Sick of Hearing Gibberish

There's something going on. Last week it was the moon being too close to the earth. This week it's Saturn. In Iran they're predicting the Madhi's return within months if not weeks. NASA is out watching for meteorites and space junk converging on earth. Batchelor is announcing the meltdown of Japan. Republicans are predicting financial collapse in the U.S. In New York they’re finding the remains of dead prostitutes along a remote beach road on Long Island. Can a major DOH announcement be far behind?

We've heard virtually all of this before and yet we’re all still here. Y2K never materialized, neither did swine or bird flu ravage the planet as predicted. This just goes to show, that every run of excess carries with it its own natural antidote; something working to keep things in check. Sometimes it's as brutal as starvation, war, and pestilence.

We're not quite there yet, but excess is invariably programmed to self-correct. Man can only stand by and watch excesses wax and wane. Often excess is met head on with excess and the two cancel each other out.

The tea parties, for example, arose out of excess by government. Liberalism arose from an excess of conservatism. Now we’re moving the other way. Any move has chaos as for a brother. Inertia is death. The stock market moves up and down, but it moves.

Where there is movement there is life. Where there is life there is death. Is there a balance?

Most assuredly so: We are always in balance. Sometimes it’s weighted to the left; sometimes to the right, but balanced nonetheless.

Shiva dancing in the bone yard: Someone always dances. Someone always provides the inert platform for the performance. Kaddafi is performing, and will do so until his legs are cut out from under him. Then, it will be Osama's turn to dance for a while.

Are we dancing? Individually (perhaps), yes. Some of us are. As a group, though, we've slunk out of the ballroom; wallflowers peeling away from the wall; sick of hearing gibberish.

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/

Changing Heart and Minds

Life is a series of circles within circles by which actions are constantly repeated. Logic and teaching seek to encourage the break-up of behavior that is determined to be destructive to self and others. It has been shown that the young are much more receptive to such instruction. Although the very same tendency can be exploited by demagogues to promote endless cycles of doom.

This does not apply strictly to humans. Every Thursday night we keep our car garage closed because we can expect a visit from our local contingent of raccoons who will enter through a garage door left open, jump atop our garbage cans and rock them until they fall over. This will dislodge the lids and the animals can joyfully tear apart the bags and scatter their contents in advance of Friday’s morning pick-up. The rest of the week it’s just fine to keep the garage doors open. Any hunter will confirm my story as it pertains to the wanderings of deer as well.

As it is difficult to break one’s own habits (smoking, blogging, boasting, reading, etc.), it is even more difficult to intervene in the habits of others. How stale is the story of a young woman saying, in all sincerity, that her love alone will suffice to entice her lover to relinquish troublesome or even criminal habits?

This is why in the Middle East changing hearts and minds has always been a tall order. Besides betraying some degree of arrogance, it may well be fundamentally impossible. To stop the raccoons from coming back, we may well have to shoot them (or simply keep the doors closed on Thursdays). To put our nation back on track, we may have to impeach its present leadership. To save Afghanistan, we may have to abandon it. It will fall from within if the circle of distrust, brutality and loathing is allowed to fester beyond the people’s ability to contain it.