It is sad to hear of anyones’ death, but I like to think that the whole Bush family had such an entitled feeling about their place in the world, that we could have done without the arrogance.
I especially did not like “Bar”. She was a tyrant to her children, and let a weak son rule the country.
We very well would have been better off with out “W”.
So- since I cannot say anything nice, I will sign off.
In 1980, Carl Sagan produced a television mini series called Cosmos, In it he explained our planets and some pretty sophisticated astronomy.
He warned us that we were destroying our planet with our short sightedness.
Ten years later on the dvd edition, he got a bit more serious, and laid our 4 things we could do and must do to save ourselves.
1 Limit auto emissions.
2 Increase renewable power like solar.
3 Plant a lot of trees.
4 Change our outdated laws.
It was scary to see his warnings in 1990 go unheeded, and have our present government do just the opposite of his warnings, and recommendations, and reverse the ecological laws that we did pass since then.
We could end up like Venus, hot and high pressure with only sulfur dioxide to breathe.
Soul
11/28/18
I was intrigued by an article in the December issue of Atlantic. In it, a woman called Louisa was convinced she was harboring a demon.
She felt that so many unusual things had happened to her, and she had heard and seen so many things that were clearly hallucinations that exorcism was considered.
She and most others who seek out this service from the Catholic Church, are victims of sexual abuse and she herself was a substance abuser.
The verdict is still out on whether or not she was actually possessed by a devil, demon or Djinn, but the things that she said while under the influence of this phenomena was striking.
The demon whispered in her voice, that he wanted not only her body but her soul.
My question is , what can he do with a soul?
Is there a point system? Does he get energy for his spiritual batteries?
This statement serves the victim well, in that we can’t prove one way or another that there are little demons out to get our souls.
That way she gets attention in a socially approved manner.
If she gets an exorcism, it could be helpful in that her belief of the process gets rid of her feelings that led to the outbreak.
She was suffering from PTSD, but was not able to do the things that would rid her of the guilt just by having a therapist help her work through it.
That is not the real point of my essay now.
The problem I have with the concept of souls, is that nobody has ever proved to me that they even exist.
Back in ancient history, the concept of a soul did not exist in Judaism before the Babylonian exile.
They picked up this concept and definition after being exposed to the new culture.
Before that there was not a word in the language to define the soul.(Wikipedia)
In Buddhism, Anatta is the doctrine that there is no permanent underlying soul.
Obviously this concept is man invented, and is used as a bolstering up of religions of all kinds.
It can be used to justify erratic behavior, as witnessed by the many exorcisms performed in the past.
Human beings are very clever at inventing things that will give them comfort against the looming concept of death.
They do not want to admit that there is nothing in charge of the universe, so invent whole pantheons of gods and goddesses. That way blame can be laid at their feet, and not taken upon the proper beings; those human beings.
So if anybody can prove why any imaginary entity would want a soul, and what would be the benefit to that being, speak up!
There is also the matter of the human who supposedly loses a soul. This invisible, weightless featureless part of our body, that pundits claim lives on in the afterlife, must be of some benefit to us, and when we lose it do we die?
Do we get sick?
Are we on some celestial shit list because we did not properly care for our little invisible speck?
Since I do not believe in a hell, or demons, then having a soul or not does not worry me in the least.
It is ironic that the day after I wrote this essay the news story broke about more wrongdoing in the Houston Catholic Church. One authority said that he would hunt down the criminals even if it went clear to the Vatican. Harsh.
Thanksgiving
11/23/18
We survived.
There were no big disastrous spills, or animal accidents. I have seen movies where it was deemed funny if the turkey went airborne, or a dog ran off with the bird.
We did not carve a turkey, but bought take -out and snacks.
It was a sort of pot luck lunch, with little boys running around and yelling a lot.
Reams of editorials are written about the conflict that families have when they get together, and all the political based arguments leading to estrangement.
We were a diverse lot, with several political points of view tendered.
The racial makeup was quite interesting in that we had people who were immigrants from an Asian Communist country, a child with a radical conservative parent, several Buddhists, a former Border Patrol member, an immigrant from a Central American country, and an atheist.
This might seem to be a potential powder keg of controversial conversation, but nothing happened along that line.
The feeling was very warm and friendly, with everybody contributing to the feast, and plenty of pies.
The hit of the day was an album of baby pictures of the host which was greeted with much hilarity and comparing his face with his son’s.
Maybe the Mimosas melted all animosities, and when any political name came up there was total agreement!
Americans should be grateful for having a day that they can sit down and talk to relatives that they may not have seen for a while, and shelve the bickering about things they cannot change.
At the end I was loaded up with the leftover Peking Duck, pork ribs and sugared ginger, with a sample of each of the pies. It had been years since I had rhubarb pie, and it was delicious.
My left overs will serve for a weeks’ lunches and I did not have to cook!
Sometimes we just have to scratch our heads and ask- What was he thinking?
Making comments about the world and life usually means a person knows something that is valuable enough to share.
Our Fearless Leader does not follow these rules.
He just fires off a tweet, or shoots off his mouth, regardless of the truth or even sense.
Like Whoopie, we all just wish he would shut up.
Events
11/18/18
From an editorial in a regional paper in January 1968.
“ The trouble is we are taking many events too seriously.We forget that we have the greatest
operation of mass communication at our finger tips, and this bombardment from the tube and printed page is giving us more material faster, than we are quite prepared to handle. We are not taking enough time to analyze it, digest it, discuss it in a rational context and draw objective conclusions. In short, we’re drawing hasty and shifting positions without sitting back to think and ponder, and wait for the next development.”
Let us make some comparisons between mass media in 2018 and 1968.
You notice only television and newspapers were mentioned as purveyors of opinion.
Now we get minute by minute onslaughts of opinion from social media platforms, and there is no time to analyze, or ponder.
Half of the time the statements made by reputable newspapers are under fire for being “fake news.” If we have no time to think , how are we to tell the difference between fake and real?
Just last week I was listening to the radio. Yes, that is my main source for reasoned discourse.
I do not Tweet, or text, or post anything but written essays, usually long ones that nobody reads.
The idea that our younger generation is getting their information from a computer has caused scientists to study what happens to their brains.
What happens is the brain is speeded up, and the loss of comprehension worrisome.
When I read a book that takes thinking to understand it, I can pause, flip the pages back and read something over again. I can underline things, and if I own the book, I can make notes in the margins. I can stick little pieces of paper to mark where I want to copy something or look at footnotes again.
With a computer, Nook, iPad or any digital means of reading, this is not done.
By reading a print book, one gets to slow down and develop one’s cognition.
Sadly, the digital world is making youngsters’ attention fractured, and we need all brains to be functioning at a high level.
Proof of this was in our own family, where the devices had to be withdrawn so the student could pay attention to school work and focus on learning.
If you are immersed in getting your information strictly from on -line sources, try sitting down with one of your past favorite books. You will soon get impatient and frustrated that the process slows you down, as you have become addicted to speed.
There is hope however, when I hear that 8 year old girls have read the entirety of Harry Potter.
Nov 13,2018
Boogymen
In the news we see natural and un-natural happenings. Those who fear losing power attribute the happenings to “the devil” or the number of same sex marriages in California.
Let me explain stuff.
Fires
UFO’s
Yoga class
First of all, the mega fires happening in California are the direct result of fossil fuel burning and global warming.
It has nothing to do with any imaginary supernatural personages, but with all of our cumulative behavior since the Industrial Revolution.
If you heat up the air and oceans, you change the weather patterns of the whole planet, and it runs out of control.
We cannot “manage” the weather in California, so our forests dry out, and since a lot of those forests are on government land who is responsible for any so called “management?”
The only recourse to minimizing the loss of life and property is to refrain from building private houses in forests, and concentrate them in larger towns with adequate buffer zones around the settlements.
Something like the “stacks” in Ready, Player One would be suitable.
I can see some pretty comfy and even luxurious habitations using round towers with every homeowner having a view.
Of course, the view may include ashes and charred trees, but you can’t have everything.
Sometimes you end up with nothing.
The fact that we have so many fires is due to power lines shorting out, arson, accidental fires from faulty exhaust systems, and careless cigarette smokers. It has nothing to do with anybody “sinning”.
We now have had several sightings of “UFO’s”.
The government says they are going to investigate. It should turn out to be a natural phenomena, and not because there are alien intelligences spying on us, or beings that look like our mythical “devils” as expressed in Arthur C. Clark’s Childhood’s End. We have so many mythical creatures that appear in stories, song and now media, that no one can sit back and say,”Well, of course there has to be a rational explanation”.
Yoga classes.
Now, since there is a rise of secular practices in this country, the pastors of radical conservative churches have to go looking for something with which to criticize the female members of their congregations.
First it was “No dancing, card playing ,ankle showing or sex with the lights on.”
Now it is no bare shoulders, only one ear piercing, and no Yoga classes.
I have from a reputable source that yoga exercises are healthful and energizing.
Emptying the mind leads to relaxing, and healthful endocrine balance.
The pastors and cult leaders have seen that their flocks are diminishing, so pull these rules of behavior out of their nether regions.
Some poor gullible women have stopped going to yoga classes just on the say so of their religious leader, but they will be all the more poorer in spirit and unhealthy in body as a result.
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