Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Friday, November 20, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Life, Death, Meaning and Meaninglessness
The older one gets the more one thinks about death. When thinking about death one is going to obviously consider the meaning of one's life. When we hear the news of someone's death we often consider the life of that person and wonder what purpose the person served -- we wonder if their life had any meaning. More importantly, we wonder if that person believed their life had any meaning. When we hear of suicide, we might be even more intrigued by the person's life.
I had never heard of David Foster Wallace until his suicide made national news this past fall. He was found dead in his home in September of 2008 at the age of 46. I read his commencement speech given to the 2005 graduation class from Kenyon College and I was immediately intrigued. Here was an obviously very intelligent individual who had had some success as a writer and then decided to end his life because living was just too painful. From a very limited perspective, I have some empathy for his feelings. I have been lucky to have never suffered from depression in my life. However, DFW’s writings had an appeal to me because of his ability to describe the meaninglessness of everyday life in our society.
I went to the library and checked out a couple of his books. He railed against the ironic, and coplained that irony was making it very difficult to be a fiction writer in today’s world because television had surpassed the novel as the descriptor for modern life. DFW believed that television was the prime mover of irony in modern society. I’m not sure if his depression was a result of his inability to find true meaning in his life, but I have a feeling it must have played a part. DFW was smart. He was a lot smarter than I. As I read him, I could not help thinking in my mind as he made acute observations on the mundane world around us, that this person eventually killed himself and basically came to the conclusion that life was not really worth living -- for any of us.
I know depression is more than just an intellectual exercise. I also understand that some people who are clinically depressed are really not that intelligent to begin with. But, the inability to find meaning in our lives is a symptom of modern society and the rise of depression must have something to do with the ironies and meaninglessness that surround all of us.
Reinhold Niebuhr observed that “every universe of meaning is constantly under threat of meaninglessness,” or something to that effect. Niebuhr was a social critic and a theologian. He had an understanding of the ironic and was aware of both the comforts and the pitfalls that science and modernism has brought humanity. Materialism has brought television, automobiles, cell phones, and other conveniences. The modern age, along with science, has also demonstrated the folly of certain religious beliefs and makes individuals who attack scientific theories such as Darwin’s evolution seem foolish and intellectually dense. Niebuhr had no problem with recognizing the limitations of literal beliefs from the Bible. However, Niebuhr’s observation that the Bible and religious faith provide meaning within the meaninglessness of existence is worth heeding attention to and could have saved DFW the torment that eventually led him to take his life. I think it might be the only thing that saves any of us from following DFW's example.
DFW was cool. He made many references to popular culture. He was obviously well-read and could pontificate on many subjects including philosophy, mathematics and literature. But, he could also talk about television and the internet. He was not just an intellectual. He wrote for Rollingstone, Harpers and the Atlantic. DFW was fully immersed in modern society and popular culture. But, despite his talents and success, the meaning of his existence eluded him. Was he just too smart?
Charlie Walters died on January 17, 2009 at the age of 83. I had never heard of Charlie Walters until a few years ago when I began subscribing to an organic farming magazine called ACRES,USA. The magazine was very informative and contained a wealth of information on farming and gardening that arrived each month. Charlie was the editor and, I assumed he put together many of the articles that gave me many facts for becoming a better gardener by taking care of my soil and using different organic techniques. But, the real value of the magazine was Charlie’s editorials. Charlie was a genius. He was incredibly smart, like DFW a lot smarter than I.
Charlie understood how to find meaning in his life even though he was confronted daily with the same ironies and meaninglessness from modern society as DFW. No, being smart, or thinking about all the examples of the meaninglessness in our lives and jobs in not necessarily a sentence for depression and eventual suicide. There has to be meaning among the meaninglessness. We have to find it. Sometimes that takes a little faith, but even when we find meaning it has to be understood that this meaning will be under attack by meaninglessness as Niebuhr says. So where do you find meaning? I cannot answer that and I’m not sure that Charlie can answer it either. Faith can mean many things and it can also lead one to blindness, but in the end everything is built upon the faith in something and because of this meaninglessness is built into any metaphysical or religious thought. But we can’t address the mystery without some sort of metaphysics and beauty in the world is as unexplainable as the ugliness and the mundane.
Meaning in our lives is found wherever we can find beauty or maybe love. We can tear down all of this meaning with irony and, I suppose, that was why meaning could nosustain DFW. For Charlie Walters, equally aware of the ironies and meaninglessness of modern life, meaning was sustainable because he had faith in something beyond the meaninglessness, call it God, call it humanity, call it beauty or love. Charlie had faith in something and I don’t think DFW had faith in anything. I can understand why DFW didn’t either and that’s what scares me most.
Which brings me back to Niebuhr’s “every universe of meaning is under constant threat of meaninglessness,” or something like that (I don’t remember the exact quote, but it really was something either exactly like that or very close to it). It’s a tenuous hold on sanity for all of us. People like Charlie and Niebuhr shine a light on meaning and faith, while not asking any of us to be fanatics or to sacrifice our intelligence to fundamentalism. This faith or meaning is mysterious and our inability to describe it or defend it with reason is what makes it fallible. It is the same as saying there is not Truth or nothing we can point to that describes exactly the workings of the universe – or knowledge is not discovered, but made. Acknowledging this does not mean we are nihilists. We can still be pragmatists and still have a faith in a meaning of our lives whose outcome is not predetermined or known by a larger being or entity. The meaning can be in the process of living or even our acknowledgement of the beauty and order amongst the chaos or meaninglessness.
Perhas.
I had never heard of David Foster Wallace until his suicide made national news this past fall. He was found dead in his home in September of 2008 at the age of 46. I read his commencement speech given to the 2005 graduation class from Kenyon College and I was immediately intrigued. Here was an obviously very intelligent individual who had had some success as a writer and then decided to end his life because living was just too painful. From a very limited perspective, I have some empathy for his feelings. I have been lucky to have never suffered from depression in my life. However, DFW’s writings had an appeal to me because of his ability to describe the meaninglessness of everyday life in our society.
I went to the library and checked out a couple of his books. He railed against the ironic, and coplained that irony was making it very difficult to be a fiction writer in today’s world because television had surpassed the novel as the descriptor for modern life. DFW believed that television was the prime mover of irony in modern society. I’m not sure if his depression was a result of his inability to find true meaning in his life, but I have a feeling it must have played a part. DFW was smart. He was a lot smarter than I. As I read him, I could not help thinking in my mind as he made acute observations on the mundane world around us, that this person eventually killed himself and basically came to the conclusion that life was not really worth living -- for any of us.
I know depression is more than just an intellectual exercise. I also understand that some people who are clinically depressed are really not that intelligent to begin with. But, the inability to find meaning in our lives is a symptom of modern society and the rise of depression must have something to do with the ironies and meaninglessness that surround all of us.
Reinhold Niebuhr observed that “every universe of meaning is constantly under threat of meaninglessness,” or something to that effect. Niebuhr was a social critic and a theologian. He had an understanding of the ironic and was aware of both the comforts and the pitfalls that science and modernism has brought humanity. Materialism has brought television, automobiles, cell phones, and other conveniences. The modern age, along with science, has also demonstrated the folly of certain religious beliefs and makes individuals who attack scientific theories such as Darwin’s evolution seem foolish and intellectually dense. Niebuhr had no problem with recognizing the limitations of literal beliefs from the Bible. However, Niebuhr’s observation that the Bible and religious faith provide meaning within the meaninglessness of existence is worth heeding attention to and could have saved DFW the torment that eventually led him to take his life. I think it might be the only thing that saves any of us from following DFW's example.
DFW was cool. He made many references to popular culture. He was obviously well-read and could pontificate on many subjects including philosophy, mathematics and literature. But, he could also talk about television and the internet. He was not just an intellectual. He wrote for Rollingstone, Harpers and the Atlantic. DFW was fully immersed in modern society and popular culture. But, despite his talents and success, the meaning of his existence eluded him. Was he just too smart?
Charlie Walters died on January 17, 2009 at the age of 83. I had never heard of Charlie Walters until a few years ago when I began subscribing to an organic farming magazine called ACRES,USA. The magazine was very informative and contained a wealth of information on farming and gardening that arrived each month. Charlie was the editor and, I assumed he put together many of the articles that gave me many facts for becoming a better gardener by taking care of my soil and using different organic techniques. But, the real value of the magazine was Charlie’s editorials. Charlie was a genius. He was incredibly smart, like DFW a lot smarter than I.
Charlie understood how to find meaning in his life even though he was confronted daily with the same ironies and meaninglessness from modern society as DFW. No, being smart, or thinking about all the examples of the meaninglessness in our lives and jobs in not necessarily a sentence for depression and eventual suicide. There has to be meaning among the meaninglessness. We have to find it. Sometimes that takes a little faith, but even when we find meaning it has to be understood that this meaning will be under attack by meaninglessness as Niebuhr says. So where do you find meaning? I cannot answer that and I’m not sure that Charlie can answer it either. Faith can mean many things and it can also lead one to blindness, but in the end everything is built upon the faith in something and because of this meaninglessness is built into any metaphysical or religious thought. But we can’t address the mystery without some sort of metaphysics and beauty in the world is as unexplainable as the ugliness and the mundane.
Meaning in our lives is found wherever we can find beauty or maybe love. We can tear down all of this meaning with irony and, I suppose, that was why meaning could nosustain DFW. For Charlie Walters, equally aware of the ironies and meaninglessness of modern life, meaning was sustainable because he had faith in something beyond the meaninglessness, call it God, call it humanity, call it beauty or love. Charlie had faith in something and I don’t think DFW had faith in anything. I can understand why DFW didn’t either and that’s what scares me most.
Which brings me back to Niebuhr’s “every universe of meaning is under constant threat of meaninglessness,” or something like that (I don’t remember the exact quote, but it really was something either exactly like that or very close to it). It’s a tenuous hold on sanity for all of us. People like Charlie and Niebuhr shine a light on meaning and faith, while not asking any of us to be fanatics or to sacrifice our intelligence to fundamentalism. This faith or meaning is mysterious and our inability to describe it or defend it with reason is what makes it fallible. It is the same as saying there is not Truth or nothing we can point to that describes exactly the workings of the universe – or knowledge is not discovered, but made. Acknowledging this does not mean we are nihilists. We can still be pragmatists and still have a faith in a meaning of our lives whose outcome is not predetermined or known by a larger being or entity. The meaning can be in the process of living or even our acknowledgement of the beauty and order amongst the chaos or meaninglessness.
Perhas.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Alone
The older I get, the more solitary I become. I spend more time with my family, but even during this “quality time” I spend many a moment transfixed in my own thoughts. I am often startled back to attention by my wife’s words to my son, “Daddy isn’t listening honey, he’s thinking of something else again.” I’ll quickly try to cover for myself and reach back to the last words I can recall in the discussion, but usually she’s right. So, what am I thinking about and why? Usually, a lot about nothing.
We have been called social animals and it is true, we are. We are defined by our relationships and without them we would not exist. Our thoughts are meaningless without language to guide them and language is the tool that connects us with other humans. But, still, why do I feel so often that I am alone?
I am sitting in a coffee shop and I can feel my heart beating and I am reading of Adam Smith whose heart stopped beating almost a quarter of a millennium ago. As I look around observing everyone walking to and fro, some young, some old, I realize that in another quarter of a millennium all of our hearts will have also stopped beating a long long time ago.
What will that moment be like – when my heart stops beating? Will I know it at the time – that my heart will never make another beat. Will I know my last thought? Will I know when my body will no longer be seeking nourishment or eliminating its last bit of waste.
Of course, my genes will live on in another being whom I am aware of – love deeply – but it cannot be said I know his thoughts, nor will I live on in them. And, yet, I will – in his thoughts, but not my own which will have ceased at some point in the future.
Just as Adam Smith’s thoughts are still alive, my son will keep me alive in his thoughts as he goes through the rest of his life – stuck and immersed inside his own head monitoring his own heart beating. At least that is what I wish, should a catastrophe not fall and my son be taken from me before his time. His thoughts must live beyond my own, for my own sense of worth and being.
I see my father as he is in the last phase of his life. His brain still working, working well, but his thoughts not as cogent as they once were. He is part of me. He raised me. But, he does not have access to my thoughts. Nobody does. We are each alone even as we sit together and speak of baseball games and fishing trips.
My wife is social. She talks. She comes from a family of talkers. I mystify her. She mistakes my quietness for self-assuredness and wisdom. Many people do, but she is my wife. You would think she would know by now. Of course, in many ways she does, but she still thinks I am a thinker. I suppose I am smart. I mean I do think. I think a lot. But, I am not solving quadratic equations in my mind.
I read many other people’s thoughts, too. The ones they put down on paper. Some tell stories and we call them novels. They entertain me, but they also reveal to me the thoughts of the author. Brilliant men and woman, much smarter than I, thinking about what to put down on a paper for me to pick up to read, many of who’s hearts stopped beating a long time ago.
Other authors provide me with a different perspective on many problems in the world worth contemplating. Often when I decide to speak, I have this information readily at hand. People take this for me being smart – knowledgeable. Sometimes, when I contradict someone, they take me for a pompous fool. Indignant, they would say to themselves, if I could read their thoughts.
But, most of the time I cannot, because usually they don’t write them down. They walk away without saying anything and we both leave with only our own thoughts as we wonder what the other might be thinking. Judging each other as we rerun the conversation in our minds and continue it forward all inside our own minds, because our hearts are still beating and we can for as long as we can continue to nourish our bodies, breathing the air and taking in all of the creation.
We each may wonder about our souls, but our bodies and our brains are confined to this earth and one day our bodies will stop working and our thoughts will cease. Then we might find out about our souls, perhaps.
In some ways I am sure I am much larger than what is confined inside my body. What is it my dreams stand for otherwise? I am a part of the ecosystem that has its own metabolism and thoughts. Or is this just a delusion I use to deal with the loneliness of my existence and the knowledge that some day my thoughts will cease.
For that matter, is this why I write down my thoughts? Can I not bear the thought of the conversation ending? Do I delude myself into thinking that by having my thoughts written down others will keep them alive? Of course, this is a worthy goal. Who would not want to be part of the great conversations that live on with Aristotle, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and others? But, even if we can get our thoughts down for the next generations to read this will not keep our own brains alive. For what I wrote twenty years ago does not keep the twenty year old young man alive. Some day my thoughts will cease and my heart will stop beating. I am confined inside this body. We can share thoughts in conversation as long as I am still alive. But, some day this possibility will end.
And when it ends, it will end as lonely as it was when it all began, but much more abruptly. I was not aware of my first thought, but I will be aware of my last even as I am incapable of remembering it. My last thought will not be in conversation with another. It will be alone and I will not be able to share it just as I have not really been able to share with you what it is like to sit here alone and listen to my own heart beat. But, you know that anyway. Perhaps we don’t need to share that. We are each alone even if we are social. We will always be alone in our thoughts.
We have been called social animals and it is true, we are. We are defined by our relationships and without them we would not exist. Our thoughts are meaningless without language to guide them and language is the tool that connects us with other humans. But, still, why do I feel so often that I am alone?
I am sitting in a coffee shop and I can feel my heart beating and I am reading of Adam Smith whose heart stopped beating almost a quarter of a millennium ago. As I look around observing everyone walking to and fro, some young, some old, I realize that in another quarter of a millennium all of our hearts will have also stopped beating a long long time ago.
What will that moment be like – when my heart stops beating? Will I know it at the time – that my heart will never make another beat. Will I know my last thought? Will I know when my body will no longer be seeking nourishment or eliminating its last bit of waste.
Of course, my genes will live on in another being whom I am aware of – love deeply – but it cannot be said I know his thoughts, nor will I live on in them. And, yet, I will – in his thoughts, but not my own which will have ceased at some point in the future.
Just as Adam Smith’s thoughts are still alive, my son will keep me alive in his thoughts as he goes through the rest of his life – stuck and immersed inside his own head monitoring his own heart beating. At least that is what I wish, should a catastrophe not fall and my son be taken from me before his time. His thoughts must live beyond my own, for my own sense of worth and being.
I see my father as he is in the last phase of his life. His brain still working, working well, but his thoughts not as cogent as they once were. He is part of me. He raised me. But, he does not have access to my thoughts. Nobody does. We are each alone even as we sit together and speak of baseball games and fishing trips.
My wife is social. She talks. She comes from a family of talkers. I mystify her. She mistakes my quietness for self-assuredness and wisdom. Many people do, but she is my wife. You would think she would know by now. Of course, in many ways she does, but she still thinks I am a thinker. I suppose I am smart. I mean I do think. I think a lot. But, I am not solving quadratic equations in my mind.
I read many other people’s thoughts, too. The ones they put down on paper. Some tell stories and we call them novels. They entertain me, but they also reveal to me the thoughts of the author. Brilliant men and woman, much smarter than I, thinking about what to put down on a paper for me to pick up to read, many of who’s hearts stopped beating a long time ago.
Other authors provide me with a different perspective on many problems in the world worth contemplating. Often when I decide to speak, I have this information readily at hand. People take this for me being smart – knowledgeable. Sometimes, when I contradict someone, they take me for a pompous fool. Indignant, they would say to themselves, if I could read their thoughts.
But, most of the time I cannot, because usually they don’t write them down. They walk away without saying anything and we both leave with only our own thoughts as we wonder what the other might be thinking. Judging each other as we rerun the conversation in our minds and continue it forward all inside our own minds, because our hearts are still beating and we can for as long as we can continue to nourish our bodies, breathing the air and taking in all of the creation.
We each may wonder about our souls, but our bodies and our brains are confined to this earth and one day our bodies will stop working and our thoughts will cease. Then we might find out about our souls, perhaps.
In some ways I am sure I am much larger than what is confined inside my body. What is it my dreams stand for otherwise? I am a part of the ecosystem that has its own metabolism and thoughts. Or is this just a delusion I use to deal with the loneliness of my existence and the knowledge that some day my thoughts will cease.
For that matter, is this why I write down my thoughts? Can I not bear the thought of the conversation ending? Do I delude myself into thinking that by having my thoughts written down others will keep them alive? Of course, this is a worthy goal. Who would not want to be part of the great conversations that live on with Aristotle, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and others? But, even if we can get our thoughts down for the next generations to read this will not keep our own brains alive. For what I wrote twenty years ago does not keep the twenty year old young man alive. Some day my thoughts will cease and my heart will stop beating. I am confined inside this body. We can share thoughts in conversation as long as I am still alive. But, some day this possibility will end.
And when it ends, it will end as lonely as it was when it all began, but much more abruptly. I was not aware of my first thought, but I will be aware of my last even as I am incapable of remembering it. My last thought will not be in conversation with another. It will be alone and I will not be able to share it just as I have not really been able to share with you what it is like to sit here alone and listen to my own heart beat. But, you know that anyway. Perhaps we don’t need to share that. We are each alone even if we are social. We will always be alone in our thoughts.
Economics: Crisis
First of all, I just want to say, I predicted this current financial crisis a long time ago. I have been saying it for years. Everyone who knows me personally as heard me say it is all a house of cards and one day it will all come down. I said it would inevitably happen, the only question was when. So, is this it?
Has the house of cards finally fell? Yes and no.
What I was saying was two things. On the one hand I said that the US could not continue to mount a debt and have other countries finance it. Eventually, those holding the debt would come calling. It was no secret that U.S. households as well as the U.S. government were living beyond its means. The only thing of value that the US exported to the rest of the world was its military might and why would countries continue to finance our bullying around the world.
So, I said that house of cards would fall soon and this is what appears to be underway right now. I thought it would come sooner, but with each passing year as the debt mounted and the cards stacked higher, I predicted the crisis would be that much greater. I was Chicken Little. I told those that listened that eventually our troops would be stranded in Iraq, because we would be too broke to bring them home. Hmm… I am certainly a nutjob at times. But, my point was still that we could not continue on the pace we were going at. What is troubling is that Obama’s plan to get us out of this mess is still too much of the same thing that got us into this mess. While the debt mounted, the wealth distribution in this country was increasingly being divided between the haves and have-nots. Under Obama’s plan this will continue. The consolidation of wealth and power has never been in so few hands and the ones in the Obama administration writing the plans to get us out of the present financial crisis are the ones who got us into trouble in the first place.
In a way it can’t be any other way. I always said that to get where he is, Obama had to shake hands with a lot of dirty players. The financial sector paid for Obama’s campaign by and large and the deal that was cut was that they would be in charge of certain operations, one of them being any bail-outs or regulations of the finance industry. What else do people make these large donations for, but to further their own interests? Obama’s hands are tied.
But, that does not mean he can’t or won’t do something to make life better for those who actually voted for him, if not the ones who paid his way. Its just that his options are limited.
But, there is another way that our economy was doomed that is much more fundamental and structural than the finance industry and the fact that there were risky investments made by large financial institutions with unregulated derivatives and hedge funds that would some day crash just as every other bubble has done before it. Even if we can get out from under this financial crash, we are still up against another wall or limit. The other crisis I was always warning of to anyone who would listen were limits to growth. Something here would eventually give as well. We could not grow our economy forever. Sooner or later we would come up to a limit that had nothing to do with wealth distributions and debtors/creditors. This limit was with out environment and ecology as well as our own technological limits. We would not be able to solve all our problems with technology, because each technological solution to an environmental problem creates a larger problem waiting down the road. In a way this is similar to the financial crisis where we have been offering temporary solutions time and time again over the last half century as we moved from one crisis to the next forestalling the next bigger crisis until we arrive at where we are today where the solution being offered is again only temporary.
With the ecological crisis (and I am not talking about climate change which is really a small and irrelevant problem compared to other environmental limits imo) we can grow no more without causing more hardship. There are no technological solutions. Human ingenuity has reached its environmental limits. The Earth just becomes too small to support our entire economy and we are forced to adjust through various measures including famine, death and disease until our present means of living and economy are long gone and we learn to once again live day to day with little surplus to carry over and barter with others. That day has not come, yet, but it still awaits us in the future. This present financial crisis says nothing about how close we are to the true economic crisis which will end our civilization as we know it. I’m not sure we can avoid it and if our reaction to this financial crisis is any indicator, we will almost certainly not. We will continue to march right up to our doom.
Has the house of cards finally fell? Yes and no.
What I was saying was two things. On the one hand I said that the US could not continue to mount a debt and have other countries finance it. Eventually, those holding the debt would come calling. It was no secret that U.S. households as well as the U.S. government were living beyond its means. The only thing of value that the US exported to the rest of the world was its military might and why would countries continue to finance our bullying around the world.
So, I said that house of cards would fall soon and this is what appears to be underway right now. I thought it would come sooner, but with each passing year as the debt mounted and the cards stacked higher, I predicted the crisis would be that much greater. I was Chicken Little. I told those that listened that eventually our troops would be stranded in Iraq, because we would be too broke to bring them home. Hmm… I am certainly a nutjob at times. But, my point was still that we could not continue on the pace we were going at. What is troubling is that Obama’s plan to get us out of this mess is still too much of the same thing that got us into this mess. While the debt mounted, the wealth distribution in this country was increasingly being divided between the haves and have-nots. Under Obama’s plan this will continue. The consolidation of wealth and power has never been in so few hands and the ones in the Obama administration writing the plans to get us out of the present financial crisis are the ones who got us into trouble in the first place.
In a way it can’t be any other way. I always said that to get where he is, Obama had to shake hands with a lot of dirty players. The financial sector paid for Obama’s campaign by and large and the deal that was cut was that they would be in charge of certain operations, one of them being any bail-outs or regulations of the finance industry. What else do people make these large donations for, but to further their own interests? Obama’s hands are tied.
But, that does not mean he can’t or won’t do something to make life better for those who actually voted for him, if not the ones who paid his way. Its just that his options are limited.
But, there is another way that our economy was doomed that is much more fundamental and structural than the finance industry and the fact that there were risky investments made by large financial institutions with unregulated derivatives and hedge funds that would some day crash just as every other bubble has done before it. Even if we can get out from under this financial crash, we are still up against another wall or limit. The other crisis I was always warning of to anyone who would listen were limits to growth. Something here would eventually give as well. We could not grow our economy forever. Sooner or later we would come up to a limit that had nothing to do with wealth distributions and debtors/creditors. This limit was with out environment and ecology as well as our own technological limits. We would not be able to solve all our problems with technology, because each technological solution to an environmental problem creates a larger problem waiting down the road. In a way this is similar to the financial crisis where we have been offering temporary solutions time and time again over the last half century as we moved from one crisis to the next forestalling the next bigger crisis until we arrive at where we are today where the solution being offered is again only temporary.
With the ecological crisis (and I am not talking about climate change which is really a small and irrelevant problem compared to other environmental limits imo) we can grow no more without causing more hardship. There are no technological solutions. Human ingenuity has reached its environmental limits. The Earth just becomes too small to support our entire economy and we are forced to adjust through various measures including famine, death and disease until our present means of living and economy are long gone and we learn to once again live day to day with little surplus to carry over and barter with others. That day has not come, yet, but it still awaits us in the future. This present financial crisis says nothing about how close we are to the true economic crisis which will end our civilization as we know it. I’m not sure we can avoid it and if our reaction to this financial crisis is any indicator, we will almost certainly not. We will continue to march right up to our doom.
Friday, March 6, 2009
An Embodiment of Evil
I might be prone to conspiracy theories. I’m cynical by nature and I rarely trust official versions of stories given to us. I don’t think I am alone in believing that it is entirely possible that there were more people involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy than Lee Harvey Oswald. I am also open to the possibility that we will never know the true version of events that happened on that November afternoon in Dallas in 1963. I was also immediately suspicious when my senator’s plane crashed on October 25, 2003 killing him, his wife and daughter and all other passengers. Does being suspicious make me a conspiracy theorist? If so, then my doubts about the events of September 11, 2001 must also make me prone to outrageous allegations by crackpots, etc.
I am not going to join the listing of blogs our in the blogosphere calling for Truth about the events of 911. I don’t know what happened that day anymore than anyone else does. However, there are enough inconsistencies in the official version of what happened that day to make anyone who does believe what the government tells us happened on that day much more susceptible to “tin hat” theories and crackpots than those that question what happened.
I’m not an expert and I am as susceptible to flawed information as anyone else. However, David Ray Griffin has presented enough questions and evidence that contradict what the government and the 911 commission have told us happened that day. These questions have not been answered. I don’t want to argue those questions and put my opinion out there as another among many in the Truth 911 movement. If you want to know more, go read David Ray Griffin’s books and come to your own conclusions. Here is a small list of the unexplained phenomena that happened that fateful day.
1. Why didn’t US defenses scramble to intercept any of those three flights that day?
2. How did inexperienced pilots with a record of poor flying manage to fly these jets to their targets in three of the four cases?
3. How did 3 (not 2) skyscrapers collapse at a freefall speed into their own footprint due to fire and minimal structural damage on that day (the first time ever that any skyscraper anywhere in the world has collapsed because of a fire).
4. Recorded Phone calls made from passenger on the four planes on that day when technology in 2001 would not have allowed those phone calls to go through.
5. The Pentagon building damage was not consistent with damage of a plane hitting it
6. other inconsistencies in the pentagon “attack”
7. The reports of named highjackers still be alive.
8. inconsistencies in the report of flight 93 and the apparent crash after passengers rushed the cockpit.
There are more inconsistencies and much evidence that makes the official version of what happened on that day unconvincing. This is the problem that most people have with those that question the official version. If four planes were not highjacked on September 11, 2001 by operatives of Al Qaeda and flown in the twin towers, pentagon, and a field in Pennsylavnia, if this version of events is not true, then what other explanation is there. The only other possible explanation is that we were attacked by someone else with the involvement of many top level officials in our government, military and corporate institutions and this explanation seems more implausible than the official theory.
I don’t think this is true however, especially in light of what we now know about the administration at the time and all the lies and criminal acts they were involved in such as the selling of the Iraq war to the nation, torture, extraordinary renditions, US attorney general scandal, etc. I don’t doubt that there was the necessary evil consolidated in top level positions to pull off an attack by our own government against its own people to bring about a change in our government, make the case for war in the Middle East, and continue to privatize our military while making huge contracts available to a few corporate entities. It wouldn’t be the first time pure evil had found itself in a position of power and made decisions leading to catastrophic events and the deaths of thousands if not millions of people. I am not a religious man, but I do have a belief in good and evil and I can entertain the idea of a cosmological war being played out in front of us between God and the Devil. How else can you explain a historical anomaly like Hitler and the extermination of millions of Jews? Likewise, I think it is a perfectly plausible explanation that George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and others in that administration were agents of the Devil set forth to bring evil and destruction to God’s creation on this Earth. For we should also not forget how the administration came into power with the dubious election of 2000 and the Supreme Court intervention in Florida as well as their dubious reelection in 2004 with all the election anomalies in Ohio and around the nation. Could there not have been some help from an evil powerful entity making all this possible?
Another, more human, explanation is that they were drunk with thoughts of wealth and power that accompanied the Presidency and a consolidation of powers and were eager to bring about a cultural change in America to benefit a small few while instituting a new neoconservative ideology into the largest superpower in the world. Regardless of whether evil is a human or metaphysical construct, I have no doubt that it is possible for certain events to arise that only the most heinous explanations will provide us a level of understanding for what happened on those days. And once we allow us the possibilities that are increasingly becoming actualities, such as that the administration condoned use of torture, the firing of US attorney Generals for not investigating dubious allegations of voter fraud, spying on US citizens with wiretaps, lying to get us into war, etc., it becomes more and more believable that nothing was out of the question for reaching the objectives set out for by this administration even before they came to power in 2000. Events such as the election night frauds in 2000 and 2004, the orchestrating of an attack killing thousands of US citizens on our own soil, and downing an aircraft of a sitting US Senator who was most oppositional (with a considerable level of influence) to the administrations wants become not only possible, but even likely if we are ready to accept that a certain amount of evil was in charge of our Democratic institutions for a period of time in the US. Perhaps this evil has always been there and is still there at some level. All I know is that it is possible.
I am not going to join the listing of blogs our in the blogosphere calling for Truth about the events of 911. I don’t know what happened that day anymore than anyone else does. However, there are enough inconsistencies in the official version of what happened that day to make anyone who does believe what the government tells us happened on that day much more susceptible to “tin hat” theories and crackpots than those that question what happened.
I’m not an expert and I am as susceptible to flawed information as anyone else. However, David Ray Griffin has presented enough questions and evidence that contradict what the government and the 911 commission have told us happened that day. These questions have not been answered. I don’t want to argue those questions and put my opinion out there as another among many in the Truth 911 movement. If you want to know more, go read David Ray Griffin’s books and come to your own conclusions. Here is a small list of the unexplained phenomena that happened that fateful day.
1. Why didn’t US defenses scramble to intercept any of those three flights that day?
2. How did inexperienced pilots with a record of poor flying manage to fly these jets to their targets in three of the four cases?
3. How did 3 (not 2) skyscrapers collapse at a freefall speed into their own footprint due to fire and minimal structural damage on that day (the first time ever that any skyscraper anywhere in the world has collapsed because of a fire).
4. Recorded Phone calls made from passenger on the four planes on that day when technology in 2001 would not have allowed those phone calls to go through.
5. The Pentagon building damage was not consistent with damage of a plane hitting it
6. other inconsistencies in the pentagon “attack”
7. The reports of named highjackers still be alive.
8. inconsistencies in the report of flight 93 and the apparent crash after passengers rushed the cockpit.
There are more inconsistencies and much evidence that makes the official version of what happened on that day unconvincing. This is the problem that most people have with those that question the official version. If four planes were not highjacked on September 11, 2001 by operatives of Al Qaeda and flown in the twin towers, pentagon, and a field in Pennsylavnia, if this version of events is not true, then what other explanation is there. The only other possible explanation is that we were attacked by someone else with the involvement of many top level officials in our government, military and corporate institutions and this explanation seems more implausible than the official theory.
I don’t think this is true however, especially in light of what we now know about the administration at the time and all the lies and criminal acts they were involved in such as the selling of the Iraq war to the nation, torture, extraordinary renditions, US attorney general scandal, etc. I don’t doubt that there was the necessary evil consolidated in top level positions to pull off an attack by our own government against its own people to bring about a change in our government, make the case for war in the Middle East, and continue to privatize our military while making huge contracts available to a few corporate entities. It wouldn’t be the first time pure evil had found itself in a position of power and made decisions leading to catastrophic events and the deaths of thousands if not millions of people. I am not a religious man, but I do have a belief in good and evil and I can entertain the idea of a cosmological war being played out in front of us between God and the Devil. How else can you explain a historical anomaly like Hitler and the extermination of millions of Jews? Likewise, I think it is a perfectly plausible explanation that George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and others in that administration were agents of the Devil set forth to bring evil and destruction to God’s creation on this Earth. For we should also not forget how the administration came into power with the dubious election of 2000 and the Supreme Court intervention in Florida as well as their dubious reelection in 2004 with all the election anomalies in Ohio and around the nation. Could there not have been some help from an evil powerful entity making all this possible?
Another, more human, explanation is that they were drunk with thoughts of wealth and power that accompanied the Presidency and a consolidation of powers and were eager to bring about a cultural change in America to benefit a small few while instituting a new neoconservative ideology into the largest superpower in the world. Regardless of whether evil is a human or metaphysical construct, I have no doubt that it is possible for certain events to arise that only the most heinous explanations will provide us a level of understanding for what happened on those days. And once we allow us the possibilities that are increasingly becoming actualities, such as that the administration condoned use of torture, the firing of US attorney Generals for not investigating dubious allegations of voter fraud, spying on US citizens with wiretaps, lying to get us into war, etc., it becomes more and more believable that nothing was out of the question for reaching the objectives set out for by this administration even before they came to power in 2000. Events such as the election night frauds in 2000 and 2004, the orchestrating of an attack killing thousands of US citizens on our own soil, and downing an aircraft of a sitting US Senator who was most oppositional (with a considerable level of influence) to the administrations wants become not only possible, but even likely if we are ready to accept that a certain amount of evil was in charge of our Democratic institutions for a period of time in the US. Perhaps this evil has always been there and is still there at some level. All I know is that it is possible.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Luddite? More Like Sellout
I have this account, now, on Facebook. You might think that’s funny for a confessed luddite. But, its really not that much different than having a blog, accept that Facebook is a bit more interactive (especially when compared to this blog). Although, I admit, I am still faced with the same dilemma with the Facebook account as I was with starting this blog (read the archives). Why? Jesus, I mean, it all seems so goddamn lonely (Don’t cha think?). I imagine all these people out there, sitting before a big screen downloading photographs and trying to create a persona that presents an image to others of who they are. They don’t do this by making connections or even having conversations, it is all about whom they know, or even how many people they know and also how good they can look on a screen (I say “they” and, of course, I mean “I” and “me” amongst “them”).
I feel like an old curmudgeon whenever I start having these thoughts about our modern ways of communication, but it all seems so terribly odd. First of all, I am not the most social person to begin with. I mean, I have some close friends (my cronies) and we have a deep connections to each other that is based on a deep, dare I say, love for one another. I also have a family consisting of my wife and son and a larger family of brothers, sister, mother, father, nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles and aunts (not to forget one remaining grandparent). All these relationships are based upon love and sustained through conversations and face to face meetings. Some of these relationships have some tensions and aren’t always on the best terms, but like most families and friendships you learn to either talk through or around these problems. But, social networking is not my strong point. I am not a good conversationalist at work or in social settings like bars or parties. I have very few close female friends (we can save that conversation for another day). I don’t like to talk about the weather or last nights game with people I don’t feel a connection with – what is the point, I wonder. Sometimes, after much work and exposure, I can find and then develop a relationship with someone who I am in frequent contact with and we will slowly form a friendship that could be considered lasting. The older I get, the harder it has to form these lasting relationships.
Electronic relationships are easier to form, but they are rarely lasting. I happen to have always had a gift for expressing myself on paper or on a screen. I have always found putting words together on paper or on the screen is fun. It’s something I think I am good at and also something that is necessary for my current daytime employment. So, I have developed many relationships over the internet with all types of individuals – male and female – participating in games or on blogs and through email. However, I could not call any of these relationships friendships and neither can I say that any of them have been lasting. Although, they have all been interesting and the best ones were formed within a community that was constantly in flux and changing. These communities were always interesting to watch form and to participate in, but all of these communities ended up either disintegrating or, at least, left to themselves after I became bored with them.
Facebook is different, because many of the “friends” are old and current acquaintances that I once had or am currently nurturing with face to face contact. There are also “friends” (a currently fast growing number) who are listed on my wall who I have only minimal recollection of – from some long distant past, like high school, many metamorphoses ago.
I have also tried to be “friends” with someone I was once close to in the past and striking up a conversation is often difficult and awkward. I have yet, to master the social skills of nurturing these “friendships” on Facebook and am really left with exasperation over whether it is even worth it in many cases. What do you say when someone confirms you as a “friend” or asks to be your “friend?” Do you write on their wall or do you send them a note in their inbox? I have tried both and, I’d like to believe it is not just me, more often then not, this reaching out to someone is met with silence and I am wondering why we both elected to be “friends” in the first place. The successful conversations I have struck up with “friends” on the wall or in the inbox are usually short-lived or abruptly ended because there is no cordial way to end a conversation in email with friends. It is all too business like and the answer to when the conversation is over in an email exchange is something that has and will always elude me, I am afraid.
But, there is still something fascinating about Facebook and I wonder why so many people seem to have placed so much importance upon it. I mean, for Christ’s sake, why? The short answer is that we are all voyeurs and we love to get a glimpse of others’ lives and Facebook not only allows us to do this, but it also allows us to create our own reality TV show on Facebook for others to view us in an image we create for ourselves. We start by finding flattering photos of ourselves and our families. Then we go out and acquire a list of friends. Having a large and eclectic list of friends is an immediate means for showing we are fun and happy with a large contingent of friends at our disposal whenever we need them or come calling. It is all an illusion, of course, and too similar to everything else we have seen on TV or the monitors in front of us.
I am also afraid there is a longer and more complex answer having to do with the loneliness that results from this increasingly electronic world. We witness on TV and Movies what “friends” are and then we go on Facebook and try and recreate what we’ve previously witnessed on the screen, but human relationships are more complex than that and require much more time and effort that can ever be given on a screen “communicating.” Friendships need love and touch and especially conversation with both sides listening. We all know this but yet I think many of us think that we can get this on Facebook. We can’t.
Facebook is not bad and there is a potential for great utility. There truly our many wonderful people from my past who I have forgotten about who I’ve recently reacquainted with on Facebook. I’ve gone out and met a couple of them for beers and really hope that I can keep alive these few reformed friendships by nurturing them with more outings in the future. But, there is still a great loneliness permeating from Facebook that I can not shake. It’s a loneliness at least partly fueled by my inability to get anything lasting out of so many of my so called “friend” listed on my wall. Who are they? I wonder of the majority of them and what do they do? It is also a loneliness that I see whenever I meet real peoples faces as I make my way through my day. A loneliness that I am sure many have tried to cover up with facebook pages they have created for themselves.
Right now I have a list of 47 “friends” on my facebook account and it is a list that is growing. But, my friends know who they are and I see them frequently and we talk. I have never had more than a dozen friends at a time that I would consider close outside of my family. When I die, there will less people at my funeral than listed on my facebook page and that is the way I want it to be, no offense meant to anyone who I may somehow have reached through electronic media.
I feel like an old curmudgeon whenever I start having these thoughts about our modern ways of communication, but it all seems so terribly odd. First of all, I am not the most social person to begin with. I mean, I have some close friends (my cronies) and we have a deep connections to each other that is based on a deep, dare I say, love for one another. I also have a family consisting of my wife and son and a larger family of brothers, sister, mother, father, nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles and aunts (not to forget one remaining grandparent). All these relationships are based upon love and sustained through conversations and face to face meetings. Some of these relationships have some tensions and aren’t always on the best terms, but like most families and friendships you learn to either talk through or around these problems. But, social networking is not my strong point. I am not a good conversationalist at work or in social settings like bars or parties. I have very few close female friends (we can save that conversation for another day). I don’t like to talk about the weather or last nights game with people I don’t feel a connection with – what is the point, I wonder. Sometimes, after much work and exposure, I can find and then develop a relationship with someone who I am in frequent contact with and we will slowly form a friendship that could be considered lasting. The older I get, the harder it has to form these lasting relationships.
Electronic relationships are easier to form, but they are rarely lasting. I happen to have always had a gift for expressing myself on paper or on a screen. I have always found putting words together on paper or on the screen is fun. It’s something I think I am good at and also something that is necessary for my current daytime employment. So, I have developed many relationships over the internet with all types of individuals – male and female – participating in games or on blogs and through email. However, I could not call any of these relationships friendships and neither can I say that any of them have been lasting. Although, they have all been interesting and the best ones were formed within a community that was constantly in flux and changing. These communities were always interesting to watch form and to participate in, but all of these communities ended up either disintegrating or, at least, left to themselves after I became bored with them.
Facebook is different, because many of the “friends” are old and current acquaintances that I once had or am currently nurturing with face to face contact. There are also “friends” (a currently fast growing number) who are listed on my wall who I have only minimal recollection of – from some long distant past, like high school, many metamorphoses ago.
I have also tried to be “friends” with someone I was once close to in the past and striking up a conversation is often difficult and awkward. I have yet, to master the social skills of nurturing these “friendships” on Facebook and am really left with exasperation over whether it is even worth it in many cases. What do you say when someone confirms you as a “friend” or asks to be your “friend?” Do you write on their wall or do you send them a note in their inbox? I have tried both and, I’d like to believe it is not just me, more often then not, this reaching out to someone is met with silence and I am wondering why we both elected to be “friends” in the first place. The successful conversations I have struck up with “friends” on the wall or in the inbox are usually short-lived or abruptly ended because there is no cordial way to end a conversation in email with friends. It is all too business like and the answer to when the conversation is over in an email exchange is something that has and will always elude me, I am afraid.
But, there is still something fascinating about Facebook and I wonder why so many people seem to have placed so much importance upon it. I mean, for Christ’s sake, why? The short answer is that we are all voyeurs and we love to get a glimpse of others’ lives and Facebook not only allows us to do this, but it also allows us to create our own reality TV show on Facebook for others to view us in an image we create for ourselves. We start by finding flattering photos of ourselves and our families. Then we go out and acquire a list of friends. Having a large and eclectic list of friends is an immediate means for showing we are fun and happy with a large contingent of friends at our disposal whenever we need them or come calling. It is all an illusion, of course, and too similar to everything else we have seen on TV or the monitors in front of us.
I am also afraid there is a longer and more complex answer having to do with the loneliness that results from this increasingly electronic world. We witness on TV and Movies what “friends” are and then we go on Facebook and try and recreate what we’ve previously witnessed on the screen, but human relationships are more complex than that and require much more time and effort that can ever be given on a screen “communicating.” Friendships need love and touch and especially conversation with both sides listening. We all know this but yet I think many of us think that we can get this on Facebook. We can’t.
Facebook is not bad and there is a potential for great utility. There truly our many wonderful people from my past who I have forgotten about who I’ve recently reacquainted with on Facebook. I’ve gone out and met a couple of them for beers and really hope that I can keep alive these few reformed friendships by nurturing them with more outings in the future. But, there is still a great loneliness permeating from Facebook that I can not shake. It’s a loneliness at least partly fueled by my inability to get anything lasting out of so many of my so called “friend” listed on my wall. Who are they? I wonder of the majority of them and what do they do? It is also a loneliness that I see whenever I meet real peoples faces as I make my way through my day. A loneliness that I am sure many have tried to cover up with facebook pages they have created for themselves.
Right now I have a list of 47 “friends” on my facebook account and it is a list that is growing. But, my friends know who they are and I see them frequently and we talk. I have never had more than a dozen friends at a time that I would consider close outside of my family. When I die, there will less people at my funeral than listed on my facebook page and that is the way I want it to be, no offense meant to anyone who I may somehow have reached through electronic media.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Humor for a small audience
I don't imagine many people under 30 years old would find the new blog of Dick Cavett at the New York Times page very funny, but to those of us older than 40 he is a refreshing new addition to the blogging era.
When I was young there was no internet and computers were something that had to do with punch cards and "Stop" and "Go To" commands. There was still a debate in Math classes about whether students could use calculators in class that had the limited capability of doing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Our minds, outside of school were still being polluted by television but we only had 4 or 5 channels to choose from. This did not stop us from vegetating in front of the TV sets for hours at a time however.
Of course, evenings consisted of scheduling around such sitcoms and Welcome Back Cotter, Happy Days, and The Dukes of Hazard. Before School, we'd watch Captain Kangaroo and Romper Room and after school we'd plop ourselves in front of the television for a couple of hours to watch reruns of Gilligan's Island, Underdog, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Scooby Doo. Sometimes we would stay up late with our Dad's and watch Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show and late at night Tomorrow with Tom Snyder. Often, while learning the artful skills of flipping that would soon serve us so well once cable TV arrived, we would stumble upon The Dick Cavett Show.
If memory serves me correctly, he was on PBS. PBS is what brought us Monty Python and The Benny Hill Show. As teenagers, much of his intellectual and sophisticated humor must have went over our heads, but there was something there that held our attention and we would sit and smile as we watched him question his guests in his most unique way. As we aged we started laughing harder at his quirks and were let in on his humor. His humor required that we know current events and the political discussions of the day.
I have not heard from Dick Cavett for many years. A search on Google shows he has continued to have shows up to the present on one network or another. But, the multitude of channels on the dish network and Cable have turned many of us away from the information overload accosting us from our television sets, so he has been lost to us and the world for a couple decades or more. What a refreshing and wondrous relief to discover his humor again while reading the New York Times online.
When I was young there was no internet and computers were something that had to do with punch cards and "Stop" and "Go To" commands. There was still a debate in Math classes about whether students could use calculators in class that had the limited capability of doing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Our minds, outside of school were still being polluted by television but we only had 4 or 5 channels to choose from. This did not stop us from vegetating in front of the TV sets for hours at a time however.
Of course, evenings consisted of scheduling around such sitcoms and Welcome Back Cotter, Happy Days, and The Dukes of Hazard. Before School, we'd watch Captain Kangaroo and Romper Room and after school we'd plop ourselves in front of the television for a couple of hours to watch reruns of Gilligan's Island, Underdog, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Scooby Doo. Sometimes we would stay up late with our Dad's and watch Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show and late at night Tomorrow with Tom Snyder. Often, while learning the artful skills of flipping that would soon serve us so well once cable TV arrived, we would stumble upon The Dick Cavett Show.
If memory serves me correctly, he was on PBS. PBS is what brought us Monty Python and The Benny Hill Show. As teenagers, much of his intellectual and sophisticated humor must have went over our heads, but there was something there that held our attention and we would sit and smile as we watched him question his guests in his most unique way. As we aged we started laughing harder at his quirks and were let in on his humor. His humor required that we know current events and the political discussions of the day.
I have not heard from Dick Cavett for many years. A search on Google shows he has continued to have shows up to the present on one network or another. But, the multitude of channels on the dish network and Cable have turned many of us away from the information overload accosting us from our television sets, so he has been lost to us and the world for a couple decades or more. What a refreshing and wondrous relief to discover his humor again while reading the New York Times online.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Shultz, Meloncholy and the Weather
I left the Twins cities at about 4 pm last Friday afternoon heading up to Jay Cooke State Park to meet a contingent of fools from Duluth to hike into one of the four (Silver Creek) remote backpack sites in the park along the St. Louis river. I was wearing a T-shirt when I left the muggy Twin Cities on the early October afternoon. When I stepped out of the car at the highway 210 exit to Jay Cooke to grab a burger with my co-rider Big Bill B., it was a balmy and chilly evening requiring a quick change into long underwear and several layers of clothing I wore through the remainder of the weekend camping trip with my cronies. I was still bundled up when I stepped out of my car on Sunday afternoon at my suburban sanctuary and was hit with a wave of heat and humidity from an unseasonably warm October afternoon.
On my ride into work this morning the Minnesota Public Radio weatherperson was stating that there is no normal, just variations of extremes. hmmm.
I was reading the paper this morning and stumbled across an article on the reaction of Charles Shultz's family to his latest biography portraying the Peanuts creator as a miserable and cantankerous man prone to fits of depression. The fact that Charles Shultz was prone to melancholy is not exactly a new insight into the famous cartoonist. He said as much on the 60 minutes interview I saw several years ago. Shultz used humor to assuage his melancholy and funny may make us laugh, but it is rarely happy. We laugh at absurdities and to overcome the hardships and suffering of life.
There is no normal, just variations of extremes. Look at the Colorado Rockies. They are far from the best team in baseball this year, but they are currently baseball's hottest team as they ride a streak of 17 wins out of the past 18 games. Despite the American league being the dominant league of the two, if the Rockies sweep the Diamondbacks the world series might be very competitive and exciting whether they play the favored Indians, Yankees or Red Socks. Hitters are usually either in a slump or on a tear and rarely are hitting their average over the season. Basketball players get hot or can't find their shot. Life isn't average or normal, it fluctuates between extremes.
When study statistics, the interesting pieces of data are always the anomalies. What lies within the Bell curve is never interesting. Our education system is all about getting more people to fall under that bell curve whether describing cognitive abilities, behavior, social interactions, or motor skills. Development must also fall into these trajectories based on statistical analysis and God forbid if someone finds themselves outside the range of their age group in any of the above categories. Early intervention is the catch phrase for prodding children back into the range of normal and keeping them from being in the extremes, at least on the lower end of the bell curve.
At the high range lies the gifted, and these become the prodigies who need their gifts nurtured, but often at the expense of the developments of their whole being. But, thats another story. My point here is the lower regions, because I am told my son is below the developmental average in fine motor skills and social interactions (recognition of boundaries, oppositional behavior, etc) for his age group. Obviously, I strive to be a good parent and I want what is best for my son. But, do we really know the optimum way for brains and humans to develop, and if we did, why would we assume that it would resemble anything close to normal or average. Ludwig Wittgenstein did not speak a word until he was four years old, according to his biographer Ray Monk. He would have been found to be developmentally delayed in cognitive functions by today's child psychologist, but without any outside intervention, he arguably developed into one of the greatest intellects western society has ever produced.
It all just makes me wonder what the hell is normal?
On my ride into work this morning the Minnesota Public Radio weatherperson was stating that there is no normal, just variations of extremes. hmmm.
I was reading the paper this morning and stumbled across an article on the reaction of Charles Shultz's family to his latest biography portraying the Peanuts creator as a miserable and cantankerous man prone to fits of depression. The fact that Charles Shultz was prone to melancholy is not exactly a new insight into the famous cartoonist. He said as much on the 60 minutes interview I saw several years ago. Shultz used humor to assuage his melancholy and funny may make us laugh, but it is rarely happy. We laugh at absurdities and to overcome the hardships and suffering of life.
There is no normal, just variations of extremes. Look at the Colorado Rockies. They are far from the best team in baseball this year, but they are currently baseball's hottest team as they ride a streak of 17 wins out of the past 18 games. Despite the American league being the dominant league of the two, if the Rockies sweep the Diamondbacks the world series might be very competitive and exciting whether they play the favored Indians, Yankees or Red Socks. Hitters are usually either in a slump or on a tear and rarely are hitting their average over the season. Basketball players get hot or can't find their shot. Life isn't average or normal, it fluctuates between extremes.
When study statistics, the interesting pieces of data are always the anomalies. What lies within the Bell curve is never interesting. Our education system is all about getting more people to fall under that bell curve whether describing cognitive abilities, behavior, social interactions, or motor skills. Development must also fall into these trajectories based on statistical analysis and God forbid if someone finds themselves outside the range of their age group in any of the above categories. Early intervention is the catch phrase for prodding children back into the range of normal and keeping them from being in the extremes, at least on the lower end of the bell curve.
At the high range lies the gifted, and these become the prodigies who need their gifts nurtured, but often at the expense of the developments of their whole being. But, thats another story. My point here is the lower regions, because I am told my son is below the developmental average in fine motor skills and social interactions (recognition of boundaries, oppositional behavior, etc) for his age group. Obviously, I strive to be a good parent and I want what is best for my son. But, do we really know the optimum way for brains and humans to develop, and if we did, why would we assume that it would resemble anything close to normal or average. Ludwig Wittgenstein did not speak a word until he was four years old, according to his biographer Ray Monk. He would have been found to be developmentally delayed in cognitive functions by today's child psychologist, but without any outside intervention, he arguably developed into one of the greatest intellects western society has ever produced.
It all just makes me wonder what the hell is normal?
Thursday, October 4, 2007
A New Kind of Power
There is a comfort in capitalism and knowing the motives of its participants. Adam Smith is famous for his metaphor of the invisible hand. He argued that if we all acted in our own best interests, then society's greater interests would be served as well. In capitalism, self-interests are described by the profit motive as each of us seeks to achieve the greatest profit. We have learned since the days of Adam Smith that although the economy works this way, in real life humans are motivated by a wide variety of factors of which self-interests and the profit motive play a small part.
In politics we can see the economic incentives playing out as corporate interests hedge their bets between parties and candidates, so they can receive the greatest benefit. Even if they know a candidate does not fully support the issues that benefit the donor's interests the most, they may still contribute to the candidates campaign so they may benefit from the candidates success in an election. In a strange way, this incentive gives us comfort knowing that corporations can still support candidates with interests that favor the majority and not the market, because they realize the people who vote are not in full support of their profit-driven agenda. Thus, we see the corporations and large donors filling the campaign vaults of the democratic candidates for the 2008 election in full knowledge that after eight years of the Bush administration, there is little chance the American people will choose another term for a Republican administration.
Although far from perfect, in some ways it is better than the alternative. Many people like to point out that economics and capitalism fail to portray the more beneficial aspects of human behavior. Any human that was only motivated by their own self-interest and strictly made decisions based on the profit motive would be institutionalized as a sociopath. Corporations, which legally are treated as individuals, are described as psychologically unstable and a danger to society because of its single-minded devotion to profits over all other motivations. However, human nature also has even a darker side than the profit seeking individual oblivious to the greater interests of humanity. The profit seeking corporation can be seen as standing in the way of power to these darker forces.
During Eric Prince's testimony to Congress he described himself as not interested in finances and anyone who knew him well could testify to this. Aside from the fact that as a man who comes from big money he never had to worry about finances, we can see that this also reveals a man who represents the darker forces of humanity. Eric Prince has never hedged his bets. He is from a wealthy family tied to other families of wealth who only support radical right wing neoconservative and radical Christian objectives. As an observer of American politics, Prince is not satisfied with the slow shift to the right resulting from corporations hedging their bets while prefering candidates that will put money in their pockets at the expense of the peoples. Prince sees a danger of a populace that will feel disenfranchised and will never be fully immersed in the Radical Christian ideology that sees the world in terms of good and evil.
Under Princes views there can be no hedging. We are in a war with the dark forces of the world represented primarily by the Muslim ideology. Previously, it was a war with the communist forces of Satan, but no matter, Satan frequently shapeshifts and can reveal himself under new guises depending on the times. There is no time to hedge your bets under Princes ideology and we must be prepared to meet the darker forces and battle these forces in the name of Good and fundamentalist Christianity. A military that is at the mercy of congress is a military that will never be fully prepared for this battle. I joked about this being the plot of a great science fiction novel, previously. I am not one to make predictions and I am humble enough to know that random events are much more influential to the forces of history than any other conditions. However, this trend towards the privatization of the military that has created a private military capable of overflowing the majority of governments in the world and that continues to grow, has the necessary ingredients for disastrous results.
There is a realization that we cannot keep funding the Iraqi war or even our bloated military forever. There are rivalries between the branches of the military over the funding of new weapons systems as well as the role each branch will play in the future battlefields across the board. We have heard concerns over the growing influence of radical Christians at focal positions in the Air Force and the Army. As these rivalries grew, it became obvious to some that the military needed restructuring. This restructuring has be done by neocons over the past eight years and has left the military power in new private hands with an ideology that is not represented by the majority of Americans.
Some may want to point out the forces on the left that have contributed strictly to liberal and democratic candidates such as Unions or Moveon.org. I concede that these forces used to be a counter force to the forces on the right devoting their financial contributions strictly to right-wing and republican candidates. But, these powers on the right now have there own military that should bring cause for concern to all. Can you imagine if a similar force was funded and led by the left. What ff George Soros started his own security firm and began to get contracts under the next Clinton Administration? What would the right wing be saying and how long would it be before he was tied to terrorism and the war broke out between Blackwater and Soros firm [See, it is a great plot]? A more likely scenario will be a General on the battle field voicing the concern that Blackwater has made American soldiers larger targets for insurgents. This General might also feel slighted by his diminsished pay compared to Blackwater employees. A back alley war between Blackwater and American forces might result through the withholding of intelligence, funding of insurgents, negligence of duty, etc. Then it is only a matter of time before this war spreads home.
Obviously, my imagination is too active and this is likely to play out over a longer period of time for us to notice this drift toward Tyranny in America we are presently in. But, as unsettling as many of the impacts of the Bush administration has been on Democracy in the US, the privatization of military services is the most concerning and should be the red flag to us all that the empire will soon turn its violent hand against the citizens on the mainland as these armies increasingly come rushing to aide in disaster relief and urban unrest that is likely to increase over the coming years. I think I might prefer the profit-motive to these darker forces on the horizon.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
DDT and Twiddling
The age of the fossil fuels brought out a host of new products and pollutants previously unseen before. As chemists manipulated the molecular structures of oil, new products have been introduced to the market with claimed attributes making our lives simpler, and easier according to the sellers of the products. However, usually over time we discover some externality associated with the product causing an environmental hazard leading to disease and/or destruction of the biosphere we depend on for survival.
One of the first products introduced was DDT as a pesticide and herbicide for agricultural products as well for control of Mosquitoes to combat malaria around the world. DDT was used extensively in rural communities in the 1940's and 1950's while my father was a growing up. My father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease when he was 30 years old in 1970. As a young man he used to work for farmers and applied DDT in the fields without any protection getting covered from head to toe in the DDT dust. He is going to be 67 in December. He is a shell of the man I knew growing up. At 6'4" and 220 lbs, coming off of life on the farm, he was big, strong and skilled in a number of tasks such as carpentry, auto mechanics, fishing, hunting, plumbing, electricity, etc. Even when he was first diagnosed with the disease that would eventually cripple him, his medication slowed and controlled his digression enough that I still remember a man as a child who was infinitely stronger and capable as the adult man I grew up to be. The community my father grew up in is riddled with cancer and he has lost many friends to a variety of diseases. His younger brother died at the young age of 55 from a brain tumor.
My father was no sissy and I am sure he came off of the farms without the slightest fears of pesticides and herbicides such as DDT. I can imagine he moved into the suburbs around Minneapolis as a young man and brought home pesticides from the hardware store in town and applied it to his garden and lawn by the handful. I was born in 1964 and I would not doubt he would come in from outside and take me crying from my mother's hands in his huge DDT dust covered hands, and slowly rock me and comfort me to sleep. DDT was not banned until 1972.
I've been playing with my balls my whole life. The human body is mostly smooth and hard and the testicles encased in the elastic scrotum provide an interesting exploratory landscape for the fingers to investigate under the covers and away from the sight of everyone. I have observed my son sitting naked on the couch while discovering this pleasure himself and from my childhood I remember my father napping on the couch with his large hands tucked neatly into his pants. Obviously, this is an inherited trait or perhaps universal amongst all males. We are socially conditioned to play with our balls in the privacy of our homes away from the prying eyes of our neighbors. If not for this conditioning, I am sure men would be walking around with their hands stuffed neatly into our pants all day long as we twiddled to our heart's content. After 43 years of playing with my balls I mostly do it subconsciously now as I put myself to sleep. My hands pull and play with my scrotum and softly manipulate each testicle, one at a time, not to derive any sort of pleasure, but rather to just comfort myself. One week ago, when I first noticed the lump on my right testicle, I thought I should just ignore it. Immediately, I did think of testicular cancer and Lance Armstrong and all that, but I also thought even if it was cancer I should be able to heal myself with positive thoughts, a good diet and a healthy lifestyle.
I am not worried about universal health care. In many ways I distrust everything about the modern health industry. Everything is presented to us with scientific certainty derived from statistical analysis. I have had enough post-secondary education to understand that nothing is certain about statistics and what is certain one day from one specific study will be announced later as false due to a new study with slightly different parameters producing different results. So, my natural inclination is to push everything modern and scientific aside and try and live naturally and healthy through diet, exercise and as much distance from the modern world as one raised in it can muster in a week. I didn't want to believe I had cancer and I had told myself, that even if I do have it, I would not undergo putting radiation and chemical poisons in my body to counteract the growing cancer.
On Sunday I read of a recent scientific study showing a correlation between breast cancer and DDT exposure. I suddenly began to think of the possibility that no matter how healthy I lived the seeds of cancer may have been sown in my body as an infant. I thought of my son and my desire to see him grow up and my father crying at the realization that he can no longer play with his grandchildren in a meaningful way like he dreamed of as a young and healthy adult. I called my doctor yesterday and made an appointment by phone for tomorrow at 1:00 pm. I stayed up all night rehearsing what I will say to him.
"Doctor Clavine, I play with my balls a lot and recently I notice a lump on my right testicle. I'd like for you to play with them awhile and see what you think - if it is cancer."
Depending on what he thinks, I will take it from there. I suppose I can stand the thought of putting myself to sleep each night while playing with one less testicle if it came to that. I'll have to think about the chemotherapy and I am sure I will be given plenty of statistics to help me reach a decision.
One of the first products introduced was DDT as a pesticide and herbicide for agricultural products as well for control of Mosquitoes to combat malaria around the world. DDT was used extensively in rural communities in the 1940's and 1950's while my father was a growing up. My father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease when he was 30 years old in 1970. As a young man he used to work for farmers and applied DDT in the fields without any protection getting covered from head to toe in the DDT dust. He is going to be 67 in December. He is a shell of the man I knew growing up. At 6'4" and 220 lbs, coming off of life on the farm, he was big, strong and skilled in a number of tasks such as carpentry, auto mechanics, fishing, hunting, plumbing, electricity, etc. Even when he was first diagnosed with the disease that would eventually cripple him, his medication slowed and controlled his digression enough that I still remember a man as a child who was infinitely stronger and capable as the adult man I grew up to be. The community my father grew up in is riddled with cancer and he has lost many friends to a variety of diseases. His younger brother died at the young age of 55 from a brain tumor.
My father was no sissy and I am sure he came off of the farms without the slightest fears of pesticides and herbicides such as DDT. I can imagine he moved into the suburbs around Minneapolis as a young man and brought home pesticides from the hardware store in town and applied it to his garden and lawn by the handful. I was born in 1964 and I would not doubt he would come in from outside and take me crying from my mother's hands in his huge DDT dust covered hands, and slowly rock me and comfort me to sleep. DDT was not banned until 1972.
I've been playing with my balls my whole life. The human body is mostly smooth and hard and the testicles encased in the elastic scrotum provide an interesting exploratory landscape for the fingers to investigate under the covers and away from the sight of everyone. I have observed my son sitting naked on the couch while discovering this pleasure himself and from my childhood I remember my father napping on the couch with his large hands tucked neatly into his pants. Obviously, this is an inherited trait or perhaps universal amongst all males. We are socially conditioned to play with our balls in the privacy of our homes away from the prying eyes of our neighbors. If not for this conditioning, I am sure men would be walking around with their hands stuffed neatly into our pants all day long as we twiddled to our heart's content. After 43 years of playing with my balls I mostly do it subconsciously now as I put myself to sleep. My hands pull and play with my scrotum and softly manipulate each testicle, one at a time, not to derive any sort of pleasure, but rather to just comfort myself. One week ago, when I first noticed the lump on my right testicle, I thought I should just ignore it. Immediately, I did think of testicular cancer and Lance Armstrong and all that, but I also thought even if it was cancer I should be able to heal myself with positive thoughts, a good diet and a healthy lifestyle.
I am not worried about universal health care. In many ways I distrust everything about the modern health industry. Everything is presented to us with scientific certainty derived from statistical analysis. I have had enough post-secondary education to understand that nothing is certain about statistics and what is certain one day from one specific study will be announced later as false due to a new study with slightly different parameters producing different results. So, my natural inclination is to push everything modern and scientific aside and try and live naturally and healthy through diet, exercise and as much distance from the modern world as one raised in it can muster in a week. I didn't want to believe I had cancer and I had told myself, that even if I do have it, I would not undergo putting radiation and chemical poisons in my body to counteract the growing cancer.
On Sunday I read of a recent scientific study showing a correlation between breast cancer and DDT exposure. I suddenly began to think of the possibility that no matter how healthy I lived the seeds of cancer may have been sown in my body as an infant. I thought of my son and my desire to see him grow up and my father crying at the realization that he can no longer play with his grandchildren in a meaningful way like he dreamed of as a young and healthy adult. I called my doctor yesterday and made an appointment by phone for tomorrow at 1:00 pm. I stayed up all night rehearsing what I will say to him.
"Doctor Clavine, I play with my balls a lot and recently I notice a lump on my right testicle. I'd like for you to play with them awhile and see what you think - if it is cancer."
Depending on what he thinks, I will take it from there. I suppose I can stand the thought of putting myself to sleep each night while playing with one less testicle if it came to that. I'll have to think about the chemotherapy and I am sure I will be given plenty of statistics to help me reach a decision.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Haiti and Our Shame
He was the democratically elected leader of a nation. He was popular in his home country. On February 29, 2004, members of the American military and other officials broke into his home and kidnapped him then transported him to
Despite his popularity, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has still not been allowed to return to Haiti. Haiti has a long history of being abused and exploited by Western Nations. It was originally a slave colony of France where the slaves revolted and won in 1804, thus establishing the first democracy where everyone was a participant and free it the world. (The US had slavery).
Rather than embrace this new young democracy as allies, The US worked to undermine the nation by joining with France to embargo the nation. The US was afraid of what would become of its slaves if the successes of the slave revolution were made known to slaves in America. France also charged Haiti with a debt for the freed slaves that Haiti didn't pay off entirely until 150 years later. Aristide was gathering international support in an effort to get France to make reparations for these debt payments that crippled Haiti's economy that continues to struggle today. Despite Frances vocal opposition to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, France willingly went along with the coup to oust Aristide in 2004. All of this is available via Robinson and his new book, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President.
When reading such accounts of our past and current imperialistic adventures around the world, it makes one cynical about our democracy in America where nothing is beyond the realm of possibilities when considering various ideas and theories that commonly fall under the heading of conspiracy. I don't dismiss any allegation anymore of the potential corruption of those representing the money interests in America. Obviously, to embrace such theories as absolute truth is foolhardy. But to dismiss such theories out-of-hand as preposterous is equally foolish.
I have read many of Robinson's previous works and find him a compelling and honest writer. The fact that he makes me look at our culture under a scrutinizing lens and ask hard questions about our history I think is enlightening. It makes me really believe the old adage that none of us are truly free when their are others suffering under tyranny somewhere else in the world. We should be ashamed of our actions in Haiti, even more so than our invasion of Iraq. We have had a long history of abuse in our relations with this democratic island nation that is led and populated by descendants of former slaves. America will never be truly free until it comes to terms with its past as imperialist, slaveholders and conquerors/exterminators of entire tribes and nations of people. Most of this past helped consolidate power in our nation today and contributes to our corrupt ways as can be seen by our actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and, now, the Island nation of Haiti.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Tough SOB's
I always admired the artists who seemed like tough motherF@#*ers. My first rock-n-roll hero was Kieth Richard, but his fame and acclaim has kind of eroded my view of him over the years. Now when I think of tough I think of the guys from punk bands who made it to the top of their scene, but are now kind of floundering around as their audience grew up and many of the musicians they traveled amongst died. Mike Watt, Bob Mould, and Curt Kirkwook. I can't tell you how much it warms my heart to learn that Curt has recently reunited with his brother Chris.
Brothers Meat, you come through Minneapolis soon and I'm there like I was before.
Brothers Meat, you come through Minneapolis soon and I'm there like I was before.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Music
There was a time I wanted to be a rock star. I played in a band for a few years in the late 1980’s and early nineties. It started in Fargo North Dakota while I was in College. We had a little following there. One of the bands I helped found went on to some small national fame after I stopped playing with them and moved to Mpls when I graduated – Hammerhead.
Those were some great times in my life. I loved creating music and when you are in your twenties with a lot of time on your hands, you can really blossom under a heavy dose of delusion and obsession. My memory holds some notions that we actually were the greatest rock-n-roll band for those fleeting moments in a basement of a small home overlooking the wheat and sugar beet fields of the
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When I was in graduate school pursuing a PhD in Economics, I was assigned to teach an Introductory Economics course for my assistantship requirements. I assigned my students twice-weekly readings of Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times editorial page. Of course, his column were political and I risked being accused of endorsing a Liberal agenda and swaying young minds, but Krugman was also an economist and his columns often gave a political perspective from an economic point of view. I was careful to focus in on the economic aspects of his columns and left the political portion open to discussion without criticizing or endorsing his opinions.
Upon leaving graduate school, the New York times began offering a paid service called Timeselect and Krugman's column was temporarily beyond my reach. I was ecstatic to learn the Timeselect was being cancelled a week ago and I could access Krugman's column and blog once more at the New York Times online page.
Krugman has a new book coming out with the same title as his blog "The Conscious of a Liberal." In the Introduction to his Blog, Krugman describes the growing inequities of income in the US. There is little doubt that the current disparities in income between the haves and the have-nots in our society - as well as around the globe - is troubling, to say the least. But Krugman appears to endorse a view that the recent trend, beginning with the Reagan administration, is a return to the previous days in America described as the Gilded age when robber barrens controlled the wealth of industry and had vast influence over political discourse in the US. Under this view, the depression era and post-war build-up of Government infrastructure supporting liberal agendas created an aberration in US history where wealth was distributed more equitably among the members of out society. This was the result of investment in public education, liberal legislation supporting unions and working families, and many other government programs and initiatives. Generally, I am in support of this view - but I also think it only tells part of the story leading to the solution of returning to more government run programs.
While income was distributed more evenly in American society during the great achievements of the post war liberal era, there was also a continuing migration from rural areas to urban and suburban areas as many Americans left income poor, yet self-reliant, households in rural America. This left vast rural areas in the control of large agricultural conglomerates with no ties to the people in these previously resilient communities.
These thriving rural communities may have been populated by households that were described as low income, but as my Grandma said of life on the farm, “We didn’t have no money, but we were never hungry.” The economies in these rural areas were kept aloft through the informal economy that could not be described with income. It can be better illuminated in the oownership records with many small farms owned by individuals with little income, still living pleasant and comfortable lives through their interconnected relationships and economic transactions with the community that were not pecuniary in nature. These transactions can be described as bartering, work-sharing, cooperatives, gifts and neighborliness. What makes the inequality in America today much more daunting than the inequality of the past is the reliance upon income over relationships amongst our neighbors.
In effect, although this postwar liberal era can be seen as a panacea through many lenses - the result of large government projects and initiatives - the liberal policies also contributed (and continue to contribute) to the loss of our rural communities and economies to the economic incentives of greater profits through the capture of economic transactions that previously were not part of the formal economy. Today we see the same trends in privatization in security, warfare, disaster relief and education. A closer look at Krugman's analysis might reveal a coup whereby liberal policies built up large government infrastructures through tax payer dollars enticing waves of Americans from rural areas to abandoned their communities and self-reliant lifestyles for the income supported lives of our modern era. Now the government (which is vastly subservient to corporate agendas) has began the process of selling (giving away) this infrastructure to the wealthy few - leaving in place a huge and much more chilling corporate/military infrastructure designed to serve the money interests while leaving citizens without income, property or the means to sustain themselves.
All of this leads to the current situation with the Eric Prince lead Blackwater along with other security firms. Imagine a future where the Generals are competing with CEO's for government funds. We may be witnessing the onset of the second civil war if congress begins the process of reducing these private mercenary companies. Eric Prince and his family have given vast sums of money to Republican campaigns with radical Christian and nonconservative agendas. He has given zero dollars to democrats. He is in control of the worlds largest private military and is being questioned by a democratic congress. It has the makings of a great Science fiction novel at the very least.