The Most Important Issue In the Upcoming Election

The most important and relevant issue, but one unlikely to be addressed in the upcoming elections is a reform of our political system. The United States is an idea based on the notion of “for the people by the people.” Money and lobbyists have changed the meaning to “for the rich and powerful by the rich and powerful.” The last decade has seen millions of jobs move overseas, enriching corporations. Taxpayers have had to foot the bill for fraudulent investments while those responsible have not had to suffer any repercussions. People are losing their jobs and their homes. Families are being squeezed. The US Government has started wars based on false pretenses, spending hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives but most people have no idea why we are doing this. We make weapons that we have no enemy to use against. What use is an F-22 fighter plane against terrorists? We build weapons for a Cold War that ended two decades ago. There are over 900 US military bases around the world. Why do we have bases in Europe and Japan? These are wealthy countries that can take care of themselves. The answer is lobbyists for the weapon manufacturers. It is not based on need but on patronage.

The following political changes are needed; an overhaul of the electoral system excluding any monetary donations. In lieu of that candidates should be given free television time or dedicated television and online video channels devoted to electoral campaigning. This will allow candidates to reach the electorate. There should be a stipend paid out of taxpayer funds for candidates who reach a certain level of popular acceptability. Whoever is elected needs to have the Supreme Court revisit its decision in Citizens United versus FEC. Corporations are not people, as Justice Stevens argued in his dissent; “the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding”

We need to reduce certain government regulations that stifle growth, while at the same time enforcing SEC regulation and strengthening them. Above all the US needs to reduce its Defense budget. That money should be invested in new businesses. Every year billions of dollars of taxpayer money is invested in research, yet only a tiny portion 3-4% is commercialized. The main reason for this low figure is a lack of early stage investment. Large corporations should be encouraged to let their upper middle management run start up companies. This not only benefits their employees, but addresses the issue of forty and fifty year old workers, with a lot of experience finding themselves out of a job and being too overqualified to find another. Other funds should be spent retraining and reeducating workers for the twenty-first century economy.

The United States strength and stability has been based on a vibrant middle class. Currently, the US is 49^th in the world in income equality, just above Mexico. Our students are 29^th among industrialized nations in the PISA International Student Tests for Science and Math, there are 50 million people out of a population of 300 million living under the poverty line. This has to change, or else America the land of opportunity, the last best hope for mankind will begin a long and painful decent into irrelevance.

In the Search For God

"They believe that something came out of nothing, that reason came from irrationality, that a complex universe and natural order came out of randomness and chaos, that consciousness came from non-consciousness and that life emerged from non-life. Atheists believe, Seddon writes, that “a multiverse (for which there is no experimental or observational evidence) containing an inconceivably large number of universes spontaneously created itself.”
Yet, Hitchens insists, “our belief is not a belief.” Nonsense. Atheism requires a belief in the unbelievable" ..Buchanan(Christmas in the an Anti-Christian Age.)
 Throughout known human history, mankind has looked out on the world and observed two things; first an apparent order to Nature and second a sense or belief that there was some unseen Life Force behind this creation. Across the centuries, cultures around the world have given different names to this Unseen Presence; in the West we call it God. Belief in God, no matter what religion or spiritual tradition has had a profound impact on societies, effecting how they perceive Reality.

In the last two centuries, an ever increasing number of people have concluded that there is no God; their trust is placed in reason, logic and empirical science to explain the mysteries of nature and human existence. Belief in God is viewed as a mark of ignorance. But is that an oversimplification?  

A physicist’s perception of Reality based on scientific experimentation and laws is that; Matter is mostly made of empty space, what we perceive from our senses as solid substances are in fact the electrical forces between particles of this Matter, what we “see” with our eyes as objects are the electrical impulses translated in the brain as Forms which appear as solid substances. This could be demonstrated by an X-Ray Crystallography image of some crystalline compound like Salt, Sodium Chloride (NaCl). The image would consist of very small dots regularly laid out in mostly empty space. How different is that from the Ancient Greek Pagan belief or the beliefs of the three monotheistic religions in the soul, explained in philosophical terms by reference to Form and Essence?  

The current consensus among Astronomers is that the Universe began in a “Big Bang” billions of years ago, all the energy in the Universe was once crushed into a singularity, and then it exploded. The First Law Of Thermodynamics, states as axiomatic, Energy can never be created or destroyed, it follows that the energy now part of Nature was there in a different form billions of years ago at the Big Bang. How different is that from the Eastern mystical tradition belief in the Oneness of all life, such as is held in Hinduism? Astronomer, Paul Davis stated “Scientists themselves normally take for granted that we live in a rational, ordered cosmos subject to precise laws that can be uncovered by human reasoning. Yet, why this should be so remains a tantalizing mystery.” ¹

There are crucial differences of perspectives between non-believers and believers concerning the fundamental questions of human existence; what the meaning, origin and purpose is of life, how Humans should order their lives and society. This search for Order or “The Good” is allegedly discovered by some believers in a non-rational spiritual quest, for others through a tradition of revelations by God to prophets and holy men, still others by using rational and dispassionate analysis, sometimes called Natural Law. For non-believers humankind can accomplish this with reason and science alone, and further as life in theory is based on a long evolutionary process subject to chance, in the grand scheme of evolution, there is no special significance to human life beyond what Humans invest in it. Put another way, the difference between believers and non-believers comes down to what is the meaning of life and where does the authority to impose morality and ethics come from? For most of history it has been expressed in a Need For God.

Pagan Religions

The concepts and role of the Unseen Presence, called God varies according to the circumstances of the believers at different times in History. Early tribal societies were territorial; each tribe had their own names for God, and their own myths. There were two common beliefs; if they imitated the actions of the Gods they would share their power (KA5), and everything on Earth was believed to be replica of something Divine (KA6). Gods represented the projected hopes and fears of the people, would the rains come to insure a good harvest?, would they be protected from enemies?. Ritual beliefs in sacrifice, such as offering first born children, first fruits of the harvest were made to keep these Gods satisfied. 

The first written record we have is from the Sumerians, in Mesopotamia, circa 4000 BCE, there were similar beliefs and practices in many cultures through the centuries; the 16^th Century Conquistadors were so shocked by the mass ritual killings of humans by Aztecs, they buried all their religious symbolism. Today in Mexico City, The Wall Of Skulls is a horrifying visual reminder of the price paid to satisfy the Gods of early pagan beliefs.

Over time through a process of emanation and myth the Gods multiplied into a pantheon. The Gods of Wind, War, Sun, Fertility, Love etc were poetic projections of human longings. For later critics, such as Baron of Holbach this construct created an incoherent idea of God “poets and theologians had done nothing over the centuries but make a gigantic, exaggerated man, whom they will render illusory by dint of heaping together incompatible qualities.” (KA344) Regardless, these pagan myths, beliefs and religious festivals were essential civic practices to ensure the continual smooth running of their societies. The Gods told about in myths were very real to ordinary people; Gods were “seen” present in charismatic or gifted individuals. An example of this is found in The Acts of the Apostles, Paul and Barnabas were mistaken for Zeus and Hermes by the people of Lystra in Turkey (KA15). The philosopher Aristotle regarded these myths as revealing a more serious truth than any produced by history “for poetry speaks of what is universal, history what is particular”. For the Greek philosophers God was a transcendent reality, man was a microcosm of the Universe part divine attributes part base flawed matter. The goal of man was to imitate the activity of God, which first and foremost required gaining Wisdom. God was pure thought, and activation, but he did not direct or effect lives. While the insights of philosophers were largely ignored by the ordinary people, subsequently their ideas would have an important impact on Jewish, Christian and Muslim beliefs.

Monotheists

Paganism, Karen Armstrong writes was an essentially tolerant faith. (KA49) That is not a description that could be applied to the religion written down and redacted around 600 BCE called Judaism, and the bases for two other monotheistic religions. The God of Israel, Yahweh, we are told is a jealous God, He is also to the modern reader a tribal, psychotic, genocidal God. His chosen people were warned if did not obey Yahweh “you will be torn from the land”.(KA53). Modern Biblical studies referred to as the Documentary Hypothesis identify 4 different traditions in the Torah or Old Testament. J, E, P, D. J represents the Yahwists, E the Elohists, D the Deuteronomists and P the Priestly writer². The compilation of the various traditions is believed to have been completed during or just after the Babylonian exile. Importantly, it was compiled by Priests most likely from Judah. The harshness towards goyim, exclusivity, rituals and above all the insistence on Temple worship were in modern parlance their sales pitch to lure Israelites from Babylon and other places back to worship at the Temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem. It was a tough sell; the Israelites had been told the Promised Land was given to them by God. But it was a land they only briefly controlled, overrun by powerful neighbors like the Assyrians and Babylonians. 

The Israelites according archeologist Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University initially were landless Canaanites who adopted a belief in one God³. In a pagan world where Deities were territorial and religious beliefs were civic duties, a group who refused to play by rules would be a source of resentment. The God of Israel was unlike the pagan Gods, He was passionately involved in human affairs. Through revelation to Prophets he issued Laws, and warnings insisted on compassion and caring for the less fortunate. But unlike the holistic view of pagans, there was a divide between Yahweh and Mankind. This divide was caused by disobedience in the Garden Of Eden, it was humankind’s fault that there was evil, suffering and other ills, Human nature though made in the image and likeness of God was flawed. The redactors of the Bible were offering the people of Israel a chance to reconnect with God by returning if they obeyed the laws, and the Priestly caste were the keepers of the law.

It was in this milieu of a legalistic rigid framework under yet another foreign occupation that Jesus of Nazareth began preaching. “My yoke is easy and my burden light” ⁴ a consistent theme of his preaching was that the Pharisees, the legal interpreters of the Law had hijacked it for their personal power and benefit. He called them hypocrites, in parables like the Good Samaritan it was the ritually impure Samaritan who helped the injured man, not the priest, he objected to their greed, by driving the moneylenders out of the Temple. Armstrong says these condemnations found in Matthew were inauthentic; regrettably this maybe an example of her bowing to political correctness, there are passages in all the Gospels that show Jesus’ preferences for the outcast and a criticism of authority. These and numerous other examples point to his main objection, the Israelites were to be “a light to the nations”, showing the world how to live a good life. Instead it had been turned into a tribal, exclusive, legalistic belief cut-off from the rest of mankind and other Jews. As Armstrong later points out “Philo seemed embarrassed by the historical books of the Bible”(KA69). It was these Greek speaking Diaspora Jews that Paul and his disciples sought. Jews like Philo who were not considered practicing Jews because they did not make the pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. 

Early Christianity was seen by its followers as the Judaism that was intended had not the Priestly caste hijacked the original spirit of the Law. In the centuries ahead as Christianity grew, it would fall back into to same errors made by Priests of the Old Testament. Unlike Judaism, Christianity aimed at a universal audience. To create a broader based theology they turned to the Ancient Greek philosophers, first Plato and his followers and later in 13^th Century to Aristotle. When plagues hit cities the Christians stayed to care for the sick, they took in widows and cared for orphans, they practiced what the prophets like Amos, and Isaiah had preached “ Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan and plead for the widow” (KA44). The theology of Christianity, the concept that Jesus’ sacrificial death had rejoined humankind to God, closed the divide between Man and God but led to problematic philosophical issues. The most contentious was the doctrine of the Trinity formulated at the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century. Armstrong’s account leading up to this is muddled; she says Paul had a dim view of Greek rationalism calling it foolishness (KA86). The quote from his letter is “the Jews look for signs, the Greeks looks wisdom we look for foolishness”. Further she states “Paul never called Jesus God” (KA83) but then quotes from Paul letter to the Philippians “who subsisting in the form of God did not cling to his equality with God” (KA88). Armstrong is a former nun and an apostate, in most of her writings a reflection of the bitterness felt by the loss of her faith is very evident.  

The doctrine of the Trinity comes out of the beginning of John’s gospel “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The formulation of the Trinity, as Augustine and other accepted came out of the Platonic concept of emanations. “God had a single essence which remained incomprehensible to us, but three expressions” (KA115). The Trinity is a mystical or spiritual experience. This doctrine scandalized the Jews, confused many and was in part responsible for the creation of the third monotheistic religion Islam.

 The Arabs as traders could not fail to notice there were new concepts of God coming from India via Iran, from Jews living in the Orient and from the Christian Byzantine empires. In 600 CE they were still practicing the pagan beliefs long abandoned by other cultures; they had no tradition of prophets like the Jews and Christians or religious teachers like Buddha. In 610 that changed when a Bedouin merchant from Mecca, Muhammad had a visit from the Angel Gabriel. Thus began first in an oral tradition of spoken Arabic and then written down by Syriac Christians centuries later what became known as the Koran, the literal word of God, the word of Al-lah. The Koran returns to a Semitic idea of Unity, but with the Universal outlook of Christianity. Al-Lah like Yahweh is the uncaused cause of all being, divided from human kind from which he demands submission, like the Torah, the Koran set out laws of behavior and ritual that must be followed. But the Koran, does pay homage to its antecedents, the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus, Mary his mother, above all it ties all three faiths to Abraham. The promise made to Abraham that his descendents would be more numerous than the sands of the shore had come to pass. 

 For all the violence and repression experienced through these different monotheistic faiths, they have in their different ways been the bases for progress throughout the world. The emphasis on compassion, caring for sick and the less fortunate has been a constant if not always followed belief. They have given hope in times of despair, they have inspired great music, writing and art.

Mystics

All major religious faiths have come at one point or another to the conclusion that God is beyond our capacity for reason. This insight does not eliminate God, instead it suggests a different path, one Armstrong spends the greater part of her book examining and endorsing. That path is mysticism, experiencing the Unseen Presence in an emotional, intuitive manner. Maybe she is right. The modern world with its conflicting religions all claiming the truth cannot accommodate all these different doctrinal disputes. The histories of the three great monotheistic religions are one of great progress, but also one of war, torture, oppression and violence. God plays such an important role in the lives of billions of people; any attempt to enforce doctrinal orthodoxy will be met by violent resistance. In the West the spiritual bankruptcy of materialism, the role of religion in wars, the progress of science to undermine the myths of the Bible has left people looking for an alternative. Many have turned to the Eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Hinduism is a belief developed over the millenniums to cope with the wonders and terrors of existence. By the eighth century BCE the pagan gods of the early Vedas had been replaced by the religious teacher. They taught that there was an underlying unity to the world, all subsumed by a force they called Brahman. Brahman does not speak to mankind; instead it is an ultimate self inside everyone (KA30). The main problem identified by Hinduism is that we do not know who our true selves really are; we are caricatures in finite personalities. This results in the human experience being fragmented, isolated and alienated. The obstacle to reaching a higher realization of ultimate knowledge is called Maya. One can reach this true reality of pure consciousness by contemplation, self discipline and meditation. This in turn will lead to good actions creating good karma in a cyclic process of reincarnation until the individual is joined to Brahman and is no longer reborn. These religious beliefs were refined by Siddhartha Gautama, known as Buddha. His concern was with suffering and pain, dukkha, this could be relieved by compassion for all living being, speaking and behaving gently and refraining from anything that clouds the mind. (KA32).

 In a world of constant change good things do not last creating anxiety, insecurity and uncertainty, adopting the meditation practices and attitudes allows one to reach Nirvana, a state of unchanging peace. There is no God who issues orders, what happens is part of the fabric of existence determined by previous lives. Both religions are open to the charge of fatalism, but the techniques for personal change and contentment are also techniques adopted by the monotheistic religions. These mystical approaches are experienced in the Jewish tradition by Kabbalah, in Islam by sects like the Sufis and in the Eastern Orthodox and Western tradition by monasticism. What they have in common is the belief that discovering God or the Ultimate reality is an emotional experience involving the imagination, that the answer to the questions of God may not be within our reach.

Summary

There is crisis in modernity; scientific advances have obliterated the myths that have sustained mankind from falling into despair or nihilism. The God of the monotheistic traditions and the Unseen Reality of the East have in their different ways allowed mankind to create civilizations, communities, to survive. Frederick Nietzsche the great German philosopher predicted the terrible task mankind faced by “the Death of God”. His proposal for a race of Supermen inspired Nazi doctrine, writers like Ayn Rand in whose books libertarian selfishness is praised, as well as science has added its stamp of approval thorough Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. We live in a time when the values of compassion, selflessness and kindness are under the threat of militaristic, materialistic secular barbarianism with the capacity for industrial scale killing. If ever there was a need for God, the need is now.

Bibliography

1 Davies, Paul. “The Mind of God”. Simon and Schuster 1993 p.21

2 Friedman, Richard. “Who Wrote The Bible” Harper 1987 
3 Finkelstein, Israel. Silberman, Neil Asher. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. Free Press 2002 
4 Matt 11:30

At The Close Of The Day

On April 1^st, my mother celebrated her 93^rd birthday. She was born in 1918 during World War 1, lived through the Great Depression, and was a nurse in London during World War 2. In the 1950’s she became an avid fan of Elvis Presley, then in the 1960’s The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Above all she loved watching boxing; her favorite boxer was Floyd Patterson. She lived through the sexual revolution, she watched Man land on the Moon, has traveled through Europe, and the US. Every day she reads her Horoscope; she believes in spirits. White flowers are banned in her house because a gift of white flowers was given a few hours before a telephone call that informed her that her father had died. She was convinced he would have lived if she had not brought those flowers into the house. For as long as I can remember, she loved gambling small sums on horses. On a visit to Santa Anita racetrack in California, she won $150 on a 5 dollar bet. Her secret to success was finding names of horses that relate something in her life; she would bet on a horse called March Surprise because March was when my sister was born. Money never really meant much to her, she seemed to get the greatest joy in giving it away. Every charity that had a photo of some unfortunate, she subscribed to, telling me “You were born with nothing, you will leave this earth with nothing”.

My mother was the second youngest of six children born on a farm in Ireland. All her siblings are now dead, as are all her friends. In of itself that is something of a miracle. She was hospitalized in 1930s for pneumonia and nearly died, and again at 80 when she was thrown across a bus that stopped unexpectedly. She broke her hip losing half the blood in her body. The doctors were mystified by how she managed to survive. When she returned for a check up, they were surprised as her vital signs were strong, even though she has smoked cigarettes since age 18. My mother is something of a medical marvel at the local hospital.

My Dad and Mom were married in 1949, they stayed together 52 years. Dad died at home, sitting on the couch while my Mom was making him a cup of tea on September 10, 2001. It is a date I cannot forget, as the following day was the infamous 911. With Dad’s death, it seemed the world changed and an era ended.

Now ten years later, another era is ending. When I visited my Mother in January, she was moving from our home into an apartment. The stairs in our home were becoming too much for her. She also was entering the early phases of Dementia. I spent a week with her, and in that time she ghosted in and out of reality. She heard voices of people apparently next door talking about her, then would tell me that “she needed to go to the market to get something for your Dad’s dinner, he will be home soon”. Gently I told her “Mom, he died ten years ago”, she looked at me and said “Then why didn’t anyone tell me”. I had to remind her we both buried him in Ireland, then she asked about her brother, “he’s dead too”, and Molly “she died too”, “she didn’t oh my God they are all dying”” she would say. Mom, I said slowly “Molly, John and Michael all died in 1996”, and she would look at me puzzled “Then who is running the farm at home” she asked. I had to tell her that a neighbor had convinced one of her brothers to take sole title and sign it over to him. We had lost it. “My father would be furious, if he knew that, there would be hell to pay”. “So there is no-one left, I’m the last one” she would say. “Yes Mom you outlived all of them.” This scenario would be repeated over and over with minor variations and voices speaking to her through the walls.

During the day, the daughters and grand daughters of her long dead friends visit. They all love her, love her because she is a character, but also because she is the last link to a now long dead close relative. There is admiration in old age; she has lived in the same neighborhood for over 40 years, and everyone knows her by sight. In their eyes she is living proof that old age doesn’t have to be dreaded, but recently, they too have seen the cracks in her sanity appear. One neighbor found her looking confused and lost, another was told she had just returned from an imaginary holiday in Spain. They now keep an eye on her making sure she gets home safely.

Watching a parent slowly lose their grip on reality is an emotionally devastating experience. They have been the pillar you could always lean on, and now that pillar was crumbling. But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. On the second day of my visit, I decided to call a cab and go for ride around town. First, we got her hair done, then we went to a restaurant to eat. She often forgets to eat, and seeing her clean a plate of vegetables, roast beef, and potatoes not only seemed to make her more alert, but I could see she was enjoying the moment. There we were talking about life, the newspaper gossip, and laughing. She was present in reality enjoying the moment with her son. Whether she would remember it a few hours later did not matter. I was grasping, holding on to the Mother I knew and loved, to moments that we had shared a thousand times before, but now were soon to end. We read our Horoscopes, bought the Racing Form and had a flutter on the horses. We walked around town looking in shop windows, and bought some food at market. I called a cab when she got tired and we went back to her place. Not long after, she lay down and fell asleep. It was then that a great sadness welled up, mixed with gratitude. I had been given an encore performance of the one woman play that was my Mother. I didn’t know how many encore performances I would be allowed. We spent the next five days doing the simple things we had always done: buying bread at the bakery, reading the newspaper, betting on horses, living in the moment, knowing that each was a gift and that anytime soon these simple pleasures would pass.

What it means to be a father

Life consists of roles, there is man as the worker, what one does for a living, there is the free time hobbyist; gardening, surfing, swimming, cooking, working in the garage whatever gives personal satisfaction, there is the lover and then there is fatherhood. Unlike the other roles this is one that is adopted without any clear picture of how to perform it. Fatherhood is about guidance, it is about training the young, preparing then for the world, it is also about being a role model, but it cannot be organized, it develops and changes as the children age.
In the early years, Dad is more a play friend, he builds Legos, throws balls, answers questions, he is there, but unlike a Mother, his role to a young child is a bit obscure. As the child grows he learns that Dad does things he makes money, takes care of things, and slowly boys realize they want to be like the big guy. In my oldest son I see reflections of myself, he is outgoing, willing to take risks, can be aloof, has a short fuse with little things that annoy, he has charm, girls like him, he also has size 11 and half shoes which can be a joy or a terror depending on who the love of his life is. I have realized for years that my respect, my caring for him is the most important thing in his life. When problems with the world arise, it is to Dad he goes for advice. This reflection on fatherhood created a dilemma for a friend and her 3 boys. One was mine the other two were someone elses. He was their father and that special father son, me and mini me relationship created a problem. One of the things I have noted over the years and one of the reasons my son respects me is that his friends thinks his Dad is cool, he knows about things, eclectic music groups like Joy Division, the forerunner of Nivana and many other alternative rock groups, he not only knows them he has their original 7 inch singles, he reads comic books, likes action movies, plays soccer and he used to surf. This Dad travels a lot, he dresses casually, he comes from a different country, he is a little odd, and he finds it easy to talk and have conversations with them, he is easy going, knows what going on but doesn't let on. In other words he is the Dad they wished they had. With my girls a similar liking happens in their friends, it is tied around my accent, and how unlike I am other Dads, a sort of silliness and aloofness that appeals to their friends, but makes them like me, and tell my girls he is neat, cool whatever. I know because my girls tell me.
With my friend's boys I saw myself slipping into this situation, one lined with problems. One of the main roles of Dad is to explain to their son's the world, why were swords so big in the old days, why they worn chain mail, why this war started. This Dad also has the benefit of knowing what happens in the world in a very real way, why did the financial markets collapse, why did Congress give all that money to those bankers, why do we want to go to war with Iran. Some of these will produce real conflict with the views and attitudes their real Dad. I have a respect for Alternative Medicine, but as a trained scientist I also have immense respect for Modern Medicine, I believe in vaccination, medicines to help cure diseases, alternative medicine for me is a frame of mind, a reference to where drugs came from, before they were tested for 7-10 years. Nature is wonderful but flawed. Bedouins ate camel dung for stomach upsets, it works, but Pepto Bismol works well too and has a better after taste. The crisis for me was if I continued down this path with my friend's boys, their real father would lose his sons. I love their mother very much and always will, I have told that to them many times, and they want to be loved too. So the choice was to keep going and become their Dad or step back be a bore, be a guy no-one special who comes to see their Mom. If I were to lose my son to another man, it would be very hurtful, it would create deep resentment, friction. A son represents a man's dreams to try live their life in a more fulfilling or richer way, to not make the same mistakes, I couldn't deny that to the father of my friend's boys, even though I knew what she wanted was for me to be their father. I'm sorry it was not meant to hurt but a matter of respect and boundaries..

Critique of the Compulsive Need To Regulate

In the summer of 2008, the financial markets collapsed. Shortly after we learned that the former President of Nasdaq Bernie Madoff had been running a ponzi scheme, bilking millions out of investors, this was followed by news of poisonous substances being introduced in Chinese baby formula. What is common to all these cases is a lack of oversight and regulation. Max Border in his video was critical that his bbq sauce was not allowed to be sold. He never told us what he puts in it, but lets say he grates a cashew nut, or he adds some MSG, then sells it because the regulations have all been removed. Later that night barely able to breath children are in the emergency ward. Max forgot that some people are allergic to nuts, to MSG, but there were no regulations requiring him to label what the ingredients were and Max had his money, the children parents had the grief and worry. The reason for regulations is to remind parties that their interests, in Max's case to make money involve consideration of other people interests, in this case allergies. As companies become bigger and more powerful the need for regulation should grow commensurate with it. Had the regulations not been stripped away by the Clinton administration under lobbying from Wall Street, had the SEC enforced their own regulations instead of turning a blind eye to the President of Nasdaq neither would have occured. Both are failures to regulate power.
The framers of the Constitution understood this, the Bill of Rights was designed as a way to regulate the power of the Federal government, the wording tells the Government what it cannot do. So why should not the citizens of the US be protected from the awesome power of corporate greed and vested interests. Why should their not be regulation?

Max views the burden of regulation as a form of tax, his argument reminds me of my son asking why he had to do homework at school. Just like homework, regulations are a form of discipline, you do homework, like you observe regulations, because they are part of good work practise. A good company is not one that just makes money, after all drug dealers make money, so do sex traffickers, so do people winning the lottery. A good company is one that improves the community and society in general. When a company moves to a location it gains certain benefits, there are roads, places to park, their employees have schools they can send their children to for free, there are parks to relax in and much more, all made available to the company. They are in a sense a guest, and as a guest they have to respect the wishes of their hosts. I lived in Cross River, New York, there was a regulation that business signs could be no more than 12 inches high and of a certain type. The town council in discussion with the community agreed on the low stated appeal of the signs, it went with the general feel of the town. I approved too, I also approved of the regulation on not building near the watershed, the Croton Falls Reservoir fed New York City, because of those regulations New York does not have to treat its water.
When I examine the arguments put forward by Max, they come down to the only thing that matters is making money. We all saw in 2008 where that argument leads.

A Brave New World

There was a story in the Times of London the other day about three innocent men wantonly killed by drunk Russian soldiers in Chechnya. The soldier leading the summary executions was drunkenly shouting he was getting revenge for a brother of his killed. It was a barbaric story, but not an unreasonable one. This is what the cycle of violence leads to, the aftermath of Islamic terrorism at the Moscow Theater and the deadly attack on the school. When certain elements within the Muslim 'resistance', sink so low as to kill children in a classroom, it is assumed that they are sub-human. The result is that the silent majority who did not stand up to the extremists end up getting tarred by them for implicitly supporting them, and are treated as subhuman too. The Russians are nasty anyway, but a drunk, Russian with a dead brother having spent years fighting those that would kill children in a classroom? It is easy to see how it happened.
This raises a question why are the devout followers of Mohammed not outraged by the barbaric acts of their extremists. Where are the peaceful marches we see in West, like those against the Vietnam War or even the protests against Iraq War in Europe. The Irish marched against the IRA where are the marches against Al Qaeda? There are none. Can it be that the devout followers are without any sense of shame,or feelings of right or wrong ,or is it deep down they feel sympathy with them. Lets call it, the romance of the Arab bandit..

If Islamic terrorism continues, the Americans, the Russians and the Chinese will at some future date join together and the result will be a genocide of catastrophic proportions. Either the Muslims act and rein in the wildmen or the Great Powers will. It is too important for the world economies to have these loonies running around. The worlds population is increasing and resources shrinking, it will become imperative in the decades ahead that these diminishing resources are utilized in the most efficient manner. If you look at the areas of the world where oil is; the Middle East, Afghanistan, Ubekistan, Indonesia etc all these areas have high Muslim populations. If Islam does not shape up, find a way to integrate with modern culture, it will be forced to by outsiders. China will assume control of Indonesia, it has it eyes on Iran, Afghanistan will be divided up by the Russians and Americans, and the Middle East between the three. India will reabsorb Pakistan and the same fate will befall Africa. The technocrats will run it because it is a question of survival for the human race, it is a question of feeding people or letting them starve. Fertilizers require petrochemicals, trucks delivering food require gasoline, homes need heating, businesses need power.

In a sense the War in Iraq, the recent Aid to Africa are part of the same picture. The kleptocrats in Africa have been told clean up your act or we will clean it up for you, the Arabs are being told get with the program, we live in a Global Economy and thinking the days of Saladin are coming back and you can ride around on white stallions in the desert trying to relive a past glory, those days are past. There are 8 billion soon to be 11 billion mouths to feed and if you are not with the program you are out. And it will not be conventional weapons and a few hundred thousand American troops, next time it will be a few nuclear missiles in Damascus or Tehran and the argument is over.

The period we are in right now is the breathing space, the time these disfunctional countries and cultures have to get their act together so the technocrats from around the world can work in these countries without getting blown up, kidnapped or persecuted. If the hoped for Islam Reformation fails to materialize, then, the extreme measures in the service of the greatest good to the greatest number will be necessary.

Not in my life time but maybe in my childrens the day may come when Arabic is banned as subversive.
The technocrats and materialists will do what the Americans did to the Native Americans. The Indian children were sent to English only boarding schools and their culture crushed. Chinese, Russian and English will become the lingua francas. These countries can and will do it because all the weapons in the world are made by them or their allies in Europe. They hold all the cards. It requires only an agreement on who controls what spheres of influence.

If an Islamic Enlightenment can happen the world would be a more peaceful, prosperous place, if it doesn't then the materialistic cultures will reduce it to ashes. The question is can Islamic societies adopt to modernity?

Muslims are caught in a timewarp, they have not evolved in a historical or cultural sense, and if you do not evolve you will go extinct. The barbarians tribes overran the West in the 5th century, in less than a thousand years, the descendants of those barbarians were sailing around the world, had invented printing, abolished serfdom, resurrected the ancient learning of the past, laid the foundation for common law, created hospitals and universities. All this without thousands of years of civilization behind them. In 1258 a similar fate befell the Muslim world, the Mongol overran Baghdad murdering the entire population. Since then, it is as if time has stood still, you can blame the Turks, the Brits, the French, but the reality is the Arabs didn't do anything to indicate they were interested in advancing or changing their lot. India threw out the British. It now has the fastest growing middle class in the world (despite aligning itself with the Soviet Union for 50 years), meanwhile Pakistan (after 50 years of western assistance) is a basket case. The Silicon Valley of India is centered in Hyderbad, where is the Pakistan equivalent? There is none. India is a materialistic, mostly Hindu country, Pakistan is a Muslim country, both got their independence at the same time.
The difference is the social and cultural impact of Islam. For all the talk of the great Islamic Empire, the fact remains, they inherited a lot to start with; the Greeks, the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman Empires, to name a few, thousands of years of civilizations and learning. Somehow Islam managed in a 1000 years to drive it into the ground. The "glory" of the Islamic Empire seems merely like the after glow of all these earlier civilizations.
Imagine barbarians overrunning America then claiming they were a great civilization, just look at those computers, look at the medicine, look at these roads and buildings. The reality is much more prosaic, they got lucky, a bunch of camel jockeys that did not exploit the great intellectual treasures they won in battle, but appealed to the native geniuses of the people they overran, for a few years it burnt bright, then stagnation and decay set in. Why was there no printing press invented in the Muslim world, why were there no cannons and sophisticated firearms, why did their shipping, agriculture not advance the way they did in the West. How did barbarians succeed with so little, and in much harsher climates and they fail with so much.

TE Lawrence's "The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom" details the true picture of who these people were and what Islamic society is really about. Its not pretty. The Arab tribes attack a train, all they want is the loot, when they get it, they fight over it, then return to their homes, they betray each other, steal money intended for campaigns, then go make deals with the Turks, the enemy they are supposed to be trying to overthrow. The picture of the devout Muslim Arab is one of short sightedness, greed, selfishness, dishonesty, deceitfulness and a remarkably lack of imagination and common sense. The fact Lawrence admired them and felt that he was ethically challenged for leading them to believe that they would get their independence, says more about the strength of western ethics. Those questions would never enter into the heads of the tribes fighting alongside him.

It is very hard to be charitable to these people. Like Africa now, the well of sympathy has run dry. A trillion dollars of aid in 25 years spent in Africa and the place is a disaster. They throw out the industrious Indians, take over their successful stores. The whole family moves in and less than a year later it is a burnt out shell, children on the street with the swollen bellies and the flies begging and stealing money. In the case of the Middle East the situation is even worse. The people of the region inherited the great civilizations of the world and by 2001 according to Bernard Lewis, the total GNP of 22 Arab counties excluding oil is less than that of Finland. Is that laziness, lack of initiative, or is it Islam, a religion that has destroyed their ability to be creative, imaginative.

The parable of the talents in the Gospels tells how the master gave 10, 5 and one to three servants. In the story the servant given just one buried it, when the master came home he took away the one talent, gave it to the others and threw out the lazy servant. What would the master have done if the servant that was given ten talents buried his and the one with only one doubled his?
The Roar of Silence believes he would have taken the ten given it to the other servants and thrown him in Gehenna, where there was crying and gnashing of teeth. That is the lesson of the coming New Order.

In the stillness

How long has it been since you took time to stop moving, going, hurrying. When were you last just still. I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to ride my motorcycle through Connecticut and New York, north of the city where the leaves with vibrant colors, fall gently on a glorious fall day. I had to stop pull over and marvel. Where was I going in such a hurry that I could not spend a while in awe and stillness.
Sitting on a wall with the odd car or bike passing, I reflected on the countless generations that had nothing but time on their hands, hours to watch nature unfold its stunning magnificent show, what we call Fall.
In that Roar of Silence I saw one more thing that had fallen to the crisis of modernity.

From nowhere to eternity 

Blue Heaven 

Arctic evening 

View From The End of The World

View From The End Of The World

‘One of the things we forgot is that Katrina is a terrorist’, Walter Maestri, Emergency Manager For Jefferson Parish was looking around at a deserted French Quarter in New Orleans. The French Quarter was one of the few lucky areas of the city to avoid the catastrophic floods that have turned New Orleans into a foul smelling ghost town. Walter has been a fixture on National Television over the last three weeks. For years he begged and badgered anyone who would listen about the flood risk from a Hurricane. No did, now they can’t get enough of his homespun wisdom. For Walter, the events of August 29th is Louisiana’s 911. A terrorist attack known about and ignored, but this time it was not Islamic radicals, but one of Nature’s terrorist, the Atlantic Hurricane. Unlike the Middle East version, this terrorist was no sleeper cell. In the days prior to Katrina’s attack, NASA, NOAA and an alphabet soup of organizations and experts had followed the whereabouts of the coming storm. Katrina’s every move, her every mood change was charted, measured analyzed. By August 28th, they all sensed the worst about to happen. New Orleans’s last hope was her coastal defenses, the hundreds of thousands of square acres of marshland.
Those marshlands quelled and diverted storms for 200 years. They were the ramparts holding out against the furies of elements. Over the previous 70 years, 2000 square miles of marsh grasses had vanished. For an array reasons from changes to the Mississippi River, that starved the bayous of silt and sedimentation, to oil drilling in the Gulf, the marshes and wetlands were in poor shape. On August 29, the ramparts fell. In a real sense those wetland were a sacred battleground, like Gettysburg, Verdun, Normandy, places where the course of history was changed.
The following morning I was invited by the Louisiana State Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to tour the bayous. Except for a few National Guard troops, no one had gone down to see the place where the Battle of New Orleans was lost. Our destination was Delacroix, a commercial fishing village. The town has one claim to fame, a mention in a Bob Dylan song, but for the most part it is off the beaten track to all but the most avid crabbers. Getting there was a challenge, traveling to and through New Orleans was difficult enough, what roads are not under water are manned by National Guard troops. For security reasons and some not stated reasons, these roadblocks move, so at any given time on any given day no-one can tell you how to get anywhere. I was lucky to be linked up with three of the Department’s most knowledgeable specialists, Noel who seemed to know the hide out of every alligator in the swamps, Harry, the department manager with a telepathic connection to the fish populations and to where illegal fishing nets were strung and Heather a specialist in rare Bayou birds. What they did not know about the wetlands wasn’t probably worth knowing. It certainly helped that they knew the roads. Once past New Orleans and through the small towns of Reggio and Violet the landscape changed. Road signs vanished. The open grasslands were brown and turning black, destroyed by the surging seawaters. In the air hung the smell of decay, not the reek of sewers like that in New Orleans; this decay had the pleasant smell of late fall. The further we drove into the bayous the roads narrowed, to thin ribbons now heavily eroded with dark pools of water, and the occasional sickly yellow pond. The trees were stripped of leaves, many had been blown down, and one brought us to a dead stop. On the other side of the tree the road had been destroyed, a bright yellow torrent of water with a sulphurous smell was cascading into a lagoon. By the side of the road was a dead horse, trapped by the storm waters just yards from its stall. Everywhere the signs of destruction, trees stripped of their leaves, the earth covered in sticky black goo. I knew that I was entering the battlefield.
A short detour brought us to Delacroix, there was not building standing, just the skeletons to mark the spot. There were clumps of dead marsh grasses everywhere, on the remnants of buildings, in the branches of trees, and dangling off telephone poles. The End of The World Marina was just a shell; festooned with so much marsh grass it gave the appearance of an ancient ruin just uncovered by archeologists. Making the view from the End of The World truly remarkable was the Battlefield debris, boats lodged in trees, sticking out of the fetid marsh water, and jammed at strange angles into the skeletons of buildings. Along the road were the carcasses of wildlife; an armadillo squashed on the pavement, dead crabs and snakes baking in the sun. Next to the End of The World was the rubble of a new home, utterly destroyed except for a wet bar standing unscathed with a full compliment of hard liquor! In the bayou, by what was once a boat landing there was an overturned partially submerged Chevy panel van that had been hurled into the water. Across the road was the Roser home. I knew that because the mailbox was still standing in front of the ruin of what was their home. In their neighbor’s yard between the shattered cedar trees, with plastic ducks hanging from their branches was a Hackberry tree in full bloom. That there are trees that like hurricane winds of 160 miles per hour was something of a revelation. Out on the water, what remained of the marsh grass was broken up, some turning from brown to black. I asked Noel if there was any chance it could recover, he thought for a while, it depends, he said slowly, whether the silts and sediments can be replenished. I asked if that was likely. He told me it would be expensive, the oil companies wouldn’t like it, as it would effect the waterways used to carry their cargoes and the shrimp fishermen would not like it because it would kill their farms, and it would mean reconfiguring the Mississippi River. So, I asked what if they don’t. Well, he said, there is not much point to rebuilding New Orleans. And the thought struck me, then the Battle of New Orleans would be truly lost