back to the future

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-- Around the country, young black people are being encouraged and trained to take up farming.

-- Washington is girding its loins in the face of a U.N. vote next week that may or may not recognize the sovereignty of a Palestinian state. The current administration has promised to veto such recognition. The U.S. has been partial to Israel and a Palestinian state would diminish Israel's standing. But the U.S. is losing its clout around the world and to vote against such a state would run counter to the rising sense of freedom in the Middle East... an oil-rich and militarily strategic part of the world. "Freedom," while vaunted, is such a malleable word when self-interest is involved.

-- "The Beast from the East," Russian boxing champion Nikolai Valuev, is off for a two-day adventure in search of a yeti in the mountains of Kemerovo Region. There is something passe and yet reassuring about the fact that people are still looking for these hairy humanoids. I wonder if things would be more or less satisfying if the adventurers ever credibly found one. Whatever the case, I appreciate 'foolish' adventures that inflict minimal foolishness on the rest of us.
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the warm bathtub of memory

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This morning, for no reason I could discern other than the smile it put on my face, I found myself lowered into the warm bathtub of memory ... into the times when, after a night of drinking at a bar in Monterey the three of us favored, a place where we were all smitten with the waitress Rowena Gunby Halsey Jones and I could pump the player piano after inserting the paper rolls that promised mazurkas ... Bill and Joe and I would stuff ourselves into Joe's red MGB sports car and ride back up the hill to the Army Language School we were all attending in California. It was 1962.

William B. McKechnie III -- whose middle initial B. stood for nothing whatsoever and was probably laid on him,  as it had been laid on his father and grandfather before him, at a time when only the wealthy had middle names and those who were not wealthy wanted to seem that way. Bill, who would go on to try to carry on the family tradition of managing professional baseball teams and come up short. Bill, who would never marry and later die after settling down to buying and selling used items that were short of antique but interesting nevertheless.

Joe Rader -- who came from a truly hard-scrabble background in Tennessee, a place where his mother stirred the dirty clothes in a large vat over a fire in the backyard and where Joe once got so furious with his stepfather that he hit him with a tire iron ... "I wanted to kill him." Joe, whose car was but one indicator of his fierce determination not to be poor. Joe, who would sip Jack Daniels where Bill and I drank beer and then, when drunk enough, would put in a long-distance to Jinx back in Tennessee, a woman twice his age whom Joe loved with passion and would later marry, only to have her die in a car accident. Joe, who could sometimes be found in his barracks room, tears streaming down his cheeks as his listened to the opera, "Madame Butterfly." Joe, who, after Jinx' death, came out of the homosexual closet, got hooked on heroin and by his own word, became the homosexual scourge of the campus at which he was a librarian. Joe, whose fate today I do not know.

There the three of us would be, stuffed into Joe's zippy little sports car, three sheets to the wind, hollering and laughing about whatever came to mind. And Bill, who spoke no French, could become entranced when, drunkenly, I would declaim at the top of my lungs, the first lines of a 16th century poem I had once been forced to commit to memory ...

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge !

Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée, et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup davantage ?

I always forgot to add the second line, but who cared -- there was a longing and softness in the lines that took me to some place within that was half-remembered and full of love, a place where, having gone forth, any man might return and, at last, be at rest. Bill would laugh at the sheer delight of hearing a language he knew nothing about and yet, I think, could feel the lullaby of sentiment. Joe too would laugh. Hell, we all laughed. The night air was good, we were three sheets up and who knew what wonders and mysteries lay ahead of us?

Plein d'usage et raison ... "full of experience and reason" is how it translates (perhaps wrongly) in my mind. To be at rest and at home with the experience that time has provided. No need for more adventure and scrambling to understand and control events.

This ... is enough.

And it is worth a smile.
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Troy Davis

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As if capital punishment were not gut-wrenching enough, the idea that the suspect evidence against a man should lead to his death is heinous. It is not entirely clear to me why Troy Davis has not won the right to further appeal his case, but it does seem clear that he does not deserve to die on Sept. 21 as scheduled.

Appeals are widespread that his sentence should be commuted to life in prison, but it is also not clear to me why, if his sentence is commuted based on faulty evidence, he should serve even that term.
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odds and ends of news

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-- SAT reading scores for graduating high school seniors have dropped to their lowest point in 40 years. Is this to say that people actually do read?

-- One proposal in Denmark, a bastion of decent living, suggests that people might work an extra 12 minutes per day as a way of addressing economic hard times.

-- And the computer giant Apple has agreed to discontinue its "Jew or Not Jew" application in France. The application winkles out the heritage of celebrities and public figures. Its creator insists it was all in fun, but hackles rose over its racist implications. The app is still available elsewhere.
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rename that product

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If you rename Zyklon B, is it any less lethal? If a politician "misspeaks," is it any less a "lie?" Is a "pre-owned vehicle" any less a "used car?" And for those with "issues," are they any less a "problem?"

The Corn Refiners Association has expressed the desire to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup after scientists linked the product to an array of medical problems. More important, other products have started to advertise that their offerings do not contain the syrup which goes into an enormous panorama of soft drunks and other foods. That advertising and a growing public awareness mean lost income for the corn refiners' constituency.

What to do, what to do???!!!

I know -- we'll change the name to "corn sugar."

The Food and Drug Administration to which the corn refiners made their request last year is probably a year away from a decision. You can imagine that in future, products containing "high-fructose corn syrup" will no longer do so ... although, of course, they will contain "corn sugar."

Let's not let the "Department of Defense," once called the "War Department," get the best of us.

Let's not let "sharing" and "compassion" and "enlightenment" pull the wool over our eyes.
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in love with "fun"

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In at least one of his novels, "Shibumi," the author Trevanian cast a jaundiced eye on the western devotion to "fun." If I recall his writing correctly, both "fun" and the "merchant" mentality left him seething with disgust at the careless mediocrity of which his cohorts in the west were so adept.

The word "fun" is defined by an internet dictionary in part as:

-- enjoyment, especially from an activity that is not important or serious

In rough terms, "fun" strikes me as something exercised in good times, times when the chores are done and can be set aside for the moment. It is not a birthright or an imperative. It is, often, a bit of harmless frivolity that feels good, like laughter. It has no particular import except to the extent it makes anyone feel good. It produces little or nothing outside this relaxing, easing moment. A steady diet of "fun" or the constant striving for "fun" vitiates the nature of "fun," as for example the constant, demanding, upward-spiraling addictions of Hollywood or other well-heeled venues in which people strive to survive on a diet of icing and a sugar-high demands ever more sugar. Literal sugar is sweet, but as an undiluted diet, the rate of diabetes worldwide is going through the roof. And the same is true for sugar, or fun, as a mental construct.

After years of fending off attempts to create casinos in Massachusetts (where I live), the state House of Representatives finally gave its OK yesterday to the creation of three casinos in the state. The measure must pass the Senate and be signed by the governor, but in tough economic times, the whole matter stands its best chance in years. Sources for state and local funding are pinched, proponents point out. Except for high end jobs, well, a lot of people in Massachusetts are, as elsewhere, hurting. Schools, police and fire protection, roads, bridges ... everyone needs more as they are being forced to do with less. Casino income -- income derived from "fun" -- seems a likely source. And casino revenues would be parceled out among an array of needy entities ... millions of much-needed dollars. Opponents like Rep. Ruth Balser point out that the enthusiasm for casino income "is the race to the bottom."

It's hard to remember a time -- which actually existed -- when lottery income did not represent an integral part of the state's means of paying its bills. Over time, it became, like the financial institutions the federal government has bailed out with taxpayer money, "too big to fail." Without what was once a little discretionary "fun," the state simply could not function. And casinos seem like an extension of that reliance on "fun." Leaving aside the addicts for a moment, it does seem like a vein worth tapping ... as long as there are people making enough money to spend in such a way. But these are hard times, so it's hard to see how that revenue stream is a lasting and reliable answer to significant woes.

Well, the cornerstone of the political world is re-election and perhaps tapping into "fun" will help do the trick.

But at a personal level, I wonder if an individual's assumption of or demand for "fun" isn't likewise a rickety underpinning. Relying on "fun" too often means shutting out or ignoring the times that aren't "fun." "Fun" as a birthright demand means that sorrow increases when the hard facts of not-fun come calling. Selling out to "fun" nourishes the merchant's lifestyle in which everything is a grasping compromise and looking in the mirror is an occasion for regret.

Is it sensible? Is it really fun? What happened to the laughter? At what point did full-throated delight become the burden of loss? When did the blessing become a curse? The merchant mind may ponder and feel trapped. Is it worth it -- knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing?

Perhaps it's time to get to work and investigate the assumptions of the past. Why? Because increasingly they don't seem to hold water and, more, they aren't a lot of fun.
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habits

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Today, because there is an ultrasound test to be performed (no, I'm not pregnant), the daily routine has been interrupted: The orders are, no food or drink before the test. No oatmeal and raisins for breakfast. No coffee. No (to the extent possible) liquids. No smoking.

The interesting thing about being denied is that it offers clues as to how dedicated -- if not addicted -- I am to my routine. And while I am not precisely enjoying this minor bout of asceticism, still I can see some usefulness to stepping back from all those habits I do not generally call habits... the ones to which I am too habituated to see them as habits.

What about writing on the internet, reading the news, pondering this and that, wishing things were otherwise, talking, being happy or sad ... just the ordinary, run of the mill stuff.

Maybe it would be a good idea to take a small break from any of them for a little while ... not too long, just long enough to recognize and take responsibility for  what is 'par for the course.' If I cannot acknowledge and take the measure of the cornerstone of the structure, how could I possibly get a reliable bead on the structure itself?
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on the ground

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The U.S. poverty rate is reportedly pushing one in six -- 46 million of the estimated 312 total population. The 15.1 percent is the highest since 1983. Worse than the grinding, factual horror that this can represent for the people enduring what no one is willing to take responsibility for is the loss of national integrity. What country that loves to claim the high moral ground can write off with political indecision the needs of 15% of its population?

On the political stage, Republican presidential candidates were taken to task today by The Washington Post for their warped and uninformed positions on Afghanistan -- a country where U.S. soldiers have been fighting and being maimed and dying for 10 years with no end in sight. The Republicans are frequently the ones who love the American flag and the muscular waving thereof. Not only is there oil and gas in them thar hills, there are also strategically placed military bases to build in furtherance of the American cause. Wars and bases cost money. And Lord how the money rolls in for the companies bankrolling Republicans and their muscular postures. We love our children, but if a few of the less-well-to-do ones have to die in support of the grand old (Republican) flag, well it's worth the price. They're not my children. And of course it's not just Republicans who deserve the credit....

This stuff and other stuff like it is palpable. It's not just some airy-fairy theory. Judas Iscariot was said to have sold out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and while I wouldn't suggest the United States was any Jesus Christ (though some Republicans might), it's interesting to see inflation take its toll and some once-firm aspirations and ideals sold out for cuff links and a consolidation of self-anointing power.

Ah well ... the mistakes of others all come down to this: Don't YOU do that!

And, by extension, consider the case of the Utah students who lifted a car that was crushing a motorcyclist in the wake of a crash on Monday.

For their bravery, the rescuers are being called "heroes" and "angels," though none want the labels.
"That's a big title," said Sharif, a doctoral candidate from Lebanon. "I don't consider myself a hero. It's just our humanity ... Everyone is going to help."

And so, by extension, where there is correct and compassionate action, YOU do that too. Since we're human, we might as well exercise a little humanity.

It's just our humanity.
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incomplete expression

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It seems to me that everyone leads a complete life -- utterly complete. No one walking to the kitchen believes s/he is walking to the kitchen. S/he is completely walking to the kitchen. No one riven by grief believes she is sad. S/he is completely sad. Everyone leads a complete life ... and then brings belief to bear.

Belief relies on two things -- doubt and the past. To believe something is to place it at a separated distance based on a past that cannot be grasped. But is there anything graspable or ungraspable about walking to the kitchen? I don't think so. Walking to the kitchen is complete -- a whole life in ineffable action.

If any of this is true, then I think belief might be described as an incomplete expression of a complete existence. Belief may be integral to a complete existence, but it can never complete it.
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betrayal

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Is there anything more infuriating than the betrayal by a trusted institution or individual?

-- The sexually abused woman who is encouraged to bring her complaints to the religious institution that suborned the abuser in the first place?

-- The black man encouraged to bring his complaints to the police department in whose ranks the perpetrator of police brutality found a home?

-- The patient encouraged to see a doctor in the wake of a misapplied regimen of drugs whose industry so many doctors are beholden to?

Institutions and individuals that encourage and in some cases warrant individual trust grow slack and self-congratulatory and forget the individuals whose collective trust maintains the institution or individual. Instead of honoring the trust of each individual -- honoring and protecting that trust -- the institution or individual turns to upholding and protecting the institution or individual at the expense of the individuals who may trust it.

A raging cynicism in the face of such betrayal scenarios is really not quite enough. Yes, it's enough to piss off the pope. Yes, it's self-serving and vile. But eventually, the personal longing for and delight in trust has to be addressed.

Somehow, without rancor or surprise, there has to be some peace in the fact that whatever else we trust is likely to come around and bite us on the ass...and we are willing to take that risk and suffer its consequences. Cynicism is too easy ... and besides, it doesn't taste good ... and on top of that it is just something else to trust. Unbridled cynicism like unbridled trust in something else has its potentials for good and evil.

Sometimes the sky is blue. Sometimes the sky is grey.

But whose betrayal is this?
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a little giggle, s'il vous plaît

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The Hindus, whose literature I came to know through a three- or four-year foray into Vedanta, always struck me as more willing to laugh than the Buddhists, on whose doorstep I eventually landed. Hindus seemed willing to tell tales on themselves, to laugh, and, in that laughter, to offer some open-hearted and pointed instruction when it came to spiritual endeavor.

While laughter is not the only way to offer instruction, I do think it is a very good way ... sort of agreeing with the old saw, "Laughter is the best medicine." Spiritual endeavor needs this ability because at its root it has a great pool of seriousness and solemnity that might read, "Spiritual life is important because I and my sorrows are important. This is no giggling matter."

It is true that human suffering is no laughing matter. But this does not mean that the instruments of alleviating that suffering cannot or should not be viewed with a wry smile and an occasional guffaw. I always liked what I learned of Hinduism because it took a moment or two to laugh.

 In laughter, as in music, the heart opens and the posturing defenses and soaring philosophies are, if only for a moment, lost. If there is a better instruction than that, I don't know it. No one with a human heart would laugh or make light of the uncertainties and tribulations that can impel a head-first dive into spiritual practice ... that sometimes desperate longing to right the foundering ship, to find peaceful waters, to rest easy. Suffering is not just some philosophical or religious talking point. Often it is plainly and unremittingly "ouch!" ... big-time. To skim over such facts with a giggle would be heartless in the extreme.

But having taken up the instruments of spiritual life -- even if it is just the thin-tea approach of an asserted belief -- I think that at some point laughter has to become one of those instruments if any honest conclusion is to be reached.

What brought this thought-train on was the recollection of a Hindu metaphor that wasn't especially good for a laugh. (I should be telling funny tales in here, but, although I can remember some, I haven't got the energy to write them down).

That Hindu metaphor was the suggestion that when a (wo)man feels the pain of a thorn stuck in the hand or foot, s/he employs another thorn to dig it out. Using the implements of pain, the pain is undone. And when the initial thorn is removed ... both thorns can be thrown away without a backward glance.

I like the thorns a bit better than I like the Buddhist metaphor of Buddhism as a raft with which to cross the roiling waters of this life: On reaching the further shore, the raft is left behind. It's the same notion, differently formed, but thorns hurt ... and sometimes life hurts terribly. Buddhism's metaphor is gentler, perhaps, but I like the ouch-accuracy of a thorn.

The solemnity and seriousness of spiritual endeavor -- the get-down-and-boogie determination and courage -- really is both necessary and impressive.

But at some point, if laughter is missing, something has gone seriously awry.
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GOP swaps political gravitas for religious zeal

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A friend of mine, Frank, sent along this appreciation of the Republican party's willingness to trade in its political abilities for the raucous certainties of a religion. I thought and think that it hits an unfortunate nail on the head.

The springboard for that appreciation came from a cri de coeur blog post by former GOP congressional staffer Mike Lofgren. 

I found both pieces (neither of them an easy-peasy sound bite ... it may take five whole minutes to read either) as thoughtful as they were sad-making.
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until religion itself will disappear

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According to a story from the BBC, Christianity is ballooning in China.

And one of the interesting observations in the article was this:

Since the 1980s, when religious belief was again permitted, the official Churches have gradually created more space for themselves.
They report to the State Administration for Religious Affairs. They are forbidden to take part in any religious activity outside their places of worship and sign up to the slogan, "Love the country - love your religion."
In return the Party promotes atheism in schools but undertakes "to protect and respect religion until such time as religion itself will disappear".

Until such time as religion itself will disappear.

Somehow I like that scenario. Is it communist-party wishful thinking or is there some honest Chinese wisdom, born of the ages, that resides in it? Either way, I think it's fun.
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the longing to be dumb

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Attentive parents of young children may be galvanized into action after reading that the TV cartoon, "SpongeBob SquarePants" seems to make kids significantly dumber than other TV fare. Since I have suffered through and enjoyed a lot of cartoons as my kids grew up, I was delighted to read this: SpongeBob was one of my least-favorite TV pastimes, together with "Mr. Rogers." The kids loved it ... I saw it as something that made me want to eat anchovies, which I hate.

But after reading the BBC article about the brain-numbing nature of SpongeBob, I wondered about the role of dumb stuff in our lives -- a time to chill out with something precisely because it did not require any thought or analysis or even attention. After a long day in the office, an adult is forgiven for having a drink in order to unwind. Football games are not something anyone could do anything about and they do not impinge on what is serious in our lives (unless you've got a lot of money riding on the outcome). And weeding the flower garden can have a wonderfully clarifying and unthreatening aura.

A down time, a time to relax, a time to think about what is not nagging and nitty-gritty ... isn't there something to be said for dumb stuff? Of course, problems arise when the dumb stuff is elevated to the level of what is serious. When dumb stuff becomes smart stuff ... well, that doesn't sound too smart.

But how is anyone to separate what is serious and what is dumb? And if anyone chose to elevate dumb stuff to the level of smart and serious stuff, wouldn't they still need some down time, a time to relax with something ... dumber?

It's all a judgment call, I suppose. One man's meat is another man's poison. But is it possible that the relaxed and relaxing nature of our own versions of "SpongeBob SquarePants" is something to take a hint from? Why is our SpongeBob relaxing and our taxes are not? Why is hang-gliding a delight but funerals are not? Why is what seems to be a human imperative to seek out a peaceful "ahhhh" distinguished from the imperative to elude the "aaarrrgh?"

I haven't got any answers but it crossed my mind.

And I reserve the right to continue thinking "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "Mr. Rogers" are drivel.
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dismantle beliefs ... how?

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Watching a youtube clip of a man who appears to be named David A. Morse, I found myself struck by how lucky I felt.

Morse gives a pretty good Christian-oriented talk about the love of Christ and how, if anyone wants to attain such a state, the first order of business is to "dismantle the beliefs" that currently pass for Christianity. His delivery is the quasi-staccato, gasp-y-breathed offering of an evangelical, though his observations are pretty fresh and challenging. He even drops a few Buddhist references.

The biggest challenge comes right at the beginning of the clip with the encouragement to "dismantle the beliefs." I've never heard a Christian say that (perhaps because I am too ignorant) and it was a refreshing invitation. No matter what you believe, he says approximately, it is bound to cause discord if not outright harm in the long haul.

I found myself thinking that I couldn't agree more, but ...

But I wondered what audience he was addressing. I imagined it to be Christian-leaning (God, etc.) if not lifelong, Sunday-go-to-meetin' Christians. His parting words to those listening is, "I invite you all to your own reflections on awareness."

And at that point, I wondered what mechanism was available to Christians invited to "dismantle the beliefs" that are the underpinning of so much of both institutional Christianity and the Christians who credit it. Even if the courage and determination were available, what would a Christian do in order to drop the beliefs and actualize a love of Christ. There is prayer, of course, and "The Way of a Pilgrim" makes it clear that deep and repetitive prayer has some pretty good results. But so much of prayer is woven with belief that it is hard not to imagine it might be like pouring out gasoline in order to douse a fire. I'm not criticizing, just trying to see what mechanism might be available to those willing to shake off belief ... what is the literal, arms-and-legs method of training and, possibly, attaining.

My question to Morse was, "dismantle the beliefs" ... how?

It's no good simply telling someone to let go of their beliefs when they are in the midst of believing. That would be like lecturing a fish flopping on the dock about the life-giving properties of breathing air. If telling the truth is the best you can do, well, what good is that? To my mind, which, I suspect, lacks the full panorama of the suggestion, it sounds merely frightening.

But being free from belief is something everyone has done. They already know -- from sneezing or laughing or even running a good race -- that belief is a secondary matter, something that relies on and lives in the past. When a mortar shell explodes mere feet from a soldier's fox hole, there is no God, no heaven, no hell. There is only boom! Only later does God come into the mix. And every moment is a boom moment -- exceeding the grasp of any save the confused. People know this from their own experience ... but do not yet connect the dots of ungraspability. They believe and are partially consoled and then believe some more in order to patch over the places and times that go boom. And the beliefs are fierce -- truly, truly fierce.

Well, I haven't written this very well. The only thing I wanted to say was that I feel extremely fortunate to have taken up a Zen practice. Zen doesn't tell anyone to chuck or dismantle their beliefs. Zen is sneakier than that. Zen says, "Believe anything you like ... but practice." So Buddhists can believe in Buddhism if they like. But they practice ... they are given the tool box with which to dismantle the beliefs without even knowing that that is what they are doing.

In Zen, there is some emphasis on zazen, or seated meditation. Literally, sit down, erect the spine, shut up, sit still and focus the mind. On the surface it's a physical exercise. But that exercise brings thought, word and deed into accord. Body and mind are no longer imagined to be separate. This bringing together (so to speak ... how the hell could they be separate?) of the elements of anyone's life teaches, day by day, month by month, year by year ... well, boom! Belief falls away not because someone dismantled it, but because experience trumps belief.

I am happy to hear people like Morse pointing to a way that is more convincing than belief. But the fierce-fierce-fierce fierceness of belief make me grateful for a tradition that provides the this-really-works tools ... tools that stand a chance of realization and actualization. Perhaps there are other equally effective tools, but I do know that tools like intellect and emotion won't work.

I don't know...

But I do know I am grateful.
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tomorrow is Sept. 12

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One thing good about Sept. 11 is that tomorrow is Sept. 12. The orgy of media attention that has led up to the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, demolition of the World Trade Towers in New York and associated destruction elsewhere has provided scant room for unfettered personal reflection. Under the guise of collective 'caring,' the run-up to today's anniversary has thinned, if not obliterated, the chance to care... or anyway, that's my take.

Disasters or other revisions of a collective status quo (blackouts, blizzards, etc.) bring people together in wonderful ways, suggesting that the relentless pursuit of individualized goals really has missed some very important and consoling and ennobling point: There is nourishment to be offered and received in our social being. Disasters are wonderful in one sense ... people smile at each other and in that smile assert a bedrock understanding that is just plain (somehow) right. This is good news that requires no media hype and no pulpiteering.

Perhaps it is just a matter of being "scared straight."

But no thing is ever just one thing and disasters are no different. Being "scared straight" (if that is somewhere close to the truth) contains two obvious elements, "scared" and "straight." The collective "straight" that puts a smile on faces is likewise a collective "scared" -- and it is in that collective "scared" that the scary part arises, the part where the media has a field day and government can work its wiles.

Some three thousand people died in the demolition of the World Trade Towers. The horror was palpable, whether anyone was on the scene or not. Three ... thousand ... people. The word "tragedy" is reduced to the status of a wet wash cloth in the face of the facts.

And one possibility is ... suffer a tragedy, inflict a tragedy. Today, close to 80 American troops were injured and several Afghanis killed by a truck bomb in Afghanistan -- a reminder of the 10-year-old inflict-a-tragedy effort that has been sold as part of the "war on terror." In the 10 years since the World Trade Towers demolition, "terror" has taken its place in the politically-useful lexicon of governments around the world. Attacking those who 'might' attack us has become acceptable policy. Billions upon billions of dollars have been spent to ward off real and concocted dangers, some of them as ethereal as an overactive imagination. "Patriotism" has taken on a thin-lipped vengefulness that is miles removed from the "straight" smile of one for the next. And the straightness that any individual is capable of and can see and understand without effort is drowned or rerouted into a clenched jaw that refuses to surrender or see or revise.

Pulpiteers and philosophers are quick to indulge in encouragements based on the 'goodness' and 'joy' that people are capable of. Politicians and skeptics trumpet the inflict-a-tragedy hymn. It's all available to any who might wish to find their peace in the agreement of others. But when meanings and explanations have run their course and when peace continues to go begging, what choice is there but to nourish our firmness and learn how to...

Smile a smile that brooks no doubt?
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Colin Powell: "Of course I regret it"

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Where are the men and women in public life who, like Colin Powell, can say they were complicit in a terrible mistake and "Of course I regret it?"

Naturally, the horse is out of the barn and there is no putting him back, but that statement of regret sounds suspiciously like a kind of integrity that is just plain missing in the public (and sometimes private) arena.
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blind fish

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Interesting:

[Blind] Fish living in dark caves still feel the rhythm of life
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good news

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The former CBS newsman, Walter Cronkite, once observed that "news is not about how many cats did not get up on the garage roof."

For all the aptness of that observation, still the drumbeat of upheaval and sorrow that news can depict can be wearing, very wearing.

Where's the good news -- the stuff that makes a heart smile in recognition and appreciation? I don't just mean the egregiously sappy stories about the success Troop 4 had when selling Girl Scout cookies. You know ... just something to raise a trustworthy smile?

Well, today is a brilliantly sunny one. The air seems refreshed by a series of rainy days that preceded it. It's a starting point, I imagine.

Not that there's any choice in the matter.
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predicting the revolution

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A super-computer's handlers have claimed some ability to predict revolution and upheavals based on the processing of past data. They are now working to apply their analyses to current events, to a real time that looks into tomorrow.

I read the whole article wondering if the current news markers in my own country would yield a prediction of revolution or some similar upheaval.

I also wondered if, were someone to make such a prediction, what the reaction might be. Just because you know something bad is going to happen is no predictor of remedial behavior that might stem the time of violent sorrow.

When so many interests are vested in war, what force besides force has a chance of waging peace? Does the truth (assuming a machine could generate it) stand a chance when so many stand to lose?
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ask me if I care

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When it comes to American politics, I think that one of the hardest questions to ask is, "Ask me if I care." Don't tell me that I should care, ask me if I care.

Ask me if I care about Barack Obama's speech on jobs or the predictable knee-jerk Republican "no" that is sure to follow. Ask me if I care about the Republican candidates' debate. Ask me if I care about the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, demolition of the World Trade Towers. Ask me if I care about the Israeli attack on Gaza-aid ships in international waters. Ask me if I care about the fact that the same bankers and brokers who engineered the economic collapse of 2008 are now advising the latest congressional committees addressing banking reform.

Ask me if I care.

And of course there are things that I care about, but the fact is that in shuddering economic times, the trust that had informed an earlier caring has been eroded and I am tired of unkept promises heaped high with the same promises newly-packaged. It is tiring to be uncertain and I imagine I am not alone.

Ask me if I care and I find myself thrown back on my own devices: The only thing that can be learned from the mistakes of others is this: Don't YOU do that.

And I care about that.
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hip-pocket encouragements

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I don't know about anyone else, but through the years, I have at various times found encouragements in very brief (you might say sound-bite) mantra that stand in for a whole panorama of thinking/belief/hope/faith/understanding or whatever. Some have come and gone and were little more than mantra-du-jour. Others remained, like old friends.

I noticed this the other day when I realized I had taken on a new one ... something that banged my chimes and spoke directly to me as a reminder ...

If you're so serious, why aren't you laughing?

 Older friends include:

Love and charity towards all beings
Contentment under all circumstances
Control of the senses and passions .... (Boosted from the Hindus)

And:

Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help.

And:

Smile just one smile.

Do I need these things? I don't know, but I do know they linger and whisper and occasionally take on a re-enforced meaning.
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rules and the breaking thereof

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In my lackadaisical, Twitter-prone, mind, the 1950's in America were a time when people remembered all too clearly the sorrow and sacrifices of World War II. It was a time when what was near and dear was held close in the wake of a time when what was near and dear had been shattered -- family, friends, social order, trust and a quietly creative industry.

All of this was sheltered behind freshly-painted white picket fences -- both literally and metaphorically. Rules ruled and those rules assured a very desirable security. There were excesses like the rise of McCarthy-ism, but generally speaking, things were better and more peacefully patriotic than in times of lawless and cruel explosions. In 1954, the words, "under God" were spliced into the Pledge of Allegiance ... "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

But was there ever a time or place when rules were not challenged and broken? Any set of rules ... pick one. The 1960's broke out from behind the white picket fences of the 1950's. Beatniks, flower power, burning bras, psychedelics, sex-drugs-and-rock-'n'-roll. The old rules were challenged and broken with some wonderful results and some idiotic ones.

Has it ever been different? Teenagers routinely 'rebel.' What was once etched in stone is worn or chiseled away. Security is not enough. Freedom becomes the rallying cry.

And the same is true of individuals, I think -- creating and rebelling against self-imposed rules only to find that the rebellion itself creates new rules, new parameters, new strangle holds. Breaking out turns out to be little more than breaking in. Zen Buddhism, for example, takes aim at this endless cycle with its encouragement, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!" On the one hand, there are no rules, on the other hand, there are always rules ... the ping-pong ball bounces back and forth and there is no time to kick back with a beer.

Central to it all is the matter of "other." Somehow, there needs to be some willingness to examine the "others" in this life. How "other" are they really? Does "other" make sense? It won't help to dissolve in a blissful puddle of "oneness" and it won't do to pursue the fragmented separations of the past. Peace and freedom simply do not give it up to such applications.

Examine. Find out. Don't take "no" and don't take "yes" for an answer.

There really is a beer waiting for you in the fridge.
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Japanese tsunami/quake viewed from car

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Received in email:

Yu Muroga was doing his job making deliveries when the 11 March 2011 earthquake hit in Japan. Unaware, like many people in the area, of how far inland the Tsunami would travel, he continued to drive and do his job. The HD camera mounted on his dashboard captured not only the earthquake, but also the moment he and several other drivers were suddenly engulfed in the Tsunami. He escaped from the vehicle seconds before it was crushed by other debris and sunk underwater. His car and the camera have only recently been recovered by the police. The camera was heavily damaged but a video expert was able to retrieve this footage.

http://www.flixxy.com/japanese-tsunami-viewed-from-a-car.htm#.Tjhfbd6lUWQ.email

a boozed-up beast

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If you thought drinking and driving was a foolish pursuit, consider the case of the drunken moose/elk that got caught up in a Swedish homeowner's tree.

Do moose or elk get hangovers?

Are they grateful for aspirin?

This could be serious. It's one thing to find Uncle Harry passed out on the lawn (again), but quite another to have to deal with an animal that slurs its words.
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mentioning the unmentionable ... defeat

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I thought this opinion piece made quite a lot of sense.

I particularly liked the reminder from an earlier Vietnam war:

This argument about Al Qaeda is reminiscent of Harry Summers telling an NVA [North Vietnamese Army] colonel: "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield." To which Col. Tu famously replied, "That may be so. But it is also irrelevant."

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win a wife contest

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Ummmmmm ... well, I guess it speaks for itself.
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fact and fiction

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I wonder:

Perhaps equality is simply a fact that philosophers and other well-wishers do their damnedest to turn into fiction.

The only saving grace is that it is out of fiction that facts reveal themselves.
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yielding to temptation

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Today, Honoré de Balzac skittered through my mind with the oft-attributed quote:

Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime.

 Literally and metaphorically, is there any escape from that observation?

And while I was looking that up, this quote too came into view:

I am tormented by temptations.
Of what kind? [That] there is a cure for temptation.
What?
Yielding to it.

To yield to the temptation to believe there is a cure for temptation ... isn't that a temptation worth keeping an eye on?
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swept away

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The rivers that flooded in the wake of Hurricane Irene continue to bulge and burst even as newer rain keeps falling and falling and falling. Today, my wife got word from her friend Vera, who lives in Vermont, that her house, which had been nestled along a lovely, bucolic brook, was gone. Vera, her husband and two kids were homeless.

Vera did not provide details or even a lot of specifics, but ... news is always more compelling than mere "news."
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