Thursday, November 29, 2012

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.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

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.

Friday, November 16, 2012

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.  

Monday, November 12, 2012

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.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

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.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

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!

Monday, November 5, 2012

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!