Monthly Archives: June 2013

Jesus

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Jesus was a real person. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Israel during a census where people returned to the city of their birth to be counted. Though born in Bethlehem, Jesus’ father Joseph lived in Nazareth, about sixty miles north in the Province of Galilee. The accounts of Jesus’ birth are documented in Matthew (1:18) and Luke (2:1). The birth is more romantic in Matthew while Luke sets more of an historical tone. Still, it is clear that something special has happened with the birth of Jesus and Jesus will indeed become famous in his lifetime and within one hundred years will have shown the world the path to a loving, caring God.

He was greatly enlightened for his time and had powerful charisma. He spoke of a new loving God and became an influential rabbi throughout Galilee, a province in northern Israel. Some authors divide the ministry of Jesus into three categories: the early period, which includes his birth and many special trips to be baptized, to be tempted by Satan and to throw out the money changers in Jerusalem; the Galilean ministry, a period when his travels were exclusively within the Province of Galilee; the later period, when Jesus traveled over all of Israel until the time of his crucifixion. Because he lived during a period when the Jewish Old Testament was the law and history of Israel, he had to perform many acts of healing, preaching, and eventually, if he were to be the (Jewish) Messiah, travel triumphantly into Jerusalem. He arrived in Jerusalem simply but the crowds were large and cheering.

The issue of being the Messiah is the likely reason that the Old Testament and the New Testament are joined in the Bible. Early Jewish followers and writers wanted Jesus to be recognized as Messiah, a specially anointed person and the Savior of Israel. These writers penned as many validations as possible to “prove” that, in terms of the Old Testament law describing the coming Messiah, Jesus qualified as that Messiah. What the earliest writers did not know was that in just a few years, Gentiles would become the larger group of followers who kept the idea that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. Consequently, there is a period after Jesus’ death where converted Jews and Gentiles integrated the two interpretations of the term Messiah, forever bonding the Old Testament to the New Testament. Finally, later writers began to describe the Sanctity of Jesus in his own right as the Son of God, the Christ, sent to earth to forgive the world of its sins, not just the salvation of Israel.

Jesus indeed was the Son of a new God. Jesus was God on earth. The life and teachings of Jesus are so phenomenal even today that his faith, his sacrifice and love for others, his giving of his life on the cross at Calvary have created a new world order not bound by fear, self interest and greed. There is a new order, closer to God, closer to a common love between all people, a new order that allows us to respond to the never-ending love of a God we would not have known without Jesus.

Where Does the Money Go?

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The mariner has pondered how real cash dollars disappear during a downturn of the economy. There is no cash to buy things that are bought easily in better times. What happened to all the dollars that were around during good times? As he read about dollars, he learned that there are many different kinds of money – which makes it difficult to ask such a simple question as “Where is the money?”

The oldest money is commodity money – trading two pigs for a horse and a wife. There are no dollars in commodity money – only the relative value of a pig versus a horse, a little clamshell for a bigger clamshell, and a variation where labor is considered a commodity – I’ll shovel your snow if you give me a turkey. This kind of money worked fine except that it is hard to carry pigs, horses and turkeys in your pocket.

It wasn’t long before the first “banker” went into business by warranting, for a fee, that you did indeed have a horse that can be exchanged for a wife and conversely, there was indeed a father trying to marry off a daughter. This was easier because people didn’t have to carry all these commodities around; just show a note to the other party that the banker has warranted that a horse is available and vice versa. Is this note a kind of dollar?

What happens to the note if the horse is not available?  Oddly, the banker’s note still exists but the horse doesn’t. The note still says you have a horse. In 2008 this note was called a derivative. So many people had derivatives that did not actually have horses that the whole process came to a standstill. Actually, the horses were supposed to be in people’s homes. They had a warranty from the mortgage company that said they had horses, but they had no horses. The bankers were shrewd. They took out insurance in case there were no horses. So the bankers made tons of money replacing nonexistent horses.

There still are commodity dollars around today. In fact, there’s something called a commodity exchange where people gamble about how much a commodity, like coffee or corn, will be worth next year. The most commonly known commodities are gold and silver except that the value of the dollars in our pockets has nothing to do with gold and silver unless you want the gold, then you need to give away some dollars. Do the dollars you give for the gold mean that you are warranted to have enough horses to match the price of the gold? Only if they are real dollars. They are real only because the Federal Government’s Central Bank warranted your horses.

Forget commodities. Dollars are not based on commodities anymore. Today there is a theory that money isn’t real. “Money” is your worth to a credit company or a bank. For example, if you bought a soft drink for a dollar with your credit card or a check, or “real money,” there was no money spent or earned. Instead, your warranty dropped in value and the seller’s warranty went up in value. Value is the new word for money. There are no real dollars; if you have paper dollars, they have no value except on a ledger sheet where you received your paycheck, your bank, or your credit card. Just like the barter days, you don’t have to carry around a lot of dollars to demonstrate warranty, you just need the bookkeeper’s credit card – the universal warranty.

The theory goes that the more value in play from buyer to seller to buyer, etc., the more value can be created – not dollars but value. Using this “circuitous” redistribution of value – or credit – value can be created without commodities (horses) as long as the circuitousness keeps moving. You add value to the circuit and the circuit creates ten times more as it redistributes your value. In downturns of the economy, the circuit slows down and does not create as much new value. If you have spent more value than you contributed, then you have to go looking for horses to pay off your debt to the circuit.

You may not have followed this account well, but the answer to the question “where does the money go?” is that it isn’t created when the circuit slows down. The money doesn’t exist in the first place.

Ancient Mariner

How to Restore a Balanced and Fair Economy

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Over several posts, the mariner has described how dangerous the imbalance of wealth has become because of little or no participation in the growth of profits by middle and lower class workers.

What changes will correct this situation?

One- Elect democrats. The mariner is neither a democrat nor a republican but unity of principle is required. Elect them at all levels of government. There are two reasons for using the Democratic Party: As a rule, democrats are not hoarders by nature. Even the wealthier democrats are sensitive to the state of affairs and believe in doing something about unfairness in the society; conversely, most republicans are hoarders of money and believe if the rich have enough cash, eventually some will trickle down to those other people. This belief is what is causing the imbalance of the economic society today.

The second reason is that the entire government, all the legislatures, all the governors and mayors, all the judges and the President must be in unity to create a change to the economic culture – a moment of chaos, as I have used the word in other posts.

Two- Reestablish the Banking Act of 1933, which in essence separated commercial banks from investment banks and imposed regulations on activities banks could pursue.

Three- Standardize by Federal law all election procedures, including Federal State, and Local elections. Remove abusive, unfair registration requirements that are used to suppress some citizens their right to vote.

Four- Standardize by law that every Commission on Redistricting is occupied by unelected individuals appointed by the highest court applicable, with equal numbers of the two largest parties represented. Include guidelines that deny separated areas for a single district, and populate the districts in reasonable fashion with an attempt to represent the average racial representation.

Five- Standardize by law that any individual campaigning for public office can raise funds only from within the applicable territory covered by the elected position. Make PACS and SUPER PACS illegal.

Six- Create term limits for public office. The primary reason for this change is not to turn over the elected quickly enough to prevent a lifetime in office but to have legislators who are of an age that understand the current culture. The mariner thinks more in terms of an upper age limit than a given number of terms.

Seven- Overthrow the Supreme Court’s opinion that money can vote.

Eight- Pass legislation that tightens significantly and increases the penalty for elected officials who receive gifts of any nature, whether based on assets, post term favors, or by which the elected official may gain personal advantage.

Nine- Eliminate all right to work laws and permit only union or employee owned business practices. Taxable income for stock and bond investments is taxed at graduated levels as investment income increases.

Ten- Reestablish 401k or retirement benefits in every licensed business.

Yes, it is a tall order, especially now that conservative capitalists tightly control the economy. Even one of the ten items will make a difference; two would make a significant difference. The citizenry should tackle them one at a time. The more items that are achieved, the easier and faster the next item can be achieved.

In case anyone wants to call these ten items socialism or communism, he or she is mistaken. The capitalist system is retained but shares its profits more equitably.

Ancient Mariner

It is Bigger than Medicaid and Social Security

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One talks about the Social Security going broke, Medicare and Medicaid are too expensive, Union after union is lost through preplanned bankruptcies. Student aid programs, both public school and college loans were never adequate and are continually reduced in budgets.

The retirement class will rise 12 percent by 2025. A significant number of factory workers remain unemployed or earning a pittance of their factory job. Computerization/Internet will remove another group of people from the workforce.

Armageddon is near

Easing the basic need of the workforce, poor and students is a huge issue. Easing workers who ever more rapidly lose their jobs to technology and global economy have no place to reposition themselves in the world of work. The masses no longer participate in capitalist growth.

If salaries remained comparable to the wages fifty years ago and pension plans remained untouchable, as they were before Reagan, and right-to-work laws had not weakened unions, it would be possible to be laid off in one’s fifties and still have a decent financial position. That second job would make a comfortable lifestyle instead of barely keeping enough food on the table.

This juggernaught of cash flowing toward five percent of the population, unfairly lifted from the deserving population in the economy will only increase. That is 18 million individuals out of 317 million citizens. If one prefers the one percent claim, it is 3 million out of 317 million. These differences do not reflect the algebraic curve of wealth as one nears the top; the wealthiest are really, really wealthy compared to the really wealthy below them.

One may agree with the conservatives that the government is too large. This has nothing to do with taxes. Taxes must be raised by incomparable amounts to offset the disappearance of middle and lower class economy. The taxes should be collected by the IRS and flow back to the public in the form of support for the general public. For example, if the Taiwanese government can pay 100% of college tuition, there is no reason the United States cannot do the same. Most developed nations have free or virtually free health care for every citizen. Why can’t the United States do that?

Capitalism has not been kept under control by the Federal Government; it runs rampant and is becoming unbelievably destructive to the general citizenry.

The mariner sees chaos coming.

Ancient Mariner

 

Race, Justice and Democracy

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“AMENDMENT XV

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870.

Section 1.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude–

Section 2.
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

The mariner has read and reread Amendment XV to the Constitution. He does not understand how the Supreme Court arrived at its decision to strike down the core issue of the Voting Rights Act that President Johnson signed in 1965. The Chief Justice claimed the 1972 data was out of date. The Voting Rights Act was renewed by Congress in 2006.

The Chief Justice used census data to show that more blacks than whites voted in the areas covered by the Act and for that reason, the Act had done its job and was no longer needed.

That statistic will not last long.

Racial discrimination still is rampant in the Southern part of the United States. Justice Roberts should have looked at district gerrymandering as a clue. Alabama districts have introduced a new redistricting bill that reduces the number of districts for both black and Hispanic voters.

The United States will have to wait another generation before the whites are outnumbered enough to thwart gerrymandering tactics, particularly by the Hispanics. When immigration legislation makes its way through Congress, more nonvoting Hispanics will become eligible to vote.

The mariner has been to Georgia and Alabama during his days as a consultant. The discrimination is vile and mean. There is no love lost between the races.

White supremacists still run the United States. Not just in the south regarding non-whites but also against the poor and political parties. One person, one vote does not exist in reality. Besides gerrymandering, zoning commissions plan projects that will benefit corporations at the cost of less influential neighborhoods.

Capitalist economics works for the haves at the cost of the have-nots. Where are the statesmen not swayed by money or power? It is no accident that Federal elections have been rigged so only rich people can run for office.

Our governments, all of them, are so broken……

 

Ancient Mariner

 

Architecture and Education

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A popular phrase about structures of any kind is that they reflect the purpose for which they are built. The specific phrase is “form follows function.”

It is easy to tell the difference between a church and a granary. It is more difficult to discern one retail storefront from another but that is because both buildings perform the same function: retail sales. The same is true of factories and school buildings. It is hard to tell the difference. Is our perception of a good learning environment similar to the workstations in a factory?

One could argue that both the factory and the school are built as inexpensively as possible therefore they appear similar. The factory gains profit; the school gains nothing unless the school philosophy is to produce factory workers.

That architecture reflects the philosophy of operation within the structure cannot be denied. Many art museum buildings are an art form in themselves; many libraries reflect the classical look of history; many Christian churches have a cross-shaped nave and chancel. Why must schools look like factories?

Despite the factory exterior, many schools are reorganizing student space within the building, especially elementary schools. Rooms are larger and encourage movement and dialogue with other students instead of sitting in desks all in a row and remaining quiet. Many elementary schools encourage free access to the library and computers to encourage intellectual stimulation. Many elementary schools have programs that take the students out of the building altogether to teach firsthand the topic to be studied. Team building and task sharing are an integral part of the lesson plan.

Slowly, this philosophy is percolating up through middle school and high school. The issue is that teaching in a creative environment is more expensive. Children learn much more rapidly when they have the teacher’s individual attention. This means classes must be smaller – requiring more teachers per student, more teacher aides, more square feet of space per child, more expensive materials to promote creative learning, and not a small issue, much more involvement by parents. Because the cost is tied to property taxes, sufficient funding for schools has been denied from the beginning. Property taxes are not a flexible source; they rise slowly and often are subject to local referendum as well, neither of which reflects a desire to fund schools properly. State legislatures are renowned for taking the axe to education funding.

Beyond the issue of architecture is raising the professional quality of teachers. Requiring teachers to be better than they are also means raising the salary to a level that will attract teachers with better education, better experience, and have a better aptitude for teaching. Current teachers are threatened with a shortened career and do not want to be reviewed; property owners and legislators do not want to pay for better teachers. When neither side is interested in genuine improvement, it is a steep, steep hill to climb for change.

The United States has slipped to twenty-seventh in education quality among the world’s nations and continues to slip under the existing model. The Federal Government will not consider footing the bill or even part of it. Education quality differs from state to state and from lower economic class to higher economic class.

The mariner often refers to the phenomenon of chaos in society – a moment when the stresses and failures suddenly create a large change in the culture. Education is one of the major contributors to growing stress that will lead to a chaotic event.

Back to architecture, two companies that thrive on team attitude, intelligence, and creativity are Microsoft and Google. True, their architecture is well funded but it sets an example for the education of children in all grades. There is plenty of common space, recreational and intellectual diversions, flexible hours, good food in an airy cafeteria, places for family time, and even babysitting services. The employees are the adults in these firms rather than the children but the policy accommodates family visiting. If public schools want to draw parents into the school, what would be better than a common space where parents would feel welcome and their child could be with them at any time of the day?

Finally, it is time to put down a few sacred cows.

Get rid of summer vacation. Instead, provide plenty of three-day weekends.

Get rid of the Education major in college programs. College students should become experts in a field of knowledge, taking a minor in education. The true test of success is an aptitude test – a dirty word to teachers.

Flip the teaching process. Students learn at home from videos on the Internet sponsored by the school. During school hours, they practice what they learned the night before. Besides making it easier for the student, the parents more easily participate in what their children are learning.

Feed the children healthy menus that they will eat. Exchanging a hamburger for a spinach salad will not work.

Finally, from the mariner’s own experience in schools, provide lots and lots of natural light. One cannot have too much natural light.

Ancient Mariner

 

An Iowa Town

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The mariner first arrived in Iowa in 1964. He had never seen black soil before driving through Illinois, crossing the Mississippi River into Iowa. The first night was spent in Fort Madison, a small city on the river. The next morning, the mariner walked out of the hotel into a scene from a horror movie. The Mayflies had hatched. The air was so full of billions of Mayflies that the Sun was not as bright as it should be.

Mayflies filled the streets level with the sidewalk; shop owners were using coal shovels to clear the sidewalks; they crunched under foot and passing automobiles had a strange sound as the tires crushed the Mayflies. There was no way to avoid the flies tangled in his hair or slipping inside the shirt collar. The Mayflies were in his ears and eyes.

Mayfly

Fortunately, Mayflies are harmless and rise from the river one day a year to mate. In 24 hours they are dead and cover every inch of Fort Madison’s riverfront community. The mariner had never seen Mayflies before, either.

The mariner left Fort Madison to travel to his destination. It is a small town, perhaps 1,000 – 1,200 residents at the time. The very first thing the mariner noticed was the lawns. Every lawn mowed and trimmed all through the town. So obvious was the characteristic that the image remains embedded in the mariner’s memory. Even today, in 2013, homeowners never shirk the duty of cutting the lawn. In the Spring, this means cutting the grass every third day – or fourth, depending on the frequent rainfall. The mariner had never seen such uniformity of lawns. He pondered what this meant about the Iowans who live in this town.

Main Street clearly identified that the town was supported by farming. On Main Street were two farm implement dealers, a Ford dealer, a bank, two restaurants, a hardware store, two grocery stores, a furniture store, four gas stations, a dry goods store, a pharmacy, two barbershops and one church. Farmers came to town on Saturday night, which provided a holiday-like atmosphere. A commuter train ran right through the middle of town. Off Main Street were a mill, three churches, a Chevrolet dealership, another implement dealer, a funeral home, a small motel, a blacksmith shop, an ice cream stand, and a school building that housed all twelve grades.

Clearly, the fifties and sixties were halcyon years. A lot has changed. Today on Main Street there is no implement dealer, no Ford dealer, a different bank, no restaurant except sometimes at the golf course, no hardware store, no grocery store, no furniture store, two gas stations, no dry goods store, no pharmacy, one barbershop, no church, and the train tracks disappeared long ago. Off Main Street, the mill is there, the three churches, a different funeral home, no ice cream stand, no blacksmith, the same small motel that has not changed in over sixty years, and no school.

The majority of townspeople were related through seven major families; everyone truly knew everyone – for multiple generations.

In 1964, the residents were a mix of tradesmen, retired farmers and folks who worked in nearby towns like Fort Madison. Back then, there were few rental homes. Today, absentee ownership is a growing concern. The tone of the town no longer carries an agricultural air; it is a bedroom town, which, if it had a different history, would be called a development. Most residents today have no relationship with farming and while most folks know some folks, no folks know everyone.

The same story is told of hundreds of towns in the Corn Belt. What caused this change? To make a long sociological story short, some major causes are listed below.

Underpriced land in the seventies prompted many farmers to go into debt. Then a few bad crop years forced selloff. This resulted in fewer but larger farms – and fewer farmers who came to town.

Walmart, HyVee and other “box” stores drove the price below what the small town dealers could afford.

The eighties ushered in the giant farm. Where there once were six or eight farm families, now there was only one.

Government subsidies enabled larger farms to purchase smaller farms, driving the population down further.

Improved roads made it easy to go to Fort Madison or two other small cities twenty miles away.

The school was moved out of town. Now there was no childhood allegiance to the town by townsfolk or farmers.

The train disappeared.

Low property values encouraged absentee property owners and working class families. Few retired townsfolk made their living on an outlying farm.

It isn’t over. The churches languish trying to hold on to the old culture and have steadily dropping membership. The Golf Club struggles in a similar fashion. Since the new highway was built around the town, not even truck traffic passes through anymore.

What still remains, almost magically, is the small town culture. It is a culture that is laid back, easy going, and friendly. We townies still cut our grass regularly and do not mind stopping to share a few words. It is a leg up on city life for sure. The mariner would like to move this town to an oceanfront location.

Ancient Mariner

Edward Snowden

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On Sundays, Fareed Zakaria hosts a news show on CNN: Fareed Zakaria, the Global Public Square. GPS is one of the best shows to watch to understand current events without spin or shallow minded pundits. With deliberate intent, Zakaria selects knowledgeable guests representing both sides of an issue, providing intelligent dialogue with no histrionics and seldom do guests talk while other guests are talking.

On Sunday, June 16, GPS addressed the Edward Snowden issue. Snowden worked for the National Security Agency until he went public with the fact that he could listen to any telephone conversation by simply putting in a phone number. He exposed the Prism program with the intent of revealing how the Government is violating citizen protection under the Fourth Amendment.

Former CIA and NSA Chief Michael Hayden represented the status quo opinion about collecting whatever it took to find terrorists, meaning collect everything, and that Snowden was an ignorant person who had committed treason.

Jeffrey Toobin, CNN legal expert, defended the legal system generally as far as it applied to common practices and agreed that Snowden had violated the law.

John Cassidy, a writer for the New Yorker, said the real issue was not Snowden but the entire movement toward the disappearance of privacy. Snowden was an event but not the main concern. Cassidy yielded to the right of private industry to collect whatever they want if disclosed in an agreement (has anyone ever read the multi-page, fine print, legal jargon that constitutes a legal agreement?). Even if this agreement is read, there is no negotiation. Either one agrees or one does not; in the latter case, use of the product is denied. To be connected to the world, we are forced to surrender our identity and our daily life.

In the United States today, the mariner is concerned about the abuse of privacy, increasing loss of freedom to live an uncompromised life, and lack of economic morality. The common citizen is under assault from a government more incompetent than uncaring, profit-only morality in the private sector, and Tammany Hall legality when it comes to the financial wellbeing of the working people of the United States.

There is no help available from accountable institutions in our society. The American culture is well on its way to a mediocre society little better than that of China and Russia. During the twentieth century, the US won the battle of bullets and bombs, won the battle of economic superiority, but it turns out, at the cost of cultural consciousness. China and Russia are winning the cultural war by dragging the US down toward their level of individual freedom – or lack thereof.

Still, the mariner does not understand why the private sector does not have to abide by the Bill of Rights.

A reader has asked that reference to the Bill of Rights include an actual replication of the Amendment in question:

FOURTH AMENDMENT

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

For more background on the Fourth Amendment, see

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CONAN-1992/pdf/GPO-CONAN-1992-10-5.pdf

Ancient Mariner

Path to Chaos

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The term “chaos” is a word used by the mariner to describe the moment at which significant and rapid change occurs in society. It is borrowed from an area of mathematics called “chaos theory,” most recognized by the example that the air disturbed by a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can be the beginning of a tornado in Texas.

Generally, without getting lost in mathematical jargon, chaos theory has a set of mathematical equations that quantify increasing diversion from a single value. It is impossible to predict future weather from the butterfly’s action yet every possible weather pattern begins with this one event. The principle can be applied to increasing stress until the stress reaches a point that it discharges a sudden release of “chaotic” energy that changes the state of things. Simplest example is to study the breakdown of resistance in a rubber band until, all of a sudden, it snaps apart at an unpredictable moment.

Culturally, Rosa Parks was a butterfly on a bus on a normal day in Montgomery, Alabama that led to national unrest, marches into the deep south, activated National Guard in cities to prevent riots and looting, murder, military confrontation with Governor Wallace and became the Civil Rights Act signed by President Johnson. The chaotic moment occurred when the Civil Rights act became law and represented a new definition of American culture.

The chaotic process is the fragmentation of American society in many directions at once. Racism remains blatant. Class confrontation is growing. Conservative parties are splintered and all are in assault mode. Liberal and progressive parties flounder as liberal tenets are washed away by change not even thought of a year ago. Technology strips away social rules and mores. Privacy, fairness and respect for stability are disposable. Corporations tramp brutally on the security and fair fiscal policy expected by the middle class. The rich grow more distant while everyone else struggles. These are the stress values building toward a chaotic moment in American culture; the moment is unpredictable.

The Congress stands aside, focused on self-centered largesse and opportunity. Our government will continue to be useless and even interfere with sanity. We could claim that, as Nero, they fiddle while the U.S. burns – but they do not have fiddles. They are simply watching. No, they are not even watching.

At the street level, racial prejudice kills innocent individuals. It is unsafe for the wrong race or the wrong position on guns, abortion, government or global warming to be in the wrong neighborhood. In too many States, it is not safe to stand out culturally.

Constitutional rights to assemble, vote, work for a union, or stand up for gay rights, women’s rights or animal rights requires an understanding that one may be brutally injured or outcast at best.

The mariner remembers a cultish movie released in 1971 called “Little Murders.” It is a dark comedy about a dysfunctional family in a dysfunctional American culture. It starred Elliott Gould who played a character whose hobby was photographing dog excrement. He is brought home to meet his girlfriend’s parents who randomly shoot people walking on the street. It is a classic Jules Feiffer creation. Sadly, it is not far from today’s society where the answer to everything is a permit to carry a concealed weapon and mass shootings occur with irregular but persistent frequency.

Banks and large corporations continue to mug the public with abusive rights and privileges and eventually step outside the ethical fabric of the American culture to become quasi-legal thieves.

Yet, in the neighborhoods of America, there seems to be normalcy. Sanity prevails at the community level as though there were no upheaval in society. The behavior of the innocent American in an innocent community reminds the mariner of “Stepford Wives,” a movie where men’s wives were clandestinely murdered and replaced with replicated robots that were always obedient to the husbands.

Are the innocents we meet each day when we take out the trash robot citizens? Are citizens programmed not to ask for a decent raise for the past forty years or to share in profits for retirement? Are they programmed to vote for a person without caring whether that person can help them with daily life? Do they care that the American military is used as an employment agency primarily for those who cannot find employment elsewhere while allowing the rest of the Country to be so uninvolved as to not care if the Country goes to war?

The mariner foresees chaos. However, the mariner is not a harbinger of doom. The commotion we experience today is typical as a situation draws near to a chaotic moment. The question remains unanswered: Can each citizen manage this disruptive stress in our culture? Now, our culture is a maverick. The future requires citizenry with the backbone of their ancestors: take charge of the situation, suffer the hardships, and make it work for everyone.

The institutions of government and faith have proven to be unable to handle the shift. They are anchored in the old model and will be of little use to the citizens.

Resolution of the disruptive atmosphere in American society today requires butterflies similar to Rosa Parks – those in the quiet communities who have had enough and will stir the citizenry to take charge of the chaotic process.

Ancient Mariner

 

Fourth Amendment

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The top story in the news now is all about the National Security Agency (NSA) and its program for citizen snooping, PRISM. Politicians, pundits and newscasters are in seventh heaven because of the opportunity to pontificate, masturbate and investigate – in the same order.

The mariner used to live in Maryland and has several friends who work at NSA. Of course, they never told him anything but knowing them personally, and knowing their talents, they do not know about PRISM any more than we do. NSA does not tell them a whole lot either. This is not to say the mariner’s friends are not important – in fact, they have unique, admirable skills.

The mariner understands both sides of the issue as the politicians present it; he understands that this legislation and its predecessor legislation have been in place for a couple of decades; he understands the motivation to protect the United States.

None of this bothers him because Google is on his computer. Google knows when he sneezes and it advertises tissues. Google already reads all his email and knows every website he visits. Every agora from the supermarket to Amazon.com tracks the mariner’s purchases. Every cell phone company saves his calls but even more, knows where he is at any time with pinpoint accuracy – even if he can’t get a half bar signal. The mariner receives junk email all the time from retailers who only could have obtained his name from banks, professional list makers, government databases and other retailers. Criminal types can piece together his Social Security number just by cross-checking a few databases.

PRISM? No big deal. Just throw it on the pile of privacy violators that already know more about the mariner than he does.

What the mariner does not comprehend about this issue is why the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the private sector in the same way as it applies to government. If a citizen wiretaps a neighbor’s telephone, he can be arrested. If a police officer comes to your door, the officer cannot come in without a warrant in hand. However, Google and the mariner’s cable service can watch him sleep in front of the television if the television has interactive software for gaming. Never play ping-pong in your underwear!

On one hand, gun owners are protected by the Second Amendment but on the other hand are not protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Isn’t it logical that if the Bill of Rights is in place to protect the citizens, then everyone doing business in the United States is obligated as well?

What further confuses the mariner is that the government not only collects all this information but once it has it, it hands it to anyone who asks. A flagrant example is the Department of Motor Vehicles, and at the Federal level, the Freedom of Information Act. No doubt, farmer information is spread around, too. The mariner used to own a farm and somehow everyone seemed to know what was going on in every inch of the farm.

Every contract, whether a bank loan, a software agreement, a telephone contract, an insurance policy or a retailer, has a little clause that says they can give or sell your information to just about anyone they want to.

It won’t be long before Google knows that I sneezed and puts a box of tissues in my supermarket order that I ordered online.

PRISM? Small potatoes. The NSA still does not know as much about the mariner as Google does.

Ancient Mariner