Atheism

Am I a theist?  No.  Am I therefore atheist?  Ah - a little more clarity is called for, no?  The correct, short answer is that I am a-theistic, or not a believer of any god concept.  But the way many people today use the word atheist is to ascribe to someone a belief while the individual is proclaiming non-belief.

Words in the English language always beg to be played with by nutty semi-linguists such as I.  (And I don't want to cheapen this by calling myself cunning.)

Fun with words and phrases can be kept in the humorous mode while also at times asserting subtle nuances, but we also have to be sure that our audience is able to laugh along with the supposed wit.  For instance, it's in the poorest of taste for anyone to make light of rape, even if it's legitimate!  (Sorry about that.)  But consider the opportunity offered in the language to muse on this strange coincidence:  After a woman is raped she would likely seek therapy - ergo, facing the prospect of walking right through the office door with a sign reading Therapist, or the rapist.  Probably not a very comforting idea.

But back to the subject at hand - words that deal with god or no-god, and how do we label ourselves?  That is the question.

One of the Free Thought Bloggers wrote this in a recent post:   At this moment, atheists dominate humanists, agnostics, freethinkers, rationalists, secularists and all those other squishy sub-categories who are still squirming at the ‘A’ label. If you’re not convinced that any actual deity really exists, then you’re an atheist.  It’s that easy.

Nope - not that easy!  And this assertion above is part of the reason it isn't easy.  The writer has a touch of the belligerent approach here.  If he isn't being actually militant in his stand, he is at least a bit aggressive and challenging - much like today's numerous vocal atheists who are challenging, maybe even militant, toward religionists.  He's not being merely not theistic but is actively opposing theists.  In the above comment, the writer also bates me along with other freethinkers, belittling our stance as timid or holding a weak position for one who is "not convinced an actual deity really exists."  While I am quite comfortable having no belief in and no concern whatever for a potential phantom deity, I am still not trying to challenge everyone I meet by using toxic terms.  Nor does this cry for peace between believers and non-believers make me a faitheist - that newly coined hybrid word that tries to cover those who are on some kind of fence between the two.  Even such a noted atheist as Michael Shermer has been labeled in this pejorative way, and also called an accommodationist, which is its own pejorative within a select group.  My personal life today (after years as a fundie and three-times as many years as an escapee), is far from any fence, walking boldly in any direction I choose but always away from that arcane world of belief.  More on this in a moment.

The trouble is in the meanings of terms, meanings that are continuously changing; in the case of atheist, the original meaning has long been slanted.  In most usage, it has lost the simple meaning of not a theist.  It actually could be likened to the current (and likely future) meaning ascribed to the word gay, as an example.  Though you may well be a person who enjoys life and might have said (in a time now past) that you were happy and gay, or that you had a gay old time at the party, why would you not likely now use that expression?  The meaning of gay has been altered and most heterosexual males, even if not homophobic, would typically not take the chance on using the term.  The desire to avoid confusion is essentially the reason many of us don't wave the flag of atheism.

One of my long-time friends, a former devotee of a cult I also represented as a minister, calls himself now an atheist, although he places qualifiers along with that term.  In his bio, he says that he has become an ardent agnostic atheist (that's one way to belong to triple-a).  I rather like the qualifiers.  A newer acquaintance who endured a long stint within the same quirky fundamentalist sect calls himself an atheist and doesn't qualify it.  Or at least, no qualifiers have shown up yet in our private communications.

Why have I never chosen to label myself flatly as an atheist?  I certainly am no longer associated with any concept of theism and have no interest whatever in whether there is or is not a god of any kind.  The matter of not claiming the atheist handle was, for me, quite simply the desire to stay more in a neutral zone.  Perhaps you've noticed the reference in my blog's title.

In actual fact, if we were all etymological purists, sticking with the original meaning of the term atheist should be neutral enough.  [One who is theistic believes in a god; one who is a-theistic does not.]  However, the usage has morphed over the years.  This may explain why many people who wish to seem less aggressively anti-god will refer to themselves as non-theists.  Like me, I suppose, these folks have heard over many decades the spitting out of the word atheist, knowing full-well that the speaker judged someone very harshly indeed for holding such a horrible belief.

And now the term belief comes into play, adding to the confusion.  Those inclined to believe in a god have come to see someone who is neutral (having NO belief in any god) as holding a belief that there is NO GOD.  Big difference here - again owing to the semantic nuances available within the language.  Having  no belief in a god is not the same as having a belief there is no god.  This very twist came up recently when I had written to an old friend that I no longer had any belief in any gods.  Her reply stated something about "If I believed there was no God,..." which immediately addressed the twist in meaning of words and phrases.

Though I don't often use Wikipedia as an authority on words, this is one time I chose to check into that source first.  Why?  Because that website is intrinsically a part of the realm of current and active usages that show up as accepted meanings for today.  The meaning given to atheist shows within the first short paragraph to be one of those ever-changing things.  You might call it definition-creep.  Today's common meanings of the words atheist and atheism have crept so far from the original that vast numbers of people seem to accept today only the altered  (incorrect) meanings.

This incorrect usage is so pervasive that even I, a reasonably dedicated semanticist, have been guilty of glibly utilizing the terms in a wrong way in some of my own writings.  In expounding upon my own coined expression devised to proclaim my separation from the whole shootin' match, I stated this:  Rather than calling myself an atheist, saying there is no god, or an agnostic, saying I don't know; I prefer my own term of theo-neutralist, meaning I don't know and I don't care.  So I perhaps got across my point of introducing a clearer personal label into the mix - clarifying my detachment - but in the effort, I misused the original word atheist in the way it is typically abused.  My apologies for that.

Atheist merely means not theist - not believing in a god.  The fact that over recent decades more and more people are stepping up to proclaim atheism as a way of life has begun to set and harden the altered meaning.  That's apparently because many of the new (zealous?) atheists are declaring that religion is doing little if any good for humanity and is usually harmful.  (I often make this case myself, and I believe it to be true of religion, whether or not there may be some invisible supreme being.)  These bold folks have inadvertently assisted in the drift of the term atheist from meaning no belief to meaning belief against.  While I applaud the effort as well as the fortitude to fight the uphill battle against entrenched belief systems, it probably would be better had the struggle started from a more sure footing by first establishing a positive meme rather than standing firmly on being not something else.  That approach eventually worked for protestants - those whose only basis for a label was their protesting against Catholicism - but the protest itself was more of a positive movement and was not as weak as merely saying I am acatholic.  That one probably would never have worked at all. 

The folks who call themselves Brights have an interesting approach.  Choosing to seek out a word that was not based on the negative - non-theist, a-theist, non-believer - they eventually landed upon the term bright, used as a noun, not intending to claim more brightness of mind or some special relationship to the sun perhaps, but meaning a positive position on life and a sound approach to the naturalistic worldview.  These folks express a bright outlook on what is and what can be understood rather than allowing themselves to be known for a lack of belief in the supernatural and mythological.  There is no way to tell yet whether this Bright meme will catch on significantly in the larger world, but it is rapidly growing as an online constituency of folks who share a positive, naturalistic view and want to see more civic accomplishment that is not guided and/or hampered by traditional religious views.

So to sum up, my simple reason for not using the atheist label is based on these two points: 1.) Just as Wikipedia reveals, the term no longer is accepted to mean merely not believing; common usage has made it a more militant belief against.  2.) My desire is to stand on a positive platform rather than just being someone who does not believe something many others believe.  My atheism is not my public persona. 

I am a Bright, I am a Humanist, I am a freethinker.  I love humanity but hate what humanity has done to itself through beliefs, most of which are strictly based in superstition and fear.

Dodged Another Apocalypse!

Yes, I am still here!

And here is actually at the home of my son and family - including my only grandchild.  Grammy & Papaw accompanied the family to the Tae-Kwon-Do studio this morning for the promotion ceremony where my grandson was awarded his purple belt.  That means he's a little over half way to the top of this martial arts regime, having only blue, brown and red belts to gain before entering the series of black-belt levels.  They seem to have broken it all into about twenty-five or so levels but with several designated by stripes on the various colored belts as they progress through the discipline.

I'm struggling a little with the whole concept but on the whole, it does appear to be the beginnings of some kind of disciplined outlook and interest in achievement on the part of this almost-seven-year-old.  He takes to the routine and is showing signs of being accomplished at taking instruction.

However, it is admittedly difficult for me to get enthusiastic about the whole thing.  First there's the fact that the visual of all these youngsters dressed alike in their white uniforms and standing at attention in a group, all falling into lines and following strict orders, brings startling reminders of the many militaristic modes within the human experience.  Not pleasant, to say the least.  Also the idea of my very special (to me) grandson falling in with all the others and made to look very UNspecial gives me pause.  And to further frustrate my sensitivities, it seems to me that all of these martial arts concepts and disciplines are precisely what they are labeled: art.  They surely are never very practical in the long arch of life unless the initial requirements of listening and following guidelines helps in some foundational way to begin forming social pathways to acceptable behavior.  I'd be interested to see some studies that link better citizenship and avoidance of gang activity that are substantively a result of these early training sessions.  Certainly the idea that anyone would ever expect to defend himself from would-be criminals, or even bullies, because he studied this ritualistic little art of holding poses and making interesting spins with precise hand gestures would be fool-hardy.

At any rate, while as a grandparent I am pleased to sit and watch him perform his forms and receive his accolades, I cannot do so without longing for the day when he gives it all up for piano lessons.  Those precise hand movements applied to a keyboard to create beautiful sounds - now that is the performance I would go a long way to attend!

And maybe now that doomsday didn't develop, there will one day come that opportunity to listen to my grandson the musical genius.  For now, I can merely love him and keep hoping.

Ready!

It's here.  12/21/12 - End of Days.  7:45 Pacific Time.  I'm WAITING!

(Oh, well, I suppose technically it will be more conclusive if I am here tomorrow.  Hope you will be too.)

Oh, Maya, Maya!

Yes, the title above seems to take the lighthearted view of the coming date that looms just ahead - December 21, 2012.  I have written about in an earlier post.

But try this on for size: the prophesy is very vague and perhaps it can all be seen as a positive and a leap forward for our human species.  How?

Thanks to lots of coverage online, we can all look about for various takes on the prevailing topics of our time.  The Mayan calendar having no progression beyond 12/21/12 has brought great fear and foreboding to many in our world.  A refreshing take on the subject is available at a blog site called The Token Skeptic in an interview with a professor in Australia.  I clicked on to the audio embedded and was pleasantly surprised to hear the astute and up-beat coverage of the subject by Dr. Gelfer.

Out of respect for my son and his preparation (mostly mental and emotional) for the coming date, I thought it incumbent upon me to look into it a bit more.  The Gelfer predictions made me very glad to have made the effort.  If you know anyone who has made comments of a serious nature regarding the Mayan calendar and the coming Dec. 21st "deadline," you just may want to listen to the audio mentioned here.  And maybe share Dr. Gelfer's views on the matter.

It's a quite amazing age in which we live.  What more can we make of life?  For my part, the act of connecting to the world via online chatter and contacts will continue to expand.  Beginning on 12/22/12, my focus will be on those bits of human accomplishments and attitude adjustments that may show that yes, in fact, we are experiencing a new world - the new day that follows successfully on the heels of the date that was predicted by many to bring the end of life as we know it.  This positive angle is fun to contemplate and will be delightful to witness following doomsday!

GUNS Kill People

The ease of firing a bullet into a human body, whether the gun is aimed with intent to kill or fumblingly fired by someone totally inept and/or unaware of the momentary hazard, makes gun deaths continue to soar in frequency.

The affection for guns has long mystified me.  I made my own out of sticks and pieces of discarded lumber when I was only six-to-eight years old.  Running around from tree to building to large rock on our farm property, dodging imaginary bullets fired by my brothers from other safe positions they had chosen for cover, seemed to be great fun.  We learned from radio and television shows that zinging bullets could be real challenges to avoid while trying to get in shots that would disarm opponents, generally doing just enough damage to them to be able to arrest or tie them up for later handling.  Killing was never the direct goal of those cowboys or G-men who carried guns; law enforcement was.

For the millions of guns owned or being bought today in our country, certainly the primary goal of the buyer is not murder.  Not killing at all.  Probably more than 90% of folks who buy guns will say they are for a combination of hunting and protection.  The remainder would probably say they are for the sport of target shooting of some sort.  Perhaps there are other reasons for guns that I simply haven't heard or thought of.  I'm sure others could inform me.

My point here is simply that other than for military usage, practically no purchaser of a gun would likely (at least openly) admit that the gun is for killing another human.

So why are so many humans killed by these guns?  Because they are there; they are handy when anger overwhelms someone or when fear of harm from another drives one to go for the fire power.  Of course it's true in all but the strangest of accidents, that guns don't do the job of taking a life; it takes a trigger finger.  Unfortunately, humans seem to have trigger fingers at the ready, and often very little provocation is required.

A spokesperson from the NRA was reported to have said this week that if the young mother of a little girl had owned a gun herself, she might be alive today.  That is, we are to assume, that if she had learned somehow that her housemate, a football player who was angry or unbalanced - probably both - planned to take his gun and shoot her nine times in front of their toddler, that she could have dashed to her nightstand or other private hiding place and pulled her own gun in self-defense.  Dr. Phil might ask, "How'd that work out for ya?"  That is, if either shooter survived.  He should ask the same of the NRA.

Interestingly, another report stated that both of these people did own guns and that they practiced their art of shooting as part of their togetherness, apparently compatible souls enjoying their 2nd amendment privileges as a part of routine fun of living.  Well, live-by-the-sword...

There simply has to be a way to curb the gun violence in our society.  There isn't any chance of such in my own home unless some misguided human invades my house with gun in hand.  I suddenly gave away my own rifles and shotguns after I looked at my own folly about forty years ago, while a young minister, and decided the shooting of pheasant, quail and dove was no way to seek pleasure.  Yes, my family typically ate everything I shot out of the sky, cautiously chewing because not all bird shot can be removed with absolute certainty.  But it was clear that tasty fowl were available from the frozen food department at the store - birds that had been grown for food, killed more instantly and humanely, cleaned and quick-frozen and leaving no tooth-shattering lead hidden inside.  My real station in life was not hunter/gatherer, living off the land.  And the sport part of it became nauseating to me once I focused on the incalulable number of wounded creatures I had left to die and rot after receiving not quite enough of my violent blast to kill them instantly.  It didn't hurt my new perspective either when an errant single lead ball from one of my shots through a tree managed to lodge itself in the eye of my friend.  Makes me wonder whether Dick Cheney quit hunting after shooting his friend in the face.

Though I personally cannot even imagine the taking of another human life, by the simple pulling of a trigger or in any other fashion, there are far too many people who can apparently do so.  Therefore, guns need to be less prevalent and not so easily grabbed in anger or fear.  I was alive and aware at the time and was emotionally shattered by the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  Perhaps even personally more assaulted five years earlier at the death by bullet of the President while I was still a teen.  But today when I hear the statistic that since the 1968 deaths of King and Kennedy, more than one and a quarter millions of humans have died of gun shots in this country, I shake with ire and question.  What are we?  And why can a society such as ours with all its wonders and capabilities not come to some better control of this senseless violence?  Why is it less safe here on our streets and in our homes than it would be living among wild animals? 

Answer to that last one: wild animals don't own or fire guns!

UPDATE 12/15/12
"angry or unbalanced - probably both -"  Adam Lanza, Newtown, CT

When will it get our full attention?  Adams mother, his first victim, surely knew of her younger son's mental problems (reported by his older brother), yet she provided the guns which were accessible to Adam.  Today, his mother and twenty-six others are dead at Adam's hand.  He then took his own life, but it's almost as though his mother did the same.  The guns were there.

IMAGINE

At this moment, I have no burning desire to spout any of my own philosophies.  It is my hope that you will check out my friend Al Dexter's blog, The Age of Reason - 21st Century.  He posted an embedded play of John Lennon's song which has long been my favorite lyric line ever written.

By the way, much of what Al writes allows me to read with pleasure and empathy; it is often like reading my own thoughts.

Enjoy  ---

Seeing Time

You're welcome to take that heading in at least two ways.

Every now and then there comes to my attention something I just have to pass along.  Such is the deeper look into the universe provided by this new (to me) photo from the Hubble telescope.

My eighty-seven year old friend, Dr. Bennett, former science instructor at Stanford University, has constantly reminded me recently that the latest estimate of the number of stars in the heavens stands at three sextillion.  That's a number quite unfathomable to all of us, so he helps clarify its magnitude by saying that it would be logical that a trillion or more of these may well be similar to our own sun, therefore to think that several billions of water planets like Earth might exist would be reasonable.

You know, this is enough information for me to more deeply appreciate the cosmos that is visible and knowable, and enough for me to have a more profound reverence for what IS.  My place in all this magnificent universe is obviously infinitesimal, but that fact doesn't drive me to fear and to a need for some mysterious super being to watch over me.

Perhaps there are superior intelligences out there somewhere - that doesn't frighten me; it thrills me.  What great numbers of possible life forms there may be!  Hopefully, many are more intelligent than even the vaunted human species.  It would be awesome if we could somehow interact.  Of course, who can know?  Perhaps one of those superior life forms will one day pick out OUR water planet and come here to force me to bow down and worship.  We'll see how that goes!

UPDATE:  Dec. 23, 2012
Found this brief bit from Neil deGrasse Tyson that I feel everyone should see.  Enjoy.

Thankless Job

Found in a user forum on a website I frequent:

I was disgusted that our current imposter president did not come before our nation to praise God on Thanksgiving.    [This would have put me off my feed and wasted a perfectly tasty meal!]

Also, in the destruction of hurricane Sandy, there was no appeal for God's mercy and protection from our "leader" before the storm struck. After it was over his statement was "the government will take care of you." Again no reference to God. No wonder our problems keep getting worse.

Even if there were a god, would his/her job not be to intervene early to turn the storm away?  Though to have a truly capable leader calling out to ask for "protection" would have been pathetic.  If any super being worthy of reverence had been around and attentive, the calming of the storm should have been a piece of cake.  However, many thousands of citizens of the midwest and south who have been knocked around for all of our history by tornadoes and hurricanes would have rightfully taken umbrage at such a show of favoritism in Sandy's case.  Then, once the damage was done, were we to beg that invisible being to pull bodies from the rubble and provide shelter and comforts to those already suffering?

There does not appear to be any way to prove the non-existence of a god or gods, but there is obviously a lack of involvement in our world on the part of any such traditional supreme being.  What would be the point of crying to a legendary phantom after we have already been flattened by the force of a natural disaster?  Especially, crying by governmental leaders!  The job of government is precisely what the president and others in elected office set about doing following the recent storm.  Seems a bit late to make some weak supplication to the heavens when your prayer mat has been washed away.

The responsibility of government is quite clearly to deal with reality, with determination and boots on the ground - not with desperation and knees on the floor.

Kill 'em All

The above heading was the exact formula suggested by a fellow class member in my college (religious school) International Relations class back in the mid 1960s.  The discussion at the time was the Middle East and particularly regarding the constant friction between Israelis and Palestinians over rights within the the disputed land settlements.  And he repeated it for effect.  Each time the instructor asked what might be done to solve the massive turmoil within struggling Palestine, my classmate shouted "Kill 'em all!"

Sadly, I always felt he meant it seriously.  He was not unlike many in the world, then and now, who simply see human life as expendable and someone with guts and resolve should call the shot.  George W. Bush proved his approach was not much different from this mentality.  As little as Saddam Hussein deserved to be the dictator of a country, he had as little reason to expect some other despot from a powerful nation half-a-world away to arrive with massive weaponry and armies to remove him.  But oh, wait, I have to tread softly here because a good many of my countrymen praised and will continue to praise that ignoramus for his brave stand against the horrible man in Iraq who certainly must have been developing major nuclear weapons.  Declaring an unprovoked war against another sovereign nation - the only time our own country has ever committed such a crime - well, that's just too bad.  Hussein needed to die!  Bad people in charge of other countries?  Kill 'em all!

Today's news from the Gaza Strip?  Same as in 1965.  Each side wants to kill 'em all.  Those other humans, those who disagree with us, do not deserve to live.  Let's just kill 'em all.  I suppose if one says this phrase often enough, the very word kill becomes less unthinkable, less horrifying, less criminal.

It's no wonder that so many humans on this warring planet still want to believe in an extraterrestrial supreme being; they can witness how inept we humans are at being what we are capable of being.  

Rock Solid

This falls under the heading of Rattle of the Sexes.  Be prepared!

Once again, the network news folks are all aflame over a sexual affair.  It happens rather frequently, wouldn't you agree?  Really?  Human beings having sex?!  How absolutely horrible!

But what I intend to address here is a new look at extra-marital sex, as practiced in our modern world.

Tom Brokaw was saying in a news commentary that families are far different from the way they were in his youth.  He covered briefly the fact that he, as others in his generation, typically grew up, left home and had only casual contact with parents - no more than weekly at best.  Then with his own offspring there was some adjusting to a more open togetherness and contact was a little more frequent as the kids became adults.  But he pointed out that today's families are far more inclined to share much more as kids grow up and more adults nowadays are living with parents, and not just for financial reasons; they are more involved with one another in their personal lives.

I found these comments by Mr. Brokaw quite perceptive and also a bit surprising.  Families are perhaps more open to sharing life and personal intimacies.  But at the same time, it seems to me that people are less likely nowadays to split up over such indelicacies as casual affairs.

The highly publicized, nationally shocking affair involving the four-star General who has been the head of the CIA until resigning ignominiously last week, has everyone excitedly talking.  Well, at least it's a big deal that has excited the news people who need things to talk about.

Interestingly, one reporter commented, along-side video of nondescript activities going on with the folks involved, that the two who committed this indiscretion were both married and that their marriages seemed to be rock solid.  Now think about this.  Human beings are nothing like rocks!  A woman may gush that her husband or significant other is "my rock," but that expression, while meant as complimentary, does not really describe another human.  No one wants a mate who is actually a rock!  The very large difference between hard, cold, unfeeling, inanimate rocks and real human beings is what has always kept humans interested in (maybe even excited by) other humans.  To date, no news has reached me about any wedding between a human and a rock.  Yes, I have known some humans who seem to be the children of such a marriage, having rocks in the head, but the concept is purposely being approached here as a silly way to make a point.

My point?  No marriage, no relationship of any kind is impenetrable.  We are not rocks.  Vows, promises, expectations, societal norms - all are constructs of the human condition, all aimed at protecting family and emotions while conquering fear of being lonely.

In today's world that continues to adjust to new norms and expectations, perhaps even beyond what Tom Brokaw has observed, some of the rigidity of rocks has maybe lost popularity.  Did everyone notice the attitudes of the people mentioned above, the subjects of today's Affair-of-the-Month?  After the big, explosive revelation precipitating the Earth-shaking resignation last week, the wife of the offending 60-yr-old General stated that she may have been partly to blame for the slip-up by her husband, and reporters said that the 40-yr-old other woman took off on a vacation with her husband.

No one can say how any of this blow-up will shake down between the individual parties and their mates, but to me, there seems to be some equanimity being expressed here.  Maybe these particular mates who are expected (by all of us and our excited news hounds) to be incensed and potentially violent - or at least litigious - are accepting the reality that they are not married to rocks.  Maybe these couples are talking things over calmly and just maybe their marriages are as sound and comfortable as they ever were prior to the world's knowledge that the participants were not made of stone.  Maybe there is coming to pass in our zany world, a recognition that within our agreements to live together in the new & improved world of marital understanding (or friendship sharing arrangements) that humans are fallible.  And fallibility can be fun!  Just maybe today's bonds of marriage are made of more elasticity.  Just maybe people are less concerned today with a partner being a rock and more into understanding how simply human it is to get your rocks off.

Just maybe we are entering a brave new world in which reasonable people will force society to become more adaptable, more forgiving, more realistic.  Personally, I find it more exciting to live with a warm human who can make mistakes than with a cold rock which can not.

Surprise Attack

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of
entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to
limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the
necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to
have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more
serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming
the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools
that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is,
after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools,
such as those who made him their President."

The above writing appeared quite by surprise in a very limited-audience website in the member forum section.  It appeared among several brief and lighthearted comments that a few other friends and I had been exchanging a day or two after some criticisms about the election had subsided.  Yes, this comment above was submitted by a fellow I have always called a friend, a man I had traveled a few miles to visit a year ago after having no contact since the 1960s.  During that visit we had shared a few words about government, and while he attacked "Obama-Care" I made it clear that I felt things were going to improve steadily and that the picture had already begun to improve early in the new administration but was halted by a recalcitrant congress after the 2010 elections.

My friend's retort to anything I said was all about how horrible Obama was for the country.  He got particularly glandular when he accused his own job loss on the new President, saying that the rescue of the auto industry was handled so badly that many such as himself had lost everything.

His personal upset was understandable (though it seems he would have had a better platform to criticize if no rescue had been accomplished), and his total rejection of the very idea that Obama could be re-elected made him lash out and vent his frustrations.  Still, I noticed that the quotation marks (above) were already there around his forum post.  Also, the verbiage didn't sound like the fellow I know.  I am assuming he found some harsh right-winger (a Limbaugh type) offering such a blast against the people who could be so stupid as to keep Obama in office.  Then this follower-type felt at liberty to post it for us all, even folks he might consider friends but who let him down by not voting for the (to me) unthinkable alternative.

My thanks again to all of my fellow fools who helped maintain some sanity in office, and a special thanks to those who brought back a few Dems to Congress to help the President.  Let's hope that in 2014, we can do the similar (opposite) number on the Congress that was done in 2010 when so much of the House turned red, which has kept us in red ink due to Republicans not cooperating with the President and his proposals for rebuilding.

Dixville Scotch

The votes from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire came in first as usual in this election year.  They were 5 to 5.  I'm wondering how these local combatants are faring today following the election.

In my little community, if we knew the actual voting results we would not have seen a 50/50 split.  Yesterday morning when I was taking my wife to the pre-arranged medical appointment, she said she hated that I had to give up my regular Wednesday golf just to help her.  I told her that it was perfect for me to be away; there would be no enjoyment for me being around all those angry Republicans who were not going to quietly lick their wounds.

A quasi friend of mine went online to chime in with other former associates of mine in the fundamentalist religion milieu.  There were several, on both facebook and a website dedicated to the old crowd from long ago, who were lamenting the loss of the election and expressing fear for us all due to our national departure from God.  This friend sent me some lines of sloppy sentimentalism and superstition, to which I responded with the question of why she thought I would be a pleased recipient of such drivel.  She knows my philosophical stance and should have known I would not simply read her words without retort.  Her own follow-up reply was to tell me I needn't have been so mean to her - that I should go and pour another Scotch!

I wonder whether there was enough Scotch to bridge the rift between the two sides yesterday in Dixville Notch!

Election Subjection

Sitting here alone on the day before the election, I am listening to the network news and shaking my head in total disbelief.  They are talking about a toss-up in the presidential race.

Unbelievable!  And but for two sinister points, a close race could not be happening.

With all the reasons, so clearly visible and repeated for years, not to trust Mitt Romney to do anything but dissemble; with the obvious move to destroy our national fiber by Romney's and Ryan's disturbing view of government, still people will cast votes for this ticket.  With clear numbers and convincing graphs to prove that a steady recovery is trudging forward, people will still vote for those who will throw out the gains made by the current government - gains that were made on behalf of the masses.  Those at the the top of our society in terms of wealth, those who needed no help to survive the Bush-whacked years and policies, are poised to receive yet again the huge pile of new gains in more and more (ad nauseum) wealth if the nation returns to those policies.  The vast majority who make up the basic electorate are actually considering their own delivery, by their unfathomable voting, into the depths of further depravity due to believing the most preposterous lies in political history.

There can be no doubt that the unlimited money from the citizens united floodgate has done its deed of DISuniting our electorate and has almost as certainly tapped into an undercurrent of subliminal racism to accomplish this dastardly disposition.  Actually, the citizens who cannot think straight and/or are unaware of their own deeply held racism, have indeed been united - against the rest of us and against their own futures.

At the risk of sounding like a despicable public figure's recent prediction, I say simply that if Romney wins this election, we - the people - will lose.  We as a nation will lose most of what we have become through centuries of gradual political give and take.  A Romney/Ryan takeover of government, coupled with the already strong far-right Congress, will assure that our future will become a theocratic plutocracy - no longer a democracy.  Many openly accept and want this.

I, for one, do NOT!

November 7th UPDATE:

When Ohio was announced, perhaps prematurely at 8:12 Pacific time last night, but announced for President Obama, I hugged my wife and said, "Now we won't have to find a new country."

Yes, I was serious.  Our precious nation, in my personal estimation, was saved by a thread.  Today I thank those millions of Americans who by the thinnest of margins came forward to keep us on the road to recovery rather than selling us out to the moneyed minority.  I can now go to work to scratch out a living and I expect that scratching now to lead to gradual success and improved conditions.  The President has enormous new labors ahead to keep building on the slow but steady climb out of the depths of financial ruin.  His work, and that of all Americans, will aid me in my slow but promising recovery and climb to a nominal comfort zone.

The real comfort comes in the knowledge that we still have a national integrity and a path forward under democracy - at least for the foreseeable future.

Thank you, fellow voters!

Binoculars & Blinders

We need them both if we are to live any kind of full life.  At times our curiosity is so intense that we simply must have that closer look, that peering into areas not easily seen - to bring the distant view up close.  At other times, we need to save our sanity by looking the other way.  Knowing we cannot change what is happening right before our eyes but also not having the intestinal fortitude to watch it, we purposely set our emotional virtual blinders to narrow and trudge ahead.

Either of these approaches can also be abused and cause us to suffer in the opposite directions of our intended use of the binoculars or blinders.  An extreme of the need to see more, to bring the distant or hidden view close, could morph into the tendency to become a Peeping Tom.  The abuse of the blinders can result in our stepping over and around the wounded of our society and not bending to help where we are needed.

The balancing act is hard to pull off and over a lifetime, we often fail to manage it .

A new acquaintance on the golf course yesterday seemed a pleasant enough fellow.  Seemed like someone whose easy-going company I could enjoy, for that day's round and maybe future golf outings.  But his need to talk out loud about politics, beginning with a veiled racial slur, ruined it all.  And this man revealed a devotion to blinders to a degree I didn't realize was possible.  He actually said that if I thought Bush had been bad for the country, that apparently I had been watching something he wasn't aware of.  My friend stopped us before we came to blows!

This warped and weird conversation took place within a few hours of my having learned of the death of my older brother back in Kentucky.  It was some of that same kind of blind and uneducable approach that this particular brother exhibited, the reason, I suppose, that we were not close.  Many other factors were involved, but this one thought struck me of the way blinders can prevent cordial fellowship among folks - even siblings. 

Happy Halloween!

Reticent Racism

So many of us Anglos don't know we are tacitly accepting of racism.  I get it.  Racist feelings (except for those that are blatant and ugly) are shyly staying in traditional mental closets.  The problem applies to me in spades; oops!  Oh, give it up, you might say - that phrase comes from the old game of bridge, not from the popular reference to blacks.  True?  Probably, since the expression "made in spades" would rather obviously apply to naming the trump suit in bridge and having an advantage because the suit of spades carries a higher power in that particular game.  But the very word spade grew to common (and derogatory) usage in reference to black skin because the ace (or suit) of spades is black.  This reference began probably around the time of the war between the states, fought mainly over slavery.  Yes, the slaves were technically emancipated, but people with black faces were hardly relieved of any of the domination exercised by whites.  And the fact remains today that the playing field of life is not yet level.

The current new book that could begin to allow us white folks to look inside the problem with more potential of actual understanding is titled Gather at the Table.  It should be widely read but I hold little confidence it will be read by more than a tiny fraction of us white folks.  Probably the vast majority of the readers of this gut-wrenching book will be from the African American side of our populace.  Why would I guess this?  Because we Anglos really don't want to face head-on any possibility that we are guilty of racist thinking.  We would rather assure ourselves that racism is practiced by skin-heads, ku klux klan types and others who are actual proud racists; that we are ourselves free of such attitudes.  We can sometimes engage subconsciously in racist thinking and wouldn't know it unless something brings it to our attention.

For most of my teens and adult life, I actively engaged in something similar, glibly repeating jokes that often exhibited rank racism but simply choosing to call them funny.  People do that all too frequently today.  After all, if you're only joking, isn't there an automatic license to say things that one may not mean?  May not even have any real acceptance in one's everyday way of thinking?  I certainly made that argument silently to myself when carrying on with others in laughing and repeating jokes aimed at Polish people during a long era of the Pollock joke popularity.  In fact I was in love with a Polish girl and eventually married her, so how could I be guilty of doing anything out of line in joining the fun with great jokes?  Finally, in my forties probably, I stopped myself from joining that crude circle of humor at the expense of a race or group of people, but I wasn't entirely successful in escaping my own weaknesses.  For years I have continued a small attachment to that joke-license theory, adapting and continuing to propound what I consider just good fun by changing any joke that could be changed to use hillbillies as the brunt of the joke.  This I felt was, in the Jeff Foxworthy mode of telling redneck jokes, acceptable because I was from that background myself.  And I am still not above laughing at some of these jokes.

So am I capable of harboring old racist attitudes without knowing it?  No doubt I am.  It's utterly amazing that a deep and ancient ethos can resist expulsion from the heart no matter how strongly the conscious mind rejects it.  And my conscious mind vehemently rejects it!

Would that this book, which has the potential of allowing Anglos to see inside their inherited proclivities, become a true best-seller.  I firmly believe that if all whites in the USA were capable of actually releasing and rejecting their reticent - but still damaging - racist attitudes that their new untarnished view on the world would utterly shock them.  For one immediate huge improvement, they might all see how plainly ridiculous it is that our intelligent and capable black president is experiencing even a minimal challenge by someone totally unfit for the job.  If subliminal racism were suddenly completely overcome, there would be no way our electorate would replace a strong and proven leader with someone who would likely only further destroy the fabric of our society.

Bloodless Decapitation

Otherwise known as incapacitation.

I haven't yet taken the time and effort to look up many words relating to this kind of cap.  Several are devoted to anything concerning the head, whether of the individual body or of a collective body.  The headquarters of a government is at its capital.  When we capitulate, we surrender or give up control - lose the leadership or headship of the affair.  A ship is guided by its head officer, the captain.  If the ship capsizes, it turns upside-down.

Someone's capacity is a measure of his/her intelligence, talent, wits and function.  For my dear friend who is soon to be eighty-eight years old, it is the function part that is practically gone.  His superior intellect is still churning out thoughts and a desire to disseminate knowledge and ideas to the whole planet, but alas, he can no longer even type easily on his computer and has failed recently in the simple function of sending me emails.  He is almost totally unable to function on his own.  He needs help to do basically any physical movement, and is now at times even unable to go to the bathroom alone.  But this is still not the worst of his incapacitation.  He knows clearly that soon all that remains of his functioning will be gone.  The brain has come under attack.

His expression, delivered with what's left of his massive good humor - now gallows humor - is that he suffers from deja-vu, over and over again.  Sadly, this has progressed almost to the point that he doubts every word he is about to speak because he assumes he has just said it already and he will be revealing his incapacity while also boring his listener.  Following long pauses of the type highly intelligent people often use for arranging completely clear and cogent remarks, he now often has to toss up his hands in defeat.  He tries even still to give it a light-hearted turn by saying, "Sorry - I lost my head!"

That is precisely what he has done and soon his head, that former capacious brain of almost immeasurable I.Q., will give up its tenuous control on life.  His body is already communicating to his head that it's time to say enough.

He recently asked me to transport him over the 450 miles and nine hours of travel so he could have a last visit with his dear lady companion of two decades.  Family locales and necessary living arrangements have separated them during the last year.  He managed the trip in good condition due to his high spirits and delighted anticipation.  Upon our arrival, his lady was overwhelmed and almost speechless with appreciation.  She is now ninety-one and actually more able to function physically than he is.  She walks far more energetically and even talks with more animation and wit.  However, she cannot remember anything for more than a few minutes.  That is, she cannot remember the small stuff; John, she remembers well.  The love between them still flourishes and the expressions on their faces made the entire expedition well worth any effort.

His thoughts and philosophies that once rolled freely from his deep well of intellect can still be seen at his website which may soon go away.  I don't even know who is supporting it or whether I might be able to help it continue on his behalf.  I do know that he still hopes to "clean it up" and add new ideas.  Amazing.  And humbling.   

Comforting?

Following the death of a long-time neighbor who was a long-time sufferer of diseases, too many and too illusive to name, there was a memorial service.  These gatherings are events I typically circumvent whenever possible.  I long ago paid my dues to those traditional superstitions that force people into church pews.  But due to my concern for the widower and how he might view a friend who will live next-door for perhaps decades yet ahead, I went to the service.  And of course, I hated being there.  It was held in an ostensibly non-denominational church, though the speaker slipped up and mentioned they were Baptist.

The same speaker, perhaps a lay minister, certainly not a trained orator, repeatedly used the objective pronoun him as half of the compound subject of sentences.  "Him and Marie were happy together."  "She and him always helped others."  "It was where him and Marie first met."  "Marie and him invited folks into their home."  Drove me a bit to distraction, which was really helpful to me.  Distraction was a welcome relief against the droning of the obligatory service.

The second speaker, the important one who intimated that he was the one tapped to bring the message, was more polished but no less offensive.  His nice dark suit, the only suit in the room where we had all been told to dress casually, probably gave him cool confidence.  His shop-worn scriptural references naturally gave him that solid ground for sounding confident and smooth in his comforting of the bereaved.  Personally I felt somewhat fortunate that much of his text was from the old testament book of Isaiah, and while he droned on, I was hearing in my mind a beautiful musical score by George Frideric Handel.  Most of those biblical passages being read in a hushed monotone were utilized in Handel's oratorio, The Messiah, which I had learned and performed back in college.

Comfort ye my people was part of one of the biblical phrases and this comfort became the minister's key point.  He was sure that we all were comforted by hearing (for the umpteenth time) about the travails of the Hebrews in captivity in Babylon.  Surely many in the crowd were quite comforted in those few moments to not actually be thinking about the recent death of their friend.  It's much less discomforting to dwell on a whole culture being conquered and abused by another.

He did surprise me at one point, however, by making an emphatic statement that everyone will face death and all will stand in the judgment day.  His confident emphasis carried further in stating that it is so good that we all know we will not merely disappear into nothingness, that we will not become one with everything.  And that we know we are not going to be reincarnated.  He then offered that it is such a comfort to know we will be brought back to life to stand before our  judge after we die.

Naturally I felt much better for having been there to hear this.  Boy-howdy, was that judgment stuff comforting!  And it was so good to find out what we know!

After opening that crock, he continued to unimpress me (and now the Handel music was absent), so I began to occupy my mind by thinking of things I would rather be doing than sitting there in hell.  To be a good neighbor and a friend, being there was what I simply had to do, but it would have been far more comfortable for me to show my devotion to a neighbor in so many better ways.  It would have been preferable to perhaps crawl under his house to look for a dead animal that was causing an odor.  Or to help him weed his flower garden.  Or repair his golf cart.  Or scrub down his driveway.  Or maybe clean up his vomit if he got sick.

There are many ways in which I can be comfortable assisting a neighbor; sitting in a church of any kind and hearing poorly spewed traditional ignorance is far from comforting to me.

The real comfort is simply that Marie is no longer feeling pain.  Knowing the suffering she did and the years of worry her husband endured, I'm sure him feels that way too.

Towel Toss Theory

My new theory is very simple, although the psychological elements could probably be (will be, maybe) bandied about for years to come.

Romney wants to throw in the towel but cannot handle the quitter image.

Often - probably far more often than most readers appreciate - I utilize golf as a way of expressing some point that is not at all golf related.  Here is another one.  When a putt rolls right to the edge of the cup and suddenly, seemingly against gravity and other physical laws, stops short or veers off or even turns slightly back away from the edge, one of the players will often remark that the ball looked into the abyss and got scared.  This may well be what has happened to Mitt Romney.

All the ridiculous gaffes and goofiness employed recently by Mitt Romney are surely part of a plan for a sneaky exit from center presidential stage after he got close enough to see into the abyss of the actual job.  He cannot simply announce his withdrawal from the race and upset all the mega donors and high-powered friends in the 1% crowd; he's got to be throwing the game!  His tax form trick should have been enough to accomplish this already.  Who said he was unqualified?  HE did!

And has everyone watched the news clips of his speech in Ohio that assails President Obama for the taxes he has raised on the middle class, then turns around and says that Obama has a new surprise plan to raise taxes on the middle class?  This is even more detrimental (because mental is the key word) than his revealing of his true self in a private meeting with rich friends.  He now seems like someone headed for a home where he can be cared for by medical & psychological professionals.  Soon he will be entirely unable to speak.  But of course, this may all be part of his real plan which is to exit public life while gaining pity rather than inciting the hatred of offended friends.

I will not feel sorry for him as he departs the scene to relax on a Grand Cayman beach sipping a cool tropical drink.  He will enjoy his whole new latitude and visiting his money more often.  They probably have beautiful executive nursing homes there also.

FLASH:  Late on the same day I posted this, Mr. Romney, in a positive thrust to make himself look good to all voters, proudly highlighted his commendable performance as a governor when he made sure all of his state's residents had health care.  Republicans are probably looking for a straight-jacket for Mitt's mouth and are ready to toss him bodily into the nursing home. 

10/05/12  NO - I have NOT revised my opinion following the first debate.  Good performance by the shape-shifter, but all based on false premises and outright lies.   

Credit Where It's Due

If you appreciate (and give credence to) a recent comment by former candidate Santorum that warns his fellow Republicans they cannot expect to get the votes of the educated elite, the  intelligent people of our society, then this brief piece won't impress you.

People who actually ARE intelligent enough to pay attention to far more than polls and pundits and to expensive TV ads both pro and con, are coming forward to discuss the strong evidence of real accomplishments of the current administration.  An article from January, 2012, cited a list of 244 items to the credit of the President, and the list was growing.  No doubt, by now it could have doubled in the number of real accomplishments if the recalcitrant Congress had passed the jobs bill and stopped obstructing in every way they could manage.  The article covers the study done by a Florida Professor, Robert P. Watson, so prepare to have to deal with someone of that awful group called the educated elite!

Good article, unless you are hoping as the Republican members of Congress hope, that our sitting President will utterly fail. 

Sam or Me?

Which of us is a better citizen?  Which of us tries hardest to do right by others?  And which of us has the better annual income?

Do you know Sam Clements?  If I were to tell you he is a member of Congress, carried in on the 2010 wave of dissatisfaction and unrest among the national electorate, would that help you remember him?  If I were to give you some salient points about his voting record over his almost two years in office, would that maybe help you place him?

No - none of the above would help you at all to know Sam Clements because the above references are "what if" and are actually meaningless.  There is no such name among our congressional seats.  In a quick Google search, the name naturally pops up but only as a not-uncommon name and in at least one case, a name that is associated with a gay-bashing verbal abuse tirade.  Naturally the search also pointed to the name I may have meant which is Samuel Clemens, aka, Mark Twain. 

But no, the name I actually wanted to check out was Sam Clements after I came up with it out-of-the-blue as someone I do not know.  My point is, you hadn't heard of this Sam either, but could you have said with certainty that he was not among those elected to be in our national congress?  I strongly doubt that you could off-handedly know this.

Of the 535 voting members of our national legislative body (435 representatives and 100 senators), there are perhaps 400 you have not heard of in any overt way.  So I am allowing that about a quarter of the total pool of legislators may be folks we ever hear about.  And far less than that number of names would you or I likely know well enough to list from memory.

My point?  Simply speaking, there are lots of inconspicuous nobodies sitting in offices in Washington D.C. and attending sessions of Congress.  Oh, to be sure, these folks are not unimportant in some small way to some portion of our society - particularly to themselves!  But on the grand scale, they could almost live and die unnoticed.  And every two years, several of these unknowns from the House of Representatives will quietly disappear from D.C. and head back to their former homes or to parts unknown; we will not notice nor care.  Some of them will have been occupying seats in the House for several terms, others merely for that single two-year stint from the fluke election temperament that ushered them in.  Some in the Senate will have managed to stay there for perhaps three or four terms (of 6 years each!) and still be unnoticed by the nation as a whole, and now they can steal away just as unnoticed to wherever they choose to kick back and relax.  Naturally, some will continue trying to perform some manner of service to their fellow man because they are genuine worker types, but most do disappear nonetheless from the national scene.  Many, as we hear occasionally but only when some specific scandal erupts, will go into extremely lucrative jobs where their influence as former congressional representatives can be maximized.

Upon departure from Washington, each of these former public servants takes with him or her an annual lifetime income that would keep three or four families in a marginally comfortable lifestyle.  That self-approved pension goes to the hard-working and devoted few who lost seats after many terms of worthwhile accomplishment as well as to the do-nothings who came in perhaps as hard-line Tea Party types who have sat on their asses over the last eighteen months doing exactly what the House Leader(!) has told them to do, which was nothing.  And if that incompetent and obstructionist Leader himself were to be voted out of office because his Ohio district voters wake up and see what has been going on, along with him will go another extra amount (about 50k more than the everyday nobody congressman) in lifetime pension that could sustain yet another whole family.

No complaints are being registered here for my own situation in life; I live happily in a country that allows me to be at least among the top ten percent of the planet's population, in terms of physical well-being, even though my annual income is roughly 15% of what Sam Clements and his other non-entity departing legislators will enjoy for life.  And many of these folks are beginning this life of ease at the ripe old age of thirty-five or forty, looking at limitless futures of good-and-plenty for themselves.  All the while, they will be witness to some of the most desperate measures being thrust upon our nation and its average citizens just to stay financially afloat.  These former elected representatives have their nests well feathered, regardless of how little they did while in Congress to ease the burden on the rest of us.  And in fact, some of these folks will have accomplished absolutely nothing in two, six or twenty years - or worse; some will have been responsible for helping to destroy our national well-being while enhancing their own.

SHAME!  Shame on this current Congress, and shame on all who take advantage of the many on behalf of themselves.

P. S.
This is just a little added thought.  I would appreciate it if some enterprising journalist were to spend the time to look back over perhaps two or three decades and count the number of people who are our former national elected officials, then post the amount of money being paid out annually for these pensions.  Of course, many associated issues relating to the individuals could be pursued as well (how long had they served, did they ever notably affect any laws, what are their current high-powered employments, etc.), if someone were to be so energetic.  The total amount we pay out for these substantial pensions would naturally not look like a huge amount compared to the amount "lost" each year by the fact that so many of our society are not paying income taxes.  The number of such dependent-on-the-government types (victims) being bandied about right now is 47% of Americans.  Keep in mind that this group includes yours truly along with millions of my near-contemporaries who worked hard for decades and paid into good and well-designed government programs that are now supposed to be allowing us to live in minimal comfort from our efforts.  This is supposed to also be living with dignity, but there are those who see us as deadbeats.  Deadbeats?  And we've come full-circle!

Pain Is Relative

But not relatable.  (My own word but it's what I mean to relate.)

This is NOT a treatise on family and the trouble we can have with those interesting relatives who make up our extended families.  This is quite simply about pain.

How is yours coming along?  Yes, I mean your pain.  Oh, you don't have any that you know of and don't really relate?  Then please stop reading here and move along to something more entertaining.  Reading this could actually cause a discomfort you wouldn't otherwise need to address.

Now, for those typical folks who DO suffer pain now and then, does it seem almost impossible to describe exactly, precisely, the pain you are experiencing at any given time?  That's because it IS impossible.  The best any of us can do is approximate a description of our pain, and often even that isn't easy.  This is because the ONLY person who can completely know a certain pain is the one who is suffering it.  Others can listen to attempts at describing a specific pain, but they can come only reasonably close to actually understanding it - or could be very far from grasping it and not know how badly they are missing the real grasp.  Someone may sympathize with you because you are suffering, but that is a real arm's length reaction.  Others can empathize with you because they have felt pain (perhaps in the same area of the body) and know it can be miserable.  Some may commiserate with you because they feel a closeness to you and are willing to share in your misery - the very meaning of "co" is to share or take part in, as in the way a coworker is one who helps with, shares in, the work.  A commiserater shares the misery.

But relating?  Someone can tell you that he/she relates to what you are describing.  That could mean that the person has known a pain similar to the one you seem to be suffering.  But the pain you are feeling and the one the other person has experienced may be related in about the way distant cousins are related, actually not sure they know each other when suddenly meeting again after years of non-contact.  Even if the pain experiences in question are closer to the way identical twins relate to each other, they are still not identical.

My dear wife has various pains and maladies that she tries to describe so I can grasp a little of her misery.  Our only shared pains that are similar are those that hit our lower backs.  Each of us proudly presents with a congenital anomaly of an extra vertebra.  This (we are told happens to one in 100,000 births) unnecessary and perhaps not well formed structure at the base of the spine would be no problem if it behaved entirely like its fellow vertebral connections.  But it doesn't.  Not as flexible, or when it flexes, is prone to getting stuck in a painful lock-down, followed often by massive muscle spasms around the lower and middle back.

Here is an attempt at describing just an outward effect of my own lower back difficulties, and though my wife and I suffer similarly, this is not the way she would try to clarify it:  My putting stroke, on the golf course, has developed around my pain.  Some who see me on the greens will assume I have tried to mimic Jack Nicklaus, which wouldn't be a crazy thing to do considering his success - but it is not the reason I crouch the way I do to putt.  Before I attempt a putt, I stand virtually straight to line up the path I expect the ball to take, then to hit the putt, I bend the knees and get low over the ball in a position most would not want to achieve.  The reason?  There is a commonly taken position over the ball (one I used myself a few years ago) which requires a simple bending of the spine.  If I were to take that stance today and try to hold it long enough to make the putt, I may well be stuck in that position for the rest of the day or for the next several days, suffering extremely painful spasms and needing crutches or a cane to allow any mobility.  Consequently, my putting stance may make some folks think I am trying to make friends with the grass or insects crawling on it.  I merely need to drop past the vulnerable spot that my back could decide is lock-down mode.  And I am the only one who can tell where that spot is.  And it can be found by surprise at any time during any movement; it's on the golf course that I have prepared protective moves.

Several men in my golf group are more than twenty-five years my senior, and in some cases, they are quite obviously more agile and less in pain than I am.  At times I say I anticipate playing golf until perhaps my mid-nineties, then expiring peacefully following a satisfying round on the greens.  (This I call, the Bing Crosby exit but he did it at the age of seventy.)  In reality, there are many days now, in my late sixties, when I wonder whether I can handle the pain for even another decade.  And I am basically a positive and optimistic person!  It astounds me that people who are already immobilized with injuries, deformities or various ailments can go on each day looking forward to many more years of life.  My own pains are often enough to make me feel that getting a great deal older is not necessarily desirable.  When I hear someone say about a deceased loved one that "...he is now at peace," I automatically think only of the fact that the departed one "is now without pain."

Please take the time to listen to someone who is trying to describe his or her pain, and perhaps you can help a little by merely taking one of the above approaches of commiserating, sympathizing or even empathizing if the described pain is at all familiar in tone.  The person talking about the pain apparently needs to reach out for that human tenderness from others.  Why not give it?  As for my own pains, I prefer not to dwell on them on any frequent basis.  This effort today to discuss pain in general is probably all I will have to say about it until the next time someone who doesn't yet know me very well asks me, "Why do you get down so close to the ground when you putt?"

Please Step to the Podium

And don't trip as you step up ONTO the podium and proceed to the LECTERN.

People, people - why is this so difficult?  Do perhaps 90% of all English-speaking folks abuse this word, maybe out of fear of sounding pompous or too literal by correctly choosing the word lectern?  Do people simply not care when they lazily copy others in the wrong application of the word podium?  Where is the intellectual curiosity these days?

As a high school student, making my first feeble attempt at learning a foreign language, I was so pleased to see the obvious root word for the various English words having to do with feet.  (I had missed any similar connection during an earlier strike-out year with Latin, which was even then being called a dead language when I was a dead-head trying to understand it!)  It was in my new venture into Spanish that I found the word Poder [poh - dare], meaning to walk.  The POD and PED variations, as in podiatrist and pedestrian, began to make sense to my slowly awakening interest in words.  The opportunity to take a course in etymology had never appeared in my school, so my lexologic interests had to be self-directed.  Any simple check in the dictionary shows the Greek podos, a word meaning foot, is obviously the main root for many words, including the English podiatrist and the Spanish poder.

So when I first ran across the word podium, it made complete sense that it had everything to do with where the feet were placed, not where a book or note paper would be placed.  That speaker's stand (which stands in front of the speaker, ON the podium) is a lectern, meaning desk, table, counter, stand, etc.  Check the word podium in a thesaurus.  It has many synonyms, all of them meaning where feet should go, not where hands go to turn pages of notes.  So when we hear a supposedly educated broadcaster say that "[so-and-so] is standing at the podium" - it is perfectly permissible to shout at the television screen that [so-and-so] is standing ON, not AT the podium!

In one of my sales jobs I was a presenter of information and that part of my work was referred to as doing podiums!  It isn't easy to express my disdain for this kind of abuse of words.  There was no podium at all; I stood merely in front of the patrons on floor level.  And as a strict point of usage, had I actually had a podium from which to speak, the act of doing many presentations from this raised platform should have been called in the plural, podia.  If we visit more than one museum or stadium, we are visiting musea and stadia.  Now I never get too riled up or vociferous when someone says he or she visited three museums; the handling of foreign words and their variations is not an easy matter.  (The stadia and musea references even tripped up my spell-check.)  But the typical use of a wrong word as a habit is just a sign of lazy repetition and having no determination to speak with clarity.

My first question above was whether perhaps 90% of us misuse the term podium.  Of the remainder of society, perhaps only a tiny fraction are bothered by it.  Obviously I am in this latter group.

Someday I will tackle the even more completely misapplied word only in probably 99% of our speaking.

Does SIZE Really Matter?

YES, apparently.  In fact, in the context of what I am addressing here, it seems to be ALL that matters.

The subject in the news on morning network television was Tom Cruise and an article written about him in Vanity Fair magazine.  The subject of the article was the supposed "auditioning" having been done by the Church of Scientology looking for a wife for their prize adherent, Mr. Cruise.

As the news reporter and guest discussed some of the points of the matter and revealed how restrictive and controlling the sect is over its members, my wife said in mild surprise, "That sounds like a cult!"  And the harsh emphasis her voice gave to the word cult made it clear that my sweet former Catholic innocent did not consider something called a cult to be worthy of anyone's devotion. 

My wife either has not read some of my earlier posts here and there concerning cults, or she has forgotten them.  Interesting that in modern times the very word cult has undergone an adaptation in definition and now, when used in the common vernacular, means only small sectarian groups that are not acceptable to the larger sects.  They are Johnny-come-lately shams of true(!) belief systems and they should be avoided in favor of the long-established mainstream religious sects.

The original meaning of cult is merely stated as a set of beliefs and its pertinent tenets and rituals.  So tradition and a solemn deference that apparently must be paid to long-time established sects that have grown large, means that they - the large groups - get to judge and find guilty of worthlessness, any new or slightly different sectarian group. So the cult of Catholicism (a huge and controlling cult of the larger cult of Christianity), the cult of Judaism, the cult of Islam - all these are given respect and are now free of that slur which gets hurled at Scientology or at splinters of The Worldwide Church of God, or at the Branch Davidians.

Oh yes, size definitely matters!  When that rag-tag little sect called Christians finally, after almost three hundred years of sneaking around and gaining converts, got the attention of an emperor, things changed for them.  Over the succeeding centuries, with the ruler of a large segment of Europe ordering the masses to convert and then with the Pope and his enforcers seeing to it that all within their domain either converted or died, the little sect became a large one.

Where is the line that must be crossed?  Is there written somewhere a number of adherents that small sects must struggle to attain?  When did The Sikhs become accepted as mainstream and no longer have to be mentioned always with the pejorative label of cult?  When did the Mormons - or have they?  Is Zoroastrianism considered mainstream?  And what of those splinter groups that develop as off-shoots of tenets within traditional Christianity?  Are they covered by the large umbrella and considered acceptable?  Are the snake-handlers left alone and not concerned about being thought of derisively as a cult because they are still Christian?  How about the tongues-talkers or the  leapers & jumpers?  As long as they are calling themselves part of Christianity, are they acceptable?  Or should the typical judgmental cult label be casually applied to them?  The lines drawn among religious sects as to their acceptability to the general citizenry of the world are anything but straight and clear lines.  They resemble a Texas redistricting map!

I have my own simple line drawn:  Any way of life that requires the human mind to accept unprovable doctrine over logic and makes a person subservient to ideology, choosing belief over reason, is a sad and wasteful way of living.  Cult still means just that, and the larger ones are merely more detrimental to humanity because they have infected more minds.  Snake-handlers are not nearly as dangerous to humanity as are Catholics or Muslims.  Historically, this is very easily proved on massive scales.

So if you are smart enough to say "No, thanks" to accepting an adder in your hands, why say "Sure thing" to accepting a wafer on the tongue or the requirement of incessant washing of your hands and falling on your face to pray many times a day?  Gotta be a simple case of bigger is better!"

A Holiday for Now

The first entry under my Google search of Labor Day brought up a simple history beginning with:

Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

I hope you will click on the link and read it all.  It's shorter than my usual post.

My topic line above means to emphasize the for now aspect.  This holiday may very well be on the way OUT.  If the current raging right-wing of the Republican Party gets into power, what would be the basis of a once vibrant holiday spirit honoring the American Worker?  The party that can have a (proven dishonest) presidential candidate speak in glowing terms about when "...you need an American" while at the same time hailing a governor who destroys labor unions as a hero, will do all it can to end the balancing factor of organized labor in our nation.  The article mentioned above flatly states that the labor movement brought about social and economic achievements, and if you were to ask the rich and powerful business moguls of today whether this is true, they would have to admit that it is true.  However they would hate to face the fact that those achievements came in spite of the wealthy business barons of the nineteenth century who would rather have kept all their wealth and let the common worker (including children) go on living in poverty while working endless hours and having no rights. 

So have a great holiday.  And as you enjoy your cook-outs, family gatherings and other fun activities that were not a part of the All American way of life until the Labor Movement brought some sanity to the way our work weeks and time off were organized, think seriously for a moment.  Try to imagine the bright new future of a nation going in reverse if a big-money coalition buys our elections and eventually chokes off the voice of the American Worker.  But be aware: it is our own national throat we are cutting if we sell our votes this November.

UNMITIGATED GALL

As an Independent, it behooves me - actually I'm required - to listen to speeches and read articles from all sides of issues.  So I do what I must, even when some of the rhetoric makes me sick.

The convention speech by Paul Ryan which had the opportunity to lay out some positive plan for a way to improve our nation's economy, instead was used to hammer home the lies with more intensity.  The very idea that the young man who has done nothing to help the masses with realistic fiscal guidelines is able to take the stage and shout deprecating comments about what the current administration is doing to take money out of Medicare, is pure rot.  Unmitigated gall!

In whatever projected plan the Republican team (not yet cohesive in the individual attacks) has shown us, there is a very similar amount slated to be pulled out of Medicare, but their hope is that this amount won't filter back to help the larger body politic but will work on fixing the deficit and all the while cutting more taxes for the wealthy.  The young man should be slapped silly.  He has nothing to offer to the masses of struggling people in this country.

Worst of all is the nerve this upstart has shown by saying that leadership is lacking in the administration because there should have been more attention paid to the need for jobs.  And who placed on the table over the last two years something called a "jobs bill" that was a profound, intelligent and straight-forward effort to do exactly what was needed to build our country's infrastructure, hence provide millions of jobs?  The current President who does have the masses in mind when he proposes this kind of solid plan.  But where was the young, energetic, "brave" Mr. Ryan during the voting on this opportunity to provide jobs?  Sitting with his cronies who had taken a vow to never pass anything in Congress that could aid in the President's success.  The whole pile of worthless Republican "legislators," including Ryan and his fearless leader, the inept and bumbling Boehner, should be voted out of office entirely. 

The simple agenda of the Republican members of Congress has been devoted to escorting Mr. Obama out of office.  They have acted in lock-step to reject any progressive move that we so desperately needed to get our nation back on its feet.  They obeyed the commands of the power brokers, the Kochs, and several others, one of whom is named Grover Norquist.  Who the hell is this guy?  He should not be someone who has any influence on my personal life; neither should the Koch brothers, Adelson or any other wealthy SOB.  But when the bridge or highway in my area that is not repaired causes me or my family or friends to be injured or to die unnecessarily, my life is affected.  Did Norquist demand obedience (as he did with a pledge to not raise taxes, a pledge signed, allegedly, by all the Republican law makers) from all that group of obstructionists that they do everything possible to unseat Mr. Obama?  I do not know. 

Is Grover Norquist a rank racist who talks with other Anglos in back rooms about kicking that damned n______ out of the Whitehouse because it belongs to "us?"  I do not know.  Is Boehner a rank racist?  Is McConnell?  Is Romney?  Or Ryan?  I don't know.  Are YOU?  I do not know because I don't know who you are, now reading this.  There are millions who would not categorize themselves as "rank racists," but if you think like them, if you have a prejudice toward anyone of a racial background different from your own, that's pretty rank.  I hope you can think this over with honesty.  And if you have some actual reasonable objection to keeping this dedicated president in office; if you would sooner entrust the governing of our damaged nation to the lying, cheating, ruled-by-money pretenders to the presidency and vice presidency, then please enlighten me.  I am still independent enough to listen if I hear logic.

Back to the convention that is now hyping those pitiful excuses for candidates.  To add insult to injury, Ms. Rice, who has kept a low profile since leaving her office in the previous devastating Republican administration, made her pitch for new leadership.  Her cute comment that "you cannot lead from behind" was neither cute nor constructive under the circumstances.  If this duo she supports, the two puppets who crave the top offices in the country, were actually able to attain their goal and at the same time find themselves surrounded by the self-seeking loons who pass for legislators, then the completely devoted-to-the-rich leaders will have their chance to lead.  Where they would lead us is the real threat.  If the whole direction of our nation is forced to do an about-face and march away from liberty and justice for all, then these two are prepared to lead us in that horrific new direction.

As far as I can see today, the Republican Party has nothing whatsoever to offer a suffering nation of millions of suffering people.  But with enough dedicated lies and enough shouting to force those lies into the minds of the populace, these shills for Adelson and Koch might gain their seats at the top of our government.  If it happens, the mess we found ourselves in at the end of the Bush-whacked years will very likely be overshadowed by the worst economic and social disasters this country has ever known.

Then there is the "bright" side.  The business moguls of our land might just turn us into a very prosperous and productive mass of slaves to their whims.  No, it won't be the U.S. of A. any longer, but it will be a bright new day and a beautiful bed of roses for the overlords!   

Surprised? Why?

On television a few weeks ago, one of the long line of commentators on the news- this one a former field officer in the military - expressed surprise over the dichotomy of two events.  He observed that wild riots and many deaths resulted in Afghanistan from the unintentional burning of some copies of the koran (or Noble Qu'ran, if you want to show deference) by American soldiers, yet a short time later, it was only seemingly mild anger that was shown over the massacre of innocent women and children there by a soldier.

Why would this response to the two events surprise anyone?  Focus on the fact that the first event involved what was seen as an attack on a culture and its holy words.  The second event was merely the loss of sixteen lives out of their burgeoning glut of humans.  And even the word loss may be slightly misused because after all, it was basically the insignificant lives belonging to women and children that were taken - not many of the truly important males of that culture.  So the second event was far more forgivable than the first.

My, oh my!

We in the West look at that dynamic and wonder how those people could be so unfeeling, so dismissive of human life.  But stop and consider all of this as if it had happened in our own land.

All of us (no way I can mean literally all here, sorry to say) were saddened to hear of the massacre of students and faculty on the Virginia Tech campus a few years ago.  A man with a gun simply opened fire and took many human lives.  Now consider this variation on that real event: IF that man had been a foreign soldier, stationed here and providing some service to our own people, his actions would probably have caused a rift in relations between his country and ours, but it is doubtful we would have seen riots in our streets to make a case against that whole foreign nation.  But if that soldier and his troop (working on our soil for whatever imaginary reason) were to unintentionally burn a pile of bibles, you can bet there would be riots.  Here!  Christians are just as worried as are Muslims that people of another culture might show disrespect to their holy words.  And Christians would riot, probably armed for battle, demanding retaliation against those infidels(!) who would destroy sacred books.  That foreign nation and its soldiers would be rejected from our soil in no uncertain terms and quickly!  Probably any isolated individuals who could be determined to have participated in the book desecration would be required to stand trial, assuming they lived through the rioting.

I'm constantly mystified at the presumption by Christians that we are not as war-like as other cultures.  The fact that western Christians don't wear silly head wraps or hide women under heavy fabric - don't fall to the ground five times daily when a prayer trumpet blasts, or partake of a variety of ritualistic oddities we see in other cultures - does not mean Christians are more peace loving or less dangerous to humanity.  Fear, with it's attendant hyper-active belief in sacred mythology, is equally dangerous wherever it resides.