Author Archives: skipper

An Eclectic Post

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Inspiration comes from many sources, in this case from road kill. Carcasses lie abandoned on the side of the road which led the Mariner’s wife to write this poem:

Elegy for a Dead Raccoon

The body lies beside the road

A furred lump hit by a passing car

Left like refuse, unremarked.

We in the cocoons of our cars

Pass by without a second glance

Without a second thought.

If we gave it a second thought

We would have to recognize

That we, too, will become a lump

Beside the road.

Our mammal bodies are not different:

A baby raccoon was born, suckled,

Stretched his paws, struggled to walk,

Learned to eat, to drink, to clean himself,

Wrestled with his brothers and sisters,

Explored the same world we live in

With the same five senses.

The only difference is that when he died,

In a sudden, tragic accident

His body was left as a furred lump

Beside the road.

There were no remarks at a solemn funeral

And no elegy

Except for this one.

REFERENCE SECTION

Getting the most out history is an art form. History books that deliver dates, events and event correlations are full of facts but leave out the human condition, the three dimensional reality that makes history real and provides the reader with human substance. One trick to expand one’s understanding of history is to read biographies of those who played a role in history but may not have been on the front page. As a bonus, biographies are easy to read and almost like reading fiction. Below are four biographies spread across a wide spectrum of history.

Lucy by Ellen Feldman, W,W, Norton, 2011.

One of the most important romances in the last century. Although their relationship was heavily constrained, their love lasted. Lucy was with FDR when he died. Arthur Schlesinger gave a review:

“It is a story which reminds us of the code of another day, of the complexity of human relationships, of the human problems of statesmen bearing the heaviest responsibilities and of the capacity of mature people to accept the frustrations of life and, perhaps, to make of frustrations a sort of triumph. Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lucy Mercer all emerge from the story with honor.

And, if Lucy Mercer in any way helped Franklin Roosevelt sustain the frightful burdens of leadership in the Second World War, the nation has good reason to be grateful to her.”

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

The Sixth Extinction, an Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, Henry Holt & Co. 2014.

Mariner has referenced this book in past posts. It is an accounting of Kolbert’s travels around the world visiting scientists and living creatures. However, it is a biography of us and our association with the Earth’s life forms. Written in a story-like style, it is mesmerizing.

Paul Newman, A Life by Shawn Levy, Random House, 2009.

Historian Shawn Levy gives readers the ultimate behind-the-scenes examination of the actor’s life from his merry pranks on the set to his lasting romance with Joanne Woodward to the devastating impact of his son’s death from a drug overdose. This definitive biography is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man who gave back as much as he got out of life and just happened to be one of the most celebrated movie stars of the twentieth century.

Frederick the Wise by Sam Wellman, Concordia Press, 2015.

Little is known about one of the most powerful individuals in the Reformation, Frederick III, Elector of Saxony. Blessed by a translation of German works by Sam Wellman, Frederick’s life and influences are readily available. Frederick was the protector of Martin Luther as Saxony battled the Holy Roman Church during the 15th and 16th centuries.

Ancient Mariner

Time to Act against TPP

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The infamous Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is on its way to congress. Details finally have been released through several channels. The TPP is heavily tilted toward increased power for corporations. If TPP passes, it will be a new era where business begins to dictate to government regarding the rights and wellbeing of the citizenry. Church and state is small potatoes compared to the corporate intrusion into the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Since World War II, the generic corporate model began to operate between nations; tax evasion, hidden funds, no allegiance to workers, no need to sustain environmental or product quality – all are indicators that corporations have become a new kind of nation not bound by traditional government authority. The TPP is the same as a military invasion aimed at taking away the authority of target nations. Plain and simple, the US is under attack to increase corporate profit and to avoid responsibility for citizen wellbeing.

This week, Wikileaks released the long-secret investment provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that revealed the trade deal would give big business the ability to sue governments for protecting the public interest – confirming our worst fears about the trade deal being pushed by the business community, Republican leadership and the Obama administration.

Mariner asks for a small inconvenience from his readers. Will you please write or call all federally elected politicians, especially your senators, that represent you; tell them to veto the TPP. There are different ways to do this:

Write a letter using the US Postal Service.

Write an email; the address of your representatives can be found using searches for Congressional Representatives.

Call your representatives; phone numbers are on the same websites as addresses.

Use the following link to Food and Water Watch to use the convenient procedure for sending your opinion to your representatives. Do not feel hesitant about providing your information; elected officials want to know you live in their district and may want to respond. Uncheck the boxes if you do not want FWW to contact you in the future.

https://secure.foodandwaterwatch.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1777&s_src=blg#_ga=1.267545422.1527426085.1431442204

Visit your representatives in their home offices.

The precedents set by TPP will create a world-wide culture where citizens are not the first priority – profit is.

Thank you very much for this favor.

Ancient Mariner

 

Follow Up Stuff

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Liberal Arts
The mariner recently submitted a number of posts about the importance of the fact that liberal art majors are disappearing. The group of subjects in this major includes what is commonly referred to as “humanities:” literature, languages, art history, music history, philosophy, logic, history, mathematics, psychology, and general science. The general theme in all these subjects is to have an understanding across several disciplines of thought. This broad understanding sharpens the student’s awareness about people and their cultures; it provides space in one’s knowledge base to make comparisons and apply lateral thinking across disciplines. Every subject has something to do with human interaction.
The mariner watched a book review on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS show (Sunday 10/04/15 CNN). The book is “Succeeding at Life – What High Achievers Know that Brilliant Machines Never Will,” by Jeff Colvin. Colvin has a stellar reputation as an organizer of startup businesses and the automated technologies that support them. Until recently, he was CEO of CIGNEX Datamatics Corporation. He now is a board member of The Estes Group, a prominent consulting firm. The next two paragraphs start the book:
“What hope will there be for us when computers can drive cars better than humans, predict Supreme Court decisions better than legal experts, identify faces, scurry helpfully around offices and factories, even perform some surgeries, all faster, more reliably, and less expensively than people? The unavoidable question – will millions of people lose out, unable to best the machine? – is increasingly dominating business, education, economics, and policy.
The answer lies not in the nature of technology but in the nature of humans. Regardless of what computers achieve, our greatest advantage lies in what we humans are most powerfully driven to do for and with one another, arising from our deepest, most essentially human abilities—empathy, creativity, social sensitivity, storytelling, humor, building relationships, and leading. This is how we create value that is durable and not easily replicated by technology – because we’re hardwired to want it from humans.”
Colvin goes on to cite a number of relationships where people strongly prefer human-to-human service. People find more comfort, trust and satisfaction visiting a human medical doctor or nurse than punching keys on a machine – even if all the doctor does is punch the same keys. Similarly, social workers, managers, organizers, consultants, attorneys and virtually every profession that interacts with people in a reflective situation will become more important than their technical counterparts associated with computers.
The mariner learned from this review that Australia and Japan are reducing humanities and increasing classes on computer programming as early as the fifth grade. He agrees with Zacharia and Colvin that wisdom, leadership and innovation are found in the humanities, not in computer code.
Church and State
If the Monday School class is still studying church and state, the mariner offers a “middle of the road” perspective for those areas where church and state conflict with one another. See post “Among the People” (Sep 22 2015)
In 1962, Eugene Rostow, a former dean at Yale Law School, coined the phrase “civil religion.” It related to government sponsored religious speech that was as conventional and uncontroversial as to be constitutional (example: In God We Trust on US money). In 1984, Justice William Brennan first used the phrase “ceremonial deism.” He said, in a Supreme Court case that involved a government sponsored Nativity scene that also included reindeer and candy canes, that some religious displays could be permissible under the first amendment. [Details from Church and State magazine March 2015]
The mariner recently wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper that was covering a local conflict between an atheist organization and the city mayor about putting a cross in a government park. In his letter, mariner claimed that Christian and Jewish tombstones in military cemeteries – and even government memorials – serve only to remind us what we required of these men that they gave their lives for us. It is the buried soldiers that are sacrosanct, not the tombstones and memorials. In reference to Rostow and Brennan, the tombstones are an example of ceremonial deism.
Ceremonial deism is a grey area along the barrier between church and state. State advocates complain these “uncontroversial” exceptions are an example of deism and religiosity slowly creeping into the state domain. Is this good, bad, or irrelevant? Perhaps the Monday School can advise us.
REFERENCE SECTION
An easy read that talks about various subjects of controversy between religion and science, culture, and changing attitudes. Easy. Quick. See:
http://altreligion.about.com/od/history/p/History-Of-Deism.htm?utm_term=galileo%20book&utm_content=p3-main-1-title&utm_medium=sem&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=adid-a521dd03-6347-4247-9136-0d38501528e2-0-ab_gsb_ocode-4954&ad=semD&an=google_s&am=broad&q=galileo%20book&dqi=books%20about%20galileo%20and%20church&o=4954&l=sem&qsrc=998&askid=a521dd03-6347-4247-9136-0d38501528e2-0-ab_gsb
Billy Collins, Poet
Reading Billy Collins’ poetry is not what the occasional reader of poems imagines. Billy Collins was the Poet Laureate for the US twice in a row and holds the same title for the State of New York. He is, by far, the most entertaining poet alive today. If you desire to broaden your mind by reading some poetry, read Billy Collins. The poem below is from his collection, The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems. He has written several collections.
“The Lanyard”
The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past —
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Billy Collins

Ancient Mariner

2016 – A Signal Election

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In the last post about lawless gun ownership, the mariner suggested that 2016 was a signal election where serious change may be possible. This perception is still true. However, attacking the gun issue will require more than a compromised registration solution. The real issue is that money is awash in elections at all levels of campaigning. A quick and simple way to disrupt the control of money is to limit a candidate’s funds to the region for which they would be responsible if elected. We would live in a fantasy world if campaign funds were required to be net zero balances – that is no funds can be carried over to the next campaign, making campaigning a fair activity that may improve turnover in legislative bodies.

If a Senator was campaigning for office in Ohio, fund raising would be limited to Ohio; similarly, a state legislator campaigning for state office could only receive funding from his or her district. If such legislation were passed, candidates would not be able to depend on arbitrary corporations like the NRA. Wherever NRA headquarters is located, the NRA could contribute only to that district’s campaigns. For a set of issues that can easily be remedied in 2016, search mariner’s archives for a January 17 2014 post titled “The Big Picture.”

Ancient Mariner

Umpqua Community College

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The mariner is not a gun advocate. He is not a hunting advocate. Further, he thinks that people who are afraid that government will take their guns are paranoid and irrational. The easiest solution is not to own a gun so there is nothing for the government to take. The mariner thinks people who hole up in remote places and maintain an arsenal of weaponry to defend themselves against government are the very crazies that should not be allowed guns in the first place. The ne’er-do-wells that gathered round the rancher who was to be arrested for grazing cattle illegally are the very ones who should not have guns.

In American culture, the gun is easily absorbed into the owner’s psyche. Somehow, owning a piece of steel and gunpowder magnifies one’s sense of self importance and minimizes one’s rationality. These are the very people who should not own guns.

In Australia, guns were outlawed. In the next year, death by gun statistics dropped by half. In the United States, more people die from guns than die in automobile accidents. The mariner is more afraid of gun owners than he is of government – and that says a lot considering his opinion of government.

The mariner knows an individual who owns a fifty caliber machine gun. Fortunately, it is too heavy and bulky to carry around and cannot be concealed. But weapons like the AK-47, grenade launchers, automatic handguns can be carried about, even concealed in some cases.

None of the gun owners mentioned would be identified as mentally ill. However, mentally ill is not a constant state in most people; mental irrationality pops up in everyday life. In those moments of duress, a gun should not be handy.

Instead of providing military hardware to civilian police departments (tanks?), government should bolster data bases sophisticated enough to identify domestic disturbance, spousal abuse, underage (21) applicants, and a registration system that will catch the ownership of any weapon obviously intended for hunting people rather than game.

The President spoke forcefully today. It is worth watching at

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=umpqua+community+college+obama+speech&FORM=VIRE5#view=detail&mid=D90E69944FB2AEA7518FD90E69944FB2AEA7518F

The President made a plea to US voters to vote only for those who oppose undocumented gun ownership. He was sincere but the mariner fears the plea is futile. Mariner is skeptical about the wisdom of voters. It remains true, to the President’s dismay, that voters get what they vote for.

To check on a candidate’s record on gun control, simply search online for the candidate’s name along with “voting record guns.” It is as important, if not more so, to search local and state candidates as well as federal. As an example, the mariner typed “Steve King voting record guns”. The search sent back pages of sources. The first source, http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Steve_King.htm#Gun_Control

returned the following sorted by subject for his entire record:

Voted YES on prohibiting product misuse lawsuits on gun manufacturers. (Oct 2005)

Voted YES on prohibiting suing gunmakers & sellers for gun misuse. (Apr 2003)

Rated A by the NRA, indicating a pro-gun rights voting record. (Dec 2003)

No United Nations taxation on firearms. (Sep 2003)

Loosen restrictions on interstate gun purchases. (Oct 2011)

Allow veterans to register unlicensed guns acquired abroad. (Jul 2011)

Ban gun registration & trigger lock law in Washington DC. (Mar 2007)

Allow reloading spent military small arms ammunition. (Apr 2009)

Anger fades now, to sorrow for the victims and families. But this must not fade as any other fading massacre has. It is a bridge too far. There is a very important election in 2016. The mariner urges the sane among us to change the stranglehold of the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers who lobby and give too much money to elected, in-it-for-the-buck, officials.

Ancient Mariner

Autumn

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The vegetable garden is winding down. Just a few chard and the last run of tomatoes left. The mariner canned apple pie filling today and it looks like more will be canned tomorrow plus a few jars of applesauce. Unlike many, the mariner doesn’t add cinnamon or nutmeg to the applesauce; just a few tablespoons of malt vinegar to heighten the apple flavor.

The flower gardens always look a bit tattered this time of year with only the marigolds, chrysanthemums and fall color of the spirea showing energy. The mariner may have mentioned that a strong storm destroyed three wonderful, old Ash trees. Having a tree service drop the trunks on the lawn means that a new lawn will have to be laid in the spring. Where the trees once stood looks like a landfill. Piles of wood chips from grinding the stumps are everywhere. The compost pile, about four feet high, adds to the dump motif.

The mariner had dug about half of a water feature that was to be an attractive pond with a small waterfall (when there were big old trees). The remaining trench has become home for four leopard frogs. They have become pets of a sort – depending on the ugly ditch to sustain itself. They pay their way, though, thriving on mosquitoes, gnats and crickets. He will give them winter quarters but in the spring, they must move on; restoration begins in earnest then.

Soon, projects will turn to cleaning the activity of summer. The shed, well let’s say the shed isn’t orderly and would appreciate some reorganization. Further, the mariner must harvest frost-sensitive bulbs and prepare the winter lamp garden. Cuttings will be taken of frost-sensitive plants like geraniums; seedlings of herbs and a few vegetables will be planted for winter growth. The rabbit fence must be completed before spring so that another vegetable bed can be added.

Otherwise, the job jar waits with many, many tasks too numerous to mention. The mariner has decided to take a vacation….

Ancient Mariner

 

The Fullness of Time

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The Fullness of Time was a period of expectation in Israel that began in intensity around 700-600BC when the Book of Isaiah was written (there were other prophets before and after Isaiah). In essence, the Hebrew population was admonished for being lax in faith and practice; at some point in time, when the time was right – AKA fullness of time – God would send a Messiah to lead the Hebrews from this degenerate period of history. The Christians leaned heavily on these prognostications when pronouncing Jesus as that Messiah (See Galations 4:4).

What is relevant in the fullness of time today is that the same paradigm is occurring. Not limited to Bible interpretations but more broadly framed in the 21st century’s international, cultural, technical, scientific and multi-religious history, our fullness of time has reached a point of advancement that requires a significant shift in humankind’s values. When Jesus was born, the few hundred years before provided advancements that set the stage for Christianity to represent a new age of understanding; the Greek language (capable of documenting precise ideas), the emergence of a larger Earth (Roman Empire), and the spread of monotheism (Israel) required a new culture and a new understanding of human value.

Reaching the point of salvation, that is, passing through the tumultuous whorl of change and finally living in a new age is not a pleasant trip. As a clear example, consider the history of slavery in the United States. Slavery was present in US colonies in 1609 and reached as far north as Massachusetts by 1629; slave sugar republics in the Caribbean Islands began around 1650. Southern slave states in the United States emulated the culture of Caribbean slave republics leading to a plantation society.

Slowly, over a period of 150 years, the US transitioned into a northern society where slavery became a social and moral issue – thereby gradually passing legislation that outlawed slavery. Nevertheless, even in the north, common rights afforded by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were not available to most blacks. In the south, where the economy of slavery and the social prejudice of color were firmly entrenched, there was no intention to abolish slavery. It took the Civil War in 1860-65 where 750,000 citizens died to change government laws that would protect minimal rights for African Americans. Education remains an issue in the US even today; in 1957, the National Guard had to be called to have nine African Americans enter Central High School in Alabama over the objections of Governor George Wallace. Even today, voting rights, affirmative action, and segregation are unresolved.

Today in 2015, 406 years after the first slave entered the United States, the residue of prejudice remains. In former slave states disdain for the Federal Government remains strong. The slavery age is not over but is there a fullness of time? Is there a moment when US culture will become multiracial without prejudice? Slowly, the race issue is changing before us with the increase of immigrants from all over the world – especially Central America and the Gulf region. Changes to slavery have been brutal and continues to suffer in a wrenching time of change.

Add to slavery the fullness of time for a fair economy, stopping the abuses of international corporatism, providing dependable financial support for all citizens, health reform, and protection of a planet capable of supporting its biomass – not to mention many civil issues like starvation, war, prison reform, and better treatment of livestock – the new slave on the block.

All these issues are entering the whorl of rapid change. Congressman Boehner is but one tick of the clock.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

China

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The mariner hasn’t posted much about China. China is constantly changing. The US-Sino relationship is a lot like a human working with an elephant. The elephant has some shortcomings that permit some malleability but whenever the elephant decides to rebel, it can do so without recourse. We must never forget that as an economic entity, China has a population that is projected to reach 1.39 billion by the end of 2015; it is the world’s most populous country. The US population is 320.5 million. The Chinese nation is 4.3 times the size of the United States. China’s back country, noted at the moment for its primitive society, is almost the same size land mass as the US – 50 states included. The disparity of culture between China’s large cities with international commerce and that of the back country is an overhead in terms of bringing millions of Chinese into the 21st century. On the other hand, the opportunity for growth and expansion has no limits.
To the western world, China was an unknown, mysterious nation until the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945. Two western nations, Germany and the US, along with Russia, provided military support to China. This provoked Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor in 1941 – starting the Pacific arena of the Second World War. WWII engulfed the Sino-Japanese war.

Before and during WWII, China also was in a civil war between the Kuomintang Party and the Communist Party of China (CPC). Leading the CPC was Mao Zedong, a follower of Marxist-Lenin philosophy. In 1949, Mao won the civil war and unified China under communist rule. The Kuomintang retreated to form the nation of Taiwan.

Mao’s aggressive leadership quickly made him a notable personality around the world. His supporters say he drove imperialism out of China, modernized China, turned the nation into a world power, raised the status of women, and improved education and health care. China’s population grew from 550 million to over 900 million during the period of his leadership.

His detractors consider him a dictator who severely damaged traditional Chinese culture, a perpetrator of systematic human rights abuses who was responsible for an estimated 40 to 70 million deaths through starvation, forced labor and executions, making Mao the worst example of genocide in human history.

As part of a strategy to defeat Japan in WWII, Korea was divided into North Korea and South Korea along the 38th parallel. Russia used North Korea while the US used South Korea. After WWII, North and South each claimed to be the official government of a united Korea. Eventually, the two Koreas went to war. Russia and China backed the North; the US backed the South. The claim to be the true government has never been settled; to this day, the 38th parallel is a militarily secured no man’s land between North and South Korea.

Mao died in 1976. China’s government changed the nation’s name from The Republic of China to The People’s Republic of China. In 1982, the office of President was created but with greatly reduced authority – although the President is in charge of the military and, in the case of Xi Jinping, the current President, chairman of the Communist Party as well. Since 1982, the current government is constrained by the need to keep the communist government popular. The President is nominated by the National People’s Congress. China has and still is experiencing a difficult metamorphosis.

Today, China is second only to the US in economic power. China has formed an international bank to compete with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The bank will use the Chinese dollar, the Yuan. This is a direct challenge to the US dollar as the world currency. However, China has overreached itself by going into heavy debt – even for China. Recently, China had to let the Yuan float against other currencies, which forced a depreciation of the Yuan by 2.5%. China had maintained a false value for the Yuan that improved its trade balance.

China still has momentous issues with income disparity, poverty, illiteracy and developing a viable domestic economy. Everyone around the world knows that if China can overcome its internal growth issues, it will be the big kid on the block.

More on China in a future post.

REFERENCE SECTION

The New York Times has an excellent international news staff that stays focused on China. See http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/china/index.html

For an array of opinions about China and the US that are not simplistic, visit

http://www.naturalnews.com/china.html

For authentic Chinese food recipes, see

http://rasamalaysia.com/chinese-food-recipes-chinese-recipes/

For a video library on Chinese history, visit

http://chinahistorypodcast.com/

 Ancient Mariner

 

Among the People

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The mariner had the privilege of visiting an adult Sunday school class. The class, however, met on Monday. Why can’t things just remain as they always have? There’s a reason Sunday school is called Sunday school! This disregard for tradition, however, is the hallmark of the class. It is a small class of about six to eight members; the class members typically are women. Instead of studying the Bible, the Monday school studies contemporary thoughts provided by religious authors and speakers.

Having just written a couple of posts on church and state, the mariner visited the class to observe the subject discussed in a real environment by real people. Being a new visitor, the mariner didn’t say too much. The dynamic for discussion is provided by a retired professional from the national Methodist Church, a reformed Texas Baptist, two existentialist Christians, a skeptic, an ontologist, and a traditional Bible-based Christian. On second thought, perhaps their church insists they meet on Monday. . .

The combination of excellent congeniality and disparate backgrounds allows for creative discussion. The DVD played on this occasion was a lecture about the conflict raised between a Christian and a US citizen. The speaker accepted that one had to survive both in God’s Kingdom and in man’s existential world at the same time. The primary point was that the existential world depends on the influence of Christians for society’s morality and purpose. The mariner would have liked to hear more about the state as juxtaposed to Christianity.

He observed that the class had difficulty sorting out the balance between church and state because the speaker framed both in the context of religion. Perhaps the class would have had an easier time if the speaker had provided more about the state side of things. In his May 25 2013 post, the mariner cited Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions by Paul Tillich. The world religions are capitalism, communism, socialism and authoritarianism. Tillich said that Christianity morphs into a hybrid combined with the prevailing form of society. In the US, the prevailing society is capitalist. Hence, a balance of behavior evolves accommodating the two religions.

In this age of information, Paul Tillich can add another world religion: secularism. Secularism is void of religious reason. It is the mariner’s opinion that the emergence of secularism is reworking the definition between church and state – a definition which was more or less adequate until Norman Rockwell stopped painting and Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse popularized the Cubist movement. Stretched across fundamentalist Christians, traditional Christians and existentialist Christians, it will take a couple of generations to sort the balance between Christianity and secularism.

Ancient Mariner

Sustaining Social Creativity

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Over the years of www.iowa-mariner blog, the most common theme has been to share information and opinions that promote thought – particularly lateral thinking, which is the ability to absorb new information and process it into a brand new idea. Lateral thinking is the best tool by far for reconciling knotty problems of any kind, whether something as broad as fundamentalism versus democracy or as simple as creating a vacation schedule that satisfies the whole family.

Recently, the mariner has written many posts with this theme in mind. Starting today, he will add a permanent section to every post which suggests outside viewing or reading that is entertaining in its topic and will broaden every reader’s knowledge as an aid to lateral thinking. The mariner still will write opinion and topical pieces but the reader should take advantage of the new section called ‘Reference Section.’ This post in particular will focus on this new section.

REFERENCE SECTION

The current issue of Scientific American (October 2015) is entertaining from cover to cover not with obscure scientific jargon but with shorter articles that have to do with how science and technology are changing the way we live from morning to night – today! There are pieces about how horses behave in the wild, how important sleep is, servant robots similar to those on the Jetsons TV series soon will be affordable for the middle class home, a new gene to control obesity, the next war will be in space, changing the home vegetable garden, etc. Most articles also can be accessed on the Scientific American website: www.ScientificAmerican.com .

An informative website that covers many current issues that are not covered adequately if at all on television or in newspapers can be found at: http://www.c-span.org/ . c-span has an extensive library of videos covering a wide spectrum of current events and what can be termed ‘important page 4 news,’ for example, the story that the Federal Government will underwrite $39 billion in unpaid college tuition loans. Most speeches given by presidential candidates are available. In all, c-span has 197,163 videos.

The mariner subscribes to two other magazines besides Scientific American: The Atlantic Magazine http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ which is the premier magazine for contemporary ideas in culture, industry and politics along with many book reviews and in depth articles. A staff writer is Ta-Nehisi Coates, the new voice for black America. Did you know that Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld refuse to do comedy on college campuses? (September 2015).

The last magazine is Smithsonian http://www.smithsonianmag.com/?no-ist published by Smithsonian Institution – the large national museum along the mall in Washington, D.C. This is a pleasant magazine that covers the human experience through culture, nature, biography and special interest stories.

None of the websites or magazines listed is an advocacy journal but rather makes an effort to present apolitical information without regard to any particular point of view. These magazines provide the easiest source by which to remain a liberal arts individual throughout life. The reader will be more than capable of lateral thinking.

Ancient Mariner