The Kings of Hyprocisy

POOR POOR LITTLE tea party, that shrinking right wing of the right wing of the ultra conservative grand ole party. How utterly devastating, that the internal revenue service would dare to examine such patriotic people a bit too closely. Pass the kleenex boys, and let's all have a good cry.

Because they are lily white, because they are that somehow strangely compatible mix of christian and capitalist, their cause is of the most urgent nature, their torment more severe than anyone else's who gets inspected by the IRS, and their protestations more vociferous.

They protest vehemently against rendering unto caesar, because the very thought of giving unto the poor irks them mightily, and what taxation they do approve they would use for the purpose of beating plowshares into swords.

One can live in a glass house if one's nose is clean, if one's affairs are in order, without fear of persecution after examination, and hell, one might be albe to even cast a few stones if one has the courage to stick one's head out of one's home, for a fraction of a moment.

Martin Luther King; now there was man whose group was really mistreated by the feds. When the FBI audiotapes your sexual sessions, you are really being mistreated by your own government. German Shepherds and high pressure water hoses were perhaps a shade more difficult to endure than nosy paper pushing bureaucrats. 

Never a wimper was heard by america's white christian conservatives in protest of these abuses. But let a little paperwork get out of hand, and it really hits the fan. The ACLU has been bombed and shot. War protesters have been mugged and clubbed. Tea party types scarcely twitched the pinkies extending from their cups.

But a little over zealous scrutiny from desk bound caffeine addicts? round 'em up and lock 'em up! Call out the national guard! Impeach Obama! Methinks the kings of hypocrisy protest a tad too much

Making Big Money

LOTTERIES HAVE ALWAY BEEN popular, especially in these united states where the frantic pursuit of instant wealth (donald) trumps all other values. The nation was, after all, founded upon the sacred doctrine of the pursuit of wealth, which is often given the misnomer "a better life", and "manifest destiny", aka the inevitability of succeeding in the great chase.

Lotteries were an excellent source of income in the early days of the republic, were used to pay down the national debt after the expensive civil war of independence from Britain, and were used to prop up the governments of the newly established disunited states under the impotent Articles of Confederation.

Lotteries fell into disfavor when the free wheeling roaring age of eighteenth century reason disintegrated beeath the weight of revived christian dogma after the turn of the nineteenth century. But at long last the roaring nineteen sixties arrived, and the  era of  deficit spending, and voila! Lotto returneth.

Any junior college mathethics instructor will tell you that purchasing lottery tickets like toilet paper is bound to yield nothing better than a good butt wiping, simply because of odds  which usually run about a hundred million to one against.

But most americans have an aversion to mathematics beyond the sixth grade level, and to common sense beyond kindergarten. So, the greater the jackpot, the greater the number of fools who soon part with their money.

The reasoning usually goes "with the jackpot so high, I'd be stupid not to buy a lottery ticket, or many lottery tickets". Au contraire, madamweasal. Truth is, the smaller the jackpot, the greater the chances of winning, because the fewer the number of suckers who buy tickets.

But never let it be said that a mere million dollar opportunity is sufficient to lure us lusty americans - we always want more...and more...divide a six hundred million jackpot into six hundred equal million dollar parts - and the pool of purchasers dwindles so drastically that not enough people enter to sustain the madness. As the prize grows, and the odds decrease, so grows participation. Go figure.

But, to quote P T Barnum: "nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the american people". He must've known what he was talking aobut; after all, he made big money.

Tweets, Tax Cheats, and Hitler

THERE MUST BE SOMETHING about tweeting on twitter,  whatever tweeting on twitter  is, which makes people say very strange things. Or maybe its just something about being a republican.

On twitter, you're limited to one hundred and forty four letters per comment, aren't you? The magic number....(how was that decided, and by whom?)  When one tweets, one tends to leave out letters, and words like "should" become "shld". Our continuing decline into inane illiteracy. ur cntnng dcln n2 inan ilitrcy (just practicing).

This alone might be the cause of it. Then too, when one is a republican, one, by definition, has a rather twisted view of life, and current events. Two cases in point involve two of  america's tweet happy republican political leaders.

One, bobby jindal, R gov, LA., speaking before a group of repubs in VA, said the people who participated in the IRS's intense scrutiny of TEA party - like organizations should be put in jail. He did not indicate whether this should follow a fair trial by their peers, or whether he feared their peers would be scrutinized during or after said trial by the IRS.

but give him credit, though jindal is rumored to do his fair share of tweeting, he actually had the temerity to stand up in front of a bunch of living humans and say what he said, in person. That's real brass. Or sand. Or brassy insandity.

Did the IRS folks really break the law, or did they merely anger conservative america, and cause president obama to pretend to be angry for political expediency? Doesn't the IRS routinely audit, (subject to intense scrutiny) about one in seven federal income tax filers? Imagine every seventh american, enraged, demanding jail time for the entire IRS. Sweet. wld B a  Sweet tweet.

Are these routine tax audits illegal, and should everyone who works for the IRS do time? Move over, inmates of american prisons, the overcrowding is only going to get worse...

Senator Charles Grassley, (R, Ia) tweeted something to the effect that america has no foreign policy, and that whenever america has no foreign policy, somebody like adolph hitler comes along, and invades some other country, and therefore hitler is soon going to invade another country, just like before. History might not repeat itself, but it sure seems to rhyme.

And to think he said all this in one hundred and forty four letters, or less. But then again, he spelled the word "should"  "shld", presuming that twitter nation understood precisely what he was saying, which it no doubt did, which in itself is frightening.

Considering all the frequent flyer miles logged first by hillary clinton, and lately by john kerry, if america has no foreign policy, we the tax payers certainly are footing a huge jet fuel bill to achieve our foreign policylessness.

WE might take consolation in knowing that if and when  some neo hitler invades somebody, and if it is us, then if the entire IRS is not already in jail, it soon will be.

Sink, Sank, Sunk

A LITERARY CRISIS of incalculably dire dimensions is ravaging america's book reading community, what there is of it, or a very small part of it, such as it is. It has to do with the use of the word "sink", and its past tense "sank", and its past participle "sunk".

It all started when one of the highly entertaining and intriguing novels by John Grisham. He appeared to misuse the word, using the past participle when the simple past tense was called for. "the boat sunk to the bottom of the lake".

Then it happend again, same author. Never did he use the word "sank", but always, "sunk". Confused at first, I eventually chalked it up to grisham's arkansas origins, and his mississippi residence.

But that explanation seemed condescending, indaquate, unreasonable. Grisham has a college education, a law degree, and is of course a very successful and popular contemporary writer. He would never do this. Could it be that I was missing something?

IT DIDN'T STOP THERE. Next, Ernest Hemingway appeared to do the exact same thing; he used the word "sunk" in a situation which seemed, at least to me, to clearly call for the word "sank". I now forget which novel contains this. Its one of four: "The Old Man and The Sea", "The Sun Also Rises", "A farewell to Arms", or "For Whom the Bell Tolls".

Its one of those, and maybe all of them. The word "sunk" in place of what should be the word "sank" "the rock sunk to the bottom", something like that. The same mistake, everytime.

Next came Charles Dickens. He does the same thing in his classic "Oliver Twist". I cannot cite page and paragraph, but its there, like some verbal demon, tormenting me. But it wasn't over yet. For the same mightmare seems to occur in Upton Sinclair's  "The Jungle". Sunk, instead of sank. In chapter Two, fourteenth paragraph, third sentence, Sinclair says "it sunk into your consciousness". Shouldn't he have said "it sank into your consciousness"?

Furious and frustrated, I , having read all these books, went back and tried to find the specific examples of what I am talking about. But of course, like a UFO, it wasn't there, or couldn't be seen, on second search; except for the sinclair example. But the others do exist, and are of the same ilk. How can these writers not see this, or not care?

but its there, all right, in each of the authors named above, its there, the incorrect congugation of the elementary work "sink". But why? Can it be that I am hallucinating? NO! Never! I know what I saw. They were there, hovering above me, in the sky, on the page, these bright, hideous, misplaced literary objects, tormenting me, laughing at me.... 

And they must surely still be there, and others have surely seen them. Somewhere, somehow. Which leads to an even more terrible thought: how many more are there, and by whom? How many of our most cherished writers have fallen victim to this insidious disease of seventh grade grammar?

If only I had had a camera with me, or even a notepad. But each time it happened, I assumed it was a stray, an anomaly, and would be the last. My greatest fear is that it will happen again..and again..and will haunt me forever, in every book I read. What if people start talking like that? If that ever happens, the joy of rreading and writing will for me be forever sank.

Giving Unto the Poor

THE SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM, (SNAP), is the formal name for "food stamps". Never an unclever acronym. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, not surprisingly, are attempting to cut the roughly eighty billion dollar program by about three per cent.

Approximately one out of three americans relies on food stamps. Under the current system, its fairly easy to apply for and receive nutrition assistance; the republicans, not suprisingly, want to make it more difficult.

Democrat representative McGovern tried to give the repubs a little of their own medicine by quoting the bible: I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you watered me", or something of that nature, and got nowhere.

Helping people must be done on an individual basis, responded some typical conservative tightwad. We must not coerece anyone into generosity, regardless of what the bible says, and the government must not be involved.No biblical passage was cited to support this.

Conservatives never want the government to render assistance to people in ndeed. That should be left to provate charity, and should be voluntary. Yet Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar". Or "go thy way, and sell whatsoever thous hast, and give unto the poor."

Seems like that could be accomplished privately, or publicly, and that it really shouldn't matter which, as long as it gets done. Making it mandatory gets 'er done. Would jesus have rendered unto caesar for the purpose of purchasing weapons of war, or for giving unto the poor?

Righteous National Outrage

WE CAN ALL AGREE, presumably, with the exception of extreme right wingers, that the internal revenue service is a necessary evil. It came into existence rather late in american history as a necessary expedient to finance the sundry pursuits of the government, pursuits to which the american people have given their full approval, if not their approval of the specifics of income taxation.

Surveys indicate that the american people want a well maintained federal highway system, a military with not only a permanent wartime capability, but the  capability of projecting american military power across the globe, a wide variety of entitlement programs; and a tax rate of about ten percent. That wouldn't work even the the fondest dreams of ronald reagan in his waning days.

As bankrupt as the government has made america, the american people in general, given their way, would have it more bankrupt still. But, as P.T. Barnum noted "nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the american people".

And now,  the IRS closely scrutinizes organizations which are determined to pay still less taxes, and the american people, and their ever faithful representatives, if you can call them that, erupt in righteous indignation.

Oh, please.  Do we all feel better yet? Have we adequately vented our sanctimonious spleen? One might suppose not. Let us, in the midst of our outrage at government overreach, bear in mind that the groups being scrutinized with particular attention to detail are all political action groups claiming to be be public service organizations, for the purpose of commiting income tax evasion. The TEA party wants political power, not an opportunity to render aid unto the disadvantaged.

Why shouldn't the nation's primary tax collection agency pay special attention to admitted would be tax evaders? But  President Obama looks like a veritable knight in shining armor, and he seizes upon it; and doesn't he wear his anger well? Rather like a grade "B" actor, rather like some born again ronald wilson reagan.

Obama must by now surely realize that no matter how hard he works to placate america's all government is bad government lunatic fringe by paltry displays of bad acting, he will never succeed. The TEA party tax evaders, though mercifully small in number, are a vociferous lot, and the more he appeases them, the more they, in grand hitlerian style, lap it up, and spew it back against him.  

Equal and Opposite

AS ACCEPTANCE OF GAY MARRIAGE sweeps inexorably across the nation, state by state - minnesota recently became the twelfth state to legalize it - one can almsot sense a building conservative exodus from mainstream america.

Soon there will be an alternative, conservative, heterosexual version of the boy scouts of america. Indeed there already is, something called the "pathfinders", or some such. The regular boy scouts, in the midst of a great conscience clearing, is struggling with itself mightily to pull itself forward into the modern era of encroaching tolerance for people - just because they are people.

If the american military can do it, by golly, anybody can do it. Not only do we now allow gay folks to serve in the military, we allow it openly. Really, "don't ask don't tell seemed harmless enough, and practical to boot; just do your job, and no need to proclaim your sexual orientation, straight or gay. But we live in an era of strident proclamation of one's true identity. It is not enough to simply be; one must be heard.

So the homosexuals are entering the mainstream, and the right wingers are leaving it, in a huff. Are we anticipating the formation of an all heterosexual military to  offer an alternative to our sexually tolerant regular one?

But wait; we already tried that. Recall the militia movement of the early nineteen nineties, when the election of bill clinton so agitated our straight laced defenders of freedom, tradition-changelessness   and heterosexual christian capitalist vitue, that a gun slinging militia, begotten of the jesus, guns and money crowd, sprang up across freedom's land...and then vanished in the woods, campfires smoldering for a time, only to be quenched with the cool water of common sense and Tim McVeigh.

And so it may come to pass that for every sexually tolerant entity, there is an equal and opposite intolerant heterosexual only entity, from the boy scouts, to the girl scouts, to bowling leagues across the fruited plain, and even to the military. Don't write the militia folks off quite yet; they are most resilient, and probably due for a comeback.

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".