Category Archives: Musings

Hooray for the Norwegian Muslims!

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From the Times of Israel:

“In the wake of a deadly shooting attack at a synagogue in Denmark last week, a group of Norwegian Muslims intends to hold an anti-violence demonstration at an Oslo synagogue this coming weekend by forming a “peace ring” around the building.

One of the event organizers, 17-year-old Hajrad Arshad, explained that the intention was to make a clear statement that Muslims don’t support anti-Semitism.

“We think that after the terrorist attacks in Copenhagen, it is the perfect time for us Muslims to distance ourselves from the harassment of Jews that is happening,” Arshad told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK in an interview cited by The Local News website on Tuesday.

She noted that the group aimed to “extinguish the prejudices people have against Jews and against Muslims.”

The demonstration drew praise from the local Jewish community.”

 

A fine, intelligent act in an age of rage about religions. Has it always been this way? Across recorded history, it seems many people have been brutally tortured and murdered because of religious intolerance – perhaps more than all the wars from 1700 to the present. Even in the “civilized” United States today, religious intolerance is not above killing over abortion, sexuality, Islam, atheism, theocracies, and still ostracizes Roman Catholics and Jews.

Perpetually, philosophers and behaviorists ponder religious brutality and still have not discovered a way to discuss religious differences in a rational way.

What the mariner finds puzzling is that those who turn intolerance into murder and destruction are not exactly the devoted core of the faith, devoted to their god and seeking a holy world. Rather, it is the opportunists, bigots, self-anointed “religious” warriors, and psychologically unbalanced who make up the army of the “Lord.”

In the Mideast, conflict has become absurd. Belief in the sanctity of life disappeared centuries ago. Every type of zealot, from heads of state to violent, deranged thugs, fight under the same flag: Islam. Added to the broiling mess is the regional prejudice between theocracies and western secular countries.

What fuels this ongoing war is not really Islam per se, though that is important. It is the fossil fuel wealth of the area combined with inadequate governments still depending on sheikdoms (Saudi Arabia) city-states (Libya), and warlord authoritarianism (Iraq, Egypt and Syria).

The western countries went through this violence centuries ago and have evolved into nations run by constitutions and law. While extremists still cause problems in the western nations, the political infrastructure is robust enough to prevent anarchy.

The coming battles for the industrialized world are mercenary values versus the earth itself – a new kind of fervor based on ecology rather than religion and one that ignores national borders.

 

Some notes from the mariner –

Many do not check back to earlier posts to see if replies have been added. The “Purgatory” post drew some insightful responses:

One reader, self-described as an existentialist, defined purgatory as those moments when a person has lost his/her compass of life. “What do I do next? Where are the signs that will give me direction? Where will I stay for the next two weeks? It is a sense that life has come to a stop and there is no way to move ahead into the future.

Another reader suggested that purgatory could last no longer than the last living person who knew you – approximately four generations at most. After that, no one is around who will pray for your release from purgatory.

Another reader suggested the living have nothing to do with purgatory, that is, purgatory lasts from the point of death to the moment one must answer for one’s life at the Pearly Gates.

All these replies are fascinating and provoke extended thought about purgatory.

Thanks for your replies.

Ancient Mariner

 

Purgatory

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The mariner apologizes for the long absence. Winter has been distracting.

The mariner has been pondering purgatory; a strange phenomenon traced to several religions and cultures and, as if in self application, sits in a position of purgatory in modern theology. This post is entered under the “Musings” category because it is an inquiry of interest and not an exposition of doctrine. What follows is a direct, unchanged copy on purgatory from Wikipedia. It serves as the scholarly background for those who want to pursue purgatory more deeply. Footnotes are retained for your reference.

“While use of the word “Purgatory” (in Latin purgatorium) as a noun appeared perhaps only between 1160 and 1180, giving rise to the idea of purgatory as a place[7] (what Jacques Le Goff called the “birth” of purgatory),[8] the Roman Catholic tradition of Purgatory as a transitional condition has a history that dates back, even before Jesus Christ, to the worldwide practice of caring for the dead and praying for them, and to the belief, found also in Judaism,[9] which is considered the precursor of Christianity, that prayer for the dead contributed to their afterlife purification. The same practice appears in other traditions, such as the medieval Chinese Buddhist practice of making offerings on behalf of the dead, who are said to suffer numerous trials.[2] Roman Catholic belief in Purgatory is based, among other reasons, on the previous Jewish practice of prayer for the dead,[10] a practice that presupposes that the dead are thereby assisted between death and their entry into their final abode.[2] It is also based on various passages of Scripture and on the Sacred Tradition of the Church.

Belief in after-life “temporary punishments agreeable to every one’s behaviour and manners” was expressed in the early Christian work in Greek known as Josephus’s Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades, which was once attributed to Josephus (37 – c. 100) but is now believed to be by Hippolytus of Rome (170–235).[11]

Shortly before becoming a Roman Catholic,[12] the English scholar John Henry Newman argued that the essence of the doctrine is locatable in ancient tradition, and that the core consistency of such beliefs is evidence that Christianity was “originally given to us from heaven”.[13”

The mariner adds to this list the ancient Egyptian “Book of the Dead”, that not only stated there was a purgatory but that it was composed of demons and fire. Unless excused by Osiris, one would live there forever.

We all know about the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century using indulgences as a fund raiser to build Saint Peter’s Basilica. Martin Luther did not agree with the idea of buying release from purgatory, thinking release ought to be free. So began protestant thought.

Let us assume, given the human politics and abuse of purgatory, that purgatory is a state of being unaffected by us once a person dies and, we assume, enters a condition of transition. It seems to the mariner that all assumptions and opinions about the condition of transition are speculations by those who have yet to pass on. Are we simply judging the character of the deceased? Expressing our biasness or our doctrinal assumptions?

Humanists, existentialists, and spiritualists may have a different definition of purgatory. These believers, part of the spectrum of Christian believers, believe Grace, Divine Love, Heaven, Hell and purgatory are human experiences felt while still alive. What is the definition of purgatory if it is a living experience?

Is purgatory an unsatisfied life? An end of life filled with pain and illness? Feeling bereft of a “normal life?” How does Forgiveness fit into this experience?

Just the mariner musing. Your speculations are welcome.

Ancient Mariner

 

Using Oneness in Family Life

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USING ONENESS IN FAMILY LIFE

 

Husband and Wife. Marriage starts as a state of togetherness – togetherness and the discovery of a new relationship that intertwines the psychological uniqueness of each person into singularity. Togetherness seems very much like oneness but it is not. Togetherness has an element of self gratification. The period of togetherness can last from months to years depending on personality compatibility but a time will come when sharing emerges and togetherness fades. Sharing is the time when each person is able to identify permanent differences between themselves and their partner. Unlike togetherness, sharing implies a responsibility to empathize more clearly who the other person is, their wants, needs, and overall character.

The marriage shifts to personal and greater realities, which requires that each partner (if oneness is an objective) use empathy and compassion to reconcile their realities. This does not imply that love has left the relationship; there still is an emotional bond and a permanent respect for each other.

Still, the fact is that there are two separate persons at the base of the marriage. Each personality is different and has different empathetic and compassionate abilities. Each person forms agendas to express their personal objectives in life. Conflicts are inevitable and oneness skills defined earlier must become part of the reconciliation. As in any situation of personal and greater reality, the rule says your reality is always the least important. This assumption provides space for empathetic sharing and will lead to a compassionate solution for each partner. At times, easier said than done.

Gradually, issues that actually are extraneous fall away over the years and skilled marriage partners are able to mitigate most conflicts under the umbrella of empathy and compassion – oneness. One must not simply yield their reality for the sake of avoidance or compliance. This is false compassion. Reconcilement is required.

Not to understate togetherness, which always is present to some extent, but oneness becomes the primary objective for satisfaction in married life.

Children. Parents have a genetic desire to care for their children. Unfortunately, how to parent is not in school curricula. Many parents – make certain you understand that parenting dysfunction is not class, culture, or wealth specific – have children for myriad reasons that have nothing to do with wanting to share love and oneness. The list of reasons is virtually endless but a few examples are provided: the genetic motivation to procreate; accidental result of sex; reinforce the sense of self worth; cultural influence from definition of ‘family’; keeping up with friends who have children; extend the family name to the next generation, etc. Every example is based on fulfillment of self importance.

Many people who become parents should not be parents. In the context of oneness, they are incapable, for whatever reason, to recognize the relationship as a personal and greater situation. Therefore empathy and compassion are distorted, unevenly applied or can’t exist in the first place. Were it not for the resiliency of children to adapt to all but the most egregious maltreatment, cultural civility would have its limits.

The rules for oneness are more important when raising children because in a subconscious way children learn the parenting style and will reflect it as they grow older. There are frequent television commercials about paper towels or household cleaners. In these commercials, the parent is cleaning a mess made by a child who has neither sympathy, nor empathy, nor responsibility for the mess that was made. Nevertheless, the mother smiles and reassures the child with a hug while cleaning the mess. The objective is to sell towels or cleaner by showing cleaning is so easy there is no need to be frustrated or act out against the child. The author has wondered on many occasions whether the advertisement agencies know they teach oneness. Other cleaner commercials show the parent engaging in the creativity of drawing on the walls, throwing food, or dropping things down the toilet. One must acquire understanding if only by watching cleaner commercials.

Raising children who have passed puberty and are under twenty-five is another complexity. Within these children, the buds of awareness are present that show sympathy, empathy and compassion are present but the judgment when and how to use them must be learned during those youthful years. Indeed, large mistakes may be made like marrying before they understand the complexity of marriage, choosing to ignore the responsibility for actions that will assure a better and less troublesome life, choosing improper sets of friends that will be harmful in the long run, etc.

A parent cannot clean immature decisions with paper towels. The parent is on their own, sans cleaners, to practice oneness. It is often hard because the parent can see the error of the child’s ways and agonizes in their behalf. Nevertheless, the ability to understand personal and greater realities enables the parent to have more influence than otherwise may be available.

Forgiveness plays a large role in performing oneness with children.

The exercise: Essentially, this is the same exercise posed earlier in the section about which personal or which greater reality:  You know that you have difficulty relating to your child because of your opinion of the child’s behavior. Common phrases used by a parent are, “As long as you live in this house, you live by my rules!” or “you’re grounded!” or “You can’t go out until you clean your room and do your homework”! Imagine the child without letting your opinion affect you. Try to raise empathy. What are the good characteristics of the child? What reality does the child perceive that is different from yours? Can you define a personal and greater reality? What would you do instead of each quote above?

Ancient Mariner

Oneness VIII – Person Driven Oneness

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Using a person to avoid isms

Using a person to heal abuses

In the post Oneness VII, the behavior required to define reality and fairness was documented. This post follows with two more circumstances that require Oneness skills

Using a person to avoid isms.  An ism is an entrenched position. The position comes complete with doctrine, ritual and predetermined cause. As in the section about using a person to define reality, you are the first brick. Within you is a library of opinions, prejudices, habits, and preferences. Every one of your isms is a blocking agent that cuts off the ability to reconcile personal and greater situations. Everyone has a cache of isms ready to deliver on a second’s notice. Still, we know some individuals who are better listeners than others. Perhaps they are not strident in nature or don’t carry their opinions like chips on the shoulder. Many of these better listeners are willing to accept your isms without conflict. In this situation, is their acquiescence a reconcilement between your personal reality and their greater reality? No. Whatever distance existed between the two of you still remains. The other person was being polite but there was no reconcilement as far as that person is concerned. It will be obvious that oneness did not occur.

Entrenched isms come from all classes, all races, all religious believers, all those who condemn the nonworking, all those who are elitist, all those who disregard others in favor of money, all those who suffer from greed and avarice. You are among them. It will be hard for you to set aside your isms to forge a new reconciliation based on compassion – perhaps the hardest task among person driven oneness.

Oneness is simple to define and difficult to acquire: the other person(s) is received simply as the person they are; their reality is more important.

Using a person to heal abuses.  Abuse is a distorted version of an ism. The added dimension is mental and physical damage caused by someone who has vindictive attitudes and likely has suffered abuse as well. Oneness is a matter of practicality based more on repair of a situation than comparing personal and greater realities. The process is similar to the first exercise where a person is used to define reality except that in this situation, immediate intervention and problem solving are priorities. Compassion will rise when it can but oneness in the case of abuse requires a return to stability where compassion may be retrievable under better circumstances. Imagine your role as one similar to an empathetic triage physician.

Abuse may be a long standing situation, for example, debilitating poorness where a person does not have enough to eat or have proper clothing. Abuse often is unseen by friends and associates and your sense of empathy must be keen. Examples are spousal abuse and abuse to minors. Similar again to the first exercise, you must take a moment to determine the proper intervention that will repair abuse without letting further abuse occur – perhaps even to you.

The question: People driven solutions require empathy and compassion to achieve oneness. There are personal behaviors that do not achieve oneness but only achieve propriety. What is the difference between propriety and oneness? What are signs that oneness has occurred?

Ancient Mariner

 

Oneness VII – Person Driven Oneness

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Using a person to define reality

Using a person to define fairness

Using a person to define reality.  That person is you. You must be aware of a situation from several perspectives. Very few situations are wrapped around one idea or one condition. You must practice seeing situations using empathy as an interpreter and compassion to create oneness. This may be difficult in our culture today – difficult in that compassion appears to open the door to personal vulnerability; difficult in that you will not be understood by those who must also see the same realities; difficult in that your habits and opinions are ingrained in you.

To help loosen your empathy and compassion as tools in decision making, here is a training technique for you to try: Walk around your neighborhood. The walk will be good for you on its own merit. Look for someone of any age, sex, race, or circumstance to whom you can give a helping hand – no matter how small or large your help may be. It may only be a sentence or two to acknowledge neighborliness. A popular term for this is “passing it forward.” Someone helps a person; that person helps another person, etc. This training exercise makes you focus on the situation of other people rather than simply people-watching. You are the lesser, personal reality; the others are the greater reality. Once you find a person who may need help, quickly determine how you will help that person and give a moment’s thought to whether you are improving the situation or just butting in. The object is to have compassion and take action, not, as the old boy scout story goes, help an old lady across the street whether or not she needs to cross the street.

Sometimes you may have to walk for a long time but if you perform this training exercise regularly, you will find some situations where you can help even if the other person is not present. For example, repacking a trash can on the curb after raccoons have dumped it. Further, you will be amazed how quickly your neighborhood comes to know you personally. You are a neighborhood asset. You will notice others passing it forward. You have changed the neighborhood gestalt! Remember to continue honing your empathy and compassion skills when making decisions of any kind.

Using a person to define fairness.  The key to fairness is not only using empathy and compassion but actually understanding the best process for reconciling personal and greater situations. Besides your own participation, you will need one or more other persons with whom you perceive conflicting realities. “Conflicting” does not necessarily mean argumentative. One can have conflict over which restaurant to visit. Remember that your conflict is the lesser reality. Consider this another training exercise; do not try to right the wrongs of the world at first try. Many will take a mediation/arbitration approach to define fairness. This may work from time to time but mitigation without compassion prevents reconciling situations and achieving oneness.

Often, a profession lends itself to managing only with the personal reality of the individual. As an example, a school principal is autonomous and tends to become autocratic. Organizational and educational edicts may be issued without considering the greater reality that may be affected by these edicts, that is, the greater reality of the teachers, students and parents. A principal may move students or educational policies around in a manner that reflects efficiency from the principal’s point of view but when applied, the move may be unfair to teachers or students. Fairness is an attitude that should always be present in one’s mindset. It is the attitude that kick starts a search for a greater reality.

You will need a bit of social skill to define fairness. Control of the process is important. To identify a few procedural rules, let’s use the earlier example of the employer whose workforce is too expensive:

  1. Know your own feelings about your situation and what causes those feelings.
  2. Engage other persons in a controlled way. If the employer calls a sudden meeting of all the employees, the chances are good that the process for defining fairness will collapse under the weight of anxiety and, because there are many more employees, the tool of equality will yield to mob responses. It may be better for the employer to maintain control of the process by talking with a few trusted employees one-on-one so they are aware of your personal reality and, importantly, that you want to reconcile by including the greater reality of the employees. These few will carry the message to the others for you thereby preventing a confrontation and further, the employees will begin their own processing of rule 1. If you have been honing your compassion on regular walks, you will sense the right way to do things in a compassionate way.
  3. How rule 3 plays out depends on how the employer has managed the employees. If the employer has been fair in the past, rule 3 is almost automatic. If there is personality conflict or any signs of disrespect, rule 3 can become nasty. Seek feedback from those few trusted employees. Seeking to sharpen your compassionate choices, ask about the mood of the employees. Very important to the process at this point is to talk about fair solutions with the trusted employees; you must build empathy in them for your situation even though yours is the personal reality.
  4. Rule 4 is the end game. The employer will prepare an agenda – again with the input of the trusted few. The agenda should be a discussion of solutions, not problems. It is a meeting focused on what is fair. It’s a coming together of understanding what ‘fair’ means, which can be painful even if fair. Compassion should be active in everyone’s mind. Just as the walks produced positive resolution, the employer is in a position to share compassion with the employees.

No question at this time. Second installment of Person Driven Oneness forthcoming. In the meantime, keep walking; perhaps drive around to find places where you can use your personal reality to resolve a few greater realities. Here’s a simple one: ring the bell for the Salvation army.

Ancient Mariner

Oneness VI

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WITHOUT ONENESS

Effect on Social structure

Acceptance of Hidden abuses

 Effect on Social Structure.  There is an African subculture known as the Ik. The Ik live in the mountains of Uganda. They long have been a marginalized culture. Survival is so severe an issue that children are not raised by their parents but are expelled to live with children their own age. These children must find subsistence on their own and bond into small groups of like-aged children to protect themselves from bands of older children. One asks immediately what the role of empathy and compassion is without the family unit to inculcate these values. Yet this subculture survives – but only in remote regions where contact with other cultures is unlikely. One can imagine there is little hope for the Ik in the long run. It is a survivalist life worthy of a television series and sustains itself on competition comparable to chimpanzees. The Ik are incapable of mediation and certainly cannot achieve oneness.

The Ik people survive without empathy and little compassion. The price they pay for this barren approach to life is the inability to develop an ameliorative society; it is not possible with such meager resources and such barren childhood. The lesson we can learn from the Ik is that our modern society, with its elaborate infrastructure, complex economy and cultural sophistication, is more dependent on oneness than we would like to admit.

The United State is a clear example of change in social structure, moving from middle right but homogeneous society in the forties and fifties to an extremist, non-negotiating society in this century. It is societal rather than incidental because so many cultural issues are involved. Abortion is a religious war that sometimes kills people; Voting rights are a racial battle that sometimes kills people; very limited government is a political war that counts victory as a failed congress and often causes death because of brutalization of defenseless poor. Beyond the cultural issues, the States have just enough power to disrupt processes that reflect the greater good for the greatest number – for example, gerrymandering totally disregards concepts related to one person, one vote.

Oneness is in short supply these days.

Acceptance of Hidden abuses.  Abuse occurs everywhere in many forms from the brutality of murder, rape, and molestation to ignoring the inequities of millions of families losing their homes and savings, to racial and economic prejudice and many more examples. In too many homes child abuse is a given. Whether sexual, starvation, destruction of a healthy personality, or physical beatings, maltreatment is the norm within too many households.

Old style slavery was outlawed by the Emancipation Proclamation but still today the racial burden of being black is not part of a national discussion that will lead to oneness. African Americans suffer unending hope for equality in society. The whites appear to be completely ignorant of black reality or guiltily sweep the issue under the rug.

Corporations and large financial entities feel free to run the US and State governments through the back door with a system that requires elected officials to attend endless fund raisers where their votes are bought by the wealthy. Yet only 39% of eligible voters actually vote. Out of sight, out of mind.

The information industry evades the compassion required to respect an individual’s privacy, security and in recent years, has developed a retail cost model that makes investors salivate.

You understand the situation. We can continue to list hidden abuses but the case is made. This list suggests with certainty that our society has lost its way and is virtually incapable of using compassion to use personal advantage in behalf of the greater good.

The question: Will you commit your time, skills and energy to improve your neighborhood, politics, or improve public service to those who may be disadvantaged?  To what cause will you commit? You are the first brick…..

Ancient Mariner

 

The Matrix

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Some readers sought an understanding as to why the mariner uses the movie The Matrix as an allegory in several posts where government or corporations are the theme. All the information you would like to know about the movie, a trilogy, can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix#Philosophical_influences .

An exegesis: many years ago, computer networks and robots took over the world. Humans fought back by making the atmosphere permanently full of storm clouds, denying the Sun as a source of energy. In turn, the robots began breeding human beings as a source of energy, AKA human batteries that were kept alive in casket-like pods. These humans were fed a false reality such that they believed they were living normal lives as their ancestors had done. This false reality is called the Matrix. A small team of free humans fight to destroy the Matrix in typical science fiction manner. The trilogy is an entertaining set of movies to watch.

The idea of a “false realty” goes far back in history and encompasses many theoretical speculations that the world we engage in is not real but rather a figment of our imagination and greatly limited by our five paltry senses.

The mariner uses the “human battery” as an example that represents when citizens are ignored or impugned upon in favor of profit or false political authority rather than to be properly represented by our governments and corporations.

Perhaps most memorable was his reference to candidate Romney when he derided behind closed doors that 47% of American citizens were nothing but overhead (Oneness IV):

The 2012 presidential race caught candidate Romney admitting that forty-seven percent of the US population depended on government handouts. It was spoken with derision and contempt….. The woes of a beaten middle class would not be an element of reconciliation between lesser and greater realities. There is no act of compassion. To Romney and the attendees in that room, people are Matrix batteries.

During the 2014 election, it was obvious that gerrymandering had achieved the same effect making the majority of the population irrelevant – more or less batteries. While national polls showed 80-90% of the population preferred taking automatic weapons off the street, candidates were elected across the board that would defend gun rights to include not only weapons but armored vehicles and rocket launchers.

To counter the Matrix effect, we need only to rise up as citizens and demand two changes:

Remove census redistricting from party domination and gerrymandering.

Impose a term limit election rule that no candidate may run for public office if the term in question extends beyond the candidate’s sixtieth birthday.

The term limit issue is not as irrational as one may expect. What is the average age of all citizens? At what age does current culture and experience begin to pass by an elected official? We need only to look at the Supreme Court to see the damage outdated and myopic judgment can cause.

Ancient Mariner

 

Self Serving Utterances

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Today’s topic is doublespeak. Doublespeak is designed not only to confuse or fool others but one’s self as well. For example, it is common for an individual to speak of themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal.” This phrase feels comforting; one feels that one is up-to-date on the political tone of the times. Actually the phrase is an oxymoron. One need only say, “Put your money where your mouth is” and the fallacy reveals itself. A fiscal conservative foremost will defend the need for fiscal worth and likely will not trade that for social responsibility.

Another form of doublespeak is “do as I say, not as I do.” There are many examples. An example from the left this time, an advocate of animal rights will decry the practices of sow birthing cages and beef veal pens while enjoying their pork or veal cutlet. From the right, one advocates freedom of religion but denies that freedom to anyone who may not support their perception of religious practice.

Then there is the doublespeak professional – the politician. The late night talk shows, including FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, Comedy Central and MSNBC, had a field day with candidate policy positions before a primary and afterward. The republicans had to win the primary within extremely gerrymandered districts where the tea party held sway. If they won their primary, the candidate shifted their remarks toward the center to garner as many remaining votes as possible.

The same tactic revealed itself in politicians who decried President Obama’s policies while supporting the same legislation under President Bush. One exception is the proposed immigration reform by both Presidents that was not accepted by Congress in either administration.

The last form of doublespeak today is false advocacy. The most virulent form is the negative campaign advertisement. A candidate espouses an implied but unexplained position on policy by talking about an opponent’s errant ways. Debating in this way permits the candidate to do whatever he wants without defending his or her own policy declarations.

False advocacy is used by the individual citizen in daily conversation when the individual disagrees with another individual but will not express that disagreement. Instead, at best, a statement of faint praise is offered but clearly there is no intention of supporting the other individual. The second individual must be keen on body language to know the person does not mean what they say and is in opposition.

It is no wonder one is encouraged not to speak of politics or religion. One of the mariner’s longstanding friends is a staunch conservative. The friend knows the mariner is, well, all over the place. We never speak of fiscal or social issues which is a shame; the utterances would be self serving but even more destructive to a good friendship. It was in the post “Oneness IV” where the mariner suggested that the reader pick one of the people you know that you have difficulty relating to because of your opinion of that person. Imagine that person without letting your opinion affect you. This takes a lot of practice. You know you are doing the right thing if you can feel a growing empathy. This is an exercise coined in the phrase “walk a mile in his shoes.” What are the good characteristics that you noticed?

As a parting thought, the advocacy for freedom of religion seemed to be a “do as I say, not as I do” form of doublespeak. Does the same apply to “one person, one vote?” Is the US indeed a democracy?

Ancient Mariner

 

Jon Stewart’s Biography

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The mariner was at the library the other day. While he was there, he checked out a copy of Jon Stewart’s biography written by Lisa Rogak, Angry Optimist, the Life and Times of Jon Stewart. St. Martin’s Press, 2014.

Jon was and is an eclectic mind driven by a desire to be good at something. He tried everything, including attending William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, a student body where Jews were a significant minority – likely counted on one hand.

The book is entertaining and a light read. All that aside, what caught the mariner’s attention was that Jon followed the works of Eugene Debs when Jon was young. Eugene Debs! The mariner hasn’t thought of him in decades.

Eugene Debs was a labor union organizer in the earlier years of the twentieth century when the union movement was active. Debs was a union organizer extraordinaire; Readers may recall his organization of the American Railway Union and the Pullman strike of 1894 that shut down train traffic in most of the United States. President Cleveland had to call in the US Army to break the strike.

In today’s capitalist environment, Debs would not have been allowed a platform from which to marshal the nation’s labor force. Times were different as the twentieth century began, however, and Debs was the champion of union organizers.

The American culture was more open and diverse in those days. Debs ran for President five times as a Socialist Party Candidate.

The mariner’s mind was refreshed with an awareness of the upheaval of US culture during the turn of the century. It was a time similar to the time we have now. In Deb’s lifetime, the assembly line was invented, automobiles replaced horses, airplanes made it possible to hop from one city to another in one day, and unions had a new major role in the life of the working class.

The upheaval today is every bit as challenging. Robotics, electronics, computers, and a new global awareness test our understanding of who we are and what we stand for.

The last champion of comparable influence that changed standards against the will of government and business is Ralph Nader, who used public opinion to force the auto industry to significantly upgrade safety standards. It is interesting that changes in cultural ideas and practices cannot occur without a champion who launches the new idea. Without the Debs and Naders of the world, our culture would not take for granted workers’ rights and auto safety – an integral part of our life today.

In 2014, we have many inventors and innovative entrepreneurs. What we need is a champion to harness the culture of the 21st century.

It is true that reading enriches the mind. The mariner has a biography of Jon Stewart to thank for today’s pondering.

Ancient Mariner

Life Force

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The mariner was standing on a street corner the other day when a woman with a little furry thing in her arm (It couldn’t have been a wolf, maybe one of those toys that cries and wets itself. He saw one like it tucked into the abundant cleavage of a movie star. It looked like it belonged there – sort of like a soul patch but lower). The woman had a very large pocketbook hanging off her other arm, perhaps a distraction because the strap implied that it belonged on her shoulder. The woman had unkempt hair (do not judge her for that; my wife often says that it is a hair style and not “unkempt”) She wore black one size fits all pants, and a Detroit Lions sweatshirt under a light blue jacket.

The woman had two daughters along with her and was lecturing them. The littlest girl looked to be about five and the taller one looked to be about nine. They were dressed almost identically: red sneakers, jeans, each had a different t-shirt; both wore school jackets. The nine year old stared ahead indifferently while slowly chewing gum, hands in her jacket pockets. The little one had her head turned to look over her shoulder at something that caught her attention.

The mariner watched as the three continued down the block. The woman never stopped lecturing; the little one never stopped looking across the street and the tall one still chewed, hands in pockets.

Martin Wolf says the entire world is headed for a global financial crisis. The Indians clamor to remove the name “Redskins” from the football team. Every day there is a shooting somewhere that occupies air time on the tv news (The mariner often wonders if the news journalists station themselves in places where shootings may occur – sort of like hunting and waiting for deer to come down the path). ISIL seems a looming threat to the US – at least according to military analysts, military advisers, and military contract lobbyists. 2014 is the warmest year on record and 2015 will be even warmer. Is there enough water in the Ogallala aquifer to grow grain?

The three went into a small restaurant featuring Mexican cuisine.

The mariner wondered what the mother had to say for such a long time. It probably didn’t matter; the girls weren’t listening. There seemed to be some disarray in their lives. Apparently the girls had adopted ways to normalize their lives and the mother must carry burden in her life. It is odd how life can encase one’s existence completely, creating a reality only visible to those encased – like the woman and the daughters. They have a life that no one else lives.

As do you and the mariner. We are encased in our separate lives – unique to ourselves.

Turkey stands by while innocent people are being killed less than a mile away. Russia annexed Crimea and intends to make Ukraine Russian-dependent. Ebola kills 4,600 in Africa.

The mariner walks back home, just a few blocks. The grass on the lawns is still green and neatly clipped. That’s a trademark in this town. A man is washing his car in the driveway. In another block, three men are cutting down an old tree. As the mariner walks up his driveway, a red squirrel twenty feet away watches with a cautious stare.

Life envelopes everyone. It seems a force unto itself tied somehow to history and the journey everyone takes. Yet our journeys are unique and so different. Nevertheless, each of us, living a life unknown to others, is part of the daily history of the earth.

What is the life that envelopes an ISIS fighter? A US Senator? Bill Gates? A barefooted starving child in Africa? A software engineer at Monsanto? A prison guard? Your neighbor? Your child? We share this singular phenomenon called “life.” Yet each of us lives it alone.

Ancient Mariner