Friday, December 18, 2009

THIS IS GOOD NEWS!

News Alert
03:42 PM EST Friday, December 18, 2009

Climate deal reached in Copenhagen, official says

World leaders reach agreement that provides for a means to monitor and verify emission cuts by developing countries but has less ambitious climate targets than the U.S. and European governments had initially sought, according to an Obama administration official.

Hooray!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

From My Heart To Yours

This will be the last of my lunch hour ruminations for 2009. For the first time in our thirty-nine years together, Mary and I are going to share the full two-week Christmas vacation. We’re looking forward to being with family and friends, and to getting better acquainted with our future home. We’ve purchased a small Christmas tree that we’ll transplant to Fort Collins, and we accidentally acquired a 4” LED semblance that we’ll use to decorate Prudence. As I’ve explained in years past, I am among the thousands who learned the true meaning of Christmas from Dad’s candlelight services. The joy and hope of this season is to be found in dispelling the darkness by lighting that one little candle and letting its light spread. Hope is what I’d like to both give and receive this Christmas, although I’m not wildly optimistic about that happening. The dark evil which pervades our planet is, like President Obama stated in his Nobel address, very real. Greed is rampant and apparently triumphant as special interests seemingly delight in destroying our economy, our health care, and anything else that can be turned for a profit. But I am forced to remember that things looked equally dark to those oppressed by the Roman Empire two-thousand years ago, and that’s when the light of hope first presented itself in such a way that even the least among them was inspired. So, that’s my New Year’s resolution: to not lose the hope in my own life so that I may share it with others. I think that’s what Jesus would do.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Spirit of Christmas

My heart was unexpectedly warmed yesterday as a coworker offered to assess some of my older cases for me. We had just finished a training session where the discussion turned to backlog. She had none. I had plenty. And with a sincerity and generosity that I have quite frankly not experienced during my eleven years of employment here, Kamara took seven assessments from my cubicle and completed them. In reflecting upon this occurrence I have realized that this is what the Spirit of Christ is all about. It’s the doing unto others as you would have them do unto you made manifest, made real in a world that suffers when such is not the prevailing practice. I have no idea what Kamara’s religion might be, and it really doesn’t matter. Whatever faith generates such generosity of spirit is what counts. For two millennia now, humankind has been celebrating the birth of love into our world. Oh, I know, the love was there before and after, but something about the child that grew into Christhood made it more real, more genuine, more authentic. That’s what the celebration is meant to be about, and if we all try a little harder to show our love for others, we’ll be heartened by the hope that comes from that love being returned.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Let There Be War on Earth

First, let me invite you to read Alex Altman’s article, Brief History: The War on Christmas.

I found it interesting and I hope you did too. It started me to thinking about other institutions that have declared war on Christmas, some of them quite unlikely. I’ve already referred to Wal-Mart’s “Christmas costs less at Wal-Mart” campaign, which at first glance seems to be in tune with zealous Christians intent upon wiping out political correctness with their version of the reason for the season. I still don’t believe anyone caught the fair translation, “Christmas is worth less at Wal-Mart”. Capitalism and consumerism have combined in the perfect assault upon the holy day that all but obscures its true meaning. Less obvious, however, is Christianity itself. I was inspired by United Methodism’s theological doctrine of not expecting anyone to believe the unbelievable. Alas, like most mainline Protestant churches, United Methodists no longer seek a rational faith but instead promote the popular belief in magic and supernatural miracles. Early on, the Church began to revise the tradition until it conformed to popular expectations. That December 25 is selected as the day of observance directly traces back to the Roman festival of Saturnalia, just one example of the emerging religion’s embrace of contemporary culture. Any time I can embrace a point of view which opposes Bill O’Reilly’s makes me feel good, and I would consider it an honor if he would name me just one more enemy of Christmas!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Can You Feel It?

There’s a mounting excitement that’s palpable as we draw nearer to Christmas. The reasons are as varied as the excited. For some it is a time for family reunions. For others it is a time to give gifts, and likewise for gifts to be received. I can remember that for a child it is a season of magic replete with lights, songs, decorations, and amidst all that a story of a mother and father who deeply loved their newborn. It is a season of miracles and the miraculous, of joy, of hope, and of wonder. Those are all pretty good reasons to get excited. At the root of all this is the reality of hope that grips so many with a belief that things can get better than they are now, that love really is a way for us to get along with one another, and the faith that something greater than ourselves is behind all that we experience. This is not the kind of answer you would expect from a child asked what is so exciting about Christmas, but we need to look at the children’s answers because they will actually tell us what the excitement is all about. Yes, there’s excitement about getting things. But many children, especially in America, get things all the time. I suspect that those listening will hear (in kids’ terms, for sure) that the magic, the mystery, the songs, the lights, and the stories all point to an excitement grounded in the hope that God is with us and loves us.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Christmas Is About Hope

It may well be coincidence that President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize on the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but that in no way diminishes the significance of each occasion. I am unashamedly proud of this man of hope, and I here share with you what I considered to be the highlights of his acceptance speech:


We are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter and can bend history in the direction of justice…As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing weak, nothing passive, nothing naïve in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King…For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world…To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason…war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such…we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. “Let us focus”, he said, “on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions…Furthermore, American cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves…That is why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace…I also know this: the belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice…we honor [our troops] not as makers of war, but as wagers of peace…Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct…We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard…First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to change behavior…such pressure exists only when the world stand together as one…Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting…if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise…No matter how callously defined, neither America’s interest nor the world’s are served by the denial of human aspirations…it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear to these movements that hope and history are on their side…But I also know that sanctions without outreach and condemnation without discussion can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door…For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want…The absence of hope can rot a society from within…Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All of these are vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, or the staying power, to complete this work without something more, and that is the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there is something irreducible that we all share…Most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam…Holy War can never be a just was. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint, no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or even a person of one’s own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but the purpose of faith, for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us…Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. We are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us…But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached, their faith in human progress, must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey…For is we lost that faith, if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace, then we lose what is best about humanity. We lost our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass…Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him”…So let us reach for the world that ought to be, that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls…We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that, for that is the story of human progress; that is the hope of all the world; and at his moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

Upon Obama’s conclusion, one of the pundits commented that he didn’t know if the world was ready for Obama the President, much less Obama the theologian. Amen!

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

One Solitary Life

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

This essay was adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”). If you are interested, you can read the original version .

Now this gets to the heart of what Christmas is really all about: God with us!

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

I'm Dreaming of a Real Christmas

Christmas came early last year as hope was made manifest on November 4. In the darkness of what American politics has become shone a light emitted by the least likely person to be elected President. That’s what Christmas is really about.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:1-5, NRSV)

Those who have had the opportunity to study the New Testament are probably familiar with the fact that the Gospel According to John almost didn’t make the canonical cut because of its mystically esoteric theologizing. Lacking the Bethlehem narratives of Matthew and Luke, John’s “Christmas” story is not about an event but of a dynamic let loose in the world.

I think it’s high time that we let go of the pageants and reenactments so long associated with Christmas. It has been observed that text without context becomes pretext, and while there is something especially beautiful about the Nativity, that’s not what the gospel is really all about. The Gospel of Mark is considered by most scholars to have been the first of the New Testament accounts written, and the reader will quickly notice that there is no Nativity and no Resurrection (at least in the original).

Perhaps this Christmas can be about the rebirth of hope into our world.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Drawing the Line at Christmas

“Christmas costs less at WalMart.” This slogan obviously deserves the antichrist award for 2009. It is not a mistranslation to read, “At WalMart Christmas is worth less;” how true, how true. This campaign epitomizes the commercialization of Christ’s birth, and it’s the straw that broke this camel’s back. How dare they? It’s a black and white admission that Christmas, at least in America, is all about the almighty buck. It has little or nothing to do anymore with the advent of the reign of the Prince of Peace. There is no little discussion right now about how Christmas can make or break our economy. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, there isn’t even a pretense anymore about the reason for the season. It’s to make money. It’s to show profits. And if it capitalizes on a supposed holy day, so be it. I’m not going to play their game this year. Oh, I’ll still be giving gifts because I’ve experienced the genuine joy of giving, but I’ll not be participating in anything that smacks of capitalism run amok. And as far as New Year’s resolve is concerned, let this serve as fair warning to Wall Street, the Religious Right, and every other idiot that has coopted Christianity in the name of selfish greed that I’m not going to stand for it any more. My mission is to call out the hypocrites and heathens wherever they lurk, whether they be in the “Church”, the Congress, or the local WalMart. In a world filled with darkness, now is the time for the light of hope to shine in such a way that it chases the cockroaches back into oblivion.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

The Golden Rule

I am simply amazed by the thought of how much everything would change (for the better) if everyone started treating everyone else the way they would like to be treated. The Toyota customer service representative who took our first call of distress on Thanksgiving Day from the wilds of northern Arizona might not have said there was nothing she could do for us if she had put herself in a similar situation. The Toyota service technician who erroneously gave our car a clean bill of health and sent us on our way to another breakdown might not have done that if he had thought about how he (or she; I don’t have a clue) would have wanted to be treated were he in a similar situation. The recent class in mediation training that I attended briefly touched on the ethics of customer service (I despise our regard for the public as “customers”) without even mentioning the ethic of mutual reciprocity—treat others as you want to be treated. I’m willing to speculate that if President Obama had entertained the Golden Rule while making his decision on Afghanistan, the outcome would have been quite different. If we have billions to spend overseas, then why wouldn’t it be for food, shelter and medicine? Our species has had only partial glimpses of the kind of world it could be if we loved one another rather than attacking each other. The classic illustration of this was the goodwill displayed toward our country after September 11, 2001 being squandered by our violent and warlike response. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Someday I hope you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.” Thank you, John.

P.S. My heartfelt thanks to Rachel for Incite's new format that allows you to agree or disagree with my thoughts in simple anonymity. Your additional comments are still welcome as always.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

A Cautionary Tale

Rebecca put a positive spin on our Prius fiasco. Likening us to pioneers venturing into the frontier of a new technology, she said we were apt to have experiences not known to more staid conservatives. I like her outlook. Had we known when we bought our first Prius that it might just shut down in the middle of nowhere and that an act of Congress would be required to repair it, we might have hesitated. The truth, however, is that we already had a timing belt break on our Volvo outside Cozad, Nebraska and that was just as debilitating. Dad has driven hundreds of thousands of miles in his three Prii (forgive me, please, but I’m having no luck finding the correct spelling for the plural of Prius) without incident, and I’m being told that the breakdown of ours is the exception rather than the rule. A little before noon today I received an e-mail from Flagstaff Toyota informing me that the problem has been diagnosed (“inverter water pump seized up and drained the battery”; who would have guessed?) and that Prudence will be ready for us to pick up on Friday. Déjà vu? So, if you’re wary of life in the technological fast lane, you may want to buy a Ford that is just as likely to break down but won’t seem so exotic to the mechanic. I’m still not happy that it required hours of phone calls to get Toyota’s attention (oh, yes! I did get their attention) to have the matter resolved, but that can be tomorrow’s subject—unless I’m told later today that my bubble of hope has once again been burst.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Toyota: Too Big To Care

I’ve been such an enthusiastic fan of the Prius that it’s embarrassing to discover that Toyota’s customer service is no better than any other auto manufacturer’s. My opinion of the social climate in the United States leads me to believe that Toyota would have been better off staying in Japan. Our first Prius, a 2003 manufactured in Japan, came with all kinds of corporate attention intended to, I suppose, allay any wariness about the new technology. After nearly two years of driving that car, Toyota offered us 90% of its original price in trade on the 2005 as incentive to make the move. Both cars have operated flawlessly until Thanksgiving Day when the unthinkable happened: Prudence shut down. Now we are getting the real story about service after the sale. The only thing that Findlay Toyota Flagstaff has succeeded at is relieving us of $60 to charge the battery which is now reportedly unchargeable (they were very adept at that). Centennial Toyota, who sold us both cars (and the extended warranty) is really sorry about our misfortune, but could only offer me the telephone number to Toyota Customer Service that I hung up on yesterday after having spent close to an hour on hold. I spent an equally long time on hold today but persevered, at which time Brandy actually assigned me a case number and case manager who is supposed to call me in the next twenty-four hours. Bottom line: your problem is not our problem. I’ll continue to do my best to impress upon Toyota that my problem is their problem, and you, dear reader, may be thankful that you’re not one of their customer service reps.

Monday, November 30, 2009

It Must Be Karma

Musing about which Thanksgiving was the most memorable was apparently not the thing to do in the larger scheme of things. Off to an early Thanksgiving Day drive to Flagstaff to join Rebecca for dinner, Prudence Prius shut down about 125 miles west of our destination. Kudos to AAA for its prompt professional response to our dilemma, setting the disabled vehicle on the lot of Findlay Toyota of Flagstaff at about 3 PM (we missed our dinner reservations but were treated to a delicious feast prepared by Rebecca and Kevin). I called Findlay bright and early Friday morning, and by shortly after noon we were told that the hybrid battery had discharged to the critical point—probably because of the steep pull, they said, even though we have made that drive dozens of times without incident—and that after recharging it we were ready to go. The $60 charge was painless enough, and we were happy to have back our transportation. Later that afternoon, however, having driven only a few miles around town, Prudence shut down again. Findlay was curious about why this had happened and how we were going to get the vehicle back to their location. I reminded the service advisor that it happened because they had obviously not repaired the vehicle and that placed the responsibility of towing on them. That’s where Prudence is as I write. We returned home yesterday in a 2008 Mazda 6 from Hertz, and will return to Flagstaff next weekend with the hope of picking up our Prius (in good working order). I’m thinking that this week’s posts will be of interest to Toyota, to Findlay Toyota Flagstaff, and anyone wondering what the reliability and repair record for a Prius actually is. Anyone reading this that may be so inclined to inform these entities that they are being “watched” might contribute to the eventual outcome.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Another Thanksgiving

Christmas trumps Thanksgiving in my childhood memories. It was the prelude for the glorious days of lights and songs that culminated in the grand finale, my birthday. As I’ve matured, I’ve learned to share the day with Jesus. As I have been trying to recall my earliest memory of Thanksgiving, however, I just don’t seem to go as far back into my childhood. I know there must have been feasts in which I partook, but the day just isn’t as sensational as the ones to follow. The Thanksgiving that stands out most clearly was in 1963, just six days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. We drove to Burlington, Colorado to be with Uncle Dale’s family, and the grief was palpable. My staunch Republican family was no lover of the Kennedy's. Indeed, many were the discussions that derided and demeaned the aristocratic air of the clan that had defeated Nixon in 1960. But the killing of the President was ghastly unthinkable and lent new significance to a day set aside to be grateful. It’s hard for me to believe that forty-six years have passed, years that have been filled with the love of family and friends. I reiterate once more than no person alive is more blessed than I. As with so many things, Thanksgiving is not the end but the beginning.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

When Sanity Disappears

I just finished reading an article about church security and how it has become an increasingly important topic for all houses of worship. The opening paragraph stated that while Jesus may have taught to turn the other cheek, more and more churches are considering armed guards to ensure the safety of their parishioners. Going back two millennia to figure out some itinerant preacher’s take on how to deal with aggression apparently just doesn’t make much sense anymore, but even going back a couple of centuries doesn’t seem to address this contemporary crisis. The founders of this nation of ours saw fit to protect the right of the people to bear arms, but I know they didn’t do it in the context of trying to figure out how to keep someone from murdering someone else while they were attending church. When sanity devolves into insanity, the whole Constitution becomes archaic. Freedom of speech does not protect yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. Freedom of religion does not protect zealots who aspire to theocracy. The pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness does not apply to inanimate corporations. I’ve expressed concern about where our country seems to be heading these days, and I am not consoled by the emergence of the Palin paradigm. The brilliant minds that set the United States of America in motion did so believing that humans are created a little lower than the angels and are therefore responsible for the larger good. When we reach the point of idolizing stupidity and the idiots that insist upon it, we may as well concede to armed guards everywhere all the time, even in the houses of the holy.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Happy Blackgiving!

I must admit that I’m almost to the point of thinking there’s not much of a future ahead for this once great country. I can understand how Thanksgiving has become the favorite holiday of many Americans because it stands on its own without requiring gifts, etc. For four centuries now, we “guests” of North America have expressed our gratitude for the bounty that is ours. But in recent years (do I just show nothing more than my bias if I calculate beginning with Reagan?) Thanksgiving has become a mere prelude to Black Friday. Commercialism will probably be the undoing of our once noble society. Christmas succumbed quite some time ago to being nothing more than a red and green color scheme for the orange and black merchandising that began Halloween. And now, the financial future of the United States of America depends on how much is spent the day after Thanksgiving. We can keep the ‘C’ and stay honest by just admitting that we are not a Christian nation but a consuming one. We’ve reached the point that if we quit buying we cease to exist. I’m glad that I’m not the one who has to explain to our ancestors what we’ve made of ourselves.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Why?

I’ve just finished reviewing TIME’s 50 Best Inventions of 2009 and find myself asking once again, why? I admit to joining Victor Frankl’s search for meaning. While it may not actually matter in the final analysis, I can’t shake off the question of why I am here. More to the point, why are any of us here? Whether it be the evolutionist’s belief that we are the result of natural selection or the creationist’s contention that God just put us here, neither does a very satisfactory job of answering the fundamental question. From the dawn of human consciousness the purpose of our existence has been enigmatic, the debate sometimes being very public and other times very private. Had we been more serious about asking the question in the past, we might not have found ourselves confronted by climate change, escalating population, and nuclear annihilation. I’m all for seeking solutions to these global dilemmas, and pronto! But I’m not sure that the invention of a biotech Stradivarius is going to bring us any closer to answering the ultimate question.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Two dear friends are getting married next week, and after I offered to get this passage to the lovely bride-to-be, it occurred to me that all of us could benefit from reading it again or for the first time. So, with love, I dedicate this to Richard and Aracely:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I Corinthians 13 (NIV)

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Reflection

Today I finished eighteen hours of mediation training. The course was informed and practical. It signifies a new direction that our director wants this office to take by engaging with parents to negotiate child support settlements that hopefully will seem fair to all parties concerned. Our administration wants to lift up that what we do is all about the children. The sentiment is nice, the reality not so much. I am fully behind involving parents in the process of determining what is best for their children, but the one flaw I am finding in this approach is the belief that all parents care. If that premise was true, there would not be a need for our services in the first place. Yes, there are parents who care for and about their children, but as a rule those are not the parents we deal with. In many cases, government’s attempt to legislate morality has resulted in nothing more than subsidized promiscuity. The more daddies the mommies can bear children with increases the monthly support. Men looking for sex without commitment hook up with women who are looking to collect and the children—always the children—suffer. So, I applaud our new focus upon the children, but I suggest that as a people we need to be examining ourselves on a much larger scale. Until we figure out a way to revere all life, to regard every human being as sacred, then those who go mindlessly poking their penises into receptive vaginae will never grasp that what we do is for the children.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Pro Lifers, Unite!

Report: More Americans going hungry by Amy Goldstein

Now, here’s the deal. Let’s say I’m vehemently pro life. This news that 49 million Americans “lack dependable access to adequate food” is unacceptable. And since I advocate death as the means by which to “protect” these already born human beings, I guess my first shooting spree ought to begin at the grocery stores that are profiting at the hungry’s expense (or at least not losing any profit by providing them with food). I’ll have to give some thought as to where to begin: the owners, the managers, or the rank and file that protect the food inside the stores from the hungry. Once I’ve wiped out all the food sellers (yes, I’m afraid we’re going to have to kill off everyone who has anything to do with restaurants, etc) then I’ll need to start taking out the food growers. This thing has the potential for turning into a vicious cycle, but that should not stand in the way of my doling out capital justice to protect the hungry (who, incidentally, may die without food). God won’t hear of it and neither will I. So watch out, you greedy food possessors, because we pro life zealots are coming for you just as soon as we clean up the abortion mess.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Just Plain Stupid

Scott Roeder has confessed to killing Dr. George Tiller, contending that it was justified to protect the lives of unborn children. Huh? Let me try that again. One man has justified murdering another man to protect the unborn. I must say, I am totally confused. Research has shown that these “protectors” heavily favor capital punishment, are anti-gun legislation, and homophobic to boot. A while back I wrote about the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing in my life, but mine pales by comparison to what must go on inside these schizophrenic heads. The one thing that consistently runs through their otherwise irrational argument is this: it is necessary to kill in order to save lives. Think about it.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Lets Be Friends

It’s not any of my business, but I’d like to know what you’re thinking. Leonard Sweet describes cocooning as the process of turning more and more inward as a result of the technology that is available to us today. I don’t need to get out and about as much when I can correspond, play games, order food and perform any number of other daily tasks right from my computer. The television started it. The latest news, sports and entertainment come right into our living rooms and, again, the technology has created a dizzying number of ways to do that. In spite of all this “progress”, however, we seem to know less about one another than we did when we personally interacted. I’ve never believed that the genie can be put back into the bottle, so trying to go back to a time before, say, television is futile. The forward looking challenge is to utilize the available technology to stimulate (dare I say, incite?) greater interaction that may have the potential for an even higher level of intimacy. We are still free to choose how we do our cocooning, and that may be the positive side of things like Twitter and Facebook that I’m only now beginning to experiment with. Our time together is finite. That, in and of itself, ought to lend a sense of urgency to learning as much about one another as we can.

PS Now everything's okay: Sniper John Allen Muhammad is executed

Monday, November 09, 2009

I Simply Remember

I am so grateful for being employed. I am so grateful for my home and family, and for (more than) enough to eat. Compared to the majority of the rest of the world I live like a king, and I am embarrassed and ashamed when I allow myself to be envious of the monied minority. I really need to exercise my attitude of gratitude because I feel so much better when I do. Eyeing the greener grass on the other side of the fence is demoralizing and draining. I am encouraged to want everything when in fact I want for nothing. I recently viewed a video of Michigan Congressman Mike Roger’s (R) opening statement on health care reform in which he repeatedly states that providing insurance for those who don’t have it punishes those that do. I am grateful for excellent coverage that has seen me through a number of health issues, and so I’m trying to figure out why that should make me feel punished that others want the same kind of coverage. Our king-of-the-hill mentality is unquestionably the work of the antichrist.

Friday, November 06, 2009

Let the killing begin.

The stink of war is in the air. Oh, I don’t mean those that are too far away to smell. What I’m breathing stinks. I suppose we have relegated to historians to wonder how it was in the days leading up to the American Civil War. Our country has never experienced anything like it before, but it is foolhardy to imagine that it can’t happen again. We are much better equipped to do violence upon one another than were our nineteenth century forebears. Brother against brother. We’ve been there before, and it smells like we’re headed there again. The treachery of the extreme right is bordering on the criminal by its incitement to rebel, to revolt, to secede, to divide the United States. Among the myriad of mind-boggling achievements of the Twentieth Century was the conception, implementation and perfection of global warfare that proceeds unabated into the Twenty-first Century.

I can understand if it seems odd that I have turned my attention of late to killing, but it is an undeniable reality which manifests in ways subtle to sensational every moment of every day. Remember the horror of Columbine? A society which accepts violence will not hesitate to kill. Such a survivor mentality has no regard for the majority unless it conveniently happens to agree. This last-man-standing-wins worldview should be taken into account the next time someone cries that their gun will be taken only from their cold, dead fingers. I can assure you that such a mindset has no intention of ever letting such a thing happen. The nagging nature versus nurture question is whether or not violence is inevitable. Is anything else possible? If not, we may as well be on with expeditiously exterminating each other until only one of us is left.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

When Stupidity Reigns

Stupid

I know that this is not going to be politically correct, but I’m going to say it anyway. When did we Americans become infatuated with stupidity? One only has to look at George W. Bush to see that we elected a stupid president. I’m sure I’m biased, but Sarah Palin is stupidity manifest. The Playboy of my youth relished stupid blondes, or, for that matter, any female that was too stupid to say anything but ‘yes’. Dumb blonde jokes. Moron jokes. Pollock jokes. There was no end to making fun of the mentally challenged. But now we seem to have done a 180 and idolize those who can’t remember their own phone number without writing it down. I clearly remember the day that Steve Longshore and Mark Beniga slammed me up against a locker demanding that I tell them the secret to being smart. There have always been dumb jocks. But today it would probably be made into a reality series that would financially reward their stupidity. Before our technology made possible the destruction of the very planet upon which we live, maybe stupidity was something to be endured. But now that we can actually destroy ourselves, I think we need to reevaluate the wisdom of allowing stupdity to permeate the power structure. In other words, stupid is dangerous and we need to be about reducing the risk in whatever ways we can. That, in my opinion, is the smart thing to do.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Be Still

Where to mentally meander today? In this age of twenty-four seven there is no shortage of subject material. Should I think about war and peace? Should I think about health care and how it affects me? What about Wall Street, Main Street, or my street? How am I getting along with others? What do others think of me? Am I using the correct deodorant, shampoo and toothpaste? Is Mary using the correct detergent to wash our clothes and dishes? If I run completely out of things to think about, I can always wonder about how long it has been since I had an erection and how long it lasted. We are bombarded with information to the point of inundation, and the jerryrigged solution has been to flood our minds with contrived reality. It’s too bad that Scripture has gotten so tangled up in religion, because the counsel of the psalmist (Psalm 46:10) would make so much sense in our hurry scurry world. The relationship with our Creator has been the victim of religion gone bad and I’m not real sure how we go about rectifying that. Taking the time to reconnect with what’s truly important, however, may be a good place to start.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Beyond Reason

I like to think of myself as a reasonable person, meaning by that I have a reason for the things I do, think, believe, etc. I find myself, however, having done something that in retrospect wasn’t quite rational. I signed up for Facebook. Now, becoming a tweeter was based on an article that I read (where else?) in TIME and tweeting is a relatively benign way to stay in touch with family and friends by occasionally answering the question, what are you doing? The Facebook question of what’s on your mind seems innocent enough, but the program’s ability to insidiously dredge up the past was quite unexpected. To date, the oldest “friend” I’ve “discovered” is Ken B. who confirmed that our knowledge of one another dates back to elementary school. A pleasant reacquaintance from high school is Gina H. who is still trying to get a handle on exactly who I was then and how that stacks up against whom I am now. This, for me, is the Facebook conundrum. With Heraclitus’ river running freely for decades without the assistance of these old classmates, what is the reason for getting in touch with them now? Facebook is proving to be an exercise in name recognition combined with introductions to innumerable possible new friends that mean even less (if that’s possible) than someone I haven’t even thought about in fifty years. It is interesting to learn what Crab and Rat are doing now, but in the larger scheme of things the flame is quickly extinguished. The truth is, there was no real interest in friendship back then, so why would there be an interest in being friends now? That, my friends, is unreasonable.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Moving On

Some sort of malady took the wind out of my sails last week but I’m on the mend. As I approach sixty, I realize that I just don’t get sick as well as I used to. Actually, it’s just the opposite. I don’t get well as quickly as I once did. I’m also realizing that all the medications I’m on seem to lower my resistance to viruses that were once just inconvenient, allowing them to now become full blown. For us mortals, there is no going back. We relentlessly move forward in time and space toward our ultimate destiny and can do nothing more than remember what is was like before. With age and reflection comes an ever-changing worldview which either aligns itself with reality or opposes it. Happy are those who do not rebut reality.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Monday, Monday (redux)

It’s Monday, and I am not excited enough about anything to write about it. I’m guessing that I’m not alone. Oh, you may have more sense than to blog, but likely as not you have moments when nothing much seems to matter. It’s going to be the Phillies versus the Yankees. Big whup! Hundreds more have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, including American personnel. So what’s new? The Pope is inviting disgruntled Anglicans to become (disgruntled, I guess) Catholics. Historic, yes, but who really cares? My day to day routine is somewhat immune to all these things unless I let myself be interested, and so disinterest encourages itself. It’s alright, though, because tomorrow I’ll probably work myself into a dither about something.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Music Choice, My Old Lady, and Thou

I just now realized much to my surprise how little attention in the health care debate is being given to the distinction between mutual and corporate for-profit insurances. Mary and I both own New York Life insurance policies (that's not a mistake; policyholders own the company) . I don’t think that those who administer New York Life Insurance Company (not to be confused with NYLIAC) are thought of as anything but well compensated for their labors, but any financial growth experienced by the company is returned to policyholders in the form of dividends. Everyone is going to die. Nobody knows when. In a mutual company the risk is pooled so that the insured amount is available at whatever time it is needed. Wisely managed mutual insurance companies succeed by putting money back into the pockets of the owners, the policy holders.

A single payer, universal form of health coverage should provide mutual insurance for every citizen of the United States. (What is to be done with non-citizens will, I think, have to be addressed after every citizen is insured.) This defines the pool from which the risk is covered, and the dividend to citizens will be lower costs for unconditional coverage. This does not interfere with medical practices currently in place and will actually provide additional savings through lowered administrative costs. Our country has paid an inestimably high price for allowing corporations to profitably assume individual constitutional rights. When We the People contribute to the protection of one another, we reclaim our democracy. Our government should collect premiums calculated on the whole national population which will then fund unconditional health coverage for every citizen (this may lend a great new significance to the census figures). We the People demand that our tax dollars stop being paid to corporations!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

How Low Must We Go?

I’ve often wondered about bottom point conversion. AA meetings are rife with testimonies of being as low as one could go before realizing the need to never touch another drop. Many Pentecostal movements bear the same testimony of waking up in the gutter to the realization that things must change. The prodigal son of Jesus’ parable is an excellent example. It was on the third day of rioting in Los Angeles that prompted Rodney King to ask the question, “Can we all get along?” The question becomes, must we experience the extreme in order to seek the reasonable, the rational. History seems to answer, yes. Even the Holocaust wasn’t enough to stop the ideological killing of human beings. Even Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t sufficient to lay bare the immorality of Mutually Assured Destruction. Even the crucifixion of the Prince of Peace hasn’t deterred eye-for-an-eye retaliation. I wish that I was smart enough to figure out the answer. But even a simpleton like me can figure out where all the killing ultimately leads.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Waxing Wednesday

A rare working lunch prevented me from posting yesterday, but to your a) joy, and/or b) consternation, I’m back at it today. Like everyone, I have good days and bad. Today for some reason is leaning toward the latter. I don’t feel very good, but given the prognosis for CML prior to the Gleevec that has put it into remission, I know that I could feel much, much worse. I draw strength from my family and friends only to lose some of it worrying about current affairs. I really ought to pay less attention to the news, but somewhere along the line I came to believe that that is irresponsible. I learned yesterday that my good friend and mentor, Nate Holt, died. I understand that as I age this is going to become more commonplace, but that still doesn’t assuage the empty feeling. I’m knocking on sixty’s door and wonder what it’s going to be like to pass through it. I truly believe that there is no one on Earth more blessed than I, but that Truth only shines through when selfishness doesn’t block it out. It’s Wednesday, October 21, 2009, and another day of my life is half over.

Monday, October 19, 2009

On Turning Tables

Consider the suicide bomber. Consider the shooter that murders others before killing himself. These are but two examples of how killing mutates when the perpetrator does not desire to hold on to her or his own life. It is the ultimate frustration of capital punishment. If the loss of one’s own life does not serve as a deterrent to murder, then how is killing to be prevented? Ironically, it is this permutation that offers insight into another way of dealing with killers. If someone is out to kill me, and if the most important thing to me is to preserve my own life, then I put myself in a position of having to kill in order not to be killed. But when preserving my own life is no longer the highest priority, the scenario is profoundly transformed. Growing up in Denver afforded me the opportunity to hear the disdain participants in the National Western had for what they called “drugstore cowboys”, those who liked to get all dressed up for the show but hadn’t been within a mile of a cow pie. It is in that vein that I would refer to “drugstore Christians” as those who have never bothered to examine the faith for themselves because they were willing to accept what someone else told them being a Christian is all about. A close examination of the story as it has come to us today cannot help but reveal that the truly remarkable thing about Jesus was his willingness to give his own life rather than retaliate. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13 ASV) Those are nice words until one stops to think about what they really say.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Am I More?

Killing is the predatory mechanism that drives evolution through survival of the fittest. The food chain is an easily understood example of this. This is also the great irony, that taking life is necessary to sustain it. Someone more knowledgeable in the subject may well prove me wrong, but I doubt that the cheetah that runs down the gazelle is guilty of malice, but instead is simply trying to survive. The little fish is eaten by a larger fish which is eaten by a larger fish, and so on. This isn’t rocket science, but it is acknowledging the primal urge to live that is supported by killing. Some behaviorists regard humans as nothing more than sophisticated animals. Recent research into the ins and outs of human sex reduces the process to one of evolutionarily selecting a mate on the basis of perceived positive reproductive characteristics. Reproduction; there’s that wanting to live thing again. In a kill or be killed scenario, the gene pool is enhanced by those who successfully eliminate the inferior and the weaker. In this sense, the humans who are alive today are the product of the most successful killers. The killed just didn’t make the cut because they had no progeny. I understand how this is not a very flattering picture of the human condition, but one need look no farther than Nazi Germany to realize its deeply inherent truth. If human existence truly is nothing more than kill or be killed, the ideal will be achieved in the last man standing. But throughout the course of human history runs a thread of something more, the notion that humans have been created “a little lower than the angels.” (Psalm 8:5) This is what I’m going to concentrate on to try to answer for myself the question, If I am created in the image of my Creator, can I really lower myself to the kill or be killed paradigm?

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

They Killed Themselves!

As someone may have noted from my “above the law” addition to my photos link, a Metro officer is being laid to rest today. I’m sure with the assistance of Metro’s administration the media is hyping this as a hero’s funeral that is drawing brothers and sisters in blue from around the city, state, and nation. I guess that’s just protocol when someone wearing a badge dies in the line of duty, but the pending investigation will (this is an educated guess on my part) reveal that the officer basically killed himself. This is the second “suicide” by a Metro officer since last May. Both were driving recklessly. Neither had been dispatched. Both were traveling at excessively high speeds while purportedly trying to provide assistance to other officers. I suppose I’m being less than sympathetic. When the first officer was buried, I had to argue with Metro officers to gain admission to my own home. After all, this is the entertainment capital of the world and Metro puts on a grand show, blockading thoroughfares for miles to parade the deceased from church to cemetery. I’ve been behind the wheel of a squad car. I know what it’s like to start rolling to provide assistance to, in the case of a county, officers who were literally miles away from my location. I also know that it is extremely difficult to roll a squad car, as in the most recent incident. I could tell by looking at the television pictures of the first incident that the driver had been traveling at an insanely high rate of speed (the subsequent investigation revealed in excess of 100 miles per hour going through an intersection posted for 45 mph. No lights. No siren. Only a hapless civilian that got in the way of a one-ton bullet (fortunately, that driver was not killed). I doubt that law enforcement could find any more sympathetic supporter than me when it’s behaving within the parameters of the law that it is sworn to uphold. But don’t expect me to shed any tears, and not to be offended by the hypocrisy of a supposed hero’s funeral, when the truth is that these men put many lives at risk and suffered the consequence of losing their own.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Get Used To It!

Roughly 150,000 people around the world die each day. If anyone out there can calculate the percentage of those killed, I would be grateful. Death, as has been acknowledged in this blog many times, is the inevitable ultimate destiny of all living things. But to die a “natural” death as opposed to being killed is a stark contrast, almost a polarity on the continuum. 42,636 people were killed in U.S. automobile accidents in 2005 (is this really the most current data?) which calculated out to one death every 13 minutes. I’ll grant you that a death by accident is not the same thing as premeditated murder, but it is killing nonetheless when the death wouldn’t have occurred “naturally.” My point is this: we accept killing on so many levels that we are no longer repulsed by it. Indeed, we tend to glorify it. How many killings a year are simulated in books, movies and television? My training sergeant in the law enforcement academy stated simply, “A gun is for one thing, and one thing only, killing.” Even the NRA’s trumped up constitutional freedom for hunters can’t get around that one. I earned an expert rating on the police proficiency range by shooting at human silhouettes, a technique employed to make pulling the trigger on an actual human being easier. The hot topic of the day has been spun as the number of people who are killed each year because they don’t have health insurance? Let’s face it, we are killers. Now the only question is, do we find that acceptable?

Monday, October 12, 2009

In the Event Of Concern

I’m a little short on time today because I couldn’t unlock my computer after lunch. My good friend on the Helpdesk got me up and running. To try to put what he told me into laymen’s terms: we need to weatherproof our computers. Now you can understand why I’m not revealing his identity so that he won’t be plagued with insults from other IT personnel. Actually, weatherproofing the computer was my idea when told that today’s cloudy weather may be increasing the likelihood of static electricity. One small benefit of posting daily might be that upon missing a week or two, someone might come back to 406-02 and see if I’m still alive or not. So, this is actually turning into something of a public service announcement that I’m alive and well and there is currently no need to check on my welfare.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Americans, Arise!

President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today. I am an incredibly proud American right now. The world is telling us something, and true patriots will prove wise and humble enough to listen. The United States of America had the sympathy and good will of the world following 9/11 but watched it criminally squandered by those who did not care. The world applauds our election of Barack Obama as our President and is expressing that by the most prestigious, honored means possible. Now is not the time to give any mind to the naysayers, because the bitter fruit of which they eat makes them incorrigibly negative. We are at the dawn of the Earth community, and we can be proud that we have shown the world our good will by electing the best person to our highest office. “Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.”

***

Killing is a fundamental factor in determining the fittest survivors of a process of natural selection. The ability to kill is far more deterministic of survival than is rational thought. The irony here is that reason is the hallmark of intellectual survival. In some way, these two components of human being are in dynamic tension with one another, leading to a logical conclusion that the ultimate survivor will murder intellectually. Look around.

***

Isn't April Fools Day on 04/01? Limbaugh to judge 2010 Miss America Pageant

Thursday, October 08, 2009

From Faith in Love Comes Hope

Hope is the product of faith in love. For all the quarrels I conceitedly have with the Apostle Paul, I am definitely not alone in seeing the man’s theological genius expressed in 1 Corinthians 13. 1 John 4:8 proclaims that God is love. Therefore, hope is the product of faith in God. Far be it from me to try to improve upon perfection, but as Paul recites what love is and is not, in today’s world a useful addendum might be that love does not kill. This would be consistent with the Ten Commandments admonition against murder. It’s one thing to say that I believe in God, but it’s something altogether different to find hope from faith in love that does not kill.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

I'm A Killer

I don’t consider myself a murderer, but I am a killer. I’m not a vegetarian. I sometimes wear leather. And while these are relatively mild confessions, I cross a significant line each April 15 when I pay my income tax (like the obedient citizen I’ve been raised to be). When you consider that the U.S. Department of Defense budget accounted in fiscal year 2009 for about 21% of the United States federal budgeted expenditures and 27% of estimated tax revenues, I think you begin to get my drift. I financially support the killing of hundreds of thousands of human beings every time I obey the law of the land. This doesn’t even begin to take into account the number of people who starve to death so that I may eat my way into obesity, the unknown thousands who die of disease and poverty so that I may sustain my moderate “middle class” lifestyle in the United States. While intent defines murder, I’m not so sure but what it may be even more insidious to kill without it. I am intrinsically woven into the web of life, and yet I ignorantly and callously enjoy a way of life that is at the expense of the lives of others. We humans flatter ourselves as the apex of creation, and yet our history in relative terms is but a twinkling of an eye. We are such cunning and capable killers that we may simply be forecasting our extinction. Our serious repentance, not just in word but through a conversion which reveres life as sacred, may be our only redemption.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Sweet, Sweet Revenge

So, how are we to deal with the killers among us? The primal urge is to take an eye for an eye, to retaliate by killing back. This is a common sense approach. It underlies everything from personal revenge to world war. It explains the common twisting of the Golden Rule into “do unto others before they do it to you.” Cinema and television have profited greatly by glorifying the supposed justice of revenge. Tex Sample, one of my favorite teachers, said that all one has to do to understand the antichrist is to watch a Western. The “good guy” is the one who kills the “bad guy”. When we are being violated, assaulted, or confronted is when we are least likely to ask, “What would Jesus do?” That’s a question developed by latter day Christians to spark interest in fund drives and charitable activities, but is rarely—if ever—asked when we are under attack. A killer has no reverence for life. This is why they are able to kill. To retaliate in kind, even if in defense, places us in the same category. I describe it as the primal urge because it is what comes most naturally to us, bred by millions of years of killing. If we find nothing wrong with killing, then let us proceed with gusto. It is only when we allow the glimmer of enlightenment to illuminate our souls that we may ask in all earnestness, “What did Jesus do?” The answer won’t be much to our liking.

Monday, October 05, 2009

There Are Killers Among Us

I returned to work today after a delightful weekend with Mom, Kim, Rebecca and Kevin. Much of the time was spent around the table just talking. It occurred to me that this may, as much as anything, explain why none of us have ever killed someone else. Kevin and I represent two generations that were not called upon to serve in the military, a decided advantage for those who choose not to kill. Three generations of women who have never killed anybody was probably not all that unusual, until one stops to think of what an exception to the global reality they all are. One of the things that Mom and I talked about was how the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible replaces the word “kill” in the Ten Commandments with “murder”. That was about as controversial as anything got about the release of the NRSV in a society that sprouts new translations or paraphrases with regularity. It was an important distinction, however, between killing plants to make food and the premeditated, intentional murder of another human. We have become so jaded in this respect that I’m sure it doesn’t matter much to the majority. Just as all of the “commandments” have morphed into “suggestions”, whether it be a prohibition against killing or murdering it still includes the conditional asterisk which spells out the times when it is acceptable, appropriate, and therefore not a violation. Semantics aside, killing is immoral.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

A New Direction

With a heavy heart, I open with a portion of my journal entry for September 25:

First, we must accept that they will kill us. They have no inhibitions about killing. They have perfected weapons for killing. If they perceive that we are a threat, they will kill us. Who are they? They are those who kill.

As I draw within a quarter calendar of my sixtieth year, I am sobered by the somber realization that what it finally comes down to is this: there are human beings quite capable and willing to kill other human beings. Stanley Kubrick captured this pivotal moment in his film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, when one tribe discovered that it was possible to kill members of another tribe. The triumphant weapon is thrown into the air and dissolves into the 21st century.

I like to think of myself as a gray person, not prone to absolute black and white. I discover, however, that such relativism doesn’t agree with the distinction between those who can kill and those who cannot. The greatest mental argument within me when entering law enforcement was the understanding that I would carry a gun and might be called upon to use it. I rationalized that if it was in defense of an innocent, not including myself, I could pull the trigger. I have related before that upon three occasions during my six year tenure I found myself in situations where using deadly force would have been justified. I thank God (and I’m not saying that to be cute) that a higher power prevailed and I never had to discharge my weapon.

The history of humankind is replete with killing in all its various forms. Sometimes it has been regarded as necessary and justified. Other times it has registered as an evil and unforgiveable atrocity. But taking another life is killing, pure and simple. To those regular readers who don’t feel they have the desire or the stomach to proceed, I apologize. But as our human propensity to kill continually grows to apocalyptic proportions, I find that it is time to address the issue with candor. Kill or be killed. That is the question.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Not the Best Wednesday

I’m trying hard not to concede to the nihilists, but I must confess that it is with increasing difficulty. The rebuttal to nothing is something, but the something is becoming more and more irrational, parochial, and dogmatic. Reason is disdainfully attributed to intellectual elitism by those for whom thought must be a dreadfully painful process. It seems like we went through all this before during the Sixties, but obstinate redneckism is making a powerful resurgence. How, in the same society, do we manage to elect the first black president and then put a poll on the web as to whether or not he should be assassinated? For several years now it has been a standoff between the intelligent and the stupid, and the smart ones have not historically come out on top. If one ever has pause to wonder about how someone like Adolph Hitler came to power in Nazi Germany, one need look no further than the fascist flexing in our own time of the likes of Rush Limbaugh. It seems that we’ve decided to patriotically wave our flag as we bury it and ourselves in the grave we are hell-bent upon digging.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Tuesday Afternoon

Now closer to sixty than fifty-nine affects my worldview; I am well past the midpoint. My thoughts have always gravitated toward the eternal, but the attempt to understand my relationship to it becomes daily more significant. A recent journal entry: do we die from the outside in or the inside out? The seeming human rejection of the reality of death prevents us from pondering such questions, and I can’t help but wonder if that does not somehow influence the quality of the inevitable experience. There is not a human alive that is not going to die, and yet we allow our beliefs to construct absolutisms that subvert any attempt to objectively and rationally examine our destiny. Perhaps this is why killing comes so easily to some. To ignore the miracle of life is to demean the reality of death. Watch the World Clock tick away and just try to find any meaning in it all.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Worth Reading...

How Women of Faith Fought a Dictator with Nonviolence by Becky Garrison

Regular Incite readers know how heavily influenced I am by TIME. It is my lunch hour source to study while I eat. Then it many times gets vomited onto this blog. I promised my good friend that I would provide an explanation for the direction of my blogs this past week. I am deeply disturbed and concerned by what is going on in our country right now:

Thursday, September 24, 2009

And Another Thing

Now that I’ve started expounding on those things that anger me, there just doesn’t seem to be any end to this list of things that make me mad. For example: women! Even white women make no sense, and women of color are just plain infuriating. When I worked at McDonald’s it was men only. Not too many years after that they started letting females on the crew, and you’ve seen what’s happened to McDonald’s since then. Women want to do everything these days. They want to be doctors, lawyers, and ministers. They’ve dominated the fields of education and nursing for years, so we can expect that soon medicine, law, and religion will follow the trend of being substandard and counterproductive. It would be best if women would just do what they were made for by bearing children, cooking meals, and cleaning the house. But if they must venture away from the homestead, for God’s sake let them follow the example of Ann Coulter, Peggy Noonan and Sarah Palin. Bleeding-heart liberals like lesbian Rachel Maddow and black Gwen Ifill need to keep their mouths shut and be taken off the air. Indeed, I think that nationalizing Fox News and making it the sole source of news would be a great step forward (not to be misunderstood as progressive). As I work through this, it’s becoming clearer to me that what I hate, what angers me, what makes me mad is anyone or anything that’s different from me. Leave the viva la difference business to those cowardly Frenchies.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Color Me Blind

Today I’ve decided to be angry with colored people. Never mind that white is supposed to be composed of all colors while black is the absence of any color, because that’s physics, not biology. Everybody knows that Adam and Eve were Caucasians, and the insidious introduction of lesser strains has been dragging humankind down ever since. My own theory is that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was colored, and that’s why it encouraged the pure couple to defile themselves by eating of the forbidden fruit. It was when they were expelled from Paradise that people of color started populating the earth. This is what I find so infuriating about the theory of evolution, because the whole damned thing is a scheme to undo the obvious superiority of clean white people and the inferiority of dirty colored people. I could accept that these inferior breeds perhaps did evolve from monkeys, but only Creationism justifies white superiority (God, too, is white, you know). November 4, 2008 was clearly the last straw as a colored family occupied the White House. You can better understand what I’m talking about when you consider that only Obama’s father was black, because even a white mother couldn’t cleanse the man of his Negro features. No wonder he’s being called a socialist, a fascist, and a neo-Hitler. Obama has besmirched the pure character of the white presidency, and for that alone he should be impeached! I thank my white God for my white Jesus and all the white saints that have followed. America the White! Let’s keep it that way.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Has Anyone Seen My Idiot?

With whom shall I get angry today? I know! The idiots! I’m mad as hell that the idiots are taking charge of everything: media, government, religion, education, etc. I’m showing my age because, when I was young, idiocy was frowned upon. Seriously, can you imagine Dwight D. Eisenhower taking Sarah Palin as his running mate? Making an idiot of yourself was something to be avoided at all costs, but now is the hallmark of celebrity. Kanye West wrests the microphone from Taylor Swift’s hands to extol the virtues of Beyonce? And while I try, really try, to give them the respect that is due their office, what can the Republicans from Mitch McConnell to Eric Cantor to John Boehner be called but idiots? The country is still reeling from the disastrously idiotic presidency of George W. Bush. Now, much like Thumper, my mother instructed me to not say anything if I couldn’t say something nice, but what can be nicely said of idiocy? An idiot is certainly deserving of our compassion, our forgiveness, our encouragement to stop being an idiot, but not our support and allegiance. Who but an idiot would call for the collapse of the United States just to prove that Barack Obama should not be president? Who but an idiot would carry firearms in public to display their pathetic misunderstanding of the Second Amendment? Who but an idiot would drive a Hummer? Perhaps the saddest thing is this: when we let the idiots take charge, we all become idiots with them.

Monday, September 21, 2009

You Lie!

Last month I revealed what it took to change the ongoing relationship between Sidney Crane and me. Dad was not available much of the time to converse with me about such issues, and even if he had been his pastoral counsel might not have struck me as what I wanted to hear. Mom’s older brother, Uncle Hud, listened once to my plight and suggested that “if you can’t lick them, join them.” For that particular situation, neither of the elders I consulted offered a practical resolution. I had to come up with my own.

In a peculiar sort of way, however, Uncle Hud’s advice is coming back to me in today’s climate of “anger in America”, and realizing that any hope of “licking” the problem is unrealistic, I have decided to join them in being angry. Naturally, because this is my blog, I get to give it my own personal twist.

I am mad as hell that the Right has discovered that it can lie with impunity. The great irony of Joe Wilson’s outburst was that it was definitely the kettle calling the pot black. Joe Wilson is a liar. Rush Limbaugh is a liar. Glenn Beck is a liar. Bill O’Reilly is a liar. Senator Grassley is a liar. Senator Ensign is a liar. Governor Sanford is a liar. Governor Gibbons is a liar. This could go on ad infinitum, but I think I make my point. I’ve already confessed to my younger proclivity toward chronic lying, and that allows me to certify my accusations on the basis of “it takes one to know one.”

So, dismiss me if you like because I’ve admitted to having once been a liar, but I’m going to get angrier and angrier that liars are now being condoned by government and the media because they’ve managed to shake the stigma that I could not. My reformation involved learning to tell the truth and to accept that as the only legitimate means of gaining the confidence and trust of others. So, yes! I’m mad as hell that prominent people are lying and getting away with it. This should do it for today, and rest assured that I’m going to be angry about something else tomorrow!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Thursday’s Thud

It’s my Friday, and I’ve had my fill of government. Through the pale of idiocy that has beset our society I can see the reason why some of the reasonable are wary of giving more and more control to the feds. The hundreds of millions of dollars that my agency pumps out of the pockets of irresponsible parents into the accounts of equally irresponsible parents do absolutely nothing to address the issue of irresponsible parenting. I’m sure that there are some custodial parents who use their monthly stipend to the benefit of their children, but that has to be the exception rather than the rule among a segment of our population that procreates without conscience. I’m beginning to understand that you have to love yourself before you can love someone else. With our kitsch definition of love, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I’m talking about something more than narcissistic infatuation. I’m talking about a reverence for the miracle of one’s own self that lays the foundation for reverently loving others. I’ve been at this circus long enough to watch some of the children who received support now having to pay it. Monkey see, monkey do is the grim analysis of what happens when human beings lack any sense of self worth to pass on to the next generation. It’s a good thing that it’s Thursday, because I can use the next three days off to renew, to refresh, to bask in the love of my wife and daughters, so that I’ll be somewhat better equipped to come back next Monday to deal with the tragedy of worthlessness.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

In These Final Days

Visigoths and Vandals are given partial credit for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. In the fifteen-hundred or so years since then, a plethora of theories have emerged on just exactly what happened to the once ruler of the civilized world. That Christianity was adopted as the state religion about the same time cannot be underestimated as also having played a role, something to think about the next time you hear someone proclaim the United States of American to be a Christian nation. With so many of our civil liberties and constitutional rights under assault since the Bush era, it may seem unimportant to argue for the separation of church and state, but closer attention to what’s going on in our country right now reveals a sinister blurring of the distinction. Whether it is anti-abortion, pro-guns, or just saying “no” to President Obama on general principle, there are zealous Christianists at every rally. And rather than encourage the constitutional separation of church and state, Christianist preachers are leading the assault on that wise and, dare I say, sacred distinction. If you like what you see going on in the Muslim world these days, you’re gonna love when Christianism becomes our state religion. There’s no question that the devil is hard at work, and these days he’s slipping the wolves into the flock disguised as evangelical Christianists.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Had I Ever Dreamed

With children comes the prospect of grandchildren, great grandchildren, and so on. I’m thinking today of the hours Mary and I spent deliberating whether or not bearing children in the Atomic Age was the right thing to do. Obviously, our two beautiful daughters attest to the correctness of our decision. This does not, however, relieve me of the misgivings that still persist. I’m not happy with the world that Rachel and Rebecca were born into, although I see them as part of the promise for a brighter future. Three generations past the first detonation of a nuclear weapon doesn’t seem to have brought us any closer to a peaceful resolution, to a world resonating with harmony. Indeed, as the human population continues to grow unchecked we seem daily to draw nearer to that eschatological precipice which so many ignorantly yearn for. First-century apocalypticism was perceived from a far different worldview in which it almost made sense to think of a redeeming Parousia, but a Twenty-first century apocalypse bodes the end of the human experiment. Had I ever dreamed that evil idiots would prevail, I might have decided differently about having children. Had I ever dreamed that these evil idiots might well spark the second American civil war, the third world war, etc, I might have decided against bringing innocents into such folly. Had I ever dreamed that the hope of the world rests in the hearts and minds of my children and their children, then I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Monday, September 14, 2009

You Say You're A What?

I’ve had it with extremists who find nothing wrong with coopting whatever they want in order to further their cause. My grandfather and uncle were strong Republicans, but they would not recognize what has become of their party today. Nor would they recognize what has become of their Christian faith as expressed by the Church. That is because Christianity hijacked has become Christianism, and adherents of the extreme ideology are not truly Christians but Christianists. In this context, Mohandas Gandhi’s statement, “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ;” becomes more understandable. A Christian is a person who attempts to become Christ-like, literally a “little Christ.” But a christianist blindly believes in a kind of dogmatic ideology that is truly antithetical to the way of Christ. A Christian could never condone the murder of anyone. Christianists justify the murder of anyone and everyone who does not agree with them. A Christian could never use the teachings of Christ to justify war, but christianists have been doing so from the beginning. Had Jesus not been crucified, I truly believe that there may not have been any such thing as Christianity and its Church. It is plausible that there might have been a powerfully reformed Judaism that would have never generated the Abrahamic offshoots that later emerged. I’m still not going to feel comfortable labeling myself a Christian, but I can now begin to reclaim my authentic faith tradition as I grow in my understanding that christianists proclaim christianism that has little, if anything, to do with the Christ.

Friday, September 11, 2009

09/11/09

“…just about a short time ago…”

This precise measurement was broadcast (cabled, really) to those tuned into HLN (that’s what Headline News now bills itself as, although my rather dated spell checker allows ‘headline’ as one word, so I don’t know what that does to the ‘L’) about an hour ago (10:49 AM PDT). Seems there was a “routine” Coast Guard exercise in responding to a terrorist alert on the Potomac, and sister-station CNN announced that shots were fired. Well, this made nearly the whole civilized Western world to move to the edge of their seats. This all happened “just about a short time ago.”

“…ancient synagogue found in Israel…”

This is third of three headlines now being touted on CNN.com. Can’t say I’m surprised.

How are we going to handle the shock of realizing—one way or another—that we’ve been sold out, that we’ve been betrayed (ironically) by those who most loudly proclaim their Right-Winged Christianity whenever it is necessary to justify their evil insanity? The slime has oozed into the post-electoral background with Cheney continuing to distract attention from Bush. Where are they now? Did they just disappear? I don’t think so, because the next step of their plan no longer requires their visible control of government. Their corporations are now in control of government and—much as pilotless drones remotely execute imperialistic warfare from work stations half a world away—they have moved from Washington, D.C. while cloaking themselves in the further distraction of their simple-minded replacements who publicly display an embarrassing inability to do anything more than belligerently recite the crude and vulgar dogma with which they are indoctrinated. The party of Lincoln? How utterly absurd!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Nothing Left To Say

It’s a humbling experience to realize that you’ve tried all the various ways you can think of to communicate a point, an idea, and that the well of means has simply gone dry. Love God. Love one another. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. It’s hard to improve upon perfection, although that seems to be what the human mind forever strives to do. It’s a game of sorts, reinventing Truth to seem more truthful, more palatable. Imagine the number of sermons that have been preached on the teachings of Jesus for the last two-thousand years. And yet humankind still chooses apathy, hate, violence and destruction over compassionate love. Think of all the things that could be done with the current technology, and yet the vast majority of our country’s resources are focused upon using those technologies for war, entertainment, and gaming. Television is a good case in point. A medium that could have enlightened the world instead became a privatized, for-profit corporate enterprise that endlessly pumps out junk. Don’t worry, though, dear reader, because I’m not about to let having nothing left to say stand in the way of saying it over and over again. It’s one hell of a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, and perhaps there will be some redeeming value to the last words of the final chapter being: love God, love one another, do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Number Nine

I’m challenging myself to write today’s date, 09/09/09, as many times as I can before the day is through. Like Mom says, small things please small minds. I’m also exercising my right to be lazy and just link you to the Wikipedia article on Revolution 9. Ahh, those were the days…

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

The Folly of Forecasting

I’m not smart enough to know what the future will be. I can only hope that I have some awareness of the way the present may affect it. The eye-for-an-eye mentality that has been around apparently since the dawn of human consciousness comes complete with a reactionary default that justifies retaliation. Someone just hit me. The natural thing to do is to strike back. This kind of thinking goes further toward a good defense being a good offense, and before we even know it we find ourselves being the first to hit. Whether we are the attacker or the attacked retaliating in defense, we succumb to the vicious cycle of violence begetting violence. We are told, however, that there is a different way, a better way. “What’s the word?” asked the Beatles, “the word is love.” “People will know that you are my disciples by the way you love one another,” proclaims the Christ. As I said at the beginning, I’m not smart enough to know what the future will be, but I think I am smart enough to understand that humankind has the ability to destroy itself unless it learns to truly love.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

A Labor Day Hymn

Working Class Hero
by John Lennon

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and class less and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

Thursday, September 03, 2009

The September 7 issue of TIME is fittingly devoted to the life and death of Edward M. Kennedy. The thoughts of those who knew him best are profound in their description of a man who matured into the ability of putting others first. This, for me, is the definition of human maturity. We start out selfish, but realize our human potential by becoming selfless. The parent who stands in harm’s way to protect a child, the politician who serves the public rather than corporate interests, the list of real life examples goes on and on. It is time to put a stop to the immoral “greed is good” mentality that has been embraced by all those who choose to remain selfish. Their evil has been condoned for far too long. I offer these words by Ralph Waldo Emerson as the new definition of what it means to mature into a genuine human being:

To laugh often and much,
to win respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better
whether by a healthy child,a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

In The Life After That I Want To Be Nancy…

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Joe Klein, but Nancy Gibbs stands just as high in my regard. As justification (as if any is needed) I offer her latest masterpiece: Cash for Clunkers: The Bribery Stimulus. I’m increasingly concerned by what is happening on the American scene. Gibbs provides but one example of how this once great nation is slipping into decline as all corrupt empires always have. Faithful Incite readers can thank Nancy for putting off my tirade for another day.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Why Am I Doing This?

First, I offer my sincere thanks to the good friend who bothered to comment on yesterday’s post. Some of you more seasoned Incite readers may want to explain to her what a cynical, sarcastic curmudgeon I am. It is delightful, however, to have elicited a response.

To articulate my calling has turned out to be what Dad calls An Endless Search. It would have been nice if my vocation would have disappeared when I left the active ministry, but there’s still that nagging little voice in my mind that asks, why are you here? What is your purpose? What is your reason for being? My humble attempt to answer is this: to incite thought. I am living proof that it doesn’t pay—at least financially—to think, but I am still convinced that thinking is the primary function of human beings. Psychologists have pretty well proved that human thought is developmental in nature, and combined with M. Scott Peck’s postulation of spiritual entropy it becomes clear that we are all called to optimally utilize and enhance this greatest of all gifts.

So, why am I doing this? To make myself think! And if I can incite others to think with me, well then, that’s just icing on the cake.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Homeless People Smell Bad

My daily walks around downtown Las Vegas take me past the Historic Fifth Street School which adjoins Centennial Plaza. This area has become (quite unintentionally, is my guess) a showcase for Las Vegas’ homeless. During today’s morning walk I was downwind of some of them, and the smell was disgusting. It occurred to me that Mayor Oscar Goodman missed a real opportunity by not installing public showers during the facility’s renovation. Borrowing an ingenious design from the past, these public showers could serve as a gateway to a crematorium that could prove the ultimate solution for these pungent loiterers who in no way contribute to society. Once we apply the ultimate solution to the homeless, we could then turn our attention toward the uninsured, the disabled, the aged, and all the other worthless elements of society that do nothing but take money out of our pockets. I don’t think it’s too late, Oscar, to have those showers installed.