Recently I started writing my autobiography. Benvenuto Cellini once said anyone who had achieved anything had the responsibility to do so. What Cellini actually said was more along the lines of every important man (of which number he included himself) needed to do so, but I'll make his comment more inclusive.
I'm finding that writing about my life is far more difficult than I anticipated, not the least because I've needed to confront my demons with honesty and persistence, none of which I expected when I started. I'm finding, like Judy Collins in her song about life and clouds, that life's illusions are seductive side alleys.
Writing about life and living means dealing with parts of life that have been neatly (or maybe not so neatly) locked away in the file cabinets that are our brains. Sometimes we have tried to dump these memories because they are painful, or because they reveal us in ways we would prefer not to show the world. Whatever the reason, if one is to write an autobiography rather than a straight history or a journal, it is necessary to deal with feelings, prejudices, fears, unruly emotions--the things that make us human and also make life difficult. The good stuff in our lives is easy. It's the darker things we learn from--and, as I am learning, we all have them.
I've written many times in this blog about my dismay with religion and politics. Both of these pursuits have been with us since our earliest days as human beings. At least, we assume they have since every time we come across a new cave painting or carving, the first guess we make is that it is ceremonial and has to do with religion. Part of that is extrapolating onto ancient people our own need to find purpose in life and to express the wonder of our own improbable existence. I've been reading a history of the British Isles and have to wonder how my ancestors survived the plundering, warfare, plagues, and natural disasters--why me? why any of us? why didn't our ancestral lines die out? I suppose this is why we pay professional religionists to tell us what to think about these things.
When it comes to religion, I get the human impulse, but at the same time, I doubt the "accepted" answers we are told we have to believe. I cannot accept the idea of some godhead sitting in judgment of the day to day activities of four billion people in the world, and I am offended when someone says that their lucky escape from some disaster was a deity's handiwork when that means that all the others who weren't so lucky were on his s-- list. It doesn't work that way--and herein my problem both with religion and with politics: they are the creation of the human species, born out of our need to feel part of a group, and, even more, to feel superior.
There's a Jewish joke about a town always needing two synagogues: the one you attend and the one you don't. The implication, of course, is that your synagogue (or church, or school, or political opinion) is better than the other. All this is absolute nonsense. Nothing religious can be proved--that's what faith means--yet we are willing to kill each other over it. In politics, I doubt very much that someone asked directly to support a political prejudice (the poor are lazy for example) can produce any data to prove it. It is sufficient only for the speaker to feel good about themselves by judging other people.
If you look back to the last time we were told that the US was going to hell, that freedom as we know it has been lost, and that our children will never know the "real" America, it occurred when Reagan was running for president and he was talking about Medicare (which he promised to oppose). We older folk gratefully accept Medicare these days as undoubtedly we will accept the newest health care reforms in the years ahead. Obamacare may well be one of the cornerstones of our future. Politics is the art of finding people's prejudices and getting out in front of them--all the while hoping that people are too vain to notice.
I think Cellini is right--we all need at some point to sit down to look ourselves in the mirror and ask what the heck we are about. I highly recommend writing an autobiography, finding out why we are so willing to accept the closing of our minds through religion, why we are so willing to give up our individuality in the name of conforming to some political position or other that makes absolutely no sense when looked at in the dispassionate light of day, and why we don't trust our own observations of a universe that deserves so much better from us.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Looking Back Down the Road
These days, we hear endless talk from certain circles about not liking illegals, not liking the national debt, not liking Nancy Pelosi, not much liking the unemployed (but loving the unemployment rate as long as it is going up or down), not liking paying for education, not liking anyone else getting something for nothing all the while greedily accepting whatever pension or public slop comes down the trough. Everyone's unhappy with something; some are unhappy with everything; some just don't want anything but anarchy; some just want change for its own sake.
All this compaining seems to be burned into the human psyche.
I bet when they were building the pyramids, Kufu the stone carver grumbled about all those freeloading illegals come over from Sinai, stealing jobs from the locals and having too many children. And what about the pharaoh, how intelligent is it to run up the national debt just to build a tomb? It has to be the influence of all the homosexual courtiers waving about more than their fans. And what about Ramses, the new wonderboy stone cutter that everyone wants to carve on their tombs? It's all about youth anymore. Now back in the days, life was good: women didn't meddle in politics and children were raised to respect their elders--not playing in the streets but working to help support the family. There was more discpline and more respect for the gods--today we need to burn more incense, slaughter more sheep, and return Egypt to what it once was.
So as Kufu chips and shapes the blocks of masonry, he dreams of returning to this wonderful past. It's a time he hardly remembers except through the haze of years--choosing to forget the violence, illiteracy, and short lifespans that were part of daily life. It was a halcyon time for Kufu because it was familiar and he had a place within it. The fact that it may not be for anyone else escapes him.
Kufu's unfocused nostalgia continues today. It lives on among our conservative brethren who would like to return us to something, although I'm not clear what.
Is it, I wonder, the days of the early Republic when members of Congress fired pistols in the halls and beat one another about the head with canes? When the South based its economy on cotton and slavery? When a woman who didn't conform was burned as a witch? Or is it the early 19th Century with the settlement of the West when graveyards were full of children dead from lack of medical attention and when law was only as good as the fastest draw? Is it the late 19th Century when women and children were the chattel of their husbands and only men of property could vote? Or was it the early 20th Century when the world was consumed in war after war? When my grandfather would have denied me an education because teaching a woman more than housework was a waste? When my grandmother would have been startled by my irreligious attitudes? When my greatgrandparents would have sent me to work in the mills to help pay the rent?
I have to admit that I can do a credible Kufu too. I remember happy times from my childhood in 1950s Britain. People seemed more neighborly. Life seemed less rushed. There wasn't such an emphasis on what Wordsworth called getting and spending. But before I get carried away, I remember my mother and her friends doing a Kufu over the loss of Britain's empire. Having an empire meant prestige for her generation; yet how many among us today would advocate acquiring one? My memories are obviously cherrypicked.
The kids raised today will probably look back on life in the early 21st Century as familiar because it is all they have ever known. Now that is a thought.
All this compaining seems to be burned into the human psyche.
I bet when they were building the pyramids, Kufu the stone carver grumbled about all those freeloading illegals come over from Sinai, stealing jobs from the locals and having too many children. And what about the pharaoh, how intelligent is it to run up the national debt just to build a tomb? It has to be the influence of all the homosexual courtiers waving about more than their fans. And what about Ramses, the new wonderboy stone cutter that everyone wants to carve on their tombs? It's all about youth anymore. Now back in the days, life was good: women didn't meddle in politics and children were raised to respect their elders--not playing in the streets but working to help support the family. There was more discpline and more respect for the gods--today we need to burn more incense, slaughter more sheep, and return Egypt to what it once was.
So as Kufu chips and shapes the blocks of masonry, he dreams of returning to this wonderful past. It's a time he hardly remembers except through the haze of years--choosing to forget the violence, illiteracy, and short lifespans that were part of daily life. It was a halcyon time for Kufu because it was familiar and he had a place within it. The fact that it may not be for anyone else escapes him.
Kufu's unfocused nostalgia continues today. It lives on among our conservative brethren who would like to return us to something, although I'm not clear what.
Is it, I wonder, the days of the early Republic when members of Congress fired pistols in the halls and beat one another about the head with canes? When the South based its economy on cotton and slavery? When a woman who didn't conform was burned as a witch? Or is it the early 19th Century with the settlement of the West when graveyards were full of children dead from lack of medical attention and when law was only as good as the fastest draw? Is it the late 19th Century when women and children were the chattel of their husbands and only men of property could vote? Or was it the early 20th Century when the world was consumed in war after war? When my grandfather would have denied me an education because teaching a woman more than housework was a waste? When my grandmother would have been startled by my irreligious attitudes? When my greatgrandparents would have sent me to work in the mills to help pay the rent?
I have to admit that I can do a credible Kufu too. I remember happy times from my childhood in 1950s Britain. People seemed more neighborly. Life seemed less rushed. There wasn't such an emphasis on what Wordsworth called getting and spending. But before I get carried away, I remember my mother and her friends doing a Kufu over the loss of Britain's empire. Having an empire meant prestige for her generation; yet how many among us today would advocate acquiring one? My memories are obviously cherrypicked.
The kids raised today will probably look back on life in the early 21st Century as familiar because it is all they have ever known. Now that is a thought.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Guest Commentary on the Land of the Rich
What a farce this all is. One person ( Assange ) publishes some info about a criminal and that criminal decides to get him, one way or another by attempted deceitful arraignment on trivial charges in order to get him into the USA. Seems to me that by this procedure, it indicates the info contained was likely genuine. I presume the US has promised Sweden favourable consideration for the next franchise of Kentucky Fried Chicken for this favour.
The Land of the Free and the Home of the Rich
Just when I thought the Republicans couldn't display more hypocrisy, blow me down if they don't go ahead and best their own record. Whatever happed to fiscal conservatism and paying down the national debt--the stuff they hit us all over the head with during the recent elections? Apparently gone with the wind when it comes to tax cuts for the wealthy.
For the wealthy for heaven's sakes. For people making over $250,000 a year. I've never earned anything like that and I consider myself upper-echelon middle class. Even for two people to make that amount means each has a a pretty good salary. But even if one cavils over the exact point where wealth begins, I just can't see giving wonderul tax breaks to billionaires who can't spend the money they already have in their lifetimes and just sit on it or invest it abroad.
I guess I don't get it because I'm not Republican. George Bush once said to an audience of very wealthy donors that some people called them the rich, but he called them his base. I can't think of a clearer statement of what the Republicans represent--the wealthy, the greedy, and the corporate. In the case of the latter, remember those financial sociopaths who said proudly they were stealing "granny's savings."
And we are about to reward them AGAIN?
I can't pretend to understand the ways of politics even though I've worked with politicians but I do know a little bit about dealing with devils. I would have played chicken with the Republicans and I would not have blinked. OK Chums: no tax extension for the middle class, OK none either for the rich--and you be the one with the angry fallout both from your base and the electorate because extending the tax cuts for the rich is widely unpopular. Obama's problem is that he has a heart in a business where that is a liability and appears a weakness.
I rather hope the Dem rebels do filibuster the "compromise." It deserves to be because it rewards greed and self-interest. But then I suppose the Republicans will conveniently gloss over their own inconsistency: the national debt goes by the wayside when it comes to rewarding the people who have bought their toy congressmen.
For the wealthy for heaven's sakes. For people making over $250,000 a year. I've never earned anything like that and I consider myself upper-echelon middle class. Even for two people to make that amount means each has a a pretty good salary. But even if one cavils over the exact point where wealth begins, I just can't see giving wonderul tax breaks to billionaires who can't spend the money they already have in their lifetimes and just sit on it or invest it abroad.
I guess I don't get it because I'm not Republican. George Bush once said to an audience of very wealthy donors that some people called them the rich, but he called them his base. I can't think of a clearer statement of what the Republicans represent--the wealthy, the greedy, and the corporate. In the case of the latter, remember those financial sociopaths who said proudly they were stealing "granny's savings."
And we are about to reward them AGAIN?
I can't pretend to understand the ways of politics even though I've worked with politicians but I do know a little bit about dealing with devils. I would have played chicken with the Republicans and I would not have blinked. OK Chums: no tax extension for the middle class, OK none either for the rich--and you be the one with the angry fallout both from your base and the electorate because extending the tax cuts for the rich is widely unpopular. Obama's problem is that he has a heart in a business where that is a liability and appears a weakness.
I rather hope the Dem rebels do filibuster the "compromise." It deserves to be because it rewards greed and self-interest. But then I suppose the Republicans will conveniently gloss over their own inconsistency: the national debt goes by the wayside when it comes to rewarding the people who have bought their toy congressmen.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Wiki Leaks
Several readers have wondered why I haven't commented on the Wiki Leaks disclosures. I suppose it must seem strange since I've had an opinion on everything else and a demonstrated wilingness to share it with the willing and unwilling. In this case, though, I find it hard to have one because I've always assumed the political and ambassadorial worlds were underhanded and two-faced anyway. When it's your job to deny oil, nuclear power, influence, and power to everyone else, you probably aren't trying for halo of the year.
In this respect, the releases simply confirm my assumptions. Some Muslium leaders drink, other leaders feel entitled to buxom assistants, some flatter people they despise, some feather their nests with the money stupid other leaders think will buy their support, some pay their mistresses on expense accounts--'twas ever so and I'm afraid it is the stuff of yawns. The National Enquirer does better because it's not hampered by any connection to fact. I read the leaks with the same feeling I have when reading that George and Barbara Bush are divorcing, Miachel Douglas is dying even though he is popping up in Disneyland looking hale, and aliens have landed in DC, demanding the key to city of New York. The leaks are all innuendo and gossip--nothing earth shattering like when Israel plans to take out Iran's nuclear capability or when someone is going to plan an assassintation attempt on North Korea's Kim. Now THAT would be interesting. But cocktail party chatter? I've said worse about my boss and the Regents.
What I do find interesting is the reaction to the leaks. Someone told me that he considered the posting of the documents to be treasonous. Well, they can't be treasonous since treason has to be committed by a citizen of the country. Allenge is a citizen of Sweden not the US. I don't even know if it's espionage since I can't see who stands to profit except the military and diplomatic circles who need to do a better job of protecting their files, and I'm sure that's not what Allenge had in mind.
Frankly, I think there needs to be more of this sort of embarassing accountability. I rather enjoy seeing things come full circle and bite the perpetrator in the ass. I'm sure that the security system was put in by one of the big corporations running this country. Instead of Allenge, why not go after Halliburton or whoever put it in. Now that the Supreme Court says that corporations have the same rights as individuals, I'd love to see their asses sued off, just like the rest of us individuals. Oh, baby, you want free speech like the rest of us (supposedly) have? Be prepared to enter the slammer just as we can.
But of course our ham-fisted government is going after those who have exposed the cocktail chatter. God forbid that any of them might be playing guessing games about the future just like the rest of us, that they might admit in an e-mail what most of us have been saying anyway. Common sense reign? Of course not. Trumped up charges of rape, which I am sure are the result of US pressure on Sweden, and shutting down the site--free speech be damned--will be the result.
I say let him release the rest of them. Let's get rid of the idea that we are so infallible that our golden words must be protected against the light of day. Indeed, let's find out whether any of these so-called public servants are worth the money we spend on them.
In this respect, the releases simply confirm my assumptions. Some Muslium leaders drink, other leaders feel entitled to buxom assistants, some flatter people they despise, some feather their nests with the money stupid other leaders think will buy their support, some pay their mistresses on expense accounts--'twas ever so and I'm afraid it is the stuff of yawns. The National Enquirer does better because it's not hampered by any connection to fact. I read the leaks with the same feeling I have when reading that George and Barbara Bush are divorcing, Miachel Douglas is dying even though he is popping up in Disneyland looking hale, and aliens have landed in DC, demanding the key to city of New York. The leaks are all innuendo and gossip--nothing earth shattering like when Israel plans to take out Iran's nuclear capability or when someone is going to plan an assassintation attempt on North Korea's Kim. Now THAT would be interesting. But cocktail party chatter? I've said worse about my boss and the Regents.
What I do find interesting is the reaction to the leaks. Someone told me that he considered the posting of the documents to be treasonous. Well, they can't be treasonous since treason has to be committed by a citizen of the country. Allenge is a citizen of Sweden not the US. I don't even know if it's espionage since I can't see who stands to profit except the military and diplomatic circles who need to do a better job of protecting their files, and I'm sure that's not what Allenge had in mind.
Frankly, I think there needs to be more of this sort of embarassing accountability. I rather enjoy seeing things come full circle and bite the perpetrator in the ass. I'm sure that the security system was put in by one of the big corporations running this country. Instead of Allenge, why not go after Halliburton or whoever put it in. Now that the Supreme Court says that corporations have the same rights as individuals, I'd love to see their asses sued off, just like the rest of us individuals. Oh, baby, you want free speech like the rest of us (supposedly) have? Be prepared to enter the slammer just as we can.
But of course our ham-fisted government is going after those who have exposed the cocktail chatter. God forbid that any of them might be playing guessing games about the future just like the rest of us, that they might admit in an e-mail what most of us have been saying anyway. Common sense reign? Of course not. Trumped up charges of rape, which I am sure are the result of US pressure on Sweden, and shutting down the site--free speech be damned--will be the result.
I say let him release the rest of them. Let's get rid of the idea that we are so infallible that our golden words must be protected against the light of day. Indeed, let's find out whether any of these so-called public servants are worth the money we spend on them.
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