Time to talk politics again - at least a little.
NOTE: Following last night's surprise information that CBS News conducted a poll that shows an unheard-of 91% (!) of the polling sample approved of the proposals outlined by President Obama in Tuesday night's address, it appears I may be in large part preaching to the choir. Still, I had already written the sermon over the past few days, so I'm going to post it anyway!
On Saturday, January 21, I joined another protest group for a midday rally. No marching this time, which actually would have been much better for my aching joints. It's harder to stand than to walk, and sitting was out of the question.
The day was the second anniversary of the "Citizens United" decision by the Supreme Court. My sign, on one side read, $ IS NOT SPEECH, and on the other side, AMEND. It would be to better effect if I could actually show you the sign the way it was hand-printed, with the word "SPEECH" running large in the lower half of the total space, below the "$ IS NOT" line. Then on the reverse side, with more space for my one-word message, I made the appeal to "AMEND" in much bolder print. It turned out to be a great sign for the spot where I placed myself, at a busy intersection and on a divider median, where I could hold the smaller print side toward traffic as drivers slowed for the light, while the back side of the sign with much larger print was visible to traffic coming faster from the opposite direction.
Interesting to observe people! Hundreds of passers-by honked horns and shouted approval to the thirty or more members of our little protest group. Many thumbs-up gestures were held aloft and a few used the "V" sign with two fingers, I suppose for either victory or peace. Now and then someone energetically thrust upward the single middle digit instead. All-in-all, I estimated about 99% of the public were positive toward our effort and 1% were not happy to see us. That must have been what the single digit was signifying - the 1% definitely do not like anyone pointing out the huge unfairness in our current atmosphere of big money controlling the political races. And Citizens United fosters that unfairness.
But bizarre attitudes of many confused folks demonstrate the difficulty we all have in getting a focus on our frustrating governmental sphere.
We protesters were out there specifically to call attention to what is surely the most destructive decision ever handed down by our Supreme Court - the grand opening for corporations to buy elections. [If there had been a larger poster board handy when I was making my signs, one would have read, CORPORATE CORRUPTION Has a SUPREME COHORT. I may still do that one some day.] Now what group, as a very general class, gets the greatest advantage from that deplorable court decision? The rich and powerful, obviously, and along with them those mainstream Republicans who typically support big money interests. Who will likely have a major battle this year to win re-election, even though not a single Republican pretender to the highest office is at all competent? Our embattled President. And what will actually be his largest barrier to re-election? Big money and powerful corporations - the Wall Street agglomeration that hates Obama and all his efforts on behalf of the 99% of U.S. citizens. While FAIR SHOT/FAIR SHARE should be the slogan of all who believe in democracy, about half of our populace apparently cannot believe in this concept. It seems to me that millions of people in this country believe whole-heartedly that they deserve a fair shot at becoming successful, but they would not agree at all to paying their fair share if they were to become wealthy. Shame!
And many people simply do not have a grasp on the facts or the big picture. Check out this odd exchange I will attempt to recite from memory.
Lady At Traffic Light: "Thanks for being out here; we need to get things changed!"
Yours Truly: "Agreed! We need an amendment to stop the madness the Supreme Court unleashed!"
LATL: "We have to get him out of there. Washington's a mess!"
YT[a bit nonplussed]: "Nothing can get done with a Congress that is stuck in reverse gear and uncooperative."
LATL: "I know someone in Washington and she says that every piece of liberal policy that comes across his desk, he just signs without looking at it!"
YT [Stunned - seeking a calm but solid retort]: "Well, in my book, we can never be too progressive."
LATL [as traffic light changes and she pulls away): "RIGHT ON!!" - while flashing a "V" sign.
Is it possible that the art of plain communication has been lost? Has some Supreme Being (not Justice Roberts but some other supreme being) confused the tongues so we can no longer understand each other? Or has the 1% establishment released a secret concoction - maybe Agent Green - into the air and water so that all of us without the antidote have become dull of wit and unable to fight the stupidity hovering all around us? Is the average person on the street really unable to see what is being done to us?
Allow me to insert a comment here - mostly as self-protection. Some of you may be gunning for me! If any of this writing sounds too personal, as though I am talking straight to you in my criticisms, it is completely unintentional. I try to always keep it impersonal and general when I criticize "the electorate" etc. But please also, if it feels like a slap in the face, perhaps a wake-up is in order. I do so hope all thinking people will actually THINK before the elections approach. We have all made mistakes in our voting decisions over the years. This year's vote seems somehow vital to our national survival.
Again I reveal my very UN-neutral opinion toward this coming election. Because of the utter disbelief I suffered in 2004 when a dim-witted electorate returned to office the most destructive president in our history, even after seeing what he was capable of doing, I am now fearful. While today's inept and floundering candidates propose their idiotic ideas of what America needs, sounding very much like clones of the former despicable politician who ravaged our land and our stature in the world, it seems logical that a landslide win for the incumbent should perhaps surpass that experienced by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But our people have been so badly bruised in spirit and in pocketbook that the voting booth has become a theater of war. Witness 2010 elections! People walk in there prepared to do battle with something they don't understand but something that has hurt them, so the only thing they know how to do is pull the lever to oust incumbents. Actually, if there were even ONE potentially capable candidate at the top of the ticket for the Republicans, I as an Independent would welcome the ouster mentality. At least that might mean that the horde of right-wing and Tea Party do-nothings who waltzed into the House in 2010 could also be dumped this time around. And isn't the king of the do-nothings up for re-election this year? If so, maybe his fellow Ohioans will give him something to cry about - while looking for work back at home!
Please remember the Lady At the Traffic Light who is possibly a symbol of the typical citizen today. She knows her life could be better; she knows she has been hurt by governmental policies of the past; she assumes she is being hurt by recently adopted policies, by this current administration; she sees people in streets carrying signs, so she assumes they are helping her country reach for the change she feels is needed. Yet in her mind, getting "him" out of there is the logical move. HOLD ON there, LATL! The "him" to whom you refer is at least an intelligent and apparently a very dedicated servant of the people. This him is also the one carrying the heavy weight for three years, trying desperately to dig us out of the mess that was handed him by incompetent and even proud destroyers of our nation. This him is the one we need to continue carrying the weight for another term. This him is capable.
The rotten eggs who need to be gotten out of there are those who stand in the way of progress when they should be building on good ideas. If Congress had passed the jobs bill that "he" proposed last year, we could be well on the road to full recovery of what we lost in the Bush years. No, I do not feel our President today is perfect; I merely feel he is dedicated. His only glaring fault has been in trying too long to promote bi-partisanship when it was obvious early on that no such cooperation from the other side was forth-coming. His biggest weakness is his desire to be what any great leader should be - in it for the people.
Very likely, the Lady At Traffic Light did not even deign to watch the State of The Union address on television because she already had her mind set against anything our President might say. Or if she did watch, she may have sat as stone-faced as Mitch McConnell or looked as smug and disrespectful as did John McCain and some other people in the chamber. Perhaps they, and she, were nostalgic for the good ol' days of GWB's scintillating orations and his clear vision for a strong America(!). No, I think it's more likely that people whose minds are dead set against Mr. Obama for whatever reason (and I've elsewhere indicated what I firmly believe is a major but subliminal reason), were stunned by the sheer reality of how much better he is in the Presidency than was his predecessor. They also must surely see how much better it would be for the nation if he were to continue in office than would be our plight if any one of the opposition's weak and massively flawed choices were to manage to get in. Once again, Mr. Obama and his proposals for our country were overwhelmingly positive. And as a candidate for the top office in our nation, the man stood (as usual) in stark contrast against all the less capable who would try to unseat him. We have the right person at the helm, and if we let him work, my prediction is that our nation will be back to a high point of respect and progress after four more years. And you, Dear Reader, will have a better chance at personal success while I keep my tiny social security income and get to sell a few more homes as the economy strengthens.
So when you are faced with voting this year, I hope you will ask yourself the simple question of What does this (or that) candidate seem to want most? Position? Power? Money? or to genuinely help the people of this country? As of today, January 26, I know of no candidate other than President Obama who can honestly be seen as being in the political business for any motives other than selfish ones.
And as a corollary to re-electing the capable leader, it's time for people to wake up and realize, for the good of all of us, that EVERY MEMBER of CONGRESS who voted AGAINST the JOBS BILL should be REPLACED!
If we plummet to the depths of former failed policies; if Republicans maintain control of the House and we are subjected to another imbecile-elect in November, I will sincerely need to consider finding a new country! This one is becoming ever more like that of Steven Tyler's "...land of the free - FRIGHTENING SCREAM!"
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Super Sunday, Coming Right Up!
So now, as it is the duty of all Monday morning quarterbacks, I must accept as history the way things turned out in yesterday's NFL championship games. Naturally I had many thoughts while watching the games, using my vast experience (never played a football game in my life!), my laser focus (catching parts of many plays while visiting with friends over a relaxing beverage), my sports announcer's insight (I have the voice for it, and possibly the razor wit and sterling vocabulary, but never ventured into that world at all), yet somehow this morning, I don't have the urge to pompously bore you with my summary of the games nor proclaim my pick for the ultimate winner of next month's Super Bowl.
Were I a true football fan (short for fanatic) I might be hustling to still try to procure a ticket for the game, which I understand was settling in at a price of about $650 and will go for twice that by scalpers at the gate. But I'm not really a true fan. Years ago I discovered that no matter which team won any event, my personal life did not change remarkably in either a positive or negative direction. In this area of life, our amazingly hyped world of sports enthusiasm, I have long been extremely neutral. (How's that for oxymoron?) Having been a quasi athlete in a few types of participation sports, I naturally notice and enjoy the great plays as they unfold in a game. I simply don't become too glandularly involved with the various games or the teams themselves.
And the use of the word glandularly here is purposeful and meaningful due to a still vivid memory of severely swollen tonsils and a week of laryngitis I suffered back in high school after too much vocal support for my team. That true physical suffering directly resulting from too strong a show of support cured me of fanaticism for sports. In much the same fashion, about two years following that event, I had my bout with too much show of drinking support for a familial celebration, and the resulting days of nausea and revulsion toward food or drink cured me of the desire to over-indulge. Fifty years of ability to enjoy moderate alcohol intake has made that one misstep an advantage to living my life of neutrality.
What all this is telling you is that for many Super Bowl parties, I would be a drip - an uninteresting unemotional observer of the game, not a rabid fan of my chosen team, shouting and throwing high fives with others who happen to choose the same team. An occasional vocal burst will erupt from me when an amazing catch or some other impressive play is accomplished in the upcoming game, but as a reveler, I will be less than raucous. And probably will consume less alcohol than will the average guest at the party. Oh, I will certainly enjoy some good scotch and/or brandy during the day, but more likely I will fill up substantially on some great chili.
And as to the game, yes, I have already revealed a slight tendency to favor the Giants over the Patriots because of the Manning name connection (though no family connection). Still, truly good play will get my attention and deserve my approval in the end. I do hope that the winning of the big game will be decided by good plays rather than those fumbles and misses that seemed to determine the outcomes of both championship games yesterday.
Enjoy the Super Bowl in whatever way best suits your true nature, and drive carefully if you choose to leave home. Remember, many others on the road will NOT be terribly responsible as drivers on the big day for American sports fans. And I am no fan of driving at all on that day, but I will dutifully drive an hour to visit with family and friends who use the game as a linchpin for a gathering. The chili will make it all worth while!
Were I a true football fan (short for fanatic) I might be hustling to still try to procure a ticket for the game, which I understand was settling in at a price of about $650 and will go for twice that by scalpers at the gate. But I'm not really a true fan. Years ago I discovered that no matter which team won any event, my personal life did not change remarkably in either a positive or negative direction. In this area of life, our amazingly hyped world of sports enthusiasm, I have long been extremely neutral. (How's that for oxymoron?) Having been a quasi athlete in a few types of participation sports, I naturally notice and enjoy the great plays as they unfold in a game. I simply don't become too glandularly involved with the various games or the teams themselves.
And the use of the word glandularly here is purposeful and meaningful due to a still vivid memory of severely swollen tonsils and a week of laryngitis I suffered back in high school after too much vocal support for my team. That true physical suffering directly resulting from too strong a show of support cured me of fanaticism for sports. In much the same fashion, about two years following that event, I had my bout with too much show of drinking support for a familial celebration, and the resulting days of nausea and revulsion toward food or drink cured me of the desire to over-indulge. Fifty years of ability to enjoy moderate alcohol intake has made that one misstep an advantage to living my life of neutrality.
What all this is telling you is that for many Super Bowl parties, I would be a drip - an uninteresting unemotional observer of the game, not a rabid fan of my chosen team, shouting and throwing high fives with others who happen to choose the same team. An occasional vocal burst will erupt from me when an amazing catch or some other impressive play is accomplished in the upcoming game, but as a reveler, I will be less than raucous. And probably will consume less alcohol than will the average guest at the party. Oh, I will certainly enjoy some good scotch and/or brandy during the day, but more likely I will fill up substantially on some great chili.
And as to the game, yes, I have already revealed a slight tendency to favor the Giants over the Patriots because of the Manning name connection (though no family connection). Still, truly good play will get my attention and deserve my approval in the end. I do hope that the winning of the big game will be decided by good plays rather than those fumbles and misses that seemed to determine the outcomes of both championship games yesterday.
Enjoy the Super Bowl in whatever way best suits your true nature, and drive carefully if you choose to leave home. Remember, many others on the road will NOT be terribly responsible as drivers on the big day for American sports fans. And I am no fan of driving at all on that day, but I will dutifully drive an hour to visit with family and friends who use the game as a linchpin for a gathering. The chili will make it all worth while!
Monday, January 9, 2012
W I G T -- Sunday Morning Satisfaction
January 15 UPDATE AT END OF POST
This post has been awaiting the results of the first round of the play-offs. It was to begin thus:
Now that the NFL regular season has ended, I feel I can no longer delay writing about one strange tangent regarding one player. (A player who will NOT be in the Super Bowl. Whew!) Then the unlikely happened and Denver beat Pittsburgh - and what's more, did so with a single impressive pass/run play to end the game. So I suppose I am wrong and there IS a God and He/She wants to show us all how to win football games.
For a couple of weeks last fall, a few impressionable sports commentators were about to get all dewy-eyed and angel-voiced to answer the question of Which Is God's Team by highlighting the seemingly Super-natural Ability of one quarterback who could win games because he had an apparent Super Connection. Tebowing became the term used for the showy act of praying on the field. (Shouldn't this get the same penalty as any other show-off move or dance?) Then announcers cooled off, as the team cooled, losing three in a row.
Finally! The Tebow spoof on Saturday Night Live at last encouraged me to think that maybe a few folks in TV land are aware of the utter foolishness of the athlete/god connection. You can be sure, lots of SNL fans were highly ticked-off because the big J.C. subject matter is not supposed to be used as comedy material. Bravo, Lorne Michaels! And now be prepared for the religious community to try to shut down the entire Internet because I'm going to be more critical here than Bill Maher was in a "Tweet" that has the holy nuts wanting to sue HBO and censor the comedian. No, I will be only a tiny squeak in the wilderness of the blogosphere, not catching the wrath aimed at the famous Maher. So the Internet is safe for the time being from the ever-ready-to-censor-free-speech critics in the right wing.
As the season draws to a close and the Broncos get knocked out somewhere during the play-offs (clearly, they don't belong at the final big game), some normalcy will return to the fan base of the NFL - if the word "normal" can be applied to any of that nutty world of professional sports and its fanatical followers. Of course, should the completely illogical thing happen and God's Team wins the Super Bowl, expect Tebow to be hoisted on the shoulders of angels and carried across the field, sweeping high above the goal posts and making a victory lap around the stadium above the crowd! Hell, he might be trumpeted as the Second Coming! After all, Tim took his God connection out onto the field to display for all the world, so it would be only fair to have his God return the favor - no? I mean, wouldn't it be sad to let everyone believe that a bunch of mere men could rally 'round a new young quarterback and pull off such a big upset, winning the Super Bowl? Just ask say, Eli Manning if such a thing would even be possible. Oh, wait, yeah, his team did do that didn't they? Well, no doubt Eli's God saw him praying in private and rewarded him openly. But then, according to that scriptural reference, it must have been a different God, one who prefers no public show of godliness. I'm so confused!
Back years ago, when I was a devoted sky-pilot myself, I was highly insulted by the idea that God would choose to reward a showy hot-shot and get involved in games in any way. It rather cheapened what I was so sure was my righteous connection to the great Supreme Being.
I have nothing against the Denver football team. In fact, when John Elway was there , throwing those long passes and taking the team all the way to Super Bowl stardom, I watched them a number of times. Today I simply tune them out specifically because I can't stomach all the foolishness of someone calling on his supreme being of choice to get help to win a game. My contention has long been that any god willing to fix a game for any person is not a being worthy of worship. Supreme Being and Super Bowl may seem like a natural combination, but I think it's a pretty unhealthy connection. For those who disagree, remember, Broadway Joe Namath won a Super Bowl too. I never noticed him once call on a power in the sky. In fact, religionists would have puked if he had done so because of his perceived bad boy image. But he wasn't in the NFL to worship. He simply played well and threw amazing passes. After all, isn't that what sports are supposed to be about - winning games by using your best performers who have a natural talent and who practice hard over long hours?
My sons and I are devoted Colts fans; after all, our name is Manning. Naturally we have loved watching the amazing quarterback skills of Peyton Manning (no relation, dog-gone-it) over the years. And I particularly enjoyed watching little brother Eli make those dazzling plays four years ago to win his Super Bowl ring. He might even manage that again this year; another Giants win would be fine with me. New England Patriots? Not so much. They are the main rivals of Indianapolis, so I just don't ever enjoy seeing them win. Until this next game! I want to see Tom Brady (who has plenty of votes in New England for Supreme Being of the Gridiron) - go up against that show-off God of the Broncos and blow Him/Her out of the stadium, along with praying Tim. If not Brady, then maybe Rodgers or Brees or Little Bro Manning - but somebody with at least as much talent as Tebow can show the world that football is a game, played by tough and sweaty humans, and that supreme beings need to mind their lofty perches and stay the hell out of football! And prayer, if one is prone to stoop to that arcane activity, should be left at home!
WOW! Sorry, Timmy. I know I mentioned being blown out of the stadium, but I would have settled for maybe a two or three touchdown loss. 45 to 10 was overkill! On the other hand, ...
The PATRIOTS? - God's Team??
When my wife and I returned home from a social event late last night, I just had to check the sports news to see how things turned out for the praying phenom. There happened to be highlights of the game underway when I first picked up the television feed, and I was flabbergasted at the score being shown. Some close-ups of faces were also shown. And did I notice a moment of clarity of some sort? Or just what might that moment have been for Mr. Tebow, when near the end of the game he was on the sidelines (where he had apparently spent a good bit of the game), and staring off into the mists of broken Super Bowl dreams? Could that look have been the silent question of, My God, my God; why hast thou forsaken me? It is too much for me to hope that maybe the big hype is a thing of the past and the young quarterback will settle down to continue to play ball, improving his skills in the game. He's obviously a talented athlete and should do big things for his team and for himself simply by playing good football, a physical - not a spiritual - game! I'm not giving odds of his dropping that foolish and offensive praying from his future playbook, but I can hope anyway.
It occurred to me only yesterday before the game - while again hearing so many of the comments about this fine young Christian example, upstanding (or half-kneeling, in this case) role model for youth, etc., etc. - that it may have been a tough week for some actual football fans in New England. Imagine the pressure felt by "good Christians" in the area who also love their Patriots! Their usual excitement over seeing the Brady-led team of their local region heading out to conquer another team, must have been dampened if not overcome by their obligatory desire to see good win over evil! Many stories were floated concerning some giant chasm between these two quarterback types. Little Timmy was wearing the Jesus tag, and with that, the badge of goodness itself, while Tom the Terrible was covered in the suddenly ugly cloak of man-of-the-world. Brady purportedly lives the good life, which is an interesting irony within our language usage, and naturally his known dalliance with (and finally, marriage to) a fashion model, his handsomeness itself, his lifestyle which smacks of money and fame, all virtually screamed sin and evil. This ignorant concept and the hype surrounding it caused millions of dollars more than the usual amounts to be wagered on the game's outcome. Bigger losses even than the 45 - 10 score were handed to big betters, and I for one, don't have a lot of compassion for them this morning.
It would be of great interest to me personally if it could be determined who the big losers and also big winners were following the game. Without any way of knowing the actual results of wagers on the game, I can wildly speculate that hundreds of thousands of people who were evil enough to bet against Saint Timmy came out of the day with sacks full of money. Oh, well, the Christians will bet that those evil-doers will get their justice in hell! Meanwhile, I have every hope that at least for this season, the holy crap will cease. At least in the football realm. Now, ON to the SUPER BOWL!
This post has been awaiting the results of the first round of the play-offs. It was to begin thus:
Now that the NFL regular season has ended, I feel I can no longer delay writing about one strange tangent regarding one player. (A player who will NOT be in the Super Bowl. Whew!) Then the unlikely happened and Denver beat Pittsburgh - and what's more, did so with a single impressive pass/run play to end the game. So I suppose I am wrong and there IS a God and He/She wants to show us all how to win football games.
For a couple of weeks last fall, a few impressionable sports commentators were about to get all dewy-eyed and angel-voiced to answer the question of Which Is God's Team by highlighting the seemingly Super-natural Ability of one quarterback who could win games because he had an apparent Super Connection. Tebowing became the term used for the showy act of praying on the field. (Shouldn't this get the same penalty as any other show-off move or dance?) Then announcers cooled off, as the team cooled, losing three in a row.
Finally! The Tebow spoof on Saturday Night Live at last encouraged me to think that maybe a few folks in TV land are aware of the utter foolishness of the athlete/god connection. You can be sure, lots of SNL fans were highly ticked-off because the big J.C. subject matter is not supposed to be used as comedy material. Bravo, Lorne Michaels! And now be prepared for the religious community to try to shut down the entire Internet because I'm going to be more critical here than Bill Maher was in a "Tweet" that has the holy nuts wanting to sue HBO and censor the comedian. No, I will be only a tiny squeak in the wilderness of the blogosphere, not catching the wrath aimed at the famous Maher. So the Internet is safe for the time being from the ever-ready-to-censor-free-speech critics in the right wing.
As the season draws to a close and the Broncos get knocked out somewhere during the play-offs (clearly, they don't belong at the final big game), some normalcy will return to the fan base of the NFL - if the word "normal" can be applied to any of that nutty world of professional sports and its fanatical followers. Of course, should the completely illogical thing happen and God's Team wins the Super Bowl, expect Tebow to be hoisted on the shoulders of angels and carried across the field, sweeping high above the goal posts and making a victory lap around the stadium above the crowd! Hell, he might be trumpeted as the Second Coming! After all, Tim took his God connection out onto the field to display for all the world, so it would be only fair to have his God return the favor - no? I mean, wouldn't it be sad to let everyone believe that a bunch of mere men could rally 'round a new young quarterback and pull off such a big upset, winning the Super Bowl? Just ask say, Eli Manning if such a thing would even be possible. Oh, wait, yeah, his team did do that didn't they? Well, no doubt Eli's God saw him praying in private and rewarded him openly. But then, according to that scriptural reference, it must have been a different God, one who prefers no public show of godliness. I'm so confused!
Back years ago, when I was a devoted sky-pilot myself, I was highly insulted by the idea that God would choose to reward a showy hot-shot and get involved in games in any way. It rather cheapened what I was so sure was my righteous connection to the great Supreme Being.
I have nothing against the Denver football team. In fact, when John Elway was there , throwing those long passes and taking the team all the way to Super Bowl stardom, I watched them a number of times. Today I simply tune them out specifically because I can't stomach all the foolishness of someone calling on his supreme being of choice to get help to win a game. My contention has long been that any god willing to fix a game for any person is not a being worthy of worship. Supreme Being and Super Bowl may seem like a natural combination, but I think it's a pretty unhealthy connection. For those who disagree, remember, Broadway Joe Namath won a Super Bowl too. I never noticed him once call on a power in the sky. In fact, religionists would have puked if he had done so because of his perceived bad boy image. But he wasn't in the NFL to worship. He simply played well and threw amazing passes. After all, isn't that what sports are supposed to be about - winning games by using your best performers who have a natural talent and who practice hard over long hours?
My sons and I are devoted Colts fans; after all, our name is Manning. Naturally we have loved watching the amazing quarterback skills of Peyton Manning (no relation, dog-gone-it) over the years. And I particularly enjoyed watching little brother Eli make those dazzling plays four years ago to win his Super Bowl ring. He might even manage that again this year; another Giants win would be fine with me. New England Patriots? Not so much. They are the main rivals of Indianapolis, so I just don't ever enjoy seeing them win. Until this next game! I want to see Tom Brady (who has plenty of votes in New England for Supreme Being of the Gridiron) - go up against that show-off God of the Broncos and blow Him/Her out of the stadium, along with praying Tim. If not Brady, then maybe Rodgers or Brees or Little Bro Manning - but somebody with at least as much talent as Tebow can show the world that football is a game, played by tough and sweaty humans, and that supreme beings need to mind their lofty perches and stay the hell out of football! And prayer, if one is prone to stoop to that arcane activity, should be left at home!
WOW! Sorry, Timmy. I know I mentioned being blown out of the stadium, but I would have settled for maybe a two or three touchdown loss. 45 to 10 was overkill! On the other hand, ...
The PATRIOTS? - God's Team??
When my wife and I returned home from a social event late last night, I just had to check the sports news to see how things turned out for the praying phenom. There happened to be highlights of the game underway when I first picked up the television feed, and I was flabbergasted at the score being shown. Some close-ups of faces were also shown. And did I notice a moment of clarity of some sort? Or just what might that moment have been for Mr. Tebow, when near the end of the game he was on the sidelines (where he had apparently spent a good bit of the game), and staring off into the mists of broken Super Bowl dreams? Could that look have been the silent question of, My God, my God; why hast thou forsaken me? It is too much for me to hope that maybe the big hype is a thing of the past and the young quarterback will settle down to continue to play ball, improving his skills in the game. He's obviously a talented athlete and should do big things for his team and for himself simply by playing good football, a physical - not a spiritual - game! I'm not giving odds of his dropping that foolish and offensive praying from his future playbook, but I can hope anyway.
It occurred to me only yesterday before the game - while again hearing so many of the comments about this fine young Christian example, upstanding (or half-kneeling, in this case) role model for youth, etc., etc. - that it may have been a tough week for some actual football fans in New England. Imagine the pressure felt by "good Christians" in the area who also love their Patriots! Their usual excitement over seeing the Brady-led team of their local region heading out to conquer another team, must have been dampened if not overcome by their obligatory desire to see good win over evil! Many stories were floated concerning some giant chasm between these two quarterback types. Little Timmy was wearing the Jesus tag, and with that, the badge of goodness itself, while Tom the Terrible was covered in the suddenly ugly cloak of man-of-the-world. Brady purportedly lives the good life, which is an interesting irony within our language usage, and naturally his known dalliance with (and finally, marriage to) a fashion model, his handsomeness itself, his lifestyle which smacks of money and fame, all virtually screamed sin and evil. This ignorant concept and the hype surrounding it caused millions of dollars more than the usual amounts to be wagered on the game's outcome. Bigger losses even than the 45 - 10 score were handed to big betters, and I for one, don't have a lot of compassion for them this morning.
It would be of great interest to me personally if it could be determined who the big losers and also big winners were following the game. Without any way of knowing the actual results of wagers on the game, I can wildly speculate that hundreds of thousands of people who were evil enough to bet against Saint Timmy came out of the day with sacks full of money. Oh, well, the Christians will bet that those evil-doers will get their justice in hell! Meanwhile, I have every hope that at least for this season, the holy crap will cease. At least in the football realm. Now, ON to the SUPER BOWL!
Sunday, January 1, 2012
CRAZOLUTIONS
It's that time again - the first day of a new calendar year; the time for crazy resolutions!
Sure, we typically try on one or two for size and many of us then reject the idea outright. "Why bother?" is the defeatist approach we may take due to a history of breaking resolutions within weeks, if not days.
So why not just toss out a few and wonder whether any of them will find purchase on the slick and unmovable granite of our minds that are set in their ways. Of course, none will probably manage to hold on, but we can't take anything for granite. (Sorry; I can never let the cheesy ones slide on by.)
Now hear this, 2012, you madly promising, wild & crazy year of beginnings and endings!
RESOLVED: I will try harder to actually accomplish all my resolutions.
RESOLVED: I will be more cautious in making them in the first place.
RESOLVED: During this year I will lose 20 pounds. (And try not to relocate them.)
RESOLVED: I will be nicer to my mate in the hope I may still have the same mate next year.
RESOLVED: I will try very diligently to stop sweating the petty things. (I've already stopped petting the sweaty things.)
RESOLVED: When ignorant and vile people spout off, I will be patient and calm - up to late in a count of ten, assuming I can get past three.
RESOLVED: My cell phone will be kept ON whenever I am not in a meeting; in a restaurant; on the GOLF course; playing with my grandson; playing with my wife; playing hookey; sleeping.
RESOLVED: Friends will be able to count on my undivided attention when they call on me - as soon as I've had time to get home, put on warm-ups, pour my Scotch and turn on the TV (muted, of course).
RESOLVED: No more laughing at insensitive jokes (unless they are really good ones!).
RESOLVED: All commentary I write will be "fair and balanced." (Or, as I understand that phrase to mean, my bias is the only one worth consideration.)
RESOLVED: Never to enter a line of people more than three deep. I can always find some fool thing to do until the line diminishes.
RESOLVED: To keep my friends close but my enemies closer. (Right! As though I have friends!)
RESOLVED: To watch less television. (Besides, everything I want is online.)
RESOLVED: To practice the golden rule of humor - blast you as I would expect you to blast me!
And I notice that number two above is already broken, so the whole thing's a bust anyway! Not to worry - the year is beginning on a positive footing and will bring what it brings.
To all of you Dear Readers, may 2012 be a year of joy, success and fulfillment, in whatever way these terms compute for you. I hope you will stay with me here and send me zingers every time I trample the borders of my self-constructed Neutral Zone. Even as I approach fossilization, I love to learn from others. And if you have any crazolutions of your own to share, please use the comments area to entertain us.
Cheers,
markman
P.S. Barring unforeseeable calamity, I plan to be posting here until Dec. 21st!
Sure, we typically try on one or two for size and many of us then reject the idea outright. "Why bother?" is the defeatist approach we may take due to a history of breaking resolutions within weeks, if not days.
So why not just toss out a few and wonder whether any of them will find purchase on the slick and unmovable granite of our minds that are set in their ways. Of course, none will probably manage to hold on, but we can't take anything for granite. (Sorry; I can never let the cheesy ones slide on by.)
Now hear this, 2012, you madly promising, wild & crazy year of beginnings and endings!
RESOLVED: I will try harder to actually accomplish all my resolutions.
RESOLVED: I will be more cautious in making them in the first place.
RESOLVED: During this year I will lose 20 pounds. (And try not to relocate them.)
RESOLVED: I will be nicer to my mate in the hope I may still have the same mate next year.
RESOLVED: I will try very diligently to stop sweating the petty things. (I've already stopped petting the sweaty things.)
RESOLVED: When ignorant and vile people spout off, I will be patient and calm - up to late in a count of ten, assuming I can get past three.
RESOLVED: My cell phone will be kept ON whenever I am not in a meeting; in a restaurant; on the GOLF course; playing with my grandson; playing with my wife; playing hookey; sleeping.
RESOLVED: Friends will be able to count on my undivided attention when they call on me - as soon as I've had time to get home, put on warm-ups, pour my Scotch and turn on the TV (muted, of course).
RESOLVED: No more laughing at insensitive jokes (unless they are really good ones!).
RESOLVED: All commentary I write will be "fair and balanced." (Or, as I understand that phrase to mean, my bias is the only one worth consideration.)
RESOLVED: Never to enter a line of people more than three deep. I can always find some fool thing to do until the line diminishes.
RESOLVED: To keep my friends close but my enemies closer. (Right! As though I have friends!)
RESOLVED: To watch less television. (Besides, everything I want is online.)
RESOLVED: To practice the golden rule of humor - blast you as I would expect you to blast me!
And I notice that number two above is already broken, so the whole thing's a bust anyway! Not to worry - the year is beginning on a positive footing and will bring what it brings.
To all of you Dear Readers, may 2012 be a year of joy, success and fulfillment, in whatever way these terms compute for you. I hope you will stay with me here and send me zingers every time I trample the borders of my self-constructed Neutral Zone. Even as I approach fossilization, I love to learn from others. And if you have any crazolutions of your own to share, please use the comments area to entertain us.
Cheers,
markman
P.S. Barring unforeseeable calamity, I plan to be posting here until Dec. 21st!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Santa Claus
I spilled this deep, heart-felt disclosure about my childhood back a few months ago while participating in a writing seminar. Now that 'Tis the Season..., why not share it with my readers here?
Today, my adult(!) psyche is developed (or at least aged) to the point that I can see the many fat men in red suits at this season and not fly into a rage. A few times, back around 1990, I even donned the prescribed attire and became the jolly fat man myself. Why not? It was just another acting gig. I had pimped myself out to corporate America for hundreds of spokesman jobs; how could Christmas and its idiocy be any worse? It really wasn't a hard job and the smiles brought to most faces when the red suit and fluffy white beard entered the room, well, in some ways it made everything okay. But I still hate the bastard called Santa!
Nowadays, being an actual senior (jolly old elf) citizen, currently with a scruffy white beard which will probably never be fluffy, I can be more myself without catering to so many others and their craziness. Oh sure, I have to endure some fools who might become real estate clients, but I can draw some limits around the amount I am willing to prostitute myself for their business. I am also a little more adept now at deflecting rank prejudice and nasty comments without having to completely offend the offenders. Strange how society requires us to be magicians and dancers (or prancers and vixens) in order to survive.
But being able to keep some personal perspective on the Santa BS doesn't mean it is easy to overcome the hateful image. What it may be doing to others, especially young, impressionable minds, bothers me a great deal. I have to keep reminding myself that I have known many well-balanced, well-adjusted folks who simply blew off the whole big lie with aplomb, and apparently did so at a very early age. Their psyches were obviously not as whacked out as was mine. So probably not everyone gets the brunt of the bad joke as a huge slap in the face as it was for me. Good! But I still can't see why humans continue to force total foolishness onto their beautiful children who are sponges for learning and deserve actual information to be available instead of the BS.
Would it not be truly magnificent for all parents to drop the whole sham and readily explain to their small children that "Here is a special gift from Mommy and Daddy?" Why would anyone choose to take no credit for giving a child something of value or something that is known to be what the child wants? In my estimation, the concept is a sinister head-start program to prepare a fresh new mind for the bigger lie ahead: that a loving holy father, a god, a supreme being is surely there also to give abundantly throughout life.
In a world that is heavily besieged by corruption, deception, stealing, hating, abusing and generally destroying much of the good that life has to offer, why start our own beautiful children on their road with a giant (but pretty and insidious) lie? Maybe I am wrong on this whole thing. Perhaps it has always been used as a vaccination against all the crap life can throw at us. We find out our own parents lied to us for as long as we were gullible enough to believe them, so it would be smart to distrust the world and prepare to protect ourselves from it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Is that the mentality we are seeing in play here with Santa?
DEC. 31 HAPPY NEW YEAR! New post coming tomorrow.
Growing up in a big family on a tiny farm in the early nineteen fifties, I was aware at a very early age that we were poor; more aware after starting school at the age of six and mingling with children of the not-so-poor. My parents struggled to manage the bare necessities of life. My mother could seemingly extract from thin air the ingredients for meals that kept us from starvation. Because of her hard work, minding the huge garden we had each summer and then putting up hundreds of jars of produce in the fall, our table was never quite bare. But it was never abundantly filled either. This amazing woman also made clothes for her many children by cutting up flour sacks and creating garments, by hand-stitching as well as using a finicky treadle-type sewing machine. Extremely few items ever came into our house through monetary purchases. Money was almost non-existent.
My reason for believing in Santa Claus until I was almost eight years old probably was a direct result of my acute awareness of our poverty. Anything Santa brought was free! No scarce dollars had to be pulled from the meager family budget to spend for these yearly gifts. When an older brother picked on me for still believing in Santa upon the delivery of a beautiful new sled for my seventh Christmas, I fought with him and cried angrily and pitifully. In truth, I wanted to fight the world that had deceived me, and my own parents who aided and abetted the cruel world, promoting the fat man in the red suit who did not exist. I recall with absolute clarity the feeling of utter disbelief in the new truth, followed by utter despair. The unfairness of life became a sudden crushing weight on my developing psyche as my family sacrificed to buy gifts for me.
That unfairness and my deeply ingrained hatred of deception have contributed to every step in the formation of who I am. To this day, no single experience surpasses “The Santa Lie” for its impact on my view of the world.
Today, my adult(!) psyche is developed (or at least aged) to the point that I can see the many fat men in red suits at this season and not fly into a rage. A few times, back around 1990, I even donned the prescribed attire and became the jolly fat man myself. Why not? It was just another acting gig. I had pimped myself out to corporate America for hundreds of spokesman jobs; how could Christmas and its idiocy be any worse? It really wasn't a hard job and the smiles brought to most faces when the red suit and fluffy white beard entered the room, well, in some ways it made everything okay. But I still hate the bastard called Santa!
Nowadays, being an actual senior (jolly old elf) citizen, currently with a scruffy white beard which will probably never be fluffy, I can be more myself without catering to so many others and their craziness. Oh sure, I have to endure some fools who might become real estate clients, but I can draw some limits around the amount I am willing to prostitute myself for their business. I am also a little more adept now at deflecting rank prejudice and nasty comments without having to completely offend the offenders. Strange how society requires us to be magicians and dancers (or prancers and vixens) in order to survive.
But being able to keep some personal perspective on the Santa BS doesn't mean it is easy to overcome the hateful image. What it may be doing to others, especially young, impressionable minds, bothers me a great deal. I have to keep reminding myself that I have known many well-balanced, well-adjusted folks who simply blew off the whole big lie with aplomb, and apparently did so at a very early age. Their psyches were obviously not as whacked out as was mine. So probably not everyone gets the brunt of the bad joke as a huge slap in the face as it was for me. Good! But I still can't see why humans continue to force total foolishness onto their beautiful children who are sponges for learning and deserve actual information to be available instead of the BS.
Would it not be truly magnificent for all parents to drop the whole sham and readily explain to their small children that "Here is a special gift from Mommy and Daddy?" Why would anyone choose to take no credit for giving a child something of value or something that is known to be what the child wants? In my estimation, the concept is a sinister head-start program to prepare a fresh new mind for the bigger lie ahead: that a loving holy father, a god, a supreme being is surely there also to give abundantly throughout life.
In a world that is heavily besieged by corruption, deception, stealing, hating, abusing and generally destroying much of the good that life has to offer, why start our own beautiful children on their road with a giant (but pretty and insidious) lie? Maybe I am wrong on this whole thing. Perhaps it has always been used as a vaccination against all the crap life can throw at us. We find out our own parents lied to us for as long as we were gullible enough to believe them, so it would be smart to distrust the world and prepare to protect ourselves from it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Is that the mentality we are seeing in play here with Santa?
DEC. 31 HAPPY NEW YEAR! New post coming tomorrow.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Clear as Black and White
** Note added at bottom - March 6, 2012
This will begin as an extension of the previous post but will reach to the ugliest evils of ignorance.
THINK about this!
Years ago I heard someone say, "You don't know what you don't know."
Now there's a genius line. That's what I snarkily thought at the moment, but the expression has stuck with me for probably forty years or more. And it is actually rather profound. The easily tossed out comment sounds silly and pointless to repeat. But the meaning is enormous. And overlooked.
Extreme case: a man said he was going to become an inventor. When asked what kind of things he might invent, he said he planned to write to the U.S. Patent Office and obtain a list of all the things that had not yet been invented; then he could choose. A brilliant example of ignorance!
There are millions of matters in life about which I know nothing. If asked about any one of them, typically I am honest and simply admit I don't know. After a previously unheard-of matter is discussed with me and I find it interesting enough to study further, I can then say "Yes, I know about that." I can also then form an opinion about the matter, can decide whether I agree with what others are saying about it or whether it should consume any more of my time.
This life-long desire to know has driven me to read a lot and to ask questions when I felt someone might help to educate me. Far from perfect in this pursuit of knowledge, I have some experiences seared into my memory of the times I piped up without knowing whereof I spoke. We've all heard others do this and we disrespect them for it. Most of us can recall making noises that revealed our ignorance. Trouble is, we sometimes pick up ideas or misinformation by hearing what others think, and their opinions may be completely faulty. Opinions are quickly set in minds and repeated with abandon, even if the individual speaking out is still in ignorance.
Someone who is a close enough acquaintance I almost consider him a friend, actually spoke out recently at a dinner party, with several other acquaintances present, and said, "Obama has sure made a mess of things." And several of the other more-or-less friends around the table jovially agreed with him and expressed hope that our sitting president would be beaten in the next election.
As much as I try to remain neutral, as much as I repudiate confrontation, there are times a person of integrity is required to step into the fray. The void in intelliget conversation must at times be bridged by anyone who can speak clearly about simple facts. That doesn't mean I assume it's up to me; I don't actually look for chances to be the voice of reason. Truth be told, I prefer to extricate myself from such situations without comment, maintaining my neutrality. This time, while sitting at a dinner table, still early in the meal, a gracious exit was not reasonably easy to pull off. Therefore, I spoke up. My response to these people was kept as calm as possible, even though I typically flare a little in the face of ignorance being flaunted as fact or logic.
My approach was as brief as practical, essentially kept to three (compound) questions: 1.) Did the destruction of the U.S. economy happen overnight or did it take the eight years of the previous administration? 2.) Were the policies that led to economic destruction put upon us by President Obama or were they well ensconced during the failed administration that catered to Wall Street? And 3.) How many years would it take any one of us to dig us all out of the pit into which our country was forced by those failed policies?
Later I inserted the quick last question to the group who all seemed to be spouting the typical ignorant thought that we needed somebody - just anybody - to beat Obama in the next election. My question, which could not be answered, was, "Who do you see on the political horizon who can solve our economic woes at all, even if given two terms to do it?"
The dinner conversation topic got changed.
As I often point out, I am a political Independent. My lack of confidence in any political party and usually, any politician, is profound. To look today at a Romney, a Gingrich, a Blah-Blah-Blah or any of the several inept pretenders to the presidency, is profoundly frightening. Frightening because who knows what can happen? It was a confused and obviously disturbed electorate (plus a Supreme Court ruling) that placed an ignorant and destructive man into the high office in 2000, and it was a completely unconscious or masochistic electorate that allowed him to return in 2004 after we all could see the clear evidence that he was destroying our nation's integrity. These same (well-meaning, perhaps) fellow citizens are the people who will go to the polls in 2012, and the dangers that lurk there are the cause of my discomfort.
Even if you are a fan of Fox News, you surely can't be missing the unbelievable display of incompetence on the part the many candidates. Not one of them shows any capacity to govern, and not one of them will stand up against big money and corporate greed. Their own personal greed is no doubt involved. In fact, all photos of the Republican candidates should be shown with $ symbols for eyes; that appears to be the guiding force for all. (Perhaps not for Ron Paul; his guiding force is a bit unclear.) Yet some people whom I know personally would rather see another ignoramus in the highest office of our land, even if it means he will be another puppet of Wall Street. If you are in the upper reaches of the 99% and are not yet feeling as beaten down as most of us, just keep flattering the rich and electing their puppets. Eventually, when our democracy is completely gone, you may awake to the fact that you were as meaningless to the super rich as are the rest of us. Would it not be better for yourself and all of us to wake up sooner?
And when we are finally a Plutocracy in fact, there will be no voting. 99% of us won't count.
Hopefully you will take time to THINK before voting for just anybody in order to unseat Obama. At the very least, we have today an intelligent man at our helm. And by all appearances, he cares about helping the people at least as much as helping himself. Whether he can steer us as a country, while having to struggle with a recalcitrant congress at every step, to finally attain a new state of national integrity and economic prosperity is anybody's guess. Only time will tell, and the time may not be given him because of the ever-present ignorance.
And something else: racism. That's right, I strongly suspect racism is at the deep-seated core of many of the criticisms of our president. I personally hear the small (sometimes blatant) tones of residual racial prejudice right here in my own neighborhood. People can vehemently deny that anti-black sentiments play any part in their criticisms of our president, but I am not convinced. I wonder whether many people know themselves deeply. A man who slips while talking with me about the changes in our community, spilling a revelation of his fear that blacks are going to take over, is not a man who can look at our mixed-race chief executive and squelch a desire for an all-white replacement. Perhaps it's unconscious on their part, but it's clear that racism is being practiced among my neighbors. (I'm confident this small community is a tiny microcosm of our national society.) Even a few of those who might have voted three years ago for Obama (maybe only because they were more anti-Palin or more prejudiced against females than against someone of mixed race), are now hopeful that some white guy can step in and solve our problems. Fat chance! It was despicable white guys who ran us into the ditch, and it will take more than a simple new white face in the White House to help us recover. I maintain my support for intelligence as the key to any possible recovery.
Please don't point to Herman Cain as some kind of proof I am wrong about the racism. His was never a candidacy to be taken seriously by anyone other than the powerful tycoons behind his bid, apparently seeing him as the ultimate in simple puppetry. Even with this ugly prospect, I half hoped the zany, fractured GOP would nominate him. At least I could have been less concerned about a potential defeat of Obama. A man who couldn't speak to anything outside of his narrow business experience would never(!) have a chance to push aside an incumbant who is ten times more intelligent and only half as black! The (!) is evidence that even as I write this, I cannot shake my fear of the ignorance!
The biggest concern about the racism factor is that it can be completely subliminal. Many folks who believe themselves to be utterly unaffected by race in any matter can suddenly find no reason for a tug in one direction as opposed to another, unless the ugly old twinge of racial discrimination might be at the root of the question. I often check myself to see whether any of my own motives are colored by color. An interesting article by Dafna Linzer published in The Washington Post and in the online news commentary, ProPublica, shows that racial overtones had crept into the process of presidential pardons. Officials claimed total surprise at the findings and could not see how the numbers could have shown such a disparity. No one mentioned subliminal racism as a cause, but it almost certainly was. Short of being in our DNA, racism is about as deeply entrenched in our subconscious as any human tendency outside of survival and sex drives.
Please, when it comes to elections, check your own racism quotient just to be sure of your own motives; and please don't cast an ignorant vote for another incompetent candidate who will take us closer to our demise.
And following this post, we will avoid the subject of politics for a while. After all, Christmas is coming!
** Update NOTE: Mar. 6, 2012 - A study just completed announced today that black students are three times more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled. Probably just a meaningless coincidence! The news of this came at the very same time as the news that a Colorado court has ruled that students may carry guns on campus. Our nation is so advanced and our citizens all socially aware; we are so totally healthy in our practices. And racism no longer exists! Aren't we grand?!
This will begin as an extension of the previous post but will reach to the ugliest evils of ignorance.
THINK about this!
Years ago I heard someone say, "You don't know what you don't know."
Now there's a genius line. That's what I snarkily thought at the moment, but the expression has stuck with me for probably forty years or more. And it is actually rather profound. The easily tossed out comment sounds silly and pointless to repeat. But the meaning is enormous. And overlooked.
Extreme case: a man said he was going to become an inventor. When asked what kind of things he might invent, he said he planned to write to the U.S. Patent Office and obtain a list of all the things that had not yet been invented; then he could choose. A brilliant example of ignorance!
There are millions of matters in life about which I know nothing. If asked about any one of them, typically I am honest and simply admit I don't know. After a previously unheard-of matter is discussed with me and I find it interesting enough to study further, I can then say "Yes, I know about that." I can also then form an opinion about the matter, can decide whether I agree with what others are saying about it or whether it should consume any more of my time.
This life-long desire to know has driven me to read a lot and to ask questions when I felt someone might help to educate me. Far from perfect in this pursuit of knowledge, I have some experiences seared into my memory of the times I piped up without knowing whereof I spoke. We've all heard others do this and we disrespect them for it. Most of us can recall making noises that revealed our ignorance. Trouble is, we sometimes pick up ideas or misinformation by hearing what others think, and their opinions may be completely faulty. Opinions are quickly set in minds and repeated with abandon, even if the individual speaking out is still in ignorance.
Someone who is a close enough acquaintance I almost consider him a friend, actually spoke out recently at a dinner party, with several other acquaintances present, and said, "Obama has sure made a mess of things." And several of the other more-or-less friends around the table jovially agreed with him and expressed hope that our sitting president would be beaten in the next election.
As much as I try to remain neutral, as much as I repudiate confrontation, there are times a person of integrity is required to step into the fray. The void in intelliget conversation must at times be bridged by anyone who can speak clearly about simple facts. That doesn't mean I assume it's up to me; I don't actually look for chances to be the voice of reason. Truth be told, I prefer to extricate myself from such situations without comment, maintaining my neutrality. This time, while sitting at a dinner table, still early in the meal, a gracious exit was not reasonably easy to pull off. Therefore, I spoke up. My response to these people was kept as calm as possible, even though I typically flare a little in the face of ignorance being flaunted as fact or logic.
My approach was as brief as practical, essentially kept to three (compound) questions: 1.) Did the destruction of the U.S. economy happen overnight or did it take the eight years of the previous administration? 2.) Were the policies that led to economic destruction put upon us by President Obama or were they well ensconced during the failed administration that catered to Wall Street? And 3.) How many years would it take any one of us to dig us all out of the pit into which our country was forced by those failed policies?
Later I inserted the quick last question to the group who all seemed to be spouting the typical ignorant thought that we needed somebody - just anybody - to beat Obama in the next election. My question, which could not be answered, was, "Who do you see on the political horizon who can solve our economic woes at all, even if given two terms to do it?"
The dinner conversation topic got changed.
As I often point out, I am a political Independent. My lack of confidence in any political party and usually, any politician, is profound. To look today at a Romney, a Gingrich, a Blah-Blah-Blah or any of the several inept pretenders to the presidency, is profoundly frightening. Frightening because who knows what can happen? It was a confused and obviously disturbed electorate (plus a Supreme Court ruling) that placed an ignorant and destructive man into the high office in 2000, and it was a completely unconscious or masochistic electorate that allowed him to return in 2004 after we all could see the clear evidence that he was destroying our nation's integrity. These same (well-meaning, perhaps) fellow citizens are the people who will go to the polls in 2012, and the dangers that lurk there are the cause of my discomfort.
Even if you are a fan of Fox News, you surely can't be missing the unbelievable display of incompetence on the part the many candidates. Not one of them shows any capacity to govern, and not one of them will stand up against big money and corporate greed. Their own personal greed is no doubt involved. In fact, all photos of the Republican candidates should be shown with $ symbols for eyes; that appears to be the guiding force for all. (Perhaps not for Ron Paul; his guiding force is a bit unclear.) Yet some people whom I know personally would rather see another ignoramus in the highest office of our land, even if it means he will be another puppet of Wall Street. If you are in the upper reaches of the 99% and are not yet feeling as beaten down as most of us, just keep flattering the rich and electing their puppets. Eventually, when our democracy is completely gone, you may awake to the fact that you were as meaningless to the super rich as are the rest of us. Would it not be better for yourself and all of us to wake up sooner?
And when we are finally a Plutocracy in fact, there will be no voting. 99% of us won't count.
Hopefully you will take time to THINK before voting for just anybody in order to unseat Obama. At the very least, we have today an intelligent man at our helm. And by all appearances, he cares about helping the people at least as much as helping himself. Whether he can steer us as a country, while having to struggle with a recalcitrant congress at every step, to finally attain a new state of national integrity and economic prosperity is anybody's guess. Only time will tell, and the time may not be given him because of the ever-present ignorance.
And something else: racism. That's right, I strongly suspect racism is at the deep-seated core of many of the criticisms of our president. I personally hear the small (sometimes blatant) tones of residual racial prejudice right here in my own neighborhood. People can vehemently deny that anti-black sentiments play any part in their criticisms of our president, but I am not convinced. I wonder whether many people know themselves deeply. A man who slips while talking with me about the changes in our community, spilling a revelation of his fear that blacks are going to take over, is not a man who can look at our mixed-race chief executive and squelch a desire for an all-white replacement. Perhaps it's unconscious on their part, but it's clear that racism is being practiced among my neighbors. (I'm confident this small community is a tiny microcosm of our national society.) Even a few of those who might have voted three years ago for Obama (maybe only because they were more anti-Palin or more prejudiced against females than against someone of mixed race), are now hopeful that some white guy can step in and solve our problems. Fat chance! It was despicable white guys who ran us into the ditch, and it will take more than a simple new white face in the White House to help us recover. I maintain my support for intelligence as the key to any possible recovery.
Please don't point to Herman Cain as some kind of proof I am wrong about the racism. His was never a candidacy to be taken seriously by anyone other than the powerful tycoons behind his bid, apparently seeing him as the ultimate in simple puppetry. Even with this ugly prospect, I half hoped the zany, fractured GOP would nominate him. At least I could have been less concerned about a potential defeat of Obama. A man who couldn't speak to anything outside of his narrow business experience would never(!) have a chance to push aside an incumbant who is ten times more intelligent and only half as black! The (!) is evidence that even as I write this, I cannot shake my fear of the ignorance!
The biggest concern about the racism factor is that it can be completely subliminal. Many folks who believe themselves to be utterly unaffected by race in any matter can suddenly find no reason for a tug in one direction as opposed to another, unless the ugly old twinge of racial discrimination might be at the root of the question. I often check myself to see whether any of my own motives are colored by color. An interesting article by Dafna Linzer published in The Washington Post and in the online news commentary, ProPublica, shows that racial overtones had crept into the process of presidential pardons. Officials claimed total surprise at the findings and could not see how the numbers could have shown such a disparity. No one mentioned subliminal racism as a cause, but it almost certainly was. Short of being in our DNA, racism is about as deeply entrenched in our subconscious as any human tendency outside of survival and sex drives.
Please, when it comes to elections, check your own racism quotient just to be sure of your own motives; and please don't cast an ignorant vote for another incompetent candidate who will take us closer to our demise.
And following this post, we will avoid the subject of politics for a while. After all, Christmas is coming!
** Update NOTE: Mar. 6, 2012 - A study just completed announced today that black students are three times more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled. Probably just a meaningless coincidence! The news of this came at the very same time as the news that a Colorado court has ruled that students may carry guns on campus. Our nation is so advanced and our citizens all socially aware; we are so totally healthy in our practices. And racism no longer exists! Aren't we grand?!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Ignore Ants
Today the tiny group of the very wealthy, those now generally called "the 1%," are in a position particularly estranged from the common man on the street (or at home with no job, or standing in the park with others protesting our current mess), and quite possibly cannot see the rest of us at all. To those extremely wealthy folks in their ivory towers, we of the 99% are too far below to even be in view; we are simply the ants of society - going about our mundane business, crawling over obstacles as best we can, struggling to bring home some tiny morsel to help us survive. The super-rich are quite removed from the common man. They hardly know about our survival plight, and except for Warren Buffett and possibly one or two others of great character, they prefer to ignore us. Ignore ants can be their simple mantra; we are nothing to them.
But now some few of the vaunted rich are having to deal with the ants that have begun to spoil their picnic. Oh, it isn't actually possible to affect them substantially, but it is not as easy at the moment for them to completely ignore the ants.
What amazes me today, where I reside among quasi intelligent folks, is that many of the less destitute ants in our society are superficially separating themselves from the rest of the 99% and appear to be cultivating a kinship to the 1% in some kind of wishful thinking, I suppose. Or just bone-headed NON-thinking is more likely. Some who are comfortable, in that they no longer need to struggle mightily to survive, want to see themselves as part of the upper crust of society and can no longer identify with the low-life types who are not so fortunate. Many (perhaps most) of today's low-lifes have merely the bad luck of bad timing to thank for their condition of near poverty. Only a few of the more fortunate among us can admit (or even realize) that they were the beneficiaries of some dumb luck along the way, the timing that fell just right for them to become comfortable while others continued to struggle. Some of these folks have become the self-righteous ants who can look down upon the poor ants and try to ignore them. But the vantage point these people hold, being only a notch or two above the dirt-poor, does not allow them to completely ignore the ants, it allows them only to feel superior. Having to deal each day with all those others, the destitute and maybe ragged and ugly ants, keeps the slightly successful ants from being actually capable of completely ignoring them in the manner the 1% can. So they end up just sounding smug and hateful.
A person of generally good demeanor, possessing a passion for life and pleased to be part of his society, can become involved in matters he might not have foreseen. For example, thousands of society's ants are gathering in cities all around our struggling nation to participate in the Occupy movement. Who are these folks who can take the time and effort to do this and feel it is the right thing to do? Most are those who are out of work, looking into the face of poverty, seeing their chance of ever attaining part of The American Dream completely crumbling before them.
Who are the people criticizing these ne'r-do-wells, these thugs, these law-breakers (I hear these ugly slurs daily) who are causing disruption to our way of life? Well, in most cases, the cruel critics are people who might themselves be in the Occupy groups but for the timing. A neighbor in my community who is a senior citizen, living well in his paid-for home, enjoying his Social Security every month along with his larger monthly income from a solid pension he paid into during his good years of employment, somehow can look upon those protesters with disdain. And but for the timing, but for his good luck, he could easily be one of them himself. He'd prefer to think he is better than that, that he would never be such a rebel or lawless punk. He simply refuses to mentally put himself into someone else's shoes for a moment. Yet had he not met with the good fortune, the dumb luck, many years ago, he could easily have been marching with his fellow trouble-makers and living outside in the elements under the watchful eye of armed police, looking like a lawless mob on the newscasts, getting no respect from the comfortable ants of his society. Odds are fairly strong that his own father would have been one of the dirty and miserable law-breakers among the great throngs of desperate marchers in the nineteen-thirties.
Any one of us who is less destitute than those marching in America's cities to call attention to the vast inequality of our financial system, should at least have a little empathy. The protesters are there for the rest of us who are too comfortable, too afraid, too blind regarding the inequality or just too lazy to be there ourselves.
As to looking down on these ants of society, trying to assume the lofty position of that tiny 1% in our views of the Occupy crowd, it doesn't work for us comfortable ants. When we try to ignore ants, it reveals a condition with a slightly different pronunciation. Try putting the emphasis on the "ig" and see how it expresses that condition. Trying to ignore ants makes us guilty of simple ignor-ants. Ignorance is the proper spelling.
We who are the luckier of the 99% are still in this mess with the unlucky; we still owe them our respect when they try to improve the world for us all. Those who refuse to accept this simple fact and who look down upon and belittle the Occupy movement are not somehow raising themselves above the throngs of the abused; they are still being abused themselves. They just aren't yet feeling the worst of the punishment being doled out by the Wall Street system. Folks who have been successful enough that they are not yet desperate are still far from approaching membership in that small group of the filthy rich. They are willfully choosing to live in filthy ignorance! And the horrifying prospect of all this lies in the willful ignorance that will guide these folks when they step into a voting booth.
[Here's an interesting further word-play irony: the comfortable ants are sneering at the down-trodden ants who are willing to march in protest on behalf of ALL ants. Disrespecting the protest ants. That's right - many who feel superior to the protest ants are themselves protestants! And it's not all just the emphasis on syllables - it's the emphasis on character. Odd little twist, is it not?]
But now some few of the vaunted rich are having to deal with the ants that have begun to spoil their picnic. Oh, it isn't actually possible to affect them substantially, but it is not as easy at the moment for them to completely ignore the ants.
What amazes me today, where I reside among quasi intelligent folks, is that many of the less destitute ants in our society are superficially separating themselves from the rest of the 99% and appear to be cultivating a kinship to the 1% in some kind of wishful thinking, I suppose. Or just bone-headed NON-thinking is more likely. Some who are comfortable, in that they no longer need to struggle mightily to survive, want to see themselves as part of the upper crust of society and can no longer identify with the low-life types who are not so fortunate. Many (perhaps most) of today's low-lifes have merely the bad luck of bad timing to thank for their condition of near poverty. Only a few of the more fortunate among us can admit (or even realize) that they were the beneficiaries of some dumb luck along the way, the timing that fell just right for them to become comfortable while others continued to struggle. Some of these folks have become the self-righteous ants who can look down upon the poor ants and try to ignore them. But the vantage point these people hold, being only a notch or two above the dirt-poor, does not allow them to completely ignore the ants, it allows them only to feel superior. Having to deal each day with all those others, the destitute and maybe ragged and ugly ants, keeps the slightly successful ants from being actually capable of completely ignoring them in the manner the 1% can. So they end up just sounding smug and hateful.
A person of generally good demeanor, possessing a passion for life and pleased to be part of his society, can become involved in matters he might not have foreseen. For example, thousands of society's ants are gathering in cities all around our struggling nation to participate in the Occupy movement. Who are these folks who can take the time and effort to do this and feel it is the right thing to do? Most are those who are out of work, looking into the face of poverty, seeing their chance of ever attaining part of The American Dream completely crumbling before them.
Who are the people criticizing these ne'r-do-wells, these thugs, these law-breakers (I hear these ugly slurs daily) who are causing disruption to our way of life? Well, in most cases, the cruel critics are people who might themselves be in the Occupy groups but for the timing. A neighbor in my community who is a senior citizen, living well in his paid-for home, enjoying his Social Security every month along with his larger monthly income from a solid pension he paid into during his good years of employment, somehow can look upon those protesters with disdain. And but for the timing, but for his good luck, he could easily be one of them himself. He'd prefer to think he is better than that, that he would never be such a rebel or lawless punk. He simply refuses to mentally put himself into someone else's shoes for a moment. Yet had he not met with the good fortune, the dumb luck, many years ago, he could easily have been marching with his fellow trouble-makers and living outside in the elements under the watchful eye of armed police, looking like a lawless mob on the newscasts, getting no respect from the comfortable ants of his society. Odds are fairly strong that his own father would have been one of the dirty and miserable law-breakers among the great throngs of desperate marchers in the nineteen-thirties.
Any one of us who is less destitute than those marching in America's cities to call attention to the vast inequality of our financial system, should at least have a little empathy. The protesters are there for the rest of us who are too comfortable, too afraid, too blind regarding the inequality or just too lazy to be there ourselves.
As to looking down on these ants of society, trying to assume the lofty position of that tiny 1% in our views of the Occupy crowd, it doesn't work for us comfortable ants. When we try to ignore ants, it reveals a condition with a slightly different pronunciation. Try putting the emphasis on the "ig" and see how it expresses that condition. Trying to ignore ants makes us guilty of simple ignor-ants. Ignorance is the proper spelling.
We who are the luckier of the 99% are still in this mess with the unlucky; we still owe them our respect when they try to improve the world for us all. Those who refuse to accept this simple fact and who look down upon and belittle the Occupy movement are not somehow raising themselves above the throngs of the abused; they are still being abused themselves. They just aren't yet feeling the worst of the punishment being doled out by the Wall Street system. Folks who have been successful enough that they are not yet desperate are still far from approaching membership in that small group of the filthy rich. They are willfully choosing to live in filthy ignorance! And the horrifying prospect of all this lies in the willful ignorance that will guide these folks when they step into a voting booth.
[Here's an interesting further word-play irony: the comfortable ants are sneering at the down-trodden ants who are willing to march in protest on behalf of ALL ants. Disrespecting the protest ants. That's right - many who feel superior to the protest ants are themselves protestants! And it's not all just the emphasis on syllables - it's the emphasis on character. Odd little twist, is it not?]
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