Depraved Business Criminals

Reading a recent case of food poisoning in India, apparently the result of a local store owner trying to make a profit on cheap cooking oil, reminds us of a fundamental fact. There is no limit to the depths of depravity of business criminals. They will sacrifice human life in order to make a few pennies profit.

Garlic

I watched a superb old documentary about garlic made by Les Blank probably in the 1970s. Very good and well-worth watching. It is available on DVD. Some of the bright and happy young people in the film were of the so-called counter-culture, and perhaps because of that, were relatively deep in philosophy and history at least compared to today. One of the lines stuck with me for several days. I still ponder it when I am lying in bed at night. The film advocated Epicureanism in relation to eating garlic as a way of enhancing the pleasure of food, and to this end, placed text on the screen that read,

"When you're dead, you're done. Long live the living!"

It is not necessarily an atheist statement, but expressive of disbelief in the afterlife. I do agree with the sentiment. There seems no future in death at all. I find it very difficult to believe we possess any substance other than flesh and bone. I don't believe God plays coy with immortality, hiding it from us as some kind of test just to check whether we will believe in it because the Bible says so.

Of course, whether individual consciousness, that is, our own life, matters or not is purely a matter of perspective. I suppose the evolutionary purpose of our ego, which is so dominant in the human psychology, is to ensure we find great value in our individual consciousness and will do whatever is required to maintain and sustain it, even to the extent of conjuring up fantasies about surviving death in one form or another. An unhealthy ego may in turn lead to insufficient or ineffective maintenance--one may eat bad foods or use harmful substances or fail to perform all the little tasks that tend to prolong life. Yet I think a healthy ego may reject belief in the afterlife on the noble ground of reason. I believe truth matters. That is a judgment call on my part, a bias I have for reality. If a thing can not be so, then one should not believe in it.

Getting back to the film, I found it positively gushing about garlic, too enthusiastic by half, but that did not stop me from enjoying it. I do not believe that garlic can cure disease, although it does have antiseptic and antioxidant properties and makes a wonderful spice for all kinds of foods. I have always loved garlic and always will.

Are We Ready for Democracy?

I wonder sometimes whether we are ready for democracy as a species.

Is Egypt ready for democracy?

More to the point, is the U.S.?

I just read the comments section on a major news web site. The article concerned Mr. Snowden, who is deemed a traitor or a patriot or somewhere in-between, depending upon one's point of view. Comments generally were in favor of hanging, I do believe. Armchair executioners are in great abundance.

I think that many citizens still have the mindset of living under a monarchy. They remain, in spirit, loyal subjects of a monarch, just as things were a thousand years hence, and why should they not? Why should people not believe that fealty comes first? Those among our ancestors who believed otherwise were executed.

Is the world ready for democracy? Not really. Even Republican forms of government arrived too soon for our species. Our progress in evolution suits us for a monarchist form of government, and yet I can't help but feel that we should continue trying to make republican forms of government work, even if they are ill-suited to our primitive mentality. Perhaps with experience, with the progress of centuries, we may learn to make republics work better. Is the liberal philosophy correct? Should we believe in amelioration?

Victory through Nonviolence

Gays won on the legal, political, and cultural battleground because they spoke the most reasonable words with the most moderate voice. Their dialogue was one of human rights and dignity. Their opponents varied, but never made a good impression upon me. There was never a time I listened to a homophobe and thought, "Gee, he might have something there." Instead, I always wondered what variety of mental disease these haters suffered from. All too often, homophobes were exposed as closeted homosexuals, which was extremely damaging to the anti-gay lobby, rather like tossing a fragmentation grenade into the officer's tent. The Wiccan law applies: when one points a finger at others, three are pointing back. Too clear was the hypocrisy, meanness and ignorance of homophobes. As for the gay activists, why, they were for the most part non-violent, even in the face of outrageous injustice. There is value in taking blows when others must witness it, because those who watch will wonder when they will be struck next, because violence has a way of spreading, of engulfing communities, turning against minorities first, and then everyone. So when Matthew Shepard was martyred by the brutal murderers, that was one of the turning points in the battle, when people of conscience could no longer accept the injustice, hypocrisy and wickedness. That was the point when many good people said, Enough. Because there are things in life of more value than popularity, material or power. There is a spiritual and moral dimension that transcends the world we live in and life itself. Spiritual force can be overwhelming, as many a cynic has discovered at a late hour.

Situational Ethics

I remember that the conservative Christian fundamentalists in my youth railed against a term I had never heard before: situational ethics, wherein certain deeds are not always wrong or always right. Instead, the verdict of right or wrong depends upon the situation. For instance, murder is wrong, but in war, killing may be right. Killing may be right to defend a loved one from immediate violence, or to punish and dispose of a convicted murderer, or to alleviate the pain of a dying person, or to abort an unwanted embryo. Some religionists reject situational ethics, and maintain that there are absolutes, such as this one, that killing is never right in any situation, which seems an extreme position, yet is one taken by several religious minorities throughout the ages. I'm afraid the roughness of our world prohibits nonviolence from gaining a majority footprint. Yet if every being were endowed with an inability to commit violence, then the world would be a better place, sure.

I believe situational ethics is right, because what is usually a right can also become a wrong, and vice versa. I believe in adaptable absolutes rather than unshakable dogmas. I believe the spirit of an ethical law is more important than the literal word. One would be too lawyerly to interpret rules as unbendable. It seems a failure to have a deeper and more meaningful understanding of ethics. But I think the explanation for absolute ethics is that some believe Scripture to be the literal word of God, infallible in every way, a hypothesis neither I nor any of my family ever accepted. I don't think many Christians believe the Bible is the literal word of God any longer.

However, a valid criticism of situational ethics is that many intelligent people subscribe to it, but use rationalizations to find exceptions for just about any conduct at all, such as spying on Americans. I am sure all those Congressmen and bureaucrats really believe that they are doing right by spying on everybody. They dismiss any concerns as paranoia. They point to various cases where spying helped improve the efficiency of this or that law enforcement agency. Well, you know, the Gestapo was a very efficient organization in its day, too. Sure, if you spy on everybody, you're going to catch some bad people. The trouble is, a lot of information gets uncovered by this spying, and that's a very tempting treasure trove of private and personal data. Sooner or later, it's going to be abused, and I think sooner rather than later.

I think all this spying is contrary to the spirit of our republic, that it is a relic of tyranny, and that a powerful tool has been placed into the hands of--who knows? Really, who knows who's tapping into all that data? Do tens of thousands of people have access? How many are psychopaths? How many are working for another government, for the mafia, or for a drug cartel?

I was in the grocery store yesterday and saw a depressing sight, the books and magazine section. There were hundreds of magazines, but not a single news magazine. Hundreds of magazines had to do with sports, handguns, rifles, machine guns, sex, celebrities, entertainment, or making money. The closest thing to a news magazine I could find was National Geographic. As for the books, they had bestsellers and faith-based inspirational books and that's all. At the check-out line, I did see one news magazine, TIME, as thin as a dime nowadays and consisting of charts, graphics and pictures, a mere shadow of what it used to be.

Visiting the grocery store gave me the impression that no one cares about what's going on in the world. But perhaps there is a feeling, which I think more likely, that ordinary people can do nothing about what's going on, that we are powerless, and so to read about world events is pointless and depressing. That, I think, is a consequence of what Noam Chomsky called the atomization of America, wherein people no longer are affiliated with large organizations that can indeed create political change. I remember that all the right-wingers out at work used to harshly criticize unions, as though unions were the enemy, preventing them from achieving what they wanted. I wonder how they like being without unions? I'm sure they must have a feeling of living in Paradise, that everything is roses and butterflies now.

My grandfather would be considered a right-winger today. He was conservative in every sense of the word save one, that he believed in education for women, which was fortunate for my mother. On the other hand, he was racist and anti-Semitic, which was usual and conforming for his people, place and time. I have no reason to suppose he would have been anything but homophobic as well. However, he was a union man throughout his entire working life. I don't know how it came to be that the right-wingers turned against the unions. There were bad unions, corruption, poor leadership in some cases, but I think the unions lost to free trade, which pitted Americans against low-paid workers overseas. Americans lost, of course, which was inevitable in hindsight.

Carter was Ethical

I'm old enough to remember President Carter. He was our last President to really care about ethics. There are thorny questions one could pose to the other Presidents that would just dissolve any pretences they might have. I wonder about Obama sometimes, now that we know he approved spying on Americans. I don't believe anything that his spy chief says. They didn't want us to know about their spying. Now they are spending all their passion on vindictiveness, on their plans to punish whoever betrayed their secret. But it should not have been a secret in the first place. They spied on ordinary Americans on a massive scale. Now that they're caught, they say, "Oh, it's not so bad. See, we were doing because of, you know, terrorism and stuff." I just don't believe it. If they had been honest in the first place and told the country what they were doing, then that would be one thing, but they have their hand caught in the cookie jar and are just trying to deflect some heat.

When Reagan ran against Carter in '79, I switched my support to Reagan in alignment with my father, but we were wrong. Carter took the blame for a sour economy and the Iranian hostage crisis. That's why he lost the election. Reagan paid off Iran with weapons to get the hostages back and then spent his way out of the recession. All he did was spend, spend, spend. He paid off the Iranians and paid off private companies to build more bombs.

Carter was special in that he kept on working for the country even out of office. He was not afraid to state his opinions about world issues, even if these opinions sometimes made him unpopular with certain groups like the pro-Israel lobby. I am convinced he spoke from conscience more than any of these other Presidents we have had. I listen to these other Presidents speak and I read quotes from these guys and it seems to me they are calculating every word, even down to the punctuation they use, based upon political factors. They're good at politics, maybe better than Carter on politics, but not so good at ethics.

Is ethics without value? Many people think so, including those that are in positions of authority today. I think having ethics is what distinguishes a great leader from a mediocre one. People do respect ethics. Otherwise all our heroes would be villains, but they're not, are they? Our heroes are people who did what they thought was right. I think ethics bestows a generous reward on those that practice it, because ethics, more times than not, coincides with the wisest course of action. Intelligent, educated fools scoff at ethics and think they know better at their peril, because the world's complexity defeats even the most cunning. It is wise to walk in the way of righteousness and to refuse those opportunities to steal what seem to be trifling advantages.

An Interview

I was told during a phone interview today that I lack administrative experience. This was not volunteered feedback. I extracted it from the interviewer with a direct question: "Do you feel that there is anything that would disqualify me from this position?" Is that a gambit? Perhaps it is. I find directness helpful, because it cuts through the crap. I want useful feedback. If I don't get the job, give me a clue why. Otherwise the interview is of limited value. I am direct in all my questions. All I care about is whether my resume, cover letter, and presentation are okay. The rest has no meaning, because I can research to find the answers to everything else.

Administrating programs and procedures and protocols? Surely I have done that in my life. What the remark suggests however is that there are applicants that are better known to the decision-maker, applicants with what is thought to be "administrative experience," possibly people that are already vouched for by someone known to the interviewer. The selection of that other will be justified by their "administrative experience."

My pride is wounded by applying for humble jobs with modest demands and being told I haven't the right experience for them. What, am I incapable of learning any new skill? Am I fossil already? Do my degrees and experience mean nothing? The answer is yes, my college degrees mean nothing, their value is zero or even less than zero. My experience means nothing either. No one thinks anything about computer programming, no one holds it in any special regard at all. All that matters is who one knows. What one knows is of less importance.

I was told there were hundreds of applicants just for this one little job paying twelve dollar an hour, and I was one of only fifteen called for a phone interview. Should I be flattered by that? Maybe. I'm not though. I'd really prefer not to have wasted my energy upon hoping for a better life. Oh, I had such eagerness--was almost giddy. I felt alert and aware. Yet it seemed that nothing I said impressed the listener, that she had heard it all before and was rather bored and disinterested. Never once did she offer any positive feedback. How I wish I knew someone that was close to her! That would have made all the difference, I'm sure. I could not get through the firewall. I had a strong suspicion she had already made up her mind to choose someone else, and I don't really know why she called in the first place. Perhaps she thought I was female and turned against me upon finding I was not. That seems to me a very likely scenario, because I know how clannish women can be. Many women strongly prefer to work with other women. So what she said was probably a convenient excuse, a white lie. There is really nothing I could have said or done to eliminate such a strong bias.

I am a good listener. I can read into choice of words and tone of voice pretty well, and I felt my chance was over and done. A black wave of despair passed over me the minute I put the phone down. It is times like this that I fear death not at all.

Writing about the experience helps. I feel better here at this last paragraph than I did at the first. Once one confesses to despair, that is the essential lever to lift the heavy burden from consciousness. Do not feed the despair. Do not drink. One must confess. Confession is good for the soul. "Yes, I have this wild feeling that things are hopeless, yes I feel like a drowning rat. Yes I feel that my talents are being wasted." With confession, the despair becomes an interesting unusual thing, like a sombrero, and one's curiosity is piqued. Why am I wearing this sombrero? I don't usually wear a sombrero. I will take it off. The hat fit me half an hour ago, but I think I'm over it now. I have such a good life. Yes, life is good. I do not need to wear the sombrero.

What fits me better is stoicism. We live, we die. That is all. As long as there are still good moments, free of pain, that is all one should expect.

I Love Deleting Comments

Out there in Internet-land, SEO scumbags are paying a bunch of needy nerds about ten dollars an hour to leave comments on blogs like mine. I mark such comments as spam and delete them. Ha-ha, game over, wah-wah-wah.

Takes me all of five seconds to clock SEO shills. For the record, igor was not born yesterday.

I see these shady Internet jobs on E-lance all the time. E-lance was made for crap jobs like that. I may be a needy nerd myself, but there are certain jobs I don't deign to do for ethical reasons. The money is beside the point. I can't stomach the thought of ever being a spammer that promotes crap sites on the Internet. Now if the site were worth a damn, that might be another question, but I don't work for the unethical or the ignorant.

I wish more people had scruples about who they work for. The world would be a better place. Homo Sapiens 2.0 needs to have a faculty in the brain that refuses to behave like a slave--refuses to work for evil ends.

Suffocating Under Prescription Laws

Today, the restrictions on life-saving medicine are an obvious manifestation of Social Darwinism. Medicines such as Albuterol, the rescue inhaler for asthmatics, require a prescription by an expensive medical doctor. Readers unfamiliar with Albuterol should know that is a non-narcotic medicine that asthmatics require on occasion when their asthma acts up. It is not typically something that one takes on a daily basis, but rather as needed, such as during allergy season. Inability to obtain Albuterol can lead to death by suffocation at the utmost, or costly visits to indifferent nurse practitioners at expensive, far-away medical clinics in order to obtain a script for twenty-five doses of the common generic drug, Albuterol. A visit may cost as much as a hundred dollars, not counting the Albuterol itself, which is additional. Always the words on the label read "NO REFILL," guaranteeing another visit a few months down the line and another hundred dollars flushed down the toilet. Making Albuterol difficult to obtain is unethical, because it increases the risk that an asthmatic will die of suffocation.

Why is Albuterol a prescription drug in the first place? That's a good question that would be difficult to answer without cynicism. Almost every drug that does anything requires a prescription. The reason is the government thinks people are idiots. Some people are idiots, sure. But most people would rather be given the benefit of the doubt. I believe one should assume that people will make wise choices, given adequate information, and yet even if they do not, it is better that they should be given a choice. My belief is a natural extension of my bias toward democracy. Those who are authoritarian take the opposite view, that only an authority should decide what is best for an individual. I suppose one's stance on this issue reflects one's political affiliation. There are some that would be happier in Iran or China, being told what to do and what not to do all the time.

In my view, doctors should not have an exclusive monopoly on prescribing life-saving medicine. In order to justify such a monopoly from the ethical perspective, doctors would have to always be available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to instantly write a script to anyone who needs it at no cost. This, of course, is impossible for anyone, let alone a doctor. Doctors are hardly available at all, and when they are seen it is at great cost and at their convenience, not the convenience of the suffering. I conclude that prescription and indeed drug laws in general will have to be revisited in a future society founded upon ethics. I doubt that any change will happen in my lifetime, but perhaps future generations will come around to a similar viewpoint as expressed here.

Commune with the Dead

When reading Patrick O'Brian, one communes with the dead. The author has been dead for thirteen years now, and all the characters in his novel (some based upon real people and all based upon real history) are dead. I find it very pleasant to enter his world of the imagination, which remains very much alive, even though his body is not. I wonder which is the more real, the imagined reality or the reality we live in. Of course, the imagined reality of a great writer has far more endurance than a frail human body and pleases many more people. Almost all the writers I like are dead or, I'm afraid, soon will be, not that I feel it is a prerequisite of any kind, but each generation reads the work of the preceding generations, because a writer requires a long time to earn popularity and get established among publishers.

Cannabis also allows the shaman to open the door between living and dead and commune with various entities, but I think that great books provide a guided tour, a more interesting journey in many ways, the experience less physical and more cerebral. I have always felt that I would be completely satisfied reading select books by my favorite writers. If I lost the use of any of my limbs, like some of the innocent victims of the Boston bomber, it would not ruin my life unless I were unable to turn pages. I would adapt as long as I could continue reading, perform the basic necessities of life and communicate with others. The health problems that really worry me are ungovernable infection, such as antibiotic-resistant pneumonia, cancer, stones, heart disease, or the worst of all, mental dysfunction such as senility.

Middle-Aged Despair

Seems like middle-aged suicide is on the increase, and as usual social scientists don't know why, so they are pointing the finger at drugs. Of course, evil only exists in the world due to drugs. Without the heroin, there would be no shoplifting. Without cocaine, littering would be a thing of the past. Drugs are also the reason for inflation, drought, and water pollution.

I don't know about these social scientists. One would expect they would be a little more perceptive of current events. It's the economy, stupid.

I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out the connection between the lack of good jobs in this country and the suicide increase. Men that have known better times and held responsible positions now find that they can't find any work other than minimum-wage jobs. They fall behind on their mortgages, divorce, go on welfare, lose the hard-earned respect of friends and family, lose their homes, don't have enough to eat, can't afford medical care, and become victims of crime. This goes on for years with no end in sight and no hope on the horizon. No jobs, no money, no respect. And yet they had spent their lives doing all the right things, working hard, attending school. Any surprise they blow their brains out or O.D. on painkillers? Not really. America has always been a very materialist, capitalist society that views people in terms of winners and losers, and nobody likes to consider themselves losers. So death is way of resigning a losing game. Once you're dead, you don't give a damn anymore. Other people can deal with the clean-up of the body and weave crazy theories about how prescription painkillers made you do it.

For my part, I found the adjustment to the modern economy of zero good jobs and no hope to be difficult, but on the bright side, these low-wage jobs are pretty easy compared to the responsible positions I held in the past. I used to work really hard, harder than anybody I know. Now I don't have to use my brain half the time. I use maybe 1% of my intellect on my job. I used to use 100% of my intellect on my job. My job used to keep me up all day, all night. Skull-sweat. I don't think more than two people out of a hundred could have managed my job. But in the new economy, easy jobs are the only kind I will ever get. So I have adjusted to working less, working not nearly as hard, making less money, and trying not to worry about the future, because hey, when you die, you die, right? Other people will have to dispose of the body, and that's that.

I have a good life in some ways, and besides, I've never felt like suicide is a smart move, because one never knows what the morning may bring. The morning may bring something good. I think life has too many possibilities to just give up based on something that doesn't ultimately matter, like money. I could see suicide in the case of someone with a chronic medical condition in addition to not having any money, however, especially if they also feel isolated and alone. Our world just doesn't care. We throw people away. But as long as one has good health, I think it is foolish to throw that away based on something like a bank account balance.

I read in another PBS article that a lot of companies only hire young people, defined as under-30, because they feel younger people are cheaper, easier to handle, and will be with the company longer, and cost less in medical bills. So, I suppose young people may feel smug about things, but the trouble there is that they, too, will get middle-aged soon enough, and then they will find that the same strategy that applies to middle-aged people now will also apply to them. They will get down-sized, right-sized, out-sourced, whatever the case may be, and then they will find that McDonald's is hiring a few good people.

The Trolls of Wesnoth Multiplayer

It's always an eye-opener to note those in the world with less suave and social sophistication than myself. I was reminded of the existence of trolls when I experimented with Wesnoth - Multiplayer, where many players quit games without a word or after citing a quite trivial reason; insulted one another, and booted other players for not understanding the rules, although they are not willing to speak of rules nor much else. They do not seem willing or perhaps capable of communicating in an effective manner. All of their communication is wasted upon name-calling, upon hostile behavior that cannot possibly produce good results. I wonder how these people are going to get by in the real world with attitudes like that. Their behavior should attract other people with similar personality types, and repel people like me that just want to get along and have a bit of fun. Not a friendly bunch. Not people I would want to spend any amount of time with on a voluntary basis.

I was amused by the thought that I could code an AI that would behave in the same manner as these trolls. They are predictable in a certain way; trollish behavior is not complicated. Each turn, there would be a 30% of a random profanity, a 20% chance of a random insult, and a 20% chance that one or more players would quit. If anyone quit, there would be a 1% chance that they would give any notice, and a 99% chance that they would leave without saying a word. I can't tell how many games I've waited thirty minutes for someone to move, only to discover after I quit that everyone had already left the game.

Whatever happened to sportsmanship? I learned at an early age to be both a graceful winner and a loser. What is the purpose of a game, after all? The purpose of a game is not to win, but to exercise the mind. Of course games are a diversion and a way to kill boredom, but they should never be stress-inducing or hostile. I don't see the point in a hostile game for no stakes, when one could be reading a book instead.

The learning I have that gives me the most satisfaction of all are my social skills. To know what not to do and to know what to do, and how to say things and communicate with others in an effective manner is very useful indeed. I'd trade all my knowledge of history for it, although that's not quite a fair trade, because I'd simply enjoy rereading history books to relearn all that I had given away.

I'm rereading Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey & Stephen Maturin books. I like to go through the twenty once every seven years or so, after some of the stories have been forgotten. He is an absolute joy to read. I think I'd rather spend a few hours with Patrick O'Brian than with the trolls of Wesnoth.

Faith Falters

As a friendly observer, I witness the disintegration of what used to be a fine thriving little church in my community. What strikes me is the lack of intelligence in the higher echelons, the district managers, so to speak. What blockheads they seem. What uninspiring specimens they install as preachers.

Jesus is not going to fix everything. If you want God to help you, help yourself. The trouble with churches has always been that they do not react in realtime but have a delayed reaction to problems due to the shackles around each ankle, one named Tradition and the other named Ignorance. Knowledge is not the serpent. Knowledge is the path to wisdom. Without knowledge, how do we know what is so? Some religionists assume they already know, due to having (mis-)read a book. Some preachers speak as though their audience were uneducated sharecroppers without a nickel to their names and no television, no Internet, no telephone; no way to find out contrary information. To recruit and retain the sophisticated, it is necessary that the preacher be sophisticated, not simple and not bandying about the same old discredited superstitions. Do not speak of what cannot be proven, but speak of what is known to each heart. Too many preachers seem like children. They do not know anything and one doesn't yearn to hear anything they might have to say. It would be better to select a person that knew nothing of the Bible, but had a good heart and knew how to speak, than some of the specimens from seminary, who seem to be guaranteed employment for life, rather than being selected upon personal merit.

Gaining a dozen new indigents is fine for filling out the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but losing a single family that is well-educated and well-connected is a loss that reverses the former gain altogether. For generations, churches have been losing the best and the brightest. Educated people do not go to church anymore. Churches have also been losing the young. I see no end to the trend of mindshare loss. Islam also is losing in the long term, retaining some due to the thread of a shared cultural identity in the face of an overwhelming Western culture, but that faith too is on the wane, and perhaps all others as well, due to the excellent accessibility of information in our times.

Knowledge will defeat faith. Faith I think had its uses and served well another age of Man, as did monarchy and feudalism. In my family tree, I observed there were many preachers as far back as the 1600s. My people used to be earnest believers even in the current generation, but they have all left their various denominations for various reasons. Most left because their churches were stodgy, unscientific, mean-spirited merchants of mumbo-jumbo. I left as a teenager and never looked back. The Church had no answers for me, only hypocrisy and mumbo-jumbo. The time to update and refresh religion was hundreds of years ago. There used to be a narrow window of opportunity. The time has passed when religion could change and accommodate modern man. Now religion will be discarded as an outmoded relic of the past. Philosophy must replace it.

The Three D's

Young people can say things like "We'll be best friends forever," which I said many a time. With age, one sees the three D's dispose of friends: difference, distance, and death. The best one can do is replace those that were lost with better ones and try not to wax nostalgic over the past.

Thoughts on the Boston Bombers

The surviving suspect in the Boston bombing is lucky that the cops caught him, because the cops are gentler than any one of us would be, if we had caught him by ourselves. There is a shocking latent savagery in many of us, especially when emboldened by public outcry and righteous indignation.

The thought of the terrorist surviving another day rankles. Yet I am reminded of Gandalf's arguments in favor of sparing the murderers Gollum and Wormtongue. Perhaps there is value in sparing a murderer's life, because during or after a trial, motives and other useful information often come to light. Maybe murderers must live in order to be examples of the worst. Maybe their miserable fate also serves as an example to others. I have always had two minds about capital punishment.

I do not believe all that I read concerning the younger terrorist. I don't believe he was a passive stoner, a naive pawn of a dominant older brother, as the media suggests. People tend to judge others based upon looks. The surviving terrorist is beautiful; even so, he is a devil. It is possible for evil to seem fair and speak with the voice of an angel, as did Sauron in the Silmarillion. I am glad one of the terrorists was slain and the other apprehended, and I hope that the government loses the key to the surviving scum's cell and never lets him go.

It annoys me that certain immigrants have such an easy time claiming permanent residency in the United States, which is the dream of many a gay foreign spouse. Why do we need more fanatic Islamists coming into this country? They should go to Saudi Arabia instead, if they love Islam so much. Go to Saudi Arabia and soak up all the Islam you can stand, if that's what you want. Don't come over to America and hate Americans because we're not Islamic. I read that the surviving terrorist scum had even received a $2,500 scholarship. This country welcomed those two scum with open arms, and they were given every conceivable opportunity to succeed.

Republicans in Congress are going to use this incident to punish the innocent, namely the gay foreign spouses who can't get a green card due to current immigration policy.

Zen

I woke up on Saturday morning determined that it was going to be a good day, despite my fifteen hour working shift. What do you know, it was a good day, and all because I made it so. I had a bit of help in that nothing unexpected arose. But I made preparations. I slept my seven hours the night before, got up early, ate a hearty breakfast consisting of my patented oatmeal, and remembered all of the little things I need to remember.

This reflection reminds me of my youthful study of Zen. There is an ancient book collecting dust on my shelf that teaches spells that work real magic. It is called "The World of Zen" by Nancy Wilson Ross, and it contains ancient lore that cannot be explained, defined or analyzed, which is the essence of Zen, I believe. The magic that it teaches is a spiritual, rather than a material magic, which may be a disappointment to the reader, unless he reflects that spiritual magic is after all the more important variety.

I plan to start reading Ross again. After so many years decades, I come to the book with a new perspective. A good author, or in Ross's case, editor, is like that. Put their book down, let it lie fallow for a couple years, and the second harvest is even better--and a third and fourth isn't out of the question either, with the absolute limit of repetition depending on one's longevity.

Another Hothead Goes Down in Flames

Out of curiosity, because he had made headlines for so many days, and because it is seldom that a major news outlet publishes a manifesto, I skimmed the manifesto of the renegade ex-cop, the rodent who deserves no name who turned on his own colleagues and killed innocent people. After five minutes reading, mental illness was my diagnosis, and to be specific, manic-depression, because the vermin had delusions of grandeur, cutting it the high and mighty, using pompous words like "utilize," as in "I will utilize my 'Mil-Int' training to wage asymmetrical warfare," which made him sound such an ass. I knew then that he would not escape nor even survive as he was a fool, but I didn't know he would be dead and burned in a matter of days. Fire was appropriate. Anger was his problem, a crippling problem that neutralized any supposed advantage from his "Mil-Int training," a rage that sought a focus in his delusions. Something internal irritating the mind, something biochemical, but the diseased mind believes the irritant is external--a person, say, an enemy, racists within the LAPD, for instance. Military training is all about defeating enemies--perhaps an unfortunate career choice for someone as disturbed as that fool, having access to powerful weaponry. He should never have been within ten feet of any firearm with such a diseased mind. Of course with moments of lucidity, he latched on to the lingering traces of a legitimate cause, the crusade against racism in the LAPD. But no one can trust any of his statements. He has discredited himself, to say the very least, by his insect acts, and everything in his manifesto has the stench of lies and bigotry. I do not even care to name him. To me he is a germ. The victims only should be named. They were human.

Although it may not suit every situation, there is still something to be said for the liberal Christian practice of turning the other cheek, because by doing so, one retains a claim to the moral high ground. I think that Jesus knew what he was about, there, and that Martin Luther King, Jr. had the right idea. When one stoops to deliver blows, or far worse, to waging "asymmetrical warfare" without any trace of chivalry, then the moral position is sunk. Bystanders and unaligned will sympathize with the victims of "asymmetrical warfare" rather than the heartless and evil perpetrator. The fool's calculus of killing one, two, three, a hundred or a thousand pales before the more numerous watchers who will form judgements based upon those deeds.Post a Comment

by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Here's for the Death Penalty

I'll be pleased when the cinema shooter in Colorado gets the Executioner's Axe, if for no other reason than I won't have to look at his ugly-as-sin, wide-eyed and crazy mug shot on the front page of Google News every other day. Liberal I may be, but my heart won't bleed for that vermin, nor for anyone who slays people at random without any rational motive. Whether the murderer is crazy or not matters not. A life has been taken, indeed, many lives, and in reading the account of the massacre, many of those slain were heroes, who should serve as subjects for U.S. Postage Stamps, as they sacrificed their lives to preserve the lives of their loved ones. For the sake of civilization, an example must be set: a life for a life. It is the way, it is the law, and has served since civilization began. Cut off his head and be done with it, and let us read about more interesting things than a worthless scumbag murderer. I am for beheading, when it comes to methods of capital punishment, because it is simple, foolproof, fast, and humane, though in truth the guillotine is superior to the Executioner's Axe. The French Revolutionaries knew what they were doing when it came to execution methodology, if not juriprudence and prudence. Harvest his bodily organs without consent, so that his body might serve a purpose, if his actions in life did not. Give sight to those that lack it, and kidneys to those that need it.Post a Comment

by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

A Christmas Message

Surround yourself with people of the light: good, honest, kind, and wise, be they who they may, and let their light rekindle yours.

There is light even in the darkness, because the light spans Alpha and Omega. Is within and without. Was before, is, and will be. When all ends, then that end is a false ending, because all begins again, not as it was, but as it will be.
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by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Gay Marriage Pioneer Richard Adams

I read an interesting blog post today about Richard Adams, who the INS called a faggot back in 1975. That shows how bad the political climate was back then, that INS employees felt they could get away with vulgarity.

Well, times change. An employee at a government agency that wrote a letter like that today would be fired and rightfully so.

Haters that call other people unpleasant names die off and aren't always replaced by new haters. Incidentally, it's a good thing that they die off. I don't think the human race is ready for immortality yet. Maybe in a thousand years. We still have these problems with violence, intolerance, greed, dishonesty, stupidity, and insanity. I think whenever immortality does become an option, then it had better be joined with genetic engineering so that the immortals are as good and strong and most of all, kind as they can be. It's a scary thought to think about evil-doers living forever... like Sauron.

I don't like the fact of my mortality any more than anybody else. It is odd that we begin each day not thinking it could be our last, and yet for some people, it is their last, they don't even know. Life's a strange bird, ain't it? I can certainly sympathize with the folks that want to believe in an afterlife and everlasting rewards. That's a kind of fantasy that is most appealing and soothing, much more comforting than, "You will be gone forever and ever, and in time, all traces of you will be wiped out completely; you are to be forgotten and erased." That's not quite the thing to say, is it? Even if it is true. I wouldn't have the heart to say it to anybody on death's door. I'd just let them partake of their traditional remedy, be it final rites, shaman or priest, as long as the priest doesn't take advantage and try to bully the poor fellow into converting or doing something against his better judgment.

I'm reading a book by a devout Christian woman recounting her childhood. Every little thing she did, everything that happened, she imbued with drama and meaning from the Bible and from theology, so God and Jesus are everywhere, testing, sending signals and messages, guiding, exhorting, and sometimes punishing, like parents. It's quite unusual. I think she is simple, but I like reading her story because it is so different from the usual book I read. She's got a tremendous head trip going on. Jesus is sending her messages, signals. She reads the Bible for clues on how to respond to her wicked stepmother, who is always putting her down. I'm amused because I catch on to her game, as it is a familiar one I've observed many a time among the Christians. One can read the Bible any which way and find a passage in support of this or that. The Bible contradicts itself; it isn't logical and had no one author, but is a cacophony of voices, each with their own agendas. The authors were jotting down things that made sense in the context of contemporary politics of their times, but don't necessarily apply today. All that's obvious to everyone but the devout Christian, who thinks the Bible was written for them and applies to their own life. Well, that's fine, only trouble is, you can get the Bible to tell you anything, just flip to the right page and go, and it isn't necessarily so, anyway. I think there are better books to read, better books to profit from. I particularly like the Simarillion, in which Tolkien describes a beautiful theology in much more detail than the Bible, which is always vague about the Deity. Why be coy? Why not spell things out? Tolkien did. I like his theology better. At any rate I don't take her religion seriously but enjoy reading all of her thoughts about things. I do think she is a passable good writer, not one that could sell books, but good enough to keep me reading.

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by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments