THE EXPOSURE PERIOD

For many, age 12 begins the Exposure period of life. It is the age when there develops a natural desire to break away some from strict parental upbringing...and to test out, try out, experiment with, a whole array of new things...including independent decision making, deeper personal and romantic relationships, disobedience of authorities, sex, drugs, alcohol and more. It is all part of the process of finding out what pleases you, what interests you, what impassions you. In other words, who you are.

Parents and schools, normally the two dominant influences in a child's life, would do well to understand the power...and, yes, the pressures...of the Exposure period, and to convey that understanding to the child. Even further. They ought reasonably encourage, facilitate and contribute to the experimentation, the exploration, that is taking place.

As time passes, the child normally becomes better able to take greater control over his or her life. Parents can help their child by releasing some of their authority and gifting it to the child. They can open the child's eyes and mind to life's treasures and potentials. They can teach the child that the Exposure period is laden with both pleasures and tribulations...and that they and the child's experiencing of them, are normal and healthy. All of which will immeasurably promote the child's psychological development and well-being.

Schools can contribute much to a child during the Exposure period, but perhaps nothing more precious than this: to teach a child that learning can be fun and knowledge a source of delight. From infancy, we all sense physical pleasures easily and quickly. But few of us ever come to know that there are wondrous pleasures to be found on our mental side...in scholarship, contemplation and creativity. No matter what else it does well, a school that does not teach that lesson to each child, every day in every class, earns a grade of F. As does a school that fails to illuminate the relevance and importance to the student's life of every academic course it offers.

For most, the Exposure period begins at age 12. For the wise, it never ends.

ASK ME NO QUESTIONS...

Questions that I don't hear being asked, but should be:

1. To those who claim to be pro-life: If a fetus is human and aborting it is murder, why do you approve the murder of an innocent victim of rape or incest, horrific as those events may be?

2. To the Dems who voted for the new health care law: Considering the mandatory provisions of that law, how are you going to refer to America now that your vote says you no longer think of it as "the land of the free"?

3. To parents who punish their children for lying or stealing: How would you answer if your child asked you if there is one provably true moral code of behavior...and what is the standard for it?

4. Why are professional athletes permitted to ingest food supplements, minerals, vitamins and other chemicals to enhance their physical abilities, but not steroids?

5. Is the reason why naturalized citizens can legally vote for President but not run for President that one's philosophy and loyalty are determined by one's place of birth or the citizenship of one's parents?

6. Is it true that bigotry, prejudices and ignorance are categorically erased when a person sits down in a jury box?

7. If a person is old enough to choose a mate for life and a parent for children, why is he or she not old enough to vote for a congressman to serve for two years?

8. Do you think all 80 and 90 year olds driving on the roads today could pass a driving test?

9. Why do U.S. soldiers wear uniforms when our enemies do not?

10.Do you still believe that reality shows are really real?

11.If the economy fails to recover and millions of people literally have no money to buy food for themselves and their children, what do you anticipate their next step will be?

12.Do you know whether any of the hundred people who previously handled those dollar bills in your pocket had the swine flu or bubonic plague?

13.Are not despair and despondency our deadliest enemies?

14.When you stare at a lion behind bars in a cage, does the lion see you as being behind bars in a cage?

15.What did James Thurber mean when he said "It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers"?

OUT OF FOCUS

Years ago, when I first began working full time, part of my "pay" was in the form of medical and life insurance paid for by the company. I had no interest in having insurance...and as time proved true, didn't need it...and asked the company owner if he would give me additional cash equivalent to the premium he was paying for my insurance instead. "Nope." Would he give me half the cost of those premiums, so that we would both wind up with additional money? "Nope, it's a great program, you have to be in it."

A recent report by a renowned financial organization says that a 65 year old couple will need a quarter of a million dollars at retirement to cover future health insurance and anticipated health costs. If so, most people will have little to spend on life and living.

Misguided focus. The prime object of life is not to deter death but to maximize the experience of LIFE. Morality is not a code of anti-death conduct, it is a code of pro-LIFE conduct. The alternative man faces is LIFE and death, not death and death. The making of health care as the #1 issue in the country the past few months is an absurdity. What happened to jobs and war?

Our focus should be om life and how to live it, how to maximize the passion and joy and exhilaration of it...and not on death and how to avoid it. The key reason to accept a job offer ought not be its health benefits but its LIFE benefits. A quarter mill can take you once or twice or three times 'round the world, to touch and be touched by the as yet unknown and unseen, to fulfillingly share time with those you love, to enrich your LIFE...or it can pay for a plethora of visits to a doctor's waiting room and a shelf full of medications that may or may not extend your life a few years longer and that will enrich insurance companies and the medical profession? Why do I think the first option will be of significantly greater benefit to most people and their life expectancy than the second?

It certainly will be to mine.

WANTED

"Seeking independent humans to live in tribal harmony,in a temperate climate locale, each participating tribe member partaking in tribal bounties, no government, no money, no radio, no television, no telephones, no computers, total freedom, objective: exhilarating mental and physical and spiritual fulfillment attained through serenity, mutual respect, reciprocal benevolent assistance, and love of nature's treasures. Social conformers of every ilk need not apply."

MANIMAL

The distinguishing characteristic of humans is Choice...they have the capacity to contemplate, evaluate, a situation and choose whether to take action and what action to take. Pride in their frequency of correct choices is a cornerstone of self esteem, and self-esteem is the cornerstone of happiness.

A proper code of morality for man encompasses pro-life choices for man. Humans are not programmed by instincts to know what are pro-life choices, and must contemplate-evaluate-choose, and so reason is a moral virtue. Not using objective, logical reasoning to make choices is immoral. Integrity - acting in accordance with the judgment of your own mind is moral because that is the natural way of the human composition: the function and capacity of the human mind is to make choices, and the function of the human body is to physically implement those choices. Man is confronted at all times with a life and death alternative...survival is not guaranteed to him. The things man needs to survive are not automatically provided to him by nature, he must take action to acquire and/or use them...which makes productivity a moral virtue. Etc.

A proper political system is built on the proper code of morality for the human species. It recognizes man's natural need to choose, and its sole function is to provide him (and her) with the only social environment in which he can consistently do so. It is called freedom. Because man's need to choose is natural and universal, no man is free to deny others their freedom to choose. All crimes , properly defined, entail interference with, or restraint of, another person's freedom to make choices.

The new health care bill signed into law the other day gives control over our nation's health care system to the government. That is not a proper function of government, which is to protect our freedom to choose. Quite the contrary. The new law requires all Americans to purchase health insurance whether they choose to or not, it requires the owners of insurance companies to provide certain coverage whether they choose to or not, it will result in some taxpayers having to bear the costs of insurance for others whether they choose to or not. The new law does not treat humans as humans but as choiceless animals. That the violations of our freedom are to be committed by the organization which was established to protect our freedom to choose is an obscenity, a vulgarity, an inhumanity, of the worst order.

There isn't an animal I have ever heard of that would take it lying down without a fight.

GOING, GOING ...

I foresee a day when more and more young people will opt to be invisible. They will do so to avoid the burdensome interference, restraints and controls, by government in their lives. They will do so to keep their lives their own, to be individuals rather than conforming members of the herd. They will do so to live in accordance with the nature of their species, the way all animals instinctively wish to live in accordance with theirs.

They will not get a Social Security card, a Medicare number, a driver's license or any other government-issued permit. If stopped by the police for anything, they will quietly and quickly pay the fine and move on. They will take jobs or provide services that will pay them cash only. They will not put their money in bank accounts, but in safety boxes under fictitious names. They will file no income tax returns, register for no military draft. They will never use their real names. They will not vote. They will be invisible.

And free. As were the Westerners through 1890. Roaming or working the land, living the moment, relishing a tasty morsel, a dry bed, a friendly face. No health insurance, no horse insurance, no credit cards. Needing little, wanting little...having much: their lives, to be as they chose to be.

And then came suffocation (aka civilization). Burgeoning cities, congestion, physical and moral pollution. Buildings, skyscrapers, literally piling people on top of each other. Exploding technology accelerating the stampede toward greater and greater needs, often unfulfilled...and greater and greater stress and distress, almost always unrelieved. Social protocols, proprieties, and procedures proliferate. Get along, little doggie, get along.

Humans mutated into numbers...12 and 15 digit numbers on cards. Wallets overflowing with cards. "Confirm your identity. What are the last 4 digits of your Social Security number? Your 5 digit zip code? Your 10 digit phone number?" Hello, Mr. 7743043 5557063215, how are you today? What is your 17 digit account number?""

And now comes identity theft. They are stealing our digits. By the millions. Our digits are no longer necessarily us. What now? Who are we now? How do we prove that we are and who we are? I heard there is a DNA Tracker machine on the horizon that can flash the unique 32,786,554 elements of your DNA code to whomever you wish in a micromilliunisecond. Costs only $74,395...but it is who you are, isn't it? Or isn't it?

Are we somebody...still?

Invisibility. I see it coming. One way or the other.

LE GRAN ILLUSION?

Today the House votes on whether to pass the Senate's national socialized health care bill into law, placing an additional one-sixth of the U.S. economy under the federal government's control.

I looked up the word "free" in Roget's Thesaurus and the following words showed up:

emancipated, self-determine, self-direct, individualistic, sovereign, self-reliant

and

uncoerced, uncompelled, unrepressed, unbridled, unmuzzled, unreined, unmastered, uncontrolled, unobstructed, unrestricted, unhampered, unbound, unburdened.

Today, we will finally get a true answer to the question Americans have been asking for hundreds of years:

"O,-say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

If the House votes Aye, the answer is Nay, and le gran illusion is over!

FRIENDLY REVELATION

So love is blind. We know that. Everything is perfect, hunky-dory. Feeling that, itself, should warn us to go slowly. But love is the super-high gear, full throttle, pedal to the metal stuff. As that song says, "Feelings, nothing more than feelings".

Ergo, 50% divorce rate, 90% (who knows?) adultery rate.

Want to avoid them? And the heartache and financial ache, and the children ache that go with them? Want to give yourself a chance at happiness, at an enduring supportive truly loving and inspiring relationship?

Check out your lover's close friends. Who are they? What do they do for a living? For fun? What are their deeper interests, their values, their morals? What is the scope of their lives? Are they positive or negative-minded? Happy, fulfilled?

DO THEY INTEREST YOU?

They don't much? I know, I know, you are not planning on marrying the friends. Of course not. But be warned: Your life is heading for a major crash.

A friend is, as it were, a second self. Cicero

Friends are the thermometers by which one may judge the temperature of our fortunes. Blessington

Vision is the art of seeing the invisible. Swift

Friends reveal what love and desire conceal. Nachis

A word to the blind ... is sufficient?

JUBEL!

Americans are often thought of as being so in a rush, they do not have the time to stop and communicate with others. And that has some truth in it.

Americans are often thought to be so self-occupied that they have little concern for others. And that has some truth in it.

I think it starts with the very first words we use when we see or greet each other. "Hello" has always seemed to me to convey nothing much other than "Hey, I see (or hear) you". And that short 5-letter word seems too time consuming to say in full, and is commonly reduced to the quicker "Hi" or the flippant wave of two fingers...which may give some credence to the ideas about Americans expressed above.

As a child studying Bible, I was fond of the way ancient wanderers greeted each other. "Shalom"...and its various offshoots, "Salaam", "Shlom", etc... all conveyed so much greater meaning. In various places in the Old and New Testaments, it is taken to mean peace, completeness, health, welfare, safety, tranquility, prosperity, fullness, rest, harmony, absence of agitation, distress and discord.

How wonderfully much to say in one word to the wanderer, to let the stranger know immediately that he is welcomed as friend, as tribesman, as family. How calming to be immediately gifted with spiritual affinity and camaraderie and blessing!

We need a word like that in the English language...a word that expresses the opening of one mind, one soul, one spirit, one universe, to another.

JUBEL!

May be amplified with a hug.

INCOMING CACA!

"The river swells and waves alight the all knowing simplistic time meanderers, representatives of days when they who will beleaguer the approved remain but this and the bird's bill must make the spring air be cooled and not defeated by the fate that comes."

That is the bill that House majority leader (that should tell you something) Pelosi wants House members to vote Yes on..."Vote for it now the way it is and we'll fix it, change it, clean it up, tweak it, twang it later after it becomes law."

Want you to see the depths of absurdity and deception and arrogance to which the Obama administration will go to get its way. And why should it be surprising to anyone? Obama is rooted in the idea of one man (his) rule, has no visible respect for America's guiding principles, or for the intelligence of the American people. "In a year or two, Americans will forget how we jammed the socialized health care bill down their lives and simply (aka, simple-mindedly) be happy we did." "The ends justify the means" they bellow (as they laughingly treat us as the fools we...are?). Funny, I didn't hear that when waterboarding was the issue and "we can't lower ourselves to that level, we have to do what is right" was the Demmish mantra.

Blinders off, everyone...they are heaving excrement at us.

That bill can be tweaked to: "All representatives who approved this bill must be defeated".

Time for us to do what is right.

FOREWARNED

America has turned its course away from glorious civilization and toward the ancient twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The evidence:

* political deception and secrecy is not only flaunted but sought to be deemed moral on the basis of tradition, "the other side did it, too", and the ends "justify" the means

* the government fails to do its main job...protecting us from force...by plea bargaining and early prison releases of hard core criminals, policies defended in the name of expediency

* the use of mind-bending drugs are at new highs, and new lows, reaching into elementary schools

* logic, rationality and morality remain absentee subjects in our public schools

* sitting staring at a box is now America's #1 activity replacing social exchanges, personal explorations and discovery, and contemplation...watching has replaced thinking and doing

* wanton physicality is preeminent and revered in our public language, dress, and the arts

* an inch long shrimp-like creature found hundreds of feet below an Antarctic ice sheet is gleefully hailed as expanding our knowledge of life and where it can survive, while developed, sensing fetuses by the millions are expunged from one inch below the human epidermis as if they were feces

* technology, not spirituality and respect for humankind, is now worshipped as the Almighty

* our Constitution with its magnificent principles is now characterized as a "living document"...which is another way of saying, "we can interpret it any goddamned way we want"

* there is not one globally respected voice that has risen to counter the raging and rampaging moral decadence.

Is it nuclear fire and brimstone that shall bring our civilization to its end...or shall it gorge on itself and devour itself from within?

Or can we and shall we, in time, learn from the past?

TIME FOR A MATH LESSON

If I tell you I purchased a table, you would have a general image of what I bought: a flat top surface, supported by legs or a stanchion on which smaller objects are placed. What you don't know is whether I bought a conference table sitting 20, a dining room table sitting 6, a card table sitting 4, a night table sitting 0.

If I tell you I was driving fast in my car this morning, you would have an image of me moving quickly, but you would not know if I was driving 70 mph, 100 mph or 180 mph.

The reason is that English concepts omit...measurement. That is the function of mathematics. Numbers give precise measurement to imprecise concepts.

Neither the Dems nor the Reps know math. The Dems write a health care bill, now a regulate Wall Street bill, that run in the thousands of pages. Why so long? Because they omit measurement and include mostly vague generalities subject to various interpretations. What will those bills cost, precisely? Who knows? How will they be paid for, precisely? Who knows? Ans, perhaps more onerously, they think, who cares?

The Reps talk night and day saying they are for less government involvement in the economy and lower taxes. How much less and how much lower, precisely? Who knows? And, perhaps more onerously, they think, who cares? Talk, talk, talk.

Einstein's Theory of Relativity relating to the entire Universe: E = mc squared.

Pythagorean Theorem: A squared + B squared = C squared.

Newton's Law of Universal Gravitatiom: F = GM(1)M(2) divided by R squared

They all knew math.

Now along comes the Tea Party and apparently its adherent don't know math either. Words like "too much regulation" and "far lower taxes" and "more freedom" abound. Palin's meandering commercial-like speech at the TP Convention was a perfect indicator she doesn't know math either. What she should have used her hand for was not more words but what all kindergartners use their fingers for: to count. If the TP were to be precise about their principles and programs, it would be refreshingly appealing to the many who are rejecting generalities from any source.

We are at about a $15,000,000,000,000 debt in this country...that's a precise number (as is the balance in my bank account and the cost of my children's college education, and the monthly mortgage payment, and and and and). But notice what you hear about the 15 trill by politicos of all stripes: "That's so large I can't even imagine it". Get rid of it, back to the indefinite, imprecise, inexact, unspecified, now-you-see-it now-you-don't garbage.

So, it is time for those of us who learned our addition table to teach the math mastermindless ones some number stuff:

"One plus one is two, two plus one is three...and three is one less than four, and you lose the election, you are out, you are done, adios, arrivederci, adieu, aloha, sayonara, hasta la vista, auf wiedersehen, ciao, shalom, cheerio, vaya con Dios...and if He won't vaya with ya, just va it alone."

I'll bet you they know those words. They like words.

THE CHOSEN PEOPLE?

Secretary of State Clinton said it was "insulting" that Israel announced the opening of new settlements in the West Bank or the East Bank or the Bank of America while VP Biden was visiting there.

"Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk. Naughty bad little country. You didn't do what we wanted and then you said you were doing what we didn't want you to do when we didn't want you to say it. You did what you thouht was in your country's best interest to do and you didn't do what we think is in your best interest to do. Who runs your country anyway? Read the fine print of our friendship. Here it is enlarged for you:

ISRAEL SHALL CLOSE ITS MIND, ITS HISTORY AND ITS CULTURE, AND ACT IN THE INTEREST OF THE U.S. AS REVEALED TO IT BY THE HOLY VOICES OF THE HE AND THE SHE WHO HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO SAVE ALL OF US...TO SAY IT IN BIBLICAL TERMS WITH WHICH YOU ARE FAMILIAR, WE ARE AND FOREVER WILL BE YOUR KEEPER AND THE KEEPER OF ALL THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD. WE ARE THE CHOSEN PEOPLE.

Act not, Israel, unless you are advised to do so, speak not unless directed to do so, and most importantly, think not, ever. Were you not warned not to eat from the tree of knowledge?"

It was Secretary Clinton's remarks that were insulting...insulting to her, to our country, to the people of Israel and of all the countries of the world we presume to keep, and to intelligence and independence the world over.

DOUBLETALK

WHAT THEY SAID - (WHAT THEY DIDN'T SAY)

We will not be undersold - (we all charge the same)
We try harder - (and someday we'll get it right)
Let your fingers do the walking - (and running up the telephone bill)
It takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin' - (tickin', not workin')

99% pure, it floats - (and so does a dead fish)
When you care enough to send the very best - (and pay the most)
Good to the last drop - (good we said, not great)
A diamond is forever - (you ain't getting it back even after the divorce)

Think small - (car, that is, not price)
Nothing runs like a Deere - (or dies like a deer)
Merrill Lynch is bullish on America - (ever been to Pamplona?)
Say it with flowers - ("I had not the foggiest idea what to buy you")

All the news that's fit to print - (and all that isn't)
If you got it, flaunt it - (we haven't seen It for years)
Finger lickin' good - (what you expect from greasy fat?)
Because I'm worth it - (as I'll show you later)

THE WHO-YOU BOX

The Massa case is a screamer. So I am going to scream.

GIVE IT UP GUYS. I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE MY ADULT LIFE AMONG BABOONS WILDLY JUMPING UP AND DOWN GRUNTING AND BURPING. WE ARE SEXUAL PEOPLE. SEX IS NOT DIRTY. GET WITH THE PROGRAM.

Representative Eric Massa of New York was at a staffer's wedding when something happened. What exactly happened is not clear since 99% of the radio and tv people commenting on the event were not there. Nor was I. But somehow a story got circulated that a male aide had suggested to Massa that he have sex with a woman at the wedding, and that Massa had tousled the aide's hair and had replied that it would be better if he had sex with the male aide. The language was a bit more graphic. A grievance involving sexual abuse was filed against Massa with the House Ethics Committee. Massa, claiming that there was no abuse, just usual frolicking bantering, and that he was being forced out of office by Dems to help get their health insurance into law, resigned his office.

COME ON PEOPLE. What in tarnation is wrong with two adults talking about sex? Are we such infants that the subject is taboo? That someone ought lose his or her job, his family's income, for merely daring to say something about sex? So what if Massa meant it? So what if he is gay? A crime to have a different sexual orientation that you want him to have? Did he harass the aide? Threaten to fire him if he didn't go along? Did Massa pull out a gun or a knife and his sexual organ and threaten him forcefully? But but but, you say, we have laws about what can be said, even jokingly and nonthreateningly in the workplace. True we do, but they are laws that should not be there. Speech on any subject ought not be seen as criminal unless and until it rises to the level of harassment or abuse.

Which made me think of other laws we have on the books about the workplace that should be removed. Laws concerning "discrimination" in hiring. I owned two companies and last time I checked the law, I had a right to deal with my property as I, and not the Government, sees fit. If I wanted to hire only people of a certain age, or only emembers of a particular race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or whatever..that was my business. Literally. My business. Want others to be hired? Start your own business.

Now you know and I know that though an employer may not legally ask a job applicant certain questions, he can see the applicant, can't he? And get plenty of information without asking.

So so so, for the purpose of being a good law abiding citizen and helping to enforce the law that shouldn't be, I have invented The Interview Cage...colloquially called the WHO-YOU box. It is a rectangular enclosed container that measures 7' high and 3' wide on each of its four sides. There is a seat inside so the interviewee can sit and be comfortable. There is a small 1" x 1" hole through which granola bars and water packets can be passed. There is a waste disposal system for you know what.

There is also

* a microphone that distorts the interviewee's voice to prevent sex discrimination

* large protrusions at the bottom that the interviewee stands in, and which move mechanically, so that the size and shape of the interviewee's feet cannot be seen and his/her gender revealed

* a 2" x 2" one-way glass mirror which allows the interviewee to look out but not the interviewer to see the interviewee's face, to prevent race, age, and ethnic discrimination

* triple layered opaque steel sides that prevent the interviewer from seeing if the interviewee is pregnant or physically deformed, wearing Crucifixes, Stars of David or other spiritual emblems, to avoid religious, physical and Siamese twin discrimination.

Extensive research shows that in trial runs, except for the chimpanzee that was hired to be a telephone operator in Podunk, and a squirrel that was hired to crack nuts on a Planters assembly line in Dubuque, everyone hired when using the WHO-YOU was in fact human...we think.

How come no one thought of this before? I'M GONNA BE RICH!

SMART!!!!!

Some days, I think society has it backwards...it is ignorance that ought be desired and honored. If you are ignorant, you will:

* worry less because you will know fewer things to worry about

* fail less because you won't expect to succeed

* appreciate what you have more because you will likely have less

* be happy easier because you will want and need less

* have more free time because you will not be employed as quickly

* be less often the object of hatred because you will be envied less

* give love more freely because love is what you will have no shortage of

* be perplexed less by the mysteries of life and be enchanted more by the wonders of nature

* more likely be the beneficiary of a helping hand

* more often experience the joy of Surprise!

ILL-LOGICS

Time to take a look at the illogicalties prevalent on our political landscape:

1. The fact that one political party has done the same wrong thing in the past does not excuse and make right the doing of that wrong thing today by another party. Wrong is wrong.

2. The ends do not justify the means. Bad means...bad causes...always produce bad ends.

3. The people holding high political office are not in power, they are our employees. It is we the people who are constitutionally in power.

4. Those who negotiate favored deals that violate the rights of some of the people should be immediately criminally prosecuted. Holding political office is not a license to commit crimes.

5. Our country is not a democracy where the majority...the mob...rule. We are a constitutional republic with each individual having guaranteed rights of life and liberty. The fact that 82% of the American people favor a program that violates my freedom is not relevant to its legitimacy. Mob rule is wrong even if it makes a right choice.

6. Countering a person's character or motives does not counter his or her argument. What is morally and/or politically correct is objectively determined by reference to principles, not personal traits.

7. The fact that something is a long term tradition in our country does not make it right...like slavery, the second-class treatment of women, etc.

8. The fact a famous historical figure believed it right does not prove it right. The Founders were very right, but not 100% right.

9. Cause and effect cannot be substantiated simply by showing that after one thing happened, the other did. The fact the country prospered while a particular person was in office does not prove in the slightest that he or she caused the prosperity.

10. It cannot be a war and not a war at the same time. Congress alone has the power to declare war and "war" includes all forms of battle, skirmishes, frays, hostilities, conflicts, blockades, religious wars, wars of liberation, preventive wars, limited wars, air, sea or land wars, guerrilla wars, jungle wars. Aristotle: A is A.

NO KNOW

Can it be that we are each but a thing that can think? Go ahead, think about that. A piece of paper. Can you imagine it thinking?

Well, you say, we are not a piece of paper. No, we are not. We are blood and bones and tissues. You've spilled some blood. Can you imagine it laying there on the floor and thinking, "What am I doing here?" When you scratch your arm, can you imagine it thinking, "A little higher".

Well, you say, we think in our brain. We do? So think of a physician cutting your brain out and holding it in his hand. Will it be able to think, "Careful, don't drop me". You think it needs oxygen, blood, and a nervous system, to think. Douse it with, drown it in, oxygen and anything else you wish. Will it think, "Boy, thought I'd never get out of that body!"

Are we a thing that can think? Close words...thing, think...but not the same. If we are not but a thing, what or who are we? Are we a thingummy, a thingumabob, a thingumajig, a thingumadad, a thingumajigger, a thingumaree?

And of all the things we do know, why is that one we don't know?

Think of that.

TPOTP

All political commentators on radio, television and in newspapers...

of every political persuasion, including Dems and Reps and Libs and TP's and all the rest...

including that newly-created brand of the so-called impartial, unaffiliated, fair and balanced group that protests their independence with an "I don't agree with his position on this but I don't think he's a that" or an "although she is wrong on this, I can't say she doesn't have good intentions"...

including all those who denigrate ideology while professing their ideology...

every last one of them ought have their mouths taped shut whenever they or their electronically produced images or voices are in the same hemisphere as I am.

Please. Pretty please. S'il vous plait. For God's sake, for goodness sake, for heaven's sake, for mercy's sake.

Why? Because all they ever spew out are their opinions, their feelings, their biased perspectives, without ever logically and objectively proving their positions to be right. And without that proof, what they disgorge means nada, gurnischt, nulla, nicht, zilch.

Why don't they ever give us the proof? Because they don't own it, they apparently don't know it, wouldn't recognize it...and are totally blanked out as to where to find it.

Where is it to be found? In the self-evident truths of life. Where are they to be found? Down the street in the library.

In the writings of Aristotle and Ayn Rand and Henry Hazlitt and others.

Sitting right there on the shelves. In full view. The proof of the pudding. Waiting to be gobbled down.

Hmmmmm.

Care for a bite?

QUESTION #1

Here is the key question, that answers many others...

Are you an independent individual, beholden to none, or are you a member of:

a community
a race
a religion
an ethnicity
a culture
a world society
mankind
a people
a public
a generation
a citizenry
a nation
a country
a clan
a family
a sect
a civilization

to which, or to other members of which, to some extent or other, you are beholden to act, think, speak, a certain prescribed, preferred way, without the power to choose to unbeholden yourself.

All political and ethical views and perspectives rest on the answer to that question, verbalized or not. More that anything else, the answer to that question sets the tone of your life and determines your character.

To be beholden or not to be beholden...that is the question.

ART, ALL ABOUT

I wrote recently about the lack of art in much of America's architecture. Then I came across this collection of U.S. postage stamps I had bought a few years back. And the point I was making in the architecture piece became clearer from a different perspective.



The art in the stamps are not all great art, to be sure...though a few may be considered to be. But the point being made in the stamps to me is that if we but open our eyes, there is art all about us...in a couple dancing, in pomp and regalia, in a woman prettying herself and primping her son, in serene settings and in horseback riders in battle, in a soldier's return from war, in a child's inquisitiveness and a child's loving concern for the health of her doll.

Art and beauty are but one, and it is all about us. It is inherent in the world we live in, and in our individual universes. It can be found in a pebble on the path and in the brilliance of a thought, in the sounds of laughter and in the silence of prayer and meditation. It is in the air we breathe, the sweat on our brow, the love in our heart.

It is invisible only to the closed mind.

ARCHITEXTURELESS

I started to write this post by writing, "The state of American architecture is atrocious"...but I realized that is not true. American architecture is not atrocious, it is nonexistent.

Look around. Virtually every office building and store and home you will see are flat sided boxes, rectangular doorways and windows, with bricks or other nondescript siding piled squarely on top of each other. In other words, there is little, if any, art in our architecture. Perhaps rectangles make maximum use of space, and so our architecture, like much else in our society, is almost totally money driven. Shame if it is, because though money is a value, it may not be as much a value in the long run as art can be in our lives.

Driving around this afternoon, I was bombarded by building boredom to the point of nauseousness. I recalled vividly the artistically beautiful promenades and boulevards and avenidas, the porticos and terraces, the cobblestoned roadways, that I saw traveling throughout Portugal and Spain and Mallorca and Italy and Switzerland. Art, it seemed to me, was a critical part of European architecture. Buildings were every bit as functional as our boxes, but appealed as well to our emotions, to a sense of historical grandeur, and most importantly, to an uplifting of the human spirit.

Money flourishes in the world of concretes. We pay a heavy price if we fail to recognize our ongoing need for artistic and spiritual nourishment, as well...if not more.

ARE WE ENTERING A TIME WARP?

I understand that someone has designed a software program that can produce brand new Bach-like sonatas. It apparently is so good that experts cannot tell the difference between the music it generates and the real stuff.

Wow. Is more Rimsky-Korsakov, more Shakespeare, more Hugo, in our future? More Pavarotti, more Callas, more Sinatra? More Michelangelo. more DaVinci, more Rembrandt? Can we really resurrect the great minds of the past?

That set me to thinking. What the world truly and desperately needs more of now is wisdom and ethical guidance and direction. Can we design a program to give us more Aristotle and Solomon and Socrates and Confucius and Muhammad...more Mahatma Gandhi, more Martin Luther King, more Thomas Jefferson...to hear what they would say about the problems of today, to help us get back on course?

And if it is true as believed by many that the Bible was written with Divine guidance, can we get more God-inspired Bible, more Scripture, more pedagogy, more enlightenment?

Can we harvest the past to feed our future?

Can we?

Wow!

BEWARE: INVERSION AT WORK

I had seen all those ads about credit management companies that claimed to be able to get your credit card interest rates, and in some case your principal, substantially reduced. I spoke with a few, settled on one that seemed more responsible, and then contacted my credit card companies to inquire if they knew of this company and would they recommend it.

Now here is when the surprising thing happened. All but one of the credit card companies, hearing that I might be working with a debt management company, immediately offered to reduce their high interest rates (one reaching 25%) to a more respectable 6%. One credit card company...a major major one...told me "Since your account is current, not in default (as none of my cards were), there is nothing we can do for you. But if you were in arrears, we could automatically reduce your interest rate, perhaps down to 2%."

"So," I said, "your company has it ass backwards. The good guys who pay their bills on time get no deal, the bad guys who are in default get a sweetheart deal." "Right," they said.

The inversion. Where I came from, the good guys were rewarded, the bad guys were not. And it was not just a mathematical thing: companies with good payers were invariably more profitable than the others. It was also a moral thing: those who honored their commitments, their agreements, were perceived of as deserving the better deals for that very reason. The guiding principle was "It is good to be good, bad to be bad".

Not so today. The reverse has taken hold. Those who put out the effort and prosper because of it are made to pay for those who don't. Criminals plea bargain or are given light sentences in some myopic view that that will help them change their ways, and those who obey the law are thus endangered. The drivers who drive at the speed limit are given a finger, the speeder is given a thumb's up. Beating the system, cutting corners, getting away with it, are today's ethical royalty.

That guffaw you hear on the sidelines is Reality laughing. Reality knows that embracing, rewarding, honoring the bad will come back to bite you a thousand times over because, try as hard as he may, man does not have the power to turn bad into good...though he forever tries to do so. The inevitable result of immorality is self-destruction.

So...do you pay your bills on time or do you join the herd?

Ha ha ha ha.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO

You don't have to live smartly.

You don't have to be prudent.

You don't have to live without risk.

You don't have to have health insurance.

You don't have to avoid junk food.

You don't have to invest wisely.

You don't have to vote.

You don't have to give charity.

You don't have to act a certain way, look a certain way, speak a certain way.

You only have to be free...free to do or not do all of those things and thousands of others, as you choose, without control by others.

Why must you be free? Because you are alive not as a pebble or a grain of sand but as a glorious wondrous human being and LIFE requires you to live in harmony with your nature as a human being. Failure to do so is a living DEATH.

In essence, it is this:

Humans = Composite of mind and body facing life and death alternative + conceptual faculty + capacity to choose = need to be free to act

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHY YOU MUST BE FREE, YOU SOON WILL NOT BE. AND THEN YOU'LL KNOW.

WHAT'S THE JOKE?

"Socialism", defined by the Random House Dictionary: "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole". Every socialist country has slight variations as to what segment of the economy is to be taken over. But the underlying socialist precept is clear: the economy is community (via government) owned, and can be claimed by the government at any time. Individual rights are out, freedom is out. It is the capitalist free economy system that is built on those ideals.

The raging political question in the country is whether President Obama is a socialist...and of course, he is. His ardent desire and persistent efforts to take over and control America's health insurance industry (which probably really means our total health industry), the banking and related industries, the energy industry, etc. are all first steps in the implementation of a full socialist system in our country. And does he believe in freedom? Clearly not, when he believes the government has the legal power to force individuals to purchase insurance, whether they wish to or not, force companies to offer products and services on terms the government dictates, restrain companies from outsourcing the production of their products, penalize individuals for using the energy of their choice and for drinking the beverages of their choice. Clearly not, when he says income distribution is one of his goals...as if my money in some convoluted way belongs in part to others. And on and on.

Is not the cataclysmic change from a predominantly capitalist system to a predominantly socialist one, the hidden, unrevealed, change the President was promising when he campaigned to be dictator?

Is the reason so many in the country cannot seem to be able to call the President what he is, is that in America, socialism is a dirty word. Is that why Senator John McCain, when pointedly asked by George Stephanopoulis on tv this past weekend whether the President is a socialist, giggled like a child and refused to answer the question. This November, hopefully, Arizona voters will tell the Senator, who has seemingly gone from a courageous warrior to a pussyfooting politician, that "we don't get the joke".

Because there is no joke. Uprooting the glorious ideals of our heritage and reversing our course, will send us flying over that cliff. Nothing damn funny about that.