Protesting A Bit Too Much

THE I.R.S. SEEMS TO BE guzzling a tad too much tea these days. Is this surprising? That the government agency responsible for collecting taxes should pay extra attention to an organization determined to avoid payment of taxes at all costs seems, if nothing else, shall we say, appropo.

Symmetrical, if not outright understandable.  The Internal Revenue Service targeting Taxed Enough Already for "special" treatment. Yes, there is a certain symmetry to this.

Strangely, though, the tea people seem quite unhappy about this arrangement. Perhaps, in their anger, haste, and even paranoia, they fail to perceive their potential benefit.

First and foremost, by its very behavior the IRS is exposing itself as the intrusive, overbearingly big government about which teetotaler types have long warned us. The publicity generated by this outrageous scandal can only serve to frighten others - if it can happen to them, it can happen to anybody.

Won't this draw new members to the cause of governmental confiscatory restraint? What could be more advantageous for conservatives in future elctions than to be able to go before the electorate, and, in complete honesty, remind the voters of the scandalous, nefarious deeds done by their supposed public servants under the direction of liberal democratic tax happy administration?

Taxes are assesed under complicated but clear and transparent regulations applied uniformally, notwithstanding complaints often heard to the contrary. Why should a little extra scrutiny matter to anyone subjected to said scrutiny, as long as the taxes are paid properly, fairly, and on time, by people to whom accountants and lawyers are available? 

Glass houses harm not he who lives honorably therein. Methinks the tea folk doth protest too much.

Start Your Engines

I WAS ONCE ASKED whether I am a fan of NASCAR (national association of stock car ardent rumrunners). Give me credit. I didn't take the usual intellectual tact of feigned bemusement at the banality of watching a group of cars going in circles interminably like a flock of cats chasing tails.

Nor did I break out some staid environmental degradation objection. Actually, I like racing, particularly stock car racing, and have for years. But that need not preclude the telling of the truth, and here, it will not.

I did, therefore, point out that with anywhere from one hundred to two hundred thousand prople present per NASCAR spectacular, nary a person of color is to be seen, ever. The stock response to this is, predictably, "Nobody's keeping them out. All they have to do is show up."

The insipidity, the shallow, dishonest stupidity, the blind cruelty of this argument reflects the phenomenon itself. Deeply entrenched, ultra conservatice, thoughtless thinking, transmitted through generations, precluding any substantive progress in cultural attitude or physical fact.

Black people don't show up because they have never been given the slightest reason to think they would be welcome, and not pushed into the far corner of the oval. And this is hardly surprising, considering simple historical and current reality.

Three hundred years of slavery, a hundred years of segregation and Jim Crow, and another forty years of desperate struggle, sometimes peaceful , sometimes violent, and hey boys? You know what, whitey? You wouldn't show up either.

It isn't as if any concerted effort has ever been made to change anything.. Only weak tacit acceptance of a horrendous history of senseless race based brutality, lingering, always lingering...and a weak spined "you can come on in now, son. Sit right over there".

Scan the crowd, scan the cockpit, scan the crew pit. No color. Nothing, other than a pervasive, institutionalized, extant, static culture of systematic exclusion. There's a lot more at work here, boys, a lot more driving this ongoing tragedy, than a mere failure to appear.

Gentlemen, its time to start your engines, the ones in your head, and in your heart.

Memory and Desire

ON A REGULAR BASIS, the military theocracy which governs Israel hosts a gathering of prominent world citizens, including academicians and renowned intellectuals, for the presumed purpose of expounding the virtues of the military theocracy of the nation-state of Israel.

The world's most distinguished scientist, Stephen Hawking, decided to boycott this year's event, in protest of israel's continuing occupation of palestinian land which was conquered during the 1967 war, and the refusal of israel to permit the establishment of a palestinian homeland.

Wailing and gnashing of teeth, expressions of righteous outrage and indignation could be heard from tel aviv to the hallowed halls of cambridge university. Hawking has been accused of everything from anti-semitism to harboring scandalous political philosophies. Hawking himself seems unfazed.

It is not uncommon for liberal intellectuals to  question the policies of conservative israeli regimes, just as it is not uncommon for conservative israeli governments to treat palestinian uprisings demanding a homeland with brutal harshness.

However, at least one young hasidic rabbi has posited the interesting notion that judaism is a religion, but neither a nation state, a military power, nor a political philosophy. Shocking revelation. Sometimes conservatives engender workable ideas.

But not always. Albert Einstein was invited to assume the presidency of the newly proclaimed state of israel in the late nineteen forties. He had the good sense to point out that his experience was in theoretical physics, rather than government administration.

Chalk another one up for the power of science to refrain from indulging a potentially disastrous mixing of science and sacred scripture based suzerainty, or, as T.S. Eliot said, memory and desire. 

Losing Out, Big Time

GOETHE SAID "one does not always lose if one has to do without". And that may be true, but it certainly isn't for me, not now, maybe not ever.

I pulled into a wal mart gas station and began fueling. Gazing idly around, I noticed a baseball lying in the middle of the adjacent four lane busy highway. A beautiful, lovely american baseball . Not new, but.....still...

 My late middle aged heart racing along, I urged the gas on, finished, then dashed toward the road, fully prepared to dodge heavy traffic, risk life and limb....but it was gone. My beautiful trophy was gone. My heart sank, and depression immediately set in. I paid up, then slouched homeward.

My mistake was pumping gas before hitting the road. Let the customers back up behind me, and honk relentlessly. Let the gas flow onto the pavement and dwarf the BP Gulf oil spill! Anything for the ball. But the hesitation killed me.

Maybe some ten year old kid got the ball, after screaming at his parents to stop dead in the middle of traffic, risking a ten car rear ending pile up, and maybe he is enjoying it this moment. I don't care.

Maybe some impoverished black kid from a broken home got the ball, and shared it with his friends, who will spend the summer playing with it, and will turn their lives around, to productivity rather than gangs and drugs and violence.

Still, I don't care . My beautiful baseball is gone. I carry one around in my car, like every other real americcan, but who doesn't? Never was there a lovelier thing than a baseball, to hold, and to have. Perchance, to throw and catch.

Someday the horrible memory will fade, and life will return to normal. But not for awhile. My dream, so sudden before me and so close, is gone. And so am I, at least for the time being. I wonder if it had mickey mantle's autograph on it...

Defending Honesty, at a Price

I GOT OUT of my car, book in hand, and walked straight to my favorite picnic table, sat down, and began to read. Nothing like John Grisham on a bright sunny spring day. My son was in the middle school building, somewhere, taking examinations.

A young man approached me, and said "may I help you"?  I replied "no thank you". Lingering, he made some cursory remark about the weather, and the pleasures of a good read on a bright day. I agreed. Looking a bit disappointed, he bade farewell, and went on.

Soon another gentleman, somewhat older, approached, and asked "may I help you"? I now began to wonder what it was about me that made it seem as if I needed all this help. Suddenly I understood. What he really wanted was to know who I was, and what I was doing there. Our modern age of fear.

So I told him, and he seemed much more satisfied than the previous teacher. As he turned happily to go about his business, I said "and thank you for your offer. I ever I need your assistance, I will remember your kind words." This seemed to confuse him for a moment, but, bemused, he nodded and walked away, as if non plussed at having his true intentions exposed.

All too soon a middle aged lady approached and said to me "may I help you"? I looked at her and smiled, and she continued "I saw you walking around, and you seemed totally confused. I thought maybe you were looking for a building."

Wondering how anyone who walks straight from car to picnic table with book in hand can appear "confused" to anyone, I responded with my name, rank , serial number, and purpose for being on premises. Then came my fatal mistake.

"Why do you people always ask if you can help me, when in fact you want to know who I am, and why I am here?"  I tried not to sound annoyed, but evidently failed. She didn't like this, at all. "Don't I have a right to protect this school"?  she blurted out.

Well, of course, I thought. That's what you should do, absolutely. So why not simply do it, rather than feign interest in helping somebody when in fact you only want to know who ther are, and why they are here?

So I said" if i were looking for some building, I would probably be walking around, and since there is only one building here, well.."  With great truculance, she said something like "well EXCUSE Me for affending you." As she stormed away I assured her I was not offended.

I'm never offended by needless dishonestly, but I am amazed and amused by it. By the senseless posturing, the disingenuine failure to come straight up and take responsibility. Political correctness run amok. Form over substance. Posing.

She obviously ran to the principle and told on me, because my friend the principle suddenly turned cold on me. I'll go apologize for my rudeness, but not for my rear guard defense of the sacred but vanishing ideal of plain, honest talk.

Why Bother?

THE COOL MACHINARY which scientists use to measure the carbon content of earth's atmosphere are evidently of no value to american conservatives, who don't seem to think that the steadily rising levels of carbon are of any real concern, other than to serve as a means for liberals to gain power.

As Goethe said: "we resist the truth only because we would perish if we accepted it"  No, its much easier, and far more pleasant, to focus on the kardashians than the capacity of carbon to absorb and retain heat, and, as we all know from listening to rush limbaugh, global warming is nothing other than an excuse for liberals to erect big government.

The liberals have to work really hard to put all that carbon in the atmosphere, but hey, anything to create a few more bureacracies and send those private dollars to washington.

Bread and circuses. Turn on television, follow the daily drama of a murder trial in ohio, or the aftermath of a brutal kidnapping investigation. Victims now texting each other. Victims families now seeking to comfort each other. Something every day, to keep us diverted from the suicide of our seven billion member community.

While the christians await the return of their avenging, angry messiah, and the new age folks await their extraterrestrial messiahs, let the streets and sewers take care of themselves, as long as taxes are lowered and we are all allowed to carry a gun.

As long as corporate profits are up, and the rich are allowed to keep all their money, and the tidal wave of gay marriage is delayed for another day or two, and the kardashians entertain us with trysts and pregnancies...

 why bother to consider the fact that the element carbon is ever more artificially abundant in the air we breathe, and why bother to remember that carbon absorbs heat faster than oxygen and nitrogen, and why bother to accept the fact that carbon is very stingy about releasing its stockpiled heat back into outer space. After all, outer space is whence our messiah will surely soon arrive.

Sinking Into Sedated Mindlessness, Daily

SEVENTY EIGHT THOUSAND PEOPLE, worldwide, have apparently signed up to go live on Mars. Unfortunately, only a handful will ever be needed, but hey, its the thought that counts, and, since the privately funded mars colonization project will supposedly launch in 2013, or thereabout, this is truly something to get excited about,truly something to inspire us.

Something to inspire us, to bind us together as a species. We need this. Some of us in the older generation still believe in the dream, the dream of a planet free of war and poverty, with a fulfilling life for all, a clean healthy environment, a healthy human race,; and a space exploration and colonization program to uplift us, in more ways than one.

And wouldn't it be nice if one could see and hear and read more about this sort of thing in the american media. New ideas for clean cheap energy are emerging, our orbiting telescopes are showing us thousands of newly discovered planets, and we are getting ready to go to mars. So it aint all bad news.

but the media tells us about gruesome acts of kidnapping, about the deranged kidnapper, about the tortured victims.....over..and over again, every day, every day a new twist, a new angle, a new extension of something gruesome which we just can't seem to let go, can't seem to do without.

We watch hour after hour, day after day, of a woman on trial for butchering her boyfriend, and we sit sedated by the corporate seduction, intended only to take our minds away from the grotesque inequalities and povery of our pseudo civilization. 

We don't talk about how to eliminate poverty,violence, other social ills, and we do not talk about mars. But we do talk about the kardashians, and the women held hostage for ten years..day after day...

wouldn't it be lovely to disconnect your cable TV, then wait awhile, then hook it back up, and see programs that are not only relevant, and important, to us all, in a meaningful, productive way, but also in a way which inspires us to think great thoughts, rather than sink daily into sedated mindlessness.

We Only Deceive Ourselves

SYLVIA BROWNE HAS MADE quite a good living for herself as self proclaimed psychic. Many books, many lectures and public demonstrations of her alleged talent, television shows, and last but not least, a lucrative business charging people seven to eight hundred dollars per half hour for a psychic reading on the telephone.

She is surely a millionaire many times over, and she is also a convicted felon, as of twenty years ago, for financial crimes.  She's been married five times, and her first husband claims she confided to him that she merely pretends to have phychic gifts, and that anyone gullible enough to trust her deserves to be swindled. Beware of what people say about their ex spouses.

Most recently she has come under fire for having told a woman, nine years ago, on the montel williams show, that her daughter, who was just the other day rescued from ten years of captivity, was dead. Her troubles have stemmed mostly from telling people that their missing loved ones were dead, only to have them turn up later, or, from telling people that their missing loved ones were alive, only to have them turn up dead.

A lot of people make a lot of money giving psychic demonstrations; we are a culture, we are a species, inclined to prefer credulity to skepticism. Tell people what they want to hear, they tend to believe it. To one degree or other, advertising always works.

Whenever purported psychics are offered the opportunity to subject their claims to intense scientific analysis, they tend to defer. Sylvia Browne has even turned down an offer of one million dollars by a man named Randi who heads an organization devoted to skeptical analysis of claims of the supernatural.

The jury is still out on whether human beings possess supernatural powers, what those powers are, and what the term "supernatural" actually means. If a person can predict the future accurately, or read minds, then those talents must be natural, rather than artificial, or beyond natural.  All that is is part of the natural universe, correct? The term "supernatural", ultimately, is no more meaningful than the term "empty space" or the term "unknowable".

The day may come when we understand precisely what people can, and cannot do. Until then, we are at the mercy of those who take advantage of our ignorance; but only so long as we permit it. As Goethe said, "we are never deceived, we only deceive ourselves".

All In Good Fun

DURING THE BILL CLINTON monica lewinsky fiasco a professor of electrical engineering from argentina, teaching in the united states, expressed amazement at the fuss and furor being made about the presidential sex scandal.

"In Argentina, the people expect the president to have many mistresses. I do not understand why you americans are so concerned about and ashamed of your president for having women".

Well, professor, it has to do with a schizophrenic american culture in which prudish victorian protestant values clash with a corporate capitalistic marketing of sex, through advertising and media entertainment. And which conflicting force is stronger, christianity or capitalism, depends on one's politics, it would seem.

Now former governor mark sandford, who resigned in disgrace following his exposure for having an affair with a latin american lady, is back in action, newly elected to the U.S. house of representatives after defeating the liberal sister of a well known television comedian.

It appears conservatives are far more willing to overlook the iniquities of a self deposed conservative republican governor than a moderate democrat president caught with his pants down. Impeach the president, restore the  ex gov to political power. 

That, even though the governor misused public funds to travel to south america for trysts, all the while claiming to be hiking on the appalachian trail. Good cover story, radiating good health, lacking only abduction by aliens.

But its all in good fun. We enjoy the soap operas, and if they keep us off the streets, all the better.

Competition and/or Art

FELIX MENDELSOHN  SUPPOSEDLY SAID "competition is for racehorses" in response to an invitation to participate in a piano competition. This was in the early nineteenth century. In 1958, at the prestigious tchaikovsky piano competition in moscow, a twenty year old american named van cliburn showed up and blew everybody away.

The judges, themselves accomplished pianists, voted cliburn the winner, and announced their intention of awarding him first prize. Upon reporting their decision to communist party officials, trouble began.

The party officials reminded the panel of judges that it would be greatly preferrable for a russian, or at least a non american, be given the award. This, in the midst of the cold war, when all forms of competition between the two super powers attained the highest importance. Communism must be proven superior to capitalism, even in the production of piano players.

The judges refused to change their decision. Integrity, they insisted, required that the prize go to the best, regardless of nationality, and the american was quite simply the best. The party officials made all kinds of threats, demanded that the judges acquiesce to political considerations, even threateniing to take the matter to russian premier Khrushchev, but still the judges would not relent.

So the party officials took the matter before the russian dictator. "Was the american the best piano player" asked the premier?...  "That's what the judges said", replied a party official. It didn't take much to anger nikita khrushchev, and, angered, he responded: "you have not answered my question. Please answer it now, or prepare to live in siberia".

"Yes, they said, the american was the best talent". "Then give him the damned prize, and bother me no further" said the big man. Kudos to the judges, and kudos to premier khrushchev, for having the guts and integrity to do the right thing.

Another possible solution would be for everyone to acknowledge that art is not the same thing as competition, and that activities such as piano competitions are petty, frivolous, and irrelevant. Competition is for racehorses.

Filling Up Our Lives

IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to pay attention to circumstances and events in the united states without at least vaguely sensing that the behavior of americans is a bit, shall we say, "bizarre". Here in the fun house one has a wide variety of inanity from which to select. The same, or much the same can be said of people all over the world, but one must pick and choose, to avoid excess.

Our current diversion is the sudden reappearance of three young women who disappeared ten years ago in Cleveland. For cause we discover the usual suspects; perfectly normal, average middle aged middle class american men, with nothing better to do with their lives than maintain a harum of sex slaves.

All serial killers emerge from mainstream american culture, and why not?

Maybe these guys watched a tad too much television; creative ideas always have origins in imitation. Or maybe they just plain had too much time on their hands; but how can this be, with so many television channels, so much vicarious twisted violence, and such long work hours for anyone gainfully employed?

This is not an aberration, not in the great american fun house, where nothing is at it seems, and our mirrors distort our lives at our complacent behest. Sit back, enjoy the show, and don't bother asking questions; our corporate masters are not in the business of explanation, but only of seduction.

Has anyone produced a television program called "Road Rage" yet? We line up six year old girls in front of an audience and select the cutest one for special treatment, we sit transfixed while famous people, famous for their physical beauty, dance for our privilage of voting on the most attractive of the attractive, and no act of violence stemming from mental illness goes untelevised.

The road age idea has great merit and potential. Get your cell phones out, fellow americans, and point it at the car behind you. Chances are its some thirty year old upper middle class cutie pie, talking or texting on her smart phone, driving forty in a thirty five, less than ten feet away, and becoming increasingly angry with you for neither catering to her momentary desire nor providing her any intoxicating diversion from her life, which she dimly percieves to be less than fulfilling.

The Process of Economic Instability

A SYSTEM AS COMPLEX, unorganized, and unplanned as the american economy cannot escape the violent contortions manifest throughout the past two hundred years: depressions, recessions, inflation, unemployment, levels of production inappropiate to actual societal needs have been a permanent feature of the american economy.

A large part of the american economy is invisible because of drug laws, straight cash employment and other transactions. and various forms of organized crime, resulting in billions of annual dollars of unreported economic activity.

Social security, medicare, and medicaid are often wrongly described as "entitlement" programs, but are in fact paid for by the people who receive their benefits. Nonetheless, these programs contribute greatly to the staggering national debt, but perhaps the most draining of all is unemployment insurance, which presently goes out to approximately fourteen million american, and is in fact a disguised form of unemployment insurance.

But the most damagin effect on teh american economy is in the form of military procurement, which has accounted for about half of the sixteen trillion dollar national debt, and which serves primarly to enrich the corporations who pay to elect the politicians who legislate military budgets.

Doomsayers have forever predicted the imminent collapse of the american economy, and their dire prognostications may yet eventuate. Competitive and cooperative economic systems (capitalism and socialism) are both viable, but seldom can anyone be found who is willing to acknowledge this.

There is no shortage of intelligence availabe to contend with economic difficulties, but there seems to be a shortage of people willing to expand their thinking to open mindedly embrace available solutions. And until that changes, our economic instability is likely to proceed apace.

The U.S.N.A.

ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE GUANTANAMO SITUATION, the situation in which the united states has since 1899 maintained a military base on cuban soil by having extorted it from spain at the conclusion of the spanish american war, is to arrange for its return to cuba, and

to transfer the prisoners there to U.S. territory, and try them. Or maybe the united nations international tribunal could handle the legal proceedings, as if the united states would ever accede to such an arrangement.

An arrangement could be made in which gitmo is transferred back to cuban ownership and control, in exchange for the restoration of full economi cooperation between the two countries, including the importation of cigars into america.

Soon thereafter, the cuban people could be given the opportunity to hold a referendum on the question of whether to become a state within the united states. This would give the united states the opportunity to expand its empire by voluntary inclusion, rather than by coercion and military occupation, the usual method.

A union of mexico, canada, cuba hispanola, and the united states: the united states of north america!
The Amero!

Productive Enterprise

A HOMELESS MAN in Texas decided to augment his panhandling with a sociological experiment, wherein he laid out several cardboard boxes, each marked with the name of a specific religion. He had a catholic box, a protestant box, and hindu box, an islam box, an athiest box, and several others.

Passersby were invited to contribute to the box matching their personal belief systems. It might be argued that anyone sufficiently energetic and intelligent to arrange this is quite able to not only seek but gain employment, but, that is another matter.

While homeless and soliciting free money, why not pursue a little scientific research, eh?

It turns out that, on that day in Texas, the athiests were the most generous, with the agnostics close behind, and adherents of most of the world's great religions lagging far behind. The study fails to include any evidence whether there exists any correlation between religiosity and generosity;

it could be that generous people and parsimonious people are both distributed evenly throughout the philosophical spectrum, but that on this particular day the generous athiests simply happened to be out in greater numbers.

This is where the scientific method comes in handy. Similar experiments could be conducted throughout the country, indeed the world, which would produce independently verifiable results. This would have the added advantage of providing the homeless an opportunity to engage in meaningful research,

while inculcating within them an awareness of their own capacity for productive enterprise.

What Good Now?

RETIRED SUPREME COURT JUSTICE sandra day o'connor recently said that the united states supreme court might well have made a mistake in agreeing to hear, then hearing, the bush versus gore case in 2000 which determined the identity (bush) of the president of the united states.

gore won the election in popular vote, by about half a million votes, but amid confusing circumstances in florida, involving hanging chads, recounts, and court battles, bush won florida, and the presidency. surely you who are over the age of twenty five remember all this.

those of you who are younger can either consider yourself fortunate, or unfortunate, to have missed all the excitement.

with bush slightly ahead in florida after several days of vote counting, but with thousands of votes still uncounted, florida decided to throw in the towel. gore's legal army filed for a recount, which was granted in florida, but bush's legal army appealed to the high court, which saw things his way.

and of course, the vote in the high court was five to four, along predictable court party lines, and bush took office, all after several weeks of this wrangling. people are forever trying to determine which vote was the deciding or "swing" vote, failing to realize that any of the nine might be so considered.

o'connor does not say that the court ruled wrongly, but only that perhaps  it should never have ruled at all, and let it be decided in state. One possible reaction to this is to congratulate her on her honesty and deliberation.

another reaction is to say"what good does it do now"?