America's Voting Quagmire

The U.S. learned nothing from Florida's voting fiasco in 2000. Our voting process is still antiquated, inaccurate, prone to lengthy delays not just for voters but for counters, and prone to corruption. Apparently, the corrupt politicians in Washington, D.C., don't care because they profit from the corruption. I don't see much momentum from either party to fix voting, and it has been broken for decades, probably forever. The U.S. could do a lot better where voting is concerned. Every time there is an election, it seems to devolve into a finger-pointing contest with lawyers, lawsuits and protests.

Don't Know Much

I read, see and hear, sometimes with envy, other times with admiration, folk that are doing much better than I, in the sense of achieving. More eloquent, more beautiful, more intense, stronger, smarter, or more skilled, or perhaps (Heaven forbid!) all of the above. Well, there's a ranking system everywhere, and no one is exempt. Even the strong must, in time, compare themselves to the stronger and come up short. There are comparisons to be made, not just among the current cohort, but with the dead greats (not to be confused with the Grateful Dead) such as Shakespeare and so on. There are comparisons to be made, finally, with computers, with other animals and finally, with the Divine, besides which no mortal can truly compare. This, then, is a meditation on Humility. 'Tis well to be humble, because even the finest form among us pales before the Divine. Then, too, there is the annoying fact we are dust, most of us, before we reach triple digits in years. I expect to be joining the boneyard in about the next thirty years or so, if I'm lucky.

Avoid Local Stores

At this time, quality can be found online. Local stores stock garbage, price it exorbitantly, and hope against hope that clueless know-nothings will buy the garbage. When, on rare occasion, by accident, an item of quality somehow finds it way onto the racks, then the local store charges twice the price of the online venue. That is why all purchasing must be done online by anyone with sense. If you want to stock your life with junk, then sure, buy from one of the retail chains. Watch your money go bye-bye as the cheap trash reveals itself for what it is in time. The retail chains hope to prolong their unnecessary survival by cheating the most vulnerable consumers out of their money. They have no plan at all for long-term survival, and it is only a matter of time before they all suffer the fate of Sears and K-mart.

Best Dream of 2018

I had my best dream of 2018 last night, best because it was vivid. I was at a party, and by that I mean a pleasant social gathering with good and gentle folk, and I was seated beside a large and talkative, crafty woman with many ideas and much wit, who was talking to me about things I no longer remember upon waking. It is often the case, that I dream of being talked to, even at great length, and when I awake, can remember naught but the faintest outline, or possibly a single phrase. I do recall one of her friends bringing me a good drink (non-alcoholic, quite naturally, as I no longer indulge in intoxicants), and then she turned to me and with some charming witticism, induced me to rise and fetch her a drink. She said she liked a soda called "The Bossman," which I recognized as a sweet citrus carbonated soda.

Upon waking, probably due to allergies, this being ragweed season, I thought she might be my boss, for one, a natural enough assumption, or else a thought-form based upon the detritus floating through my mind, and possibly an amalgam combining my boss with a charming personality I watched on YouTube not long ago, a young, black woman talking about her religion, Wicca, in mild, gentle and reasonable language. I liked her and thought she was smart.

I don't recall anything of deep or profound meaning in the dream, but I did enjoy a rather nice conversation with an interesting entity in my dream, even if I remember little more than a dozen words of what was said! (And of those words, some permutation of "fetch me a drink" was the gist!)

I do think one of the most potent attractions in the practice of Wicca and other minority religions is quite simple and based in psychology. The mere fact that a religion does not have many millions of pushy advocates on its behalf is the attraction. That it can be practiced in solitary is quite useful. That it is adaptable and open to a certain degree of experimentation and improvisation is almost unique. Christianity and Islam have both become rather stodgy by comparison, full of rules and group-think and group-activities. The room for personal revelation and personal relationships to the Divine seems limited and dismal in those religions, which surrender spiritual power from the individual to the shaman. Where power and politics get involved, spirituality flees. Also there is the fact that, being new, Wicca has not accumulated, yet, such a large number of terrible scandals, and may it never do so, but I fear, in time, it too will succumb to human frailty, as humans do what humans sometimes do, which is to fail. Yes, everyone and everything suffers a setback once in a while, that is the nature of things.

I am more an admirer of Wicca than a practitioner. The ambivalence I feel for Nature is the main reason. Wicca is really tied to Nature, to the observance of days on a calendar and a rather sentimental and emotional regard for things living and dead. The great outdoors and to a lesser extent, environmentalism, both political and personal, are both key to understanding and participating in the faith. I have never cared a fig for the phase of the Moon and doubt I could start now. To me, the Moon and indeed the planets are abstract notions. I admire them rather vaguely and am aware they are there, and like to learn about them, but don't really see them as influencing me that much. After all, they are material. If the Moon could influence me, then how much more so could the floor beneath my feet, and perhaps I should study the phases of the floor, and learn what angle it lies at, and the composition thereof. No, I dwell in the realm of thoughts and really always have and never liked camping or spending too much time in the rough. I hated going camping in Scouts. I like all of the conveniences of civilization and the wondrous artificial comfort zones we have created with our science. Science is the magic of the material plane we dwell in, whereas magic is of the spirit.

Of course, another big attraction to Wicca for many women is simply that there are many female Wiccans, and the relatively smaller number (I imagine) of male Wiccans tend to be feminists or at least open to the notion of equality between the sexes. I do not know what qualifies a man to be termed a feminist in the eyes of a female feminist; perhaps no man could qualify. It is true that some feminists really are down on men, but this is probably because of the misbehavior of so many men, the brutish louts, who behave with reckless criminality and abuse and outrage the gentle sex. There must be some reason that all the wars have been waged by mostly men, and mostly men inhabit the prisons of the world and do the violent crimes of the world. That reason has to do with testosterone and the negative aspects to it that are reinforced by culture and upbringing. I am not sure what the solutions may be, but the best, it seems to me, is to evolve a sexless mortal, with neither gender, for what need have we of gender, if a laboratory offers a better option. But that is far into the future, when I have already checked out, I think.

Republican Hypocrisy

Every little thing that the long-aggrieved, much-complaining Republicans griped about the Clintons and Obama, Trump does a thousandfold worse. The list of his corruptions could fill this blog. Basically, when one wants to know the ideal Republican, study Trump, that is what the Republican strives to become. It is their very highest spiritual ideal, what they strive for in their fondest prayers, the summit of their aspirations. To become Trump: to cheat, lie and swindle on a grand scale, is what every Republican wants to do, in the secret truth of their soul. Failing that, they reach for the gun, go out and kill the innocent, acting out their fondest fantasies of murder, much-repeated fantasies that represent the summit of their desolate imaginations.

Stark Choice in 2018

Trump's victory in 2016 was the ringing of the bell of Hell, summoning up the infernal legions and gathering all evil unto him, awakening the criminals, murderers and all men harboring evil in their hearts, followed by the hand-wringing of angels. In 2018, the American people have been presented two stark choices for the November election:

-hatred, racism, murder, and political violence in the Republicans
-compassion, reason, ethics and moderation in the Democrats

It may well be that America choices the former, madness and violence. After all, Germany did once, and so did Russia. Is America better? That remains to be seen. Those who possess even a tiny ounce of goodness in their souls will vote Democrat. Those that have sworn in the darkness to an indifferent Master will vote Republican. Although, others may opt not to vote at all, which just means they are lazy in addition to being evil, perhaps a less virulent form of wickedness. Such people would abandon their country when their country needs them.