into the future

From out of the past, an acquaintance sent this good-morning email entitled "what to say?". I am happy to extend it into the future:

.. all my love and wishing you ease and peace today,

centuries of U.S. military interventions

"Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1789-2014" was published Sept. 15, 2014, by the Congressional Research Service.

An article by Simon Elvery makes use of the information and includes an interactive map detailing 200 years of military interventions.

son, friend, and blue man

My son Angus and his sweetie, Ashleigh, went to see Blue Man Group in Boston yesterday:

death tools

When it comes to the confusion and sorrow of death -- the time when it is time to go and those who are not yet going are searching for words that never really reach -- I suspect that two things might provide pretty good tools:

Music and animals.

Each has one over-riding strong point and relevance:

They don''t talk, so the helplessness is not so glaringly obvious.

the path?

However confounding, still I think:

In order to be "off the path" you would first have to conceive the possibility of being "on the path."

And in order to be "on the path," you would first have to conceive the possibility of being "off the path."

Either way, the limitations loom and the limitless path goes begging.

Not that imagination, hope and belief are utterly useless in their time, but there is something to be said for staying on the path.

the informer

It was once illegal for East Germans (left) to cross the minefield and climb or burrow under the wall that separated East and West Germany in Berlin. Those attempting it could be shot. Informers of the day made the shootings easier. Today, there is a self-congratulation about the wall's demise, but the fact is that division is ever so much easier and financially rewarding. Take "terrorism" for example.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the destruction of the wall that once divided East and West Germany, there is also a recollection of the secret police (Stasi) files that reveal the informers who worked for that police force. These were insiders who informed on their friends who might be planning to escape the communist regime of the east and flee to the west. Friend informed on friends.

How hard it is to go against the established norms, whatever they are. Twenty-twenty hindsight suggests that informing was a despicable activity and yet when has it been otherwise? The social pressure to conform is never to be dismissed out of hand: Who does not love the warmth and applause of some group? Who wants to be alone and lonely and unloved?

And worse than creating an exterior social challenge to the status quo, how about the challenge that can arise within -- to slowly but surely turn against all that has been so comforting and settled ... the ideas and beliefs and judgments that have made me who I am?

Isn't spiritual life like this -- taking tentative steps that will upset a sturdy applecart? To rethink and rebel has far-reaching and discomforting consequences. Not only literal friends are called into question, but friendly assumptions likewise lose their purchase and are threatened.

And the worst of it, perhaps, is that the only thing worse than rethinking and rebellion is the lack of rethinking and rebellion. Slowly, the flaws and insecurity of what was unflawed and secure creeps in like an oil spill off the ocean... thicker and thicker, more and more toxic, killing more and more flourishing species of thought and emotion and lifestyle.

This is scary shit ... except where it is brushed aside with intellectual posturing.

Socially, conformists seek out comfort and reassurance. And who is not a conformist? The conformist within does much the same. Socially, the informer-mind -- the one that twists events into comforting and laudable activities -- begs implicitly for peace and security and certainty. "There's gotta be something to rely on!" Socially, informers enrage me ... but I have been too harsh. Informing on our dearest friends, our most deeply-held convictions and judgments, is just what anyone is capable of. If it enrages me, I cannot change anyone else. The best I can do is to try to steer clear of what I abominate.

And within, the confrontation is simply personal: Which is more confounding? To rebel or not to rebel?

generosity vs. selfishness

(Reuters) - For decades, 90-year-old Arnold Abbott has hauled pans filled with roast chicken and cheese-covered potatoes onto a south Florida beach park to feed hundreds of homeless people.
For his good deeds, Abbott finds himself facing up to two months in jail and hundreds of dollars in fines after new laws that restrict public feeding of the homeless went into effect in Fort Lauderdale earlier this year.

a farewell worth noting

A cancer patient has died after a final farewell to her favourite horse outside the hospital where she was treated.

Staff at Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan granted Sheila Marsh's last wish, by arranging a visit from two of her horses on Monday afternoon.
The hospital said the 77-year-old, unable to speak properly due to illness, "gently called" her favourite horse, who then nuzzled her cheek.
Mrs Marsh, who used to work at Haydock Park Racecourse, died early on Tuesday.

little stuff

This morning, the chickens of Valley Street were out perambulating ... so plump and assured from a distance, so positively chicken up close.

On what I call the Tree of the Hanging Squirrels across the street, the Japanese maple leaves have started to shed in earnest. The squirrels, which are willing to hang upside down in order to reach the few remaining sweet shoots in cold weather, have yet to put in a large-scale appearance. There are one or two, but the three-ring circus they can offer has yet to materialize.

Last night was a bumpy ride physically, so today I have all the imagination and inventiveness of wet cardboard.

The 'kids' are all going to make the un-kid-ness felt today: Ives is off for a weekend of National Guard-ing. Angus and his sweetie are headed to Boston to see Blue Man Group -- a trio I had never seen but can see from Internet links why the show might be a lot of fun. And daughter Olivia and son-in-law Rich will pass through on their way to a dinner with friends after Rich's nearby meeting in Conn.

Somehow all this bits-and-scraps activity makes the house feel like one of those pin-ball bumpers that lights up and dings when struck by one ball after another ... a DING! and the ball careens to the next DING! The house is, in some small way, Ding Central.

'independent' news coverage

SEATTLE (AP) — FBI Director James Comey says an agent impersonated an Associated Press reporter during a 2007 criminal investigation, a ruse the news organization says could undermine its credibility....
In a letter Thursday to Comey and Holder, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press asked the agency for full disclosure about the incident.
"The utilization of news media as a cover for delivery of electronic surveillance software is unacceptable," the letter said. "This practice endangers the media's credibility and creates the appearance that it is not independent of the government. It undermines media organizations' ability to independently report on law enforcement." [Emphasis added]

Reporters 'embedded' in wartime settings and softball questioning at presidential news conferences are but two examples of how fatuous the above statement is. The committee's statement is a bit like a whorehouse madame defending virginity.  It's even more galling, perhaps, because such independence might actually be good news for those reading the news.

'beauty" supplanting beauty

In China, cosmetics now outstrips groceries as the biggest selling item in its department stores, according to a report from Fung Business Intelligence Center.

Made me think of the corollary in personal life where cosmetic acquisitions like clothes and spouses and income and power can grow so overwhelming -- so overwhelmingly convincing -- that nourishment is somehow placed on the back burner and people wonder why their lives feel so unsteady and vapid... "beauty" supplanting beauty.

educating the undereducated elderly

If my ignorance is any yardstick -- and there seems to be mounting evidence of its potency as the days pass -- then I think that the LinkedIn initiative of children taking their parents to work is a good one.

Parents spend a lot of time tuning their children in to the moral, intellectual, emotional, physical and financial aspects of life, but, while those realities may be fundamentally sound, there is nothing saying there aren't other, possibly better mouse traps. To see up close what the children do and in what setting ... well, I think it can help fill the information/bias gap between older and younger people.

Central questions may remain -- what happens to the Internet-dependent when the electricity goes out? -- but relationships gain a little.

Perhaps the whole thing is another of those feel-good pieces of up-scale blarney, but there is something in it that feels positive. No conversions necessary ... just see things up-close and personal.

overview of mideast warfare

A BBC article entitled "Battle for Iraq and Syria in Maps" gives an interesting overview of the waxing desire to be killing someone or decimating something else.

As with all such stories, the number of times the word "believe" is allowed a wide-ranging supportive role, as for example, "The US Central Intelligence Agency believes IS may have up to 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria - three times as many as previously thought." (Italics added) Stay tuned: It's a good bet that 31,000 will become a stated fact in coming weeks.

No where have I found anyone stating how large IS or al Qaida actually is. I guess that would risk being laughed out of town -- to think such a meager force could actually damage or defeat the US or its combative allies.

Back before al Qaida loomed large on the enemies list, there was a film clip showing the newly-discovered Osama bin Laden carrying an AK-47. He was pictured with a pickup clutch of men said to be al Qaida fighters when in fact that AK-47 was borrowed and the men had been gathered up locally for a photo shoot. Osama was a creature of western convenience, much as it is hard not to suspect that IS and its (oh dearie dear!) "31,000" fighters aren't equally convenient: After all, they have yet to pose a physical danger to the US that is bombing the shit out of them.

Bleah.

mid-term elections

Yesterday, an Election Day that saw Republican gains across the U.S., I was thinking about elections I had a hard time being interested in. It was a hard time combined with a low hum of discontent that prompted me to write a not-terribly-well-argued "letter to the editor" of the local paper. The paper has too much serious business to take it seriously, but I felt jaundiced enough to write and send it. It read:

To the editor:

Well, it's over, thank God.

Now all that remains are the solemn, hand-wringing analyses of what the mid-term elections of 2014 mean. Endless meanings that are largely meaningless from here at the bottom of the democratic food chain. Even those of us who took minimal interest are exhausted and somehow dispirited ... again.

If a half-baked Google search is any indicator, congressional candidates raised something north of a billion dollars to enhance their chances.

Student debt in this country is a trillion dollars and rising.

What message might it have sent if all those candidates promising a brighter tomorrow had put their donations towards erasing a burden on those who will one day run the country? Wouldn't that be a brighter use of funds? We've seen the price of stupidity: Isn't it plausible to chip away at that burden?

I know -- it's pie in the sky, but pipe-dreaming is about all that's left when the nightmare is insistent enough.

Doing something that benefits the country.

Imagine that.

benevolent scam artist

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Staten Island businessman who wrote $82 million in bogus checks has been sentenced to probation.

Wholesale business owner Saquib Khan could have gotten up to 78 months in prison. Federal Judge Raymond Dearie on Tuesday cited Khan's standing and good works in the community for the light sentence.

The Daily News ( http://nydn.us/1x3dwW2 ) says his lawyers submitted letters from state Sen. Diane Savino and former Homeland Security Special Agent in Charge Martin Ficke. The letters praised his work between the Muslim community and authorities after 9/11.

Court paper say Khan wrote the checks after his business faltered following Superstorm Sandy.

His company supplies gas stations with grocery products.

He must pay $4.8 million to the government in forfeiture funds and $4.8 million in restitution to several banks.

 Is it any wonder that squishy liberals like me cry "foul" and reference "inequality" when viewing the social landscape these days? Do the math: A man of alleged goodness bilks $82 million and is required to repay $9.6 million. As with banks and stock brokers, the disparity does not speak well for the judicial system. Whether a good man or a bad man steals, still, what is stolen is gone.

yes and yes-but

Was there ever a format or discipline that, however clearly-spelled-out and widely agreed-to, was not subjected to criticisms and 'improvements' by newcomers or the rebelliously-inclined?

In England,

An academy in Bradford has sent home 152 pupils for arriving at the school gates without meeting its dress code.

Hanson Academy strictly enforced its school uniform policy on Tuesday, with almost 10% of pupils failing to reach the academy's standards.
Angry parents took to the school's Facebook page to complain about the new measures.
But Hanson Academy claims it "communicated clearly" its expectations for this school year.
Pupils face being sent home for a variety of reasons, including if they wear hoop earrings, two earrings or more per ear or patterned trousers.

It's all pretty much the same in a thoughtful mind: 1. The results seem worthy of joining a particular effort. 2. A mental contract or literal is signed. 3. Practice begins and almost immediately the drawbacks start nipping at your heels... and the need to "suck it up" or "tear it down" kicks in.

Those adhering to the contract (within or without) are labeled purist or lily-livered conformist, depending on the point of view. Those rebelling are tagged as immature or untutored or naughty or leading the charge into a more healthy future ... according to the point of view.

There is "yes" and there is "yes, but."

Once again, old adages seem to cover the situation: "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

right regrets

the price of freedom

A good spiritual encouragement attributed to feminist and political activist Gloria Steinem:

The truth will set you free
but first it will piss you off.

I choose to infer from that what I think is true: If spiritual endeavor hasn't pissed you off, you are still dithering in the virtuous shallows.

news stories

News that caught my eye but I am too lazy to enlarge upon:

-- An AP story that noted a just-past weekend whose television fare "was practically nothing but football and political ads."

-- A BBC story about two Chinese men arrested for buying corpses. "They said they were trying to ensure government quotas on cremations every month were met."

-- An AP story about the possibility of bringing better Internet services to Yellowstone National Park and other places once prized for their in-your-face beauty and wonder and peace.

a day of rest

Once upon a time here in the United States, there was considerable consternation about activities held on the Sabbath. Stores were largely closed in deference to a Christian God and high school sporting events, among others, received sour looks and worse. A day of rest was ... well, a day of rest. And possibly 'holy' into the bargain.

Now, of course, all bets are off and an appreciation of God's ways and strictures has to compete on an equal footing with baseball, football and a 10-percent-off sale.

How important/useful a day -- or just minute -- of rest is.

It doesn't have to be a day and it doesn't need social support. Just the willingness to be still for a little while and stop relying on things that are socially reliable.

big topics, small questions

-- In Ireland, thousands turned out on Saturday to protest newly-approved price hikes on, of all life-giving substances, WATER. The object of the hikes is to pay off debt accrued after the banks and brokers torpedoed the world economy and made a pretty penny doing it.

Taxing water strikes me as inching dangerously close to a call to arms. Everyone needs water and a lot of people are between a financial rock and a hard place. The banks and brokers may own the political system and have a formidable, armed force at their disposal, but water is serious stuff.

-- A BBC essay delves into the reasons, reasoning, and irritation with the tradition of married women assuming their husband's names.

What I'm waiting to see is the essay that investigates the need and imperative for MARRIAGE as something more than a social activity. The ritual can be startling and delicious in its richness, but the "one flesh" oratory strikes me as more decorative and possibly coercive than anything else. And goodness knows it is heedlessly expensive. Taking vows that someone else confected ... how sensible is that? Is such a set of vows uplifting or demeaning in the end?

whose clock?

Here in the United States, on the East Coast, the clocks have been turned back an hour, from Daylight Saving to Eastern Standard time. Twice a year, this happens -- the clock is set back or forward according to what, as I understand it, were once largely agricultural needs.

Just now, for example, it is 5:53 a.m. Yesterday at this time it was 4:53 a.m. In one sense, the time has changed. In another, the time is the same, but I choose to name it differently.

I wonder if that isn't a bit like spiritual discipline -- everything is the same, but now it has a different tag. And, more important, the chosen shift gives me the opportunity to tune in to what has always been the same. Time has no preferences, but I have. "Time passes" is a tentative, human convenience ... nice enough when it is useful, but not really true.

Time passes if you like.

Peace and clarity arise if you like.

But what is said to arise (as for example Eastern Standard Time) is hardly concerned with what actually arises or comes about or whatever. Now it is 6:07 but to imagine it's 6:07 is a bit much. Now God is in heaven, but to imagine God is in heaven is a bit energetic without much usefulness.

Get real ... who's in charge and what in heaven's name ever suggested that someone could be in charge. If you're the boss, isn't there something cockeyed about saying so?

It's 6:19 ... how about them apples?

judges for sale

A BBC opinion piece suggests

Citizen's United is back in America's courtrooms. But, this time, the famous US Supreme Court case isn't facing scrutiny, it's deciding who's sitting on the bench in the first place....

States pick their judges in a variety of ways. Thirty-nine states opt to elect either some or all of their judges. Others use a merit system, in which there is a short list drawn up from which the local governor then chooses. That judge periodically faces retention elections.

In states where elections are taking place, however, they are starting to remind voters more of congressional elections, with the same money and harsh rhetoric.

George Orwell on totalitarianism

Passed along in email:

"A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable..."  -- George Orwell

As time passes, I become increasingly irritated by enunciations that are perfectly true, my own included. Doesn't the usefulness of such analyses or bon mots lie in whatever action it precipitates? And when little or no action is precipitated, smugness begins to pass for wisdom. Hey Ma! -- watch me analyze this!

A combat soldier knows first-hand that "war is insane," but when perpetual war is the name of the governmental game ... well, who cares if "war is insane?"

You can sort of see where the Tea Party and its simplicities is coming from ... and perhaps imagine a self-immolating bloodbath yet to be.

hanged for killing "rapist"

TEHRAN, Iran –  Iran hanged a woman on Saturday who was convicted of murdering a man she alleged was trying to rape her, drawing swift international condemnation for a prosecution several countries described as flawed.
Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at dawn for premeditated murder, the official IRNA news agency reported. It quoted a statement issued by the Tehran Prosecutor Office Saturday that rejected the claim of attempted rape and said that all evidence proved that Jabbari had plotted to kill Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former intelligence agent.
The United Nations as well as Amnesty International and other human rights groups had called on Iran's judiciary to halt the execution, which was carried out after the country's Supreme Court upheld the verdict. The victim's family could have saved Jabbari's life by accepting blood money but they refused to do so.

"I hate change"

My daughter called yesterday to say she had landed a job she wanted. It's a job in an office as distinct from the lonely, self-sufficient, less-well-paid realms of working from home.

She loved what had happened.

And hated it.

New circumstances. What if she failed. Did she really want to be under someone else's thumb. What if they didn't like her. What if she hated it ... nervous, nervous, nervous. I did what I could to steady her ship: She is smart and good with people and diligent ... she'll do fine.

But in the midst of her recitation, I asked her what she thought made her nervous. She answered promptly and forthrightly, "I hate change. Any kind of change."

And I was tremendously pleased and proud of her: To have such an understanding, however superficial, is the first step on a serious road. Will she follow up on it and investigate and delve? I don't know: Maybe she'll just tuck it in the back of her mental sock drawer as so many do ... forgetaboutit, bury it, block it out ... or maybe, just maybe, she will pick up her own reins and chew the bubblegum we all have to chew.

Change is the way of the world. Sometimes it's happy-making. Sometimes sad. Sometimes, as with my daughter, both. Either way, it's the way of the world and hating or loving change is like tits on a bull: Is there something right or wrong about change or is it, rather, that my attitude is skewed ... and it's worth sorting out?

Anyway, I was happy for my daughter.

the careful things

Once I knew the careful things.

With my back turned to the entry door, I could tell by name the people entering the zendo where we practiced zazen or seated meditation: The sound of their robes was enough.

I knew how to whistle like a cricket.

I knew how to hit a bullet-riddled target at 300 yards.

I knew and cared about the difference between "nauseated" and "nauseous."

I knew how to hide by being still or polite and recognized others who were likewise hiding.

I knew long words and short ones and could employ them to effect.

I almost knew how to walk like the animal I most wanted to walk like -- the elephant.

I knew careful things because I trained to know them and thought that if I knew enough of them, somehow I would corner and capture the serenity I imagined could be captured.

There was purpose and direction and a kind of protective smugness about knowing the careful things.

As the autumn squirrel buried nourishment for the spring that was yet to come, so I tucked in and made room for bits of careful nourishment.

So many careful things, always finding room for just one more.

But now it all seems a bit too much, like a suitcase packed and packed and packed some more until the realization imposed itself: What makes you think you're going anywhere?

Careful or careless, what's next will always have its say -- does it really need anything more?

"Careful" is needful phase, sort of like learning to walk. But once having learned to walk, isn't it just time to get going?

Tom Lehrer and the "Vatican Rag"

Passed along in email was this bit of hoary-but-literate humor:

who preserves what?

As far as I know, the Hindu 'trinity' of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (creation, preservation and destruction) do not have more- or less-powerful presence. They are of equal stature and come as a package deal. Placing one above the others is strictly an exercise in folly.

I am not looking to get into a discussion of Hinduism here: The three tales are just tales that any (wo)man might observe in an actual-factual life, with or without religious tassels. Things are 'created,' 'preserved' and 'destroyed:' Is this untrue? I seriously doubt it.

But it is interesting how one or the other of man's gods can dominate the scene, the heart, the hope, the love or whatever all else during a given time span.

Enormous pains were taken to preserve a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci during World War II. The picture was said by some to confer magical powers and no one wanted Hitler and the Nazis to get their hands on it and accrue still more power. But even without the magic, preservation was and remains an almost-desperate goal. Vishnu, to use an Hindu prism, was invoked even as Shiva lurked.

Worth preserving even when it cannot be preserved....

In Hawaii, villagers in Pahoa have been allowed to view the inexorable advance of a lava flow that threatens to destroy their homes. Even the extraordinary wealth that might -- but only might -- stem or redirect the flow is flummoxed. Buying off Shiva is not in the cards whatever the intensity of the desire. Slowly, slowly, slowly preservation gives way to a destruction that is painful for human beings who shape tales of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Brahma seems to have gotten some licks in at the only women's prison in Israel ... a place that hosted a fashion show as a means of making lemonade out of lemons ... teaching the women a craft that they might employ and perhaps preserve once they got out of the slammer.

And the San Francisco Giants beat the Kansas City Royals and staked out World Series (baseball) acclaim last night. Will Vishnu preserve the moment? Probably not, but it won't be for lack of human trying.

Some things are worth preserving, perhaps, and yet some room needs to be made for the fact that they cannot be preserved. And if they cannot be preserved, neither can they be created or destroyed. What's up with that? Without finding the time to address the issue personally, I think a lot of disappointment is in the making.

Preserve the lessons of the past; preserve the love or anger; preserve the wisdom or ignorance; preserve the friendship or enmity; preserve the stature or ignominy; preserve the wealth and poverty ...

Preserve ... what's up with that?

no time for seriousness

Somewhere or other, I read that these are not times for seriousness. The implication seemed to be that with everything else that is going on, getting serious in politics or religious life or whatever other peripheral human pastime was just too much to expect. Economics, war, food, shelter and other uncertainties offered little or no room to rest and relax and reflect in a serious manner.

The sentiment, however wispy, seemed to strike a chord and reminded me of Sri Ramakrishna's observation that Bhakti was best in the kaliyuga ... that when times get hard (the kaliyuga is a Hindu configuration of moral decay and lack of understanding and a sense of collapse and destruction) then baby steps are best ... something easy like loving God. Bhakti Yoga provides that format: Everything is God, so relax and go with the loving flow.

Of course, loving God is not all that easy, assuming there is time or willingness to get serious about it. But before the seriousness and in the midst of the separations of solemnity, love is comforting and inviting and ... well, who doesn't respond well to kind words and a warm fire? Affection and attentiveness from whatever quarter ... it's an ahhh in the throes of ouch.

Having spent many years being wary of the warm-fuzzy approaches to God, these days it's not quite so insistent. As the Anglican Charles Williams once observed, "People believe what they want to believe," which does not, of course, mean that what is believed is worth believing. Individuals do what they want. If God is what anyone wants to do, then I favor it... at least insofar as it is credible to the believer. No need to convince anyone else.

But I remain hopeful that whatever anyone chooses to believe will lead them to a serious place -- a place that does not rely on something else, something solemn, something that is only praiseworthy or good.

It may be hard -- maybe impossible -- to serious up, but what's the alternative. If you don't see at least one thing through in your life, what kind of a life is that?