Mythless

Lest we Forget Two times this week I have received emails headed by that awesome title "Lest we Forget". The first was something that I had never known, and therefore could not forget, the incredibly nasty actions taken by men against women looking to vote in the United States. The second for having used the words "Arbeit Macht Frei", the cynical slogan atop the entrance to Auschwitz. Both efforts to remind me forced the issue of what those words really mean; lest we forget. What they mean is that someone with some sort of hidden agenda seems to feel that his personal reflection on some far off disaster expresses the urge to remind himself that attention may be flagging. Face it, lest we forget some of the more blatant miscarriages of sanity in the last hundred years is an elitist statement saying that I have more empathy than thee. It takes to himself the high moral ground of the philosopher or sage pointing your dirty nose into something that has not weighe...

My Fatwa A fatwa in the Islamic cult is a legal opinion or ruling from an Islamic scholar. It is that simple and that deadly. So when you hear that somebody in a remote village of some far off land has issued a Fatwa that legalizes the killing of an individual, or a whole nation, it is actually one man's opinion expressed as a statement wrapped up in some sort of undefined Islamo Legalistic wording. Notice that the definition does not specify who can issue Fatwas, and what the criteria of support really are. A Fatwa, in reality, is one man's opinion based on his very own interpretation of the holy books that Islam revere as the word of their peculiar God, in this case called Allah. Having studied Islam these last thirteen years with growing concern and contempt, I wondered if I qualified as a Scholar, and if yes, could I issue a Fatwa? After consulting with a Muslim friend, and speaking to an Imam who will remain nameless, we concluded that in reality anyone can issue a...

Critical Questions for the Candidates. The recent spate of incredibly ridiculous election activities has caused a number of us to pause and wonder how silly will this election really become. For example, is the latest Palin brat actually Sarah's or Bristol's? I don't know how many of us have blasted off to the maternity ward once the waters have broken, but I suspect quite a few pregnant women had only one idea when that happened, get to the hospital, little Trig or Track is on his way!! Sarah is made of sterner stuff, her reaction to the imminent arrival of Trig, while noodling around Texas, was to casually get on a plane and fly all the way back to Alaska, then jump in a car for another couple of hours to finally birth the babe in an out of the way discreet hospital. Sounds logical, or is it? I have five bucks that shortly before Bristol is supposed to whelp, she will miscarry so that the whole adventure can get swept under a rock, and one day, little trig will have a D...

Who really cares? The two presidential candidates squared off in a church recently to discuss what their moral and religious beliefs really are. Who is the better person because he is best able to relate to god, amazing because,who the hell cares? Our outgoing national disgrace claims to talk to his particular god, and see where those two idiots have led us? These mythological beliefs have taken on an enormous significance, and yet all around the world real thinking people are bailing on their godlets. In Europe the number of non-believers is mounting steadily, they are now a majority in several countries. This enlightened attitude is probably due to the rise of the more radical mythologists like Islam and Mormonism. If what allah allows is truly godlike, then allah is a monster and so are yahweh and all the other god critters. If you think about it, religion is sustained less by faith than tradition. "My family has always believed in the lord." Of course some families have a...

Well here I am. I reconnected with an old friend the other day, someone I had lost touch with for about forty years and someone I used to love very dearly but lost in a really messy relationship. We used to share everything together, working on cars, swimming in a lake, bothering people, playing the guitar and just hanging out together. My friend had the amazing capacity of always seeing the other side of where I was standing, and gently guiding my thoughts to his side. Oh, he had no illusions since we were both dealing with idiots, and so one day we just lost sight of each other. I went away, and so did he. He took a very large part of me and replaced it with big words like responsibility, and career options, and the need to progress. He took away the joy of the single song on a twelve string guitar, the slide into a corner with a disintegrating bicycle, the subtle pain of the scraped knee and bloody nose. He took away a lot and left me with security. He took away danger and love a...

Invasion and Occupation There seems to be some confusion about the context of invasion, occupation and immigration. Let me explain because the terms may soon become interchangeable. What we did to Iraq was an invasion, that is the correct term for coming into another country without any clear reasons and assuming complete control of that country's assets, population, natural resources and imposing your own rule of law. In he same vein, under the terms of invasion, the invader is allowed to impose, by force, his will on the weaker local population. Notable invasions are Hitler's unprovoked attack on Poland, the Soviet Union's clear grab for the Baltic states, Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and the George Bush delusional attack on Iraq. Needless to say George is in good company, along with Attila the Hun, Imperial Rome and the Israeli invasion of Palestine. Invasions are blatant land grabs by a stronger force without either reason or provocation, as I said. There ar...

My highway rules It's never the life you lead but the truth you follow that bring you to your end at another man's bidding. Your own values and convictions should be strong enough to maintain your integrity and ensure your existence. It's when I follow another man's thoughts, another man's delusions or dreams that I run afoul of myself and afoul of the others. Two enemies face you the day you are led astray; yourself in conflict with your intelligence and the others who have abandoned their own. There is no easy road back from the mistakes of the follower, his road is no longer his own path, and trying to make sense of the small paths, and large highways that others open up for you is no easy matter. Your own footprints get blurred in the masses of cattle tracks that belong to no one, and your small little footpad, the animal track of your frightened awareness, can never be picked up once you have walked away from it. It is a small thing to stray, and a small sides...

The Lessons of History Or what did the last war bring you? It is an oft repeated chestnut that he who ignores the lessons of history is bound to repeat them, and it may even be true. But what about the lessons you learn from history and modify them to your advantage. We must ask, what did the Republicans learn from that war, compared to what the Democrats took away from the conflict? To start with, the Democrats clearly learned that the war was a fractious exercise in national disruption. They learned that it destroyed families, it killed off over 50,000 young Americans, and it left an indelible stain on our national image. The Republicans learned that there was money to be made in War. The Democrats took their lessons to heart and have implemented policies to mitigate the possibility of future conflicts. They stood down from confrontations, increased foreign aid, worked assiduously to minimize strife around the world. The image of Jimmy Carter brokering the only lasting Middle East ag...

McCain and Guantanamo Bay The recent announcement that Senator McCain may not be allowed to run for President of the United States has numerous repercussions, some of them devastating to the Bush prisoner policy. There are only two possible outcomes should anyone challenge the legitimacy of the McCain right to run; he is either allowed to run because the base where he was born is considered US Territory, or he is out of the race. In a nutshell, he was not born on US soil. That fact is indisputable, he was born in Panama What is less clear is what the exact interpretation of the word natural born citizen in the Constitution actually means: Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, entitled the President, means s/he has to be born in the U.S., meaning the 50 States (and not, possibly, D.C.) No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption o f this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person ...

It is a new Year! It is a new year when we know for a fact that George Bush will be sent away. A new year when we can watch as one of America's greatest group or arch-criminals will be allowed to walk away. A group of serial killers, war profiteering , murdering, lying, influence peddling, money laundering scum will be allowed to smirk into the sunset. Amazing, because we all know, even their henchmen know, that these may be the most serious traitors our country has ever had to face. These people, our President, our Vice President, the secretary of state, and all he way down to the lonely interrogator in a Cuban jail, they all know that they are part of a sickening, stench-filled conspiracy to destroy all the was once good and noble in my country. No crime was too base that these filthy defilers did not feel compelled to embrace. Sexual perversions up to the highest levels of our government , outing our own agents, desperately trying to grub the last little penny from a child...

Two Prisons and two warps in time On my way to Babi Yar I met a man from Abu Graib . He was like me, but not like me, he was thin, and so was I, he had no hope and neither did I. He was the man on the road from Abu Graib and I was coming through him to my own prison. I met a woman from Auschwitz on my way from Abu Graib , she was hungry and so was I, her child had died on the train, and she never made it to the gate to work and be free, she was from Auschwitz and so was I. I met a child from Uganda, he had no hands and his brother had a gun. He was a prisoner of himself and I was walking in front of his jail. We build so many jails, so many places to hide our crimes and our nightmares. We hide the truth and we hide from the truth, we are free and we are not. I met myself the other day, I was hanging a man by his thumbs in Guantanamo Bay, and I was being hung by my thumbs in Buenos Aires . The language can change, the meaning remains, the pain and the joy are mingled in the ...

Impeach, Hell no, Impale! Has the time come to apply some hair of the dog to the dog? Seems to me that George W has redefined the way we handle tricky situations , dangerous people and legal niceties. Could we possibly use his rules in his sandbox? Think about it, can we rendition George? Could we ship the bugger off to Syria and ask him, in a Syrian way, what really motivated his move into Iraq? Wouldn't you like to know how well he stands up under waterboarding , that wonderful non-torturing ride into near drowning? Is there any reason why we would have to tell Laura that her husband is lodged in a suite in Cuba? I'm sure that thousands of wives are wondering where their husbands have gone off to after a night out with the boys in the Northern Command. Would Dickie bird be happy as a cave dweller in Kabul when the bombers come on by? He could see for himself how all the Halliburton dollars are doing such a good job of protecting the population of his conquered land. Mayb...

Great Moments in Recent History . It appears that the course of history can be changed when great people confront the realities brought on by crucial stresses and literally take over the roller coaster. We remember Yeltsin as the Parliament was being bombarded, and who can forget the lone man who stopped the Chinese tanks for a few moments? Or Jimmy Carter brokering a handshake between Egypt and Israel, the Sadat-Begin Kodak moment immortalized in the flash of Jimmy smile? Great moments picked up and run for significant yardage in our daily struggle against mediocrity, stupidity, venality, greed, graft and incompetence. Make no mistake, in the recent past there have been innumerable opportunities for great men to pick up the yards, opportunities for real people to make significant changes when faced with overwhelming opposition. But somehow we are letting these chances for greatness slip through our fingers. Somehow the national and international potential for immortality is falling i...

An Open Question to The Christian Right and The Muslim Extremists I am in the process of trying to understand the great love people with religious backgrounds profess for their fellow human beings. The latest effort required some research because I am unable to understand why anyone would really care about those of us atheists who really do not accept the mythology that is so prevalent these days. I mean, why would you care if your neighbor does not believe that there is a great mythological beast out there that sees all, understands all, and has a record of being nasty? Surely an atheist is the least of your christian worries since he does not prevent you from either adoring the great mythological beast of your choice, or fighting the great mythological beasts your religion has created? Why do Muslims have strict rules that atheists must be killed? Something most christians obviously agree with? As an atheist, I am flattered that you take us so seriously, and have responded in suc...

Living a mythless life. As we grow older we tend to gravitate in one of two directions in everything we do. The first is to reassert and conserve the old values, beliefs and thoughts we developed at an early age; the other is perversely the opposite as we dig deeper and deeper into unresolved questions that bedeviled our youth. In the first case, the assumption is that we have received all we need to know about a certain facet of our lives and are content to ride that information trail to our death. In my case, I find myself reliving the music of the sixties, and enjoying the feelings it brings much more than trying to wrap my head around new versions of old tunes, from classical to hard rock. The same applies to really enjoying mechanics on classic cars, or the simpler joys of a three speed bicycle. I am of an age when I mastered those skills a long time ago, and am now become the master of the art, transcending the skill into an art form. But the second mindset gives me no rest b...

Was it the Uniform or your own personal failure? We now have 3,000 konfirmed killed in action (KKIA). We have 3,000 young men and women who went off to a war that only a handful of people wanted. We have 3,000 grieving mothers and fathers who are searching for answers to the question, why their child? Why did he or she have to die when so many did not? I have some questions of my own. What were you thinking, Moms and Dads of the KKIA when your child decided to become a soldier? Why did you ever let them go so far away from you to die in a meaningless incident in an innocent place invaded for no good reason? Mom, did that uniform mean so much to you? Did he or she really look that good in dress blues, or combat fatigues? Did the useless and meaningless medals for marksmanship, technical training or whatever else they bribed your child to get him to die, really mean so much that you willingly encouraged him to go? Dad, when you were in 'Nam, or Kuwait, or even Panama, did you...

Come and get it, shithead!! It’s not the dead, it’s not the lies it’s not even the arrogance and the blind stupidity that gets you, it’s the fact that after all that has gone on, there has been no impression made. When you split skulls, destroy buildings or rape women, there is a long term attrition that affects both the victim and the killer, here nothing, no sense that an impression has been made, no sense that the dead count, the wounded still have feelings, that the gangrene from the presidential brain has infected the whole fabric of our society. Where is the anger, the fury that stops tanks and armies in their tracks? The blind and asinine parents proud of their sons and daughters as they wear the oppressing uniforms, the support the troops stickers, we can win this thing we can stay the course a few thousand more troopers, a few thousand more corpses whose blood runs black now because they have been there too long. Bloating in the sun, smelling to high heaven, mute and smelly...

Unrelated Christian Alternative Explanations And what about Mary? My personal theory of the virgin birth of Christ is based on some assumptions, deep understanding of the guy culture and the fact that life was pretty basic back then. If you recall, an angel came unto Mary and told her that she would give birth to a king. Angels are apparently pretty persuasive because she swallowed the whole story, hook line and sinker (A useful trait for someone who would mother a fisherman) She not only accepted the story, but got her husband, Joe, to go along with it. Now Mary was apparently still a virgin at this time, so she was either not married and playing hard to get, or she was married and Joe needed a serious course of Viagra. Either way, Hymen Intacta was the order of the day, and apparently the nights. So off they go, JC is born in a barn and we all know the Christmas story. BUT What if there was another explanation? What if the whole cockamamie story was not true? What if Mary was fa...

Instead of God, What? On the one hand denying up to the existence of a large mythological beast is one way to fight ignorance, but there has to be an answer to the desires of humanity for more to life than what we are. Actually, what endures in this land are hate and love. There are longstanding hatreds based in fear and ignorance that have poisoned our reasons for living and pushed adherents into the waiting arms of the true believers. Think of the KKK, the Nazi Party, the Inquisition and the Jones Town masses who died and killed in an orgy of belief. Think of the legacy left behind that created an Israel, molded Africa and fulfilled our imperial aspirations in the Ghettos of America. Hatred of the Jew, the black man and the communist has destroyed more futures than the love of the sixties. But in lives saved, and salvation is all about not killing, it is the love that endures. When we blindly follow our policy in Iraq, the opposing stream remembers other conflicts, like Vietnam, ...

Thank God for Evolution. On reflection, evolution is alive and doing really well up in Heaven. In my last posting I postulated that God might have the physical shape of a monkey. This simple observation was based on His own words as they were transmitted to us through the Old Testament. He states that God made Adam in his own image, and at the time Adam, being a first generation Homo Erectus, could only be more apelike than George Bush. But with evolution coming into play, we get a modern and improved model in the shape of His son, none other than Jesus Christ. This new and improved model roamed the earth some 2000 years ago spouting amazing platitudes and inanities. But I digress. To remain focused only on the physical aspects of the new version, as depicted in any number of non-contemporary eyewitness accounts, we can say that JC was tall, bearded, amazingly thin and looked really good in his underwear hanging on a cross. He is also invariably white, and in his last sighting, sc...