This site encompasses my personal philosophy of peace, so I reject forceful, violent means such as Hezbollah or Hamas use as well as the thorn inducing their actions, the violent conflict-initiating means Israel used to take land belonging to the Palestinians.
Yet this site also stands for truth, as best as we can define this often nebulous term. So it is fair and just to ask: just who is a terrorist, especially in the Middle East? If one honestly addresses the roots of the conflict in the Middle East one will find “terrorism” all around, starting with Israeli Zionists. In 1948 their terroristic “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut) led by Menachem Begin, massacred the Arab village, Deir Yassin. Such terrorism continues this week with Israel’s horrid invasion in Lebanon, not made any less illegal by calling it a defensive response to Hezbollah.
Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt et al in a letter to the NY Times (see below) accurately described the terrorist nature of the violent machine that was to control Israel. They said it was “a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”
Those bands of Zionists massacred many defenseless Palestinian villages, which for hundreds of years had lived under Ottoman rule, and for at least 1500 of years before were home to native Arabs AND Jews (though a much smaller percentage). 750,000 to a million of the Arabs, the Palestinians, fled their homes at the gunpoint of Israeli terrorist guns.
That dislocation, that injustice, that crime against humanity is the root cause for all the problems in the Israeli/Palestinian/Hezbollah/Hamas/Syria conflict today. (With Iran, there is the additional layer of American subversion of internal politics for control of oil).
The further loss of territory in 1967, and later still, the many strategic Palestinian lands taken from them by the Israeli settlers—ALL illegal under numerous UN regulations—further entrench and strengthen those roots of discord.
Remove the thorn and the lion stops roaring. At the least: Israel--remove all illegal settlements, follow all UN resolutions, and there will be no Hamas or Hezbollah.
I personally know Palestinians chased by gunpoint from their homes. Even they—with this emotional experience fresh in their mind—accept the right of Israel to exist. They do not support the violent means, what we call the “terrorism” of those trying to right the wrong. Yet they yearn for justice, for re-compense. Others want their land back taken since 1967 or 1980 or 1990 or 2000.
Without at least this level of justice, forget it. There will be much worse catastrophes there, and because of that, all over the world.
Then it won’t matter whom you call “terrorist.”
PS Now we know why Israel wants nukes and all the military might they have. It’s the same reason Lebanon needs it (to prevent such Israeli monstrosities as occurred this week and in the 1980’s). It’s why Iran and Syria want it. Why should one country have it and not another? Oh, because they are countries that support “terrorists” namely, the unorthodox defenders of a cause that is just—the reclamation of illegally taken lands by Israel with the support of the United States. Might makes right when it’s wearing the right colors, and when there’s so much more of it than on the side that opposes it.
PPS A logical retort from the “other side” to a question in a recent Louisville Courier-Journal editorial Terrorist provocation, “Those who have clucked about a "disproportionate" Israeli response might ask themselves what government anywhere would accept such murderous provocations without delivering a powerful response” would be “what group of people could remain passively submissive to the initiators of murderous provocations?”
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1948 letter of protest against Israeli 'fascists', 'terrorists'
A Letter To The EditorHANNAH ARENDT, ALBERT EINSTEIN, et alThe New York Times, 2 December 1948Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine. The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit.It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.Attack on Arab VillageA shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (The New York Times), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants—240 men, women, and children—and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem.Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party. Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.Discrepancies SeenThe discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal.In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.[signed]Isidore Abramowitz, Hannah Arendt, Abraham Brick, Rabbi Jessurun Cardozo, Albert Einstein, Herman Eisen, M.D., Hayim Fineman, M. Gallen, M.D., H.H. Harris, Zelig S. Harris, Sidney Hook, Fred Karush, Bruria Kaufman, Irma L. Lindheim, Nachman Maisel, Seymour Melman, Myer D. Mendelson, M.D., Harry M. Oslinsky, Samuel Pitlick, Fritz Rohrlich, Louis P. Rocker, Ruth Sagis, Itzhak Sankowsky, I.J. Shoenberg, Samuel Shuman, M. Singer, Irma Wolfe, Stefan Wolfe.—New York, Dec. 2, 1948
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
“Heil Schicklgruber!”? Depressingly, No
The big black swastika beckoned, like a satanic siren willing me to it. I’ve had William Shirer’s epic “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” for some years, but by happenstance ran across the thick 1000+-page tome as I was leaving to visit an ailing brother in Florida.
I must’ve read and heard about Hitler, the Nazi’s, the Holocaust, WWI, the Versailles Treaty, Mein Kampf, WWII ,etc., etc., 3500 times*. Actually thought I knew most of the origins of how such an evil monstrosity as Hitler could come to power. Yet such is the improbable magnitude of Hitler’s rise, his spell on a nation, and the horrors that followed, that I can almost never get enough of reading about, trying to understand the real truth about, how this came to be.
So I lugged the thick book on the flights to Ft. Lauderdale and delved into it.
Mr. Shirer digs deep, to Hitler’s grandparents, to his upbringing with a domineering civil servant father who pooh poohed Hitler’s interest in art, his bohemian poverty in Vienna as a young teen, his failure to get into the Art Academy, living with the outcasts, reading, and filling his mind with the anti-Semitic lies (as well as books of all kind) that he would take for truth as the cause of the poverty, the division of the Germanic peoples-- his brethren of superior Aryan blood--with divine right to rule, and to rule with the Nietzschian iron fist, then his joining the German Army in WWI, his meritorious service until their surrender, which surrender Hitler, the industrial corporate and military elite ordered then falsely blamed on the “November Criminals,” the combination of the forward thinking political leaders who sought a new democratic German Republic, and who were back-stabbed by the military leaders, who wanted to run the show along with the old monarchy and industrial elite.
He then follows Hitler’s accidental arrival at the German Worker’s Party meeting where about 17 showed up, this the future Nazi party, which a shrewd, calculating and hard working Hitler would, over the next 10 years, forge into the beast it would become. He did it scientifically, learning from past failures, that any new political movement must get the approval of traditional power centers, like the military, the monarchy, the industrial elite, in order to get the masses to buy in. He learned from the failed Beer Hall Putsch, that force would not work, that he must succeed through the Constitutional way—the VOTE. He learned the psychology of controlling the masses, of propaganda, and he was tenacious in sticking with his vision.
While there were many twists and turns that would have prevented Hitler’s ascent, there are two that stick out:
1) His father, Alois, was an illegitimate child who for his first 39 years bore his mother’s name, SCHICKLGRUBER. While the probable father, Johann Hiedler (later changed to Hitler), married the mother 5 years after Alois was born, he never legitimized him. After the mother (Hitler’s grandmother, Anna) died Johann disappeared for 30 years. Then, at 84, he resurfaced to testify before a notary in the presence of three witnesses that he was the father of Alois Schicklgruber, probably to help him get a share of an uncle’s inheritance. The parish priest scratched out Alois Schicklgruber and put in Alois Hitler, the father who 13 years later sired Adolf…Hitler, not Schiklgruber.
We must understand, as Shirer says just how important this last minute name change was to history. “There may not be much or anything in a name, but I have heard Germans speculate whether Hitler could have become the master of Germany had he been known to the world as Schicklgruber. It has a slightly comic sound as it rolls off the tongue of a South German… 'Heil Schicklgruber!’? It is a little difficult to imagine.”
2) The Great Depression. By the late 1920’s the new Democracy in Germany was finally starting to work. Inflation and the Versailles Treaty dictates were both easing, people started working, saving and living well. Then, the Great Depression hit and wiped it all out. Like everywhere else, but probably even worse in Germany because of its debts, the economy tanked. This alone provided the opportunity for Hitler and his Nazis to ply with propaganda upon a susceptible, suffering people their destiny to rule as a superior German race, and blame the current democratic republic, the Jews and internationalism (as opposed to strident German First and ONLY nationalism) as the scapegoats preventing their rise.
And I’m only 100 pages through.
*I actually worked this out: from the time I first heard of him, oh about 12 years old, then studied in earnest at 16-17, I figure I must have thought, read, mused, or analyzed this situation AT LEAST twice a week. I am now 51, 51-17=34, 34 X 52 x 2 = 3536. Is this manic on my part? May be, yet all that transpired is still so hard to believe…even harder that something equivalent could ever occur again—that it more than intrigues me, it re-awakens that old adage: humanity that does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.
I must’ve read and heard about Hitler, the Nazi’s, the Holocaust, WWI, the Versailles Treaty, Mein Kampf, WWII ,etc., etc., 3500 times*. Actually thought I knew most of the origins of how such an evil monstrosity as Hitler could come to power. Yet such is the improbable magnitude of Hitler’s rise, his spell on a nation, and the horrors that followed, that I can almost never get enough of reading about, trying to understand the real truth about, how this came to be.
So I lugged the thick book on the flights to Ft. Lauderdale and delved into it.
Mr. Shirer digs deep, to Hitler’s grandparents, to his upbringing with a domineering civil servant father who pooh poohed Hitler’s interest in art, his bohemian poverty in Vienna as a young teen, his failure to get into the Art Academy, living with the outcasts, reading, and filling his mind with the anti-Semitic lies (as well as books of all kind) that he would take for truth as the cause of the poverty, the division of the Germanic peoples-- his brethren of superior Aryan blood--with divine right to rule, and to rule with the Nietzschian iron fist, then his joining the German Army in WWI, his meritorious service until their surrender, which surrender Hitler, the industrial corporate and military elite ordered then falsely blamed on the “November Criminals,” the combination of the forward thinking political leaders who sought a new democratic German Republic, and who were back-stabbed by the military leaders, who wanted to run the show along with the old monarchy and industrial elite.
He then follows Hitler’s accidental arrival at the German Worker’s Party meeting where about 17 showed up, this the future Nazi party, which a shrewd, calculating and hard working Hitler would, over the next 10 years, forge into the beast it would become. He did it scientifically, learning from past failures, that any new political movement must get the approval of traditional power centers, like the military, the monarchy, the industrial elite, in order to get the masses to buy in. He learned from the failed Beer Hall Putsch, that force would not work, that he must succeed through the Constitutional way—the VOTE. He learned the psychology of controlling the masses, of propaganda, and he was tenacious in sticking with his vision.
While there were many twists and turns that would have prevented Hitler’s ascent, there are two that stick out:
1) His father, Alois, was an illegitimate child who for his first 39 years bore his mother’s name, SCHICKLGRUBER. While the probable father, Johann Hiedler (later changed to Hitler), married the mother 5 years after Alois was born, he never legitimized him. After the mother (Hitler’s grandmother, Anna) died Johann disappeared for 30 years. Then, at 84, he resurfaced to testify before a notary in the presence of three witnesses that he was the father of Alois Schicklgruber, probably to help him get a share of an uncle’s inheritance. The parish priest scratched out Alois Schicklgruber and put in Alois Hitler, the father who 13 years later sired Adolf…Hitler, not Schiklgruber.
We must understand, as Shirer says just how important this last minute name change was to history. “There may not be much or anything in a name, but I have heard Germans speculate whether Hitler could have become the master of Germany had he been known to the world as Schicklgruber. It has a slightly comic sound as it rolls off the tongue of a South German… 'Heil Schicklgruber!’? It is a little difficult to imagine.”
2) The Great Depression. By the late 1920’s the new Democracy in Germany was finally starting to work. Inflation and the Versailles Treaty dictates were both easing, people started working, saving and living well. Then, the Great Depression hit and wiped it all out. Like everywhere else, but probably even worse in Germany because of its debts, the economy tanked. This alone provided the opportunity for Hitler and his Nazis to ply with propaganda upon a susceptible, suffering people their destiny to rule as a superior German race, and blame the current democratic republic, the Jews and internationalism (as opposed to strident German First and ONLY nationalism) as the scapegoats preventing their rise.
And I’m only 100 pages through.
*I actually worked this out: from the time I first heard of him, oh about 12 years old, then studied in earnest at 16-17, I figure I must have thought, read, mused, or analyzed this situation AT LEAST twice a week. I am now 51, 51-17=34, 34 X 52 x 2 = 3536. Is this manic on my part? May be, yet all that transpired is still so hard to believe…even harder that something equivalent could ever occur again—that it more than intrigues me, it re-awakens that old adage: humanity that does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Another Political OUTRAGE!
10 kids die DAILY from GUNS yet 188 Republicans and 42 Democrats killed a trigger lock mandate that would save them. Our lawmakers have once again sold out to the special interests that fund this bribery. That is, they vote the way the interest group wants to the exclusion* of the greater public interest (in this case FOR the gun lobby and AGAINST innocent children) and thereby get money and power in return.
[*This is the key part of the equation that makes such vote-peddling rise to the “bribery” level. There are undoubtedly examples where the public interest position dovetails with the moneyed one, but this is clearly not one of them].
Sure both parties are guilty; but for the past 25 years it’s been pretty much a Republican show, and they have received the lion’s share of the political grease, perhaps 75% to 25% in keeping with the famous Enron donation percentage. But why quibble, this blatant abuse is a key reason that so many Americans: 1) distrust our political system, b) hold those running it in such low esteem and c) refuse to vote in elections that they view as an exercise in futility.
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, the Colorado Republican who made this proposal, said that locks on weapons don’t prevent the slaughter of children, they only make "personal protection more costly." In a piece of convoluted logic that is totally ignore the facts, she continued, "Many things around the home are dangerous when used without proper instructions or supervision. But it is not the government's job or responsibility to mandate every conceivable protective mechanism imaginable."
So tamper-proof aspirin bottles are well within government’s rightful sphere of consumer protection, but GUNS are not?!
If this wolves-guarding-the-henhouse system of ours is “democracy” then why kill so many Americans and Iraqis to force same upon them?
Rfd 7/10/06
PS This is NOT a gun-banning argument. I would stand by the NRA should a real threat materialize to ban guns. But reasonable restrictions, safety measures, etc. that better protect the public are just and right. They are not the “give ‘em an inch they’ll take a mile” step to gun elimination.
[*This is the key part of the equation that makes such vote-peddling rise to the “bribery” level. There are undoubtedly examples where the public interest position dovetails with the moneyed one, but this is clearly not one of them].
Sure both parties are guilty; but for the past 25 years it’s been pretty much a Republican show, and they have received the lion’s share of the political grease, perhaps 75% to 25% in keeping with the famous Enron donation percentage. But why quibble, this blatant abuse is a key reason that so many Americans: 1) distrust our political system, b) hold those running it in such low esteem and c) refuse to vote in elections that they view as an exercise in futility.
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, the Colorado Republican who made this proposal, said that locks on weapons don’t prevent the slaughter of children, they only make "personal protection more costly." In a piece of convoluted logic that is totally ignore the facts, she continued, "Many things around the home are dangerous when used without proper instructions or supervision. But it is not the government's job or responsibility to mandate every conceivable protective mechanism imaginable."
So tamper-proof aspirin bottles are well within government’s rightful sphere of consumer protection, but GUNS are not?!
If this wolves-guarding-the-henhouse system of ours is “democracy” then why kill so many Americans and Iraqis to force same upon them?
Rfd 7/10/06
PS This is NOT a gun-banning argument. I would stand by the NRA should a real threat materialize to ban guns. But reasonable restrictions, safety measures, etc. that better protect the public are just and right. They are not the “give ‘em an inch they’ll take a mile” step to gun elimination.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
How Horses Schtup
So Phil, what does the “LF” mean by the $60,000?” I asked. “That means you must pay the money when the mare (the female horse) has a foal (a baby horse) and it stands on its legs.” Phil (not his real name) was showing me the horse farm’s brochure, which was top drawer, high-glossed perfection, the kind where you can see you fingerprints. Beautiful Bluegrass sunsets, white fences and…horses. Spectacular!
I began to wonder about this horse breeding business in a way I never really thought of before—the mechanics of how they get the stallions to “perform” so many times. (Phil said the studs went at it practically non-stop).
“Hmm, so do they have to ‘stimulate’ the stallions?”
“No, they’re pretty much ready.”
“Well, is there much of a courtship, I mean, is the female just as ready to, uh, copulate?”
“First we put a ‘teaser’ in there with a mare to see if she’s ready to mate.”
“A teaser?”
“Yeah, we bring another male in the breeding barn and see if the mare is receptive.”
“And then you take the ‘teaser’ horse out and bring the stallion in?”
“Right.”
“Hmmm, sounds cruel to the teaser horse. I mean, you get him all hot and bothered and then just yank him out. Do you get him a…substitute mare, a concubine, some kind of magazine at least?”
“Nah, they just go back to the field. Ernie is my favorite; he’s been at it a long time. He’s real cool, knows what to expect.”
“Okay, when you bring the stallion in to do his thing what’s that like?”
“Well, we have the barn, with padded walls, and put the mare and stallion in there together.”
“So-o-o-o, how long does it take for the parties to, uh, what, make love? Mount? Do it? Is there any foreplay, any romance? Do you have posters, soft music, hay-scented fragrances or anything to help get them in the mood?”
“Nah, it’s pretty much horse-rape, the stud just goes after her. Sometimes she’s easy, sometimes not. It’s over pretty quick.”
And that’s how future Derby winners are made, as well as the thousands more that just eat grass and look good in the fields and farms of our beloved Bluegrass.
Rfd 7/8/06
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Devaluing America On the Third of July
It’s a real shame that on the eve of the Fourth of July, wherein we celebrate our nation’s highest ideals, our top political leaders attack them. Yesterday, Senators Mitch McConnell, John McCain and Lindsay Graham attacked the Supreme Court for insisting that our government follow not only its own laws (the Uniform Code of Military Justice), but also those of a binding legal treaty to which we have long been a signatory, the Geneva Accords.
Instead these Senators, along with President Bush, would have us try our military prisoners in secret courts, unilaterally developed by the president, which deny even the smallest amount of due process. It is so bad, so unfair that even the military lawyers object to the rank injustice. The accused have no right to be present for the trial or to see all the evidence against them. It is so bad that not a single case has been tried.
As Justice Stephen G. Breyer said, "Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation's ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation's ability to determine -- through democratic means -- how best to do so.”
McConnell is concerned that American servicemen could potentially be accused of war crimes. But that is what treaties are all about. We therefore do unto others what we want, and through the treaties expect, in return. What McConnell demands violates fundamental fairness as well as national and international law, and as such is truly contrary to the spirit of the American ideals bequeathed by our forefathers.
And if you accept McCain’s argument that the decision “is somewhat of a departure…of people who are stateless terrorists” then you reject the very notion that we are in a war at all, for a state of war demands a concrete declaration against a defined other state. He, and Bush, cannot have it both ways.
Either we are at war, which Bush has declared since 9/11, wherein all prisoners are due the protections of our own law, the UCMJ, and the Geneva Accords, or we are not at war, and those prisoners are treated instead as common criminals in international courts of law.
It is anti-American to denigrate our inherent values and diminish our system of justice. Bush was wrong to have done so all this time. That is what the Supreme Court has said. Yet our leading Senators persist in making America less than America.
This, on the eve of the Fourth.
Rfd 7.4.06
Instead these Senators, along with President Bush, would have us try our military prisoners in secret courts, unilaterally developed by the president, which deny even the smallest amount of due process. It is so bad, so unfair that even the military lawyers object to the rank injustice. The accused have no right to be present for the trial or to see all the evidence against them. It is so bad that not a single case has been tried.
As Justice Stephen G. Breyer said, "Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation's ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation's ability to determine -- through democratic means -- how best to do so.”
McConnell is concerned that American servicemen could potentially be accused of war crimes. But that is what treaties are all about. We therefore do unto others what we want, and through the treaties expect, in return. What McConnell demands violates fundamental fairness as well as national and international law, and as such is truly contrary to the spirit of the American ideals bequeathed by our forefathers.
And if you accept McCain’s argument that the decision “is somewhat of a departure…of people who are stateless terrorists” then you reject the very notion that we are in a war at all, for a state of war demands a concrete declaration against a defined other state. He, and Bush, cannot have it both ways.
Either we are at war, which Bush has declared since 9/11, wherein all prisoners are due the protections of our own law, the UCMJ, and the Geneva Accords, or we are not at war, and those prisoners are treated instead as common criminals in international courts of law.
It is anti-American to denigrate our inherent values and diminish our system of justice. Bush was wrong to have done so all this time. That is what the Supreme Court has said. Yet our leading Senators persist in making America less than America.
This, on the eve of the Fourth.
Rfd 7.4.06
Sunday, July 02, 2006
A Response to a letter criticizing Senator Mitch McConnell on his vote against the anti-flag burning amendment.
With all respect I must risk your wrath as I know how you feel, but I must be truthful. This is the ONE, and about the only issue, upon which I agree with Senator McConnell. Think about it: the flag stands for the premise of FREEDOM, even to burn it to express one's displeasure with the government, the state or whatever one associates with the flag.
Is it a contemptible exercise? YES!! Is it dis-respectful? YES!! Does it fulfill ANY of Rotary's Four Way tests? NO!
Yet, that is what the flag stands for--the freedom to express an opinion in such distasteful means. And you know what--there are hardly ANY incidents of flag burning anyway---zilch, none. This issue is repeatedly brought forth by politicians seeking to rile the emotionalism of voters they hope will vote for them. There simply IS no problem of flag burning and even if there were, that would mean there are some serious problems in the country that must be addressed. Better to allow such venting than to squelch free speech, driving it underground to fester and ferment.
Another factor--an especially vital one to those who trumpet the Ten Commandments--is that to seek this kind of protection for a piece of cloth, the FLAG, is to IDOLIZE that object, thus VIOLATING THE SECOND COMMANDMENT..."Make unto thee no graven image..."
Rather than skewer McConnell look at the motives of those pushing this red herring amendment non-issue.
Sincerely, Richard
ps. I can and do criticize McConnell on his many votes against the greater public interest and FOR private/corporate greed. He represents much of what is wrong with our political system and with the ever increasing concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few, at the expense of the many.
----- Original Message -----
Is it a contemptible exercise? YES!! Is it dis-respectful? YES!! Does it fulfill ANY of Rotary's Four Way tests? NO!
Yet, that is what the flag stands for--the freedom to express an opinion in such distasteful means. And you know what--there are hardly ANY incidents of flag burning anyway---zilch, none. This issue is repeatedly brought forth by politicians seeking to rile the emotionalism of voters they hope will vote for them. There simply IS no problem of flag burning and even if there were, that would mean there are some serious problems in the country that must be addressed. Better to allow such venting than to squelch free speech, driving it underground to fester and ferment.
Another factor--an especially vital one to those who trumpet the Ten Commandments--is that to seek this kind of protection for a piece of cloth, the FLAG, is to IDOLIZE that object, thus VIOLATING THE SECOND COMMANDMENT..."Make unto thee no graven image..."
Rather than skewer McConnell look at the motives of those pushing this red herring amendment non-issue.
Sincerely, Richard
ps. I can and do criticize McConnell on his many votes against the greater public interest and FOR private/corporate greed. He represents much of what is wrong with our political system and with the ever increasing concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few, at the expense of the many.
----- Original Message -----
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Subway Notes
I take the subway whenever I want to get around NYC, and a Times to read while blending with my fellow riders. These news items infuriated me:
1) Estate Tax Repeal and Refusal to consider Raising the Minimum wage—The Republicans added to the repeal bill yet another tax break, this time to the timber industry, in order to sway 4 Democratic Senators to vote for the whole package. I’ll be clear: THE ESTATE TAX IS AN ESSENTIAL Democracy-protecting vehicle. It does more than raise money—it prevents the ever-accumulating massed wealth in the hands of the few, the aristocracy who controls the political process.
And that is EXACTLY what we’ve been seeing with the politicians in power the last 10 years. The influence peddling, the industry-writing-the laws and policies (Enron et al writing energy policy, the credit industry writing the Bankruptcy “reform” Act e.g.), the no-bid contracts, the bribes and giveaways to the well-connected this is ALL part of the CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH and power to the EXTREME DETRIMENT of our Republic.
America was founded on the ideal of democracy and equality—equality of opportunity, as well as of the protection of rights and laws. And the founders structured our system to prevent the hereditary aristocracy and vast inequalities of wealth of the European kingmakers and king-keepers from which they came. The Estate Tax is a check on that corruptive power, and its dilution is directly contributing to the corruption in Washington today. It is exactly as Franklin Roosevelt said, “Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security … Such inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government.”
Any so-called free market capitalist should understand that no taxpayer is an island. It is ONLY through an intricate network of all citizens, from the laborer, the burger-flipper, as well as the professionals and the force of law that enable ANYBODY to make whatever fortune they do make
Teddy Roosevelt, the second to last truly great Republican President (Eisenhower was the last, NOT Reagan) said: “The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the State because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.” Roosevelt recognized that wealthy citizens were aided in their endeavors by government protection of wealth and property rights. And at NO TIME SINCE THE GILDED AGE has that been more true than today!
Yes, the exemption should have been increased—and it has been. An honest discussion can help determine the proper exemption amounts and the rates of taxation above that exemption. But the lies—DAMNED LIES—of the pro-repeal camp is sickening. Let them point to even ONE family farm lost from paying the tax. THEY CAN’T!! The tax only affected 2% of estates to begin with. And with reforms, those unfairly hit—a miniscule number—can be rescued without a wholesale elimination.
Hastert and company followed this gift to the rich by preventing a floor discussion on a much overdue raise in the minimum wage. When their shouts of “CLASS WAR!” begin in the next election cycle remember--THEY started it.
2) Bush Compares Iraq War to Hungary’s Uprising. That is the problem with America in a nutshell: the PRESIDENT, who theoretically represents the top of our society, makes such an UNEDUCATED, horribly flawed analogy betraying a complete lack of understanding of history, OR WORSE, intentionally lies about it to further compound his earlier lies that set about our war of conquest and control of Iraq and its oil fields.
In fact, Hungary’s uprising was only one of many in its thousand-year history against all its occupiers (the Mongols, the Turks, the Nazis) and monarchs (the Hapsburgs). In fact the Soviets “liberated” Hungary from the fascists after WWII. Of course the Hungarians wanted out from under Stalin’s cruel heel, and although their 1956 revolution failed it did compel their puppet leader to institute reforms—living standards raised and it remained in the Soviet sphere until Gorbachev dismantled the system in 1990.
In Iraq, if anything it is we, the USA, that is playing the role that the USSR did in Hungary and the Iraqis want nothing more than to be rid of us and our control. In Hungary a citizenry who for hundreds of years were fighting to rid the yoke of submission once again did so under Stalin. In Iraq, WE started the maelstrom, NOT THE IRAQI CITIZENS!!
But, hey, it’s a great sound bite…and with today’s Foxification of our corporate media that’s ALL that counts.
By time I climbed the stairs out of the subway into the blazing sun, I had definitely seen the light. Thanks to God.
rfd
1) Estate Tax Repeal and Refusal to consider Raising the Minimum wage—The Republicans added to the repeal bill yet another tax break, this time to the timber industry, in order to sway 4 Democratic Senators to vote for the whole package. I’ll be clear: THE ESTATE TAX IS AN ESSENTIAL Democracy-protecting vehicle. It does more than raise money—it prevents the ever-accumulating massed wealth in the hands of the few, the aristocracy who controls the political process.
And that is EXACTLY what we’ve been seeing with the politicians in power the last 10 years. The influence peddling, the industry-writing-the laws and policies (Enron et al writing energy policy, the credit industry writing the Bankruptcy “reform” Act e.g.), the no-bid contracts, the bribes and giveaways to the well-connected this is ALL part of the CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH and power to the EXTREME DETRIMENT of our Republic.
America was founded on the ideal of democracy and equality—equality of opportunity, as well as of the protection of rights and laws. And the founders structured our system to prevent the hereditary aristocracy and vast inequalities of wealth of the European kingmakers and king-keepers from which they came. The Estate Tax is a check on that corruptive power, and its dilution is directly contributing to the corruption in Washington today. It is exactly as Franklin Roosevelt said, “Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security … Such inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government.”
Any so-called free market capitalist should understand that no taxpayer is an island. It is ONLY through an intricate network of all citizens, from the laborer, the burger-flipper, as well as the professionals and the force of law that enable ANYBODY to make whatever fortune they do make
Teddy Roosevelt, the second to last truly great Republican President (Eisenhower was the last, NOT Reagan) said: “The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the State because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.” Roosevelt recognized that wealthy citizens were aided in their endeavors by government protection of wealth and property rights. And at NO TIME SINCE THE GILDED AGE has that been more true than today!
Yes, the exemption should have been increased—and it has been. An honest discussion can help determine the proper exemption amounts and the rates of taxation above that exemption. But the lies—DAMNED LIES—of the pro-repeal camp is sickening. Let them point to even ONE family farm lost from paying the tax. THEY CAN’T!! The tax only affected 2% of estates to begin with. And with reforms, those unfairly hit—a miniscule number—can be rescued without a wholesale elimination.
Hastert and company followed this gift to the rich by preventing a floor discussion on a much overdue raise in the minimum wage. When their shouts of “CLASS WAR!” begin in the next election cycle remember--THEY started it.
2) Bush Compares Iraq War to Hungary’s Uprising. That is the problem with America in a nutshell: the PRESIDENT, who theoretically represents the top of our society, makes such an UNEDUCATED, horribly flawed analogy betraying a complete lack of understanding of history, OR WORSE, intentionally lies about it to further compound his earlier lies that set about our war of conquest and control of Iraq and its oil fields.
In fact, Hungary’s uprising was only one of many in its thousand-year history against all its occupiers (the Mongols, the Turks, the Nazis) and monarchs (the Hapsburgs). In fact the Soviets “liberated” Hungary from the fascists after WWII. Of course the Hungarians wanted out from under Stalin’s cruel heel, and although their 1956 revolution failed it did compel their puppet leader to institute reforms—living standards raised and it remained in the Soviet sphere until Gorbachev dismantled the system in 1990.
In Iraq, if anything it is we, the USA, that is playing the role that the USSR did in Hungary and the Iraqis want nothing more than to be rid of us and our control. In Hungary a citizenry who for hundreds of years were fighting to rid the yoke of submission once again did so under Stalin. In Iraq, WE started the maelstrom, NOT THE IRAQI CITIZENS!!
But, hey, it’s a great sound bite…and with today’s Foxification of our corporate media that’s ALL that counts.
By time I climbed the stairs out of the subway into the blazing sun, I had definitely seen the light. Thanks to God.
rfd
Sunday, June 25, 2006
FORE-gotten: An Ode to the Woods
“You have quick hands, you must be a golfer,” the gentleman told me as my finger hit the ‘door open’ button just as the elevator was closing in on him.
“Nah, don’t play much…but I used to love it!” I then recalled those days of pine and glory. I’d light up an Antonio and Cleopatra and lay it on nature’s scalp before swinging away. (I got a special thrill from this, I guess because the cigar was a pure substance of the ground and this sort of connected me to mother earth as well—I GUESS). Then I’d look at those fairways that just begged for a down-the-middle drive and the tall trees and sand traps that inevitably ended up with it.
Yet the game for me was not about the score as I learned early on that golf was not my destiny. Instead, the game was about the sights, the sounds, the feel, even the smells. Who can’t appreciate GOLF AROMAS: fertilizer, fresh cut grass and clubhouse chips, dogs, nuts and nabs! And I couldn’t wait to prance across those cushy soft greens, which were noticeably harder in seasons of draught.
But the most satisfying of all—even better than sinking a long putt—was the sound of that perfect drive off my Ben Hogan wood. Whoosh…THWAP! and about one drive out of twenty the ball’d be where I always looked (I always thought positive): high, down the middle and respectably long. There was nothing that felt as good as a solid wood-on-ball strike… well, I do exaggerate here, there are LOTS of things that are better than that, but it was sweet, as you who golf know.
As a boy I occasionally went with my dad and his foursome. I loved to look at those duck-headed clubs, the shiny shades of wood kept in colorful covers of all varieties. I knew right then and there that one rite of manhood, other than wearing boxer shorts and pleated pants, would be the day I could take a controlled swing with that NUMBER ONE WOOD. Not the 3 or 4 woods, which were fun to swing because they were still woods, yet so much lighter. Nah, they were just tricycles. The big test was the DRIVER!
So it surprised me to learn that you can’t even FIND a wood today—they’re all big ol’ metal heads now. Space-aged titanium and alloys and grotesquely large heads that give golfers a larger sweet spot. Seems golfers are not traditionalists, they just really want the best chance of having the longest, and most accurate drives.
The woods have gone the way of the bat, replaced by today’s technology that either enhances performance or economy. Free markets apply to golf so there are no laws against this kind of progress, nor should there be. Yet like other areas of life where personal values check behavior and choice a collective desire to cherish tradition could bring back the wood.
I prefer to honor the THWAP! of tradition, so I will the wood. Alas, most will ping away and go for the win.
-------------------------------------------------
*ASTERISK*
Today’s athletic feats, be they home run records, field goals or sprints—impressive as they are—must mostly be asterisked for if it isn’t space-age equipment changes, then it’s one of many evolutionary advantages today’s athletes enjoy vis-Ã -vis yesterday’s legends. These include vastly higher nutritional opportunities, a greater public placement of value (even national pride), hype and DOLLARS on athleticism, as well as a quantum jump in equipment options and technology.
“Nah, don’t play much…but I used to love it!” I then recalled those days of pine and glory. I’d light up an Antonio and Cleopatra and lay it on nature’s scalp before swinging away. (I got a special thrill from this, I guess because the cigar was a pure substance of the ground and this sort of connected me to mother earth as well—I GUESS). Then I’d look at those fairways that just begged for a down-the-middle drive and the tall trees and sand traps that inevitably ended up with it.
Yet the game for me was not about the score as I learned early on that golf was not my destiny. Instead, the game was about the sights, the sounds, the feel, even the smells. Who can’t appreciate GOLF AROMAS: fertilizer, fresh cut grass and clubhouse chips, dogs, nuts and nabs! And I couldn’t wait to prance across those cushy soft greens, which were noticeably harder in seasons of draught.
But the most satisfying of all—even better than sinking a long putt—was the sound of that perfect drive off my Ben Hogan wood. Whoosh…THWAP! and about one drive out of twenty the ball’d be where I always looked (I always thought positive): high, down the middle and respectably long. There was nothing that felt as good as a solid wood-on-ball strike… well, I do exaggerate here, there are LOTS of things that are better than that, but it was sweet, as you who golf know.
As a boy I occasionally went with my dad and his foursome. I loved to look at those duck-headed clubs, the shiny shades of wood kept in colorful covers of all varieties. I knew right then and there that one rite of manhood, other than wearing boxer shorts and pleated pants, would be the day I could take a controlled swing with that NUMBER ONE WOOD. Not the 3 or 4 woods, which were fun to swing because they were still woods, yet so much lighter. Nah, they were just tricycles. The big test was the DRIVER!
So it surprised me to learn that you can’t even FIND a wood today—they’re all big ol’ metal heads now. Space-aged titanium and alloys and grotesquely large heads that give golfers a larger sweet spot. Seems golfers are not traditionalists, they just really want the best chance of having the longest, and most accurate drives.
The woods have gone the way of the bat, replaced by today’s technology that either enhances performance or economy. Free markets apply to golf so there are no laws against this kind of progress, nor should there be. Yet like other areas of life where personal values check behavior and choice a collective desire to cherish tradition could bring back the wood.
I prefer to honor the THWAP! of tradition, so I will the wood. Alas, most will ping away and go for the win.
-------------------------------------------------
*ASTERISK*
Today’s athletic feats, be they home run records, field goals or sprints—impressive as they are—must mostly be asterisked for if it isn’t space-age equipment changes, then it’s one of many evolutionary advantages today’s athletes enjoy vis-Ã -vis yesterday’s legends. These include vastly higher nutritional opportunities, a greater public placement of value (even national pride), hype and DOLLARS on athleticism, as well as a quantum jump in equipment options and technology.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Pooped and Pooped upon...
I’m tired—pooped (no sleep last night as an old fraternity brother was in for a funeral then a 6 am flight to NY, followed by a sultry pavement pounding day, ending with a Vegan eatery’s candlelit reading of a NY Times editorial, The Call of the Gun Lobby, that prods this output) —but simply MUST use whatever coherence I yet have to share this latest in a long, long line of Republican Congressional travesties (okay Republican friends, I see I’ve already lost you with that, but please read on).
With Bush railing against terrorists, with “national security his constant credo, the Republican-led House is set to make POLICE OFFICERS FELONS for sharing data on ILLICET GUN DEALERS all because of the GUN LOBBY, its influence, its MONEY. Additionally, since Bush has taken office he has hidden vital information about illegal gun trafficking—classifying it as a “state secret”—thus “putting the privacy of unscrupulous gun dealers over the safety of the public.” NY Time editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/opinion/19mon1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.
This echoes the UNBELIEVABLE post 9/11 sell-out that protected the ability of terrorists and other criminals to get guns by forbidding the sharing of gun purchase records between law enforcement agencies, then mandating the destruction of all such purchase. This severely undercuts Bush warnings of terrorism for how serious can that be if the same wolf-cryers are so cavalier about laws that are aimed at catching them……………………………………………………………………………………………………….,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, the terrorists……..slee-e-e-p, s-le-e-ep, YAWN, sl-e-e-e-e-e-e-p-pp…………y…….//,’;;;/..
NO! No, NO SLEEP---THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING-- WE have been doing!! WE ARE ALL ASLEEP. We go about our affairs, kid’s softball games, club golf foursomes, cookouts, business trips, backyard burgers, weddings, reunions, x-boxes, gardening, etc. etc. either unaware of the perverse sell out of our common interests to power and influence, all the illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll (that is my fingers laying on the l key as I doz-z-z-e off).
Just think of their brazenness, that if they are so openly on the take by making policemen FELONS FOR DOING THEIR JOB PROTECTING US!!!!!!, how much more are they selling us out on matters much further under the radar screen????
Republican friends—do me a favor—don’t vote Democratic, for you think I am just slamming the GOP. Well…. I AM, and have been slamming TODAY’S utterly corrupt Republican Party which has turned utterly Jekyllian from the honor of Ike, even, GASP, Nixon and the fine Gerry Ford.
NO, NO, NO, Democrats have NOT acted against the greater public interest to anywhere NEAR the same degree or on as many fronts as these Republicans. Some of you say “I agree that these guys are bad, but where is a Democrat I can truly trust to do better?” …………….Oh, the heck with it, good knight…er night. I’ve said ljpijkllll what I wanted t ol and what difference dossss ………..
With Bush railing against terrorists, with “national security his constant credo, the Republican-led House is set to make POLICE OFFICERS FELONS for sharing data on ILLICET GUN DEALERS all because of the GUN LOBBY, its influence, its MONEY. Additionally, since Bush has taken office he has hidden vital information about illegal gun trafficking—classifying it as a “state secret”—thus “putting the privacy of unscrupulous gun dealers over the safety of the public.” NY Time editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/opinion/19mon1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.
This echoes the UNBELIEVABLE post 9/11 sell-out that protected the ability of terrorists and other criminals to get guns by forbidding the sharing of gun purchase records between law enforcement agencies, then mandating the destruction of all such purchase. This severely undercuts Bush warnings of terrorism for how serious can that be if the same wolf-cryers are so cavalier about laws that are aimed at catching them……………………………………………………………………………………………………….,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, the terrorists……..slee-e-e-p, s-le-e-ep, YAWN, sl-e-e-e-e-e-e-p-pp…………y…….//,’;;;/..
NO! No, NO SLEEP---THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING-- WE have been doing!! WE ARE ALL ASLEEP. We go about our affairs, kid’s softball games, club golf foursomes, cookouts, business trips, backyard burgers, weddings, reunions, x-boxes, gardening, etc. etc. either unaware of the perverse sell out of our common interests to power and influence, all the illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll (that is my fingers laying on the l key as I doz-z-z-e off).
Just think of their brazenness, that if they are so openly on the take by making policemen FELONS FOR DOING THEIR JOB PROTECTING US!!!!!!, how much more are they selling us out on matters much further under the radar screen????
Republican friends—do me a favor—don’t vote Democratic, for you think I am just slamming the GOP. Well…. I AM, and have been slamming TODAY’S utterly corrupt Republican Party which has turned utterly Jekyllian from the honor of Ike, even, GASP, Nixon and the fine Gerry Ford.
NO, NO, NO, Democrats have NOT acted against the greater public interest to anywhere NEAR the same degree or on as many fronts as these Republicans. Some of you say “I agree that these guys are bad, but where is a Democrat I can truly trust to do better?” …………….Oh, the heck with it, good knight…er night. I’ve said ljpijkllll what I wanted t ol and what difference dossss ………..
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Where are the Lions?
I recall a youthful Sunday in church when this warning from Jesus totally baffled me: “you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.” (MT 24:9, LK 21:17).
Huh?! Everybody was a Christian. In fact, it seemed to me to be just the opposite, if you weren’t a Christian, you were more likely to be scorned. I simply could not conceive of being in a threatened position by being a Christian. [However, years later I DID feel so threatened by being a follower of Jesus, which is NOT necessarily the same as being “Christian.” A subsequent essay will detail this experience].
Ever since, I had often wondered just how that kind of persecution would be and what turn of events would have to occur before we “Christians” would experience what Jesus was talking about. Would the butcher, the baker or burger maker suddenly scowl as a believer walked by? Would the cop on the beat or political powers that be clamp down on us a la Nazi Germany and the Jews?
The early Christians in Rome came to mind. Visions of lions devouring our faithful-unto-death bodies, releasing our souls to eternity, consumed me, even though I supposed the Christian-riddin’ death machine would more probably match the technology of the times. In America, and most of the world, cries of persecution are ludicrously false.
Yet hearing the shouts of many Christians today, one would think Christianity is under a severe state of siege. Cackles from the highest tabernacles cry “persecution!!” Behind every “Happy Holidays,” every Constitutionalist separator of church and state, every proponent of equal treatment for all people under the law lurks the lion of Christian persecution.
These pretensions are a total distortion of Jesus’ teachings and they demean the very real persecutions of the early Christians. In fact they are nothing more than a part of the plan to instill Christianity as the official state religion, wrongly entwining it within our government.
Hmmm, you might ask—“What’s wrong with having God direct our affairs, we even print our money with ‘In God We Trust’?” Here is the disconnect: First, God, as perceived by the deists who founded our country, and the Universal Moralists today, is truly universal in nature, as such God is God as God of all—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Zoroastrian, even agnostic and atheist.
Second, the Christian crusade to revolutionize America is totally against the teachings, principles and life of Jesus himself, the namesake and central figure upon which Christianity supposedly exists!
Jesus would never “Lord” himself over anybody. He never sought to create a political order, a government or nation. Indeed Jesus said: “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." John 18:36.
On the contrary, today’s evangelicals have become a political monolith, the surging wind beneath the Republican Party and part of the GOP’s very strategy for dominance. Their leadership uses lies, deceit, raw power and military might, packaging Manifest Destiny and end-times prophecy to energize and enthuse its Evangelical base.
Why do the “Left Behind” Christians fail to see the vast difference between their actions and Jesus’ teachings? Jesus himself said that “…I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." John 18:37. And that truth is nowhere more clear than in his Sermon on the Mount (MT 5:3-10), the TRUTH that God blesses those who put their faith in God, not man-made weaponry or ideologies, that God blesses the mournful, the gentle and lowly, those hungering for justice and work for peace, those who are merciful and whose hearts are pure, and finally God blesses those persecuted—TRULY persecuted—for righteousness sake. To all these will come God’s Kingdom.
Instead, the current leadership preaches division, fear and hatred. They constantly stoke the fires of the “Clash of Civilizations” between Islam and Christianity—a lie, a damned lie, if there ever was one. They preach fear and hatred of anything that varies with their own version of the truth, be it evolution, stem-cell research, animal rights, or equal human rights.
It is one thing to preach the Gospel (the TRUTH) to all nations as Jesus directed, but quite another to force upon any nation, including our own, a man-made religious doctrine about how to interpret, teach and live by that truth. Otherwise we end up with lies, damned lies, and falsities that discard truth, that throw science in the trash and exalts “biblical inerrancy.”
Subsequent essays will show that much of the Bible is allegorical as well as contextual, but suffice it to say that the mentality that IS NOW CONTROLLING our nation’s government is the same that denounced Galileo for saying that the universe did not revolve around the earth, but that the earth revolved around the sun.
Today, the lion devours truth, and it often wears a Christian mantle.
Rfd 6/18/06
POSTSCRIPT:
Kevin Phillip’s latest book, American Theocracy, foretells the disaster facing America should we fail to check the ruinous confluence of religious fanaticism, unprecedented national debt and the inevitable decline of oil. Phillips, a former REPUBLICAN strategist and Nixon Administration member, is a stickler for the lessons of history, and he compares the nearly exact scenarios that faced—and brought down—both the Dutch and the English in centuries past.
Huh?! Everybody was a Christian. In fact, it seemed to me to be just the opposite, if you weren’t a Christian, you were more likely to be scorned. I simply could not conceive of being in a threatened position by being a Christian. [However, years later I DID feel so threatened by being a follower of Jesus, which is NOT necessarily the same as being “Christian.” A subsequent essay will detail this experience].
Ever since, I had often wondered just how that kind of persecution would be and what turn of events would have to occur before we “Christians” would experience what Jesus was talking about. Would the butcher, the baker or burger maker suddenly scowl as a believer walked by? Would the cop on the beat or political powers that be clamp down on us a la Nazi Germany and the Jews?
The early Christians in Rome came to mind. Visions of lions devouring our faithful-unto-death bodies, releasing our souls to eternity, consumed me, even though I supposed the Christian-riddin’ death machine would more probably match the technology of the times. In America, and most of the world, cries of persecution are ludicrously false.
Yet hearing the shouts of many Christians today, one would think Christianity is under a severe state of siege. Cackles from the highest tabernacles cry “persecution!!” Behind every “Happy Holidays,” every Constitutionalist separator of church and state, every proponent of equal treatment for all people under the law lurks the lion of Christian persecution.
These pretensions are a total distortion of Jesus’ teachings and they demean the very real persecutions of the early Christians. In fact they are nothing more than a part of the plan to instill Christianity as the official state religion, wrongly entwining it within our government.
Hmmm, you might ask—“What’s wrong with having God direct our affairs, we even print our money with ‘In God We Trust’?” Here is the disconnect: First, God, as perceived by the deists who founded our country, and the Universal Moralists today, is truly universal in nature, as such God is God as God of all—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Zoroastrian, even agnostic and atheist.
Second, the Christian crusade to revolutionize America is totally against the teachings, principles and life of Jesus himself, the namesake and central figure upon which Christianity supposedly exists!
Jesus would never “Lord” himself over anybody. He never sought to create a political order, a government or nation. Indeed Jesus said: “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." John 18:36.
On the contrary, today’s evangelicals have become a political monolith, the surging wind beneath the Republican Party and part of the GOP’s very strategy for dominance. Their leadership uses lies, deceit, raw power and military might, packaging Manifest Destiny and end-times prophecy to energize and enthuse its Evangelical base.
Why do the “Left Behind” Christians fail to see the vast difference between their actions and Jesus’ teachings? Jesus himself said that “…I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." John 18:37. And that truth is nowhere more clear than in his Sermon on the Mount (MT 5:3-10), the TRUTH that God blesses those who put their faith in God, not man-made weaponry or ideologies, that God blesses the mournful, the gentle and lowly, those hungering for justice and work for peace, those who are merciful and whose hearts are pure, and finally God blesses those persecuted—TRULY persecuted—for righteousness sake. To all these will come God’s Kingdom.
Instead, the current leadership preaches division, fear and hatred. They constantly stoke the fires of the “Clash of Civilizations” between Islam and Christianity—a lie, a damned lie, if there ever was one. They preach fear and hatred of anything that varies with their own version of the truth, be it evolution, stem-cell research, animal rights, or equal human rights.
It is one thing to preach the Gospel (the TRUTH) to all nations as Jesus directed, but quite another to force upon any nation, including our own, a man-made religious doctrine about how to interpret, teach and live by that truth. Otherwise we end up with lies, damned lies, and falsities that discard truth, that throw science in the trash and exalts “biblical inerrancy.”
Subsequent essays will show that much of the Bible is allegorical as well as contextual, but suffice it to say that the mentality that IS NOW CONTROLLING our nation’s government is the same that denounced Galileo for saying that the universe did not revolve around the earth, but that the earth revolved around the sun.
Today, the lion devours truth, and it often wears a Christian mantle.
Rfd 6/18/06
POSTSCRIPT:
Kevin Phillip’s latest book, American Theocracy, foretells the disaster facing America should we fail to check the ruinous confluence of religious fanaticism, unprecedented national debt and the inevitable decline of oil. Phillips, a former REPUBLICAN strategist and Nixon Administration member, is a stickler for the lessons of history, and he compares the nearly exact scenarios that faced—and brought down—both the Dutch and the English in centuries past.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Life, Death, Rats and Bugs that go Splat!
Today began with Life and Death, and ended with it too. Life: a cool-aired morning run, under crystalline azure blue skies, vivid green leaves waving appreciation for their newly-budded life, bird songs of every feather, like that of a South Pacific tropical island. High overhead a circling hawk soared, its stationary wings riding the airwave in easy, wide arcs. Life, freely roaming, freely happening as I filled my lungs with the what’s still free*.
*[Let the corporate, capitalist privatizers find a way to control our air and we’ll REALLY BE IN TROUBLE! We MUST, WE MUST, WE MUST take back our water, and put it in the public domain. NO essential resource should be subject to private profit. Food is plentiful and there is much, much competition, so it is different. Oil and coal…well, now we know why many countries nationalize those industries, for their greater public good.]
The radio drive to work brings death: Iraq, railroad crossings and rats. Yes, rats on the local morning talk show with the local “balanced” talk show. Turns out a condemned property is overrun with that furry mammal, so cute and cuddly as a Beanie Baby, or as one of its cousins, the squirrel, but as a rat, well, they rate as only disgusting vermin.
A PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) spokesperson suggested capture and lethal injection as a much more humane way to dispose of the rats. The hostess was aghast—“But they’re RAT-T-T-S! Disgusting vermin, all we want to do is KIL=L-L them!” The talk show hostess was so, so dismissively condescending and incredulous that the young lady could even suggest a more humane way to handle the problem.
But she did not even stop to consider: a) it costs about the same, 2) it is HEALTHIER for humans, because once the rat is poisoned, it runs off to who knows where before it dies, to then rot, attract germs, maggots, YECH-H-H. Further, that approach and attitude is consistent with her stands, which seem to mirror most of the other “fair and balanced” camp, on everything from immigration to capital punishment: DEATH, death of the body, death of the spirit, and death of hope.
She and they would imprison illegals and, any who aid or abet them, and send them back, period. They believe in the death penalty, period. No deeper thinking, just raw eye for an eye emotionalism. The states with the HIGHEST murder rate are death penalty states, those with the lowest—countries as well—ban capital punishment. Immigration is likewise fraught with policy and fairness issues to make their “rack ‘em up” solution foolhardy as well as hard-hearty.
Well, a long time former employee, Brian Gibbs, passed away and I drove to the most northeastern tip of Kentucky, South Shore, on the Ohio border. Like all drives through rural Kentucky, it was just beautiful. Rolling green hills, trees, forests, and farmlands. One thing about a one-stop light town is that the funeral home is real easy to find. Inside was his family, who were all very appreciative of my visit.
Then, there was Brian. He had suffered a form of cancer and got a bone marrow transplant from his brother a few years ago. It affected his immune system and he started wasting away over the last 6 months. He was literally a ghost of the robust, smiling spirit that I knew—down to 100 pounds. I cried as I saw him lying in the box, with our trademarked bugler logo on the lapel of his suit. I tear up now thinking about that: such a great person, loyal to our company—he worked in FOUR different towns, wherever we needed him to go, and now we will be with him, where he goes.
All there seemed in good spirits, there was laughter and good cheer, as one might expect after a long awaited suffer-releasing death, the initial grief gone. The sense was that HE has graduated and is truly in the best place, blazing a path to welcome us some day. It was hope. It was peace. It was life. It was good.
Said my good byes and hit the road again. It was night now and there is one thing about driving in rural Kentucky on a spring/summer night: BUGS, BUGS, BUGS galore! Bugs of all sort, and with the high beam it looked like snow! But instead of the soft powdery landing of flakes, it was SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT on the windshield. Life free flying through the wild Kentucky night one second, SPLAT, life OVER the next.
Do bugs think? Perhaps they were returning from or going to a date. Maybe to eat, or just to sightsee. Like the trillions before them, little did they know they’d end up as window décor. No eulogies, no tears, no lover’s remorse. Just the chipped rubber blade of the next gas stop’s squeegee.
As I thanked my lucky stars that I was the squeeg-er and not the squeeg-ee I stopped at a CVC to get the only sensitive skin pre-electric lotion I know of. A very cute young lady rang me up…and after all that death, I never felt more alive!
Rfd 6/8/06
*[Let the corporate, capitalist privatizers find a way to control our air and we’ll REALLY BE IN TROUBLE! We MUST, WE MUST, WE MUST take back our water, and put it in the public domain. NO essential resource should be subject to private profit. Food is plentiful and there is much, much competition, so it is different. Oil and coal…well, now we know why many countries nationalize those industries, for their greater public good.]
The radio drive to work brings death: Iraq, railroad crossings and rats. Yes, rats on the local morning talk show with the local “balanced” talk show. Turns out a condemned property is overrun with that furry mammal, so cute and cuddly as a Beanie Baby, or as one of its cousins, the squirrel, but as a rat, well, they rate as only disgusting vermin.
A PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) spokesperson suggested capture and lethal injection as a much more humane way to dispose of the rats. The hostess was aghast—“But they’re RAT-T-T-S! Disgusting vermin, all we want to do is KIL=L-L them!” The talk show hostess was so, so dismissively condescending and incredulous that the young lady could even suggest a more humane way to handle the problem.
But she did not even stop to consider: a) it costs about the same, 2) it is HEALTHIER for humans, because once the rat is poisoned, it runs off to who knows where before it dies, to then rot, attract germs, maggots, YECH-H-H. Further, that approach and attitude is consistent with her stands, which seem to mirror most of the other “fair and balanced” camp, on everything from immigration to capital punishment: DEATH, death of the body, death of the spirit, and death of hope.
She and they would imprison illegals and, any who aid or abet them, and send them back, period. They believe in the death penalty, period. No deeper thinking, just raw eye for an eye emotionalism. The states with the HIGHEST murder rate are death penalty states, those with the lowest—countries as well—ban capital punishment. Immigration is likewise fraught with policy and fairness issues to make their “rack ‘em up” solution foolhardy as well as hard-hearty.
Well, a long time former employee, Brian Gibbs, passed away and I drove to the most northeastern tip of Kentucky, South Shore, on the Ohio border. Like all drives through rural Kentucky, it was just beautiful. Rolling green hills, trees, forests, and farmlands. One thing about a one-stop light town is that the funeral home is real easy to find. Inside was his family, who were all very appreciative of my visit.
Then, there was Brian. He had suffered a form of cancer and got a bone marrow transplant from his brother a few years ago. It affected his immune system and he started wasting away over the last 6 months. He was literally a ghost of the robust, smiling spirit that I knew—down to 100 pounds. I cried as I saw him lying in the box, with our trademarked bugler logo on the lapel of his suit. I tear up now thinking about that: such a great person, loyal to our company—he worked in FOUR different towns, wherever we needed him to go, and now we will be with him, where he goes.
All there seemed in good spirits, there was laughter and good cheer, as one might expect after a long awaited suffer-releasing death, the initial grief gone. The sense was that HE has graduated and is truly in the best place, blazing a path to welcome us some day. It was hope. It was peace. It was life. It was good.
Said my good byes and hit the road again. It was night now and there is one thing about driving in rural Kentucky on a spring/summer night: BUGS, BUGS, BUGS galore! Bugs of all sort, and with the high beam it looked like snow! But instead of the soft powdery landing of flakes, it was SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT on the windshield. Life free flying through the wild Kentucky night one second, SPLAT, life OVER the next.
Do bugs think? Perhaps they were returning from or going to a date. Maybe to eat, or just to sightsee. Like the trillions before them, little did they know they’d end up as window décor. No eulogies, no tears, no lover’s remorse. Just the chipped rubber blade of the next gas stop’s squeegee.
As I thanked my lucky stars that I was the squeeg-er and not the squeeg-ee I stopped at a CVC to get the only sensitive skin pre-electric lotion I know of. A very cute young lady rang me up…and after all that death, I never felt more alive!
Rfd 6/8/06
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Guilty!
Guilty! I sit guilty, Lord. Guilty of blocking the light you’ve given me. Guilty of straying from the path you’ve paved for me. Guilty of desiring more the favor of friends and the comforts of culture than pressing forth the principles you’ve implanted within me. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
Guilty! Guilty of failing to figure out a way to reconcile Dale Carnegie with Gandhi. Our political leaders persist in gross hypocrisy, hiding behind You while changing money for favors, selling out the least of us and acting with all means of hate, selfishness and greed. Yet my defiance makes the voters of them, the supporters of their party, upset with me, draws a line between us, makes Your love impossible, or at least most difficult. How do I smile with family and friends, how do I keep from offending or afflicting them as I stay true to the mission of justice and truth that is me? How Lord, how?
Guilty! Guilty of shielding my mind to war abroad and poverty at home with the distractions of plenty and pleasure. Guilty of soothing my conscious with trifling donations, exchanges of peace at church, prayers and tsk-tsks at daily headlines—“34 killed in roadside bomb in Baghdad.”
Guilty of deadening my senses, of rationalizing my paradise while murder and mayhem I condone by my friendly-faced silence. Guilty of the chaos and corruption I support with my taxes and “let’s get along and go along” pleasantries instead of round-the-clock Canary in the mineshaft cries of “LOOK WHAT WE’RE DOING, LET’S STOP IT NOW!” But canaries die. Jesus died.
Guilty! Oh woe, don’t want to die, Lord. Just let me lie, lie in peace with my pleasing luxuries and remain, safely, guilty…
...And then the Jesusian refrain: “Whosoever will save his life will lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake will save it.” And what is “Jesus’ sake” if not the Beatitudes—to live peace, live justice, live charity, live mercy, wish well for friend and enemy alike, turn over the moneychangers’ tables, tear down the walls of hate and intolerance, tear them down!
Not for one minute more should we tolerate theft from within by those in Washington. Not for one minute more should we engage in pre-emptive war sold on lies, continued on more lies. Not for one minute more should we sing “God bless America” while not also wishing that God Bless THE WORLD!
If I offend thee, I am sorry. If thou wouldst silence me, then deaf to ye shall I be. For I shan’t longer tarry with the work given me, so that from now evermore my guilt be set free.
Guilty! Guilty of failing to figure out a way to reconcile Dale Carnegie with Gandhi. Our political leaders persist in gross hypocrisy, hiding behind You while changing money for favors, selling out the least of us and acting with all means of hate, selfishness and greed. Yet my defiance makes the voters of them, the supporters of their party, upset with me, draws a line between us, makes Your love impossible, or at least most difficult. How do I smile with family and friends, how do I keep from offending or afflicting them as I stay true to the mission of justice and truth that is me? How Lord, how?
Guilty! Guilty of shielding my mind to war abroad and poverty at home with the distractions of plenty and pleasure. Guilty of soothing my conscious with trifling donations, exchanges of peace at church, prayers and tsk-tsks at daily headlines—“34 killed in roadside bomb in Baghdad.”
Guilty of deadening my senses, of rationalizing my paradise while murder and mayhem I condone by my friendly-faced silence. Guilty of the chaos and corruption I support with my taxes and “let’s get along and go along” pleasantries instead of round-the-clock Canary in the mineshaft cries of “LOOK WHAT WE’RE DOING, LET’S STOP IT NOW!” But canaries die. Jesus died.
Guilty! Oh woe, don’t want to die, Lord. Just let me lie, lie in peace with my pleasing luxuries and remain, safely, guilty…
...And then the Jesusian refrain: “Whosoever will save his life will lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake will save it.” And what is “Jesus’ sake” if not the Beatitudes—to live peace, live justice, live charity, live mercy, wish well for friend and enemy alike, turn over the moneychangers’ tables, tear down the walls of hate and intolerance, tear them down!
Not for one minute more should we tolerate theft from within by those in Washington. Not for one minute more should we engage in pre-emptive war sold on lies, continued on more lies. Not for one minute more should we sing “God bless America” while not also wishing that God Bless THE WORLD!
If I offend thee, I am sorry. If thou wouldst silence me, then deaf to ye shall I be. For I shan’t longer tarry with the work given me, so that from now evermore my guilt be set free.
Friday, May 19, 2006
To Kill a Mockingbird Meets Mr. Holland's Opus
A couple of weeks ago Judith asked if I would help out at the church tonight. My task, and one of only two reasons I was looking forward to the occassion, was to pour the wine…my cup included.
The other motivation: Reed Polk, as captivating and motivational a speaker as you could ask for. I have had the pleasure of knowing Reed through Rotary over the last few years. But until tonight I had no idea he grew up with Harper Lee ("Nelle"), author of To Kill a Mockingbird, in Monroeville, Alabama. In answer to a question, Reed says that he saw nothing in Harper that would suggest she would write her masterpiece. She was 10 years his senior and attended his church, where his father was the minister.
Now this is no small coincidence for me as To Kill A Mockingbird is my all-time second favorite movie (North by Northwest is numero uno!). Les and I were studying for law school finals and we heard it was playing at the student center. So we took a break to watch it and WOW! Perhaps it is because I went to law school for idealistic reasons, but seeing this movie was a defining moment in my life.
Turns out that awesome actors aren’t just born—they WORK it. Reed told me that the few weeks prior to shooting Gregory Peck went to Monroeville “undercover” as a homeless man. He had a tattered shirt, torn pants and a fake beard, and showed up at Reed’s church. The deacons were wary, but Reed’s father waved this itinerant—and insistent—hobo in. When alone with Mr. Polk, senior, Peck stood tall, ripped off his beard, extended his hand and said, “I am Gregory Peck and I want you to tell me everything you can about Mr A.C. Lee,” who was Harper’s father and the inspiration for Atticus Finch (Harper was Scout, Atticus’ daughter). He was a lawyer in real life and also taught Reed to play golf.
Harper said of Mr. Peck, "Gregory Peck was a beautiful man. Atticus Finch gave him the opportunity to play himself." Peck had a grandson named Harper, for her.
Truman Capote was Dill, the boy in the novel who spent summers with the Finch’s neighbor and who in real life became best friends with Harper. In fact, Truman encouraged her during her writing of To Kill a Mockingbird, and later, she encouraged his writing of In Cold Blood.
Reed tells of meeting Truman on the golf course back in the late 60’s down in Ole Miss. He told Truman that he was a new minister and used In Cold Blood as an example in his sermon to which the high-pitched effeminate voiced Capote cried “Jesus Chri-i-i-s-t!” Reed explained that just as the two criminals went to that rural Kansan house with mistaken hopes of finding fortune, many come to various churches with promises left unfulfilled. Again Capote cried, “Jesus Chri-i-i-s-t!”
[GO SEE “Capote” if you have not done so. Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote is absolutely incredible!]
Afterwards, during the reception, as I am pouring—and drinking—the fruit of the vine, FERMENTED of course, this is an Episcopal church after all—Reverend Sally’s husband, Dick, tells me of his prior career as a high school music teacher. His stories reminded me of Mr. Holland’s Opus, with Richard Dreyfuss, and sure enough, when he retired the school had a huge party with a banner as in the movie. He was in actuality a true-life example of Dreyfuss' portrayal of Mr. Holland, tears and all.
Life does imitate art—wait a minute, that’s reversed. But maybe not. As Reed exhorted us, in order to reach our goals we need only DREAM our painting, then PAINT OUR DREAM!
Rfd 5/18/06
Monday, May 15, 2006
Politics and Personal Relationships
Heart over head or head over heart—how shall I be ruled? I ask this question on election eve where I have 3 very good friends vying for the Lexington mayoral race. One, the incumbent Teresa Isaac, fits squarely within both heart and head. That is, she shares the same liberal philosophy as I and we and our families are lifelong friends.
Jim Newberry I know from our law school days and our tenure on the NCCJ board together. Jim is a conservative Democrat and a friend, so it is somewhat difficult to decline my support for him in favor of T.I. (but not too much so as he opposes city takeover of the water company).
Bill Farmer on the other hand is a real quandary: he is a strong conservative Republican AND a very close friend, my younger brother’s best friend. He even threw my engagement party, so giving precedence to my political head over my personal heart is difficult.
Yet--and this is where the ballot meets the box—Bill’s eager support for his party makes him equally complicit with the lockstep Republicans in Congress in what I view as the destruction of our democracy.
Like most liberals I believe in government: a) that benefits the greater public interest (welfare, health care, social security, housing, education, etc.), b) is honest and transparent and not beholden to special interests, much less outright bribes, c) operates in a multilateral fashion and does not engage in counterproductive, immoral pre-emptive war, d) that respects the separation of church and state. I truly and to the depths of my soul think the Republicans have over the last 25 years acted in near total opposition to ALL these principles and as such against most of what I hold dear.
So even a brother or sister, were he or she to run under the GOP banner, I could not support. Odd, I now understand why brother fought against brother in the Civil War. In essence, this is what I told Bill during our frank conversation.
Yet, I have now come to the realization that it is the HEART that should take priority in ALL circumstances. That is, no matter what my gyrations, no matter what logical and to my mind morally right arguments I may weave to buttress my philosophies, the political wheel will roll on as if I did nothing. Thus, “God give me the serenity to accept that which I can not change” is the tranquilizer that quells my political passions of late.
When Bill called this afternoon to get permission to quote my opposition to Newberry’s proposed sales tax increase, I would certainly have done so, but for the appearance of entangling our business. I DO oppose such an increase, so it would be honest. And I could look my liberal friends in the eye and say, “look, does it REALLY matter, he’s my friend, and in any case I will always stay true to my philosophy. Who knows, it may even rub off on him. As my Uncle Willy always said, you catch more flies with honey than you do with salt!
So I joke and laugh and cry and hug my conservative friends and family—all the while believing that the structure they support is stifling our nation. Yes, it’s important, yet I sense that try as I might, all my huffing and puffing won’t blow that house down.
Still, as my heart overflows my head recalls: “most people stop when they’re tha-a-a-t (thumb and forefinger spaced one inch apart) far away.”
Where the spirit leads, I will follow.
Rfd 5/15/06
Jim Newberry I know from our law school days and our tenure on the NCCJ board together. Jim is a conservative Democrat and a friend, so it is somewhat difficult to decline my support for him in favor of T.I. (but not too much so as he opposes city takeover of the water company).
Bill Farmer on the other hand is a real quandary: he is a strong conservative Republican AND a very close friend, my younger brother’s best friend. He even threw my engagement party, so giving precedence to my political head over my personal heart is difficult.
Yet--and this is where the ballot meets the box—Bill’s eager support for his party makes him equally complicit with the lockstep Republicans in Congress in what I view as the destruction of our democracy.
Like most liberals I believe in government: a) that benefits the greater public interest (welfare, health care, social security, housing, education, etc.), b) is honest and transparent and not beholden to special interests, much less outright bribes, c) operates in a multilateral fashion and does not engage in counterproductive, immoral pre-emptive war, d) that respects the separation of church and state. I truly and to the depths of my soul think the Republicans have over the last 25 years acted in near total opposition to ALL these principles and as such against most of what I hold dear.
So even a brother or sister, were he or she to run under the GOP banner, I could not support. Odd, I now understand why brother fought against brother in the Civil War. In essence, this is what I told Bill during our frank conversation.
Yet, I have now come to the realization that it is the HEART that should take priority in ALL circumstances. That is, no matter what my gyrations, no matter what logical and to my mind morally right arguments I may weave to buttress my philosophies, the political wheel will roll on as if I did nothing. Thus, “God give me the serenity to accept that which I can not change” is the tranquilizer that quells my political passions of late.
When Bill called this afternoon to get permission to quote my opposition to Newberry’s proposed sales tax increase, I would certainly have done so, but for the appearance of entangling our business. I DO oppose such an increase, so it would be honest. And I could look my liberal friends in the eye and say, “look, does it REALLY matter, he’s my friend, and in any case I will always stay true to my philosophy. Who knows, it may even rub off on him. As my Uncle Willy always said, you catch more flies with honey than you do with salt!
So I joke and laugh and cry and hug my conservative friends and family—all the while believing that the structure they support is stifling our nation. Yes, it’s important, yet I sense that try as I might, all my huffing and puffing won’t blow that house down.
Still, as my heart overflows my head recalls: “most people stop when they’re tha-a-a-t (thumb and forefinger spaced one inch apart) far away.”
Where the spirit leads, I will follow.
Rfd 5/15/06
Friday, May 12, 2006
Toast
A huge advantage to losing 35 pounds and being dead-on the “ideal” weight for my age and size is that I can eat bread again. Not that avoiding it did any good for as I fastidiously avoided any starchy carb I watched my weight steadily climb from 175 to 200 over a 5-year period. I was running and exercising as well, yet still my girth grew.
And now I know why: Diet Coke, or more precisely ANYTHING with Nutrasweet (Aspartame) or Splenda (Sucralose). You can see a photo of me from that period and note the “aspartame puff” as I call it. I attribute much of my weight loss from this elimination of all diet drinks. These artificial sweeteners make you GAIN weight by slowing your metabolism and reducing your brain’s secretion of seratonin.
PLEASE, for YOUR health, and anyone you care about—QUIT ALL DIET DRINKS AND Aspartame and Sucralose specifically. They also affect your neurology, decrease your energy level, create learning disorders for youth and cause cancer. [Please refer to my blog article for a detailed history of aspartame
http://peacecow.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_peacecow_archive.html].
I went cold turkey on not only aspartame, but also all meats—chicken, beef, pork (I still eat fish, but very sparingly)—and anything with hydrogenated oils, like basic peanut butter, margarine, crackers AND I limited my total calories to under 2000 a day.
I re-discovered whole, natural foods like nuts and grains and veggies and fruits as well as new-fangled choices like soy bologna, vegenaise, tempeh and tofu. And I mustered up all the courage I could to actually buy…BREAD! Wow—I was really living on the edge now—whole loaves of BREAD, on my counter and in my fridge.
Now I don’t get ordinary bread. Whole wheat, or spelt only. And I bought a new toaster, a spiffy Cuisinart 2-slot toaster--$39.99, with a digital dial, I couldn’t wait to have my first toast in many a year.
But it was quite by accident that I discovered the IDEAL toast, which for me is crunchy and nearly black. It was night and I was hungry so I plopped a couple of slices in and set it at level 8. But I fell asleep. So the next morning I saw the toast and instead of throwing it away I wondered what would happen if I re-toasted it at a lower setting, 2. Now I always keep a couple of slices "in the holster" ready for the second go-round.
Wow—that wonderful browned-bread aroma filled the house; only freshly ground Starbucks coffee smells better than that! The toast was perfect. I eat one slice at a time, slathered thickly with vegenaise, mustard and the soy bologna—my newest, bestest buddy!
And now I know why: Diet Coke, or more precisely ANYTHING with Nutrasweet (Aspartame) or Splenda (Sucralose). You can see a photo of me from that period and note the “aspartame puff” as I call it. I attribute much of my weight loss from this elimination of all diet drinks. These artificial sweeteners make you GAIN weight by slowing your metabolism and reducing your brain’s secretion of seratonin.
PLEASE, for YOUR health, and anyone you care about—QUIT ALL DIET DRINKS AND Aspartame and Sucralose specifically. They also affect your neurology, decrease your energy level, create learning disorders for youth and cause cancer. [Please refer to my blog article for a detailed history of aspartame
http://peacecow.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_peacecow_archive.html].
I went cold turkey on not only aspartame, but also all meats—chicken, beef, pork (I still eat fish, but very sparingly)—and anything with hydrogenated oils, like basic peanut butter, margarine, crackers AND I limited my total calories to under 2000 a day.
I re-discovered whole, natural foods like nuts and grains and veggies and fruits as well as new-fangled choices like soy bologna, vegenaise, tempeh and tofu. And I mustered up all the courage I could to actually buy…BREAD! Wow—I was really living on the edge now—whole loaves of BREAD, on my counter and in my fridge.
Now I don’t get ordinary bread. Whole wheat, or spelt only. And I bought a new toaster, a spiffy Cuisinart 2-slot toaster--$39.99, with a digital dial, I couldn’t wait to have my first toast in many a year.
But it was quite by accident that I discovered the IDEAL toast, which for me is crunchy and nearly black. It was night and I was hungry so I plopped a couple of slices in and set it at level 8. But I fell asleep. So the next morning I saw the toast and instead of throwing it away I wondered what would happen if I re-toasted it at a lower setting, 2. Now I always keep a couple of slices "in the holster" ready for the second go-round.
Wow—that wonderful browned-bread aroma filled the house; only freshly ground Starbucks coffee smells better than that! The toast was perfect. I eat one slice at a time, slathered thickly with vegenaise, mustard and the soy bologna—my newest, bestest buddy!
Crunch, crunch, crunch…ah-h-h-h!
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Dead Eye Dick and the Sun of God
Dedicated to one that I love[1]
Did you know they now make green softballs, kind of like the fluorescent tennis balls that have been out for decades? I found one in Woodland Park’s now fast-growing grass[2] while I was chatting with a friend—I on my daily walk, she reading beneath the tall oak’s verdant canopy.
Like most all macho men with a ball in hand during a bright spring day and in the presence of a fetching young lass[3] I just had to flaunt an athletic feat, so I feigned a high school nickname which never existed—“they used to call me ‘Dead-eye Dick’”—as an excuse to throw it at a tree way, way in the distance[4] and thus make her heart flutter with admiration.
My aim was true so as I continued my walk I followed my schoolboy bravado by tossing the ball up and catching it, to show my fine female friend just how athletic I truly am.[5] Up it would soar, then predictably down. On the next toss this yellowish green earthly ball peaked next to the blazingly white heavenly one, before bowing once more to the laws of gravity into my outstretched hands.
This law of physics had me musing about Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein and that it is through their supreme powers of observation that we know what we do about the truths of the world wherein we live. HAH! This juxtaposed coincidence of Heaven[6] and science struck me like a 100 mph fastball, and with it a realization that it must contain some higher truth.
The laws of nature are the laws of God, and as Einstein said, we can only know God through what we can observe in the world around us: “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.” Contrary to popular thought, Einstein was a big believer in God, not a narrow religious “God” but a Universal “all that there is” God.
Newton had a similar outlook: “This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being…In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence.”
So it is that the Earth’s two greatest scientists believed in a superior spirit, an Almighty, a Universal force, a God—just not THE God, that is, they did not believe in the God of Christians or Jews, or Muslims or Hindus. Nor even the non-existent God of the atheists. Rather, their acknowledgement is to a Power, largely unknowable except as to the “slight details.”
Of course, to think of the Theory of Relativity as a mere “detail” is mind-boggling, yet it does put in perspective just how much we DON’T know, yet is real, just not yet “discovered.”[7] Likewise, the opposite: how much we THINK is real, yet may be only illusion, namely what ingrained “truths”—in religion generally and Christianity specifically—are instead more a product of the tradition of man, than Universal Truth?
Yes, as I escape the binding straightjacket-hold of conventional Christianity, I find that it is the over-riding truth of Einstein’s God that has so far ripped me from the death-hold clutch of the traditions of man. Yet still I follow the teachings of Jesus, as those teachings embody and strengthen Universal Law.[8]
After all, what is making disciples of other nations if not living by example Jesus’ life teachings? It certainly can not be the mere cannibalistic drinking of his blood and eating of his body without the works that are consistent with his teachings: the stronger taking care of the weaker, the looking beyond pure self-interest to being other-oriented, the making, standing and if need be non-resistant dying for peace, the loving of all, including supposed enemies.[9]
One need not be a Christian, an acknowledger of Jesus--or any “religious” figure--to so order their life, and would nonetheless be following a path that maximizes the good, the truth, that is Universal Law.
But what of the Resurrection of the sacrificial Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world, so that all that believe in Jesus—and ONLY Jesus--have everlasting life?
Used to be, when I was immersed in the confines of traditional Church dogma that my whole belief system hinged on Jesus’ resurrection. If there was any chance that he did not rise from his death, then it ALL was for naught—there was no heaven, his life teachings void.
This was a true house-of-cards that caused me much, much angst in my youth, for though I did not at that time realize it I know that God was revealing to me a much larger truth. This youth-born seed has been growing into a study—which may become a book—that will free the hope of eternity from such tight constraints.
I see it as an application of Einstein’s search for truth in our sun-drenched physical world, to that beyond time and space.
And so it is seems that all the truth that could set us free is embodied as much in the Sun of God as the Son of God.
[1] Love. Both the highest human attainment, and at times just a four-letter word. There are many kinds of love. First, there is emotional love, which we easily experience, but often confuse with mere self-oriented pleasure. Within the emotional love category there is both CONDITIONAL love and UNCONDITIONAL love. Unconditional love is rare, and usually only by a parent for a child, and a pet for its owner. Even in marriage, one’s emotional love will be conditioned on loyalty and some measure of reciprocity from the other. Thus most emotional love is CONDITIONAL.
Second, there is AGAPE love, which is the love Jesus taught, where we love all--stranger, neighbor even enemy, and is nothing more than good intentions and actions given freely and indiscriminately to all. Agape love will often lack any warm fuzzy emotional component at all, such as when we do good to those that harm us. We need not like them to love them.
My love for the one to whom this is dedicated is both conditionally emotional and agape. Even though she does not reciprocate the affinity I have for her, still do I feel. And that is okay—sometimes the best love is one that is not ruined by its return!
Of course, my feelings are conditioned on her being the person I have known her to be—kind, considerate and non-malicious. Yet if that turned out to be the case, I would show (I hope!) the agape love that just lets it be.
[2] Early spring grass grows so fast and full it is reminiscent of the bushy, bushy big hair of high school girls.
[3]She was coincidentally near the gardenias and geraniums which are just now spewing forth their alluring fragrances.
[4] Typical exaggerated fish story. In fact the tree was just about 15’ away.
[5] I could hear Casey Stengel saying “you still got it, kid”, which is funny because I never had it to begin with!
[6] “Heaven” is both a subjective religious concept as well as an objective scientific reference to the universe beyond our atmosphere, such as “the heavens.”
[7] For instance, new species of animals and plants were recently discovered in the Foja mountain range of Papua New Guinea. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4688000.stm. And in the arctic, fossils of a fish with leg-like fins, offering evidence of the evolvement of finned fish to land lubbing tetrapods. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025464.600-first-fossil-of-fish-that-crawled-onto-land-discovered.html. The truth of these discoveries long, long pre-dated our recent realization of them.
However, we can use this same observation in matters of faith: just because there is no scientific proof of spiritual “heaven,” for instance, does not negate its possibility, much less its reality for those who believe. In fact, the essence OF faith is the belief in that which is not seen.
[8] The Golden Rule, for example, was postulated first by Confucius 500 years before Jesus. Yet it’s a cinch some obscure Chinaman/woman said it, indeed it is a Universal Truth that only awaited a human discoverer.
[9] See footnote 1 regarding the difference between emotional love and agape love.
MORE EINSTEIN QUOTES:
These thoughts did not come in any verbal formulation. I rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterward.Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977).
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.Quoted in H Eves Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977).
The world needs heroes and it's better they be harmless men like me than villains like Hitler. Quoted in H Eves Return to Mathematical Circles (Boston 1988).
If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.Address at the Sorbonne, Paris.
MORE NEWTON QUOTES:
Numero pondere et mensura Deus omnia condidit God created everything by number, weight and measure.
Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Two Maps—a World of Difference
The man now in Kansas, where I knew, came from Guanajuato, where I didn’t, so I went to the atlas. At once I was struck by the stark differences between the political and natural maps. The political world is a multi-hued patchwork of man-made borders. Pretty greens and pinks and blues and yellows denote continents, countries, confederations, counties and states.
The same areas on the natural map take on more serene quality.
It is the world in its truest, God-made natural state. No borders, just stretches of green, with ridges of black and brown for mountains and orangey-red for deserts all separated by vast expanses of blue. Life flows freely throughout the Natural World, while in the political world people are kept out—and sometimes in—by artificially created manmade borders.
This observation unearthed a truth that had been stubbornly buried within my subconscious: it is the disparity between Natural law (God) and manmade law that is at the root of human strife and suffering.
The subject of my search, Pedro Flores, is a case in point. Pedro was a farmer put out of business by drought. The only available water goes to the well connected few, leaving the distraught many barren of opportunities. Some, like Pedro come with the proper documentation. Others follow the natural yearnings of a better life, even mere survival. Ironically, they may end up in land that was once part of Mexico depending how far south in the US they go.
Many of those who come are farmers who were done in by the inequities of trade laws. NAFTA and US government subsidies have allowed American farmers to sell crops much cheaper than can Mexican farmers, who have no such subsidy. Mexicans who for generations have toiled hard on their land were suddenly plowed under through the laws of commerce and contrivances of governments beholden to special interests. Perversely, some may be working on farms that sell the corn that necessitated their northward migration to begin with.
Nature’s law is “live and help live,” which is a hallmark of the American character. In fact, Americans have largely welcomed and enjoyed our Mexican brethren. Yet we are nowhere near that idealistic state of perfect harmony that would allow people to roam as freely as the birds of the air. And so it is entirely reasonable regulate immigration into our country.
But we must make and adjust those rules in a way that best allows us to live in accord with Nature’s laws. That process will demand a high-minded collaborative process that treats fairly and with compassion all concerned: the American taxpayer, the immigrants now here, and those waiting to come.
The final policy might therefore include some of the following:
1) A guest worker program as President Bush has suggested
2) A requirement for employers of undocumented workers to enlist them in this program, collect payroll taxes and otherwise pay and treat them as our law demands for citizens;
3) A track to citizenship for those working and obeying our laws,
4) English only instruction with bi-lingual education only as a means to learning English
5) Job preferences for American citizens who otherwise meet job qualifications and employer expectations.
Americans are well versed in living by Nature’s highest laws. We need only remember that as we craft our own.
Respectfully, Richard F. Dawahare 4/19/06
Thursday, April 13, 2006
What if: “Forget Barabbas, give us JESUS!”
A newly discovered Christian manuscript recasts the treacherous double-crossing Judas as a loyal disciple who would surpass the others by agreeing to Jesus’ request to betray him. Shocking, maybe. But, since traditional Christian theology sees Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection as being a part of God’s plan for humanity’s redemption, then all of the events leading to God’s flesh sacrifice of his only son could be seen as having been similarly ordained by Him, including using Judas in this way.
It begs the question: what if Judas had protected Jesus instead? More significantly, what if the crowd, the chief priests and elders of that fateful day had said, “give us Jesus, our King, our Messiah!” For had the Pharisees and Sadducees accepted Jesus as Messiah, there would have been no trial before Pilate, no crucifixion and no atoning sacrifice of Christ, God’s paschal Lamb.
Think of it, the long awaited Messiah, accepted as such, instead of rejected. What would have changed in their world? How would the structure of their society changed, would it have stayed so changed, and what would our world look like today?
This scenario is fascinating because Christians have by and large been taught that the rejection of Jesus was mankind’s worst sin, and that he should have been recognized and accepted as the savior, God’s anointed son. Can you imagine the consequences that may have ensued from such obedience?
For one, it is certain that Jesus would have prevented his fellow Judeans from taking up arms against the Romans...or against any nation or peoples. Of course, this radical non-violent approach to peace and security could have fared no worse than the fate that ultimately befell them.
His principles of government administration seem easily predictable. Jesus would undoubtedly have integrated His lifelong teachings of compassion, of charity, of love and empathy. He would have policies that encouraged other-directedness--servanthood—especially from those who had more TO those with less.
Acts 4:31-37 describes the sort of economic system Jesus would most likely have instituted. There the apostles and townspeople, filled with the Holy Spirit of Christ’s resurrection, “felt that what they owned was not their own; they shared everything they had.” (Acts 4:32 NIV). “There was no poverty among them, because the people who owned lands or houses sold them and brought the money to the apostles for those in need.” (Acts 4: 34,35).
However, it is entirely possible that Jesus would have abdicated his throne for as he said, his kingdom was not of this world. What then? Would those same leaders and citizens that accepted Jesus as Messiah have stayed totally true to his principles in their administration? Are today’s?
If they did, and society continued in that vein, we would have achieved a veritable Heaven on earth. Yet it is hard to imagine humanity sticking to Jesus’ high ideals. Man’s lower nature would eventually corrupt this nirvana, be it by greed or envy, fear or ego. Indeed it is for remission of these inevitable sins that Jesus died on the cross.
It is on Jesus’ glorious resurrection that Christendom hinges its salvation and hope for life eternal. Yet it is only by rising to his ideals of behavior that we show ourselves loyal in this one.
Rfd 4/13/06
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Church and State: an Unholy Alliance
Truth’s path is naturally clear. It is the obstructions of man, the obstructions of our traditions, and especially the obstructions of our own minds that cloud its trail.
The popular pursuit of entangling religion—and particularly in the U.S., Christianity—with politics, the state and its government is perhaps the most difficult obstacle impeding our collective attainment of “truth,” which in the administration of our public affairs means justice, fairness and liberty.
Christians seeking to link church and state seem oblivious to the fact that the religion’s namesake—Jesus Christ himself—was totally and thoroughly opposed to this. He was, as Garry Wills notes in this EXCELLENT piece http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/opinion/09wills.html?_r=1&oref=slogin, in today’s NY Times, “the original proponent of a separation of church and state.”
This truth comes straight from the unambiguous text of the New Testament Gospels by which we know whatever we can know of Jesus and his teachings. If we are to "prepare the way of the Lord (and) make straight his paths" MT 3:3 we must begin and end by correctly understanding his teachings.
Then we can more clearly follow truth and through that be set free.
[PS: Keeping religion out of the state does not in the least negate the necessity of keeping Morality and Ethics within it. Morality and ethics are distinct from religion. Those of all religions, or NO religion, can live by their precepts in a universal fashion. The conflict and turmoil in our world today shows little we actually do.]
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NY Times April 9, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Christ Among the Partisans
By GARRY WILLS
Chicago
THERE is no such thing as a "Christian politics." If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: "My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here" (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program.
This is a truth that needs emphasis at a time when some Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not. He avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, "Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him" (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.
Those who want the state to engage in public worship, or even to have prayer in schools, are defying his injunction: "When you pray, be not like the pretenders, who prefer to pray in the synagogues and in the public square, in the sight of others. In truth I tell you, that is all the profit they will have. But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber and, locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father, and your Father who sees you in hiding will reward you" (Matthew 6:5-6). He shocked people by his repeated violation of the external holiness code of his time, emphasizing that his religion was an internal matter of the heart.
But doesn't Jesus say to care for the poor? Repeatedly and insistently, but what he says goes far beyond politics and is of a different order. He declares that only one test will determine who will come into his reign: whether one has treated the poor, the hungry, the homeless and the imprisoned as one would Jesus himself. "Whenever you did these things to the lowliest of my brothers, you were doing it to me" (Matthew 25:40). No government can propose that as its program. Theocracy itself never went so far, nor could it.
The state cannot indulge in self-sacrifice. If it is to treat the poor well, it must do so on grounds of justice, appealing to arguments that will convince people who are not followers of Jesus or of any other religion. The norms of justice will fall short of the demands of love that Jesus imposes. A Christian may adopt just political measures from his or her own motive of love, but that is not the argument that will define justice for state purposes.
To claim that the state's burden of justice, which falls short of the supreme test Jesus imposes, is actually what he wills — that would be to substitute some lesser and false religion for what Jesus brought from the Father. Of course, Christians who do not meet the lower standard of state justice to the poor will, a fortiori, fail to pass the higher test.
The Romans did not believe Jesus when he said he had no political ambitions. That is why the soldiers mocked him as a failed king, giving him a robe and scepter and bowing in fake obedience (John 19:1-3). Those who today say that they are creating or following a "Christian politics" continue the work of those soldiers, disregarding the words of Jesus that his reign is not of this order.
Some people want to display and honor the Ten Commandments as a political commitment enjoined by the religion of Jesus. That very act is a violation of the First and Second Commandments. By erecting a false religion — imposing a reign of Jesus in this order — they are worshiping a false god. They commit idolatry. They also take the Lord's name in vain.
Some may think that removing Jesus from politics would mean removing morality from politics. They think we would all be better off if we took up the slogan "What would Jesus do?"
That is not a question his disciples ask in the Gospels. They never knew what Jesus was going to do next. He could round on Peter and call him "Satan." He could refuse to receive his mother when she asked to see him. He might tell his followers that they are unworthy of him if they do not hate their mother and their father. He might kill pigs by the hundreds. He might whip people out of church precincts.
The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father's judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs — accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first.
He is more a higher Nietzsche, beyond good and evil, than a higher Socrates. No politician is going to tell the lustful that they must pluck out their right eye. We cannot do what Jesus would do because we are not divine.
It was blasphemous to say, as the deputy under secretary of defense, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, repeatedly did, that God made George Bush president in 2000, when a majority of Americans did not vote for him. It would not remove the blasphemy for Democrats to imply that God wants Bush not to be president. Jesus should not be recruited as a campaign aide. To trivialize the mystery of Jesus is not to serve the Gospels.
The Gospels are scary, dark and demanding. It is not surprising that people want to tame them, dilute them, make them into generic encouragements to be loving and peaceful and fair. If that is all they are, then we may as well make Socrates our redeemer.
It is true that the tamed Gospels can be put to humanitarian purposes, and religious institutions have long done this, in defiance of what Jesus said in the Gospels.
Jesus was the victim of every institutional authority in his life and death. He said: "Do not be called Rabbi, since you have only one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, the one in heaven. And do not be called leaders, since you have only one leader, the Messiah" (Matthew 23:8-10).
If Democrats want to fight Republicans for the support of an institutional Jesus, they will have to give up the person who said those words. They will have to turn away from what Flannery O'Connor described as "the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus" and "a wild ragged figure" who flits "from tree to tree in the back" of the mind.
He was never that thing that all politicians wish to be esteemed — respectable. At various times in the Gospels, Jesus is called a devil, the devil's agent, irreligious, unclean, a mocker of Jewish law, a drunkard, a glutton, a promoter of immorality.
The institutional Jesus of the Republicans has no similarity to the Gospel figure. Neither will any institutional Jesus of the Democrats.
Garry Wills is professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University and the author, most recently, of "What Jesus Meant."
Saturday, April 01, 2006
On the Eiffel Tower
You may already know how reviled this masterpiece was at its completion on this date in 1889, but it always make me wonder what in today's world is similarly hated (objects, concepts, ideas) that will be revered tomorrow. And the reverse--what today is accepted as good or normal that tomorrow will be discarded.
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(From The Writer's Almanac for Friday, March 31, 2006)
Today is the anniversary of the official opening of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (1889). It was built for the International Exhibition of Paris, commemorating the centenary of the French Revolution. At the time, it was the tallest structure ever built, at 1,000 feet. The architect Gustave Eiffel was a specialist in bridges and the design for the Eiffel Tower was based on his previous bridge designs. He chose to leave the tower's skeletal structure exposed because it was the easiest way to protect it from wind resistance.
When it was finished many Parisians thought it was horribly ugly. Artists and writers wrote a letter of protest, calling the tower a "truly tragic street lamp," a "mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed."
The writer Guy de Maupassant described the Eiffel Tower as, "A high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, [a] giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops, but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney." He hated the tower so much that he started eating in its restaurant every day, because, he said, "It is the only place in Paris where I don't have to see it."
It was almost torn down in 1909, after the expiration of its lease, but the city saved it because its antenna was so useful for the new invention of radio. It's now the most widely recognized symbol of Paris.
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