View from India: Wake Up Call

by Parvathi

It was unexpected - the killing of Osama - in the sense, we were not aware of how hot the pursuit must have been. It was said to have taken place without anyone knowing. That's hard to believe. Either way, Pakistan is absolutely miserable about its public image - America's favorite, not being told about the operation that took place just a few miles from its capital. Or worse, did Pakistan trade Osama for Afghanistan?

Strangely enough, Osama bin Laden no longer had what it takes to evoke any great emotion. In the ten years after 9/11, Al Qaeda has morphed and metastasized into a movement in which Osama appeared no longer to be central. It had become an ideology - a social movement, some say - that can no longer be easily wiped out. Who knows, maybe Osama hiding in Pakistan hated his miserable life - whatever. The most suspicious thing to me about the whole operation were the repeated reports by the press about Osama's burial at sea, complete with proper Islamic rites. Burial at sea when he was killed on land? Islamic rites - really?

Someone seems to have slipped up on their homework. Was it even Osama who was killed? Or was it all staged to boost President Obama's sagging public image? He now goes down in history as the man who avenged the carnage of 9/11. What about Osama's image as a martyr to the cause? What about the backlash for not giving him a proper Islamic burial (facing Mecca)? Who knows? Time will tell. My commitment to politics reaches only as far as the armchair remote; I see only generalities.

But the Islamic faith is an unique one. For one thing, it speaks of an abstract God who is beauty and truth. There is no image to focus on and pray to. Islam also recognizes that all men and women are equal: the beginnings of Socialism perhaps?

I had a wonderful experience of staying with a Hyderabadi Muslim family, years back, when I was in college. The men and women ate separately sitting round a low table. What fascinated me was this: their servants also ate with them - something I had never seen anywhere else before. These people were very rich upper class traders, but at the table all were one. I saw this again while watching a Bergman movie about the 19th century Swedish middle/upper-middle class. Of course here the men and women were not segregated as in the Muslim household. Neither way seemed particularly unnatural. It has always stayed with me, this wonderful feeling of community that came across.

This morning while walking on the beach I saw a beach party in progress. A big group of young people were celebrating someone's birthday with cake and candles. They were busy cutting pieces of cake, serving each other, drinking fizzy soda pops and all the rest of it. Standing at the fringe of it all and watching avidly were two beach urchins. The smaller one was asking his big brother questions: what are they eating? why the candles? how does a cake taste?

A man stood watching the two kids. He had a prayer cap and sported the traditional Muslim beard. He walked up to the group said something to them. The young people cut a couple of pieces and the man went up to the boys with the pieces of cake. The older one said he did not like cake, but the younger one just grabbed his and ate it with gusto. He looked positively ecstatic. The older one then reluctantly took the other piece. They thanked the man with the prayer cap. He said, "Allah is just, beautiful, and true." and walked away. The beach urchins turned and went their own way.

I never thought of telling the group to share their cake with the two kids.

-- from Parvathi's blog FINE LINE; reprinted by permission.

Where Is The Birth Certificate?

What explains Jerome Corsi’s book, “Where’s the Birth Certificate?, shooting up to # 1 on Amazon where it has remained ever since? Apparently, people are not convinced that it means nothing, no matter how loudly members of both political parties, in conjunction with the media, proclaim the idiocy of even asking the question. While Americans have always taken political talk with a grain of salt, their wholesale distrust of the media (even so-called right-wing media) is relatively new.

The issue of Obama’s birth certificate has become the central question being asked everywhere – in barber shops, in the supermarket – “Just who the hell is this guy?”

While Obama’s policies plainly expose him as a Marxist, it is not necessarily this that irks the public. In America, isms alone have seldom held the power to inspire. We tend to operate on a far more basic level. We have difficulty in grasping abstractions. We ask for drivers licenses, proof of insurance and registration after car accidents. We do not ask if you are a Christian, Hindu, Marxist or whatever. It seems incredible to us that while witnessing this train wreck of an administration that no one is demanding a priori proof of legitimacy. The fact that it is even an issue being fought out in the courts is astounding to us.

Ironically, if we were to find out that Obama is indeed native born, it would be even worse for us. It would signal that his aggressive ideology is entirely domestic and now apparently mainstream. Many of us would be unable to recall when exactly the change took place, and ask ourselves, “How could we have missed it?”

We didn’t miss it. It’s happening now. And now is the time to get to the bottom of it.

In large part, we are still a nation of laws. We grumble, but we pay our taxes. It is entirely understandable that the authorities on every level are concerned. If it were to come out that Obama is indeed a fraud, all bets are off. Nobody in their right mind could accept that lying down. We either insist on immediate retribution or we cross over into lawlessness.
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One can only see others; one cannot know them. The fallacy in Buddhism is the notion that one can divorce oneself from certain things and remain aloof. This is only true up to a point: one may come to know the depth of self and find it empty. (Interesting to note that the depth of self is something one cannot see.)

As this might relate to me specifically, I feel comfortable writing words on my laptop. My laptop is my Peepal tree. I am blessed by its leaves that give me shade.

I do not claim to know more than what I write, and vice versa. I am blessed by the leaves of the Peepal tree that sometimes alight on my head. As for knowing – only God knows.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

J'Accuse

What’s there not to like? Obama now goes around and openly says all this Marxist stuff. And we just sit around applauding – like the monkey pull-toy clapper I had when I was three. It’s we who see but refuse to listen. All this ‘eat the rich’ garbage the administration constantly spews is nothing to cheer about. First, they come for the rich; then they come for the smart… Then everything grinds to a halt.

You might say, ‘But I’m neither rich nor smart.’ But don’t you see? It just keeps going like that until they also come for the stupid. You think the stupid are immune? Eventually, they’ll come for everybody. And you’re somewhere in there as well. If they’re allowed to come for one, they’ll come for all. You’re not separate from the rich, even if you’re poor. We’re all in this together. That’s why I don’t understand why we’re so willing to sacrifice even one while we’re all standing in line.

What the hell does ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ even mean these days? We’re all playing with the same Monopoly money. They’ve practically squeezed the life out of it.

I've never understood the Jews standing so quietly in line for the showers. They must have seen that no one ever came out. What did they think? That God would intervene? God intervened alright and gathered them up to His bosom. They were such a damn spiritual lot! Maybe that’s all they really wanted. I understand the guards first wore them down – made them work till they could barely eat anymore. Not that the food they gave them was so great.

God, I hate what’s happening to our country! I won’t go quietly. Even if they’ve already rigged it, I’ll tell them till my last breath that I know. And, if any of them still have a conscience, I’ll make them feel ashamed.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Sai Baba: Is He Man or God? Or, Does It Matter?

Sai Baba is fighting for his life in a hospital in India. Though he has shown some improvement in recent days, the 85-year old guru may be deep into his last days. He is considered by some to be a god. In Chennai, every Monday evening, just after sundown, there’s a group of his devotees that gathers just outside my window to chant and pray by flickering candlelight and the smell of incense.

Sai started out by performing magic tricks for audiences. He lost followers when he started calling himself ‘God’. They said, not even Jesus referred to himself as ‘God’. But, at the same time, his admirers only grew in number.

I love the Indian greeting: One brings one’s hands together and bows slightly. “Namaste”, one says. It means, “I recognize the God within you.” To me, it makes no sense to quantify God and to assign to it a specific place (within the body) in terms of ‘how much God’ and ‘where’ specifically. If there is God and He is within someone, that someone is essentially God. Let him (or her) be God, or not be God. It makes no difference. (I recommend R. K. Narayan’s delightful novel ‘The Guide’ for an insight into how a common man can become holy in India.)

An awareness of God – or transcendence – comes about when experiencing something that touches one – a U2 or Phil Collins concert; a good play; love; the birth of one’s child; a church service, complete with organ music …or silence.

When I write, I seek a responsive chord within you. When anyone writes, it is to give shape to a truth and putting a frame around it (even while recognizing that the truth cannot be captured by mere words). It’s called ‘inspiration’. It matters not whether you agree or disagree. If you should disagree, it simply means that you have found a better way of saying it - or not saying it at all. There is no sin in that. In fact, I would commend you. I am under no illusion that what I or anyone else says is necessarily the best way of saying anything. The best one can hope for is to remain consistent.

The point is that Sai Baba spoke to millions and they felt uplifted by it. And that, in my book, makes him a God.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Soros: The Dog That Doesn't Bark

Having had the privilege of witnessing 62 springs in this our glorious northern hemisphere – and, yes, I have already applied to receive Social Security – I have come to the conclusion that there must be a hidden hand directing all this – sorry Lou. How else would one explain the precise timing, the sheer beauty of emerging flora from the tiny snowdrop to the greening of the mighty oak; the return of the Robins and Cardinals; the sap rising in the old Maples that stand guard around the house? It cannot be an accident.

At the same time, it is clear to me that with all this glorious precision surrounding us, there must also be an author behind the political mess we find ourselves in. It can’t just be put down to neglect. If it were due to pure absence, we would hardly take note; we would live like the animals, in perfect harmony with our environment and with each other. We would not feel compelled to envision a God to either worship or deny. No, absence cannot explain the mess that Washington has created.

To put wars, systemic corruption and hatred down to chance is as silly as saying that existence has no father. My obsession with finding the hidden hand that’s guiding our nation to ruin is based on the belief that someone must be held accountable. It’s obviously not Obama. He’s much too visible – a useful idiot. In this case, it must be the dog who doesn’t bark; the dog whose existence is easy to deny, as we find it easy to deny God.

My candidate is George Soros who seems to have his paws into practically everything that stinks. He appears to be a man of many personal hatreds. He has all the money in the world. He can shake up dictatorships as well as kingdoms. Democracies are harder to pry loose from their moorings; this just goes to show you how far we’ve fallen already.

Take Wisconsin, for example. Wisconsin elects a governor with the mandate to get its house in order. He tries to do so amid much vocal opposition, much of it imported from outside the state. Today there is an electoral contest for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court which has up till now held a narrow conservative majority. Today’s election could shift the balance in favor of the liberals. If this were to happen, all the governor’s achievements will likely be overturned.

Tonight, this election is too close to call. Only a couple hundred votes separate the candidates. It is claimed that a lot of union money has poured into the state to defeat the conservative incumbant. Not mentioned in most reporting is that in a survey of attorneys conducted by the Milwaukee Bar Association in February 2011, Prosser, the conservative, received 296 "qualified" votes compared to 112 for Kloppenburg, Prosser’s liberal opponent. In addition, in Wisconsin’s non-partisan Supreme Court Primary, Prosser received 55% of the vote compared to Kloppenburg’s 25%.

This election should not be close. Somebody is pulling strings. If Kloppenburg wins, elections no longer have any meaning in this country.

I do not blame the Dems; their job is to win. The same is true of Republicans. Politicians will do what politicians do. I hold the press responsible. They know full well what’s going on. Yet their coverage overwhelmingly favors Democrats in all things. By it, they tilt the playing field. And who controls the press? Who has all the money in the world to grease the skids with carrot juice and sticks? Why it’s lefty George Soros, of course.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

'How Do I Know When I'm In Love?'

Do I need a reason to despise Kaddafi? Do I need a reason to despise anyone - or not despise? Reasons can be countered effectively by other reasons; by clever manipulation of words. In the end, reasons never make much of a difference. One still continues to despise or not despise. It’s like love, or not to love.

Love exists outside the realm of reason. That much has been generally acknowledged. In the film “Of Gods and Men” a young girl asks the old monk, “How do I know when I’m in love?” He answers something to effect that she would not ask the question if she knew it was true. She counters that the man whom her father has chosen for her leaves her unmoved. “Then it isn’t serious,” the old man says.

“Have you ever been in love?” the young girl asks.

“Many times,” the old monk replies after a pause. Finally, he proclaims his love for God and the scene ends.

Words are seldom adequate to capture emotion. Those who seek to imprison their emotions in words alone tend to remain stunted. I’ve always liked Kaddafi as much as I've hated certain U.S. presidents. And I’ve never had a reason to change my mind.

It’s no different with Hillary. I’ve always despised her for her elitism, her indifference; for her opportunism, the way she always calculates for best political advantage. She married for it. (There obviously wasn’t much love.) Then she lied. Then she became a carpetbagger (in New York). She promised New York everything and then broke her promise. Now as Secretary of State she thinks she has found an opening to the top floor, never realizing that she is being used (the same as everybody else). Both Hillary and Petraeus have been given more than enough rope to hang themselves with.

Winner: Obama.

Burning Down Through the Core

For the Left, recent and ongoing disasters as we are currently witnessing in Japan, America’s economic meltdown, ever increasing turmoil in the Middle East - all are proof positive (to paraphrase the now famous words of the Right Rev. Wright and others) that the chickens are coming home to roost.

The White House is caught up in a fever of partying; at the State Department, they are busy toasting each other while barely suppressing smiles; the greens are celebrating the death of the nuclear power industry; and in Ramallah, they’re handing out sweets.

As long as I can remember, I’ve had no facility with numbers. If you were to ask me to give you our town’s exit number (on Rt. 78) - even after having lived here more than 50 years - I would first have to consult a map. Only (the) names (of towns) make sense to me. Similarly, all the dates JB tries so hard to familiarize us with in his quest to imbue us with some level of historical perspective mean nothing to me. As such, I have only a rudimentary concept of time. I have to make do simply with past, present and future. As such, time’s metrics are of no use in my own calculations - and neither are Kudlow’s numbers.

I can close both eyes; I can close my right while keeping my left one open, but I can’t close my left eye alone. There’s simply nothing there to do it with. I do not consider myself ‘retarded’. It’s rather that I’ve had to accept the fact that I am missing a faculty that most others take for granted, much like sight or hearing, etc.; senses, that often are said not to enhance, but to limit our perception. We are doomed to see only a narrow band of light. With sound it’s pretty much the same. Anything outside the narrow frame that constitutes our reality, though it exists, we cannot perceive and often will not acknowledge.

Such blind spots and many others - such as a failure to recognize God - are common.

The Left’s failure to recognize the difference between good and evil is nonetheless astounding to me. They’ve managed to blur the line so much as to put both on equal footing. A crisis, such as the one currently unfolding in Japan (admittedly still in its early stages); the crashing of the dollar; rising food and fuel prices; etc. seem not to be regarded as tragedy but rather as an opportunity to advance ideological agendas. Any crisis can be used as an interlude in which to decide which way the dust will settle and then to side with the most likely outcome - and declare victory. Therefore, the end game is always the same: “revolution” (without principle or morality).

This, it seems to me, is where we are today. I think the word for it is ‘opportunism’. It is rank fecklessness and seems to guarantee success in reaching the lowest level (at which water collects and then stagnates). The lowest level is always easiest to ‘achieve', even if it were to involve the seldom perceived extreme of burning down through to the core.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

The Music Of the Primes

A guitar can be considered both, a musical instrument as well as percussion. Therefore a man alone with a guitar can often make credible music. Percussion came first - the big bang - then another, and another (echoes)… Then came a more gentle sound, probably in the form of wailing. When the wailing adapted itself to the beat, music was born. Finally, there was the ‘word’ and history began in earnest.

Similarly, harmony is a blend of the secular and the spirit. For the spirit to soar, it needs the discipline of a steady pulse. There has been undue emphasis on just pulse lately. Sound has been allowed to become discordant - the din of people expressing disparate agonies - every nation divided, pulling both ways. Voices shouting slogans in short, bumper sticker bursts mimic the staccato of an incomplete drum set. It has become a lingering sign of our times - 'The WHO' destroying their instruments at the end of the set. Drumsticks tossed into the audience. What are they going to do with them except clobber each other?

We are regressing. The drums of war are heard all around. Even God has been roused from his lofty abode and is seen hurling lightning bolts mindlessly here and there. The ground under Haiti trembles, and over a year later we still cannot cope. Iran threatens, and we shrink from our duty to stop it. And today, Japan stands helplessly while watching a wall of water advancing.

America too watches helplessly as it is being consumed by a tsunami of debt. In New York, the most expensive musical ever is being kept off-line while the bodies drop from the wires.

Curious about Spiderman: The day before Glenn Beck quit the airwaves in New York, he delivered and impassioned endorsement of Spiderman. He claimed that it represents a huge step forward in live theater, akin (perhaps) to switching from watching black and white to color TV. He spent a full half hour praising this show, saying (and I paraphrase) it is definitely worth the price of an over-inflated ticket and even the added cost of a flight from anywhere.

I remember thinking that Beck might simply be honoring some contractual obligation. Or, did he really believed what he was saying? I was torn, but leaning towards the latter. For one thing, he had high praise for the script (and music). He warned that liberals - especially New York liberals - would not like the story. Ticket sales spiked immediately after Beck’s show. Then, other reviews started filtering in. These, as expected, were overwhelmingly negative.

It is entirely possible that a conservative narrative cannot survive on Broadway. In today’s hyper-partisan climate, even the skeletal music of Bono, it seems, cannot endure the drumming of the ideological fist.

While in many ways the staccato bursts of gunfire in the Middle East seem to dominate our own narratives, 'The WHO’s classic coda to “My Generation” comes immediately to mind. And with it, the final scene of smashed guitars and sparking amplifiers.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Brave New World

The mood in this country is palpable. There are tripwires everywhere. It has nothing to do with what happened in Arizona or anywhere. Hat tip to Sarah Palin who finds herself in the eye of the storm. Perhaps she is stupid after all. Any sane person would be running for the hills. But, I suspect, she’s simply unafraid - a brave, young woman, just wanting to serve, and willing to put herself at risk for what she truly believes, trusting that’s what an increasingly timid America wants as well.

Americans are a practical sort. They view elections largely as a distraction, something that takes time away from their own routines and concerns. Back in 2008, confronted with the distraction of elections once again, they just wanted to get it over with. They hurriedly consulted the Yellow Pages and made their pick. “They’re all the same,” they concluded. “One black; one white (in the proverbial chocolate box). They all taste sweet. It doesn’t really matter.” But they made one huge mistake.

While looking under the “B’s” for “builder”, they mistakenly opened their phone books to the “D’s” and picked a name at random under the category, “Demolition”. Now, both the client and the hired hand are upset. Obama thinks what he’s doing is right.

I’m re-reading the book, ’Brave New World’, I’ve had lying around here since high school. It might have been on a suggested summer reading list back in the late sixties. “Re-reading” might well be a stretch. I don’t think I ever read it - only the first few pages, perhaps. Now, I find, it basically describes two paths, one inward and one out. Both are infinite. Neither has much of anything to do with appearances (or Maya, if you wish). Huxley makes it a point to describe the civilized world as perfect and clean. On the other hand, the savage world is undisciplined and dirty. There is disease, degradation and aging. Yet, an undercurrent of revolt seems to run stronger just below the surface in the civilized world. When the D.H.C is exposed, it acts as a tripwire and all hell breaks loose.

Obama, and liberals on the Left in general, are pursuing the outward path, seeking to regulate every facet of human behavior. Many have tried this. They’ve all meant well; but they’ve failed every time. There’s nothing to suggest that giving it a bath and new clothes will make it any more acceptable.

This outward journey alone is clearly not sustainable. It results in an edifice that must crack and splinter under its own weight. Life and its expression will not be contained. Individuals will not entirely submit to either God or Ford. Like the roots of trees that push and probe for water and, in the process, undermine foundations, the human spirit will not be held by one single ideology. It will increasingly turn inward, find nourishment there and, at the appropriate time, burst forth. It will bleed and excrete terrible poisons. But that only shows it’s alive in contrast to the Dems’ pale, bloated, carcass-like, Botox vision that can promise only inexhaustible supplies of soma tablets.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife?

Linking Sarah Palin to the AZ shootings is a low blow, even for the NYT. Just goes to show how desperate they‘ve become. Unfortunately, it works for now - like Obamacare will continue to work in their favor; like cap and trade; immigration; etc.

People believe what they want to believe. They’ll believe it even if the facts speak against it. Some will believe in God simply because they see a church. Others see a church simply as a configuration of stone, and do not see God there.

The overwhelming public narrative that says Republicans are evil and that Sarah Palin is stupid wins out every time. It is deep-rooted. Even those who believe this narrative to be patently unfair support it every time they quote from the NYT; every time they try to engage by giving voice to their counterpoint.

The only effective way to fight it is to ignore it. I know many of you have long since cancelled your subscriptions to the NYT. This is not enough. You cannot quiet the noise from the left. It is there and it always will be. Do what the Left does to us. Don’t pay any attention to it. Don’t react; don’t engage. Pretend it isn’t there. Roll your eyes; raise your eyebrows; shake your heads. Marginalize it; ignore it and walk away.

This is what they’re doing to us. Though we claim greater numbers, we still fall for the old trick of being goaded into defending ourselves (when did you stop beating your wife?) - against what? False claims? If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.

Not sure how this will play out. The visuals are misleading but powerful: Arizona; Dem. Congress woman shot; first black president; opposition to his policies; racism; etc. The palette of colors has been defined. The shape of the argument proceeds as planned. The painting emerges just as envisioned. We react, taking a defensive stance - or we just remain silent, stunned by the picture that continues to emerge.

Know who you are. Know what you believe. Believe in yourself. Don’t let them confuse you. Don’t stammer. Rather, stay quiet. They are professionals. You don’t stand a chance playing their game. There will come an opening. That’s when we act.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Bridge To The Future

It must be kept in mind that everything is always in balance. Cancer, for instance, is a precise response to some other condition - as is tyranny. Now it may be that the environment we create by attempting to right perceived imbalances is not conducive to the survival of concepts such as freedom or liberty - or even to the continuance of human species, or life (as we know it) overall - but the system nevertheless remains in perfect balance. Perfect balance is an absolute requirement for existence.

Therefore, it is unwise to jump heavy-handedly from one extreme to another in an effort to equalize things. For one thing, Republican and Democrat, rich and poor, black and white, etc. are not opposites. They are merely different aspects among many. Heavily weighting one over another merely induces momentary displacement or shock. It has long been duly noted that deliberately induced rapid weight gains and losses are harmful to a person’s health. Any such measure of health does not mean that things are out of balance overall. It merely means that the environment that has been created is toxic to our well-being (in our present state); the same as the environment on the moon could be considered toxic to man. At the same time, it would be wrong to say that the moon is out of balance. It is and remains in perfect balance with itself. (If the moon were the only entity in the universe, both God and man would be there.)

A while back this blog mentioned the discovery of a new life form not based on carbon. Scientist were said to be surprised to find such a thing. It had heretofore been thought that life can only be carbon-based. Wrong! Life is and will continue to be, and seek expression of itself. Liberty is and will continue to be, and find a way to express itself. The path may lead inward or outward. It ultimately does not matter what we do to tinker around the edges where existence has already been established as fact.

The addition of Bill Daley to the Obama team would definitely have an impact on the WH operation. It remains yet to be seen exactly what impact it will have. Again, as something is lost, something else is gained in equal measure. The argument could be made that nothing will essentially change as long as POTUS does not listen, or if POTUS should refuse to adjust his aim.

Aim is the key here. We have watched POTUS long enough to know who POTUS is and what he wants. All pretty much agree that we can’t get there from here. America will never be a socialist nation. It will never consent to being an Islamic nation. It will not tolerate dictatorship. POTUS must take stock and understand the limits of what is possible. Pragmatism always works - miracles most often do not.

No doubt, America has changed over the years. There are those who would want it to reverse course. Reversing course, however, is also not acceptable. Genies can never be put back into the bottle. The only path for America (or any nation) is forward. A president can influence; he can articulate. He can shape by degrees. He can be a bridge to the future. What he cannot do is sever the continuum. Attempting to do so would shatter not the nation, but himself. And in so doing he would bring disappointment and hardship to the people who placed their trust in him.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Nothing Left To Cut

Must be nice for grown, well-dressed men to sit around a long shiny table and wax importantly about worn swatches of their academic expertise, trying to get all the pieces to fit. No matter how much cutting they do, I can guarantee, they will come up short. We’re essentially broke, but let no one even whisper it. They are now down to trading IOU’s in the burnt patches. We’ve long since scraped economic and political bedrock; there’s basically no where left to go.

A while ago the bankers tried the same thing. And it blew up in their faces - as it should.

It’s like having entered a cul-de sac. Only the turning radius of the car we’re driving does not permit us to turn around. The only way out is in reverse.

It’s always difficult to give a shape to something. It’s even harder to abort. There are always egos involved. Sometimes a lost driver will drive hundreds of miles before admitting he had taken a wrong turn back in Omaha. All the issues on the table right now involve destruction - everyone is crying out to be saved. And there are only so many lifeboats.

There are basically two camps at work here. One seeks to promote the illusion that nothing is impossible - that gravity can be reversed; that ice can be made not to melt or water not to freeze. (Stranger things have happened: Just this week, NASA scientists announced they had found a life form that lives on arsenic.) The other seeks to return to an acceptance of traditional cures - like bloodletting. The cynic says it’s already gone to far, that nothing we can do will fix it; that the patient will die in any case. So, let’s just grant him a pain-free passing.

Every one of these points is debatable. Time, however, remains the rub - and it’s egos that time has a habit of suffocating. We should have thought of all that before - while there still was time. Not too long ago it seemed a good idea to kill the economy in favor of votes; as it was a good idea to kill God. Now, we find that all the things we’ve killed off - all that lies scattered in ruins around us - still has the capacity to sting.

The only answer, of course, is to keep cutting; to stay abreast of the rapidly spreading disease. Often, taking a knife to a cancer has the effect of making it more aggressive. …we cut more and more until there is nothing left to cut.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Reply to Corlyss D

Not quite (insane). It’s always been there. In fact it’s hard-wired into the human condition. I’m talking about religion. Progressivism is a religion. High priests comprise the State. It comes complete with sins (littering), sacraments (abortion), rituals (protest marches), denominations (splinter groups), proselytizing (propaganda), ash cloth and salvation. God, of course, is Gaia, the Earth Mother. Today, it is as virulent as Islam.

Before it came ‘the divine right of kings’ and feudalism. Democracy is its exact opposite. Democracy confers rights to the individual. Power extends from the grass roots. It was a rare but bold experiment. And it led to unparalleled success for the people who dared to take this leap of faith. It required an educated public and a free press. It is no accident that exactly these fundamental prerequisites have been precisely targeted all along.

Democracy, if you wish, is also a religion. It requires a personal faith in the goodness of one’s neighbor. It requires a belief in the soundness of ones own judgment. It requires daring and self-reliance; and an understanding that all people possess such qualities individually.

As I said, the experiment yielded great success. We became the shining city on the hill and nothing we could envision was impossible.

Lucifer couldn’t stand it. He planned and plotted ways to tear our city down brick by brick. He used our own success against us. He imbued us with guilt, doubt and self-loathing. …and then he took power.

The only one totally in the clear in this sordid drama is the agnostic. He couldn't care less either way.

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The Lottery in Babylon

At some point someone will dare to write the truth about our government. It may go something like this: “In those days, as now, the government, with divine modesty, avoided all publicity. It’s agents, as is natural, were unelected and secret. The orders which it issued continually ( perhaps incessantly) did not differ from those lavished by impostors: the drunkard who improvised an absurd accusation leading to indictment; the dreamer who awakened suddenly and strangled the woman by his side. Did they not execute, perhaps, a secret decision of the government? That silent functioning, comparable to God’s, gave rise to all sorts of conjectures. One abominably insinuated that the government has not existed for centuries and that the sacred disorder in our lives was purely hereditary, traditional. Another judged it eternal and taught that it will last until the last night, when the last god annihilates the world. Another stipulated that the government is omnipotent, but that it only has influence in small things: a bird’s call; the shadings of rust; in the half dreams of dawn. Another, in the words of masked heresiarchs, 'that it had never existed and will not exist'. Another, no less vile, reasoned that it is indifferent to affirm or deny the reality of shadowy government, because Babylon has never been anything else than an infinite game of chance.”*

As for me, I have practically run out of words to describe a man (corporation, government) who receives a life-threatening wound on his right arm and seems totally absorbed in administering to his left. I have begun posting music videos on my websites.
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Passage taken from (and loosely translated to fit intent) Borges’ “The Lottery in Babylon”.

Horse Latitudes

"My routine mistake in reading the news is presuming that there is a best outcome. There is just an outcome. You survive, then you deal with it." - John Batchelor

I can’t really argue with that. Der Mensch denkt, und Gott lenkt. English translation: Man makes plans and God laughs. Still, there’s the narrative to consider. You can’t build a narrative on chaos. There has to be some underlying principle pulling it all together – a frame. Whether it’s socialism, tyranny, or preserving the American way (of life), at least it’s a narrative. Right now we have nothing. We’ve lost our identity and, with it, our direction.

We’ve created a vacuum. Vacuums are unsustainable. It’ll fill up with something. None of us can agree on what to fill it with. A trophy president won’t cut it anymore. Oil spill. The air has gone out of our balloon. It drifts; it falls.

The chaos of uncertainty. It’s killing us. We’re not a dumb people. We know what’s (not) happening. We’ve taken our foot off the gas. It’s always been a race; and we’re slowing down. Even the seventh century Islamic jalopy is gaining on us.

Dead in the water. The horse latitudes. What else can we throw overboard? The economy stalls again. ‘Green’ is out of reach and will continue to elude our grasp even if we insist it won’t.

Tired is no excuse. We’re tired of carrying the load. Whether anyone admits it or not, America has been a great stabilizing force in the world. We’ve extended our hand to so many. All they had to do was ask. We even went so far as to extend our hand to those who spit in our faces. Now we’re overextended. We’re torn. We’ve got nothing left to give.

Who will ride to our rescue when the curtain falls for the last time? Will they be celebrating in Gaza? In Tehran? In Caracas? In Havana? In Pyongyang? In Harare? - shooting their guns in the air. And what happens in the capitals that once shared our vision? They will curse us for our tiredness.

And what will happen to us? You say we “survive, then deal with it”. But what if we don’t?

How could I have missed it?

After ruminating about religion all week, yesterday struck my epiphany. It seems God too gets fed up and angry at times. He loses patience with mankind’s endless whining and hand-wringing. Like a bolt of lighting He descends from the heavens, brushing every irrelevance aside, and takes matters into His own hands. And we are left standing simply in awe of His superior intellect and power. “Plug the damn hole!” He proclaimed to the assembled. And the very next day it was done.

Glenn Beck tells us that we are about to see miracles. I’ve just seen my first. Maybe there were others but I just didn’t notice. Blinded by ideology and racism, I was loath to give Obama credit for even a single one of his loaves; his fish - his wine. How could I have missed it?

Getting himself elected in the first place was no small miracle. And so was passing health care legislation; shepherding the automobile industry to profit; saving banking, housing and God knows what else: Saving the Euro, saving the dollar, saving no less than the planet from certain catastrophic meltdown. Pouring his viscous ‘cool’ over the choppy waters of the Near, Far and Middle East; Mexico and South America. Too many miracles to mention… We are truly blessed! Let me get my prayer rug.

The Blunt Edge of Brutality

Religion, like language, is hard-wired into the human psyche. At their core, all religions are the same. Religion typically splits into two aspects: spiritual and political. The spiritual aspect of religion is straight forward. Its ‘signature’ is tolerance. It deals with questions regarding faith, God and eternity. The political aspect of religion currently draws most of our attention because it has the potential of affecting our immediate circumstances. The same is true for ‘isms’. We can say that man is in essence a religious animal. Or we can say man is in essence political. Both statements accurately reflect a singularity of the human condition.

While it is true that equating man’s spiritual nature with his political nature is paradoxical, the two are nevertheless inseparable. Mankind is most at ease when the political aspect of whatever his primary concern may be (as Alfred North Whitehead suggests) is benign. A wizened curmudgeon professing his belief in Marxism within the confines of an ivory tower suite is no threat to anyone. Man suffers when such concerns become militant as happened during the crusades and is happening now as militant Islam makes its moves.

The constant striving of religion is to reduce all the divergent aspects of life to one. People who may be several happy meals short of enlightenment do not recognize the essential oneness in what they see. They fail to make the connection that ties everything together. There are two ways to force the issue to its resolution. One is persuasion (proselytizing), militancy and violence; the other is tolerance.

Tolerance is the more difficult nut to crack. We have chosen the easy path. It is easier to lop off the heads of non-believers. It’s easier to ban conservatives from speaking at universities. It’s easier to call for jihad. It’s easier to cause havoc and break things, and then pick up the pieces of whatever is left and cobble these into a single atrocity based on the principle of exclusion. It is also easier getting people to submit.

We here in the West have chosen submission. Our enemies attack us and we submit. In order to rationalize our cowardice, we change the language. We blur the line between good and evil. We assume our enemy’s narrative and admit that we are at fault; that it is we who must adjust or even erase ourselves. Our mea culpas – and even our sacrifices - are flawed; it is only ego that speaks. We abandon our principles; our allies. We no longer tolerate ourselves.

This is the mindset of our current administration. It pays no mind to the violence, pain and dislocation that is certain to ensue. For them, all these comprise the necessary gateway through which we all must pass in order to achieve a more perfect union – the Utopia that is envisioned in James Hilton’s Shangri-La, in B.F Skinner’s “Walden Two”, in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, etc.

In today’s world the concept of tolerance has been all but abandoned. Political strife has taken its place. Unfortunately, just as religion cannot be exorcised from the human psyche, we cannot fight ‘isms’ with ‘isms’ and arrive at a good place. Religion has always been a double-edged sword. We have chosen the blunt edge of brutality.

The Whole Ball of Wax

There are really only two ways of looking at things – civilization, modernity, capitalism, politics, science and technology – in short, the whole ball of wax. In order to make a proper assessment, we must put it in perspective. Realize that this would apply only to humanity, a relatively small but, nevertheless, evolving part of what we regard as creation. Secondly, we must recognize all humanity as a single family, members of which are essentially predatory but each also painted with a broad streak of idealism that seeks to embrace eternity on his or her own terms.

The split (hence conflict) arises from a divergent premise: one, that assumes that such evolution has its limits and that we are rapidly approaching the end, that we must turn back at all costs; while the other rests secure in the faith that we can and must go forward by the grace of some higher being.

It came to mind last year, as I watched a bare-bodied Brahman man, dressed only in a loin cloth, rushing out of his gate and halfway into a Chennai street choked with vehicular traffic. There he stood bent but defiant, eyes wide, clearly confused and angry. He was soon driven back against the wall by the blaring horns of unyielding SUV’s and swerving motorbikes. I watched him as he gathered his rags and retreated beaten, back into his walled compound.

In India, where so many seek their sustenance on the top layer of multiple strata of (not yet cold) successive dynastical rule, the social tectonic plates sometimes shift to expose antiquity that is either struggling to catch up or that rejects any notion of what is termed ‘progress’ outright. The impulse is the same: feeling oneself out of sync with present day; spent and hopelessly inadequate, unable to cope.

In much of the world it turns to rage. The gap between rich and poor has grown too wide to be bridged by anything other than suspicion. The elders decide that the relentless bombardment of technological, political and social innovations must be stopped if the family is to survive. “We are being swamped,” they conclude. …and the source of all this evil inequity, of course, is always the lead horse: America.

Even within America itself, this divergence festers. Half the people advocate for free markets, free speech, freedom itself… while the other half is determined to shut it down. Interestingly, the reason given for the latter is to ‘save the planet’. Never mind that the science stinks. America leading the world over the cliff, they maintain, stinks as well. God is dead. We must save ourselves. We must at the very least allow time for the rest of the world to catch up. We must go back and find the lost sheep and bring back them into the fold.

With the whole world, and even with half of our own population, having lost faith in themselves, convinced that we have reached the end of the road, what chance do we - who still believe - have to forge ahead into new and exciting realms of discovery?

The state of our space program today is emblematic of the dilemma we face. The enthusiasm and imagination are still quite sufficient to conquer new frontiers. But it is being curbed by the faithless who insist on turning back. Eventually, even our spirit will yield to what defines the uninspired existence of animals.

Some claim that the human spirit will never extinguish. They point to art as being the next frontier. But even art is wholly dependent on an abundance of freedom and remains suspicious of the man with the plastic doggie bag stealthily following behind.