Reflections: Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

News reports from various sources indicate that the Middle East is undergoing a revolutionary change.  Quite literally.  From Tunisia, to Egypt, Baharain to Libya, the common people are rising up against tyrannical despots.  In most cases, it is more blowblack for the United States and its western allies, who seem to prop up and support these despots in an attempt to secure access to valuable fossil fuels and other resources of other people’s countries.  The common people of these countries are growing weary of empty promises and harsh dictatorial rules.  It is quite telling how slight the public response is from US and European officialsto support these massive uprisings.  The support is there in some public statements by Obama and others, but a very restrained and cautious support.  Now that Libyian oil reserves may be jeopardized, there are rumblings among US and European officials about possible military interventions into Libya.

Mubarek has been chased from Egypt.  There are rumblings among the masses in Yemen, Jordan and Syria. Gudafi is lashing out violently and relentlessly in a vain attempt to retain whatever small amount of power he has left to wield in Libya.  Saudi Arabia is banning public protests, yet this after one of the Saudi leaders poured 36 billion dollars toward increases in the wages and benefits of public workers.  This act of “benevolence” followed the fall of Egypt’s Mubarak, with uprisings happening all through the region.  No doubt it was a strategic move to stave off Arabian uprisings.  It may not be enough to quell the human thirst for freedom and dignity.  Iran’s government has quickly moved to quell any potential uprisings in its country.  Yet, the trend of revolutions for freedom and common people rising up to gain control over their own lives and fates is much more than a passing fad in world where corrupt banks and investors have robbed the treasuries of nations across the globe through extreme mismanagement of funds and use of “derivative” investments to carelessly gain quick wealth at the loss and peril of millions of common people.  It is also a world where western Europan and American control over Middle Eastern fossil fuels is finally being exposed for the corruptions of governments, violent and horrific wars conducted in order to retain such control…usually under the false pretense of protecting “freedom and democracy” where no such vestments exist.

In Wisconsin, the Republican party’s attempt to become a national one-party electoral system by crushing unionized workers’ rights to collective bargaining is being met with…revolutionary protests by tens of thousands in the capital of Madison, and these protests are being echoed across the United States in any state where the national campaign to crush unions, the mainstay of the Democratic Party’s support system, is being attempted.  There is not enough propaganda–which is being poured through the corporate media via Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, and others–to hide the obvious ploys of a would-be dictatorial political party.  The public has too much access to too many alternative sources for truth and information to be fooled anymore by the likes of a Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or Bill O’Riley, or writers of the Wall Street Journal, among others.

We still have to be worried by the extreme efforts over the past three or four decades to “dumb down” American citizens through the strangling of public school systems and teachers’ ability to teach,  the corporate control of our universities through massive inputs of corporate money with very tight strings attached, and the severe consolidation of our communications media into the ownership and control by a very small handful of wealthy corporations and individuals.  Americans still live among many of their fellows who still believe that biological evolution hasn’t occured, that Noah actually built an ark with all the animals by twos to save them from a global flood, and that the earth is only six thousand years old.  Many among us still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the horrific criminal acts of 9/11/2001, and that weapons of mass destruction really existed in Iraq when we waged a bloody and costly war there, and in Afghanistan.  As long as such things are believed by a large minority of American people, we have a long way to go in educating our population.

We can be thankful as a human species for our technological age where global Internet access and social networks are overcoming any nation’s potential for absolute control.  Most of the uprisings have been organized and communicated through smart phones and computers via telecommunication and Internet access points, through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.  These tools of free expression have yet to be reigned in by governments of despots and international corporate control.  It’s a most exciting time in human history to be part of this global revolution.  Truth and facts are available to people across the globe, in spite of attempts to deprive people of truth, to deny people the facts.  We have ways of learning when the conventional means become corrupt and unreliable, so far.  No doubt, there are many varied attempts by corporations and governments to control the Internet, and access to it, so that the common people will not learn what is truly happening in their communities and in the world.

Much is happening.  Stay tuned.  Stay informed.  Be here now.

Amen.

MH

Developing Branches of Life and Meaning

A soft spring rain fell gently on the trees, cascading through the leaves to the bright green belts of grass below. Then yesterday became today, leaving only a hint of clouds and a weather forecast for sun and warming, and the freshness of the post-rain air. Spring has been extraordinarily bountiful and beautiful this year.

Our village in Cypress is a suburban Eden, with lush green belts wrapping around the development of town homes and patio homes, generously dotted with trees, flowers and shrubs of many varieties. I know we travel to far away places in order to experience the diversities of people, culture, geography and foods, and to be with friends in their home lands. Sometimes, though, when I walk through our village, I wonder why we spend money and energy to travel anywhere else at all, to leave our paradise village, our wonderful home, and what my wife has created and nurtured for over a couple of decades to be our own wonderful small meditation garden, bedecked with fountains, wind chimes and bird feeders.

No, I have no regrets about traveling.  To the contrary, I dearly cherish the people and experiences that have so enriched our lives, but I think it is time to be home, and to invite our cherished friends to this wonderful place.  We have climbed the tropical forests of Kauai, above the Napali coast, the ancient pyramids of Oaxa and the Yucatan in Mexico, we have swam in the coral reefs off the coast of Bora Bora, and traveled among the alpine forests of Switzerland, Germany and Austria.  We have walked the ancient streets of Rome, hiked along Don Quixote’s windmills in La Mancha, Spain.   And now my longing is for home, here in Cypress Village, and to do some work, some writing, and perhaps to give back, to share, some of what I have learned in my fifty-seven years of life thus far.

When I gaze upon the trees in front of our home, I am reminded of their long and ancient histories, millennia before even their seeds, woven through centuries of poetry, myth and prose. I wonder how much we may be relinquishing in our modern technological age, where the focus of nature is blurred by the attention to virtual places and spaces, where the academics of our age is abandoning the liberal arts of literature, poetry, mythology and the great stories of old that link us to the past, and let us know the continuities of human existence, how we have developed and evolved.

We can learn about the science of trees, their natural technologies, but it is poetry and stories that attaches to our souls, deeply within our minds, in ways quite different from research and study.  Reading is an art of patience and reflection, of quiet concentration and focus upon words, and the release of the imagination to embrace the stories and verses of authors and  poets.

The ability to sustain a concentration long enough to read a book is being replaced my the short attention spans of multi-tasking electronic media, where people communicate, work and entertain themselves through screens, keyboards, keypads and touch screens of various sizes, shapes and abilities. Many people now text, email, work through apps and Internet, often without actually being with another human being outside of virtual relationships and spaces, save for a few minutes of their days. The only non-virtual experience with people may be on a freeway, still separated from each other by their cars, as millions commute alone to and from their work places. Funny, how crowded the freeways are with so many rolling metal boxes, each containing only a single human being, none able to touch each other, nor to communicate with each other except for a momentary glance as they pass each other.

I am not writing. I am typing. However, I am typing with full words and sentences. I wonder how much longer language will sustain the fullness of of words and meanings in this age where short-hand phrases and acronyms are creating an abbreviated and shallow means of virtual communication. Many people are communicating with bits and pieces of words, so I wonder if they retain only bits and pieces of meanings, as a result. LOL (This means “laugh out loud” in texting shorthand). On Facebook, the very popular social networking venue, which I used for a brief few times, each member has a profile and a wall, with various privacy settings to allow various elements of one’s profile to be seen by all, by some, or none. I noticed that when I posted a comment on another “friend”’s wall that I would get more responses about my style of writing, and the many words I used to write with, than I would about my comments.

In addition to the length of written or typed communications among us, and the fading art of concentration to read complete books, there is also a significant change in the way we communicate with each other through social networking. In particular, through Facebook. Facebook is only one of many social networking venues. There is Twitter, My Space, My Face, and Google’s new entry into the social networking realm, Buzz. Now, most social networking venues recognize that each of us has a variety of relationships with many different people in our lives. We have spouses and lovers, mothers and fathers, siblings and cousins, friends and associates, ministers and priests, employees and employers. In the non-virtual world, we develop and sustain these relationships in very different ways from each other. We treat and respect people differently and expect a different kind of treatment and respect in response, according to the nature of each type of relationship. All of this goes out the window on the level playing field of a social network venue.

Most social venues still ask the member if he or she would like to add a “person” to their social networking list, and each venue has its own privacy policies and settings to allow a person to see all of one’s profile, some of one’s profile, or none of it. And, a member may choose to allow the “persons” or “people” on his or her networking list to communicate with each other. The terms “people” and “persons” are generic, and allow the user to designate the nature of his or her relationships with the “people”, or people, he or she wants to network with on line, and what information is shared.

Facebook simply refers to anyone added to a member’s list as a “friend”, therefore all networking members of Facebook are deemed as “friends” whether this “friend” is a lover, a spouse, a mother or father, a sibling or cousin, real friend or associate, employee or employer. This single term will change the nature of the etiquette and relationships we have with each other on line. No differentiation by real relationships, unless one believes that he or she can be a “friend” to anyone. On the social networking venue of Facebook, we are all “friends”. It was for this, and other reasons, that I “de-faced” myself from Facebook. I don’t want to be a “friend” to everyone I know. I like my different roles with different people, which I hope are friendly most of the time.

It could well be I am making much out of nothing. I am, and have been for decades, very much concerned with the clarity of language, and using proper terms to communicate effectively, and to explain those terms, especially when presenting ideas and information about a subject that may be relatively unknown or familiar to my readers. Admittedly, I can use many words where fewer may suffice, sometimes to a fault. It may be that this transformation of language into texting short-hand will develop into a new language of bits, bytes and acronyms that links people together across present languages and cultures. There may be some advantage to equalizing all of us as “friends” on a social networking plane. Social pretenses may evaporate, along with levels of authoritarianism. In short, through social networking, we are all Bozos on this bus. I am all for breaking down the icons of tradition and authority that have been propped up for the sake of manipulating and deceiving people for thousands of years. Still, I reject the absence of etiquette and respect. Can we not have some proprieties that merit the experiences and knowledge of the long-lived and wise among us? I hope we retain such, and it must be reflected in social networking venues, as well, if this is going to remain as one of the key means by which people associate with each other.

So, I gaze again out upon the trees of ancient roots outside of my Cypress Village window, and I think of the ancient meanings of trees in thousands of years of poetry and mythology, the longtime vehicles of human truths—the oak of antiquity, the elm, and the ash, the dogwood and pine. In some ancient writings of cosmic creation, the trees were made before the sun, moon, and stars, a reflection of the deep relationship twixt human and tree, people and forest. We are made of the same stuff. The DNA that exists within tree and human is the same in substance, but different in order of strands on the double-helix of life. Yet, life all the same, weaving branches of leaves and branches of people among each other. The tree giving oxygen to the air for us to breathe, and human emitting carbon dioxide which nurtures the tree. An abundance of surrounding flora and fauna become elements in this relationship, a complexity of relationships of air, water, bacteria, viruses, algae, insects, birds, animals and humans. It is the ever-unfolding and changing nature of life, reflected through the language of poetry and myth, of ancient legends told and retold and retold again, featuring a hero of a thousand faces through a thousand ages.

It is the knowing through the changing stories and words that guides us back to the ancient roots, the common roots of tree and human. If we abandon these roots, we will lose the nurturance of a literary and real history, and the underlying sense of continuity from those days of old to now. We each lose a little bit of our selves when a human culture becomes extinct and, with it, its rich wealth of languages and meanings, words and stories, stretching back into antiquity.

A am a tree, and a tree is me,

and all that is in between us,

Time and space entangle our roots

and we mingle back to the

cosmic beginnings, or some

eternal cycle of things that

bind us as one.

A tree leaves, as we imagine.

A tree reaches up to the light

as we seek to be

alive as we can be.

– May 19th, Michael Hovey

With respect to the ancients, humans and trees,
Amen.
MH

WHY I DEFACED MYSELF FROM FACEBOOK

I defaced myself from Facebook, after my last of three experiments with it.  I am on Google’s Buzz and also on Twitter, which seem to be much less burdened by the complexities of Facebook’s structure, and geared much more to my purposes for a social network venue, which is to publicize my web site and web logs.  As far as I can see, Twitter seems to much more easily connect people by interest or topic, without the multi-layered profiles and multi-layered privacy settings of Facebook.  Also, there are not the myriads of apps and games on either of them that seem to overwhelm the space of one’s wall on Facebook with “friends” of “friends” games popping up all over it.

You can find my essays at my Cyberian Reflections web log at http://mhpathfinder.wordpress.com and at http://michaelhovey.wordpress.com.

Facebook is good for sharing photos, which can also be done through Buzz, and  Facebook, with many family members involved in it, it is easy to make a general announcement for an event or activity to the family, albeit not a direct communication with people, just a note on a wall.  However, Facebook has had some recent problems, and some of those–through my online data–could contaminate some confidentiality and legal client privilege issues down the road.   As for photos, I can share them via email, and Google’s Picasa makes this process very easy.

As recently as a few days ago, the executives of Facebook were holding an emergency “all-hands-on-board” meeting to discuss some serious problems with their privacy policies, when it was reported in the news that Facebook members’ personal profiles–no matter if set to “only me” or “everyone”–were being sold in lists to third-party marketing firms.   This explains why within days of my recent subscription to Facebook, I was suddenly overwhelmed with text messages on my cell phone and email messages from companies I had never done business with, nor desired to.  The American Civil Liberties Union, of which I am a member, sent me an email about the Facebook profile list marketing issues.

Most of us take it for granted that such a widely-used social networking venue is good for keeping in touch with family and frineds, and it is.  But, we do so without thinking about how all of the personal information about us that is aired is used, blocked or not.  When one “unsubscribes” from Facebook, the company keeps all of the profile, identity, addresses, phone numbers, interests, backlog of messages and posts, and other data that one puts on their Facebook pages.   Most people would assume that if he or she left Facebook, cancelled their subscription, that their data would be deleted.  Not so.  I discovered on a user forum that the information was being retained and sold to marketing firms.  One does have the option to have their Facebook data completely deleted, but not unless you do an intense search on the help page topics and Facebook user forums to find what that process is.  It is NOT readily available on the Facebook user’s Account settings or options, nor is it readily available on the Facebook help page.  There was not a single HELP topic that addressed deleting one’s page.  I put it in the HELP search window, and came up with a list of deleting one’s data topics.  When I clicked on any of them, NOTHING HAPPENED!  This was curious.  I went to the Facebook User Forum, and found the issue being kicked around by a number of users trying to leave Facebook and ensure that their data was deleted.  Eventually I found a user who posted the particular web page for deleting one’s data.  Even when I clicked to the site and clicked on the “submit” button to delete my Facebook pages, Facebook told me it would not be deleted for fourteen days.  Why?  Who knows?

The social networking venues of Facebook, Buzz, MySpace, Twitter and others are relatively new–only a couple of years old–and as they continue to evolve, ethics and etiquette for them will evolve as well.  I don’t think I want to be considered a “friend,” or “friend of a friend” to all that I network with, and Facebook is unique in using these terms.  Twitter or Buzz just say “people” without all of the ramification of the term “friend.”  Semantics and meanings may not seem so important to many, especially in this age of cell phone texting where acronyms and other linguistic shortcuts are threatening the richness of language.   Also there are issues of TMI, to use an acronym, or “too much information” that people provide, even the most trivial of communications, deemed appropriate or not, on Facebook to their “friends” and “friends of friends” who might also turn out to be their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, minister or priest, work associates or employers, or…as the web of “friends” of “friends” of “friends” of “friends” deepens…who knows who else?  As Facebook sells off lists of personal profiles to third party marketing companies, it would be best to assume that any and all information posted on Facebook is in the public domain, no matter the privacy settings.

For more on the most recent privacy issues plaguing FACEBOOK users, and prompting an emergency meeting of Facebook execs, read this article:

http://www.aclunc.org/issues/technology/blog/facebook_execs_meeting_today_on_your_privacy.shtml

At any rate, let’s keep in touch…by phone or email.

Amen.
Mike
a.k.a. M. H. Pathfinder

Of Earthly Avatars and Human Souls

If it is true that gods, angels and spirit worlds exist, if it is true that souls inhabit bodies, then bodies are merely avatars for this virtual world deemed real. And, it would seem, that the spirit world is the real world from which souls are implanted into avatars of this earthly realm at either conception, some point of meiosis or mitosis, or maybe even at birth. There is no way to establish when such in incarnation of a human soul might begin, so one is left to speculate as to some point along the continuum from conception to birth. Or, perhaps there are half-souls incarnated in sperm cells and ova, and that when a sperm and ovum unite, the genes of the two half-souled bodies mingle, share chromosomes, and a whole soul is conceived in the combined elements of the two bodies become a single new body and the two half-souls becoming a single whole soul.

This presents the question: Are there a bunch of half-souls in the real spirit world, or do souls split to be incarnated into sperm and ova and reunite when each half has found its respective other half. This would mean that a certain sperm was meant to find a specific ovum that had its specific soul-half that was missing in the incarnations into sperm and ova. If whole souls are incarnated within human forms then it would have to occur some time after meiosis and mitosis when the human form is whole, and one might suspect that it would occur after the central nervous system is formed, but such suspicions seem to be left to the imagination in attempts to decipher the process of spirits incarnating human bodies from the real spirit world to this virtual earthly existence.

We are offlanders, or outsiders, to the spirit world, peering in through dreams and maybe through communicative attempts through prayer. In Christian terms, this virtual place for incarnated souls is merely a testing ground of faith, and the faithless are condemned to be isolated from the spirit world in a fiery hell of pain and gnashing of teeth, and all of that. The faithful, deemed so by bowing down to the authoritarian ruler of the spirit-god Yahweh, and to his spirit-son, Jesus, may rise up into the sky, and from there to that spirit world and join with Yahweh and Jesus forever. Or, Yahweh may be Jesus to some who believe in the mystery of the trinity, and then they would simply spend eternity in this spirit world with Yahweh, either as himself or as his son, Jesus, or maybe the forms of Yahweh and Jesus are avatars for the earthly avatars and these too are shed in the spirit world. Who knows?

James Cameron created the wonderful fantasy film, AVATAR, in which a young marine becomes the savior, or messiah, of the Na’vi people of the moon world of Pandora. He “ drives” an avatar fashioned from the DNA of his human brother, now dead, and Na’vi DNA. In the story, Jake Sully, the young marine becomes the avatar through a “linking” process, in which it seems that the whole of his conscious mind is transferred to the avatar and his body sleeps when the link is in process. When the avatar sleeps, he returns to his human body, and this may also happen when some one interrupts the link process. Jake Sully has incentive to remain in his avatar body. Jake is a paraplegic due to a war injury to his spine. His avatar body is tall, agile and strong. Gravity is light on Pandora allowing the Na’vi to perform with amazing physical prowess. Jake also becomes a Na’vi, inside and out, and this changes the entire scenario of the corporate sponsor’s plan for Jake to spy on the Na’vi as one of them in order to move them out of their ancestral home under which a valuable natural fuel in the form of a mineral ore exists in massive quantities. Eventually, by story’s end, Jake becomes a Na’vi without the link-up process, but through the spiritual incarnation of his earthly self into his avatar body, through the spirit-mother or goddess that exists within all things of Pandora.

The film might give Christians a sense of how it may be that a soul of the spirit world would become incarnate in a human form. The other alternative is that the soul of a human may never have existed before the conception between a sperm and ovum, in which case the soul would begin at this time of cell meiosis and mitosis, or some time after, but before the actual birth. How does a Christian know whether a human soul existed before its inhabitancy of its human form, or if the soul began when the human form began? How does one’s perspective of the conception of a human soul affect his or her sense of the spirit world and this one? Which is real and which is virtual? Are both worlds real, and if so, why can’t we access the spirit world in a more tangible way? Are these two dimensions—this earthly realm in this tiny obscure spot, spinning around one of billions and billions of stars within one of billions and billions of galaxies in this universe that we can sense, and then this spirit dimension which we cannot sense at all?

As an atheist, I’m outside of the sphere of faith in such worlds and things.  I do have a notion that other dimensions exist about which we know very little.  Indeed, it seems that at least eleven dimensions must exist in order for the behavior of subatomic particles to be mathematically calculated to explain the weakness of gravity, according to quantum physics.

The hunt for new dimesions:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2714

M-Theory: Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory.

We have very few ideas about these dimensiona and how they may affect us beyond our existence in these three familiar dimensions and into the fourth, in which space and time can bend.  So, it seems plausible to disccus the possiblities of what these dimensions may be like and what exists within them.  Is one dimension that which is so often referred to as “heaven”?

Food for thought.  Eat some.

Questions? Comments?

Crossing Platforms in Midstream…Yet…Again!

Several months ago, I was ready to give up on Ubuntu.  And, for very, very short while,  I did.  All things changed with the release of Ubuntu 9.04, back in April 2008.  It was apparent that all of my hardware issues had been resolved in the 9.04, or Jaunty Jackalope, version.  By June, I had stripped Windows off of all but one of our six computers in my home.  We have two Gateway desktops, a 2100E and 4100E.  The 4100E is my business computer, as well as a testing lab for various operating systems, fixes and utilities.  Ubuntu, at this writing is now at version 9.10, Karmic Koala, released on November 1st 2009.

In April 2010, version 10.04 LTS will be released.  LTS stands for Long Term Support.  This version has eliminated HAL, thus the speed for startups and shutdowns is quite amazingly fast.  And, the Alpha 2 version, seems to operate at a brisk pace moving among several programs open at the same time.

My wife’s three computers–her seldom-used Gateway 2100E desktop, her Compaq V2000 laptop, and her Acer Aspire One AOS150 netbook, all have Ubuntu 9.10 loaded and running, with the Compaq V2000 functioning as a dual-boot system alongside of Windows XP, for her access to MS Frontpage for her web editing.  There is still no comparable WYSIWYG web editing program for LINUX that I know of that can do what MS Frontpage can do so easily and well.

Two of my three computers–the Gateway 4100E, my Acer Aspire One AOD250-1026 netbook are both running UBUNTU 9.10, with the netbook running on the well-devised and designed Netbook Remix version.

I also have a nearly useless first-generation netbook, an Asus EEE PC 700 Surf series netbook, with only a 700-plus CPU, 512 megs RAM, the maximum, and a useless 2-gig solid state hard drive.  It has Xandros LINUX on it, a clunky and poor operating system that uses half the 2-gig solid state drive, forcing any documents or files to be saved on a secure digital disk.  It’s not very old, but it quickly became a museum piece in the rapid development of netbook lines through Asus, Acer, HP and several other companies.

UBUNTU 9.10 installs smoothly and everything–and I mean everything–worked right away on all of our systems.   There are some good advisable tweaks through a Google Search, by typing in “Things to do after installing Ubuntu 9.10,” to maximize the functions of multimedia programs, add some third-party plugins and utilities (such as Adobe Flash), and to install a few additional utilities and aesthetic tweaks to the system.

I could spend time telling you more, but just go to Ubuntu’s site.

For me, Microsoft is almost totatlly nonessential for any of my professional or personal needs.  Open Source is the way for all of us.

http://www.ubuntu.com

and for more open source distributions, most based upon the LINUX kernel, go to

http://www.distrowatch.com

Giving Thanks on This Day

Happy Thanksgiving Day, although every day is a good and thankful day.  We are mutually independent social beings, and much of what we enjoy in life has been through the love and care, science, technology and engineering  of millions who have come before us, and through the important personal relationships of family, friends and associates here and now.

I thank the brave heretics of human history–people of reason and learning–who dared to think, to reason and to move us from beliefs and superstitions to reason and discovery, many being burned at the stake, beheaded, tortured, imprisoned or banished for their freedom of thought.  It has been through the daring people of reason and science, exploration and discovery, who have moved us from superstition and belief to clarity and truth,  from a flat earth to a round one, from a stagnant creation to an evolving universe, from angels and demons to the amazing structures and functions of the human brain, from heavens and hells to the technological and engineering potentials of humans in a bountiful biosphere of an amazing planet.  To the dilligence and persistence of so many brave and intelligent people, I am thankful.

It must also be noted all of those indigenous peoples who have been obliterated, slaughtered, enlsaved, and moved off of their native lands for the selfish benefit of those who would exploit the lands for their resources, in blatant disregard for the lives and welfare of the people of the land.  We don’t have an Apology Day to go with our Thanksgiving Day, so we should take the time to remember the many who have lost so much through the actions of many of our ancestors, so that we may truly appreciate the human cost of what we enjoy in our lives today.

When I think of the cost to the lives of Native Americans–North, Central and South, and the lives of black Africans enslaved for centuries, I am humbled as a descendent of white Europeans, and this day takes on a much different meaning.

I thank all of the courageous political activists who have worked dilligently to raise the consciousness and consciences of American people over the years, working for civil laws that reflect true equality, justice and fairness for all people–writers, artists, teachers, students, and people from all walks of life who come together for the cause of equal rights of all people, regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual orientation.

Personally, I thank family, friends, and our dog, Truffle, for the love and care, joys and laughter, over the years.  I am even thankful for the trials and tribulations of life that teach many lessons, although sometimes pain is just pain and has no redeeming value.  I thank my self for waking each day as an opportunity to discover something new.  I am thankful for the potentials of joy and discovery, love and laughter, that each day brings to the human experience.

I am thankful to the makers and engineers of bicycles who have allowed me to retain health and vitality, without medication, by a daily pedaling of body and spirit, spirit being some amalgam of mind and body and relationships through life, for which we have no clear single term.  In minutes, I depart for my morning moving meditation of wheel and road.

I am most grateful to my loving wife, Betty, for being with me on our long life of love, joy, laughter, travel, learning, discovery and growth, through which we have mingled minds and hearts, bodies and experience, family and friends.  May it continue for a long, long while.

So Be It.

Reason…Compassion…Peace

Be Here Now

Being Human: The Nature of the Journey

The nature of the journey

The religious journey is the pursuit of truth,

back to our source of being,

the original meaning,

that elusive end to which we never arrive,

yet by which

our paths are so greatly illuminated.

The greatest wonder of it all

is that we’ve never left the source to get back to it,

but we have deceived ourselves most artfully

We are religious animals. We have a deeply profound need to belong with “The Other.” It begins at conception when two genetic banks of information mingle (male and female), then develop into a colony of cells that continue to split off into other colonies of various form and function, yet all within the same mass, on the wall of the uterus of a mother. Other processes and time contribute to development, until a time when we are propelled through a narrow channel from the comfort of this small and secure place and out into a world of noise, cold, other beings, and apart from our source of dependence and nurturance. In our nubile state, we are still completely dependent on “The Other,” in this case our mother. We cannot feed nor protect our fragile fleshy bodies from the elements, nor move about in any fruitful way, in order to survive. Our instincts are to whelp for attention until we are attended to. Without “The Other” at this stage in our human development we would surely die. It is almost as if we’ve been taken from the womb prematurely. We were, before our conception, and the mingling of two genetic banks of information, without a sense, without a clue, and never separate from the whole of things. Our consciousness was that of the cosmos, if it has one. We were of a perpetual cosmic process.

What a mad trick, to be endowed with conscious mind that would eventually perceive itself as–not only separate from the whole–but a unique and reflective being unto itself. It is a trick, intentioned or not, for we are truly NOT independent from the whole. We’ve never left the ecosystem that produced us. We’ve merely transformed in shape and function. The paradox of human existence is this, that we are of one indistinguishable flow, though in a transient form of human existence for some duration of time, before expiring. The energy and matter that was an individual “me” is soon dissipated among the ecosystem once more to recombine with other cosmic elements into other forms and functions. Even in our most supreme state of human independence, we are dependent upon the air, water, plants and animals, other people and a desirable climate. We are compelled to belong with each other. Even the hermit in a cave cannot exist without having learned some skills from another or to use some tools and appliances that were manufactured by another.

Beyond our early development, we socialize with a larger group–from our primary care giver to a family, extending to a tribe or clan, to a community of friends and associates, to a city-state of interdependent organizations and structures, to a nation, and now to a world.

It is no wonder then, that early humans, perceived all of the activities of nature as being animated by “The Other” for our development dictated to us that we could not exist without “The Other.” At birth, we had lost our Cosmic identity, we had no sense of being part of the whole of things. The development of reflective thought occured within the context of our mutual dependence with each other. When the earth turned, presenting the illusion that the sun traveled across the sky, day after day after day, it was perceived not only as moving, but as being moved by an anthropomorphized being, a super human, a god.

All immediately intangible events were explained through an anthropomorphic projection of our own childhood experience– perhaps a providing parent, a mentoring friend, an anonymous and/or alien specter ,or a suspicious or harmful enemy. Our minds are full of archetypes of legend and lore. Then, as today, organized religion was married to the State, through which the distribution of goods and services were controlled by an elite and powerful few, controlling the masses through their religious dogmas, implying a work ethic that would benefit the elite and powerful through the toil of the masses, and whipping up a combination of nationalism and religious duty to compel men into cannon fodder to war for the extension of the empire and the extermination of competing states and religions. In some cases, the religion WAS the state, as in the long and bloody reign of many a Catholic pope.

In other cases, the State was all, as in China under the bloody dictatorship of Mao, where a grotesque distortion of communism was misused to slaughter millions in the name of Mao. Communism is an ideology in which a community benefits from the work of each other in an egalitarian government in which all are equal, without a hierarchy of social classes.. In “communist” China, there was no equality. Those who controlled the State controlled the people. There was a ruling class, a lot of propaganda, and a peasant class. Those who demonstrated allegience to the State rose in power within the misnamed Communist Party. It was, in truth, an elitist party. Nothing communal about it. The Cultural Revolution under Mao, which led to the slaughter of millions and the destruction of surrounding societies as in Tibet, ended with Mao’s death. The elitist dictatorial government structure remained. The so-called “Communist” Party is still the party of power, but capitalism has exploded in China, which is now becoming the most lucrative economic power in the world. It is the major manufacturer and exporter of goods in the world.. The Chinese religious legends and lore have been altered to satisfy the State, but many traditional archetypes persist. In other countries, legends and lore of old are infusing with products of a technological entertainment and communications revolution.

Today’s legends and lore are an abstract compilation of marketing ads, films, video games, books, and ancient religious texts. The traditional archetypes have been morphed into manipulative advertising and propaganda by corporations and governments to persuade the common citizens of earth’s lands to buy their products and services, labor in their factories, and act as cannon fodder in their warring disputes over corporate control of energy sources and natural resources. In this sense, the manipulation of the masses has not changed, but the means of delivering propaganda and manipulative ads has become one of the leading industries of the empire. It has become a sophisticated and highly professional field of business and government.

It is my mission to help people fend off the propaganda, the intertwining manipulations of religion and politics, the distorted and persuasive advertising, by learning to be good researchers. My goal is to educate people to dissieminate fact from fiction, to find the truth among the spinning rhetoric of politicians and their corporate news affiliates, to follow the money trails to see who benefits from a war, a bending of environmental law that harms citizens, the exploitation of dwindling fossil fuels, and more.

To this end, I advocate three guiding elements–reason, human compassion, and desire for peace. For tools, I recommend a computer and an Internet access service, your mind, and the ability to suspend your preconceived notions about the way you believe the world of governments, religion and corporations function in the world.

I recommend the Scientific Method which begins any study without assumptions. One begins with observation, which leads to a question. The question is then presented as a hypothesis. The Scientific Method is applied to keep us honest. We seek not to PROVE our hypthesis, but to prove its opposite–the NULL hypothesis. Thus, reason and skepticism guide to consider NOT how our assumptions may be correct, but to analyze the variable elements that can confound what our assumptions are, or may imply.

I understand the faith that so many devote to their religions, vehicles of moral truths transmitted through ritual and tradition, some for millennia. Religion is, more often than not, the central focal point of a culture, of that culture’s families, and therefore of an individual’s sense of belonging. The irrational attachment with which one adheres to these important social belief systems is what we call faith. Faith, without reason, can only lead to group-think, ostracization and/or denouncement of those outside of the faith, and–in the extreme case–war. Within an irrational religious faith lie the seeds of prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, discrimination and persecution of others. An irrational faith carries with it a sense of arrogant self-righteousness that condemns the rich diversity of humanity that exists outside of itself. A healthy faith is based on reason, adapts to the facts of the universe in which it arises, and reconciles its tenets to reality. An unhealthy faith will deny the reality of the natural world, will be intolerant of other cosmic possibilities and those who believe in them, and become a dangerous threat to the family of Man. One need only to read a scholarly book of human history to see the calamity that irrational and bigoted faith has had upon human civilizations.

It is for this reason, that I left organized religion so many years ago, that my mind would not be consumed by a singular irrational explanation of our human existence within the Cosmos, that it could explore ideas, philosophies, facts and fictions, untethered by the preconceived notions of dogma, doctrine, or creed.

A single word can be packed with a multitude of preconceived notions. Example? “God”. To some a fatherly, white bearded heavenly creator, who made humankind in his image out of loneliness, and observes and intercedes upon his creation from some heavenly throne. Does one dare ask how, within an eternal realm of existence , this being can separate out a moment in which to suddenly feel lonely? To others, a faceless spirit moving through the Cosmos as a constant creative force. To others, a supernatural entity that can take on a human form by which to redeem the creatures it created that had chosen to exist in ways not tolerable to this entity. To still others, an animating force in each and every form of this physical universe. And, yet to others, a concept projected from a human mind to explain the events of natural phenomena. Thing move. Things happen. Some ONE has to be moving them and making them happen. Lastly, to others (such as myself) a projected irrational fantasy-being of one’s self, to provide comfort and security in the face of fear, anguish and the absence of reasonable explanation. Human belief in gods diminishes according to the level of one’s education, utility of reason, understanding of science, and intellectual development.

http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/iqstats.html

To be a “truth walker” one is compelled to leave a standing position.

Amen.

MH

Lights in the Darkness…A Winter’s Solstice

Happy winter holidays! May the light of love and celebration deliver you from the darkness of the winter solstice and into the new year.

There are many among us who live to survive, without homes and the means for any reliable sustainance. Their lives are not secure enough to consider the lofty thoughts about our cosmic origins and our relationship to this wondrous cosmos. A bit of bread, some water and pillow to rest one’s head become the light in the darkness for too many among us.

We have the means to feed the world. We have the global communications technology to link the world in such a humanitarian endeavor. We have international organizations through which we may end violence and war among peoples across the globe. We have the means to develop renewable, sustainable energy to power our civilizations without severely damaging the earth’s fragile ecosystem.  Yet, we do none of these things with whole-heartedness nor vigor.  War and pestilence prevail in the world.  Dictatorships flourish.  Global climate change occurs without any great sense of urgency to deal with the consequences for people and the planet.  Poverty exists on a massive scale.  Children die of hunger and thirst, or war and aggression in many places of the world.

We have allowed, thus far in our modern world,  systemic, non-human corporate machines–technocracies comprised of mixtures of humans and vast automated systems–with the sole directive to maximize monetary profits through the exploitation of any and all resources, people and governments, to dictate the fate of our species. The exploitive nature of corporate technocracies becomes the impetus and personality of many global corporations to the detriment of humankind.  The fundamentalist belief in the mythological “free market” system is only that.  In reality, markets are manufactured, maintained, controlled and changed through the manipulations of those who control the largest corporations in the world.  Our means of accessing information, education, food, clothing and shelter, have all been bought up by massive cartels of corporate interest.  The vast majority of the governments of the world are controlled, manipulated and exploited for the interests of these massive conglomerates.  When the interests of corporations conflict with those of a human population, the population is controlled, overpowered and aggressively defanged through military aggression asserting the rights of corporate interests over populations that would seek to put their interests ahead of the corporate profiteers.  Usually, their governments, police and military are controlled, such as the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. military to establish fourteen permanent military bases in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East and to built a 600 million-dollar American embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world.

A small band of American imperialist ideologues, referred to as “Neoconservatives” pushed an agenda into Iraq that was to begin a plan to ensure that no nation or government in the world would ever challenge the sole supremacy of the United States as most powerful nation in the world.   The plan was entitled, “Project for a New American Century” and among the goals of its authors was the dismantling of over sixty governments in the world, a massive military spending campaign with the purpose to conduct at least four major theater wars in the world at any one time and win them all decisively, among other Draconian measures.  There is, obviously, nothing democratic about ensuring the persistence of an American republican empire, but those who are the true believers were looking more to maintain their stock interests in massive military arms and energy companies than they were to advance democratic or humanistic principles to the world.

The web site for the “Project for a New American Century” is no longer, although many components of the imperial agenda are being advanced through other means and other political processes.  Those who have held power in the White House over the past eight years have conducted many internationally criminal and/or subservisce activities to promote and enact their plan.  It was nothing less than an attempt to cement a fascist dictatorship into the American governmental system, a slow-brewing coup that, from all appearances, seems to have fallen flat on its face.  Those who have attempted this coup are not being held accountable, as of yet, for any of their deceptions, acts of aggression masked by lies, nor for the willful disregard for American and international laws in attempting to manipulate human populations for their ends.

Yet, there are signs of a massive change in human direction for this country, and the world.  There are signs that people aspire to something greater, and want their governments to reflect human needs in law and practice, no longer being dictated to by the whims of a handful of profiteers.

On January 20th, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the first black president of the United States.  This monumental event in human history reflects the compassion and humanitarian message of Barack Obama, it is an inspired movement that has motivated people across the nation, and across the world, with a hope of a more compassionate, understanding and benevolent consciousness among people.  Barack was able to motivate people across boundaries of race, culture, religion, class and income with a hope for change, and this change would entail pulling together the major challenges of humankind into a single massive endeavor to redesign human society through the efforts of, and for the benefit of, common people everywhere.  There is much to be done to realize the reality from the hope, but the hope and motivation of the American people, are very strong, especially because of the financial, energy, environmental issues we currently face, which all need to be addressed through a comprehensive national works program to rebuild the infrastructure of our society, to develop renewable and sustainable energy technologies, and to address the fallout of global climatge change.  Barack Obama has a vision of change in American that invites us to work together for a new American revolution, and this one will be occur, not with guns, but through reason, compassion and a desire for peace in a world of mutual respect among all people.

I look forward to this new human adventure which begins on January 20th.

MH

Has the “Wolf at the Door” Been Fed?

It’s been some time since my last post.  My last being a reaction to then-candidate John McCain’s newfound alliance with the Religious Right, vis vie through John Hagee, a popular megachurch pastor that sucks massive amounts of money from his TV and church audiences through his religious propaganda program of fear, superstition and self-righteousness.  It’s a disappointing phenomenon to behold to understand that millions of gullible people are even paying attention to such a charlatan, much less believing what he has to say.  So be it.  The “saving grace” (pun intended) is that McCain/Palin lost the election to a rational and compassionate Barack Obama, who ran a campaign for the people through brilliant organization and planning, using the communications technology of Internet and cell phone texting to reach out to a broad spectrum of individual contributers and voters.

History has been made.  We have the first half-Afro-American ever elected to president.  Much more than this, we have the first president-elect since Kennedy who can inspire masses of people, both here and abroad, with brilliant, compassionate and inclusive rhetoric that casts a spell of hope and optimism on so many of us.  May these good feelings continue.

Obama promises to “hit the ground running” after his inauguration.  Already, he has put together a good portion of his cabinet and staff, with a broad and pragmatic array of secretaries and staff to put forth, challenge and temper his ideological vision and plans for America’s recovery from economic recession, urgent environmental concerns, war and a Bush-stained international reputation.  He has my support and constructive criticism to help in any way I can.

What I find amusing within myself at this time is how much of my intellectual grounding was in opposing the New American Dark Age of the Bush era.  Now that light is pulling us to to the end of this dark tunnel, I can feel my “edge” becoming blunted.  When I was hungry, as the “Wolf at the Door” for any sense of hope, any sense of reason and human compassion coming from the White House or Congress, my focus was clear, my mind sharp, my intellect at the ready.  Now, I find that I have less of an edge, less worrry with Obama coming onto the scene.  I should still be poised for danger, because Pelosi is still Speaker of the House and Harry Reid is still majority leader in the senate.  There is still much damage that can be done, and much necessary work for Americans and the world that can be stifled with the wrong-way directions of these legislative bodies.   DId I mention the conservative Supreme Court?  How about a corporate-compliant, amoral news media industry?

The wolf, though slightly sated by optimistic hope, should not grow too complacent at this time, and should be poised to pounce, for the packs of lobbyists and pressures on Obama to foresake his vision will be great.  I will patiently crouch and wait.

Amen.

MH

What McCain Missed About John Hagee

John Hagee, popular fundamentalist Christian minister, known for professing outrageous things in the public arena, was finally chastised by a political candidate, but not for the many odd things he announces in modern day, but comments he made over a decade ago. I’ve tuned Hagee in on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBS) for the shear entertainmnet value. It is laughable to me that anyone could profess the prophetic writings of an ancient religious book after living in a society that makes available so many scholarly works on the myths, legends, history and theologies of these sixty-six books (sans the Apocrychas), politically decided upon by the hashing out of various Christian factions nearly two millennia past at the canonical councils. And we can thank the imperial march of Roman troops into so many lands, upsetting so many cultures and various other religions, for the spread of Christendom, not to mention the centuries of bloody Christian Crusades and torturous inquisitions throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and on into the desecration of the native peoples of the “New World.”

Nonetheless, a majority of American profess their beliefs in this book–the Jewish books of the Old Testament with a New Testament addendum–augmentations, distortions, manipulations and additions by authors professing a faith in a resurrected Messiah.  Paul, of which much of the New Testament is comprised of his letters to various congregations, makes no mention of the earthly man, Jesus, only to a netherworld demigod called Jesus Christ.  Paul visited Jerusalem on several occasions, but never makes mention of it being the place where his son-god spent his last earthly days.  In fact, Paul makes no mention of a Jesus in Jerusalem at all, nor of his many works and teachings.  Curious, but very, very true.  Yet, I would be surprised if many professed believers in the New Testament writings would even acknowledge this fact.

According to research by Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason— sixty-two percent of these “ believers” do not know the names of the four gospels of the New Testament nor that Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament, much less the mysterious omissions of any reference to an earthly man named Jesus by the Apostle Paul. As a biblical researcher and reader of scholarly critical analyses of these ancient texts, I am always struck with wonder how people could so readily profess a belief in that about which they know so little. But, Fox News also also attracts a wide number of believing news viewers even after more than a decade of selling lies, deceits and misinterpretations of fact, so I shouldn’t be too awe-struck by the prevalence of ignorance in people who rely upon unreliable resources for their information.

The books of Ezekiel and Daniel of the Old Testament and the Revelation of John which closes out the New Testament make so many obvious references to the astrological zodiacal wheel of symbols and meanings that it is laughable that anyone would include these books as part of their “ infallible Word of God.” But, then Genesis’s two creation stories are confused and confounded in the minds of many, the plurality of gods of Genesis 5, whose “sons of the gods intermarried with the daughters of men” is dismissed by many “believers” as a mystery not to be understood. Their offspring, the Nephilum, were the “giants and heroes of old.” The similarities of Samson to other heroic figures such as Hercules brings to mind Joseph Campbell’s great works on religious mythologies, especially the book, The Hero of a Thousand Faces.” The Noahic flood myth is so nearly the same story from Babylonia written twelve hundred years before it that it is unconscionable that biblical readers who learn this haven’t seen the lack of historical validity to their books of faith. Not to mention the myth of King Sargon I of Babylonia who, as an infant, was placed in a basket of reeds and pitch and set afloat down the river to save him from slaughter, and he was rescued by a handmaiden and rose to be the leader of a great nation. Moses anyone?

Yet, John Hagee, and many like him, can stand up before a massive throng of thousands of people and profess to know the meanings of what he interprets to be predictions for the world drawn from this collection of arcane, disjointed, historically confused concoctions of infused mythologies, theologies and meanings. A majority of American believe that the end of the world is near. Forty percent, or more, believe in a notion called the “Rapture,” in which it is believed that Jesus will return and many people will simply disappear from the earth to be “taken up into the sky” (to another planet? Another dimension? The “believers” are vague on just where their heaven is, because—I guess—their professed god is not a very clear provider of meanings and directions). Hagee aligns himself with the Zionists of Israel, believing that Jerusalem will be the centerpiece of a great war, led by Jesus, against the evildoers of the earth, in the final battles of Armageddon. And he will point, in great geographical detail , to places on a map of the Middle East and reference them to obscure and ahistorical phrases of biblical passages.

Thus, the United States, populated by a majority of people who believe in these nonsensical things, deserves a George W. Bush as their president, the least mentally capable and most intellectually challenged president in the history of the United States. Susan Jacoby got it right. This IS the age of American Unreason. I call it the New American Dark Age, and if there is light at the end of the tunnel, it is very, very dim at this writing. Superstitious religious theology mingled and mired with nationalistic jingoism prevails over science and reason. Unchallenged public political statements become the social dogma of the masses while the money trails and corporate capitalist lusts for power point to a whole different set of facts behind the geopolitics of the world than what the masses believe. The Constitution of the United States is readily shredded through the passage of right-stripping legislation, unread by the congressional representatives who pass them into law. Torture is now a policy of the American government, as well as abducting people into renditions and prisons, without the right of habeas corpus, dure process of law, right to an attorney, or even being charged with a crime.

John McCain denounces Hagee for his discriminatory and bigoted remarks, but doesn’t question any of the thousands of ridiculous statements about history, morality and world events made by Hagee over the past several years. The American Dark Age continues.

Amen. MH Pathfinder