Mythless

It is hard to understand how any sane person can follow an ideology that supports the death of others. If there are deadly penalties in your holy books, you have a moral, ethical and human obligation to not only walk away from it, but to denounce it at the highest mountain tops. I would go even further, if your ideology has EVER condoned the use of deadly force, you need to walk away. We are none of us saints, probably because the whole idea of saints is a man made myth to an ideal that is unattainable,but we do have aspirations towards basic decency that all religions and the gods that were created around them want to deny us. There is nothing noble in presenting the other cheek, just abasement and humility. There is no virtue in telling half the world that they are second class and beneath interest or contempt, is there any justice in an eye for an eye? The true study of the holy books written by unholy men should be counting the number of ways we are urged to murder. If genocide...

The 2016 election has been highly entertaining so far. Less for the ideas expressed and the advances provided to humanity of how we, as a species, a nation or a group can better ourselves than for just a Kardashian exuberance for the cult of the almighty ME. A very long time ago when I was in high school, one of my teachers asked us to write down and sign the following: "I, Peter Brown, am the least interesting person in the world." His point was manifold, but in effect he was telling us that in the great unveiling of the Universe our fifteen year old opinions and thoughts mattered little. He was right, of course, and in many ways he still is and most specifically when I overhear discussions punctuated by the immortal I and ME. This election cycle has brought the ME syndrome to the forefront of the selection dance. The obvious champion of the genre is the immortal Trump. But he is in no way alone at the top. On the Democratic side we have the resurrected Bernie, or more spe...

What we are seeing is not war. What we are seeing are random acts of violence that have no relation to the age old concept of war. There are specific rules to war, rules that stipulate what aggression and organized murder has to take in order to be called a war. Wars must be fought between armies, not small children watching fireworks. The combat unit is called a soldier. He is a trained operator working for pay and prestige engaged in working against similar units on the other side. The war itself must be declared between nations who sponsor their units. If you are not a recognized unit, you cannot participate. The price for a civilian to jump into a war is very high and can lead to the execution of hostages from the civilian's immediate surroundings. Realistically what we are seeing are just a series of murders that the public, which should not be involved, has, in its ignorance, called wars. In effect all the "terror attacks" should be treated strictly as rand...

1932 all over again, different players, same old shit. With Russia starting its gnawing away at its neighbors in order to get more territory, the UK is groping its way towards the US. Military and religious unrest in the middle east taking petro power away from the civilized world, all we need is for one of several small conflicts to give one or more tin pot dictator to become offended and start so mething. Do you think that Donald has the brains of a Hitler? Does Hollande look like a Petain? Is there a country on the planet with an incredible arsenal and has it been training their troops with mini-wars for a while? Are parts of the world loaded with ultra rich, ultra educated young people fanatically following some sort of leader we know little about? Is the Koran the new Mein Kampf? Why is all wealth accumulated in a small enclave of the disgustingly rich and taxes abrogated for them? Those tax dollars, Euros, Riyals and Rubles that should be staving off the forces of evil are, in f...

Sex and God. It occurs to me, a well meaning atheist, that there is little difference between how individuals treat their sex life and their religious affiliations. For the most part they are handled the same way, a sort of benign and almost embarrassed afterthought that is really nobody else’s concern. It is not, in general, discussed unless you are in a sort of frat party situation where great exaggeration are the norm, seriously. Think about that kegger moment when you and your co-believers got tanked and started making those absurd claims of my dick is bigger than your dick! Or at the local mosque, temple or church when the minister full of himself and the Holy Spirit declares that his god is bigger, nastier or flat out better than all other gods. As the tempo escalates you can bring in “proof” of the most absurd kind and very often those discussions degenerate into physical violence. We all know, especially the women, that the differences are very small, that they mean ...

Who will be next dead Horst Wessel or John Birch hero of intransigence? I ask because there are already a number of volunteers on the ISIS side who have postulated for the honor. Many have applied and the closest we have come is Jihadi John, the British, now hamburger meat, who took great satisfaction in beheading people. Oh, sorry, I forgot to explain. As you know Horst and John were the poster children of extremist movements who achieved such high honor by conveniently dying. Horst on the Nazi side and John on the GOP side. They were both firm supporters of a certain ideology and it seems that extremist groups really need this type of figurehead, so when Mein Trumpf decided to embrace right wing thuggery the search was on for a suitable candidate. The main drawback is that no one has died yet in the service of Mein Trumpf. There has been a lot of Sturm und Drang, incoherent rants and raves, a smidgen of violence encouraged and embraced by the Yam, but no real substance. But hair ...

Clearly VW has stepped in it big time, and clearly they will have to pay but just as clearly there are dangers in sacrificing the baby with the NOX bath water. As an expert in crisis PR with an abiding interest in energy and more recently renewable clean energy, there are some serious silver linings in this black cloud story, but first let’s try and analyze the problem in a mature and adult manner. What is the crux of this situation, in a sense is  VW and Audi’s almost slave like determination to promote their hugely successful TDI engines beyond what they could support or deliver. The little machine that won LeMans several years in a row, put diesel power way ahead of a number of very sophisticated gasoline engines while delivering unbelievable MPG and performance still has a long life ahead of it. The TDI is what the diesel should have been when it was first started running on peanut oil. Then the actual petroleum fuel that came out of the design centers in Germany exploit...

  As a senior citizen I now have the option of looking back on a series of careers that spanned being a boatyard mechanic, selling nuclear power plants, handling marketing and PR for an uncounted number of high technology firms and now driving cars and people around for a large rental agency. My conclusions, which are aimed at the hiring managers, HR people and the PR departments of some of the larger corporations in America, Europe and even Japan at one time are that I am syill useful and decidedly underutilized. For the last few years I have tried to land a position that would provide me with more than a minimum wage, using my experience and skills to the betterment of the company that hires me. I am afraid to say that that will probably not happen. It has less to do with my skills than the hiring personnel ethics. Let me explain. The HR department operates under a number of fallacies bolstered by a perceived evaluation of its mandate and importance. The most pernici...

The Ethical Dilemma of an Aspiring Christian Martyr. With the emergence of a cadre of Muslim terrorists dedicated to closely following the example of the Prophet Mohammed (PUH) and slaughtering an open menu of innocent people, they owe us the common courtesy of what our responsibilities are vis a vis our martyrdom. It gets even more ethically and theologically complex when you dial in such issues as how do I reconcile my own position or that of my religion or lack of religion to accommodate the needs for eternal salvation or whatever of the slaughtering team. For example, one of my friends is a born again Christian secure in his faith and willing and able to follow every last precept as it emanates from the Bible (The True Word of God Almighty). Now he asked me how to handle that admonition of turning the other cheek if slapped on the right one. “How can I do that if one cheek is six feet away from the other following a sloppy beheading?” The answer is obvious, consider yo...

Recently highly trained medical professionals fighting on the front lines of what may become a major epidemic have been slapped with 21 day jail sentences until they can prove that they do not represent a threat to the communities they are trying to save. The rules for surviving Ebola are fairly simple, as long as you do not show symptoms you are safe to be around. Conversely, the moment you show symptoms is the time you need immediate medical care. This actually is a very generous effect of this deadly disease compared to others with lengthy incubation periods without symptoms. Add to that, the fact that the people on our shores with this disease have mostly come from the red zone with experience and training in how to discern the symptoms and how to treat them in a timely manner. It seems that the treatment these virtual prisoners have received is savage and unwarranted and may undermine our efforts to stop it in Africa because of a lack of qualified medical specialists. The fear...

There is an epidemic coming to the first world, Ebola so far has killed one half of all the infected victims. It is killing professionals who know how to protect themselves, doctors and nurses who have stood at the front ranks of this war. Africa is one of the worst places for this disaster strike, they lack almost all the resources needed to save individuals and to stop the spread of the disease, two very different strategies. The less than ten people in the US who have been treated here had every facility known to man to save them and even then some have already died. If you look at the multi million dollar facilities where they were treated you can only wonder if the fight is already over in West Africa and we can now start society's countdown. We have no cure, although some experimental drugs seem to be working, the three doses in existence did keep two people alive. But, anyone who has read Defoe's Journal of the Plague Years, Camus La Peste, followed the 1917 Flu Epid...

We are spending a lot of time agonizing about who is responsible fro the latest round of terror in that mythological land called Zion, Israel, Palestine, Promised, Milk and Honey et le reste. It really makes no difference at this point because the study of responsibility is a look at the past and in this case, for over 200 Arabs and two Israeli that is all they have. The real question to who is responsible for the death of these people lies squarely on all those who could have stopped it and did not. That list is is also endless so walking down it is again a waste of time. There has been too much time spent on the clashing mythologies in that barren strip of land claimed by every major mythology known to  man. Let's break it down to some basics, for the Jewish faith, the object from 1947 onward has been to smash and grab, hence the illegal settlements installed everywhere they were told by a gutless world not to infest. They went anyway, and in going tipped the balance of disgu...

Memo to all you "Cold Dead Hands" heroes out there.   Since it is clear that you intend to kill yourselves if the government decides to inject sanity into our gun laws, please plan to do it in a concerned and efficient manner:  1) Choose your spot carefully, I would suggest out in the open so that your loved ones will not have an onerous clean up job  2) Select your weapon with care for the same reason, use a small caliber to prevent widespread blood and brain spatter.  3) Also if you score a through and through you will not endanger your neighbors  4) I realize that you are making a statement to protect your rights to semi and full automatic weapons, but select single shot please to avoid accidental overspray as you fall on the gun 5) Please advise the proper authorities via time delayed email where they can pry your weapon of choice from your cold dead hands. It will make it easier for them to comply with the law and remove one more gun from so...

A long time ago when notebook computers were just starting, I worked with a small Japanese company that made one the first and possibly one of the best notebooks at the time.   We had just launched our Intel 386 model, and were gearing up to produce a faster, more powerful, 486 processor based unit. I was in charge of Public Relations for the company and was very involved with all aspects of the developing machine.   So I was not surprised to be invited to attend what was termed a “Key Product Definition” meeting.   KPDs were very important, very confidential and very technical and terminology such as interface algorithms, clock speed and PCMCIA soft interface were discussed.   The topic sounded innocuous enough, “Default Settings, Definition and Recommendations”. What that means is that whenever something weird happens inside the computer, or when the customer buys his computer, the default settings are the basic instructions on how the machine will start ...

The subject of gun control in America draws a lot of attention. When attacking the National Rifle Assosiction (NRA) on Huffington Post I am certain that I will get more abusive mail than for almost any other topic and there is a reason for this. The NRA is a thinly disguised front for the arms manufacturers of America and that should raise a huge red flag. The most often quoted reason for not allowing anyone to think about abolishing weapons in America is the faded and pathetic Second Amendment to the Constitution adopted on December 15, 1791 which states: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. This seminal piece of imbecility was passed and approved by our founding fathers at a time when America faced threats from within and threats from outside. They had a very small standing army and the natives were restless. They also had a budding arms industry that needed the busines...

I was asked by a niece to review my teenage years, this is what came out 1: How do you remember your teenage years? The best year of my life was 12, because at that time I was in full possession of faculties, I had no insurmountable problems, relationships were easy and simple. As I moved ahead life became more complicated, but I remember my teenage years as being an incredibly wonderful period of my life with very few negatives in it. I had good friends; my parents were not too involved in my life because frankly they had their own dark secrets. I also was forming a philosophy of life that has stood me well over time. There is no god, killing others is wrong, I control my destination, others control my destiny etc. 2: When you were a teenager, what age did you consider old? Honestly, I thought 30 was old because I had friends of that age who seemed to be moving into a weird twilight of marriage and responsibilities. 3: Did you know your grandparents? What do you remember about...

Lest we Forget It was a quiet dinner party, a few friends, some family, even people I had never met before. It was a comfortable evening in a small Belgian suburb of Brussels where ideas were exchanged, experiences shared and discussions coming and going with no particular direction. It was a nice time, good food, impeccable wines bred from good taste, solid dependable upbringing, good breeding and decent schools. Into this quiet and tranquil pond suddenly a large rock hit the surface and rippled out, and continues to ripple in my mind, three years later and an ocean and continent away. As I recall, the conversation went from what does an American do when he returns to Belgium with his children, in my case I always took my daughter and son to Fort Breendonk between Antwerp, where I was brought up, and Brussels, the new capital of Europe. Breendonk was where the Germans assembled the Jewish population of Belgium before sending them east to Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen and other extermi...

The Gay Victim. Welcome to a shadow world, a world where children walk in fear of their parents trying to confront questions to which they have no answers. A world that will ostracize them, bully them and eventually even kill them. They are trapped in the cruel reality that their bodies are not what everybody else's bodies are. They crave what others fear and loath. Welcome to the world of gay America, a land that forces its citizens to perform incredible mental, psychological and physical gyrations just be allowed the right to exist. It is a world where they are advised to lie and dissemble, that in the pursuit of that most precious commodity, love, they sneak around in fear of their own feelings and lives. These are normal people, they are your family, your friends and your business relations. They are the ones who cannot defend themselves because in many cases they are not comfortable with who they are or what they have been told they are. They do not live in a closet so they...

Muslandia for Women In the mythical land of Muslandia women hold an honorable place. They have come from further back than the men,faced greater adversity in fighting slavery and subjugation and recovered so much of the space taken over by their "betters"; males from all over the world. They have also developed a fine sense of irony aver time, an irony that translates into keen insights on how Muslim women in the rest of the world see themselves. The simple wearing of the head scarf has, in and of itself, become a benchmark. In Muslandia you wear a headscarf because of the cold because they know that only the kept women of the dead prophet wore the scarves so as not to be bothered by the demands of the followers. Muslandian believers, and yes there are true believers in this make believe land, know that the wearing of the scarf is really a vast act of arrogance since the wearer truly believes that she is one of the dead prophets wives, concubines, mistresses or just plain ...

Welcome to Muslandia! Muslandia is a mythical place, a place where Muslims can come and actually live as real human beings and not Prophet Surrogates or PS'. There are very few connections between Muslandia and the real Muslim world because the real Muslim world is not a happy place. In Muslandia, for example, women are not required to cover themselves with bags over their heads, or tents around their bodies. On the contrary, women are treated as normal human beings with feelings, intelligence and respect. In Muslandia you will actually see Muslim women driving cars, treating sick people and talking to their male counterparts without shame. Muslandia is a dreamworld for Muslim women because it is so far from the reality of their existence that they dream of Muslandia every day. In Muslandia no one feels the need to kill people in random acts of violence as dictated by the Prophet, and Prophet Surrogates do not take it upon themselves to tell others how to dress, what to read, wha...