Guest Post - Jamie B Musing

With all that's been happening in the news in politics lately, it's been a while since this blog hosted a true culture article. In the spirit of both this and advancing the blogosphere, I present you a guest post from the esteemed Jamie B Musings of "Culture Shock: Everything Pop Culture 5 Days a Week." The above blogger image is authorized for use on this blog only.

Back in college, I was listening to the radio when I heard a story that disgusted and irritated me. It was about two boys, ages 15 and 13, who were molesting their 8-year-old half sister. The mother had left the girl in her brothers’ care while she was at work, and the child reported it to a teacher at her school. The boys claim they got the idea from watching Jerry Springer. It wasn’t just the molestation of a child that bothered me. It was also the fact that, once again, someone is blaming their own actions on media and this case would more then likely stir yet another debate on the effects of media of small children.

This is not the first time this has happened. Different forms of media have been blamed for everything from rape to armed robbery. Different songs by artists such as Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne have been blamed for suicides. Not only that, but the artists have been sued because of it as well. Then there was "The Catcher in the Rye", which has been linked to several celebrity stalkings, including the death of John Lennon and the attempted assassination of former President Ronald Reagan. Once, Christopher Pike, an author of young adult horror novels was asked if he felt responsible for the suicide of a kid who had read some of his books, even though he never promoted suicide in his work. In fact, he portrayed negative consequences for the act in his "Remember Me" Trilogy. What is even worse, many conservative groups use these cases as ammunition to censor certain materials which is not the answer and one step towards creating the world Ray Bradbury wrote about of Fahrenheit 451. What it all comes down to is too many people are trying to use the media to make excuses for the crimes they commit.

I find it hard to believe any sane and rational person would commit a crime just because they saw it in the media. It is time for people to stop searching for the easy answer. Let's face it... there are no easy answers in life. The human mind is a complex machine and I believe when someone commits violent acts, we need to look much deeper than the media to understand them. We also need to be more aware of what's going on around us and act accordingly instead of burying our heads in the sand. Look at the Virginia Tech shooting, for example. The shooter was known to be a problem on campus and had scared more than a couple of students and teachers and that wasn't the first time something that that had happened somewhere. Nothing will ever stop all violence, but I really do believe that we can only make it better if we're willing to look deeper than media to solve the problem.

Politics is Comedy

The Clown Chili Peppers. Attb: Rick Dikeman at the English Language Wikipedia, license c.c.a.s.a. 3.0 unported.

Any frequent reader of this blog will know that there are few more enthusiastic supporters of the Tea Party then me, but I must give one mild criticism.

It has often been said that in many ways the Tea Party needs to learn. Being a new "organization" (more like "tribe") this is undoubtedbly true, but what precise due they need to learn? If one says "learn to tax people and give bailouts," then surely we have already seen the fruits of these decisions, the very standing on which the Tea Party was organized against the establishment of the Republican Party. Indeed liberals, your prayers against the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration have been answered.

If one says dealing with racism, while there are certainly racists in the Tea Party (and every other party I might add), I challenge you to give any example where a poilcy that could be considered racist was supported simply because it was racist. You will find none, but rather, a plethora of wasteful, ignorant and dangerous policies that undermined American law and order, or laid waste to our federal budget. It seems once again that the "unwashed masses" are more intelligent then our isolated, and steamed in a lost and perverted academia till no nutrition remained, vegetables of elites.

Rather, there is something far more fundamental, far bigger, and far more important at this moment in time that they must learn. If they do not learn it, they will fragment, and unlike a traditional party the Tea Party has no answer for such a fragmentation, all will be lost, and politics as normal will continue.

To understand what and why, let's step back for a minute and look at a great and foolish debate taking place in the tea party today: whether to increase taxes. It's easy enough to see why this debate would happen, and easy to deride the opposition to doing so. As a Texans put it, and what greater pleasure is there in life then hearing Texans speak, "do you honestly think not going to the mall and not using your credit card will pay off your debt?"It's easy enough to dismiss this crowd as toddlers, infants, those who were born yesterday.

Yet they have a very real intuitive fear, and one that is correct. For every dollar saved from the deficit by "Revenue Increases," there is just a little less pressure on congress to end our dangerous habits. Then there is a little more pressure to expand existing government entities and assets to facilitate new ends, possibly even ends with some merit, bringing us to precisely where we are now 4 years later, with less ability to borrow and, thanks to higher tax rates depreciating our economy, less ability to pay off. This is a very valid fear.

Why is it so hard to believe that one thing can be done at one instant and another at another? If you rearranged the lines in a movie, would they neccesarily make any sense? Or would the very point of the film be lost on its viewers?

Sometimes one must hold a gun to the head, must threaten and coerce, especially when one possesses only one house of congress, and has substantial detractors even among its own adopted party in the other. Sometimes one must also rearrange the scene to rearrange the decision. Politics is not a game for straight-talk or fairplay, especially not when dealing with other politicians, and exceptionally stubborn and heartless ones as we've found.

Politics is an art of timing and discretion. If the claim that increasing tax rates is indeed true, there will come a time for it, but that time is not now, especially since government can also raise revenue by selling government assets, such as public land with substantial mineral and oil reserves or quality soil for farming, and that dilapidating spending not only will help balance the deficit, but can alleviate the burden facing businesses with their excess of regulation and paperwork, a burden that currently equals $10,585 per employee for a small business, and close to $8,000 per employee for larger firms. The cost to our federal budget of regulation is $1.75 trillion, or more then the current budget deficit. This is a figure that comes from the Small Business Administration, a entity that the Obama administration has some ability to control and doctor with spinning.

Not only would selling these lands and relieving these costs to business reduce our deficit through spending cuts, but as Senator Marco Rubio recently pointed out, they would also unleash an economic torrent of growth likely far greater then the "10 day reprieve" the tax increases offer. As one can tell, things are not as they once seemed. The "balanced approach" folks really do not have the sense that the mind would conjure for them. We need to cut spending, and any attempt to raise revenue artificially will only slow such a process and damage the economy. Eventually, revenue will be raised - if we do it right, tax increases may not even be neccesary.

Take your turn, wait your time. It may seem hypocritical, but it's a fight we didn't start and we're in it. Know what to say and when, and realize who it empowers and who it humbles. Control your tongue, and let all the chips fall in place, for "there is a season and place for everything under the sun." (King Solomon, translated from book of Ecclesiastes). Don't let haste make waste, rather realize that politics is comedy, and your power is also a grave responsibility.


WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

Julian Assange Must Follow the Example of Christ

US Supreme Court Building. By Duncan Lock, license cc asa 3.0 unported

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea." -Matthew 18: 6, the word of our Lord

One of the reasons folks have a hard time understanding espionage laws is they see law as about morality, they see law as about preventing immoral behavior and punishing the wicked. But that is not what government is for, nor has it ever been for that. The purpose of law is to resolve disputes, to settle differences in a manner that is open, transparent, fair, and respectful to the rights of everyone involved.

The fact is that the government has a real difference with Julian Assange. They had secrets, Julian released them, they had protocols, Julian broke them, and now they're friends can't trust them, they can't look at each other, spies and envoys are fleeing, and the worlds mightiest powers and superpower know not how to handle their own states. Right or wrong, this is where things stand.

Now, there are countries that don't utilize Espionage laws much. Israel and Russia both immediately come to mind. Both, instead of finding and prosecuting spies in a court of law, send out secret assasins, with ice picks, guns, poisons, and all manners of traps, destroy the peace, and when they find their victim, leave no trace of him, and give him not a second, not a minute to answer for his sake. If they make a mistake, too bad, the wrong person is dead. They don't tell his or her family either, and all the citizens are left questioning what happened to their fellow man. Without a doubt, if Americas ability to try spies in a court of law is interfered with, they will have to, for the sake of preserving their government, resort to much the same.

Julian, we all know what you stand for, or at least say you do, transparency, but what you fail to see is that this law is also created for transparency, and in fact, the most important kind of transparency, the ability of individual citizens to see what they are charged with, and society to see what happens to them, along with the ability of all to make their decisions in a conscious, responsible manner. You have angered a lot of powerful people, and if you continue to be successful, you will anger only more. If you do not turn yourself in now, you will be bodybagged, and no one will ever hear from you again, but if you do turn yourself in, whether you are imprisoned or killed, you will be so before the common man and all eyes to see, and all minds to know how arguments are settled in a civil society.

Civil Disobedience is a fine and honorable thing, but it involves taking the consequences of your actions, in part so that fights don't get out of hand. Lets face it Julian, if you die the wrong way, something else dies with you, but if you die the right way, transparency only grows, and you can speak for your own defense in court, and stand by your actions, and speak, for all the nation and world to hear, about your values and what you find right. And you will go to jail, and possibly even be put to death, but if you stay out there on your own running, people who are very good at this stuff will get to you, and they will kill you, in a way that destroys everything that you stand for.

There were four Roman soldiers who confessed a faith that their commander could not stand. He had them put in to a freezing lake, and said that if any of them gave up their faith, they would be given a warm bath, but if they didn't, they would be left there to freeze to death. Three of them stayed there, holding hands as brothers, to die the whole night through, but one just couldn't stand it anymore, and came out, and renounced his faith. And yet, all four of them died that night. Tell me Julian, which one will you be? Will you join your brethren of all the other convicts at jail, and spread the light of wisdom and righteousness to the people you are called to, or will you die shamefully at the hands of a foreign spy, possibly even painfully, as a former KGB agent died not long ago.

Two thousand years ago, a visionary far greater then yourself, or anyone now alive, was crucified above a hill in Calvary. He didn't fight the police when they came to get him, and he didn't complain about his fate either, nor did he lie in court to get off easy. He accepted what he had came to do, took his cup of sorrows in Gethsemane, and went up that hill cross in hand for all things to come to pass. Julian, if you really do care about transparency to the extent that you claim, you must do likewise. The worse thing that could happen here is for America, already weakened, to be hamstrung by those who think they know better, and with them, all the world to where espionage laws can no longer truly exist. They are an important part of transparency. Law isn't about what's right or wrong - it's about a peaceful, serene society that is transparent and honorable, and when you accept this, you can have your fate handed to you fittingly, and become the hero you were born to be.

Update 12/6/2010 - It seems, according to AOL News, Assange has done a wicked and cowardly thing. Holding over 1.4 gigabytes of what Assange considers worthy secrets, Assange, rather then turn himself in as he should, is withholding them, and thus his objective, from the public as a bargaining chip to secure his freedom. If this is how it appears, Julian has much to be ashamed of.

Guest Post - "Dr. James McPartland is a Dick (and more)"

I received an email from a friend whose a member of an Autistic Issues student group called SWANSA that made some very valid points about not only autism, but "civilized" society in general, that I felt my readers would very much benefit from taking a gander at. The friends name is Walt Guthrie (he never told me whether or not he was related to Woody and Arlo):

I caught the James McPartland talk at Emory November 8.
Off the bat, three things you need to know about him.
One: he's the Assistant Professor in the Child Study Center.
Two: He's the Associate Director of Developmental Electrophysiology Lab
Three: he's a dick.
He's actually more than that. But we'll get to that.
First, the dick:

In the course of his "research," McPartland makes use of a computer program called "Cyberball," which is a sort of "video game". Now, I have put quote marks around the words "video game" because it is the most primitive-looking thing you can possibly imagine. We are not talking "Gears of War" here. From the brief demonstration, given during the talk, it appeared to be something that might have come out in 1975 just prior to the introduction of "Pong." But what do I know? For all I know it might have just popped out of the MIT Media lab last month. In any case, I cannot emphasize enough how boring this game is.
It is a simulated game of catch between three players. Each player can choose to throw the ball to the person on his left or the person on his right. That's it. That's the game. It doesn't appear that you can miss or that the other person can fail to catch the ball. There is no skill and no chance whatsoever involved. For all intents and purposes, assuming the demonstration of this game was representative of actual "play," the "game" is the equivalent of nothing more than three people with one person calling out the name of one of the two others, and then that person being able to do the same and so on and so on.
Of course no human being would ever willingly choose to waste their time playing such a "game," but McPartland has apparently made countless kids waste irretrievable hours of their childhood at no discernible benefit for themselves "playing" this simulation that simulates nothing.
But this is not what makes McPartland a dick.
This is:
What is the purpose of Cyberball? Well, it turns out it does have a one. According to McPartland, Cyberball is designed to make a player feel excluded and outcast. You see, the other two "players" of Cyberball don't exist. They are just part of the program and what they do is ignore the player and just toss the ball back and forth to each other. Now, McPartland claims that the children he works with are, by the nature of their autism, already shunned and socially mistreated by their peers. So what does he do with them? He experiments on them by making them play games designed to increase their sense of isolation and social ostracism. And these are experiments solely for his benefit since McPartland made no claim during the course of his talk that these sessions would provide any benefit whatsoever for the children playing them.
McPartland tricks ostracized children into performing activities designed solely to further their own sense of ostracism.
Where I come from this sort of person is also technically known as a douchebag.
Oh, and did I mention that he was excited about the prospect of a computer program that might test for empathy.
Let the irony of THAT sink in.

The bulk of his talk is old territory that I've addressed before. More laser-pointer-on-the-head sort of nonsense. This time we learn that autistics take 200 milliseconds or so to process faces. Regular folk take, on average, 180. Noting that that might not seem like a big deal, McPartland admitted as much and then went on to claim that it actually was, without offering the slightest bit of evidence except to note that those 20 milliseconds add up over time (Yeah, he's right Those two percents of a second add up. Work those face recognitions, kids. You only have 86,400,000 milliseconds in a day to work with!) During it all he performed the verbal sleight-of-hand of telling us that some of this was hard science, some was unpublished and some was just speculation. It was almost like a psychic doing a "cold reading" to the room, leaving himself plenty of wiggle room should anyone call him him on any of his claims (The main one being that autistics maybe just aren't properly motivated to have the desire to be social. Or something. As someone who understands the spectrum from living it, listening to McPartland's meandering theory of autism was like listening to my great aunt and her circle describe what goes on in Grand Theft Auto). There was more talk about perceiving upright faces vs inverted faces. If you believe this is relevant to anything on Earth then God love. I won't be dragged into another discussion on it.

Afterwards, in the reception following McPartland's talk, I asked him directly whether or not autism was empirically or definitionally a "disorder." He responded that it was definitional and that ALL people on the autistic spectrum are, by definition, "disordered." Then, having admitted this, he jumped to the it's-only-a-word defense. If I found the word "offensive" (a word I never employed in the course of the discussion) then that was on me. Because who could find any objection to being labeled "disordered?"
I told him what the word "disordered" actually means.
It means "nigger."
It means "faggot." It means "kike."
It performs the same societal function and is derived in PRECISELY the same manner. It is a derogatory classification whose purpose is to dehumanize one arbitrarily grouped and categorized set of humanity. And like the white racist, who feels that he can designate, by his own criteria, any one that he chooses to include into or exclude from the inferior class of "nigger," James McPartland and his intellectually low-functioning behaviorist brood think they are entitled to arbitrarily classify an entire subset of humanity as definitionally "disordered" and then have full power to say who is and who is not in that set. Neither James McPartland nor the typical hardcore white racist feel any need to empirically justify their respective words. Why should he? Just as the word "nigger" empowered and elevated the white power structure, the word 'disorder' gives the behaviorists their power, income, and justification for their very existence.
James Mcpartland is a grinning clown, the moral equivalent of a racist, who experiments on vulnerable socially outcast children to make them feel worse about themselves, all so he can grind out a steady stream of lazy speculation disguised as science.
Fuck him.

Hope's for Whiners!

Neve Glacier and Snowfield Peak, courtesy of the US Geological Survey. Public Domain

There's something about the traditional name for the Saturday before Easter that kind of gets on my nerves.

I always hear people talk about HOPE, as if it's some kind of penultimate important good. Usually these people think of themselves as victims, people who believe that there hope has been stripped of them by somebody else, people who believe that unless someone else gives them their change back, they won't be able to make enough money to eat. But WHY????

And further, even if we are hopeless, helpless and hapless, (. thank You, the Holy Spirit, for language, thank You for poetry, thank You for song and thank You for beauty and feeling. Amen.) why not just keep breathing and look down the road, and appreciate all the little things in your life? Why don't we take things one step at a time, not looking back, and not really looking forward either? Why don't we just accept those who are before us, and the task and work that is in front of us, and understand that no matter what is done to us, we still have the CHOICE to make the best of it. Further, without hardship, trial and, yes, suffering, you would never grow, you would never learn, you would never become strong and learn the pride and joy that comes from strength, and you could not truly have life. And without goals of YOUR OWN that you've made for YOURSELF to do YOURSELF, you eliminate the best kind!

For me, Easter is not really about Hope, it's about Love. A loving, beautiful God who, not even asking about the cost, took from our shoulders the only thing that could truly break us, the only thing that we have no choice over, the only thing that we CANNOT overcome on our own. The thing that, by it's very definition, is outside of our control. Death, and the imperfection that, by every angle and understanding be it biological, moral or otherwise, caused it. Through Christ, all of us can truly live.

Titian, Ancona Crucifixtion, 1558

A few thoughts for the day

My friend Marty, of "Out of Context", writes aphorisms. This day has really made me think about my life and who I am, and I just wanted to take a moment to write down a few small thoughts for the day:

Be gracious, and your friends will be many.

Sometimes we wonder why, but when you live with a good heart and a head of honor, you know why you're here.

Hard work improves YOU, every part of you, while sloth rots you inside.

Troubles and trials are man's moment to conquer and exploit, justly.

The beauty of the world is another statement of God's love for us. When you don't see God with you, look out at the moon, and let still peace fill your heart. Or look out at the mountains, and let yourself be strengthened by their strength. For all this has been made for you and others like you.

With questions come answers.

With heroism comes stories.

With favors and decency, come respect and love.

With greed, comes the consumption of the self.

With envy, the person is lost.

With needless violence, relationships are made brittle, and the respect is moved by the blind.

With lies, reality is lost, and the world becomes the most terrifying of abominations, a twisted knot of human machinery tearing slowly to the vilest corruptions and indecencies, with clocks showing wrong times, beauty burned to nothing, free horses chained to the weak, wrong becoming right, and man himself as fine-cut meats for the hungry shadows.

With respect of others, you see the beauty in people, and the world lights up before your eyes.

With respect of the world, everything is sacred and right.

When you revere your parents, you really honor yourself.

Marty could top these any day, and I know this isn't what I normally write about, but these are just a few thoughts of mine that seem to be flowing out of my heart.

Family Ties and the Cheapening of Humanity

Vitruvian Man, by Leonardo Da Vinci, public domain

Right now I'm trapped in Fort Collins, CO. Every Greyhound route in to Washington State, to see my parents, is closed. I'm here seeing my grandparents on my way back from Atlanta and desperately want to see them, but mother nature has intervened, so I must spend more time with my grandparents.

I've been thinking about family, among the most natural and essential of human unions. There are fewer relationships that define us more profoundly then family, and family in turn is defined by sex. Man and woman come together, join together two households, give birth to children, who in turn are brothers and sisters, and the brothers and sisters of the man and woman are aunts and uncles. Even if no children are had, sexuality itself is more then powerful enough to create a sacred brotherhood -and sisterhood- among two houses.

The first relationships you have are family. Your parents, your brothers and sisters, your grandparents. There are even very close friends who, after some time, almost become part of the family, adopted brothers and sons, sisters and daughters, but these only carry in themselves - their relatives are still, for the most part, outside. Your family teaches you a way of seeing the world, a way of seeing life, rules, regulations, ways of punishing and regulating yourself, morality, honor, ethics, and the way you categorize all those outside of the family in to your thousands of relationships you keep made for every person in the world in your mind. Family can create, and family can destroy, family can sow love and hate. A peaceful family makes for a more peaceful community, and an unpeaceful family leads to a destructive community. When family members separate themselves from each other, you can see it in the eyes and actions of the victims, both seperated and seperator. And when family roles and rules are broken, the anger and antagonism can carry through town.

Sexuality, also, is a very definitive part of our nature. It's the source of many of our dreams, many of our symbols, much of the way we see the world. It's the basis of many emotions, and it itself can conjure up every feeling, thought, and attitude in the human character. It makes us our best and our worst, and everything in between. When you drown out the emotion related to sex, you drown out the emotions period, harden your heart, deep freeze the world before your eyes in to a palace of ice, with statues of all those near you holding still in front of your eyes.

Adultery divides households, families, people. It is the breaking of a sacred trust between man and wife, or wife and husband, a lie, a betrayal of affections, a stoker of jealousy, a maker of hellfire. It can also pit children against their parents, and make human honor, a vital part of our nature, worthless against the breaking of the most important promise anyone ever makes. It degrades all involved in it, and cheapens sexuality, making it little more then either burden, hyper-personal, or entertainment depending on the attitude of he or she involved. The family is cast out of the mind of the transgressors.

Premarital sex is a cheapener. Those who partake in it will find less loyalty, less love, and less romantic fire with whomever they marry. It too cheapens sexuality, making it hyper-personal, a burden, or entertainment, removing the human face, removing the family ties, cutting away alliegance, loyalty, neighborhood and romantic love.

As you remove the honor, sanctity, and ritual in sexuality, you increasingly convey that a major part of our nature really isn't worth that much.

Note:

Before I even mention homosexuality, I want to point out in anger and all grumpinesss that nothing I say should ever be taken to in any way, shape, or fashion excuse those who hate, murder, destroy, oppress, manipulate, lie, steal, fire on federal agents, be inhospitable or sow the seeds of discontent out of homophobia. These people have done what homosexuality will do, and much more severely, by methods far more abominable, hateful and destructive. They too have broken ties, cheapened relationships, and created a disposable, hypocritical, judgemental attitude towards their fellow man that destroys all real community. The fact that they did it with anger, guns, contempt for all things humane and honorable, and cruel lies makes it, indeed, worse then a simple weakness of the flesh, for with the flesh it is only the ends that are an issue.

Homosexuality is an understandable mistake, like the kind that all of us make as we walk through this life, and though I hope we can work through it with them, and there's always a suspicion that within all of us both desires exist, even if we can't, they still are fellow human beings, every bit as deserving as everyone who has ever screwed up with their finances, raising their child or their education, or anything else that important to your life.

Now then:

Incest is a clear break of family authority, family respect, and proper relationship. It breaks sacred bonds, and mixes one kind of love (Agape) with another kind of love (Eros) that are often contradictory to each other. All of us need a balance of both of these in our life. The love pertaining to sexuality comes with it's own set of conditions, dependencies and expectations that make the love of a mother, father, brother, sister, son, or daughter impossible. Needs bring us close but they also create insecurity - add too many together and the result is oppression and no room to breathe. It creates a dilemma, as love has been cheapened, but the risk of birth defects in an incestious child is very high, and to leave would also cheapen love, relationships, and trust and loyalty in the future. Further it prevents the bond between families, distorts gender roles with a pre-existing status within the family, gets a person more in your mind then they need to be, and creates antagonism and insecurity among relatives.

Homosexuality is a confuser. It creates antagonism and insecurity among relatives. It confuses by breaking the traditional roles of gender, removing the balance of genders that creates clear hierarchy and authority, and balance within the house. It also makes establishes deep bonds within families difficult, as for the males no daughter is gained, and for the females no son is gained, for either house. Sometimes homosexuals seem to take the role of the opposite gender, distorting the individual to balance out the collective. It also leaves the homosexuals in the dilemma of either continuing this clear break of family mandate, or going back to straight sexuality with a cheapened view of erotic love. I'm still not entirely sure what the solution to this issue is, but I see their dilemma, and advise all those considering such a lifestyle to find any way possible of avoiding it.

We, America, are missing family ties. Superficial families make superficial friends, superficial friends make superficial towns, and superficial towns make a world where no one can depend on anyone else, loneliness and silence spread to any space in which they're allowed, and the human being himself is devalued to being an object, an animal, a customer, a worker, a product, a dollar amount. We are made to love, respect, listen, learn, talk, improve, teach, and be our brothers keeper, and yet now we sit in cubicles, even in large offices as apart as can be, and see outsiders as a nuisance. We try to avoid burdening each other in all possible ways, and see only the harm that we do to each other, until finally, we hate humanity itself. With our cheapening of sexuality, we have cheapened ourselves and all of life. The damage is done, but hopefully we can avoid running up the bill further.

Helping the Elderly and Eliminating the Home

WWII Morale poster, source: Northwestern University Poster Library (via wikimedia), public domain.

Nursing homes weren't as common in the past. The elderly used to be an important part of communities, and you can still see this in many books written from a previous time.

My Grandma has told me about the people in her neighborhood who fix things around the house, make her meals, drive her places she needs to go, especially at night, and are available if she's in trouble. Her church is always there for her, providing her a tight web of connections from which she can draw every form of support, and in exchange, she uses here substantial finances to take good care of the church as well, and can lend her support and aid of every sort that she is able to the people around her. She's 86, has been in a major car accident, and has very limited energy. But she's kept her house.

She still lives there, just as she did when she was young, and people still visit her from around the neighborhood. It's a friendly neighborhood, upper-class, in a large city where most people know a decent neighbor of their neighbors. She's lived there almost her entire life.

She has told me many times that the biggest reason she has been able to stay in her house is because people help her.

Now to business. A society that utilizes people for 40 years and then discards them when they are no longer of use to it will, in the end, lose it's humanity, it's individuality, it's respectfulness and lawfulness, it's spirit and cultural soul, it's inner strength, and it's touch with any deeper emotional connection among human beings. A society that does not value those who have worked for it, lived for it, loved for it, and in some cases, fought in wars for it, even sustaining injuries, will, in the end, value no one. If we burn whatever is of no use, we will be left with ashes, no loyalty, and no dignity. These people provided what you have, why do you deny them a small portion of it?

What do they do in nursing homes? They make food, they clean, and they check on people. Nothing they do in a nursing home has to be done in a nursing home, and very little of what they do in most nursing homes requires a paid professional. Now, I understand the burden of boarding your grandmother in your own house (though I also see the beauty of it, having three generations of a family in one place together, the young benefiting from the wisdom and care of the old, and the young taking care of the old) but as a community, each and every one of us by ourselves, we can take care of just a little bit of what each and every one of these beautiful, valuable citizens and people need to stay independent, healthy, and in a way, productive, while enriching our own lives through true community and relationships that can last forever. Even something as simple as helping an old man who has trouble up a staircase can, even, save a life, a limb, or the health of a man with osteoporosis or serious disorders of that sort. Merely feeling like they're able to ask for help can keep these people out of homes with disrespectful employees, low standards of living, and isolation from a real, balanced, diverse community, and destroying the finances of a family that must pay for care that, honestly, it usually doesn't need.

I'm not saying that every single person can be kept out of a nursing home, but these people have given their lives, their labor, their love, for a lifetime to all of us around them, and continue to give even today, and just helping them occasionally when they need it will make them feel like they can ask for help. And our society as a whole will benefit not only from their presence, and their lives, among us, but from the better attitude created by actually taking care of people. With that attitude comes respect, reverence, dignity, honor, all the things that you see none of in our human-hating modern world.

The Flaw of Small Ambitions - Obama and Afghanistan

"“I’m not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or, in some way—you know, sending a message that America is here for the duration. Until I’m satisfied that we’ve got the right strategy I’m not gonna be sending some young man or woman over there—beyond what we already have.” -President Obama

Sounding reasonable and being reasonable are not the same thing. The problem with this approach to any ambition, but especially a war, is that when your aims are so small and "pragmatic" that they excite no one, you will inspire no loyalty, no commitment, and no resolve. When you can't even give an Afghani the time of day, how can you possibly expect them to support you, possibly to their death? These people have to make life and death decisions; if they side with us, and we ditch on them, they may be killed by the other side. If they don't side with us, and we stay, we may kill them. It's a stark reality, and one that must be remembered and honored. If they cannot trust us to keep our word, Mr. President, and have a little bit of honor, we will be sending many more young men and women to die in many other places because we will find help from no one in Afghanistan. We may even, considering Afghanistan's location, face a world war. Worse, we tarnish our good name, and people remember that. And no, regardless of an "illegitimate war" (whatever that means,) if we stay by the side of those we promised to stay by the side of, yes, people can trust us to keep our word, even if they don't like what we're saying.

Joe Biden made it very clear, according to the Economist, that he favors a "bomb stuff" approach to Afghanistan.

From Dr. Strangelove, redherrings.wordpress.com, Fair Use (Non-profit only)

We will fly around in little drones with rockets smiting whatever we like. In Iraq, we tried a strategy very much like that from 2003 to 2006. We also tried this strategy in Vietnam, a few decades before. Neither time did it turn out any better. In both places, violence got worst, and for every enemy we killed, 2 more were creted to take his place. In Iraq, only the courage and sheer stubborn gall of our president prevented us from ending the war the same way we did in Vietnam, increasing the risk of nuclear holocaust with the Soviets seven fold and wasting every ounce of blood spilled in that jungle.

In Iraq, after 2006, a massive millitary surge took place, but so did something else. A clever, educated, creative young general, General Petreaus, who is as far from the millitary stereotype as could ever be imagined thought up his own method for fighting the insurgents. Before him, a young Colonel with a very softspoken, passive, nonviolent attitude whose name I sadly cannot remember had gathered together a series of Sunni Chiefs in Anbar Province, pointing out to them that Al Qaida was, in fact, a threat to their authority. He won their trust so well that over night, they not only stopped fighting the Coalition, but fought for it. This, among other things, freed up forces and resources for other regions. It also demonstrated an attitude of cooperation that neither the Millitary before the Surge nor Biden after it appear to understand.

See, we are winning in Iraq not because we did such a wonderful job with firepower. We are winning in Iraq because we finally appealed to the people. This is something that both Rumsfeld and Bush spoke of as early as 2003, but did not actually accomplish until after the surge.

General Stanley McChrysthal, photo taken by Scott Davis, Civil Service, public domain

General Stanley McChrystal, commander of Afghanistan, summed it up perfectly on 60 minutes today: "If the people are against us, we cannot be successful. If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can't be successful and our casualties will go up dramatically."No matter how well you do with high-tech gizmos, millitary maneuvering, and plain old riflemanship, if your objective, here the people, won't cooperate, you will lose every time. And here, losing means Afghanistan descending in to chaos and continuing to be a threat to the United States, emboldening Al Qaida and the Taliban, and destabilizing a region with 4, soon 5, nuclear armed nations in it (Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and soon, Iran).

Idealism may be costly, and ambition may be a terrifying dragon when looked at head-on, but if you put none together, and stand for nothing, you will achieve nothing, including the bare basics of what you need. If we destroy our own nations mission, no one is going to care if we live or die. We may not even care, at the individual level. Iraq was won not because we had the best weapons or the best people, but because we actually gave them a way forward, a way out of the darkness as a people. If we refuse to do the same in Afghanistan, then every civilian we kill, every bomb we drop, every life we end and destruction of property that can be accredited to us will inspire yet more hatred, yet more animosity towards truly needless violence. When we give them a way forward, they can accept, they can forgive, and they themselves can make sacrifices for their country, for you can have no law if no sacrifices for your own country can be made.

This one's for you, Sarah

Image Courtesy of Ben Aveling and Tyler Warren, distributed by Wikimedia Commons, terms Creative Commons SA 3.0

It's almost cliche to talk of politicians as having no heart. In between their sleazy beltway dealings, their constant lies and unprincipled chatter, and tendency to cave at the slightest show of force, perhaps it is even appropriate to call many scum. But there are a few out there who genuinely have heart, principles, and a love of their people, and their names echo through history forever, promoted to a higher status then the Robert Kings and Martin Van Burens of yesteryear or the various, unnamed, hypocrites of today, remembered fondly for all they accomplished in their careers and lives and the vision they showed a nation.

From what I know, Sarah Palin seems the genuine article. As governor of Alaska, she took a corrupt state and raised hell against Exxon when they were cheating the Alaskan people of royalties, eliminated bribery and bribe-taking officials, and undertook a controversial action that could've cost her political career (sending biplanes with machine guns after wolves) in order to protect the way of life of a people too often deprived of what was theirs (the Inuit.) She kept a state budget balanced when almost everyone else had emptied the piggy bank, and cleaned the filthy blood of a corrupt Ted Stevens based Republican party of Alaska. And her positive stand for antidiscrimination law and women in the workplace has proved once and for all that, indeed, you can be a conservative and still advance Civil Rights. And she tells it like it is too, pointing out the "Death Panels" of Barrack Obama (arguably the single most effective argument of the debate) and the truth of liberty and tradition at the 2008 Republican Convention, re-energizing the GOP again and again and again.

Palin is the classic Western woman. She is strong, dutiful, risk-taking, and independent. She doesn't take no for an answer and doesn't respect you just because someone tells her too. She looks out for her children and those who she is attached to, and doesn't mind fighting a good brawl when the occasion permits and the principles are worth it. Her sense of honor is strong, and guides her. And though she has principles, she does not impose or judge, or ninny-nanny or busy-body, but simply guides forward, as we could see with her pregnant daughter. She doesn't see herself as anybody's lesser. Most of all, she's not scared, and she has the sheer brass stubbornness to not give up on pursuing an idea until it's finished and realized before her.

I will admit that she was a little undereducated, but she had great common sense and wisdom beyond this, intelligence, leadership, an understanding of humanity, and a truly beautiful heart. Education can be taught, but all but one of these things cannot be. They are priceless, while education indeed has price.

I hope we will see more of you in the future, Sarah, and now that Sanford has found his Maria, I guess we just might. I hope you are using these next couple years to even out your rough edges, and you can show up sparkling and blow the dome off the white house when you return. When you come, show all aspects of your character - the more people see of you, I believe, the more they will want you for President.

Generation Zombie

A zombie astral, in voodoo, is a soul at the command of a sorcerer. Sometimes I wonder if my entire generation is such.

They obsess about awkwardness, live their lives to appease others, have no vision of their own and do the bidding of their parents, teachers, and government without any passion. They push drugs to glassy-eye themselves and fall in to trances. They have no real root, and no real destination, they seem to wander the earth forever. They invent nothing, and imitate much. They are spoken harshly to, as otherwise nothing will happen, and seem to respect nothing but force.

Teachers tell them to love multiculturalism, and they do. Teachers tell them to love socialism, and they do. Teachers demand "volunteer hours," forcing them in to manual labor, and they comply. Teachers tell them to be liberal, and they are. And if the press says a man is a "great leader," they line up right beside him.

They don't fight, don't even really seem to whine much. They just sit there, until someone screams at them. They don't seem to speak, don't seem to think. They just sit there, until someone tells them what to do or what to say.

Good sorcerer, whoever you may be, please, release them from your spell.

Foamy-mouthed taxpayers

Dear AIG, I quit!

Re: Dear AIG, I quit!

Now in the bible, when a rich man does nothing to help the leprosy and starvation suffering beggar Lazarus as he jollily feasts, he loses his name, and all we know about him is "a rich man" and he went to hell. It seems that many taxpayers, seeing VP and AIG in the same sentence, have decided this man is exactly the same, a "rich man" not even worth considering. While I can understand the anger, it seems very misplaced, as a contract is a contract, government legislation is government legislation, and anyways, this VP didn't pick his pay:

Geithner, an Obama crony and public official, did.

He is also helping Lazarus right now with how that pay will be used.

And he didn't partake in the destruction of his company. Those folks are already gone. We are taking away the rights of an innocent man under the excuse of "I have it so hard." We are allowing our morality to be corrupted by the hardship of the world, and are thus ourselves like the seeds that Jesus spreads which fall on vines and are devoured. Reminds me of this old shrapnel of wisdom:

"If you are starving, which will you take first, your vote, or a bag of grain?"

But in a world of "Hope" and "Change" any kind of dilligent study and analysis or even using your common sense is discouraged. See, anger makes you predictable, makes you stupid, makes you like a little cow that can be brought to the stockyard and slaughtered for meat, and by allowing the government to impose penal taxes on a small group of people after the fact, a clever way of getting around the rule of law and the rights of it's citizens, the government has done exactly that. They've served the public hide hot and spiced, with a liberally applied maranade, and a side dish of US constitution.

I'm all for the common man, I know how capable he is and how much he has to offer this world. But that only makes me more angry that 1) our government wants to take away their freedom and thus their abillity, 2) people are allowing themselves to be corrupted and enslaved without even a promise of a better life for themselves. So who are we? Are we the men who built this country, or are we the "Here we are now, entertain us" (Kurt Kobain) crowd?

How a Stimulus Works

Or Honor, Honesty and Confidence:




Keynes (founder of Keynesianism, the economic philosophy of mainstream liberalism) believed that recessions could be evened out by the debt spending of government. He believed that certain "multiplier" effects could be achieved by the way such money was spent. But the basis of the whole argument was confidence.

You see, in a deflationary recession (according to Keynes), demand sags because of a shock to the system or bankruptcies and the resulting loss of business confidence. By allowing government to be the buyer of last resort, you remove such concern and allow them to avoid taking a loss or as large of a loss for a time, preventing their need for new investment (and thus inabillity) later.

They know this will pass, and by way of the multiplier it does, and they will make a profit then.

But what happens when those same businesses see that at this banquet, they are the skeleton on the dinner table?

When they see it is a trap, when they see that they will be paying and subjugated to their "customer," in the here and now, later? What happens when, in the excuse of "a deeper problem," we push a healthcare system that was contrived hastilly, funding for Student Aid that is permaneant and is thus in no way stimulus, bizarre rhetoric about "greed" when business is but a tool, and force the contraction of an industry (healthcare) in the name of "cost" when we are suffering deflation (damage from the reduction of cost, according to Keynes.) What happens when we subject our entire economy to a byzantine carbon cap, instead of a simple carbon tax? What happens when government pulls strange shenanigans with stimulus money and contracts and creates a "scandal"?

And then in "response," they attempt elimination of the right of ex post facto. I don't care how cleverly their little bill is phrased or what kind of strange loopholes they are using to break a legally-binding contract, I have a right not to be prosecuted for something that wasn't illegal at the time I did it. AIG, scoundrels as they are, has that right to. As far as I can tell, we left it in the contract, and if contracts and legal process are not observed, well, why should it end with "scoundrels?"

See, you can debate the ideology all day, but it's the people I'm worried about. And anyways, AIG may be awful, but in their defence, they never agreed to be public servants.