Ephemera: How the Federal regulatory meme beats worthless congress

Less we forget, going into the new year, how completely depraved our leaders are, we need to remember the enemy and not be taken in by the bull$#!^. (I don't have OCR software on my Win7 machine, so the following is a photo of an article everyone should read.)

Ephemera & Social Philosophy: On higher education

The linked article in this post lays out all the important concepts and realities regarding higher education. The artificial credential inflation has been so effectively programmed into our consciousness that I have had to stop and reprogram myself on many occasions. For example many people I meet are not at my intellectual level and yet they are educated beyond my level and so in society's eyes they are better. And many of my friends that I have intellectual parity with, vary from those with little or no formal education to those who have doctorates, master's, and equivalent degrees, and my education consists of years of trade school and the reading of books; when we ignore this education meme we understand each other quite well. I meet many highly intelligent productive people who are, in the eyes of our culture, uneducated. But, with my exposure to heavy bureaucracy at the Port of Seattle, I meet the other end of the spectrum, and one can only say, "Many people are educated way beyond their intelligence."

This would all be fine and worth filing under signs of the decline, but this same attitude has invaded the church, especially in Presbyterian circles, and thus should be criticized. To many of my own brothers and sisters in the church, I am nothing because I am uneducated. But at least with the true believers in the faith who are my friends and associates, I don't have to deal with this attitude. The church needs to self correct on this (among many other more important issues) so that we are not blinded by our sublimation within the greater culture.

Ephemera: Another example of the consequences of a society that rejects God

Without going into a massive philosophical treatise on all the ramifications of how the many failures of the American Church helped or modified the various tyrannies of our civilization's cultural mores, I want to state that is was the renewed Israel of God, the Universal Church, which lifted women from mere property (sometimes of less value than farm animals) to equal and humane value in the sight of society and before the throne of God.

Now as many in our society have either rejected God outright or whose involvement in the civil religion or some other toxic meme has caused them to de facto reject God, we see the value of women declining as witnessed by this report.

I fear for my sisters (in the Adamic sense in my case), for my mothers (I give honor to my own mother as well as my mother-in-law), and for my daughters (again in the Adamic sense for me), since they inevitably become the victims when a civilization collapses. In the Christian Church every one of us men has the relations of mothers, sisters, & daughters, so we must protect them when or if the circumstances of life allow. If we cannot physically (and even when we can physically) protect them, we must stand in the breach spiritually through prayer, loving acts of service, and a life of understanding.

Social Philosophy: Interesting take on Feminism by UKL

UKL's latest blog entry makes a few interesting points. I like the statement from her entry:

"Can women operate as women in a male institution without becoming imitation men?"

Because everything I've seen when given power, women are just as exploitative as men if given the opportunity.

Ephemera: Noticing the flying time etc.

It's hard to believe it, but it is already the second Sunday in the Advent season. Our pastor has departed from standard expositional sermons for the morning service to give us a series on the incarnation.

The link is to last week's sermon, but I recommend that when the other sermons are posted, that everyone should take a look.

Merry Christmas season, everyone!

Ephemera: Comment into the Aether regarding TSA et al.

The solution to the TSA et al intrusion into our privacy and other rights, is for everyone who can fly, to not do so. Once the airlines start losing significant business, their lobbyists will get the sorry bastards (I mean Congress) to maybe reign in the agency. This would require that Americans be willing to put up with some short-term inconvenience for the sake of liberty. Yes all you beautiful people--stop flying!

But, (sigh), we all know how short-sighted our fellow citizens are and how little they regard their liberty.

I continue to say over and over again: "The AMERICAN people are UNWORTHY of their liberty--proven by these unprotested incursions of our rights and by the results of the last two elections."

Ephemera: A link to an interesting look at the WikiLeaks

I just had to throw this link on the blog:

Psy Ops ?

Ephemera: Journal of the Decline: miscellany, x-ray poisoning etc.

I had to put a link here for my own personal reference. I like how the writer dealt with the dangers of TSA's new body-scan devices. I have no desire to go through one after reading this article.

Ephemera: the evolution of the war machine in the late 19th century

Another view of the American West.

Ephemera: SteamCon II

By necessity, this entry is lame.

Just after I registered for entry for the day, Saturday, I changed the batteries in my camera, and -- the bloody camera wouldn't work! Thus the lameness.

Someone more prepared to document one's adventures would have a working (and better) camera with a competent smart-phone camera for back-up. I was not such a one as to be in this category, and I carry a dumb-phone (don't laugh, it can go five days on one charge). This phone contains a insufficient 2MP camera which is non-focusable unless you drop your resolution to VGA standards.

No pictures this year.

Lord willing, I hope to attend again next year with better preparation. I went on about the camera situation just now because the costumes worn by many of the participants were absolutely fabulous. I was amazed -- the clothing/gadgets varied from proper Victorian attire to skanky punk-style designs to western styles all added together with the Vernian Sci-Fi flavor that is Steampunk.

I enjoyed myself and I got to hear an interview with James P. Blaylock and get his autograph on my copy of "The Digging Leviathan". I attended a few panels and never did make it over to the RPG section. I got off of work Saturday morning from my graveyard shift job, met Sam coming down from Seattle at the Airport and then we were at this convention. I had less energy and I had to pick up Janie at 2330h and head home so I didn't attend the music concert (it looked fun--perhaps next year). All-in-all in was an entertaining Saturday.

Ephemera: Personal Update

Attenuated,

Cosmic signal - traveller

Lost not forgotten.

After having a personal abhorrence of the dangerous and fool-hardy course that my civilization had begun to take in the early twenty-first century Anno Domini... I just couldn't take it anymore.

It takes a strong psyche to deal with the punishing turns of life, much less to see no hope in this earthly life, what with the coming judgment and all.

I had to turn away...

I had to let it happen, I had to change
Couldn't stay all my life down at heel
Looking out of the window, staying out of the sun

Not really, but I think you could also almost call it an information allergy or data-psychosis.

So after my departure from the wave, I have just been coasting along deep in the black, trying to fix my spaceship...:)

So, I would just use my 57.4 minutes of personal time to either watch TV (Netflix-catching up on Farscape and various other shows) or work on back-ground material for my stories. And then of course once the academic year began...I call it the Over-commitment Season Disease or OSD (pronounced OZ). So we are in Oz right now.

But my procrastination must come to end because Reformation Day points out that it is time to use my hobby time to track with NANOWRIMO.

My apologies to my audience of 1.78 sentient beings for my absence.

Novo Visum; Neue Ansicht.

Ephemera/Historia: America's Ruling Class

This article (which I call "America's Ruling Class") just about says it all. Indeed, "our ruling class recruits and renews itself not through meritocracy but rather by taking into itself people whose most prominent feature is their commitment to fit in."

Ephemera: Personal Update

Windows 7 environment 97% complete.

It was six weeks or so since my last post when I decided that it was time to make a change in my computing environment. Together with keeping house while Janie was away and working full time on graveyard shift, I began to back up data, prepare hardware, get MS licenses thanks to Sam's college and NewEgg, with another deka-day of time, a small amount of hour's weariness staring at a screen, I took the plunge.

It is not an easy thing to take the amorphous mass of data, obscure programs, archives, old & new documents in a vast confused system (known only to me), and submit it all to the new Microflaccid way. Linux is good, but sometimes one just wants to go to work and/or game and have it work, without, however, shelling out hundreds of ounces of silver for that irregular sphere with the bite chunk missing. In my case, I think Sauron I mean MS got it right this time with their OS...

To rebuild my system I must take sixteen major steps each with significant multiple sub-steps. But since time presses as a downpressor man upon our precious life-energy eaten by the collective, I leave that to another post. Hopefully soon.

^<_>^

Novo Visum, Neue Ansicht.

Personal Update: Time Count Zero.zero & Baal Victim Celebration Day*

God has been pleased to grant strength to keep my nose to the grind-stone.

All time is going into home projects and various other neglected needs.

I may get back to writing soon.

Life energy leaking away in to the abyss of the cost of existence.....

Personal Update: Time Count > zero

I've recently been yanked about with responsibilities to detriment of my reading and thinking life. I am glad to have work in these bad-for-the-worker times, but let me tell you:

Daily average time usage:

{Time at work+commute=10.5hrs.} + {Preparation for work, misc. maint. et al.=1.5hrs} + {Sleep=7hrs} + {Social, familial activities, home projects=2hrs.} + {Worship=1hr.} + {Reading, writing, learning, blogging, information consumption, entertainment=2hr.} = 24 hours per day.

There can be much overlap in the above categories, and I am sure that the Worship/Bible portion should probably increase, and "ministry" work should be added.

This means that just "reading" has all the above to compete with it. So, yesterday's competition got the best of me just when I was about to dash off something entertaining and relate how I don't have time to even write my own blog, when I began and was instantly pulled away by my wife, I could only transmit incoherence. However, it is really more than necessary to be sure to spend time with her since she must travel to and stay in Anchorage with her mother for most of the summer to help with the medical issues of her mother's husband.
(He has third stage congestive heart failure--I'm not sure how long God has ordained him continue upon Earth--do offer prayers, as far as we all know, he is not saved--and we would like to affirm that "God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth".--do pray.)
In a few hours the daylight portion of the Lord's day will begin, and I have a brief moment that I have snatched from the "sleep" portion of my busy dying day.

I have not done many entries on my reading projects since the "read" time is severely abbreviated. This slows progress to a crawl.
(Despite my ability in my youth to really "put away" the novels, I was never a fast reader--I like to read 'in depth' and I enter a contemplative state where I most often can mentally construct the universe of the idea I am thinking about, this tends to slow the work portion of the reading process. But even if I'm slow I mostly get a higher retention rate on what I've just read.)
I decided to add an N.T. Wright book into my "currently reading" stack, and since what I've read so far of Wright's prose is quite readable, I figured that in my time-limited reading time that I would breeze through one or two of his books and move on. Progress was not to be, since I find that there were a good many things to write about from the many well-said things in his books that need commenting upon. I may try to write up a paper or long blog entry on the Wright book that I am reading currently. Anyway, stay tuned...

Personal Update: Time Count Zero

May God have mercy on the pettiness of my life, but I've got to relate my lesser self.

...fail...

ping.

W: ORP: NTW: "Simply Christian"

In a discussion of good books to read about Christian living with my friend Bob, the following book caught our eye: "After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters" by N. T. Wright. But as I was reading the introduction I noticed that it was a third book in a series that NTW has been writing as introduction to and summary of the Christian Faith. Being a concrete sequentialist in learning style especially to deal with abstract-random or philosophical thought, I naturally wanted to read the book series in the order they had been written. My friend Bob is likely more than half done with "After You Believe...", but I will eventually catch up to have discussions about the book.

This book introduces the Christian Faith from a philosophical approach using a few examples that point to the eternal longings of most of humanity. It makes me wonder if he had read Don Richardson's "Eternity in Their Hearts" as part of his preparation for this approach. I won't go into a massive analysis of the text because of lack of time and one can piece together the gist of what the book is about from all the reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. The problem of my usual approach of quoting passages from works that I consider here, is that with NT Wright, like CS Lewis, there is so much one would like to put down that one may as well quote the entirety of the work and be done with it. NTW does write better for the average reader in America than CSL, but he still says some important things and has familiarity with philosophy and culture that I find refreshing.

Here is a small lesser passage that shows how easy and relaxed NTW's prose can be:

The real problem with Epicureanism in the ancient world, and Deism in ours, is that it has to plug its ears to all those echoing voices we were talking about earlier in this book. Actually, that's not so difficult in today's busy and noisy world. It's quite easy, in fact, when you're sitting in front of the television or hooked up to a portable stereo, one hand glued to the cell phone for text messaging, the other clutching a mug of specialist coffee...it's quite easy to be a modern Epicurean. But turn the machines off, read a different kind of book, wander out under the night sky, and see what happens. You start wondering about Option Three.

W: LP: GRP: FD: PFOS: Razor's Edge

After I finished reading "Poor Folk" by Fyodor Dostoevsky (transl. by David McDuff; ISBN 9780140445053) I listened to an Audible Books purchase of the story in a different translation. As I listened to this story so soon after reading the text, I was struck over and over again by how completely at the mercy of the "fickle hand of fate" (what I would call, Providence and Anti-Providence in the face of faith) to which the 'poor' are subject.

When you are poor, and you are lucky enough to have a job, you still have anxiety, because any stable situation can be overthrown in a moment! In the following passage we have an example of the whole mental trip of being in dire straits.
At this point in the sequence of events recounted in the correspondence between the two protagonists, the writer of this letter is still at least ten days away from when his salary is to be paid, and has taken an advance on his pay, owes money, is overdue on his rent and clothing repairs.....

September 9

Varvara Alekseyevna, Little Mother!

I am beside myself as I write this to you. I am thoroughly agitated by a terrible thing which has happened. My head is whirling round. I feel as though everything were spinning around me. Oh, my darling, what a thing I have to tell you now! This we did not foresee. No, I do not believe that I did not foresee it; I foresaw it all. My heart sensed it in advance! I even dreamed of something similar the other night.

This is what happened! I shall tell you without regard for style, just as the Good Lord puts the words into my head. I went to the department today. I arrived, sat down, and started to write. I should also tell you, little mother, that I had been writing the day before as well. Well, it was like this: Timofey Ivanovich came to me yesterday with an order for a document which was required in a hurry. 'Please copy it cleanly, swiftly and carefully, Makar Alekseyevich,' he said. 'It's to be signed today.' I should observe, little angel, that I was not quite myself yesterday, and had no interest in anything; such were the sadness and depression that had overtaken me. My heart was cold and my soul was dark; my memory held nothing but you, my poor little treasure. Well, so I got down to the task of copying; I did the work cleanly and well, except that--I don't know how to explain it to you, whether it was the work of the Unclean One, whether it had been preordained by some secret Fate, or whether it simply had to happen that way--I left out a whole line; Lord knows what sense it must have made, it simply didn't make any. There was a delay over the delivery of the document, and it wasn't handed to His Excellency for signature until today. I reported for work this morning at the usual time and stationed myself beside beside Yemelyan Ivanovich. I should observe to you, my dear, that I have recently begun to feel twice as ashamed and apologetic as I used to. I've recently begun to find it impossible to look at anyone. If anyone's chair so much as gives a creak, I feel more dead than alive. That was how it was today: I sat huddled up, not making a sound, like a hedgehog, with the result that Yefim Akimovich (there never was such a bully) said so that everyone could hear: 'What are you sitting there looking so scared for, Makar Alekseyevich?' And he made such a face that absolutely everyone near us split their sides with laughter, at my expense, of course. They laughed, and they laughed! I stuck my fingers in my ears and shut my eyes, just sat there, not moving. That's what I usually do; that way they usually desist sooner. Suddenly I heard noise, the sound of running footsteps, fuss and bustle; I listened--surely my ears must be deceiving me? My name was being called, someone was asking for me, for Devushkin. My heart began to quiver within me, and I still don't really know why I was so scared; all I know is that I was more scared than I have ever been in my life before. I became rooted to my chair--as though nothing were wrong, as though I were not even there. But again the voice started up, coming nearer and nearer. At last it was right next to my ear: 'Devushkin! Devushkin! Where's Devushkin?' I raised my eyes: before me stood Yevstafy Ivanovich; he said: 'Makar Alekseyevich, you've to go to His Excellency, at the double! You've made a mistake in a document!' That was all he said, but it was enough, little mother, don't you think! I went numb, froze, lost all feeling; and began to walk, more dead than alive. I was escorted through one room, through a second, then a third, into a study--I stood before His Excellency! It's impossible for me to give you a positive account of the thoughts that passed through my mind at that moment. I saw His Excellency standing there, and they were all standing around him. I don't think I bowed; I forgot. Struck dumb, I merely stood there, my lips trembling and my legs shaking. And I had reason to be struck dumb, little mother. For one thing, I was ashamed of myself; I took a glance in a mirror to the right of me, and what I saw in it nearly sent me out of my mind. And for another, I have always tried to do my job as though I myself were not actually there. So that it was hardly likely that His Excellency could know of my existence. Perhaps he might have heard in passing, as it were, that there was a member of the staff named Devushkin in the department, but he would never have had any close dealings with him.

Angrily, he began:'What's the meaning of this, sir? Where was your concentration? An important document, urgently required, and you go and spoil it. What's the meaning of it, eh?' At that point His Excellency turned to Yevstafy Ivanovich. I could only hear certain isolated words and phrases: 'Negligence! Indiscretion! You will get us into trouble!' For some reason I suddenly had an urge to open my mouth. I wanted to beg forgiveness, but could not, I wanted to flee, but dared not attempt to, and then...then, little mother, something happened that even now makes the pen want to fall from my hand. One of my metal buttons--the devil take it--a button which had been hanging from my uniform by a thread--suddenly fell off (I must have brushed against it by accident), bounced on the floor with a ping, and rolled straight, just like that, the accursed object, to His Excellency's feet--and this while everyone was completely silent, too! There went any hope I might have had of excusing myself, of making an apology, of accounting for my misdeed--all the things I had been preparing to say to His Excellency! What happened next was dreadful. His Excellency at once fastened his attention on my appearance and on what I was wearing. I recalled what I had seen in the mirror: I rushed to retrieve the button! I lost my head! I stooped down and tried to get hold of the button, but it spun and rolled, in short, I couldn't catch hold of it, and gave a fine display of dexterity in the process. Then I suddenly felt the last of my strength desert me, and knew that all, all was lost! My entire reputation was ruined, I was finished as a human being! And then, for not reason at all, I started to hear the voices of Teresa and Faldoni, and my ears began to ring. At last I managed to retrieve the button, got to my feet, straightened myself up, and had I not been such a fool I would have stood to attention and kept still. But oh, no: I began pressing the button against the torn off threads, as though that would make it stay on again; and, what's more, I smiled, and smiled again. At first His Excellency turned away, but then he glanced at me again--I could hear him saying to Yevstafy Ivanovich: 'What on earth?...Look at the state he's in!...How does he...What does he...' Oh, my darling, the sound of those words! I heard Yevstafy Ivanovich say: 'He has a good record, has never put a foot wrong--exemplary conduct, draws a reasonable salary, in accordance with his grade...' 'Well, do something to ease his position,' said His Excellency. 'Give him something in advance.' 'But he's already been paid,' Yevstafy Ivanovich replied. 'He's been paid in advance for ages now. He must be having some difficulties or other--but he's always shown good conduct, and he's got a good record, a spotless record.' I burned, my little angel, I burned with the fires of hell! I died inwardly! 'Well,' His Excellency said in a loud voice, 'it must be copied out again, and quickly; Devushkin, come here and copy it out again, without mistakes this time; and listen...' At that point His Excellency turned to the other people present and issued various instructions; then they all went their separate ways. No sooner had they dispersed than His Excellency hurriedly took out his pocketbook and produced a hundred ruble* note from it. 'Here,' he said. 'It's the least I can do, look on it as you please...'--and he shoved it into my hand. My angel, I gave a start of shock, my whole being was shaken; I don't know what came over me--I tried to kiss his hand. But he blushed all over, my little dove, and--I depart from the truth by not one hair's breath, my darling--he took my unworthy hand and shook it, shook it properly as though it were the hand of someone who was his equal, someone equal in rank to himself, a general. 'Off you go,' he said, it's the least I can do...Don't make any more mistakes, but on this occasion we'll manage to get by.'

Now, little mother, this is what I have decided: I ask you and Fedora--and if I had any children, I would ask them, too--to say your prayers henceforth in the following manner: to pray, not for your fathers, but for His Excellency, and to do so each day and every day until the end of your lives! I also want to say this, little mother--and I say it solemnly, listen carefully, little mother: I swear that no matter how afflicted by mental agony I was in the cruel days of our misfortunes when I looked at you, at the miseries you had to suffer, and at myself, at my degradation and my incompetence, in spite of all that I swear that the hundred rubles are less dear to me than the fact that His Excellency himself deigned to shake my unworthy hand, wretch and drunkard that I am! By doing that he restored me to himself. By that action he has resurrected my spirit, has made my life sweeter for ever, and I am firmly convinced that, no matter how grievously I may have sinned in the eyes of the All-Highest, my prayer for the happiness and prosperity of His Excellency will reach His throne...

Little mother! I am now in a dreadful state of mental disarray and agitation! My heart is thumping as if it wanted to leap out of my breast. At the same time, I seem to have lost all my energy. I am sending you forty-five paper rubles; I am giving the landlady twenty, and leave thirty-five for myself: I'll spend twenty on setting my clothes to rights, and keep fifteen for daily expenses. The only thing is that all these events which took place this morning have shaken my being to its foundations. I am going to go to bed. But I feel peaceful, very peaceful. Only there is a crack in my soul, and I can hear it trembling, quivering, stirring deep inside me. I shall come and see you: but for the moment I am simply intoxicated by all these sensations...God sees it all, my little mother, my priceless little dove!

Your worthy friend,
Makar Devushkin

____________

Anyway, that does it for "Poor Folk"; I am almost done reading the second story in the collection, entitled "The Landlady". This next story is an intense character study in almost Gothic style; the descriptions and dream-like texture of the story had me expecting the whole thing to turn into a vampire story--it hasn't as of the 95% point in the story. So I'm liking the mood created by this story, and I may make use some of the elements of this story for one of my science fiction stories.



*100 rubles was slightly more than three month's wages.

Novo Visum,
Neue Ansicht.

Ephemera: Non-Liturgical Special Holiday: Mother's Day & Personal

A quick twitter-like message about Mother's Day (But at the beginning of the day before an adequate time to meditate on the greatness of {as Dostoevsky in Poor Folk had the protagonist refer to the love of his life...}_as I say my Little Mother.)

This is an American Haiku (7,11,7 syllable scheme; bring nature or creation into the word picture; add some element as appropriate): Here is a grouped series.


Oh Little Mother of mine,
Like a red, red, rose, or a sweet kind brandy-wine,
A pillar of all the good.

How lush our sacred garden,
In green, green walls, Doors of Paradise opened,
Precepts drop from your sweet mouth.

Colorful, floating, burst free,
Life casts off the bonds of earth, past the round sea,
Souls riding the words of life.

Mercy's image in my wife,
Sweetly singing around, quickly ending strife,
Music-shaped, this gnarled pine.

I rise with you my love,
Through golden, blue skies, soaring, fluttering dove.
Aloft, incense vanishes.

W: LP: Literature: CSL vs JRRT, misc.

Hat tip to one of Mark Horne's commentators for the following link:

Conflict and convergence on fundamental matters in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by John C. Wood.

There is so much in the article to digest that I recommend everyone to read it and think about it. These men were both geniuses in their individual ways. Some of the points in the article re-enforce my long held contention that JRRT was a better fiction writer in general than CSL, but CSL was a better essayist. Scholastically, CSL might have been more prolific but I contend that they were both excellent in their respective fields.

These men were both Christians, and I find my ecumenical outlook more alike to CSL than to JRRT, with reservations on certain theological issues. There are such great insights from both these great men. This is one of the reasons that though I may not be a great scholar of literature, I dearly love to read the great writers of history, because the extraordinary creativity and insight can inform my life and faith. Even a writer like Dostoevsky who was so profoundly different from these two great writers informs my faith and provokes my thoughts to a higher plane. Even as I read the article referenced above, I have been closing in on the end of FD's story, "Poor Folk" and I can see that FD is more of a modernist than the two medievalists CSL & JRRT. I couldn't help but think that as JRRT described the great conflict in Middle Earth against the forces of darkness, FD was describing the life of humans in thrall in Mordor and showing that even in misery, the little glimmers of God shine through in the human image bearers of Christ.

Social Philosophy: National ID again

These guys just won't give up.

W: LP: GRP: FD: PFOS (Poor Folk & other stories)

There are plenty of write-ups on this story, so I won't go into heavy analysis. I find this story interesting because Fyodor Dostoevsky creates a romance using the technique of correspondence between two people to create the story in the mind of the reader. This story is what I would almost call an anti-romance or to use the Greek classification, a tragedy. The two main characters, an older writer and a young seamstress, are both profoundly poor, and they live across a courtyard from one another in what we would call a tenement. The courtyard is not that large but it still serves as a metaphor for the gulf between the two that prevents them from coming together to form a couple and a family. The barriers are insurmountable, but the affection can't die.

I don't know if FD intended to purposely make a social commentary, but because of the realism of the story about the sordid conditions of those on the bottom of society, this short novella serves to slap the complacent in the face about "how the other half lives" or in the real nature of the case, how the other 90% lives. Perhaps almost depressing, nevertheless, the story shows the real humanity of the characters and how they grasp at so little for hope and comfort. If one can take it, the story is a "must-read".

Social Philosophy: Today is Int'l Labour Day: Some thoughts...

I was meditating on the relationship between labor and capital, I think the division is artificial.

Capital is resources plus labor. The resources require labor to make them available; for example, if one wants metal, one must exert labor and energy to mine the ore, refine and mold it into usable form, then there is the need to transport the finished product to the end user. In every case labor must be used, and labor is tied closely to energy.

If cheap energy is available and labor plentiful and allowed to keep its remuneration...you could make anything.

Or as an alternative, and even if you don't like Abraham Lincoln, I do like the sentiment behind the following quote:

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much higher consideration. Working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain reason that they are more numerous. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as much as possible, is a worthy object of any good government.

Anyway something to think about

W: LP: GRP: CSL: Letters to Malcolm, comments

This book, "Letters to Malcolm", by C.S. Lewis is short but ever so dense with meaning. As I continued reading after the first post on this book, I began to make notes in order to quote passages from each of the 'letters' or chapters, and I found nuggets of profundity in every chapter. In the end I would have ended up quoting the entire book, and each chapter seemed to get better than the last. So I will probably just copy out the entire book into one of my non-public blogs. This book is so good that I would just recommend that everyone read it. Now that I have my own copy, I think I may just read it every year.

Having said all the above about such a wealth of things to quote, and out of so many good things to quote, one stands out as approaching the sublime; this from the eighth letter:

Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don't agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ. For the beginning of the Passion--the first move, so to speak--is in Gethsemane. In Gethsemane a very strange and significant thing seems to have happened.

It is clear from many of His sayings that Our Lord had long foreseen His death. He knew what conduct such as His, in a world such as we have made of this, must inevitably lead to. But it is clear that this his knowledge must somehow have been withdrawn from Him before He prayed in Gethsemane. He could not, with whatever reservation about the Father's will, have prayed that the cup might pass and simultaneously known that it would not. That is both a logical and a psychological impossibility. You see what this involves? Lest any trial incident to humanity should be lacking, the torments of hope--of suspense, anxiety--were at the last moment loosed upon Him--the supposed possibility that, after all, He might, He just conceivably might, be spared the supreme horror. There was precedent. Isaac had been spared: he too at the last moment, he also against all apparent probability. It was not quite impossible...and doubtless He had seen other men crucified...a sight very unlike most of our religious pictures and images.

But for this last (and erroneous) hope against hope, and the consequent tumult of the soul, the sweat of blood, perhaps He would not have been very Man. To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a man.

At the end, I know, we are told that an angel appeared "comforting"* Him. But neither comforting in sixteenth-century English nor ἐνισχύων in Greek means "consoling." "Strengthening" is more the word. May not the strengthening have consisted in the renewed certainty--cold comfort this--that the thing must be endured and therefore could be?

We all try to accept with some sort of submission our afflictions when they actually arrive. But the prayer in Gethsemane shows that the preceding anxiety is equally God's will and equally part of out human destiny. The perfect Man experienced it. And the servant is not greater than the master. We are Christians, not Stoics.

Does not every movement in the Passion write large some common element in the sufferings of our race? First, the prayer of anguish; not granted. Then He turns to His friends. They are asleep--as ours, or we, are so often, or busy, or away, or preoccupied. Then He faces the Church; the very Church that He brought into existence. It condemns Him. This also is characteristic. In every Church, in every institution, there is something which sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. But there seems to be another chance. There is the State; in this case, the Roman state. Its pretensions are far lower than those of the Jewish church, but for that very reason it may be free from local fanaticisms. It claims to be just on a rough, worldly level. Yes, but only so far as is consistent with political expediency and raison d'état. One becomes a counter in a complicated game. But even now all is not lost. There is still an appeal to the People--the poor and simple whom He had blessed, whom He had healed and fed and taught, to whom He Himself belongs. But they have become over-night (it is nothing unusual) a murderous rabble shouting for His blood. There is, then, nothing left but God. And to God, God's last words are "Why has thou forsaken me?"

You see how characteristic, how representative, it all is. The human situation writ large. These are among the things to be a man. Every rope breaks when you seize it. Every door is slammed shut as you reach it. To be like the fox at the end of the run; the earths all staked.

As for the last dereliction of all, how can we either understand or endure it? Is it that God Himself cannot be Man unless God seems to vanish at His greatest need? And if so, why? I sometimes wonder if we have even begun to understand what is involved in the very concept of creation. If God will create, He will make something to be, and yet to be not Himself. To be created is, in some sense, to be ejected or separated. Can it be that the more perfect the creature is, the further this separation must at some point be pushed? It is saints, not common people, who experience the "dark night." It is men and angels, not beasts, who rebel. Inanimate matter sleeps in the bosom of the Father. The "hiddenness" of God perhaps presses most painfully on those who are in another way nearest to Him, and therefore God Himself, made man, will of all men be by God most forsaken?

*CSL makes this textual comment probably because he may have been reading from the Latin and/or Greek. In the Latin the word is "confortans" which is analogous to our word "comfort". All the modern English translations have "strengthen" or "strength". Another point is that I don't know what Greek text he was using or if the publisher made a boo-boo, but in the book I am quoting from it is spelled thus: ἐννισχύων.

W: LP: GRP: CSL: Letters to Malcolm, chiefly on prayer

I thought I'd take a break from my readings from the post-modern genre of literature, to get some good insightful, logical, wholesome thoughts in my head. Anytime I read C.S. Lewis, I am uplifted in spirit and mind; I may not agree with him theologically, but he wrote well and I can always find something of value. I had been wanting to read "Letters to Malcolm" for some time and now have finally gotten to it. I have not been disappointed; a few pages into the book, we have these interesting comments in regard to liturgy:

There is no subject in the world (always excepting sport) on which I have less to say than liturgiology. And the almost nothing which I have to say may as well be disposed of in this letter.

I think our business as laymen is to take what we are given and make the best of it. And I think we should find this a great deal easier if what we were given was always and everywhere the same.

To judge from their practice, very few Anglican clergymen take this view. It looks as if they believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of the service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of his innovations. The majority, I believe, never are. Those who remain--many give up churchgoing altogether--merely endure.

Is this simply because the majority are hide-bound? I think not. They have a good reason for their conservatism. Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don't go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best--if you like, it "works" best--when, through long familiarity, we don't have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don't notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping. The important question about the Grail was "for what does it serve?" "'Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god."

A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question "What on earth is he up to now?" will intrude. It lays one's devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, "I wish they'd remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks."

Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity. I can make do with almost any kind of service whatever, if only it will stay put. But if each form is snatched away just when I am beginning to feel at home in it, then I can never make any progress in the art of worship. You give me no chance to acquire the trained habit--habito dell'arte.

It may well be that some variations which seem to me merely matters of taste really involve grave doctrinal differences. But surely not all? For if grave doctrinal differences are really as numerous as variations in practice, then we shall have to conclude that no such thing as the Church of England exists. And anyway, the Liturgical Fidget is not a purely Anglican phenomenon; I have heard Roman Catholics complain of it too.

And I like these lines from the second letter:

One meets people who are perturbed because someone in the next pew does, or does not, cross himself. They oughtn't even to have seen, let alone censured. "Who art thou that judgest Another's servant?"

..."sound doctrine." Left to oneself, one could easily slide away from "the faith once given" into a phantom called "my religion."

W: LP: ORP: JK: Road Novels, Dharma Bums, conclusion.

I finally finished Dharma Bums, the second novel in Jack Kerouac’s “Road Novels”. And the introspection and contemplations of the narrator were ok, but I really liked the final part of the novel from chapter 31 to the end. It deals with the narrator making his way to Washington state to spend the summer as a fire look-out at Desolation peak. It takes place in the summer of 1956, so it was interesting (if the impressions were real and not fiction) so see described what Washington was like back then (Approved in 1957, I-5 took more than a decade before it was completed through Seattle, which explains the route taken to Desolation Peak.). Another interesting point is that the character, Japhy, mentioned in the passage below was a renaming of one, Gary Snyder, that Jack ran with for awhile.

Here is a lengthy quote, but I recommend the whole of chapter 31 to the end:

I immediately got a ride on the open highway from two tough young hombres to outside Junction City where I had coffee and walked two miles to a roadside restaurant that looked better and had pancakes and then walking along highway rocks, cars zipping by, wondering how I’d ever get to Portland let alone Seattle, I got a ride from a little funny lighthaired housepainter with spattered shoes and four pint cans of cold beer who also stopped at a roadside tavern for more beer and finally we were in Portland crossing vast eternity bridges as draws went up behind us to allow crane barges through in the big smoky river city scene surrounded by pine ridges. In downtown Portland I took the twenty-five-cent bus to Vancouver Washington, ate a Coney Island hamburger there, then out on the road, 99, where a sweet young mustached one-kidney Bodhisattva Okie picked me up and said “I’m s’proud I picked you up, someone to talk to,” and everywhere we stopped for coffee he played the pinball machines with dead seriousness and also he picked up all hitchhikers on the road, first a big drawling Okie from Alabama then a crazy sailor from Montana who was full of crazed intelligent talk and we balled right up to Olympia Washington at eighty m.p.h. then up Olympic Peninsula on curvy woodsroads to the Naval Base at Bremerton Washington where a fifty-cent ferry ride was all that separated me from Seattle!

We said goodbye and the Okie bum and I went on the ferry, I paid his fare in gratitude for my terrific good luck on the road, and even gave him handfuls of peanuts and raisins which he devoured hungrily so I also gave him salami and cheese.

Then, while he sat in the main room, I went topdeck as the ferry pulled out in a cold drizzle to dig and enjoy Puget Sound. It was one hour sailing to the Port of Seattle and I found a half-pint of vodka stuck in the deck rail concealed under a Time magazine and just casually drank it and opened my rucksack and took out my warm sweater to go under my rain jacket and paced up and down all alone on the cold fogswept deck feeling wild and lyrical. And suddenly I saw that the Northwest was a great deal more than the little vision I had of it of Japhy in my mind. It was miles and miles of unbelievable mountains grooking on all horizons in the wild broken clouds, Mount Olympus and Mount Baker, a great orange sash in the gloom over the Pacific-ward skies that led I knew toward the Hokkaido Siberian desolations of the world. I huddled against the bridgehouse hearing the Mark Twain talk of the skipper and the wheelman inside. In the deepened dusk fog ahead the big red neons saying: PORT OF SEATTLE. And suddenly everything Japhy had ever told me about Seattle began to seep into me like cold rain, I could feel it and see it now, and not just think it. It was exactly like he’d said: wet, immense, timbered, mountainous, cold, exhilarating, challenging. The ferry nosed in at the pier on Alaskan Way and immediately I saw the totem poles in old stores and the ancient 1880-style switch goat with sleepy firemen chug chugging up and down the waterfront spur like a scene from my own dreams, the old Casey Jones locomotive of America, the only one I ever saw that old outside of Western movies, but actually working and hauling boxcars in the smoky gloom of the magic city.

I immediately went to a good clean skid row hotel, the Hotel Stevens, got a room for the night for a dollar seventy-five and had a hot tub bath and a good long sleep and in the morning I shaved and walked out First Avenue and accidentally found all kinds of Goodwill stores with wonderful sweaters and red underwear for sale and I had a big breakfast with five-cent coffee in the crowded market morning with blue sky and clouds scudding overhead and waters of Puget Sound sparkling and dancing under old piers. It was real true Northwest. At noon I checked out of the hotel, with my new wool socks and bandanas and things all packed in gladly, and walked out to 99 a few miles out of town and got many short rides.

Now I was beginning to see the Cascades on the northeast horizon, unbelievable jags and twisted rock and snow-covered immensities, enough to make you gulp. The road ran right through the dreamy fertile valleys of the Stilaquamish and the Skagit, rich butterfat valleys with farms and cows browsing under that tremendous background of snow-pure heaps. The further north I hitched the bigger the mountains got till I finally began to feel afraid. I got a ride from a fellow who looked like a bespectacled careful lawyer in a conservative car, but turned out he was the famous Bat Lindstrom the hardtop racing champion and his conservative automobile had in it a souped-up motor that could make it go a hundred and seventy miles an hour. But he just demonstrated it by gunning it at a red light to let me hear the deep hum of power. Then I got a ride from a lumberman who said he knew the forest rangers where I was going and said “The Skagit Valley is second only to the Nile for fertility.” He left me off at Highway 1-G, which was the little highway to 17-A that wound into the heart of the mountains and in fact would come to a dead-end as a dirt road at Diablo Dam. Now I was really in the mountain country. The fellows who picked me up were loggers, uranium prospectors, farmers, they drove me through the final big town of Skagit Valley, Sedro Woolley, a farming market town, and then out as the road got narrower and more curved among cliffs and the Skagit River, which we’d crossed on 99 as a dreaming belly river with meadows on both sides, was now a pure torrent of melted snow pouring narrow and fast between muddy snag shores. Cliffs began to appear on both sides. The snow covered mountains themselves had disappeared, receded from my view, I couldn’t see them any more but now I was beginning to feel them more.

Economics: For those who think the sky is falling.

This is part one of an article that I am calling Against "The Sky is Falling" by Indur Golkany (it's actually entitled something else--read it to find out).

Here is part 2.


Remember, an intelligent discussion requires dialogue, not a monologue.

Also, I have long held that the current economic paradigm of the "economics of scarcity" is a false manufactured mental box that allows an elite to manipulate and control and squelch producers and original thinkers.

W: ORP: DH & RC: small note

On my "A" stack of books to read (but further down) is a collection of Dashiell Hammett's novels (ISBN 978-1-88301167-3). Some elitists may not want to consider his writings as literature, but his contribution to 20th century culture is not to be undervalued. When I get to these novels, I'll try to make a few posts about them.

I am mentioning it now, because I just realized that he spent some time in Tacoma WA when he was trying to get treatment for tuberculosis. It's probably a sad connection to have, but on the other hand many in my fair city are fans of his writing (and likely I will be also once I start reading him).

And another much further down the "A" stack is Raymond Chandler (of the same genre as DH's stories)--more about him later.

Stay tuned.

ORP: Jack Kerouac: 2nd Road Novel

After a hiatus of a year and seven months, I finally got going on the second novel in the collection of Jack's Road Novels. This one is entitled, "The Dharma Bums", and is about further road travels involving a fictional set of characters in search of "truth", in this case "truth" as found in Buddhism.

[For the record, and personally, I think Buddhism may have pieces of truth as God has left Himself a witness in every culture and philosophy on Earth, but Buddhism is not THE TRUTH.]

The style is a relaxed stream-of-consciousness semi-poetic texture of words that describe the rollicking, partying adventures of a handful of characters. Their morals are just what you would expect from the predecessors to the majority of the Baby Boomers, that is sexual immorality, drinking, etc. I overlook this aspect of the story because all I have to do is look around or look at history--it's humanity's proclivity. I like the story though, because there are some poetic moments and I think the stream-of-consciousness technique works because it is not heavy and ponderous like James Joyce's novels or some of Thomas Pynchon's novels. Also I have always been kind of interested in comparative religion so I was looking to see if there were any insights about Buddhism, but alas it's treatment seems superficial. Some of the characters' descriptions show that some of them were sincere, but I got the impression that others were self deluded.

These following passages give you an idea of the style and poetic texture of the story:
This one from a mountain climb:

"Rocks are space," I thought, "and space is an illusion." I had a million thoughts. Japhy had his. I was amazed at the way he meditated with his eyes open. And I was mostly humanly amazed that this tremendous little guy who eagerly studied Oriental poetry and anthropology and ornithology and everything else in the books and was a rough little adventurer of trails and mountains should also suddenly whip out his pitiful beautiful wooden prayerbeads and solemnly pray there, like an oldfashioned saint of the deserts certainly, but so amazing to see it in America with its steel mills and airfields. The world ain't so bad, when you got Japhies, I thought, and felt glad. All the aching muscles and the hunger in my belly were bad enough, and the surroundant dark rocks, the fact that there is nothing to soothe you with kisses and soft words, but just to be sitting there meditating and praying for the world with another earnest young man--'twere good enough to have been born just to die, as we all are. Something will come of it in the Milky Ways of eternity stretching in front of all out phantom unjaundiced eyes, friends. I felt like telling Japhy everything I thought but I knew it didn't matter and moreover he knew it anyway and silence is the golden mountain.

W: Copyright issues

I like the idea of no copyrights, but I have struggled to find a good idea on how a writer could be compensated for the enormous work they put into their works of art. So I'm always interested in discussions on this topic. I came across this interview of Ursula K. LeGuin (one of my favorite authors). I'd be curious to hear what others think of this interview.

Personal Update: ...time...

To quote the Guess Who song: "I got, got no time...", represents my latest sin of envy as I read the output of others in just general blogging, not to mention reading, studying, & writing projects that I see them able to engage in. I have small spurts of activity, but my job and other responsibilities get in the way of doing my favorite thing, that is, to just read and write and think.

I have been serving on the negotiating committee on the labor side for our new contract at the Port of Seattle, and the good news there is that quite possibly we may be close to a reasonable agreement (as reasonable as one can get in this economy). Those few who have read this blog and who have been praying for me, I urge to continue to intercede, since we now have to sell it to our members.

I have been placing much hope in finally getting an official education after I would retire at age 56, but there is still ongoing pressure from the contractors (NECA) to eliminate our early retirement. They keep giving us this line about how they don't want to lose their valuable experienced hands in the projected future shortage of electricians. I'm not buying it, though, because many of our members that are older and are getting job dispatches from the union hall tend to get "turned around" when they get to the job and the superintendent sees that they are older. And added to that indignity is the attitude that a worker (unless that one is a nephew or a good suck-up) is disposable. The final issue is that by eliminating the early retirement the probabilities go up that the electricians tend to die off sooner. So the contractors would rather their so-called valuable electricians die off than that they should have to keep paying for a pension that they agreed to under contract.

So I'm facing the reality that I shall likely live and die in the trade I'm working in without being able to have that more fulfilling life of writing and academia that I desire.

Oh well, at least I have a job. (That's just where the employers of this country want everyone to be--at the survival level.)
Hey didn't we supposedly eliminate slavery in this country?

W: LP: ORP: YM: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

I finally finished Yukio Mishima's "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" translated by Ivan Morris. As all the commentators have pointed out, this a fictionalized account of the person who burned down the the Golden Temple in Kyoto, Japan.

This story is told in first-person narrative style which is appropriate considering that the main character, the narrator, a Buddhist priest in training, obsesses about himself. My limited understanding of Buddhism is that one must empty oneself of self to attain enlightenment. Never-the-less, the main character recounts his personal biography from his childhood through university schooling to the fateful point of performing an ultimate nihilistic act. For him this is the burning of the Golden Temple where he was an acolyte. For the narrator, this temple personifies beauty, but has a shackling obsessive effect on this psychotic self-filled individual. It reminds me of the following quote by Albert Camus:

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

This obsession with beauty and the circular existential struggle between meaning and meaninglessness within the mind of the narrator drives him, in his own perverted course of logic, to the conclusion that he must burn down the temple to free himself and truly live.
It reminds me of the darker side of the philosophy of Existentialism and some of Nietzsche's ideas. But it occurs to me that many who repudiate the moral consciousness written in their hearts by the Creator God, find only confusion and chaos of mind, and then the arrogant "self" stands up to defiantly act out. Lucifer becomes Satan; so everyone who tries to find a meaningful self apart from God only succeeds in performing criminal rebellion. The narrator wants to truly live, but in his lostness and depravity, only destructively anti-lives.

But after having summarized the novel above as I have, I do want to point out that there are poignant shards of insight and beauty mixed into the horrifying logic of nihilism. Take a look at these passages:
This first one is a piece from the funeral for the narrator's father:

Father's face was buried in the early summer flowers. There was something gruesome about the utter freshness of those flowers. It was as though they were peering down into the bottom of a well. For a dead man's face falls to an infinite depth beneath the surface which the face possessed when it was alive, leaving nothing for the survivors to see but the frame of a mask; it falls so deep, indeed, that it can never be pulled back to the surface. A dead man's face can tell us better than anything else in this world how far removed we are from the true existence of physical substance, how impossible it is for us to lay hands on the way in which this substance exists. This was the first time that I had been confronted by a situation like this in which a spirit is transformed by death into mere physical substance; and now I felt that I was gradually beginning to understand why it was that spring flowers, the sun, my desk, the schoolhouse, pencils--all physical substance, indeed--had always seemed so cold to me, had always seemed to exist so far away from myself.

This next one is from toward the end of the story and is an interesting conception of the nature of knowledge:

Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed. You may ask what good it does us. Let's put it this way--human beings possess the weapon of knowledge in order to make life bearable. For animals such things aren't necessary. Animals don't need knowledge or anything of the sort to make life bearable. But human beings do need something, and with knowledge they can make the very intolerableness of life a weapon, though at the same time that intolerableness is not reduced in the slightest. That's all there is to it.

Anyway, I do recommend reading this novel just for the thought provoking nature in which the story is told, but for those without hope this story might be a bit too depressing.

W: P: "radix"

Thought I'd try my hand at haiku, so here it is:

count zero, start from nothing;
A leaf falls, the sacred speaking light reaches Earth.
Is my nullity something?

W: LP: Poetry: Blake: Tyger

This poem from one of my favorite poets, William Blake, is one of my favorites:


The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire in thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art?
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand, and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb, make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Ephemera: "Tales of Brave Ulysses"

This song is one of my favorites from the band, Cream:

By eric clapton and martin sharp


You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.

And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave ulysses:
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.

And you see a girls brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.
And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.

The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.

Her name is aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave ulysses; how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.

The tiny purple fishes run lauging through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.

Ephemera: "The Man's Too Strong"

Check out this song* from the Dire Straits album, "Brothers in Arms":

I'm just an aging drummer boy
And in the wars I used to play
And I've called the tune
To many a torture session
Now they say I am a war criminal
And I'm fading away
Father please hear my confession

I have legalized robbery
Called it belief
I have run with the money
And hid like a thief
I have re-written history
With my armies and my crooks
Invented memories
I did burn all the books
And I can still hear his laughter
And I can still hear his song
The man's too big
The man's too strong

Well I have tried to be meek
And I have tried to be mild
But I spat like a woman
And sulked like a child
I have lived behind walls
That have made me alone
Striven for peace
Which I never have known
And I can still hear his laughter
And I can still hear his song
The man's too big
The man's too strong

Well the sun rose on the courtyard
And they all did hear him say
'You always were a Judas
But I got you anyway
You may have got your silver
But I swear on my life
Your sister gave me diamonds
And I gave them to your wife'
Oh Father please help me
For I have done wrong
The man's too big
The man's too strong


*I always prefer the studio version of a song.

W: LP: GRP: LH: Japan, a final note

After finishing the first part of Lafcadio Hearn's book, "Japan", called The Land, I began the second section called The People. LH does not disappoint, and in fact I found his writing about the people of Japan so fascinating that I just couldn't put the book down. There are so many good things in this section that if I started posting excerpts, I would end up posting the entire section. I just recommend that everyone read this book if you can.

This book made me become more interested in things about Japan that I want to keep reading similar works about the people and their history. But alas, I have not enough time and my stack of books is too high. For now I am going to move on to Yukio Mishima's "The Golden Pavilion"; the edition I have of this novel is in a collection of three novels by this writer and I had read the other two novels some time ago and put off reading this. I am finding that Goodreads is a helpful tool in causing me to finish up old reading projects so that I might tackle my current stack and then move on to other stacks I have waiting. And I had wanted to get this done not just to check off a list but because that writer was pretty good also. Then eventually I'll get back to the Russians and Ayn Rand. Eventually also I'll get back into some non-fiction. Anyway...

I wish everyone good reading...

W: LP: GRP: LH: Japan, p2

A few more observations.

I just finished the chapter called "In a Japanese Garden" and LH did a magnificent job of describing the beauty of nature. The chapter concludes with a note of sadness as industrialization was destroying many of the great gardens in each of the communities. Here is the passage from pp90-91:

Yet all this--the old katchiu-yashiki and its gardens--will doubtless have vanished forever before many years. Already a multitude of gardens, more spacious and more beautiful than mine, have been converted into rice-fields or bamboo groves; and the quaint Izumao city, touched at last by some long-projected railway line,--perhaps even within the present decade,--will swell, and change, and grow commonplace, and demand these grounds for the building of factories and mills. Not from here alone, but from all the land the ancient peace and the ancient charm seem doomed to pass away. For impermanency is the nature of things, more particularly in Japan; and the changes and the changers shall be changed until there is found no place for them,--and regret is vanity. The dead art that made the beauty of this place was the art, also, of that faith...

It reminds me of the regret that JRR Tolkien felt as the Midlands where he lived most of his life were destroyed to make way for progress.

I think it doesn't have to be this way if those involved were content with slightly less profit, development could be done in a way that would not destroy nature, but coexist in balance so that technology could advance and jobs be had and the beauty not effaced.

_____________________________________________

Here are a few more passages from the book that I want to post without comment:

"Returning-time-in-to-look-as-for-is-good." As we descend to the bay, the whole of Kaka-ura, including even the long-invisible ancients of the village accompanies us; making no sound except the pattering of geta. Thus we are escorted to our boat. Into all the other craft drawn up on the beach the younger folk clamber lightly, and seat themselves on the prows and gunwales to gaze at the marvelous Thing-that-by-looking-at-worn-out-is-not. And all smile, but say nothing, even to each other: somehow the experience gives me the sensation of being asleep; it is so soft, so gentle, and so queer withal, just like things seen in dreams. And as we glide away over blue lucent water I look back to the people all waiting and gazing still from the great semicircle of boats; all the slender brown child-limbs dangling from the prows; all the velvety-black heads motionless in the sun; all the boy-faces smiling Jizo-smiles; all the black soft eyes still watching, tirelessly watching, the Thing-that-by-looking-at-worn-out-is-not. And as the scene, too swiftly receding, diminishes to the width of a kakemono, I vainly wish that I could buy this last vision of it, to place it in my toko, and delight my soul betimes with gazing thereon. Yet another moment, and we round a rocky point; and Kaka-ura vanishes from my sight forever. So all things pass away.

Assuredly those impressions which longest haunt recollection are the most transitory: we remember many more instants than minutes, more minutes than hours; and who remembers an entire day? The sum of the remembered happiness of a lifetime is the creation of seconds. What is more fugitive than a smile? yet when does the memory of a vanished smile expire? or the soft regret which that memory may evoke?

Regret for a single individual smile is something common to normal human nature; but regret for the smile of a population, for a smile considered as an abstract quality, is certainly a rare sensation, and one to be obtained, I fancy, only in this Orient land whose people smile forever like their own gods of stone. And this precious experience is already mine; I am regretting the smile of Kaka.

Simultaneously there comes to the recollection of a strangely grim Buddhist legend. Once the Buddha smiled; and by the wondrous radiance of that smile were countless worlds illuminated. But there came a Voice, saying: "It is not real! It cannot last!" And the light passed.

_____

--Evil winds from the West are blowing over Horai;--and the magical atmosphere, alas! is shrinking away before them. It lingers now in patches only, and bands,--like those long bright bands of cloud that trail across the landscapes of Japanese painters. Under these shreds of elfish vapor you still can find Horai--but not elsewhere....Remember that Horai is also called Shinkaro, which signifies Mirage,--the Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading,--never again to appear save in pictures and poems and dreams....

Personal Update: Sorrow & Relief

I have a burning interest in writing and hope to actually become published, so it was with great sorrow that I just discovered that some fellow Christians from my church have been getting together to encourage each other in their writing and they made a point of NOT inviting me. To use a metaphor, my entire life is like a small hungry child with his nose pressed up against the window of a bakery--you're on the outside and no one is letting you in to taste the goodies. I sometimes forget that this is my lot in life, for when God has given me a measure of physical comfort in life (like a good job, etc.), I fall under the illusion that I have been let into the bakery. It is only a dream however, since the reality is that I am only a second tier member of my church and many of my so-called Christian brothers make a point of excluding me from their lives. I'll have to go it alone, but it always hurts the most when it is your own (supposedly) that turn their back on you. Perhaps God is granting me the privilege of an advanced course in humility--perhaps I would be prideful if I were to succeed or heaven forbid, receive compassion from my Christian brothers.

On the other hand, my concluding remarks from my entry on 20100409, to wit, "One last thing, I will likely, eventually, be "silenced" by the US government at some point, so anyone not happy with my views will be able to rejoice." will not come true because I will not ever become popular enough to piss off the establishment. Well, when you try to think for yourself you will eventually piss everyone off--nobody likes to have their cherished illusions shattered. So, on one level I can feel relief.

I wish I could be around to watch during the few days after I die, to note how my passing will not be noticed. At least I get to start dealing with the sin of pride right now!

Ephemera: A Peace Maker from the cold war

I came across an article about Samantha Smith and her small contribution to world peace.

Indeed,

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

Matthew 5:9

W: LP: GRP: Daniel DeFoe: "The Journal of the Plague Year"

Daniel DeFoe is probably best known for his authorship of the novel, "Robinson Crusoe", and I have read that novel in abridged form years ago as a child. I plan to eventually read "Robinson Crusoe" in unabridged form (in an 1869 edition that I inherited from my grandmother), but not until I finish my current stack, so I decided to read this smaller work of DeFoe until I have time for the larger book.

As a published writer in a time when proto-newspapers were first coming into being in England, DeFoe was very savvy about writing on subjects that related to current events so that he might enhance his sales. You might call him the Patterson of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the year 1720 the city of Marseilles had a major outbreak of the plague (I'll have to read more of this event, but one assumes that the term 'plague' refers to various strains of bubonic plague--known in 14th century as the Black Death). The re-occurrence of the plague that devastated Marseilles caused great alarm in London, because a similar devastation of London in 1665 had not entirely disappeared in England until 1679, and memory of it was still fresh in the popular mind. This alarm created a market for a great many publications on the topic of the plague. DeFoe seized the opportunity and wrote up an account of the great plague of London in the form of an eye-witness journal of a London tradesman who stayed in the City during that terrible year.

Another cause for my interest in this story is that I have had an interest in the history of the roots of the modern world and a few years ago I read the three book series by Neal Stephenson called the Baroque Cycle. In the first of this set of novels the story opens with one of the main characters in the time after the plague and just before and during the Great Fire of London in 1666. I thought it would tie in nicely to read more of that time period.

And while I have been concentrating on works from the nineteenth century, it is nice to flash backward in history for a short time. Yes, this makes the third book I am reading simultaneously, but it helps when the other things I am reading become tedious or I just need a change.

The story is written in the first person POV, but DeFoe does a great job with this work and it really does seem as if he lived through the events portrayed in the story. His research of firsthand accounts has allowed him to paint a very real picture of the horrors of the plague. Here is an example of some of his writing; this from the part of the story where the plague is just starting to ramp up and the death toll is mounting (the narrator is at a mass grave):

…but when they came up to the pit, they saw a man go to and again, muffled up in a brown cloak, and making motions with his hands, under his cloak, as if he was in a great agony; and the buriers immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of those poor delirious, or desperate creatures, that used to pretend, as I have said, to bury themselves: he said nothing as he walked about, but two or three times groaned very deeply and loud, and sighed as he would break his heart.

When the buriers came up to him, they soon found he was neither a person infected and desperate, as I have observed above, or a person distempered in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful weight of grief indeed, having his wife and several of his children all in the cart, that was just come in with him; and followed in an agony and excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was not easy to see, but with a kind of masculine grief that could not give itself vent by tears: and calmly desiring the buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown in, and go away, so they left importuning him: but so sooner was the cart turned around, and the bodies shot into the pit promiscuously, which was a surprise to him, for he at least expected they would have been decently laid in, though, indeed, he was afterwards convinced that was impracticable; I say, no sooner did he see the sight, than he cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could not hear what he said, but he went backwards two or three steps, and fell down in a swoon: the buriers ran to him, and took him up, and in a little while he came to himself, and they led him away to the Pye-tavern, over against the end of Houndsditch, where it seems the man was known, and where they took care of him. He looked into the pit again as he went away, but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately with throwing in earth, that though there was enough light enough, for there were lanterns and candles in them, placed all night round the sides of the pit, upon the heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps more, yet nothing could be seen.

This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much as the rest; but the other was awful and full of terror. The cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapped up in linen sheets, some in rugs, some little other than naked, or so loose, that what covering they had, fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest but the matter was not much to them, or the indecency much to anyone else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it for here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together; there was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there should, for coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that fell in such a calamity as this.

The word usage is a little different from our language today but in context one can understand the intended meaning. The last part of the passage reminds me of a line from the Pink Floyd album, "The Final Cut" from the song, “Two Suns in the Sunset”:

Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
We were all equal in the end.

Social Philosophy: A definition of Anarchism I can get behind

Anarchism is the belief in no government. Anarchist's do NOT support or like violence or coercion. In fact, by definition, anarchists are diametrically opposed to offensive violence and coercion. To an anarchist, at least, the words 'governance' and 'government' refer to offensive coercion and institutions thereof. Anarchists are adamantly opposed to the use of force, coercion, or violence against innocent people. Anarchists oppose any use of offensive violence, offensive coercion, offensive force, etc. Accordingly, by definition, anarchists strongly oppose rape, murder, assault, theft and the like.

Like most people, most anarchists have no problem with solely defensive uses of force/coercion. Most people do not consider self-defensive uses of force to be governmental. Malcolm X said, "I don't call it violence when it's self-defense; I call it intelligence." However, most anarchists reject the 'collateral damage' excuse, which terrorists and war-mongers use to claim that the harming of innocent people and civilians can fall under 'defense'.

Anarchists want smaller government, and ideally no government. Henry David Thoreau put it best when he said:

"I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least'; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--'That government is best which governs not at all'; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have."

Anarchists oppose theft, and thus anarchists oppose taxation. Anarchists oppose kidnapping, thus anarchists oppose the jailing of people for "victimless crimes", such as drug use, prostitution, gun-ownership, or flag-burning. Anarchists oppose murder, and thus anarchists oppose war (insofar as innocent people, a.k.a. civilians, are killed).

Spelling and grammar errors are the fault of the writer whom I quoted.

Ephemera: The ongoing evil of the US government

I created a new blog entry with a different title to better reflect the nature of the original discussion. (Also, this will allow it to show up in friendfeed better.)

For the record, I originally emphasized the current US regime to disabuse all the Obama hero-worshipers of their illusions, because this president has not only continued the policies of the past regimes (after making vague promises to the contrary), but has added to the worst aspects of these prior Constitution violators. If the press would do their job, I wouldn't have to say much. I didn't have to say much about George W. Bush, because the MSM were on him like a rabid dog (it made one think it was all made up--but as time proved it was not). In the case of this, the following original blog entry, the outrage was against the current government's insistence on the right to assassination. Mr. Awlaki may very well deserve to die, but it does not then follow that any citizen of this nation accused of being a terrorist should be targeted for assassination:

Friday, April 09, 2010
Ephemera: The Evil of the current US goverment
Another hat tip (MH): The right to assassinate it's own citizens.

Another of the thousand points of light pointing toward the fascist nature of the US government. This just makes me sick.
Posted by Mad Russian the Natural Philosopher at 12:07 AM
3 comments:

Stu 陶明瀚 said...

American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate of the terror network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad, the officials said

I believe in due process as well, but I doubt if this is anything new in this country. You are only more aware of it because the Obama administration has lifted the cloud of secrecy around such things.

It's not like Bush administration side-stepping of rules, for example, torture, were they would just move the person they want tortured to a country with no laws and carry it out.

Personally I am against this because it shows a break down of due process, however I don't think it is anything out of the ordinary in this day and age. Looking at the source of the article you find it coming from some far right-wing radicals who are stretching their every-fiber to make Obama look bad. We have a president like JFK who is finally going to usher in some much needed reform and its pissing a lot of greedy fascists off.

Remember that we are at war nonetheless and if you pick up arms against this country you become its enemy.

So - I thought it was misleading making the title of your post say "the current" when equally evil things were also occurring in the not so current government.
11:02 PM

Mad Russian the Natural Philosopher said...

The article was fairly clear about pointing out how some of this got started in the Bush administration, and if Obama wanted actual reform, he would repeal the insistence on the "right to assassinate". There is also precedent set when the Weavers were shot up on Ruby Ridge and the Waco Massacre during Clinton years.
The greater responsibility rests upon the current administration, because they promised to end this sort of thing.
12:25 AM

Mad Russian the Natural Philosopher said...

And I would like to add that as I have finally repudiated my past support of some of the statists, I think it is just as bad to do these types of evil whether you have a D after your name or an R.

The mainstream media screamed bloody murder when the body count in Afghanistan passed 3000 under Bush, but now not much has been said in the MSM when the body count crossed 4000 within this administration.
12:28 AM


One last thing, I will likely, eventually, be "silenced" by the US government at some point, so anyone not happy with my views will be able to rejoice.

Ephemera: The Fake Steve Jobs dis of NYT

Earlier this month I finished reading the dead tree version of Wired magazine. They had a great article on tablet computers and the possible future of computing. In that article the magazine had a few small blurbs from various opinionistas relating to the subject. The Fake Steve Jobs bit was so humorous, and since I detest the massively statist world view of the New York Times newspaper, I had to laugh when I read the following:

So once again we've changed the world with a mind-blowing, revolutionary product that does things that everybody considered impossible. An ebook reader that also plays movies and music? And browses the Web? No way. Can't be done. Well, we did it. And you can fly three times around the globe and watch movies the whole time on a single battery charge. It's amazing. Phenomenal. Exciting. Magical. Amazing. Beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous. And yet for some people in the media, this is not enough. These people are disappointed because they expected the iPad to also save newspapers from a certain death.

Yes, David Carr of The New York Times, I'm talking to you, you pie-eyed crackhead. All I can say is, bitch please! I'm a genius, but I'm not a miracle worker. Nor am I Mother Theresa. I wasn't put on earth to save The New York Times. I was put on earth to restore a sense of childlike wonder to people's empty, pathetic lives, and I must say that so far I'm doing a pretty outstanding job.

Anyway, do you really think saving newspapers is just a matter of putting your old crap on a new device? Because from what I can see, The New York Times sucks just as bad on a Kindle as it does on paper. That, in fact, is the real problem with The New York Times: It sucks, and everyone knows it, except, apparently, the dumb fucks who write for The New York Times, which is, oddly enough, the heart of the problem. Quod erat demonstrandum, as Socrates once said.

The iPad isn't about saving newspapers. It's about inventing new ways of telling stories, using a whole new language--one that we can't even imagine right now.

Like I said when I met the publisher of The New York Times when he begged me to let his new media guy get onstage at our iPad event: Sully, I like you guys, but the truth is you guys really need to die so that we can clear the way for the new guys--although at the same time I do want to commend you for the great job you did when you landed that plane on the Hudson. He's like, What? And I'm like, Wasn't that you? And he's like, No, that's a guy named Sullenberger, and I'm like, Well, what's your name? and he says, Sulzberger, and I'm like, OK, whatever, but you're still screwed.

Hacks, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to save you. Frankly, I don't read magazines or newspapers, and if every last one of you were all erased from the planet tomorrow I would not notice and I would not care. Having said that, I wish you all the best in whatever future careers you choose. Gardening, I've heard, is very peaceful and involves slinging manure, so you should be good at it. Namaste. Much love. Peace.

Disclaimer: The above profanity is a quote, i.e. not my words.

Novo Visum.
Neue Ansicht.

W: LP: GRP: LH: Japan, p1

Lafcadio Hearn's "Japan" is divided into two major sections: The Land and The People. I am still in the first section and have just completed the chapter entitled The Chief City of the Province of Gods. I just wanted to stop here and quote a small passage to show how poetic a writer LH is in describing this new world he had come to live in. This is from the above mentioned chapter on LH's visit to Matsue:

There are no such sunsets in Japan as in the tropics: the light is gentle as a light of dreams; they are no furies of color; there are no chromatic violences inn nature in this Orient. All in sea or sky is tint rather than color, and tint vapor-toned. I think that the exquisite taste of the race in the matter of colors and tints, as exemplified in the dyes of their wonderful textures, is largely attributable to the sober and delicate beauty of nature's tones in this all-temperate world where nothing is garish.

Before me the fair vast lake sleeps, softly luminous, far-ringed with chains of blue volcanic hills shaped like a sierra. On my right, at its eastern end, the most ancient quarter of the city spreads its roofs of blue-gray tile; the houses crowd thickly down to the shore, to dip their wooden feet into the flood. With a glass I can see my own windows and the far spreading of the roofs beyond, and above all else the green citadel with its grim castle, grotesquely peaked. The sun begins to set, and exquisite astonishments of tinting appear in water and sky.

Dead rich purples cloud broadly behind and above the indigo blackness of the serrated hills--mist purples, fading upward smokily into faint vermilions and dim gold, which again melt up through ghostliest greens into the blue. The deeper waters of the lake, far away, take a tender violet indescribable, and the silhouette of the pine-shadowed island seems to float in that sea of soft sweet color. But the shallower and nearer is cut from the deeper water by the current as sharply as by a line drawn, and all the surface on this side of that line is a shimmering bronze,--old rich ruddy gold-bronze.

All the fainter colors change every five minutes,--wondrously change and shift like tones and shades of fine shot-silks.

The author draws such pictures with words throughout his work and in between these word-paintings, he also includes short little tales from myth and legend which I find very interesting. It makes me want to study the history of Japan in more depth especially the early history as it fades backward in time to prehistory and legend.

This book is worth a read even if just to experience a poetic word-painting of an enchanted land.

Technos: On DRM in the cloud

Hat tip to Mark Horne on this link from Tech Crunch site.

I am old fashioned, so I either buy or borrow* CD's and rip them to my iTunes at 320bits so I don't necessarily have to worry about this, but it is interesting to think about.





*For any fascist IP lawyers out there, owned within my family & paid for by my wages.

:)

W: LP: General Reading Projects: Everything

My literary group "gave up the ghost" a month or so ago, so any of my current and future observations on literature will all be in the General Reading Projects (GRP) category.

I have been very busy with the exigencies of life (and the greatest time consumption: negotiation with the dishonorable monkeys on the management side of the Port of Seattle), so I haven't been doing as much reading as I would like. I finally started playing with "Goodreads" and this reminded me of a number of books that I have started and haven't yet completed.

I love history and in the past few years I have been focusing on the nineteenth century (it's literature, histories, biographies, technologies, etc.), which also ties into my interest in the Steampunk Culture. So I have been reading Lafcadio Hearn's "Japan", a collection of his writings on Japan. These writings give a glimpse of nineteenth century Japan just before and as it transitioned into the modern nation-state that it is now.

And in other nineteenth century literature, I have gotten started on some earlier writings of Dostoevsky, to wit, his "Poor Folk" and other stories. These are shorter works that perhaps can fit into my time-poor lifestyle. This novella electrified Nekrasov and Belinsky and encouraged FD to go into writing. More on this book and the Japan book as I have time to set it down here in this blog.

To quote a line from a Beatles song, "I'll be writing more in a week or two...And I want to be a paperback writer..."

Novo Visum
Neue Ansicht.

W: Literature: Tolkien

I really liked the following tidbit about Tolkien:

Tolkien’s academic writings on Old Norse and Germanic history, language and culture were extremely popular among the Nazi elite, who were obsessed with recreating ancient Germanic civilization. But Tolkien was disgusted by Hitler and the Nazi party, and made no secret of the fact. He considered forbidding a German translation of The Hobbit after the German publisher, in accordance with Nazi law, asked him to certify that he was an “Aryan.” Instead, he wrote a scathing letter asserting, among other things, his regret that he had no Jewish ancestors. His feelings are also evidenced in a letter he wrote to his son: “I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler … Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”

This was from the following link: Ten Things About JRR Tolkien

Technos: Our Disallowed Future

Hat tip to my brother, Stuart, for this picture.



If we had continued manned space exploration at the pace we were taking when we landed on the moon, by this time or a few years hence, we could have had huge orbital colonies like this.

I have been able to see this future since I was in grade-school, but alas the smallness of all our civilizations with all our small-minded leaders (the Monkey Collective) robbed us of a great future in this life. My only other choice is to live with God...