symbol; it gives an artificial feeling of superiority and builds a need to protect your more. It is so pervasive it causes feelings of guilt, shame and inadequacy in those who can't get the more they think they want causing people to do almost anything to get their more. If they fail, it intensifies the failure, many times to the point of self-destruction. I don't mean suicide so much as the destruction of a person's self image to the point where they give up and join the ranks of the disenfranchised. They quit trying. Not just quit trying to achieve more, they quit trying at everything.

If you want to find hell, look around you. It isn't some mythical place of fire and brimstone, it is right here. It is the slow destruction of a planet. Look at the number of people living today who have living standards far below even the most stinghy ideas of decent. I'm not just referring to the Third World. There it is so pitiful that we have to ignore it to keep from feeling any guilt or remorse. I'm talking about that horribly obscene statistic of 90% of the wealth in the hands of 10% of the people. I'm referring to the vast majority of Americans who are struggling while a few live in such ostentatious and gaudy excess that it would make a vulture puke. I am talking about the millions who can't afford decent health care and medicines while drug companies, insurance companies, administrators and their ilk make mega bucks from the industry. Or small trucking companies and owner/operators who are having to park their trucks because they can't afford fuel while oil companies post record profits.

The list is endless. Middle class yuppies saying they got theirs, so can everybody else. If someone can't get it, they don't deserve it. But what they lack is the compassion to see that there is only so much to be had and if some gather more than they need and then guard it greedily, there is even less chance for others. Right now there is enough of everything in this world for every soul to live in basic comfort and have all the basic needs met. This has always been true. The problem is the greed and gluttony of a few prevents it from happening. You see, more is never satisfied. Not only do you have to get more, you have to keep it. More is about taking and hoarding no matter what the costs because when you have more, you don't have to pay the costs. Someone else does. This is all well and good until it collapses. When that happens hoarders have a tendency to jump out of windows in tall buildings.

The one group of entities that should have it in their purview to mitigate this behavior are just as guilty of it. Theirs is the ultimate hypocrisy. The ones who claim they are the purveyors of the teachings of Jesus have set the example for more and encouraged it in their support of various governments throughout history. Sadly, the few who have tried to reclaim the honesty of the original teachings have either failed and disappeared or withdrawn from the lists with minor followings. In Christianity, more is the underlying precept for everything they do. Meeting places always get fancier. Stained glass windows, golden trappings, fancy robes and a myriad other indicators of more. Have you ever looked at how much real wealth is controlled by the various sects of Christianity? And how much of it is actually used to better the lives of their followers? They hold to their hierarchy and their not-so-subtle teachings that the unsaved are somehow less than worthy of being cared about. The same old us and them division of life.

Another thing about more that makes it very difficult to overcome. It is insidious. It gets disguised by such noble concepts of pride and ambition. Achievement is rated by how much more you can gather and the idea is hammered at us in school, in business, in advertising and just about any aspect of life you can name. You are a patriot if you believe more is better for your country. You are a success if your company racks up lots of profit. Wearing certain clothes (whatever the fashion industry decides is in vogue this month) shows your are with it. And people believe it. They spend money they don't have to show they are successful, they have more, whether they do or not. I actually saw an advertisement for new show on TV the other day that touted how someone spent $92,000 just on the flowers for a single wedding. There are families living on less than a quarter of that. At minimum wage a person only makes a little over $12,000, which is probably what they paid for the cake.

And what about the more personal side of more? What about the number of marriages that are ended because he wanted a younger, sexier symbol to show off? Or the women who walk away because they want more from life? I am willing to bet that less than 15% of divorce can be attributed to abuse or actual wrong doing from either party. It is about not having enough in the marriage, whether it is attention, money, status or whatever. We have people out there who are serial marriers, chucking marriage aside when they think they aren't getting enough and trying again and again without realizing that the common denominator in each of the fiascoes is themselves. So very few are actually satisfied with what they have because they are so busy looking for what they don't have.

We have spent thousands of years building this more attitude into society and it is accelerating. The parents of the baby boomers were satisfied with being able to buy a single home and raising their families. The problem was, they wanted their children to have 'more'. Guess what? They got their wish. Their children got hooked on more in spite of a teeny side track in the 60's. And of course they wanted 'more' for their kids. What no one has realized is there is only so much more available. I'm thinking the old American dream of your own home and a nice family has been just about blasted into smithereens. The majority of Americans today are struggling to have even a piece of it because a small group is hogging the goodies. I wonder what the successful wealthy are going to do when the time comes that the consumers of America or the world don't have the money to keep their more coming? With the number of weapons available in this country today, the amount of information available for making nasty, cheap explosives, how long is it going to take before the disenfranchised decide they have nothing more to lose? Americans can only be pushed so far before they react very strongly, just ask the Germans and the Japanese.

# Mythconceptions

Robert Aspirin (he came up with the word, not me) wrote a series of fantasy novels with titles that played wonderful games with the word myth in place of mis. The ones I read were very humorous and I couldn't resist the title here. Myths. Basically fanciful tales of gods and deities attempting to make some sense out of the hows and whys of life. The Greek ones even get some playtime in what is considered a rounded education. Every culture has its myths. How the earth was created, how mankind came to be and a whole slew of stories attempting to explain the strange ways that life runs. Native Americans lean heavily on creature type myths, deities in animal form. Coyote is one of my personal favorites but then I am quirky enough to appreciate the Trickster image. Most gods or deities are related in mythology and have morals that would make a weasel blush. They don't have to follow the same rules we do because...duh, they're gods!

For centuries we have been having great fun analyzing myths for cultural content and psychological/sociological meaning as well as poking fun at just how silly man can be. One of my favorites is the Norse explanation for earthquakes. Scholars have taken apart every myth they have been able to unearth and explained why man made up such stories. Except the Judeo-Christian ones. The story of Genesis in the Bible is no less ludicrous than any other Creation myth yet no one seriously comes right out and says so. When was the last time an entire city was destroyed by raining fire from the heavens? Seen or heard of anyone being turned into a pillar of salt lately? Or maybe a body of water was parted and CNN missed it. Rivers running blood, first born male children being killed, dogs and cats living together...sorry, it didn't happen. The Great Flood has possibilities since it is mentioned in more than just the Old Testament but gathering one pair of every living creature and putting them on a boat with one family so the world could start again? Even children understand genetics enough to laugh at that one. And where did the Indians and Orientals come from? Or how about the old geezer the kids made fun of for being bald?

The Old Testament is riddled with mythical nonsense like the Garden of Eden. Here we have God setting up two adults in a wonderful place with childlike innocence. They have no clue about anything other than they get up in the morning, live this idyllic existence doing god knows what and then go to sleep at night anticipating another day of the same. Just eat, sleep and... what? Ponder the belly buttons they don't have? Did God honestly think this was what these creatures, 'slightly less than angels', were going to do for eternity? Since they were not given the knowledge about sex there could be no children, no next generation, just these two naked people wandering around in a perfect garden. If anyone can't see myth all over that one they really have to be not trying. Not to mention the whole concept of ethnic differences in the people of the world. Did God create Adam and Eve half one race and half another? That could give us the remote possibility of four ethnic races from two people. And I won't even go into where the next generation came from other than to say someone had to screw someone to make more babies.

So now we have the temptation of Eve. This evil being taught her how to think. (Bob Heinlein made a tongue-in-cheek comment that we didn't make a mistake in giving women the vote, it was in ever teaching them how to talk. And here this rebel angel taught them how to think!) Said evil being is the antithesis of God, his evil twin. Ok, God made everything so he created a force of evil almost equal to him. Come again? Oh, that's right, it was Lucifer, one of his angels who decided to rebel and was cast forth from Heaven. He tempted Eve and suddenly they realized their whatzisis' were hanging out and this wasn't a good thing. (Anyone who knows the myth about Prometheus can chuckle now. At least the Greeks used fire as the evil gift.) I've always wondered why Lucifer (called the LIGHTbringer, the Morningstar) was cast as the heavy across from the omnipotent, omniscient Yahweh. God created his own adversary (obviously not as powerful as he was) to play counterpoint to him. There are people out there who think this makes sense. A being with that much power set up a massive game, rigged from the start, to what end? So we poor humans could have the free will to choose how we wanted to play? Since He already knows the outcome, where is the sense of it?

This is what we are faced with. We have an entire segment of society who are functioning in this mythical realm and believing it makes sense. I think the last check said Christians and Jews were just over a third of the world's population. And a rather large percentage of those were in a position to be able to influence the turnings of this world for a while yet. Just take the 'Holy Land' as an example. Supposedly, God finds this little piece of desert to be more important than any other locale on the planet. Three religions have been fighting over a piece of real estate most of us would consider godforsaken for the better part of 1200 years. The number of people who have died from this in my lifetime alone is beyond offensive. We had one major chunk of space junk create the Gulf of Mexico, another the Hudson Bay, and I'm thinking the next target should be Haifa. Make a big ass pond of it so people can get on with living. To me it is beyond understanding that a deity would prefer one piece of ground over another. If I had made this planet I would find the Alps or the fiords of Norway or the Grand Tetons or Bermuda much more desirable than that bit of desert.

It is amazing that mythology can have this kind of power in a reasonably modern world. I believe part of it is we want to believe in it. We want some magic, some mysticism. We don't want to believe we are born to just suffer and die. What we don't see is we make our suffering. By holding to the myths, we turn our efforts from the magic of living. We have been conditioned to believe there is no purpose to living beyond the beyond. This is a paradise, if we choose to make it so. If we get past the silliness of mythology we can see the magic of a baby being born. We can feel the power of helping others to find a piece of life that makes it all worth living. We can find the shard of the divine in our own lives and reach out to the same shard in every living soul on the planet. We can see this planet as a Garden of Eden that we can tend and enjoy and maybe have sex in.

So there is no such thing as Armageddon. If John were alive today his writings would be on the bestseller list right alongside Stephen Kings. There will be no definitive endgame. We aren't pawns of some weirdo who likes to play games. This whole business of mythology is just something to entertain mankind until we are mature enough to see what is really there. Until we can figure out that any bogeymen that are out there are not the fevered creations of some mythological being. Until we can see that there isn't an anthropomorphic entity running life. There is no system of reward and punishment. There isn't some being out there looking to be worshiped, who is going to toss us a biscuit when we do things his way or damn us for eternity for not. Life is a learning experience and it is up to us to figure out what we are supposed to be learning. That is pretty much the sole purpose we are here. There is no forbidden knowledge, no secrets we can't learn.

# Neuter

Sort of a cute little word. It's something the pet and animal control people feel is the definitive answer in controlling unwanted little critters. Go to the pound these days and most cities require all dogs and cats to be neutered on adoption. A pretty sane and logical answer to the problem of feral and stray animals roaming the streets. I sometimes think it is a shame we don't apply the same standards to humans. I know, the right-to-life types get their undies all knotted up over this idea. People have the right to breed as indiscriminately as they please. I still haven't figured out why this is so. There is a great deal of evidence out there that some people don't have the mental faculties to understand that there are responsibilities that go with every right. Including the idiots who scream that neutering humans is somehow against God's plan.

Once upon a time there was a system in the US called orphanages. Yes, there were pretty gruesome tales of what went on in some of these places. But it was a place where children were cared and provided for until parents could be found. They seem to have disappeared. Adoption in the US these days is such a horrendous process that many couples who want children are going overseas. Something just isn't right about that one. Especially with the pro-life crowd raising such hell about how abortion is wrong. Ok, if it is wrong does that mean whoever bears the child is automatically a qualified parent? Is it right to have a child born into a life where either or neither of their biological parents want them? Kids don't have any rights or even say in their lives for 18 years so it supposed to be up to responsible adults to look after them. The problem is, as a society, we have gone to this neat ideal that we don't have to be responsible. So the parents can bail and the rest of society follows suit. How the holy rollers can bitch about the lack of morals or character of the offending parents and then turn around and say it isn't our responsibility either, is beyond me. Anyone who does that has no moral or ethical ground to stand on. You are either your brother's keeper or you aren't. If you are, you pick up where they falter. If you aren't, quit bitching. They are being just as self-centered as you are.

So you have a young woman who has a baby out of wedlock. (I love that word, btw. So apt and descriptive.) It can happen. Everyone should be allowed mistakes. So now she comes around with another. This is where the neuter choice comes in. I don't care what argument anyone uses about who is more responsible for an unexpected pregnancy, the one who is ultimately responsible is the woman. She is the one who carries the child. It is her body and life that are impacted the most for those 9 months. Once the kidlet is out, then it becomes a matter of choice and ability but the incubator time is carved in stone. It is the responsibility of the woman to make sure that any guy she decides to have sex with is 1.) someone she wants to make a baby with and 2.) someone she wants in her life for the next 18 years. I will grant you that men should also be using these criteria but it is the woman bearing the brunt of the load.

This would mean the woman needs to learn that making a baby is not a guarantee that a man will stay. Babies are not poker chips, they are not levers or tools. They are not a handle for manipulation. Entrapment is a lousy way of setting up a family. And guys need to learn that making babies isn't like having a litter of puppies. You can't just put them in a box at the curb and figure someone else will take them home. Nor can you just drop them alongside a country road or bag them and toss them in the river. Kids are an awesome gift but they aren't cheap or easy.

With drunks and felons get three strikes and then automatic penalties kick in. Maybe it is time we applied the same logic to pregnancy though I think 3 may be too many. And if neutering offends, there should be some serious mandatory counseling at the minimum (starting with the first) and move on up to some form of penalty. Community service where someone might have to work with the fruits of their folly.

And speaking of mandatory counseling and kids, I'm thinking it wouldn't hurt to include such stuff in any divorce that involves children. We have made it so darned easy for people to get a divorce with only a sop for how it affects the kids. This is particularly true in states with no fault divorce. Excuse me, but if there is no fault there should be no reason for divorce. If things aren't bad enough to be able to point a finger at noxious behavior then they can be worked out. The reasoning behind no fault divorces is fallacious. They wanted to take the ugly out of the process. Anyone who thinks any divorce isn't ugly is living in a nice little selfish lala land. Especially when it can be done on a whim without explanation or responsibility.

Which brings me to another peeve. It seems to me that if you are going to buy into the whole no fault rationale, then it seems fair that the person who files for a divorce should not be eligible for alimony or maintenance or whatever it is called. The party of the second part should be able to request it but if someone wants to abrogate the contract without having to show cause, that should be the end of it. Divorce is ending a civil contract and it makes no legal sense to me that the contract can be dissolved, terminating all rights and responsibilities...except that one party should have to continue supporting the other. I'm not talking about child support. That is an obligation both parties maintain. This business of I don't want to have anything to do with him/her but I want them to pay for the privilege of being out of my life is just plain wrong. When you ask to bail, that is it. Out is out.

# Paving Stones

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I've always took this to mean that even if you mean well, if you aren't doing it for the right reasons, with the proper backing it will end badly. What a sad commentary on what we have made of our lives when an aphorism like that becomes so deeply embedded in our lexicon. Meaning well isn't good enough. Talk about presetting for failure. I've often been amazed at the way some parents drive their kids to succeed in school, whether its in academics or sports. I am sure their intentions are supposed to be well meaning but so many times it ends with frustrated, mixed up kids who have done what they were told to do and have no idea what they should or could do.

Remember a few years back when, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, you could flip through the channels and inevitably find an airing of "It's a Wonderful Life"? I saw bits and pieces of that movie over the years but never actually sat down and watched it from beginning to end. (It is some sort of law that the bits and pieces I did catch were always the same ones. Probably one of those Irish fellows.) About ten years ago I decided I should make the effort because I did like the parts I had seen so I parked in front of the tube one night when I found it was going to start and I watched it from intro to credits. It was the first movie I had ever cried at. There had been many that moved me but none had actually brought tears. After that I would make a point of trying to catch it every year and was terribly disappointed when NBC or whoever bought the rights and turned it into a Wizard of Oz thing showing it just once a year. I could handle the Wizard that way or Gone with the Wind but It's a Wonderful Life has such a powerful message to it that it needs to be aired frequently. There are a few other movies that have that kind of powerful, immortal message but very few. IAWL sort of holds its own niche.

If there is a fictional character that could truly stand to be emulated, it is George Bailey. Selfless, compassionate, good humored, generous, caring and a the whole list of traits that make a decent human being. He didn't do it because anyone told him to. He didn't do it for the glory of God. He never actually ever stopped to think about why he did the things he did, it was just in him to do it. When Harry went through the ice, he didn't hesitate. When old man Gower goofed, he did what his heart told him was right even though he knew he would get into trouble. When his dad died he may have voiced his frustration but he did what he had to with only token rebellion. Oh, he had his dreams. Bright plans for seeing the world and designing something that would be built and people would look at it and be impressed and say, wow, George Bailey designed that. Instead he stayed in Bedford Falls and ran a two-bit Building and Loan. Married a nice girl and made a nice family.

And then it all fell apart and he panicked. He had been the rock everyone had looked to for so long he didn't realize that it wasn't just his to do. He lost faith. Not so much in God but rather in himself. Ok, they set the movie at Christmas time and Clarence made an endearing plot device because there really was no other way of demonstrating to George what he couldn't see. Not in a 90 minute movie aimed at a predominantly Christian audience. Capra did an excellent job of showing that George had really succeeded in his dream of building something people would say wow to. He had built a community. It wasn't as flashy as a bridge or a dam or a building nor had he consciously designed it. He just supplied the anchor and showed the people the way it could be done. He lived an example that others followed without ever realizing that was what they were doing. In the end, when they flocked to his assistance, I never got the impression it was for any reason other than it was George Bailey who needed help. They didn't do it out of Christian principle or because they were some kind of religious community. They did it because George had stood by them, helped them, set an example of caring and compassion that was impossible not to follow.

Capra could have hoked things up by putting more emphasis on the religious side of it all but it made the movie all the more meaningful because he didn't. George did what he did because he was a caring, compassionate human being. And he did it without thought of reward or payback. Not in Bedford Falls and not in Heaven. He was just a good person. Somehow, I never got the impression he did things with good intentions. He just did them. I mean, he even treated Potter with respect. I doubt if anyone but Jimmy Stewart could have portrayed George with the same poignancy and dignity. Jimmy had a knack for being Joe Everyman and making us feel that it was just fine for us to be that way. I have no idea what he was like in real life but I have yet to see a movie he made where he didn't bring an earthiness, a sense of commonality to whatever character he played.

But George Bailey is, to me, the epitome of a good and decent human being. And I am sure his intentions were always good. And if that paves a road to hell, I pity the sods who actually believe that. Good intentions aren't about success, they are about trying.

# Problems

Men and women have such different ways of relating to problems. In the recent past I have had three women tell me this, in almost the exact same words: "I want to tell you about this problem I have but I just want you to listen. I don't want you to do anything about it." I have come to realize this is something that men and women handle differently. There have been many movies made where they show your basic hen party where the ladies are sitting around commiserating about problems in their lives. And to a certain extent, guys will do the same with guys. But, believe me, it just doesn't work that way across the gender gap. If a woman tells a man she has a problem, it is instinctive for him to want to fix it. Most guys can't help it. I know I can't nor would I ever want to get to the point where I could just listen to a problem and say, gee that's rough.

Guys deal with this by just not telling anyone if they have a problem. Maybe, depending on what the problem is, they might talk to their buddies. But is a carved-in-stone fact that if a man tells a woman he has a problem he doesn't want to hear poor baby. Men hate admitting they have problems they can't solve. Fixing things is what most guys are coded to do. Maybe this is part of conditioning but it seems like a pretty functional bit of programming. If this equality business keeps going, it may get bred out but it will take a couple of generations for it to happen.

#

# Sheep

Wooly critters that live in flocks. Not known to be exceptionally bright. They are a good source of income what with milk and wool and their meat is considered if not tasty, at least edible. According to historical records, they were domesticated fairly early on. This makes sense since they are smaller than cows and not as aggressive. Plus they have the added advantage of supplying a renewable product used to make clothing. About the biggest drawback is that they tend to graze in a destructive manner, clipping forage too close to the ground. Sheep have been known to destroy a pasture if not moved soon enough. I believe this was one of the major reasons for the sheep/cattle wars in the American West. It's hard to dislike anything so docile and inoffensive, even cute if one is so inclined to look at things in such a manner.

Nor is it terribly surprising the Christian analogy is shot through with the concept of mankind being the flock being tended. On the surface it's a benevolent enough idea. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leadeth me...etc. and so on. To me there is a huge flaw in this. People aren't sheep. And a shepherd does not tend his flock out of gentle benevolence. It's business. He tends the flock because it is his means of livelihood. Without the milk and meat, his family starves. Without the wool, they go naked. There is no concern for whether the sheep are happy or fulfilled, they are a means to an end. Sheep are somewhat dependent on the shepherd for protection from predators but precious little else.

Without a shepherd, they would still flock and seek forage. They would breed and move from pasture to pasture seeking food. Predators would thin their ranks from time to time, usually taking the young and infirm. Their milk would go to feed the lambs, their wool to provide them with protection from the elements. In other words, they would just be another herbivore in the food chain. Do they reap any real benefits from being domesticated? Nope. They still eat, sleep, breed and fertilize. Domestication benefits man, not sheep.

So why all the analogies? And why do people think of them as nice things? Why the analogies is pretty clear. The Church was looking to establish a benevolent presence. People do like the idea they are being cared for. And we are suckers for altruism. Despite evidence to the contrary, people do have a tendency to believe the best of other's intentions until it is blatantly and personally proved otherwise. The Church accomplished this throughout its early development period with shepherds (i.e local priests) who were quite probably decent folks who truly did buy into the good shepherd aspect of their role. The foot soldiers are seldom privy to the realities of command level decisions. Even today, the greater number of lower level clerics are well meaning pawns.

I wonder why another aspect of shepherding hasn't been noticed. Take your average flock of any size. You have your shepherd, watching over them. But he has to sleep sometime. And other things. So what does a shepherd usually have? You got it, man's best friend. He doesn't run around and drive the flock. He doesn't just hang around waiting for wolves to come looking for a snack. He has at least one dog there to assist. To do the hard work. I wonder why no one ever carried the whole sheep/flock analogy to this level? I somehow doubt that sheep are fond of sheep dogs. Nor are the dogs enamored of their charges. If Jesus is the shepherd, does that make the clergy the sheep dogs? We are probably lucky that the grunts bought into the gentle shepherd role but it is pretty obvious that the higher echelon didn't. They were sheep dogs. Keep the flock in line, the wool flowing. That seems to be the trend when a padre leaves the parish, direct contact level and moves up to the policy level.

There has always been a strong bottom line in Christian teachings to discourage independent thought or action. Sheep aren't supposed to think. The whole mythology of Heaven and Hell is designed to prevent it. Man is not capable of making valid policy decisions without divine guidance, said guidance being provided by those who had been trained to do so. For centuries this was effective. No one noticed that the ones providing the guidance came from the same basic stock as those who supposedly couldn't manage it on their own. Only this elite, these select few were capable of interpreting. I mean, an itinerant Jewish peasant only did it because he was of divine birth. (An interesting aside is the Church didn't decide about Yeshua's divinity until several centuries after the fact. They had to separate him from the flock of humanity otherwise some bright boy might suddenly figure out if the son of a carpenter could get the plan, anyone could.)

The big problem is that the greater majority of humankind is satisfied with the whole sheep idea. Most people don't want to lead. They don't want to have to think for themselves. They just want to live their lives. The idea of being part of an elite group has limited appeal. Sure, it has a certain appeal, everyone does like to think they are special but they would just as soon not have to do anything to be worthy of it. Or earn it. That is what makes the possibilities of the teachings of Yeshua especially terrifying to the sheep dogs. The main argument for the editing of the Bible was those holy fathers, sustained in faith and prayer by God, chose the books that were most popular, those most accepted by the flock. Does anyone see the flaw in that one? It is sort of like the Warren Commission report. Forget the fact that any written books (and I mean hand written) would have a pretty tight level of circulation.

Then there is the whole translation question. I recently saw a new translation of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill was presented as don't commit murder. Bearing false witness against your neighbor? Don't lie. Call me a finnikin but kill and murder are very definitely different in meaning. And bearing false witness against your neighbor is not the same as not lying. The first is a very specific admonition against a nasty form of lying. Then there is that business about witches. There has been a strong case made that the original (read oldest available) actually should have been translated as poisoner. It should also be noted that the word witch derives from the Old English wicca or wicce one meaning woman the other meaning wise. Thou shalt not suffer a wise woman to live...think about it.

So what we have today (to paraphrase from the Wizard of Id) is the sheep are revolting! (Anyone who has ever spent any amount of time around sheep would hardly find that to be a revealing statement.) Ok, not so much revolting as slowly waking up to the idea they really aren't sheep. It is long past time to put that whole family of analogy to rest. We know what sheep do. A wise man once said something to the effect about it being better to be a live sheep than a dead lion but its even better to be a live lion. Being a live human is about as good as it gets. Even if it is tough to think.

# Sticks and Stones

Can break your bones but words can never hurt you. This is one of the most well known little childhood ditties taught by parents and schools across the country. I remember it very well because as a child I was always small and bookish. Your typical geek, nerd, bookworm, what have you. I was taunted on pretty much a daily basis from the time I entered the school system until junior high school. After that, it slowly died out as I grew into both adult size and temper. As a wimpy little brain case back in the 60's in a small school I was reasonably protected by the teachers. They tried to nurture my brain as a bright student is something fairly rare. Many were the days I spent my recess periods inside reading. In junior high, this changed. There were too many students for one smart chicken to matter much so I did have to learn to fend for myself. Physically I was no match for the bullies but in small town Wisconsin in the mid 60's, that wasn't a real problem. The worst I would get was a thumping but at the time I didn't know that. I was terrified.

So I learned the power of words. The pen may be mightier than the sword but only because it wields the mightiest weapon known to man...words. Words hold their power for two reasons. They allow us to gather, retain and pass on knowledge. And they are the canvas for the most important art of all, the thing that sets us apart from the beasts of the field. Ideas. Words are the symbols we manipulate in order to communicate our ideas. They come in many flavors, languages independently developed where ever man gathered together so that ideas could be passed along from generation to generation. For everything that was known, suspected or imagined, a word was assigned. Some things had multiple symbols given. In the beginning there was no right or wrong because they were just symbols being used to identify. It wasn't until the advent of such things as government that words became more than mere symbols. It wasn't until man's ego reared its ugly head that power and control saw the use of words.

There are legends about true names. Something along the lines that knowing the true name of a demon or some such gives power over said critter. I have no idea if there really are such entities and if they do exist, I am reasonably certain that the old myths are fanciful at best. One of the strongest indicators that these bogeymen aren't anything like their legends is that as man became more sophisticated, they disappeared. This is not to say that there aren't any such things as ghosts or demons or whatever. It just means the words, the symbols aren't right. Man once believed the world was flat and that the heavens above was the home of various sorts of gods and devils. Creation myths are fascinating and some of the most creative ideas man ever recorded. Early man had one heck of an imagination. It is also interesting that almost without exception, man envisioned his deities as amoral spoiled children capable of doing things that would make a pig puke. Gods were supposedly beyond such petty things as decency, honor, compassion and a part of this may well have come from early man's observations that nature is entirely without pity. One always has to be on guard so as not to piss off a deity or bad things happen. Keep them appeased and they will most likely not notice you or even possibly, do something nice for you. Man has yet to come up with a deity with better manners.

Which brings us back to the original intent of this rant. Words. Or more specifically, cursing. According to Webster its definitions are:

1). a. An appeal or prayer for evil or misfortune to befall someone or something. b. The evil or misfortune that comes in or as if in response to such an appeal 2.) One that is accursed. 3.) A source or cause of evil; a scourge. 4.) A profane word or phrase; a swearword. 5.) Ecclesiastical A censure, ban, or anathema.

(I find it interesting that there is actually a Church related definition though it doesn't appear in all dictionaries.)

And another word that fits with the topic: swear

1.) To make a solemn declaration, invoking a deity or a sacred person or thing, in confirmation of and witness to the honesty or truth of such a declaration. 2.) To make a solemn promise; vow. 3.) To use profane oaths; curse.

Interesting that swearing has paradoxical definitions.

Bear with me a moment, just a few more definitions.

Swearword: A profane or obscene term: blasphemy, curse, epithet, expletive, oath.

Profane: 1.) Marked by contempt or irreverence for what is sacred. 2.) Nonreligious in subject matter, form, or use; secular. 3.) Not admitted into a body of secret knowledge or ritual; uninitiated. 4.) Vulgar; coarse.

And lastly, obscene; 1.) Offensive to accepted standards of decency or modesty. 2.) Inciting lustful feelings; lewd. 3.) Repulsive; disgusting 4.) So large in amount as to be objectionable or outrageous.

Pheewh...quite the grouping. All fairly heavily loaded to invoke maximum levels of shame and guilt. My oh my, what we have done to a few innocent little words. First I would like to talk about the difference between cursing and cussing. Cuss, while a direct derivative of curse, does not carry the same connotations. I would be very surprised if more than a few percent of people who 'curse' today have the intent of drawing down divine retribution. Even if they use the God damn it phrase, which is technically the only real curse according to definition. The rest is swearing. But the intent is not there. Very few people truly believe they have this kind of power and those who might, don't curse.

Cussing (or swearing) can range from highly emotional to just plain lazy speaking. Cuss words are loaded for emotional impact. Most are monosyllabic with at least one hard consonant. In many ways they are designed to vent frustration, anger and other negative emotions. Sort of the verbal equivalent of punching someone out. I remember as a kid that it was a handy 'sin' to use in the weekly confessional though I was puzzled even then as to just why it was a sin. I understood the reasoning behind the 3rd Commandment part but I couldn't see the link to cussing. Still can't. Most of them fall under the obscene part of the definition so it's more by man's conditions than God's that they are bad.

I'll start with some of the least 'offensive'. Bastard and bitch. Simple cuss words, gender specific in original usage. A bastard is a male born to a woman out of wedlock. Just another method used by the church to contain the innocence of children. I have yet to figure out how a child can be held responsible for the actions of its parents. And why this should have been a reason for them to be visited with such grief is rather indicative of patrilineal influences. It is rather interesting that there is no term with the equivalent emotional impact or stigma applied to girl children. Today it generally connotes a man who is acting in a selfish, mean or cruel manner.

Bitch is much more interesting. It is a term that originally meant the female when referring to the canid class of animals. Where the negative aspects of it became applied to the human female most likely derives from the 'in heat' portion of female dogs. Breeders knew that when a bitch came in season and was ready to be bred they didn't care what male covered them. They just wanted it done. This lack of discretion in their behavior certainly crossed over into the human realm when a woman (then viewed and treated pretty much as property) was unfaithful. It was all tied up in the male control hoopla as well as the demonization of sex in general. Today it carries the same basic connotations as bastard with the nifty little addendum of also meaning to complain or mess things up. The phrase son of a bitch is self-explanatory.

There is a whole class of words involved with bodily functions and/or parts. Why they have become swear words is not exactly clear. The difference between excrement, dung, feces, poop and shit (and several others) is beyond my comprehension. They all describe the same thing yet for some reason shit has become a swear word and poop a slightly more acceptable euphemism. The same can be said of mammaries, breasts, boobs and tits. Penis, pecker and cock. Vagina, pussy and cunt. Notice the pattern. The 'acceptable' term is polysyllabic and tends to have soft consonants. The marginally acceptable terms are shorter yet retain the softness. The obscene ones are monosyllabic and have harsh consonants. You will also notice they refer to sexual organs or products issuing from them. It all ties in with the phobias manufactured by the Church in regard to sex so it isn't surprising that the nastiest of these, the big dog of swearing refers to the act itself. The mighty F bomb. You can use most of the words referring to the individual components with mild to moderate censure but say fuck in polite company and you might as well come down with leprosy.

This is funny considering the origin of the word. There are a few variations on its source but the one I find most probable comes from the old English legal system. In Merry Old when a daughter of joy was arrested by the local constable they were booked For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. Considering the natural laziness of people and the systems tendency to use acronyms to accommodate said laziness this was shortened to F.U.C.K. Many terms and euphemisms have come and gone regarding this act but the big dog has maintained its dubious honor of being the most onerous. And all because decent people aren't supposed to acknowledge that it is buried deep within their genes and instincts that it is better to copulate than not. The reasons why the church has chosen to pick on this to the extent they have are clear and have nothing to do with the act itself. All are firmly based in power, control and dominance.

As to the other phrase, the one that actually is cursing by definition, it is ludicrous. It is so totally bound up in the paradoxical nature of Church teachings as to be rendered moot. The bottom line is only God can damn and if someone calls on him to do that, well, the last I heard being stupid isn't a sin. And if God gets angry (a human trait he picked up from us) and turns it back on the sinner it doesn't say much for the teachings of forgiveness that were supposed to be the last word given to us. Anger is a basic human emotion, counterproductive for the most part but a very clear part of the unrealized human potential. And it is always nothing more than fear in drag. It kicks in the same basic physical systems as fear (duh) which are, by necessity, short termed. The old fight or flight reaction that pumps up the body system for extraordinary effort to get one clear of hazard or whup its ass. Once the danger has passed, it takes a conscious effort to maintain the framework that caused the response in the first place.

So if someone gets pissed enough to call down damnation, it takes a conditioned mind set to maintain the effort. That conditioning is based in the whole control business the church has been touting for centuries. I am right and righteous so I am sustained in the belief that what I do is righteous. The Church tells me so. Someday the Church will be forced to realize you really can't have your cake and your edicts too.

# The Passion

For a millennia, mankind has been working from a book, a mindset, a pattern of rules that are only a parody of what passed. Or, to be generous, a well intentioned interpretation. If the evidence could be examined in depth, without prejudice a more accurate version would come to light. This has been attempted in the past but the depth of the belief, the blindness of the faith has prevented real honesty. As a civilization, we have so much invested in the existing version that it terrifies to the point of panic and violence when possibilities are presented. The true believers don't want to hear the number of deaths involved in the suppression of discourse, all in the name of an individual who's basic stance was love and tolerance.

There will be many who take the traditional stance that the evils were done by men. This is the saddest form of apology that ignores the reality of the deeds. It verges on the ludicrous. It is on the order of dismissing the evils of Nazism as overzealous interpretation and accepting there is validity in the basic concepts. Those who do this are generally looked upon by society as deluded and even dangerous. But the principle is similar.

There is a general feeling in society today that we have turned from the morals of the past. There many indicators that say this is so. Half of all marriages end in divorce, an increase in violence in all areas of life, children having children, homeless people living in cardboard boxes, healthcare limited to those who can pay...the list is long and depending on who is generating it can include some pretty strange things. It would be very difficult to find anyone in the world today who would say that on a moral and ethical level we are doing just fine. It is a fact. And while many fingers get pointed in many directions, we have no one to blame but ourselves And this includes the bastions of propriety who try to hold themselves aloof from the general masses.

A commonly held opinion is that technology is the villain. We have usurped the position of the deity by exploring areas we have no business exploring. Technology has made advancements easier, taken much of the burden of labor from man allowing him more leisure. And in the process it has supposedly made man think he knows more than he should. Regrettably, there is truth in this. To some, technology has supplanted spiritualism. It appears that the reason for this is that the Church retains it's adamant stance that science and technology are bad things, spawn of the Devil, temptations towards evil. And the reason behind this stance is simple fear. They know that the more man knows, the more he can know. And the sillier the policies and beliefs of the Church become.

Since consolidating its position under Constantine, the Church has worked very hard to maintain the preeminence of its position as the sole interpreter of God's Will.

# Top Down

#

So many questions have cropped up in my head these past months and almost all of them have been crowded around the curious state of society in this time of flux. Maybe there is something to the Age of Aquarius types who see this new millennia as a period of growing awareness. Or maybe its just that there comes a time in every life when what was just doesn't cut it anymore. Not just on a societal level or rather instead of having life driven from the top down (shades of Ronnie Rayguns) it may be time to have it grow the roots up, as nature intended. There is so little evidence that top down works well. I can't think of any case where it functions well for more than a short term and then usually only to the benefit of the top.

The Russian Revolution comes to mind as a classic example with Reagonomics as a close second to illustrate this. Intellectually, one can manufacture some interesting rationalizations about how the powers-that-be know what is best for those below but they are just that, rationalizations. Our entire civilization has been built upon this idea. The herd needs to be guided. And those who guide the herd really shouldn't be questioned. After all, they do know best. It isn't just the West on this, it is just about every known culture in existence today. And the only reason I don't include every culture is because I don't know about every culture but if one exists that doesn't follow this pattern, I will be greatly surprised. It is less obvious in some, starkly clear in others.

It is even evidenced in our own personal lives. The usual pattern is parents provide our start. They bring us along through the helplessness of infancy, giving us training and support as we grow. As we approach adolescence, our own personalities begin to gel and we begin the process of exerting our own self. Then depending on the kind of upbringing we've had, we begin to venture into the scariness of adult life. For some this begins very early and for others it sometimes doesn't happen. As we age we work from the innate belief that we are indestructible and immortal when our bodies can recover from abuse quickly and our minds function at break neck speed. As time passes, the machine begins to slow down and we get hints at our mortality. The brash courage of youth and inexperience is tempered slowly. In the heady rush of youth we see the patience and wisdom of our elders as an anchor. Anything is possible.

Then life begins to exert itself. Prices must be paid. TANSTAFL. In the energy of youth we laugh that one off. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. We want it all and we want it now and we want it free. At least cheap. But that isn't what life is about. It's about paying dues. It's about earning and deserving. There is no clearer example of this than the quasi-dynasties that are set up by parents and governments. It is incredibly rare that even the second generation in a wealthy family is worth much of anything. The kids are given everything and never learn the value of what they have. And the royal, inherited system of government has a long history of being a joke or worse. Just because a parent or grandparent had a talent does not mean the descendants will. Blood does not always tell.

But there is a pattern that works. The most common pattern we see is an older generation that wants to have the younger generation follow in its pattern. Children should be subservient to their parents until such time as the parents are no longer functional (i.e. dead or senile) and then they should carry on just as their parents did. This has been the predominant pattern with only minor variations for many generations. When you find something that works, defy heaven and hell to maintain it. There is a major flaw in this. If it were, in reality, the way of life, we would still be living in caves and hunting with sharpened sticks. The real pattern we have not been able to accept is a variation on the theme.

Order and Chaos. Twin horses drawing the chariot of life. Neither can be totally dominant. Pure Order is the end of growth. Everything is as it should be, there is nothing more. Pure chaos is just that. No continuity. Life is a mix of the two forces. Chaos brings change, it is energy without form. Order is form without energy. We need both to become more than what we were. Youth is chaos, filled with energy and questions, ever questing and trying. Age is order, attempting to consolidate the changes of youth. When we lose sight of these two realities, we deny life. Children should not remain subservient to parents. There needs to be respect for their wisdom and experience. Parents need to return that respect. To trust that they did a good job on the basics and to listen, applying the wisdom experience has given them. Once a child reaches majority, they are no longer a child but a new, inexperienced member of society. Once they earn their spurs they need to be accorded the respect of a functional member of said society.

Very few of the major advancements of society have come from your basic solid older folk. The sources of new information and ideas never come from the center of the herd. They come from the rebels. The radicals. The ones who live on the fringe. Many of them flaunt the basic traditional values of society and we reluctantly accept this as the byproduct of genius. And the herd is always unappreciative of genius though they will accept the benefits they produce. Reluctantly and usually years after they have crushed said genius. A prophet is without honor in his own land.

This is deeply rooted in the age-old concepts of control and power. Maintaining the status quo is the gift of the herd. It's called self-delusion. And it is why we venerate heroes, though the definition of what a hero is exactly is often twisted. Heroes are those who act for the benefit of others without thought for themselves. Given the basic nature of civilization it isn't surprising that we value that concept. The vast majority of mankind is incapable of heroism on anything but a small scale. We tend to shut it down. It takes a great deal of courage and self-knowledge to be a hero whether it is conscious or not. The interesting thing about genius is it is pretty much synonymous with heroism but again, seldom on a conscious level. To step beyond the herd is heroic in itself but a real hero doesn't do it because he wants to be a hero. Heroes do what they do because they can't help it. The same with genius. There is no real conscious choice, it is inherent in the psychological makeup.

It is also why we put down our genius. Mostly its because we feel fear of them. And shame because we aren't like them. We have never been able, as a society or even a species, to accept difference. We live in fear because we have never found the way not to. All of our systems to date are not much better than they were 3000 years ago. We are afraid to tap the resources we have available and we have yet to come up with a system that will allow us to do so. There have been a few who have tried to exert their genius, to show us the possibilities but none have succeeded to date. We can't let them.

# Troika

A troika is the Russian term for a team of three horses used to draw sleighs or wagons. Here in the West we have this fascination with two and pairs. Most of our wagons and such were pulled by pairs or multiple pairs of critters. The old West stage coach had it set up that way, same with the Conestoga wagons of the pioneers. There is some logic to the idea of pairs rather than trios. Roads and trails could be narrower (like we lacked space), two were easier to feed than three and so on. We like doing things in opposed pairs though we publicly say the tandem team is pulling together.

Our political system has settled into a two party one. Sort of functional for the most part though it tends to work better when there is crossover. I'm thinking there is a reason for that. Two is better than one. With one party, things are simpler but change and growth are tough to come by. A one party system is usually found under a dictatorship of some sort and if one thinks about it, it is fairly useless. What do you need a political party for when everyone is supposed to follow a single line? I believe it has to do with prestige. Either that or world opinion, something dictatorships aren't very concerned about.

So you next have a two party system. Right or Left, this or that with some opportunities for debate. Then it comes down to numbers. Who has more votes this time around. It offers more chances for change over a longer period of time depending on how badly the party in power screws up. The main drawback is the polarity. It lends itself to the idea of our way is good, their way is bad and the whole system revolves around this conflict. Black and white. Yes or no. Maybe it's just me but this somehow doesn't cover the situation. The world isn't about good guys and bad guys. And it is too easy to point fingers when there is only one place to point. It is also too easy to extend the polarization. All Democrats are tree-hugging baby killers who want to give everything away. All Republicans are money grubbing elitists who think they can buy anything. There is very little room for anything outside of the two party lines.

Take Willy Clinton. History will probably tell us eventually that he was one of the most effective President's ever. In his 8 years in office he managed to lower the deficit, build the economy, fend off many personal attacks and do so with an opposition controlled Congress for the second part of his term. These are facts that will eventually become part of history. That he was a philanderer will also be remembered but it is possible that aspect of his personality may have been responsible for his effectiveness. Ranking Presidents is sort of a weird game. Public opinion is hardly a good way to do it because most Americans don't know enough about what any President really accomplished to be able to have a clue. Scholars have a tendency to have axes to grind. Most polls rank Washington, Lincoln and FDR at the top slots. Of those three I would agree with FDR. I may not agree with some of his policies but it is clear he managed to get this country through one of its most critical time in such a way as to allow us to continue and grow. This can be said for Washington as well but it was more from force of character and the people around him than through anything he actually did.

Jefferson is also ranked highly and again, I feel it is not earned. He was responsible for setting some patterns for policy that helped solidify our nation but I am not certain they were in the overall best interests. The handling of the election of 1800 and 1804 was pure political maneuvering. I view him in the same group as Lincoln. Lincoln gets high ratings for maintaining the union. But at what cost. Back then, states rights were held pretty dear and there was and is some solid reasoning behind the idea. Lincoln committed the country to a genocidal conflict to preserve the nation that had repercussion that lasted for over a hundred years. I can see the logic but I am not sold on the necessity.

The reasons for these sorts of things are based in the two party system. Opinion gets polarized, rhetoric gets heated and people tend to take sides like there are no other options. We either have a strong central government or states rights. Wait a minute, those are the only choices? What is this fixation, this obsession with either or? At various times throughout our history third parties have made attempts at entering the lists. This is probably the only time that the two parties have been able to agree on anything and that is it is a bad idea to allow a third party to gain power.

So what is so bad about a third opinion? What is more stable, a stool with two legs or one with three? When there is a difference of opinion, be it in legal matters or sports or anything, do the two conflicting parties get to make the decision about what is the best solution? Hardly. In the courts, we have judges. In sports we have referees. Even the Federal government was set up in three branches! (Someone must have goofed there but the Supreme Court is a fairly weak ref.) The concept of arbitration with a neutral third party is a keystone of our legal system. So why do we retain this fiction about two? It's better than one but not as good as three. Fifty/fifty is ok for dividing a pie or a sandwich but it is grossly insufficient for setting up a company. Or a country. Maybe even a marriage. Until we learn how to balance our own lives, we need referees.

We might need to think about the idea of a troika since we can't figure out how to behave like rational adults.

# Where Did That Come From?

This is a question we have sort of forgotten how to ask ourselves. It is especially true when it comes to the rules we live by. When we are little we are taught to respect our elders and listen to their rules. This is how that is done and don't do the other. As children, this is necessary because we have neither the experience nor the ability to understand many things so it is helpful to know one should not touch the stove. Or play in traffic. Or run with scissors. On the whole I think many parents and teachers get used to the idea that their word is good enough and explanations of obvious things is irritating especially when the darn kid keeps asking why. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's ego but the sad fact is too many adults have no patience with young minds wanting to know why. I can't help but wonder if it is because they don't know the answer themselves.

Where do some of these rules come from? And why are they so flaming important? I've always been more than a bit of an iconoclast. I've never been able to take 'because (insert any authority here) said so' or 'because that is the way it is' as a valid reason for much of anything. One doesn't touch fire because it hurts or play in traffic or run with scissors or any number of things that have reasonably direct and testable consequences. As kids we still test many of these things, get our owies and thereby ratify, yup mom and dad were right. As we get older this can go one of two ways. We either accept some given authorities word on a subject and avoid the trial and error part thus building a reasonably safe means of learning or we decide we really know more than anyone else and keep sticking ourselves into various flames. A sense of curiosity is a healthy thing. If it is coupled with a healthy dose of caution it can be very entertaining and informative. I've just never been able to figure out why so many people are afraid of it.

Take sex. Just about every living creature indulges in it. It's how the species keeps going. Most of the beasts of the field have this particular activity encoded into a cyclical process. The female comes into season and sends out various signals and the males vie to see who gets to cover her and keep the genes going. And in most cases it's a case of satisfying the itch and getting on with life. It's generally a case of slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am and both parties walk away. Yes, there many creatures who mate for life and some that retain family units to aid in the raising of the young. It varies from species to species with little rhyme or reason. So why is it so different in humans? Is it because the old schnoz is no longer capable of detecting the whiff of a female in estrus? Or maybe it has to do with the longer period of time it takes before the cubs are capable of functioning on their own? Or could it be that since we are capable of communication and higher-level cogitation, we are also capable of making it more than a basic biological urge.

I'm sure there are studies out there that explain the evolution of pairing in humans. It has parallels in the animal kingdom. The bull of the herd controls who gets inseminated by proving he is the biggest, baddest, toughest mother humper around. Early man probably felt much the same. Its sort of like the dog breeder who keeps his bitches secluded when they are in heat so he can insure the quality of the stud who covers them. As time passed and male control increased I am sure ego became a factor. This female is mine and so I will make rules to insure no one messes with my property. Then you add in the inheritance business and it becomes even more critical. A man wants to be sure it is his son that he is passing things on to. It makes a certain amount of sense and maintains a degree of stability in a society.

Then you get the other side of the coin. Again, it goes back to animal behavior in its basics. A stud of almost any species is capable of covering multiple females when it comes to the point of procreation. In the animal kingdom, satisfying the female means scratching the itch. With humans there is a certain amount of that attitude. For centuries it has been acceptable for men to 'play around'. I imagine its been considered that because men got to make the rules. A man who sleeps around is considered more of a rogue exercising a basic male prerogative. It's more of a behind the hand acceptance but it is there throughout history. Most of the time it his kept hidden with some notable exceptions like Henry VIII who wasn't shy at all about it.

The fate of the average woman who may have indulged in some extra-marital horseplay was considerably different. Being property, they quickly became branded, ostracized and even killed with impunity for indiscretions. Since there were very few occupations open to women besides wife, this led to a pretty unwholesome set of attitudes. In the West, a woman could be a wife, a nun, a spinster with limited means of supporting herself (sewing, cleaning,teaching) or a prostitute. There was a time when witch was added in there but they had a tendency to not live long.

So what about prostitution? It has been referred to as the world's oldest profession with evidence that it was even a viable position in many ancient religions. There aren't many societies or cultures that haven't had some form of the profession though most of them kept it illegal. Men are basically insecure about it. It is a profession very few men can hire into since men are hampered by certain biomechanical limitations. On a gut level it bugs men that women can not only indulge in sex with whoever they choose at any time but that they can do so repeatedly. A man's ability and reactions are not something that can be faked so men have worked hard to limit the whole concept of prostitution. It offends their righteous egos that women can be so pragmatic about sexual congress. It hits them right where it hurts that a woman might choose to sleep with another man when they obviously have already had the best, when they don't want to be property.

The fact that it is almost impossible for a single man to be able to satisfy a woman in the physical sense galls. Or that it is possible for a woman to actually enjoy having sex with more than one man. It's a fact and men hate it. You see, men are much more sentimental about sex than women. The whole process affects them differently. They have huge insecurities that they cannot even begin to be consciously aware of so they cover up with macho posturing. They know they are quick to flame, almost as quick to flameout and they need time to recover. All of this adds up to lots of rules to protect their egos, cover their fear. It is why you seldom hear of a woman being 'pecker-whipped'. Women can control men all to easily.

This is why prostitution has never been considered a valuable or honorable profession. A well-trained prostitute would have devastating power. Courtesans throughout history have shown this to be true. So it is kept in back alleys, a stigma cast on it to keep it from being used. It is illicit sex, which is evil in itself when you consider the insanity of religious attitudes. Organized religion lives in terror of sex. They have to because if people ever realized that it is the one real chance they have in life to truly bond with another human, the one time when they aren't so totally alone, religion would go the way of the dodo. An honest sexual relationship is the big source of love and caring, the one time when feedback is direct and on multiple levels. It is why the Catholic Church has its celibacy rules. If a priest or a nun were to have a normal life the church hierarchy would lose a huge piece of control. That person would actually realize there is something beyond the rules designed to keep them bound in abnormality. The whole schtick about a priest not being distracted by the earthly needs of his own family has pretty well been shot in the ass by all of the other Christian sects that don't indulge in that brand of sickness.

We are all human beings with a very basic need for emotional feedback. Lack of this sends a person into depression, withdrawal and all sorts of abnormal behavior in the attempt to find it. It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation between the Catholic Churches cutbacks that caused many priests to lose their housekeepers and such and the recent rise in altarboyitis. The longtime policies of Christianity to control human sexuality are eating us alive as a society. The demonization of the basic human need for intimacy, the innumerable rules that detract and distract us poor humans from what is the most primal of drives is turning us into lab rats, caught in an unending maze, leaving us to curl in the corners of life and chew our paws. As a society we need to ask ourselves, just where did this come from and is it really what we need. We need to ask ourselves why it is obscene for a movie to depict two adults in any real form of physical intimacy yet it is ok to show blood and gore and dismemberment. We need to look into our hearts and find the evil of two people living in a loving, caring relationship who just happen to be of the same gender yet not see the evil of imprisoning hundreds of people without rights or due process. We need to see the double standard of using sex to sell products yet denying why it is effective.

If there is a more basic, universal and beneficial need in humans, I'd like someone to point it out to me. And don't even go with the love of God business. Its like loving your 1956 Studebaker. You may get a lot out of futzing with it but the only feedback is in your own widdle head because there's nothing coming back from the car. Us humans need real feedback.

# Privacy

This age of instant communication has had some strange offshoots. One is the idea that what goes on between consenting adults behind closed doors is somehow the business of the rest of the world. Admittedly this has been encouraged by the wonder of the web cam but that one is a personal choice with its own set of insanity. It's surprising there hasn't been more of a hue and cry about that little past time. The one that has me baffled is the outrage over same sex marriages. And the outrage is over the legal technicality aspect.

It is understandable that it has come to this. Considering the general attitudes in society in this whole gender battle business, I'm amazed it took this long for the problem to come up. Public acknowledgment of homosexuality is now about as commonplace as declaring religious preference or political party affiliation. It has even taken on something of the air of bragging rights. Me, I'm just a tad suspicious of the whole thing. Oh, I have no doubt that there is an increase in same sex pairing but is it what one would call true biological action or reaction to trend? Most people have had some experience of sexual activity or curiosity with a member of the same gender. This has been true throughout recorded history and has even seen social acceptance in the past. The idea never really caught on though. I suspect it has something to do with procreation. It has only been in the most repressive of societies that this natural tendency has been suppressed. When it comes to sexuality, our society ranks right up there. We weren't founded by Puritans for nothing.

But why the sudden influx now? Could it have something to do with the fact that every other marriage now ends in divorce? Or that as a society we have decided that traditional family values are blasé? Or that it has become popular to denigrate men and women with depersonalized stereotypes in the media? Small wonder men are avoiding women who have picked up the banner they railed at men for carrying all these years. Or that women are behaving as badly as men have traditionally done. This latest round of the battle between the sexes has tossed some interesting and painful things into life. We have advanced greatly in our technology and it is leapfrogging at an exponential rate. The sad part is that it is bankrupting us on a personal level. We are so acclimated to gaining material things we are losing sight of the nonmaterial and it is crippling us.

Once upon a time the raising of a family was an important function. It was a multi generational effort that helped define us as people. Only fifty years ago it wasn't unusual for a father to go off to some distant place in order to make the money needed by his family back home. And mom did what she had to to insure the kids were raised in a way that would allow them to go off on their own when the time came. Granted it's an idealized portrait of the reality of what happened but not that much of a stretch. And it reflects some of the gender bias inherent in life back then. It also reflects the reality. The workforce was more male oriented because the jobs were more geared to manual labor. Much has been made of this as repression of women but the simple fact is handling a muck stick for 12 hours a day was not something most women either could or really wanted to do. It has only been in the last 40 or so years that enough jobs have come into being that are not gender dependent.

Another aspect often overlooked is the genetic tendencies of the sexes. Men have been more geared towards providing and protecting, women towards nurturing and supporting. This is not to say either can't do the other but between genetic proclivity and societal structures the abilities haven't exactly found fertile ground for growing. Indications are that it is happening more and more these days but these things take time. At least a generation to unlearn old and relearn new. Our problem seems to be impatience. And intolerance.

Since the gender battle was really pushed to the front back in the 70's there have been massive changes in the roles of both sexes in society. Women wanted men to be more aware of their needs, more respectful of them as people and less arrogant and controlling. Judging by the state of things today, I'd say guys have made some inroads on the demands. Of course there have been some side effects that weren't foreseen. One is the confusion in men since they had to give up their more traditional roles, just what were they supposed to be now? Men getting in touch with their sensitive side just may account for a portion of the increase in male homosexuality. Whereas it used to be sissy stuff to appreciate talents like cooking or attending fine arts performances it was now expected behavior. And since these less aggressive pastimes were once the area of connection with women, if they could appreciate them without fear of social stigma, why bother with a woman? The confusion and reaction seem both understandable and predictable.

And now that men are making the attempt to get in touch with their feminine side, women are appreciating the hell out of it, right? Wrong. Women are getting in touch with some of the masculine traits they railed against for so long. They are going off to the work force and putting their jobs before anything else. They are asking for divorces in midlife because the marriage just isn't fulfilling them. They are developing decidedly predatory behavior in the area of dating. If you want some indications of this check out any of the many online match services and read the intros. Or go check out one of the local hangouts. Reaction is such a predictably nasty thing. So now that its ok to be angry with men, who does a woman turn to if she wants a meaningful relationship? Again, understandable and predictable.

The good thing is that it appears to mitigating. The pendulum is swinging back slowly. It will be another generation before we find a new level where both sides have become more comfortable with the new setup.

# Religion

Karl Marx stated religion was the opiate of the masses. It was intended as a derogatory statement from a man considered godless. But is there a smidge of truth in it? Is religion something that placates, distracts and numbs the mind of the masses? Interferes with thinking and feeling on an individual level? Eases the pain of self evaluation, responsibility and action? Removes responsibility for said action (or inaction) and slides it over to a scapegoat? Ok, its clear which direction I'm coloring this, primarily to play devil's advocate.

It is usually pretty unpopular to attempt to look at religion from an objective point of view. Not surprising since it focuses on a very subjective area. It's an area where the concrete will never set and everything has to be taken on faith. Faith is a good thing to have. It is one of the things that separates man from the rest of the animal kingdom. One of our strongest attributes. But might it also be...duh da don...be a Great Truth? My guess is yuppers. The ability to have faith in spite of evidence to the contrary is something that has been behind some of the greatest deeds in history. Believing and striving when all hope is gone. It is the stuff of courage and honor, the fire that can lift us to achievements normally beyond human capacity.

Now the flip side, the other Great Truth. It has also been responsible for some of the greatest atrocities known to man. The Crusades and Inquisition come to mind. Manifest Destiny. The Third Reich. Communism and all of its various tawdry affairs. Faith is not restricted to religion. We have faith in the good ole U.S. of A. and all its stands for. Faith in the two party system and democracy. Could this be turned into tragedy? We don't even have to go into past tense very much for this one, just look at current events.

So, back to the original topic, religion. Why is it we have such absolute blind faith in something 2,000 years old? If someone like Jesus were to appear today do you really think the reception would be any different than he got the first time around? Why are we so willing to accept as gospel (pun intended) a book that has admittedly been edited many times as well as translated? How is it possible we can accept the concept that it is the only bit of divinely inspired writing even when the evidence shows it was cribbed from contemporary sources? Or that its basic structure has been debated and greatly modified over the centuries?

There has been a bit of speculative fiction written over the years about what would happen if suddenly there was irrefutable proof that Christianity was all a lie. Most start with the idea that the powers-that-be would seek to hide the evidence in order to protect the world from what would surely be mass destruction and chaos. That somehow the information that Jesus wasn't divine or hadn't existed would somehow destroy the world. The latest statistics show about 1/3 of the world's population is Christian in its beliefs. (It's kind of interesting that 14% are professed nonbelievers, about the same number as Hindu and Muslim.) How many people would totally fall apart if they suddenly learned their whole belief system had been made up from whole cloth?

I think that is part of the problem with faith. The concepts espoused by the carpenter of Galilee are sound. Of all of the structure of Christianity, his teachings are the most telling. They are what is pretty unique, the strongest evidence that he really did exist. In an age of Imperial power, strongly structured class systems and heavy tradition the ideas that we are all brothers and equal were totally unheard of and out of place. Centuries have not invalidated his concepts, in fact they have been shown to be the truth. And anyone who has honestly looked at two millennia of history can see that when those principles have been followed, mankind has grown and flourished. When they have been ignored suffering and pain ruled. The real interesting part is that it holds true even in areas where Christianity didn't hold sway.

It seems to me that Christianity evolved more as a political system than a religion. A great deal of effort was put into structures designed to control people rather than encourage spiritual development. Prior to the invention of the printing press access to information was limited to the clerical elite. The whole system of the Church being the only intermediary with God, said intermediaries isolated from society within the hierarchical structure of the Church, kept the masses from thinking and feeling for themselves. This was kind of blow apart by the Reformation. Was it coincidence that the end of the Dark Ages was heralded by the challenge to Church power and control?

So what is it about religion that fascinates man so? Bottom line is we have never been able to find out with any kind of definitive proof what runs the show here. We don't know if this is it or only one of the acts in an ongoing play. We have no clue as to how it all runs or how it started. And basically that scares the living daylights out of us. We have this innate need to know, to define, to control so way back when some bright boy started using his imagination to try and make some sense of it all. Or maybe a divine spirit inspired someone. Or maybe an alien did it. The fact is we don't know nor are we likely to find out about it anytime soon but we just have to keep rubbing at the sore spot. There are probably more stories about Creation around than we have been able to catalog. Most are pretty strange, full of allegory and mysticism. We can handle mysticism for some odd reason. It's ok to explain the unknown by saying its controlled by some force outside our ken, providing its reasonably benevolent. The old saw about it being God's Will and therefore unknowable by mere mortals but hey, he knows what he's doing, is acceptable.

Mostly I think it is fear. There are things out there we don't know about and can't find a handle on so we have to do something about it. We have to get at least a semblance of control or it will invalidate us as people. I'm thinking this is more of a Western concept but still pretty universal. Those in the East have developed their own filter system that we tend to see as inscrutable. More likely they are not as socially conditioned. The Church kind of took this burden away by convincing folks that it wasn't their fault they couldn't know about God. Just do as we say and everything will be fine. And now, even with the changes of the Reformation and all that has come to pass since, people are still willing to hand over this bit of power. It still hurts to think. It's still tough to take responsibility for their own spirituality. It's easier to let someone else worry about things they really don't have much say over or can't quantify.

I can't help but wonder, what difference does it make if one can't understand why a loved one is taken by death? Or why a tornado destroys their home? Understanding why has absolutely no impact on the fact that something has happened. This doesn't apply to things we do have some control over. Knowing that not feeding a child will lead to its death or that certain actions will result in definite consequences, like physical violence will cause bodily harm. These are knowable. Getting angry with God because of childhood leukemia really may not be God's fault. Losing one's home when the levee breaks isn't either. There are a great many diseases out there we don't have a cure for...yet. Because we haven't figured it out yet isn't a real valid reason to get pissed. It ranks up there with an Aztec getting mad at the gods because some goof of a Spaniard has this stick that spouts fire and death.

If you buy in to the Christianity thing, we are made in God's image. Now there has long been debate as to just how far this can be taken. Doesn't it make sense that we have been given the means and wherewithal to make things work? Some argue that there are some things that are God's province and not to be messed with by man. Carry that one to its logical conclusion and you get that if man can learn it, it must not be in God's area of control. And the only way to find that out is to try. We have found in so many areas that the only thing holding us back is our own fear. Or the fear of others. Men feared Galileo but because he persevered his knowledge added to the growth of mankind.

That is one of the more interesting aspects of life. In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton put forth the idea that nature will always find a way. He was referring to the attempt to artificially contain the cloned dinosaurs. It seems to be true in real life though. The status quo has always tried to maintain itself. The Soviet Union is a good example of that. Lenin and company tried to force their beliefs onto a group of people. They rationalized it very nicely and then proceeded to use many of the same tactics of the previous government in an attempt to prove they were right. It only took about 70 years for it to blow up in their faces. Man can try to force his will on the natural order, even succeed for a time but in the end, nature will win out. Life will have its way, no matter what man has to say.

Some will call this a fatalist attitude. It isn't. The trick is figuring out what one can do to join in with the overall game plan and work to participate. It is analogous to working in a business with a team of people. If one has a good idea that would benefit the company, it is in the best interests of all to cooperate to put the plan into action. If the one team member gets big headed and tries to take over the original plan with their own version it may result in less than optimum results. The same can be said of a team member who doesn't join in out of jealousy who tries to sabotage the program. But if team members embrace the original idea, they may come up with ways to increase the benefits of the outcome. So we basically have three choices. Ignore what life is doing and try to do it our way, give up and just go with the flow or pay attention and see what opportunities will arise.

# Reward and Punishment

How many times have you heard the question, 'Why are bad people rewarded (or not punished)? Why do bad things happen to good people? For some reason it offends our sense of justice when these things happen. There is a good explanation besides the ubiquitous and unsatisfying, it is God's will. Or maybe it just goes a bit further than that mysterious and mystical response. We humans operate on a different clock. Since we only have a limited time of consciousness, we think in terms of immediacy. The universe, on the other hand, takes things a bit more philosophically. Its clock may have a second hand but it works in days, maybe even years. The pitiful span of a human life is barely noticeable compared to the building of mountains or the changing course of a river. So when bad things happen to good people or vice versa, it is probably because in the grand scheme of things, it really has no impact on the universe. Cold comfort for us humans.

We find it appalling that the brutal extermination of the Jews in WW II didn't deserve some sort of divine response. Or the abysmal treatment of Native Americans. Or slavery. Or...ok, the list is a long one. And the portion of it that the apologists play down on the horrors performed in the name of Christianity is very impressive. Of course those were done by humans misinterpreting the will of God. I sometimes think these same apologists can't see the paradox in their attitude. If it is possible to misinterpret the written word of God and do nasty things, how do they know they are getting it straight? I am sure those who perpetrated things like the Crusades and the Inquisition felt they were right. I wonder where people get the gall to think that they have the true pipeline and everyone else is wrong? What ever happened to doubt and human infallibility?

And why would anyone want to contain a divinity? Build them a nice box to live in or even think that they would be willing to do so? Or give God the oh so human traits of jealousy. Wrath and retribution? The ability to use righteousness to punish his/her/its own creations? As a father, I cannot even begin to imagine being able to visit wrath and damnation on my children. And especially not because they choose to do something I don't agree with. And to banish them from my sight (even for more short time here, not an eternity) for such an infraction? I know I couldn't do that, for any reason and I would like to think that God or whatever is running this show is a whole lot more advanced and better than I.

It doesn't take logic or proof or evidence to know that there is a benevolent spirit or force of some sort, beyond our present comprehension guiding the universe. It is in the world around us. And in our hearts, if we take the time to listen. And whatever it is, does not give a rip if we understand it or the master plan. It doesn't care what plan we follow, what we might think of it or what anyone else thinks. Everything we need to know, everything we need to make it in this world is already here. In each of us. If we choose to set artificial boundaries, limit what we are or can do, that is that little thing called freedom of choice. If we choose to believe there are limits, they will be there. If we want to blind ourselves to the possibility of the infinity of life, that is our loss. If we want to defne God and his word and will, confine it to parameters we can comprehend, it will be so.

But don't blame God or the light or whatever you may call the big Kahuna if he ignores your petty cage. And if you are really capable of the stretch of imagination, be glad he does.

# Age of Information

You gots to love it. We are sitting in the catbird seat. There is more information readily available to more people (even on a percentage basis) than at any other time in recorded history. Almost anyone can find out what really happened at the Battle for Jenkins Ear and what the possible historical implications were. And, even more fascinating, you can get multiple opinions. There is more data available on more subjects than any one person could ever utilize. What were the incidents that led to WWI, did Rome fall because of lead poisoning, was Alexander really all that Great, and so on ad infinitum. One can find information or interpretations to support or refute almost any opinion on any historical event.

But the magic...they can do it. History isn't just being written by the winners anymore. There is...gasp!...dissenting opinion. We don't have to accept the 'official' report as gospel. Now there are a lot of folks out there who would warn against this kind of behavior, usually the ones who have some sort of vested interest (i.e. the winners who want to write the history). They are the same sort who warned the average citizen that reading the Bible without someone else interpreting could lead to all sorts of strange heresies. The truth is we can read whatever we choose and form our own opinions. This is a very new concept and one we should embrace wholeheartedly. If nothing else, its fun.

Take the Domino Theory. During the Cold War it was theorized that the Commies in the Soviet Union and China were out to convert the world to their evil, godless ways and every time a country fell under their spell, it weakened democracy and freedom. If we didn't keep the dominoes from toppling they would control the world. Scary stuff. Especially after Joe McCarthy had terrorized the US with his own version of the Red Scare. I mean, they had all of eastern Europe and that was just the first step. (Nobody liked to mention we had sort of given it to them after WWII.) And then Cuba. Castro and company overthrew a friendly government (Batista certainly did have many American friends but was hardly what one would call a democrat) and they were a major Communist threat in the Western hemisphere. If we didn't do something about it they would be invading Miami. Really.

So for almost 50 years we waved the Red Menace and the Domino Theory around and used it for justification for lots of questionable behavior. No one seemed to notice that most countries, even the ones that were really in bad shape, jumped at the chance of becoming a Communist satellite. Considering most barely had a choice between a pro-US military dictatorship or a pro-Moscow military dictatorship and really didn't have much to offer either side, it isn't surprising Communism didn't flourish. In most of the countries, the populace was fighting hard just to keep their bellies filled and a roof over their heads so there wasn't an extreme amount of opinion either way.

Now the real beauty of this is that if you don't agree or think I'm some sort of whacko, you can go find out for yourself. You can find opinions by the various pro Domino types, the anti-Domino types and any number of those in between. You can check the veracity of the theory against the facts as they exist. (Make sure you pay special attention to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 80's. Happened without a shot fired or a bomb dropped.) You don't have to accept my opinion or anyone else's, you can form your own by researching the data available.

This is huge. Up until the past 60 or so years, this was not an option. The vast majority of the books and articles written were written pretty much by the winners. This was the case because for said writings to survive, they had to be published. To be published meant they had to sell. To sell, odds are they had to be popular. If they did get published (and weren't popular) they languished in a few college libraries where only a few knew them to exist. Today, anyone can write anything and odds are it can be found on the web. You can probably find something written on how Teddy Roosevelt was a closet drag queen who liked to wear women's shoes. (I am not aware of any such theory, it is intended as hyperbole. Nor am I going to do a search to see if it might exist. That would be just a bit too much.)

What it means is we have the capability to discover more information, on more subjects to base our opinions on and we can express those opinions in ways our ancestors never dreamed of. It is amazing. Pity we don't use it.

# Bats

I have always enjoyed comics. When I was a kid, I was fascinated but the outlandish powers and costumes and the open landscape of imagination they engendered. Over the years I came to appreciate some of the art work. Some was plain comic book camp like the immortal Jack Kirby. And some was plain amazing for a rag that came out on a monthly basis. The real dynamic duo of comics was Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil who teamed up around 1970 to write and draw some of the best material ever to come out of the genre. That they did it with the stilted characters of the DC pantheon made it even more impressive.

In the early 60's Marvel Comics began to really push the envelope of comicdom. DC had a full stable of heroes and had been the leader but when Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko came up with some fresh new ideas for heroes and stories it changed the comic from kiddy stories to literature. They brought angst and reality into what had previously been pretty much campy fun. What Hollywood did to Batman in the 60's is a prime example of where most people figured comics were. The battle was joined and rages yet today. Hollywood has almost caught up with it, especially now that special effects can bring more of the magic of superpowers to the wide screen. We have seen a marked increase in comic book movies, some of them even worth watching.

In 1989 Tim Burton took a shot (and a huge chance) with the first of a new generation of Batman movies. He went back to the Dark Knight detective roots of the character and set his movie in a surrealistic Gotham that was an interesting blend of 1930's New York and today. Michael Keaton did a wonderful job, not surprising since he does psycho pretty well. Jack Nicholson (also noted for his ability in portraying nutcases) played a perfect Joker. About the only flaw was putting machine guns on the Batmobile. Anyone who understands the Batman knows better. The movie was a success and spawned several more. The second was almost as good as the first with Danny Devito playing a great Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. After that, it was all down hill. The stories shifted to play more on the fantastic, the villains got killed off at an astonishing rate and the acting while still done but good actors faded out. As with the Adam West era, special effects became more important than story and the public interest faded.

So, in 2005, we get the third generation. And once again, Christopher Nolan reaches back to the Dark Knight for his template. Christian Bale is brought in to play a brooding antihero and Liam Neeson is cast as one of the most powerful and interesting villains from the Batman stable. It is set in a modern Gotham but again there are distinct colorings of the 30's. More attention is paid to the character and how the Batman was born. Burton did a good job in the 1989 version but it was mostly by allusion. Nolan is a bit more direct. And again we have a hit with a pretty well scripted story and some fun special effects. And the villains don't get killed off.

But the heart of the success, the cornerstone of the story is the Batman. He's coming up on his 70th birthday. Superman had his in 2003. These two are the most enduring legends. Big Blue, orphan from another planet, virtually indestructible and embodying all that is good in a hero with his motto of truth, justice and the American Way. Not much can take the big guy down. Then there is the Batman, the first antihero, if you will. No superpowers. Driven by the childhood trauma of seeing his parents murdered he becomes obsessed with the need to bring justice where the system fails. Where Superman sets a sterling example, the Batman strikes fear into the hearts of evil doers. He does this with nothing more than determination really. One of the appellations for him is the world's greatest detective, something the movies only hint at. They focus more on his gadgets.

There have been many characters who have their base in The Batman. Not surprising since the Batman was inspired by the pulp legend, the Shadow. Daredevil and the Punisher are Marvel's attempts but the Batman is the icon that endures. The archetype that echoes the old West heroes, he is the brooding, solitary victim turned avenger. Having survived a trauma and seen the perpetrator escape punishment, he dedicates himself to correcting that oversight. There have been many attempts to sanitize and civilize his behavior but all have failed because it can't be done without changing the essence of the character. The Bats just isn't a nice guy. He exists in the shadows just as his victims do and the only thing that separates him from them is his indomitable will. He really is judge, jury and infrequently, executioner.

It is rather interesting that in their long relationship that Superman and the Batman became best of friends. This friendship has seen many phases that echo the sentiments of the times. Superman is the biggest Boy Scout and seldom strays from his lofty position of idealism. The Batman is a realist. Their views have the same base yet they are polar opposites and the best of friends with a deep and abiding respect for each other. Big Blue believes in the perfectibility of humanity, sort of easy when you are invulnerable to virtually everything yet the big guy doesn't flaunt it. Bats sees humanity as being only as good as they have to be or as wicked as they can get away with. Superman lives his example, the Batman plays dark referee. Both are heroes.

# Bloodlines

I have found the fascination people have with bloodlines and genealogy to be very perplexing. Ok, coming from good solid stock can mean one has some tendencies towards advantage. But what is the big deal about being able to trace your family back to Pepin the Hammer or whoever? Even if the records are accurate (which I find unlikely), so what? If you think there is something magical about hereditary nobility or royalty you obviously haven't studied much history. And if you look at our own short history, how often have the children of people who have succeeded carried on their parent's legacy? If blood truly did tell, why do we have so many examples of families who go from rags to riches and back to rags in 3 or 4 generations? How many families have you known where grand dad built a company, dad may or may not have carried on the tradition and the grandkids have pretty much pissed it all away?

As for European royalty, if you want some laughs on par with your average soap opera, pick any royal house in the Middle Ages and try to follow the line without shaking your head in disbelief. Face it, European royalty originally got their start by who was the biggest, toughest bandit. There is no such thing as royal blood because every single claimant came from common stock somewhere along the line since 2,000 years ago most of the countries claiming such exalted lineages DIDN'T EVEN EXIST! I love the fact that these medieval idiots got so involved in this bloodline business that they inbred to the degree that the number of defective children was astronomical. I believe it was the French line where one of the most telling attributes of inheritance was hemophilia. Or maybe it was congenital idiocy. Maybe both.

So, you have traced your family line back to Ben Franklin. Or George Washington. Or whoever. Does that mean you might grow up to be like them? Considering each generation has less than a 50/50 chance of claiming any given chromosome, said chromosomes carrying genes that have a dominant/recessive relationship with other chromosomes that scientists still haven't been able to decipher and there have been how many generations? I think the rule of thumb is 20 years per generation so going back some 240 years with each generation doubling the number of predecessors (2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, etc.) just how much of a genetic link do you think you might have? You might as well say your first ancestor on US soil once saw Alexander Hamilton wink at his deputy step cousin-in-law.

Besides, if all of that stuff was true if you traced your ancestry to Bloody Bill Anderson, does that mean you are a murdering renegade? (Don't even look at those noble families who had fine statesmen and genocidal rogues as siblings.) Most of us are descended from a long line of reasonably normal, fairly common people. Not surprising since that is what over 90% of the population is and has always been made up of. It's that darn bell curve.

Considering the fact we usually are trying to live up to our parents expectations or living down from their legacies, why are we so willing to think that the previous generations were any different? History and time have a neat way of polishing up the good things (either real or legend) and downplaying or erasing the bad. Deifying or demonizing historical figures is something man has always had a tendency to do. The further back you go, the easier it is to do. (Especially when said figure is no longer alive to influence the thinking.) To think Abraham Lincoln was some kind of genius only requires not studying his life, times and actions. Same is true of Washington. And Jefferson. And...and...and... They were all just people who made some choices and decisions that happened to work out, a question of the right person in the right place at the right time.

Take ole Abe. Saved the Union, right? What were those southern states thinking when they got riled up about a government making decisions for them. That the colonies rebelled against England for pretty much the same reasons never got much play. The history books make a big deal about the slavery issue, how the North found it abominable and had the right to enforce their beliefs on the South. The South didn't secede because they wanted to keep slavery. That was just the issue that brought the problem to the forefront. The South was pissed because the northern states wanted to tell them how to run their states. And rightfully so. So they did what their grandfathers and great grandfathers did. Remember, this happened in 1860. The American Revolution started in 1776. Less than 100 years. If you were to put it in today's perspective, 84 years ago, 1923. My dad was born in 1924. The South had some real solid, meaningful grievances and a big hunk of historical backing for seceding. And Honest Abe had very skimpy reasons for instigating the bloodiest war we have ever fought. If you are retarded (yes, very PI but look up the meaning of the word) enough to think the Civil War was fought 'to free the slaves' you obviously don't know anything about the Reconstruction of the South. Nor have you asked yourself why it took another 100 years for those 'freed' slaves to even begin to get decent treatment in this land where all men are created equal.

It is all about power, money and control. Bloodlines are a joke. The Constitution a piece of paper. It isn't about where you came from but who you are. And what you do. Today.

# Boots

Boots (and shoes) are pretty simple items. We go through multiple pairs throughout our lives. Some folks even develop a strange desire to collect them. This generally happens to women but men are not immune. I have at least four pairs of boots, three of sneakers, three of loafers, boat shoes, sandals and...well, you get the idea. The odd part is I wear one pair of boots most of the time. Steel toed Wolverine DuraShocks. I bought my first pair in 1989 and I am now on my third, freshly purchased last year. Since I wear them 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, they are a pretty good boot. Took me all of an hour to break in the past pair.

Which brings me to a minor epiphany I experienced today. I pretty much lived in sneakers through high school, even in winter. Then I got a job as a mason tender the summer after I graduated so I broke down and went out and bought a pair of plain, moccasin toe work boots. (Keep in mind this was pre-steel toe.) Just your basic wedge sole, 8" high leather work boots. They damn near killed me the first day I wore them. The leather was so stiff, the soles different than flat old sneakers, I remember coming home with my feet throbbing and my back aching. Every night I would clean and oil them, rubbing in this waxy goo I had found that was supposed to preserve and water proof leather. This kept up for a couple of days and I was beginning to think that boots were all designed by Torquemada.

Then, suddenly, they disappeared. I still put them on every morning but after that I quit thinking about them. The leather broke in, my feet adjusted to the new support and they vanished. (Except when I wasn't wearing them...then I missed them terribly.) I chucked them when I joined the Navy because they were getting pretty beat up (Concrete does no favors to leather, even if you keep them clean and oiled) and I figured the military had its own standards for footwear. They did. Called boon dockers. Basically black chukka boots made by idiots. Once I got to the Fleet I traded mine in for Nam combat boots, a much better and more comfy choice.

Anyway, I think part of the reason I have always had many pairs of shoes and boots yet only wore one was I was looking for comfort. The other footwear got worn on special occasions. When I went into industrial work I went through about 8 different kinds of steel toes before I finally found my Durashocks. Have you noticed most foot wear today? There is very little break in required. One of the reasons I used to lean towards sneakers. They tended to get comfy fast. Wore out fast too. Well, last week I spotted a pair of Wolverine moc toe work boots in the Sportsmans Guide, on sale even. I ordered them. They came in today and I opened the box like a kid on his birthday, even though I knew what was inside.

First thing that hit me was the smell of new leather. (The last pair of boots I bought barely had the smell...don't ask why, I think it has to do with all the processing they do for them that cuts the break in time.) I unwrapped them and they were beautiful. Stiff tan leather with the white wedge soles. I took the stuffing out, loosened the laces and put them on. Sat in my easy chair and admired them for a moment (have to do that because they don't remain pretty for very long). Then I stood up and headed back to my computer desk. Within three, maybe four steps, my feet were screaming at me.

At this point I had to remind myself they were new. But there was this little voice in my head that said...yeah but when you bought the Durashocks last summer we didn't have to put up with this. That was when it hit. The fond memories of that first pair of boots that had served me so well got a sudden dose of reality. The rest of the memory came back. The days of work and suffering while the leather absorbed the sweat and oil to mold themselves to me, the painful period where we got acquainted all came back. It has been so long since I actually had to break in a pair of shoes, I had totally forgotten what it was like. Frankly, I had come to view footwear as disposable and scarcely worth noticing. Every 18 months to two years, you bought new shoes, big deal. Take them out of the box, slap them on the hooves and away you go. Even my faithful Durashocks are getting that way. I bought the first pair in 1989. The second was in 2000. The third was last year.

I have a sneaking suspicion this pair of boots is going to last me a good long time. The construction is solid, the leather substantial. But they are going to take some time and effort before they learn their new job. And there will be some discomfort involved. Sort of like life. You don't just make changes without effort and cost and even the things that you remember may not exactly be as you remember. But, given a little time, some TLC and effort, the old things can come back and serve in new ways.

# Broken Hearts

Life is filled with them. The teenager who wants to be an Olympic athlete or a movie star or a sports hero. These days it seems it is harder and harder for the average schmuck to achieve them. The sports dreams tend to be gobbled by the big buck kids who have parents who can afford the coaches. The others are just plain hard to come by. The American Dream is slowly being tamped down under the other dream of making the big buck, only that one has taken on the aspect of nightmare. We've lost the little dreams.

Working hard all your life used to get you kids in college, maybe a shot at some time in the Caribbean or Mexico. Sorry, Charlie but not anymore. If you were lucky and smart enough to build a nest egg one simple illness can wipe it out. And that is providing you manage to make it anywhere near retirement age with the love of your life. It is down to about a 50/50 chance these days.

It's funny but back when I was a kid divorce was a dirty word. Lots of social stigma attached to it. Today it is not only socially acceptable it is verging on being expected. I work with a guy who is on his 4th wife and we are talking middle class America here. I was a third husband. Call me simple but I had dreams.

I spent the 11 years between high school and marriage doing what was generally expected...I played the field. Rumor had it I was front runner in the to-be-killed-by-jealous-husband sweepstakes. Not a position I was vying for. Looking back, I had a perfectly good reason for my behavior, it just wasn't socially acceptable. Ok, I wasn't aware of it either at the time.

So against all the odds, I managed to get married. Through pure bullheadedness, I made it happen. Or allowed it to happen. Take your pick because I still haven't decided which. Considering the odds and the circumstances it was a pure-dee miracle. But it happened.

And then it unhappened. At least for one of us. After 6 years I still have not completely come to terms with that. I have spent a lot of time and energy looking back over previous relationships and maybe I'm living in fantasy land and have come to regret the times I just walked away without any real explanations. Not that any of them had had a chance to get terribly serious but that was my view and maybe not theirs. I haven't always been the nicest of guys. Maybe its just payback time on a cosmic scale.

# Dogs

When did dogs stop being pets? Domestic companions, little buddies? What has happened to them? The dog has been man's helper and companion for a few thousand years, loyal, faithful, helpful. We could have made civilization work without them but it wouldn't have been as easy. Or as fun. When I was growing up dogs were still dogs. You got one, trained it, fed it and, if you were reasonably normal, you enjoyed its company. Maybe even loved it. If it got sick, you took it to the vet and found out if it was fixable. If not, you said goodbye.

Today I can't even begin to believe what has happened. Cemeteries, surgeries, long term medications, booties and sweaters, heated doghouses, dog walkers, dog groomers, and, Lord help us, dog therapists. There are even people who get their dog freeze dried when they die and keep them around like a foot stool or a hood ornament. Don't get me wrong, I love dogs. There have been few times in my life when I didn't have one but this stuff is getting out of hand.

Dogs are dogs. They are no more related to White Fang than you are to Roland. When was the last time you got the yen to defend a pass against impossible odds? Probably about the same amount of time it has been since Rover has felt like stalking a caribou. Face it, your Schnauzer has about as much in common with a wolf as you have in common with Attila the Hun. The domestic dog, on the whole, doesn't share much ancestry with Canis Lupus. A few breeds maybe but not most. If you think about it, can you imagine your basic caveman making friends with a wolf? We are talking a Class A predator who was probably close in size to our flat faced ancestors. And he probably convinced a saber tooth cat to keep his cave clear of rodents. I'm sure of that.

Then there is the Disney factor. Dogs aren't people. They don't share our thought processes, their thinking is on a much more basic level. Long term memory is shadowy, at best. They aren't kids, you can't explain things to them. (Not that you can with kids most of the time but your chances are better.) One thing we do have in common is the bell curve. And individuality. I had a Shepard mutt once who was the wimpiest critter ever placed on the planet. He was afraid of everything. If there is a pack standing below Omega, he was in it. I also have a Sheltie/Pomeranian who will attack a Bull Mastiff without hesitation. It's all about the saying on my daughter's T shirt (one she loves and is proud of, being of small stature herself) "It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." Dogs definitely have personalities and while some of the tendencies follow with a breed, it isn't a given. Each dog deserves to be taken as an individual and if you don't, you will pay.

It is the nature of the relationship between dog and man for the man to be in charge. (man meaning human) We bear the burden of responsibility, they provide support. A dog doesn't have to be doing every minute of the day. They are very good at either entertaining themselves or just laying back and being. (This usually means sleeping. I think dogs can sleep 20 hours a day if there is nothing better to do and be perfectly content.) Pups are no different. Given the opportunity they can get into all kinds of mischief just for the fun of it. It doesn't mean that is what they have to do, just that they can. They don't need constant attention but they will take it, if they can get away with it.

Dogs are a responsibility, sort of like kids. They do need attention, they do need training. It isn't a 24/7 thing, they are fully capable of taking care of themselves most of the time. They like and need structure. There is a lot less responsibility to a dog than kids but it is the same kind. Set the patterns, teach the basics then watch how they grow. Be consistent, loving and firm and unless you managed to pick up a real psychotic, things will work out fine.

#

# Earth

What is the deal with Al Gore? I cannot figure out why the press hates him so much. Ok, the comments he was wooden and unappealing in the Presidential debates is somewhat earned. I watched some of those and he was. My considered opinion is Al should stay out of politics. He is a good man, an honest man (contrary to the attacks by the 'liberal media') and not the kind who plays the spin games well. In many ways he reminds me of Jimmy Carter. I read a recent op-ed piece about his testimony before Congress on global warming. They are still crucifying the guy. Even the photo of him on a newspaper front page was less than flattering. They are portraying him as some kind of nutcase. He isn't. He is a man who has been paying attention for the past twenty years. He is a man who knows there is something going on that we need to pay attention to.

I recently watched his documentary, 'An Inconvenient Truth' and I learned a great deal. Both about the probabilities of global warming and about the man. There is no Tinman of Oz in his presentation. There are no cries of gloom and doom. There is a considerable amount of information presented in a manner so as to minimize the radical and maximize the impact. He shows passion and a depth of knowledge and commitment that only a zealot could make fun of. He's even funny about a subject that should show about as much humor as a rubber crutch. The man doesn't believe, he knows we are heading down a bad path and all of the spin doctors and pooh-pooh mavens can only delay our acquaintance with reality.

There is the possibility of a Constitutional Crisis brewing in Washington. There is an armed conflict in the cradle of civilization that is growing rather than diminishing after four long years. Lots of important stuff going on that will quickly become moot if the ice cap on Greenland or Antarctica decides to take a walk and there is strong evidence that it is coming. When the oceans become so burdened they can't continue to supply the air we breath it won't matter if we have gone to an imperial presidency. Or that some actress may have overindulged in illegal substances. Or that some third world country has figured out how to build a bomb any 14 year old high school student could learn from the Internet. An atomic weapon causes a whole lot less damage than sea levels rising 20 feet. Since the end of WWII we have been terrified of nuclear winter and justly so. So why are we so incredulous that we can bring on something as devastating without detonating a single bomb?

The earth is incredibly forgiving and enduring but that is a finite thing. It is also incredibly impersonal. It doesn't recognize our concepts of God given right or profit and loss. It exists in a realm of reality. If we overload its capacity for recovery, it doesn't care if we believe it or not. It won't wait for votes. If we abuse it to the point of collapse, we lose, not it. Nuclear winter is only one aspect of possible global devastation and a very minor one at that. The thing is, if we instigate this process, the earth will retaliate. Not intentionally, not maliciously but because it is what it has to do. If mankind survives, the earth and all of its diversity won't care. If civilization is hammered back to the Stone Age, so what? The planet is probably better off without humanity on a cosmic scale. It doesn't care if we are too stupid or arrogant to learn how to play nice. If we want to be greedy, if we want to claim divine privilege, if we want to ignore its warnings, it makes no difference to the massive ecosystem that is the planet we call home. We are guests here and if we want to act like boneheaded idiots, it will tolerate it. If we overstep the limits, we will be eradicated. Without malice or meanness.

# Hmmmm

Is it just me or is there a marked increase in news stories these past 6 weeks about various happenings of similar ilk? Foreclosures on outrageous subprime mortgages at an all time high, less than adequate medical treatment at one of the primary military hospitals, less than attentive use of national security letters for probing terrorist connections, a call for firing all 93 US Attorneys that isn't politically motivated, nasty personal attacks in the media on people for little to no reason. I mean Al Gore trumpeting warnings about global warming has been just about a daily thing for over ten years. For a man who has been portrayed as an inconsistent liar I'd say he is the poster boy for scurrilous defamation of character for political gain seeing as how his message hasn't changed. And calling John Edwards a faggot isn't humorous, it fits the legal definition of slander.

Or what about the credit card companies whose policy of charging interest rates up to 32% because someone was late in paying their phone bill? Guido and Tony would be proud of them. Or oil companies posting outrageous profits because they have been gouging the public just because they can. All proof that business is capable of policing itself and we don't need any regulations. Or how about the mega corps who have slurped up millions in New Orleans and people still aren't home. Instead they are being ousted from dubious trailer encampments because of crap floating down the street?

Add to this the latest 'hints' of scandal in government. The guys who are screaming about supporting the troops only want to support them when they are over there. If they can't pull a trigger, screw'em. Little Scooter facing 25 years in prison while his bosses wash their hands and journalists sell out their sources. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is what has come to light while the Democrats are trying to consolidate their return to having a say. We aren't talking control, we are talking about having enough of a voice to be heard again. Frankly, getting back to doing what Congress should be doing. It is supposed to be about checks and balances. The President doesn't have the authority to decide about war and it is Congress's job to evaluate and set boundaries. The whole fear card about Iran seems to smell an awful lot like what we stepped in when we bought the idea for invading Iraq and the Shrubbies only have themselves to blame if their credibility is less than sterling.

Maybe now the neocons will wake up and smell what they have been supporting and it ain't roses. There is very little that has passed in these 7 years of shrubbery that hasn't been aimed at benefiting those what already got and bamboozling the average American into thinking it is a good thing. The economy is in the toilet just waiting for a flush, we've mortgaged our children's future in a war we can't win, abortion is still with us as are the gays, we've turned our back on our own Constitution and the Geneva Convention, indulging in behavior that would make Pol Pot chuckle and calling it necessary, we have found ways of disqualifying voters that rivals the shenanigans used by the Klan after the Civil War, we have dismantled most of the environmental protections that were just starting to have a sustained effect on cleaning things up and refuse to acknowledge that, whatever the causes, we have a global warming problem. A huge amount of money is going into our healthcare system yet an unconscionable number of people have no coverage. Our elderly are forced to choose between medication or food. And let us not forget we have a plethora of pundits who are very good at name calling and finger pointing, as well as more information about the sex lives of entertainers while most people couldn't find Baghdad on a map nor would they recognize it on TV (if some station would accidentally show a picture of it).

One last thing...whatever happened to that Congressman who resigned because he liked pages? If he had been a Democrat, we would probably know because that darn liberal media still likes to hang Al every chance they get. I wonder if Ann Coulter knows him?

#  King Kong

I recently sat down and watched the latest rendition of King Kong. I'm a big fan of the original 1933 version. Willis O'Brien's special effects were nothing short of phenomenal for the time. Kong was almost believable. The remake in 1976 did the big guy pretty well but it was a weak job on the rest in spite of a decent cast. I was glad to see Peter Jackson had gone back to the 30's with his version. Modern weaponry would make short work of Kong these days.

My kids hate watching movies with me because I have a tendency to notice things that are out of kilter. Their favorite line (which means I should shut up) is 'its their movie, Dad.' I can't help it. I like to write and I like for stories to be plausible. I mean the scene where Kong rips three, count'em three, T Rex's to pieces is great fun to watch but the idea of three big ass prime predators being in the same vicinity and fighting together isn't plausible. Just imagine three adult male grizzlies hanging out in the same place. Or the stampede of the brontosaurs. If you can stretch yourself to accept T Rexs being pack hunters it would sort of equate with a pride of lions, one, going after a herd of elephants and two, stampeding them. Actually the size ratio between lions and elephants might even be closer. But it made for a great scene.

The acting and actors are top shelf and with the exception of one line, the dialogue is first rate. Jack Black is perfect as the conniving, greedy entrepreneur sans conscience. Adrien Brody delivers a strong performance as the good guy who never quite makes center stage. And the rest of the cast was well selected offering a believable blend of regular people caught up in a highly irregular situation. But the two that shine are the big guy and Naomi Watts. Considering dialogue was impossible Jackson brings out some scenes just loaded with message. The fact Kong looks like an outsized pug, scarred and battered but still the king of his hill adds to the poignancy and humor of their interactions. Naomi has a very beautiful and expressive face and Jackson works the camera lines so that words aren't needed for the audience to understand the tale. It is one of the most effective and moving renditions of the Beauty and the Beast theme in quite a while.

Back to the one line of dialogue. Granted, it is probably the most memorable line from the original but when Denham stands over Kong's corpse and pompously pronounces 'Twas beauty killed the beast' I almost gagged. Sorry, but it was greed and fear that killed him. This movie does a first rate job of showing that all beauty gave him was a few precious moments of happiness in an otherwise bleak existence. If there was any justice in the world, Kong would have landed on Denham when he fell.

# LIFE LESSONS

There is an aspect of my personality that just seems to turn me towards the old home style, somewhat redneck, folksy persona. Kind of like Brett Maverick telling his little tales of what his Pappy taught him. It just feels comfortable. Truth is my dad was one of the most private, self-contained individuals I have ever known. He never went out of his way too teach me much of anything that couldn't be done with tools or your hands. The man was a wizard at patching and cobbling. His favorite saying was 'Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without'. He owned exactly one new car in his entire life, a 1957 Ford Fairlane station wagon. And a total lemon (according to Pop). The man never learned to talk from the heart, didn't really find his heart until his last few years. I sometimes think he died of a broken heart because he realized all the things he had missed or screwed up and it was just too much for him to overcome. He did die knowing he was very deeply loved by his family and he did his best to let us know it was reciprocated.

About the only way Pop could pass on a life lesson was with his hands. He knew tools and how to use them. A real jack-of-all-trades. He did manage to pass on that talent to both his sons. Words were never a tool for him. They never fit his mouth right, especially when there was a strong emotion behind them. Love was something he didn't get the hang of expressing unless we screwed up. Then he knew what to do. My dad was always a powerful man. He had incredible strength though he was smaller than me. A wicked man in a fight with a temper he fought his whole life to contain.

So Pops never filled me with the wisdom of the ages with his words. I think I always scared him. He knew I was so much smarter than he was. I don't know if it was true or if it was he just never had the kind of chances I was given to use my mind. What he did give me was the encouragement to use my mind. And the examples of tenacity, control and perseverance that helped me to find my own way. There were a few things I picked up on the side from him that weren't exactly helpful in the long run but I wouldn't change what happened because of them. I've seen them now, seen the varmint and have a better idea of how to avoid some of the mistakes we both made.

What he did do was give me the freedom to be me. Many were the times he just shook his head over what he thought was frivolous or outlandish but he never once discouraged me. Because of that and a few other things I became a voracious reader and learned a great deal from books. Not just facts and such but all of the little lessons on how to live. I've never been much for hard facts. I've learned they are neither hard nor fact. The old saw about bending like a willow was written for a reason. A flexible mind, open to input, without the filters of prejudice is the most awesome tool known. I can't help but feel sorry for the folk that think they have the answers they need.

# Music

Hath charms to sooth the savage beast. I remember reading somewhere that the original quote says breast but I don't feel like quibbling. Music is, or can be a wondrous thing. A national anthem can rouse the populace with patriotic fervor. I do consider it ironic that the tune for ours is a bar song but I do recall the scene in Casablanca with the duel between the German and French anthems. A powerful scene in a powerful movie.

Elvis has long been touted as the King of Rock and Roll. I will grant he was a heck of a performer but a musician? The Beatles seem to be the epitome of Rock groups and there was an enormous amount of talent there. George was one of the finest guitar players to date. Limited as a lyricist but he sure could play. Paul was a better than average player and he could write bubble gum drivel that the masses loved. A definite talent but hardly earth shaking. John. He was probably the best of them when it came to music. Weird as socks on a snake and probably born out of time but he could shine. Imagine is about the simplest, most powerful bit of music to come out of the Rock era.

We get confused with the definitions when it comes to music. The writers tend to take a back seat because most of them aren't great performers. Some make the crossover. Carole King is one. Kris Kristofferson isn't. He's a heck of a song writer but his singing voice is right up there with a gravel truck dumping its load. Willie Nelson is another. He isn't the greatest singer but he has his following.

Which brings me to the gist of this evening's ponderings. Willie. He wrote a song that was immortalized by Patsy Cline and reinvented by Leann Rimes. I don't do karaoke often but when I do, it's my song. It fits in my range nicely and it has always had a special meaning for me. I have pretty much earned the image of playing light and easy with the affections of the fairer sex. It was never my intent. I didn't set out in life to be prickly, to always have to ask questions. I didn't ask to be thrust into an impossible situation at a young age. Nor did I respond well when I was. I have often wished I didn't understand the nature of paradox so well but experience is a pretty good teacher.

I have always been crazy, probably always will be. At least I can hope so. I tried not being that way and it didn't work out well. I guess it is better to be one's self, no matter what it is or the consequences than to sell out. Crazy isn't so bad.

# Mutts

Our country fought for over 100 years over the idea of whether or not blacks were really human. We fought a disgustingly bloody war, endured decades of clandestine conflict and still had to go through a brutal piece of history in the 60's just to set up the legalities. Since then, things have evolved a bit more quickly but there are still groups we believe white is right. The prejudice and discrimination have lowered in tone but it is still there. And now we get to add in the Hispanic and Asian. The US is about 70% Anglo according to one study. Another says that for every 100 people born, 57 are Asian, 14 Hispanic, 8 African. That leaves 21. I'd do some more research but logic tells me that ratios only tend to get worse. And I'm not sure if the African number includes the Afro-Americans born throughout the world. The thing is we po' white folk have been in the minority, statistically speaking, for a very long time. In fact, I suspect the ratio of racial content hasn't changed much in our favor in the past 2,000 years. More likely not. The only thing that limits population is how long people get to live. Most of the non-white population tends to live in what we consider underprivileged environments so even though they may tend to breed more chilluns, fewer manage to survive.

This is one of the interesting tenets of the white supremacy types. We deserve to be the best because we figured out how to keep our kids alive. Forget the fact that a part of that is hoarding knowledge and resources is one of the ways we've done that. (This is in spite of the fact that our religious beliefs say we are supposed to help those less privileged.) What it comes down to is whites are terrified. They are a minority and it scares the pee out of them. It isn't about genetic differences. I don't think the ratio of geniuses is really any different for whites than for any other race. Biologically speaking, I doubt there are any clear differences beyond appearance. Maybe the black genome lends itself to better athletic abilities. Maybe Asians have a stronger tendency towards mathematics. Anything is possible but I highly doubt the variations are more than a few percentage points in variance.

What the white fanatics are really afraid of is the mongrelization of the Indo-European type. Pretty pitiful. It is inevitable. And what will happen if, in a dozen generations or more, we have a growing number of people who no longer fit the purist categories of the Census Bureau? Myself, I am French, English, Dutch and Polish. Not sure on if there is more. So my kid marries a Hispanic. Their kid marries a black who had an Asian grandparent. Next generation adds in someone who has Native American or Semitic or Eskimo or Polynesian (or all of the above). My kids have some Native American in them. But you get the idea. As we expand and grow, the racial barriers are going to get more and more blurred, which is right. Race shouldn't be used for anything. The amount of melanin in your skin, the shape of your eyes, physical stature...all are false standards for human worth.

I have a theory as to why the past 2,000 years of civilization has been pretty much dominated by 'white' Europeans. Ever compare the size of Europe with the other continental and sub continental masses? It is TINY! And it is situated in a location where climatic pressures are just about optimum. Winters are moderate (compared to the vast expanses of the northern Asian land and about a third of the North American continent), same with summers (again, compared with the equatorial and southern land masses). Rivers abound and the ocean coastlines are considerable. It is a perfect place for humans to flourish and interact quickly without a great deal of effort. From Gibraltar to Warsaw is roughly 2,000 miles (about the same as San Francisco to New York) and from the tip of the Italian boot to the English Channel is about 1,000 miles. It appears that the land mass of Europe is probably pretty equal to that of the continental US but I'm guessing the miles of coastline are probably double. If you look at the other land masses and their respective civilizations, they had huge land masses to deal with and the fastest means of transportation being a horse. Maybe. In the Western Hemisphere, no ponies. So the white folk in Europe had some distinct advantages.

And what about this whole business of 'white'? Europeans run a pretty wide gamut on this one. From the blonde, blue-eyed Nordic and Teutonic types to the swarthy, dark-eyed people of the Mediterranean basin. Tall, short, slim, stocky, athletic, every color of hair and eyes. Talk about mutts. Europeans have been interbreeding and mongrelizing for centuries and no one seems to care too much. As long as the skin color remains pretty light. Unless you have Italian blood. Or Greek. Or Spanish. Or Portuguese. Or...or... (Don't tell anyone but the reason they tend towards darker skin and eyes is because of the Semitic or Arab influence.) I have always found it fascinating that most white folks can tell the difference between a Scot and an Italian but not a Korean and a Japanese. Or a Costa Rican and a Mexican. Or a Swahili or a Dahomean. Or a Creek or a Nez Perce. There are differences though most are only important to whatever racial or national group the individual belongs to.

The one that really cracks me up is Jewish. If one were to define the Jewish as a race, it would have to be based on Semitic stock. After all, that is where they came from. Judaism is a religion. The Jews are not a race, not anymore. I could become a Jew today, if I so chose. This means I would accept the religion. Does that make me Semitic? Pretty tough stretch there. It is really no different than becoming a Baptist or a Catholic. Yet for some strange reason they have been treated as a race. It's like if you become a Jew, you are immediately transformed from whatever race you were to Jewish and for the white supremacists this is a very bad thing. Everyone knows the Jews are trying to take over the world. Given their track record, I find this one particularly laughable. Given their actual numbers, it is extremely hilarious. Looking at the amount of material wealth they control...but I'm not sold on the reality.

What is particularly telling in all this is the geopolitical realities of the world, both 2,000 years ago and today. Back then the happenings in the Mediterranean basin were just a teeny portion of what was going on in the rest of the world. Outside of the basin, nobody gave a rat's ass for anything Rome or Jerusalem or Jupiter or Jehovah were up to. There were civilizations in India and China that equaled or surpassed the Roman and we have no real idea of what was going on in the Western Hemisphere. The Incans, The Mayans, the Toltecs, and probably 3 or 4 dozen various tribes of Indians in North America plus all of the other groups we know little to nothing about. So a few thousand people in a teeny bit of desert claimed to be the Chosen of God. Chicken feed or less. Personally, I would like to see what would happen if a meteor of sufficient size would smack down somewhere between Haifa and Jerusalem. Or maybe a monster volcano. What would happen to all the poor bastards who venerate a piece of dirt, claim it as something worth killing over when said piece of dirt was under a few hundred feet of ocean? Or scattered as dust across the planet?

I don't think man is ever really going to go anywhere as long as he thinks things like race or religion or nationality are important. Until we realize people are people and land is land, we are going to keep doing stupid things like killing and fighting wars. We are all born, live life and die. The color of skin or the mud rubbed into the navel make no difference.

#  Permanent

An old friend recently posted a statement that nothing is permanent, not even trouble and that set me to pondering. As a something of a High Lord of Chaos, I would have to agree with the one caveat about change. (To me, permanent brings to mind something that was done to my hair back in 1981 that made me look like Bozo the Clown and that certainly wasn't permanent. But that's another tale.) Is the statement rhetorical or aphoristic? Probably the second.

There is a synonym for permanent that is not quite of the same meaning, at least not to me. Enduring. Things like Mt. Everest, the Marianas Trench, the Grand Canyon are sort of permanent in a geological sense. And to us poor ephemerals, they might be considered permanent but in our day to day lives few things are even enduring, let alone permanent. Especially the bad stuff. Bad stuff has a short shelf life because it tends to consume itself. I have found that the only way bad things endure is if we nurture and maintain them and then they can tend to resemble Twinkies.

While the good things might not make the permanent category they are certainly very durable. The old saw about love conquering all might not be exactly exact but it can outlast just about anything. So in the vernacular, nothing is permanent...I have to take exception to that.

#  Rebel without a Pause

The story of my life and I will be darned if I can figure out why. I was raised in a strong Catholic home, escaped going to parochial school only because the folks couldn't afford it. Did the whole CCD bit, sacraments and all. I think the problem began when I learned how to read. I was a puny kid, somewhat sickly so once I got bit by the bug I became a voracious reader of just about anything I could get my hands on. One of these things was a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, circa 1952. I don't know that I read every word of every volume but I put a pretty good dent in it. One of the things I found particularly fascinating was mythology. By the time I was in 2nd grade I was reasonably conversant with Western mythology and it's offshoot of legend. (There were some companion books in that case that dealt with fairy tales and such). I was pretty much left to my own devices by parents who had no clue as to the nature of childish imagination and a questing intellect.

I think one of my most abiding pieces of rebellion began way back then. I realized that there really wasn't much difference between Christianity and any other religion or mythology. Not from an intellectual standpoint. No one, in the entire recorded history of humanity, has ever been able to present one piece of concrete evidence that their concepts of the divine were real and yet it is something man spends an incredible amount of effort on.

Take the Wanabeit tribe. They live on this isolated island in the South Pacific, or maybe in an inaccessible valley in South America or on the edge of the Arctic Circle in the Siberian tundra. Somewhere along the line, lightning strikes and they discover fire. Once they get past the original fear and fascination of this new development some bright boy discovers that fire is a pretty cool toy. So they figure out a way of preserving the fire and set someone up to make sure the fire keeps burning. It gets set up on an altar (big rock in a hut out of the rain) and is carefully tended. Over the generations the tenders of the fire attain religious status since they keep this divine gift alive. Then one day a plane crashes, a boat is marooned, an explorer stops in. Joe Smith, Indiana Jones, somebody from the outside world. They are fascinated but fearful of the stranger. Then he takes out his deck of Lucky Strikes and lights one up with his trusty Zippo. OMG! The stranger can call forth the magic of the gods with all the effort of farting. The Wanabeits are suddenly faced with a choice. Either this clown is a messenger of the gods or their entire civilization is based on a fantasy. If Joe is lucky, he gets set up as a new demigod. If he isn't, bye Joe, you threaten the current power structure. All because the Wanabeits didn't exercise basic human curiosity and imagination to understand the 'divine gift'.

Sort of like modern medicine. Just a scant 100 years ago doctors had a hard time believing that infections were caused by teeny bugs. Bugs that could be controlled or warded off by simply washing one's hands. Or that blood came in types and some of them just didn't mix well. Things that we take for granted today because a few rebels had the imagination to research and understand.

Or the modern concepts of the universe. The Earth is no longer a big flat disk on a turtle's back. Or the center of the universe. The stars aren't angels or holes in the night sky that let the light of heaven shine through. The Earth doesn't suck, its gravity that makes things fall down. We still have people who believe man never went to the moon.

So science and technology, those things we can physically prove, have made and are continuing to make massive advances on a daily basis. In just over 100 years we went from horse and buggy to spaceships and all because we found ways to prove the physical world. The reality of the universe hasn't changed since the ancients believed the earth was the center of the universe. The planets and galaxies were out there when Alexander decided to conquer his known piece of the world. It is all about our perceptions and our instinctive need for proof.

And this is why we are retarded infants when it comes to religion. It is why, in this modern day, we cling to ideas from 1,500 years ago, in spite of massive evidence to the contrary. We haven't figured out how to quantify the existence of anything beyond us so we put faith in mythology. We haven't figured out how to prove there is a hereafter so we make up stories. If we applied 1/1,000 of the need for proof to our religious beliefs that we use for validation of effort on a physical plane for acceptance of atoms, we would have bailed on Christianity hundreds of years ago. Or Islam. Or any religious system that makes claims about what comes next.

Proof? Let's start with the religious taboos in two of the three major Western religions. Can't eat pork. From what I have been able to glean this is based on two factors, one pure fantasy, one hard fact. The fantasy is pigs have cloven hooves, Satan has cloven hooves, therefore pigs are evil and unclean. Talk about syllogistic logic. First off, Satan is a fallen angel by their own mythology. The angel Lucifer challenged God and was cast to the pits for his effrontery. Last I checked, angels are the archetype of human perfection (with wings which would be a need adder). Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, any cloven hooves? Don't think so. Even the mythology is inconsistent. Secondly, pigs are unclean. That can be a fact. Pigs are omnivores and very opportunistic and practical. They are also one of the animals that can harbor diseases and such that can be transmitted to man. Not their fault. Pigs are also one of the brightest critters on the planet. They can make excellent pets ranking right up their with dogs, given the proper environment. So they are the victims of human abuse and bad press. Yet they are vilified even though we understand them much better today. Why? Mythology.

This is not to say that there aren't excellent ideas in any of the three Western religions. Both Christianity and Islam have some serious good stuff in them, if you, as the song says, strip away the myth from the man. Mohammed carried on much of what Jesus started. The idea that the divine wants us to become aware that we are all in this together and no one gets out alive. Both seemed to understand the primitive idea that a stranger was an enemy and both thought this was an old and bad idea. It's a shame their true message was buried in the myth.

The US is truly a unique entity. It isn't perfect or always right but it is the first attempt by man to establish on a secular basis what was proposed in religion. The concepts of individual rights and freedoms were iterated by the gentle Nazarene and repeated by the Prophet. That they were then twisted by political forces does not diminish their power, just side tracks the issue. We really need to listen to the evidence that shows we are all the same. We need to get past the racial, religious and nationalistic fears that limit us. We must learn that mythology isn't reality. We are all we've got and this planet is our home. You don't crap in the living room. You don't toss the kids out because they get rowdy. No one owns the world.

# Red Flags

Man is a curious critter. Not just in the fact he is the only creature on the planet who does something about his curiosity but more in the curious manner in which he behaves. There isn't a lot of logic or rationality in most human behavior, especially when it involves groups of more than two. The more people involved in something, the more White Rabbit the behavior. I have just spent my usual Saturday morning perusal of opinion columns and am as amazed, as always, at the quirky diversity.

One columnist who is generally to the left of center and something of a humanist openly admits that while the use of fluorescent bulbs would make a significant dent in emissions linked to global warming he hates the quality of light. He is against the move to ban incandescent light bulbs. Personally, I tend to agree with the stand. I don't care for the quality either but sacrifices should be made. I have changed about 95% of the lights in my home to the greener fluoro bulbs. I like saving money. I like doing something for the environment. But I do have a few incandescents left and I would like to retain the ability to make my own choices.

Then there is Wm. Buckley. A Royalist of the first water who will pooh-pooh just about everything from his lofty perch.

Or the cabdrivers in the Twin Cities who are openly discriminating in direct violation of the Constitution and claiming freedom of religion as the basis of their right to do so. There are reasons we have laws in this country. Their purpose is to provide for the common weal, to teach us to play nice together. No one has the right to discriminate, not even because of religious faith. If those cabbies feel it is wrong for others to carry alcohol (not drink), they have the right to not touch said evil spirits but that is about it. Their religious beliefs are just that, theirs. If contact with infidels offends them then they are in the wrong business. It is no different than any operator of a vehicle for public conveyance refusing a fare because of said fare's race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

One of my pet peeves is about the nasty tendency we have developed towards thinking we can force morality and ethical behavior through legislation, and lately, physical force. Persuasion has become a lost art. Appealing to people's sense of personal ethics just doesn't seem to work. If someone thinks something is bad or wrong, pass a law banning it. Works pretty well too, just look at Prohibition. Or the drug laws. Or the gay marriage thing. Or abortion. And now, terrorism. All are valid concerns but none can be dealt with solely through legislation and certainly not with violence.

Just take terrorism as an example. The term is, in itself, a misnomer. According to modern definition, the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism. The entire American Revolution was as well. Any time you have a nonresident government that tries to force rules of behavior on a resident populace contrary to popular belief you are creating a petri dish for dissent and revolt. That is an established fact. If the nonresident group uses either physical or economic force to achieve their goals and their position is superior in capacity you get people forced to retaliate with whatever means they have. The aggressor has a tendency to label them terrorists and insurgents while they would call themselves patriots and freedom fighters. The easiest way to combat terrorism is to quit trying to force something down their throats that they don't want to eat.

#  Safeguards

What happened to them? There used to be some pretty decent ones built into our system of government. Three branches, checks and balances, various laws limiting and/or defining powers, where did they go? In the past few months the executive branch has basically stonewalled every attempt by Congress at getting information. Somehow the executive branch is immune to subpoenas, the vice president's office now also exists in a bubble beyond accountability. The Supremes just ruled the people don't have the right to call for accountability over how their money is spent by the White House.

You know what folks? We are witnessing the end of the United States as our founding fathers envisioned it and as our forbearers fought to build it. Dwight D. warned us as he was leaving office. Zbig also had his say, odd since he was somewhat a member of the group. We sold our country and now we are beginning to pay the price. Don't believe me? Then why have political campaigns turned into such money machines? Why are there lobbies and special interest groups funneling massive amounts of money into the pockets of legislators? Why do we have elected officials who vote the 'party line' (Stalin has to be laughing himself sick over that one) when it is clearly contrary to the law of the land? It's more important to be popular and get elected than to do what needs to be done.

The US has had a long tradition of neutrality and diplomacy. Was it for altruistic reasons? Probably not. Money has always been a factor but the majority of our population wanted to believe it was we stood for something other than bucks. Look around people, it is all we stand for today. If it isn't buying dead dinosaurs, its selling smut and violence. We have a vocal crew of righteous idiots who have been duped into believing they are right. We have people who tell us that only 15% of the soldiers we send into battle actually pull the trigger and that we should be looking at ways of increasing those numbers. Seems to me that the majority should rule...85% are asking themselves WTF am I doing here but it doesn't occur the braincases that maybe we should be listening to them? Why is it that after some 5,000 years of recorded history, the last 1,000 or so very well documented, we still haven't figured out that war, fighting and killing are not a viable option?

There is not a single documented case where violence was the right answer and I include WWII in that statement. There is no evidence that we, as a species, have learned the real truth behind all the blood shed. All we seem to have learned is that it is better to figure out better ways to shed someone else's blood than to try and deal with anything in a civilized fashion. Don't even try to say that Christianity is the answer. It is one of the most divisive factors in western civilization and has been since its codification some 1,500 years ago. You can't evaluate something by its rhetoric, you have to go by its actions. Talk is cheap, whiskey costs money.

Just like here in the good ole US of A. We have a lot of high minded principles but our actions...face it, we are no worse than the mullahs calling for the destruction of the godless infidels. Religion has been responsible for more death and destruction than any plague or natural disaster. Government/nationalism is a very close second. Put the two together and it is a sure fired recipe for insanity. And it is what is out there for us right now. It is falling apart and we are to stupid and selfish to see it. It is all about people and as long as we insist on dividing people into groups we sow the seeds for our own destruction. It's about survival, has been and will be as long as we believe someone is better than someone else. You'd think we would have figured that out by now and quit playing the game of destruction.

# Staying the Course

There is a lot of rhetoric out there on staying the course. And if we don't we are going to demoralize our troops and encourage the terrorists. Lots of things about those statements that make me wonder. The scariest part is wondering how supposedly rational and intelligent people can make those statements in view of all the evidence as to how silly and contradictory they are.

Staying the course. I can't help but equate it with a person who comes home to find a stranger in their dark house and proceeding to beat the snot out of them. When they turn the light on, they find they aren't in their house and the stranger actually lives there. If you stay the course, you finish beating the poor bastard just because you started it? I would dearly love to see these pundits of such blazing wit brought before a US Court for punching someone in the beezer and telling the judge, 'Well, he looked like he was going to hit me so I hit him back first'. That one should fly real well. Call me old fashioned but I was brought up that folks who picked fights were bullies and pre-emptive strikes are pretty much picking fights.

The other aspect of the fallacy is, when are we done? When we have killed off all the opposition? (Look in the dictionary under genocide for that one.) When we have set yet another puppet regime with sufficient military power to maintain control? (Like Saddam? People seem to ignore that he came to power with a great deal of US assistance.) Where does it end? Back in WWII the Germans invaded France and set up a new government that was willing to listen to them. Called Vichy. The other French folk who took umbrage with this act were called the Free French, the Resistance. In Iraq, we call them insurgents. I'm sure the Nazis never called the Free French that. Face it, it is their country and we are an invading occupying military force. If we insist on staying the course there are going to be a lot more dead people, no matter what you want to call them because at that point dead sort of over rides any other title. And the country will still be a mess. Just one with permanent US military bases.

Demoralizing the troops. I was in the military and while I didn't get the chance to go to Ho's Happy Hunting Ground, I had a number of friends who did. And I got to sit off Lebanon wondering if we would be sent in to deal with that little mess. One thing I found was pretty common among all of us...if you wanted to really boost moral, just get us home with all portions of our anatomy intact. Fighting wars is a nasty business and the only ones who seem to think they are necessary are the ones who aren't getting their asses shot off. Maybe we should make up a unit of all the talking heads who think this war is a good idea and send them over. If they think it is such a good idea, let them help out. Let them find out what it is like to be in a 3rd World country with bullets flying. Where you never know when or where the next bomb is going to blast. I like that idea.

Encouraging terrorists. If our pulling out would encourage terrorists then the converse should be having the opposite effect. Those boys should be quaking in their boots because we are pounding the hell out of them. Oh wait, the Iraqis aren't exactly the source of the terrorist squads. Well, the others should still be petrified because we are over there doing our muscle flexing. That must be why Homeland Security has backed off the security alert levels over here. Or why the fear mongers have been able to back off and claim the moral victory about how much safer we are today. And of course, they aren't getting encouragement from the fact that we are violating our own laws and basic ideals in response to their actions. The fact that we are flouting both the Constitution and the Geneva Convention probably doesn't make them giggle. That we are acting like an imperialistic military dictatorship either ignoring our allies or treating them like flunkies doesn't make them think that they are having an impact. That we are inflaming the fear they started with polarizing rhetoric within our own government, nah, that isn't encouraging.

It seems that those two bit terrorists have managed to achieve their goals much more effectively than we have managed to maintain ours. They managed with one day's worth of work and a couple dozen people to terrorize the most affluent, most powerful country on the planet. They got us to react in fear, to abandon our high principles and do things we have never done before. Sure, we suspended some civil liberties during WWII in response to activities that involved direct, overt military action in the greater part of the civilized world. Much different scale and basis there. Here we had an attack, granted on a larger scale than most terrorist operations to date, not terribly dissimilar to attacks on various governments throughout the world for the last 50 years. We have watched how Europe and the Middle East and everywhere else suffered from these kinds of attacks and we shook our heads and said, that's too bad. We even tried to encourage trying to find peaceful means to prevent said attacks. But when it was us, holy crap! Now it became impossible to deal with these lunatics and we best just blow their sorry butts back to the Stone Age. Now we have to have extraordinary powers to detain and interrogate the maniacs. We have to invade, declare war, blow their sorry asses away.

All of the things we have been counseling other countries not to do for years. All of our moral posturing thrown in the trash because we got scared. 9/11 wasn't the first time Americans died because of terrorist activities. Nor will it be the last. In the past we had leadership that 'stayed the course' of American ideals. It didn't panic. And it kept our country from panic. What we have now is a cowboy wannabe dancing to the tune of the opportunists. Opportunists who are lapping up the billions of dollars we are pissing away because we wet our pants. We panicked. And now we are too ashamed to admit it.

# Synthesis

One of the definitions of thesis (according to Merriam-Webster) is a position or proposition that a person advances and offers to maintain by argument. The etymology is even more interesting; Latin, from Greek, literally, act of laying down. I think it was in Marx's dialectic that there is a process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. One position, it's opposite and something in between. If you picture it as a line with thesis on one end, antithesis on the other end, synthesis is the portion of line connecting the two. And if you will postulate life is a bell curve, the positioning of the synthesis can be given probabilities as to where it will fall. The optimum is to live our life in the synthesis range, particularly if we want to enjoy said life.

Sadly, we have moved into a polar view of life, that of thesis and antithesis. This is true from personal relationships right on through the global. Things tend to be black or white and gray is something to be covered with hair dye. It would be something if life was so polar but it isn't. Everyone has their own view of the story and each is just as valid as any other. God isn't on the side of the strongest. I don't think he takes sides, too busy with all the details. Being able to pummel someone into submission doesn't mean they are wrong, just not as tough. Nor does it make someone right, just means they are stronger.

When someone says this is my thesis, they are laying down their position. This is where they stand on a given topic or issue. Then the other person can evaluate said thesis and either their position. If they disagree, it becomes an antithesis. The object of living is then to find a synthesis, somewhere in between that is acceptable to both sides. If either side isn't willing to give, it degenerates into name calling and conflict. Real productive.

For some odd reason most rational people dislike conflict and I think the roots of this might be in a misunderstanding. Conflict, debate, argument all carry aggressive connotations. There is a win/lose aspect. It goes back to the polarization thing. If they are right, I am wrong or vice versa and rational people have a problem with that. I guess it is sort of natural. The problem I have always had with that is it short cuts life. It doesn't allow for possibilities. If discussion and debate are equated with conflict and conflict must be avoided, where does it leave us? If we can't seek synthesis it means either thesis or antithesis must be. I don't want to know all the answers because it is way too much fun to ask questions. I don't want to be right because it is too much of a responsibility and it means I always win. I don't want to win, I want to learn and its hard to learn when you think you already know.

Its about synthesis, finding the common ground, discovering what else is besides what you think you know. The earth used to be flat and the center of the universe. What else can we learn?

# Tabloids

You know, those weird newspapers that tend to hang out in the grocery store checkout lines with the weird and sensational headlines. They seem to have divided these days. One bunch is more interested in the private lives of various celebrities (I find the ones talking about George and Laura's imminent divorce particularly amusing since there hasn't been a whisper of anything like that in the mainstream media), the other holds to the old standbys of new biblical prophecies, alien interventions and a score of other non-mainstream weirdness. About twice a year I but one from this latter group when I spot something with possible roots in plausibility.

The latest is a prediction of civil war this fall and they claim the cause will be water. The Southwest is traditionally short on water and it is getting to be more of a problem as the population increases and global warming modifies weather patterns. Their ideas of violent insurrection are probably Pentagon hysteria but a real problem does exist. Couple it with the immigration issues and things really could get interesting. Then add in the insanity of fuel prices and while you might not come up with a civil war you will get lots of unrest. And demands for some kind of effective action, something this administration seems incapable of. (I find it ironically humorous that there are actually people out there that think a physical barrier between the US and Mexico is an answer. Sort of like the Berlin Wall? That was real effective and cheap too.

With all the globalization going on in the economic world it is inevitable that it will have to bleed over into the political one. What is so heinous about the US and Mexico merging? And while we are at it, let's include the Canadians. The United States of North America. The short minded patriots (those who can't remember that Hawaii and Alaska became states in my lifetime) will squeal about purity and such. Forget the fact that every one of them is an import. There is a reason Indians refer to themselves as Native Americans. Merger is a way of life that is much more natural (and usually beneficial) than isolation. Folks thought England would disappear if it gave up its colonies just a scant 100 years ago. Last I checked the Brits were still there. And those colonies (generally bought and paid for) were doing ok too. Might even say flourishing.

We have roughly 3,500 years of recorded history and if memory serves there is another 1,500 years of somewhat recorded history. The neat thing is that in those 5,000 years, not one individual civilization has endured. The Chinese probably come the closest but China today is nothing like ancient Cathay. There have been dozens of civilizations in that span, maybe even hundreds, with some spreading their influence by military force, particularly prevalent as we get into the recorded age. We are awed by Alexander the Great, impressed with his conquers. And the Romans, wow. Our Western focus fails to see that China has controlled more land and people than both of them combined and has done so for a far longer period of time.

Has anyone else ever wondered why Europe is considered a continent? It is the smallest landmass, an appendage of Asia really. Or that the only world conquering that even approached deserving the appellation was done by the Mongols? The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Germans, et al, never came close to earning the title? The best any of them managed was the Mediterranean basin? The Mongols controlled pretty much everything from the eastern shore of China to Hungary, all of India, the entire Middle East and the only thing that stopped them was the death of Genghis?

Even more surprising was the fact that the Mongols, never a prolific people, maintained control and influence over the conquered areas for centuries? It would be like the residents of Wisconsin conquering and controlling all of North and South America today. If that thought doesn't boggle your mind, stick with reading the tabloids. These 'savages' conquered three of the leading civilizations on the planet at the time and would have walked through Europe had the big dog not died. Not only conquered but maintained control of.

# The Proof

It's in the pudding. I was thinking about this ever since yesterday's rant. Or since high school, take your pick. There actually is documental proof that religious claims of chosen status are so much smoke and hooey. Part of it is in the fact that the barbarians always win. They win because they aren't mired in dogma, they are the agents of change and growth. We have roughly 3,000 years of recorded history and in that entire time not one civilization, not one racial group, not one government has survived. No religion has gained preeminence or world wide acceptance. No economic system has survived.

Every attempt by mankind to order his world has fallen by the way side and given way to a new one. Our claims are nothing more than childish braggadocio when faced with life's inexorable march towards whatever goal it has. I would dearly love to see all the true believers gathered together on a Kansas plain and bellowing their claims at a tornado. I wonder which would prevail? All of the vaunted civilizations that claimed rightness, where are they today? I'm guessing the same place we will be in a century or so from now.

Word is slowly coming out that things in Iraq are degenerating into civil war and it will be incredibly difficult for us to pull all our troops out. Duh. Just look at Ireland for the past 100 years or so. Or Israel for the past 50. Or Yugoslavia for the past ten. Or just about any other country in the world. Factional violence will remain a fact of life as long as humans cling to childish ideas. If there is a force, a divinity, whatever that guides the existence of the universe it would have to be shaking he/she/its/their head. Providing the fairy tale is true that man is made in God's image. Myself, I think the gods are made in man's image. We really are slow learners. After three millennia we are still at the stage of yelling 'Your mother wears combat boots and your dog is ugly!' whenever we are confronted with opposition. The universe has shown us what it thinks of our grandiose posturing.

We are at a rather unique point in our struggle for existence. For the first time we have the capability for global self destruction and not just in one way. We have enough nuclear weapons to drastically effect the entire planet. We have the technology to spawn bugs that are capable of massive destruction. The term decimation has its roots in the Latin deci or ten. It originally meant the destruction of a tenth part, one in ten died. We have turned that one around. We have the capability to destroy 9 out of ten so only a tenth part survives. Quite the accomplishment. And even worse, we now have the capability to overload the global environment to the point where it would be debatable that mankind could survive and it is approaching the level where we might not even be able to undo what we have done.

The final proof is that everybody dies. Race, nationality, religion, none mean anything to the Reaper. That is the real kicker.

# Three Reasons

That is all I can come up with for anyone wanting to be President of the United States and only one has any validity. Face it, the pay sucks. There are CEO's of medium sized companies that make more money. And their perks are as good. Plus they don't have to worry about nutcases wanting to blow them away. Ok, you get free room and board but living in a national monument just doesn't seem to have a real appeal. So it really comes down to three reasons.

One is you don't know any better and kind of like the idea of being a puppet. Ronnie did pretty well with that one. The man had no experience, no deep seated urge for social reform, no serious political drive that could explain why he ran. Somebody talked him into being a front man. This could also be said for the Shrub. It has to be uncomfortable living your life with someone's hand shoved up the back of your shirt.

Second is ego. Being the most powerful person on the planet has its attraction for certain types. Tricky Dick was a prime example. He was a primo politician with a pretty savvy understanding of international policy but the bottom line was about 'not having Dick Nixon to kick around anymore'. I'm afraid I would have to put most of the Republican wannabes into this category this time around. There isn't one of them who really gives a rip about the US beyond what it can mean for them. All have a public podium and have for some time and not one has done anything substantial with it. John McCain is the poster child for this. He has made mouth noises about being honest and caring but has cut and run every time it has come to a crunch. Hilary is in this group as well. She would probably make an outstanding President but it would always be about Hilary. Can you spell opportunist? I knew you could.

The final reason for wanting to be President is the most important, the most real and always the one that ends up biting the candidate right in the posterior. Honest belief. This is the only reason someone should seek the office and it is always the one that keeps said candidate from being President or crucifies them if they make it. We Americans are notoriously shallow when it comes to Presidents. I would say that the best President we have had in my lifetime is Bill Clinton. He got an incredible number of things done in spite of outside pressures. Jimmy Carter is a close second and the dark horse is Jack Kennedy. We will never know what he might have accomplished had he lived. For those who are laughing I suggest you take a look at both the economy for their terms as well as the direct accomplishments. JC is sort of touchy but mostly because he was less of a politician than Bill. The man was too honest. Sort of like Harry Truman. The rule of thumb should be what they actually got done, in spite of all the spin.

This Obama guy has potential but unless he displays a lot more in the next two years he hasn't got a chance. His color is less of a stumbling block than his honesty. Quite frankly if the Democrats weren't such a prickly bunch of separatists Obama and Clinton would join forces. Or Edwards and Clinton. Personally, I like the second team but either would set the Republicans running for the high timber. And I put Hilary in the number 2 spot for several reasons. First is I don't think this country is ready to accept a woman President yet and veep in a solid administration is a great spot for gaining the public confidence. Face it, lots of Americans are leery of her as an opportunistic ball buster. Secondly (and I am sure she would hate this) it would bring the most effective politician in my lifetime into the game as an advisory source, meaning Bill. You can roast the boy as much as you like but in the 8 years he was in office he managed to get more things done in spite of opposition, than any President to date.

Edwards has some real potential, more than Obama in many ways. These two would make a formidable pair. This whole thing about his wife is to both of their credit. I'm hoping she comes through this crisis but I admire both of them for sticking to their guns. I think their choice to stay comes from dedication and speaks of personal heroism on both their parts. If you want a glimpse of patriotism, start with them.

We are faced with a choice. In my lifetime every Republican administration has focused on big bucks, greed and selfishness. Things have been very organized but never to the benefit of the country. The Democrats have shown us the most advances for the greatest number. We have microwaves and calculators and computers thanks to the space program. We have companies moving manufacturing offshore, deregulation of most industries (which includes ownership of the media consolidated under Republican control) thanks to Reagonomics. For me, it comes down to Republicans are interested in the pocketbooks of big bucks and have never been shy about saying so. I'm thinking I would rather have a President who was sincerely interested in what was good for the most people than one who was concerned with which of their cronies was making the most money. Look at the trends and the history. It isn't opinion.

# Violence

I joined the Navy in 1974, one step ahead of the draft board (which fooled me and folded). There may have been some who thought it as the sell out of the century, the rebel who caved. They would have been right. I was at the end of my rope, in hock with no prospects so I joined up. I had offers from the Army and the Air Force. My scores were short of phenomenal but very impressive. I chose the Navy for several reasons. One, I hated airplanes. Two, I hated marching. And three, I hated the idea of digging foxholes. The Navy seemed the best compromise. I could avoid their air corps, only one man has ever been known to march on water and digging in the ocean is foolish at best.

Some might think my picking Gunners Mate as a rating was selling out. Maybe so but I have always been fascinated by guns. Not necessarily what they can destroy, just guns themselves. Don't kid yourself, any rating in the military is supporting the primary function of destruction. All of my choices on rating and training were based on one thing...staying out of combat. I did a pretty fair job. The rating I chose was focused on submarines. Not exactly a high profile target. I deliberately chose the least favored station on the assumption I would get it, and I did. My classmates and friends requested West Coast stations and duty (closer to Viet Nam) and they got their choices as well. Old ships or active duty Nam types. I got two Mediterranean cruises and one North Atlantic. The closest I came to trouble was standing by in the Beirut crisis in 76.

So where is this going? I made my choices, my deal with the devil (read the US government) with eyes open and on what were my terms. If, at any time in my military service, they had put a gun in my hands and said go shoot some one, I would probably have said no way. Unless someone were landing ships in Bayonne or Daytona they would have gotten the gun back. I would have spent time in the stockade but as a thinking, feeling human I would not have participated in any action that involved taking human life. I was there and I know what I would have done. I joined the military on purely utilitarian designs. I wanted the GI Bill for college.

If I were 18 today and the option of military service were my only option, I would work it the same way. I would avoid any combat related ratings or MOS's. I would twist, dance and finagle to get the benefits while avoiding the combat. Does this make me a coward? No. If someone threatened anyone dear to me they would learn it to be a very foolish idea. I can be worse than the most blood thirsty maniac the military has ever bred. I don't hate, I couldn't attack from idealistic views. I could not kill because someone believes differently than I do. I can defend. I will protect. And I would do so to my dying breath. My usual weapons are civilized, words. I am not a violent man by nature, I abhor it, am repulsed by it, yet it is in me. It is a tool, a weapon of last resort. I have never been able to justify it, rationalize it. Nor have I ever been called on to utilize it but I know it is there.

Violence is one of two things. First and most pathetically, it is a tool of the stupid. Second, it is the last resort. No one, with any brains, resorts to violence as a first, or anything but a last choice. It solves nothing, only gives vent to the frustrations of the unimaginative. To strike out means you have already lost. Killing is just that, killing. It solves nothing and only adds to the problem. I have a great understanding for our armed forces personnel. I know the dilemmas they face. Violence and killing is not the answer. If our ground troops were to listen to their hearts and say no, things would be different. If the commanders had no one to command, where would they be? Every grunt has the capacity to see, to feel. And they have the capability of saying no more. We all make our choices. Killing Iraqis might seem like entertainment to a very few but I would like to think that most of our troops see the futility.

The violence has to end. And the only way it can end is by personal choice. It's tough but it has to be.

# Wakeup

When is mankind going to manage this? When are we going to realize that things like race, national origin, gender, et al are all just figments of our collective (and distorted) imaginations? I mean, if we consider the Canadians different, where is the hope for the world? If there are two groups of people who are more similar, (ok, the Irish) who can't find common ground, what is the point? The major difference between the US and the Canadians is we told the Brits to take a hike 200 some odd years ago and they didn't. That's pretty much it. We share a huge border, an imaginary line at best, and we still consider ourselves different. Insanity.

When are we going to realize that nationality is not a reason for differentiation? Take the Alsace Lorraine region between France and Germany. It was a factor in not one but two world wars and we are talking about a region smaller than about 40 of the 50 US states. Or even more ridiculous, the American Civil War. Tens of thousands killed, many by members of their own families. The Tibetans and the Chinese, North and South Korea, and just about every tribal conflict in Africa, where is the sense? There is not a single country in existence today that is identical to what it was 1,000 years ago. And damn few for the 500 year range. Take a look at the world map for 1900. Even the US has changed.

So what is this retarded fever about nationality? What is it that makes Mexicans any different besides pigmentation? Take your pick of any region, any nationality and take it down to the basics. We all want and need the same things. Doesn't matter if you are Chinese, Tibetan, Nepalese, Mongolian. No difference for Bolivian, Venzuelan, Ecuadorian, Peruvian. Forget even trying to put names to the African groups.

When are we going to finally see human is human?

# What Do We Expect?

I often wonder just how blind we can be. On one level, we want and expect certain things and yet we don't act like these things are real. I came to the conclusion long ago that man is just a massive wax ball of paradoxes but the fact he is also a blind idiot is harder to adjust to. The levels of selfishness have grown exponentially over the past century, the ability to compartmentalize without considered thought has become all too evident. It is what we have learned to do. And the talent for saying (and believing) it isn't my fault, it isn't my job has been fine tuned at every level of our society. The truly amazing aspect of it is we can still ask why our society is so screwed up and do so with a straight face and honest confusion.

Duh!

Take a look at our movies. Now I love a good action flic so I have to claim some responsibility for the trend towards them. I remember the first time I saw Die Hard. Now I have long been a Bruce Willis fan but I like him best in his comedic roles. I used to love the old Moonlighting TV series and I thought it a great injustice when Hudson Hawk was panned by the critics and public. I was recovering from some minor surgery when I saw Die Hard and it was a big mistake because laughing was not a good idea at the time and I laughed quite a bit . How one man could get that much snot kicked out of him and still come out with the dry quips...it had to be Hollywood. Since then I have found quite a few action movies that were fun to watch that actually had a plot and...surprise! A decent message. Problem was, most of them weren't real popular at the box office.

It seems it is more popular, makes more money, to depict graphic violence. Hacking bodies up in new and creative ways sells more tickets than telling a story. I can't help but question a society that will allow a movie to be release that is 70 minutes of blood, gore and mayhem but go beyond a bare tittie and it gets banned. What is the message we send when we are blasé about death and violence? What are we thinking when we can accept violent behavior, accept having it graphically portrayed on film? Do we have any right to be surprised when someone takes a gun and cuts loose at the neighborhood McDonalds? Or post office? Will we be surprised when someone fires up their Husqvarna chainsaw at the local Target? Probably. Why, I can't imagine but we will be.

And what about the kids we send over to Iraq? They've been raised on this stuff. Video games where they get to blow people away and the worst that happens to them is some dorky music and a Game Over. Now they are in a strange land and when they pull the trigger the blood and brains fly but they get the pounding concussion of real gunfire, the bodies crumple and explode but there isn't any music. There is no Game Over when they see their buddy next to them hit. Fantasy meets reality and reality loses. Sony's version of death doesn't include the coppery smell of fresh blood. There is no smell of cordite, no aroma of a body cutting loose it's functions as the spirit flies invisibly away. Death suddenly becomes personal and the poor schmuck who pulled the trigger realizes it was a direct result of said action. It's a hell of a way to grow up.

As a society, we have stated our preference. Violence is ok, sex is evil. Take what you can and the hell with what it might do to someone else. It is not only ok to go to war over a series of one blatant manipulation of the truth (read lie) after another, to spend billions of dollars we don't have to clean up a mess we created and have no hope of rectifying but it is desirable. It is ok to ignore all the things we learned in Viet Nam and just go blithely along spouting the same idiotic rhetoric about unpatriotic messages being sent, about how protesting the war and demanding our kids be brought home is not supporting them. The war brokers are selling us a bill of goods and we seem to be buying it because anything less would be admitting we were wrong. I have a huge problem with that. The world will not end if we admit we screwed up. It might even get to be a better place.

# What have we done?

It saddens me so much to look at what we have done as a society in my lifetime. Even more so when I look at the past ten years. I remember when I was a kid that my parents were trying so very hard to build something that we could have as a base for use to build on. And I saw it in the families of my friends. Parents wanted to be able to pass something of worth on to their children. It wasn't a big dream, just something a little better than they had. Where did it go wrong?

A dear friend of mine recently lost his mother. She had been in a nursing home for some time. She and her husband had worked their whole lives to build a life. They owned a home, invested as best they could. They tried very hard and did a good job. His father passed quickly a few years ago but his mother held on. She was a good woman who did her best yet in the end her stay in a decent place ended up costing a phenomenal amount of money per month. At the time of her death she had about six months of care left. An entire lifetime of effort and she almost tapped it back to nothing. Bless his heart, my friend wasn't terribly concerned about the cost but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the timing had been different.

In 2000 we had one of the closest Presidential races in our history. Seven years later, where are we? Where are they? Al Gore has dedicated his life to a global concern. He is still championing a concern that is unique to humanity today. Is he right? I pray he isn't but I fear he may be. He is, at least, trying. The other? The victor? If there is a rational, caring human being claiming US citizenship who can honestly say George Bush has done anything to improve life on this planet, I would dearly love to hear the argument. I would love to have someone present any kind of possibility that what has happened in the past 7 years might end up being beneficial to mankind in general.

# What If...

It is a game many play though most, I would suspect, shy away from the big questions. Like...what if the US had not listened to the cries of vengeance and retribution, had not responded to the fear and hate mongers and dealt with the realities of 9/11 in a civilized fashion? What if the American public were to stop listening to the spin and face the truth of just what we have done in the past five years? Where would we go if we actually thought about the death and destruction we are perpetrating in Iraq and think, for just a moment, that the general Iraqi population are people? Men, women and children trying to live their own lives by their own standards?

Would we notice that the death toll in Iraq is hideous? That we have now lost the same number of Americans as died in 9/11 and that the civilian death toll is what? A recent study shows it at 655,000. Divide that by the 6000 American lives lost (9/11+casualties in Iraq) and you have roughly 110 Iraqis dead for every American. You could say that 110 for 1 is just the price they pay for messing with the US. Or if you choose to accept the official administration figure of 30,000 we are still at a 5:1 ratio. The only problem with all of that is we KNOW IRAQ HAD LITTLE TO NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ATTACKS! Our government has admitted this.

What if the American public were to wake up to the fact that they have been lied to, over and over again and the cost is the end of any possible claim by the US to be a benevolent force in the world? We invaded a sovereign nation for spurious and false reasons, said invasion resulting in the destruction of the infrastructure of that nation. We captured the foreign head-of-state which should have classed him as a POW. Instead of detaining him and treating him as the Geneva Convention says civilized participants should, we turned him over to a puppet government and let them execute him. Did Saddam deserve death? Probably. But the procedures were a farce. There were rules to be followed and we blew them off. We basically turned him over to a lynch mob, a kangaroo court of our own design.

And a final what if for the Iraq mess. What if the US decided we really are a nation of laws? Not just when it is convenient but always. What if we realized our principles are our strength and the only thing that keeps us going and that when we set those principles aside, whether from fear or expediency, we forfeit the high ground? You can't beat terrorism with guns, killing or violence. The only way to stop the killing is to stop killing. To resort to violence in anything but self defense is self defeating. Pre-emptive strikes do nothing but doom the striker.

# What is Best

Where do we decide what is best? Any number of subjects can be looked at where choices have been made about just how much and what should be said on a given subject. The government plays its national security games deciding what people need to know. We do it in our personal lives all the time. Should I say something or would it be for the best if I keep quiet. It happens to all of us at some point in our lives. Some ponder the question, some just make a decision. I've come to the conclusion that the old saw about the truth setting you free is about the best rule of thumb to use. The truth isn't always pleasant, can be downright painful but in the long run, it is for the best.

Things like what do we tell our children. Most people have a tendency to keep information from kids because 'they aren't ready for it' or 'they wouldn't understand'. I've got more faith in them than that. There isn't anything kids can't know but I do agree there are things they don't need to know at a tender age. Problem is sometimes life has a way of not respecting that. The poor mites are given half truths and told they will understand when they get older. Mighty thin soup when they are having to deal with things beyond their years.

For me, the problem is when you give out disinformation or decide to not use the truth, you set yourself up for lots of bad things. The worst is what the spin doctors call a plausibility gap. In more basic terms, when you are caught out in a lie, discovered in fudging, you shoot your credibility. That seems to be the problem with keeping things secret for the good of others. It comes back and bites you in the butt. Like the Shrub and company are discovering. The truth, like life, will out. Eventually.

I've read a number of novels about Christianity and the possibility that hard evidence could surface that would give lie to what has been claimed. I have yet to read one where it was decided that this evidence should be shared with the world. It is always decided that it would be best to let the secret remain secret, that the world would collapse in chaos if it was discovered that the 1,500 years of Christian history was based on a lie or was engineered as a political tool. Don't tell anyone the Emperor is really nekkid.

Or the Kennedy assassination. Maybe the Warren Commission was right. And maybe it was a monstrous cover up because he was really killed by Castro. Or the mob. Or the power brokers of the military/industrial complex. What it was was the beginning of a trend that now costs us millions of dollars a year protecting a President. My god, what would happen to our country if a President were to be killed. I mean, we don't have procedures in place to transition power. Just think of the chaos if we were to replace a President every 4 years? Sorry, but it is all there. Our government is not about any single individual.

What it is really about is fear. Fear that the status quo will be changed, fear of a loss of power or privilege, fear of being shown to be fallible and human. It applies from the broadest global level right down to our personal lives. Massaging the truth, spinning it, coloring it is based on fear. Fear of change. The problem is the only constant in life is change and for thousands of years mankind has lived in fear because the structures around us are such that they propagate the fear. Western civilization is rooted in it, so deeply entrenched we have only been able to make minor advances in the past 2,000 years. We need to find the way to get the rest of our lives on the growth track our technology is on.

# Characters

Over the years people have asked me just how much of my characters is me. The snide answer is all of them. Since they come from deep within the twisted corridors and back alleys of my brain, they are in essence various aspects of me. I would imagine this is true of all writers. One of the most basic tenets of writing is write about things you know about. It makes the act of writing something like analysis without the therapist or couch. You take what you know of yourself and what you learn about others and use it to construct characters, sort of like Legos of observation and experience. That is what makes it difficult for prolific writers. Characters tend to share traits, which is why some go for serial novels with a protagonist they can continue to mold.

Each protagonist gets a healthier dose of the writer's personality because they are the focus, the teller of the tale. Each antagonist tends to get traits the author finds to be less than desirable. Supporting characters are a collage of people and traits, both observed and imagined. One may get their physical description from one person and their emotional or psychological construction for another. Maybe even several others. That is the beauty (and the fun) of writing. The author gets to rearrange the building blocks to suit the tale. A hero may have some basic qualities in common with the author augmented by others that the writer would like to have. And as the character develops, the possibilities for growth and change are limited only by imagination. The directions of these changes are dictated by the plot development and this is where the idea that a character 'is' the author fades. The object of writing fiction is to confront a character with challenges, problems to overcome and since the tale is imaginary (unless the author is writing thinly veiled autobiography) there is no real way for the character to retain more than the base profile of the author's personality. The writer is imagining how the character will react to a situation and imagining the reactions of the characters around them.

This is where the self-analysis comes in for a beginning writer. The first path is how would I deal with this? Once that particular (and easy) answer is found it opens the door to more possibilities. How would I react if I wasn't me? If my past were different? How would someone else react? What would be the more correct path and what would happen if I were more of a shit? When you build a different past for a character it opens things up for what motivates them. You can go to the lofty perch of righteous what ifs or wallow in the darker stuff. It is all there, waiting to be explored. I've been looking over things I have written over the past 35 years and I notice I do have a strong tendency to make my heroes with a baseline of long suffering, put upon tragic figgers. There is a strong element of self sacrifice as well as misunderstood honor and dedication. A great part of this comes from the styles of fiction I read when I was a kid. Is it an element in my own personality? Oh yeah. Will I be able to get past it to build characters from a different place? Maybe. Those elements are somewhat archetypical to fictional protagonists and it doesn't matter if its from Tolstoy or King.

The process of storytelling is the development of the characters as people and there are only so many basic types to choose from. A well-adjusted, fairly normal protagonist makes it hard to tell a tale with any power. Not to mention there are very few of those critters around in real life. The good guys don't always win it all. Sometimes they only get partial victories, sometimes they lose what they had thought was the battle they wanted to win. It's all about possibilities and trying.

# Density

That's what George McFly called it in a moment of fevered adolescent stammering. A simple transposition of a couple letters and life is explained. Its no wonder people have been getting them confused all these years. How can we help but become confused when there is so much literature out there that pounds on, harps at, glorifies the whole destiny business when it comes to love. For the illiterate out there, the main recurring theme is boy meets girl, they get run around in various circles and then destiny kicks in and they both realize they are the only two people in the world. Ok, it is a tad snide but it really is the most recurrent theme in literature since the advent of English.

For example, take the Arthurian legends. This is one of the most admired and messed up examples of life ever written. And rewritten. We have this kid who is raised as the poor relation and gets a serious case of low self esteem until the day he pulls a sword from a stone and suddenly he is King of the Britons! Whoo hoo! So he uses his shabby background to forge some new ideas and manages to put together this thing called the Round Table. Lots of stuff about justice and equality and fairness which were pretty unheard of no matter what era you favor for Art. Then he meets this gal, Guinevere and falls in love. Of course she is reluctant at first but Art is pretty irresistible so she falls for him too. (Don't forget the part about how he is King of the Britons). And Art has this buddy, a warrior brother who is the mainstay of his operation, Lancelot. These guys are close so it follows that Guinevere falls for Lance as well.

The basic legend has the triangle tearing the three apart. She loves Art but he's got this whole king thing going on. She also loves Lance but this is bad because she belongs to the king. Art loves them both as does Lance. But appearances say the Queen belongs to the King and nobody else so now all three of them are feeling guilty for their own reasons. After a lot of turmoil Art ends up dead, Guinevere a nun and Lance goes off to Paris where he changes his name and opens a bar. Bottom line is nobody gets happy, the Round Table falls apart and the Britons end up with many years of trying to put it back together again. Am I the only person in the world who sees this is an incredibly stupid thing? There is not one bit of good that comes out of it yet it has become the basis for so many tales since that one could hardly codify them all. And even the people who look back on the original feel sorry for them but no one says, the dumb shits. Hell no. They practically deify the putzes and wish they could emulate them! This whole ménage e trios is praised for being the epitome of true love. It is a major part of the fantasy fed to the general public about what love should really be like.

What a load of crap. Three rational, caring, supposedly intelligent human beings who blasted their lives into smithereens because of appearances. Nobody won, everybody lost. This is a success story? This is what we should do with our lives and feelings? A man is supposed to condemn his wife to death for the crime of also loving his friend? And then tear down all of the good he had built because he feels like shit for doing it? I'm sorry but this whole legend should be the template for how not to do things. There isn't nobility here, just rampant stupidity. Art had a good start and then folded in the home stretch. He had principles and turned his back on them because of spin-doctors. What might have happened if the three had stood together instead of standing apart? If Art had told Mrs. Grundy to go to hell and stood tall for his principles, what would the end result have been? It couldn't have been any worse than what did happen.

# Perceptions

It's what life is about. Our perceptions of the world around us. For centuries those perceptions have been focused on the material world, and more specifically the importance of gathering things in the material world. Nationality, race, religion and economic status have driven this world for most of recorded history. Civilizations have risen, expanded and spread their influence until we are where we are today. We have had a plethora of philosophers who have added their two bits to the perceptions of the world. The same can be said of religions, governments and scientists. Each spouts its perceptions of what is and what is important and the herd follows.

What if it is all a myth? The power brokers throughout history have fought hard to maintain their myths and they have broken down, crumbled only to be picked up again from a different direction. Same shit, different day. What if it is all a manifestation of ego? The idea that every living being on the planet is a uniquely created entity that will continue throughout eternity is fallacious. If this is true, the massive exponential expansion of human population dictates that there is a soul factory someplace cranking out people at a phenomenal rate. Every person that ever existed still exists as a soul in Heaven and God just keeps turning them out.

What if we are not a perfectly unique entity? What if the soul is not created for each birth but rather there are collections of energy that persevere? Everyday life says this is more likely. We all start life with a very basic set of tools and as we grow we add and subtract things to make ourselves into a new entity. Sort of a cosmic game of Gin Rummy. The Hindu ideas about karma and reincarnation touch on this. The more good karma we collect, the closer we get to 'going out' or achieving Nirvana. If we collect bad karma, we go backwards to a less complex energy form to try again. The idea of being reincarnated as a cockroach for being really good at collecting bad karma is a bit extreme but makes some sense.

These days scientists are probing the mechanics of the mind in order to figure out if consciousness is merely a biological process. Not surprising because science has been at polar odds with religion for all of recorded history. They are discovering some interesting things like there appears to be more to the idea of mind and body being less separable than previously thought. Duh. There might even be a possibility that science may come in from the weeds at their end of the field to accept a more centrist position. As resources dwindle I'm thinking scientists will be the vanguard for finding the way to the need for a simpler life. Not out of some altruistic impulse but because of cold hard facts. It is slowly becoming apparent this planet hasn't the resources to supply enough people with enough goodies for it to be possible for everyone to have the gaudy ostentatious life styles of modern Western civilization. And that said lifestyles can and are destroying the very planet.

Religions are of no help. The anthropomorphic Western ones are stuck in centuries old dogma and blind to their own failings. The idea that God is going to spank evildoers in the next life doesn't have the ability to contain said doings in this life like it once did. People have learned that the supposed reward and punishment system espoused by religions is hokum. Power corrupts. It feeds the perceptions of ego. Good rarely shows clear rewards because they are not the things we have come to perceive as rewards. Rewards are money, power, control, things. They are immediate and blatant. Having a reserved front row seat in Heaven just doesn't compete with a new Lexus now. Face it, people are smarter than they used to be and ethereal bogeymen are pretty laughable.

Somewhere along the line we are going to have to seriously look at the reality of life and the world. The Buddhists have a good start. Henry Thoreau went in a good direction. More is not better. Bigger is not better. We have all the evidence we need to prove it if we would simply see it. Life has to be about balance and coexistence. It has to be about harmony and true perception. Ego has no place in it. There just simply isn't one entity that is more important to the continued existence of this world than any other. Not in the long run. No individual creature, no nationalistic state, no religious belief, no race, nothing is right and indispensable. You can't remove or isolate or even define what life is. Life is the gestalt at any given moment of the totality of everything. No component defines it. It is the whole magilla and it is up to us to find our place in it. Odds are it won't be the control position. We have the ability to comprehend and manipulate beyond any other creature, which we have taken as license to do as we wanted. What we are slower to recognize is with power goes responsibility. The nice thing is life has its own ways of pointing this out. Things like plagues, global warming, natural disasters and such help to remind us that while we have a little power there is a greater one. Our egos tell us we are the boss, unique and privileged. Reality says we are tolerated.

The idea that the world will continue without mankind is one we don't even consider. It got along just fine without us in the past and if we really muck things up it will show us how truly fragile we are. There will be no negotiation, no warning shots beyond those already evident, it will just happen. Maybe it will be a new bug or a variation on an old one. The bubonic plague has worked nicely in the past when man neglects to keep his house clean. Or maybe it will be a couple of nice volcanoes. We have already done a nice job of weakening the atmosphere and volcanic gases could accelerate the process of providing an autoclave effect for the planet. Or good old nuclear winter. You see, this planet has been through the cleansing process several times. Since man wasn't around to do it slowly, nature provided its own means. Asteroid hits are pretty impressive as are major tectonic shifts. By crippling or weakening the environment we provide fertile ground for the effects to be magnified.

We also help by our habit of gathering in large numbers in small areas. A very large percentage of the world's population is focused in a fairly small geographical area. And this trend towards corporate farms is playing right along with it. In the last decade in the US alone we have lost a great number of family farms. And we have seen the centralization of food production. If the trend continues we will have paralyzed our ability to provide our own food. And given a prime stranglehold target to anyone bright enough to blow spit bubbles. I think it is a hoot that Homeland Security focuses so much attention on airports and old ladies with nail scissors when it would be incredibly easy to hit the factory farms and starve us out. The damned things may be advantageous to big corporate profits but they are incredibly stupid.

# Purpose

As a word all by itself, it is sort of odd looking. Incongruous. At a glance one might even read porpoise and wonder what sort of silliness I might be trailing after now. But the word is purpose and the intent is a rather mild rant on several aspects of the word. As in, 'You did that on purpose' or 'Your purpose for doing that is...' and on to the more esoteric ideas about one's purpose in life.

All of my adult life I have done two things with consistency, reading and writing. I have sampled a great of literature both fiction and nonfiction from almost every genre. My writing has tended to stay in the adventure/fantasy realm mostly because it is great fun but I have made the occasional side jaunts into plain old mainstream drama type fiction. For the most part this has been in short story form since I have no real desire to delve in depth into the soap opera format in a longer piece. I prefer to tell a tale for fun while trying to blend in characters who are reasonably real. My problem with longer works is I began my reading career with heroic fantasy and I am afraid I became canalized at a young age. My oldest memories of stories come from ERB, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan and John Carter were the original templates for heroes and ERB's style of putting his heroes through ridiculously tortured plots and bringing everyone out in a HEA ending was the baseline I learned. As I grew and my list of authors lengthened (and my life experience expanded) I began to see there was more to life and fiction than that.

What I learned is life isn't about HEA (Happily Ever After). Nor is fiction. The purpose of a tale is not to always lay everything out, answer every question and tie off all of the loose ends. Some of the best stories I've read did something much more important. They made me think. Granted, there are times when we like to read a book that is nicely contained. It is relaxing and reassuring to see good triumph over evil, to watch the good guy get the gal (or vice versa) and have things fall nicely into place. This seems to be the general idea for writing today...give the people what they want. Keep them entertained but for god's sake don't make them think.

For me there are two reasons for writing. One is expression and the second entertainment. The expression business involves unloading various ideas and emotions that clutter up the landscape of me. Sometimes its pleasant, other times it can get intense. That is where the entertainment aspect of it comes in. Anyone who thinks writers write to entertain the masses has never felt the real urge to write. They are either brain dead or mechanics. There are lots of people out there who can join words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs and express thoughts in such a way. They understand the mechanics of writing, the structure and definition of words. This isn't anything to be sneezed at in this day and age. But there really are two types of writing. One is the terse, informative type that has usually been associated with journalism. To me, this is informative writing and the folks who do it are word mechanics. Then there are those who truly indulge in what is loosely called creative writing. They are the wordsmiths. Both groups include artisans, journeymen and apprentices. Both are valuable contributions to the craft. One group supplies information, the other tells stories. Some wordsmiths are capable of being mechanics and a few mechanics can indulge in wordsmithing but the crossover is small in both directions.

Writing is a solitary profession for the most part and incredibly difficult. Most people start out with fragile egos and think about what other people want to read. A true writer learns quickly that writing isn't about ego. Sure it is great to have people who enjoy reading your stuff but the essence of writing is about writing. It's about expressing ideas in your own format whether or not it is understood or accepted. And most people who know writers have learned that to the beginning writer criticism is difficult to accept, which is true. For a writer to become a writer rather than a dabbler, a dilettante they must learn to hear the comments of readers without taking personal offense. Giving and accepting criticism is something of an art that a writer and those close to him must learn to deal with properly. The truth is writers can survive without proper feedback but they need it to flourish. There are two sources of this feedback. One comes from the general public who buy the stuff to read. Money is a nice form of feedback. The other comes in the formative stages from people who are honest and tell a writer what they think of their work. It isn't always affirming but it helps a writer to build their craft.

So for this rant, the purpose of writing is expression. The purpose of reading is entertainment or information, depending on the writing. Myself, I will continue to write no matter what happens. I enjoy it. For those who read, you get to decide if you wish to continue. Some have provided feedback. All of it has been appreciated and listened to. But a blatant hint, comments are greatly appreciated, whether posted publicly or sent privately.

