The wart on a gnat's nose....

Insignificant? If you stand in a darkened corner of the world and look up, what is visible to your naked eye? Do you noticed the mottled, dark coloration in that vast space overhead? Perhaps a few streaks of lavender or rosy orange in the western sky hinting at a vanishing phenomenon only moments before? Can you discern the difference in size among the multitude of sparkling points that seem cold and offer little light; points that catch you barely breathing as your imagination stretches with wonder? Have you ever counted the clusters or given them names, or watched gaseous clouds slowly envelop and swallow them from view?

Do you ever visit the Astronomy Picture of the Day on the internet, to sound out odd names, like Cassiopeia, Trifid Nebula, Sag A, and marvel in the colors, or the distances, or the dust that floats across the frame from a explosion of energy a billion years as light travels toward your single moment in time? Does your mouth water for chocolate when you think Milky Way?Have you had galactic thoughts and cosmic questions, wondering what is out there beyond what you can see or sense or imagine? Have you seen comets arching across that vast darkness, sparkling tails of stardust marking their trail until you lose them from view?

Have you marveled at the distance, the vastness, the silence of the unknown with unknown questions as you looked at the frail, tiny creature that is you, dreaming? Have you wondered at your place, at your size in that miracle, one tiny iota of life in a universe that has no boundaries? Is there someone almost like you out there on a star so distant it's never been seen asking the same questions and wondering about you? Don't you hope so?

Do you think about the span of a single human life when measured against the billions upon billions of years displayed overhead; a full life that is no more than one grain of stardust when measured against celestial time you can never understand? Can you feel your insignificance amid the unreachable vastness? Can you laugh at how seriously you take yourself? Do you wonder why you would get angry that an overworked waitress brought you broccoli at dinner instead of peas? Do you see the absurdity of worrying about the mundane of tomorrow or if your team won the ball game, or you'll get the promotion, or if you should buy or lease a new car?

If you're honest, you know your total existence is a single moment, a brief blink of light on a horizon you cannot encompass. Humans and their teeny petty problems are as inconsequential, insignificant, and invisible within the totality of the universe as a wart on the nose of a gnat.

Negative Legacy....
...for want of oil and power, lies were created; for want of yellow cake, an ideal was denied; for want of a CIA sacrifice, trust disappeared; for want of honesty, people die and a nation was lost.

It seems that very few things are manufactured in the United States anymore, except for lies and bungling incompetents. And just as our manufacturing interests were eager to shift U.S. jobs to overseas locations, our liars and incompetents spread their oily, fecal begrimed hands across oceans as well. This very bad Theatre of the Absurd play has stolen stationery from Italy, created forged documents from Niger, recruited a second banana from England, condemned a personification of Satan from Saudi Arabia hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Syria or running a deli on Long Island (the director can't decide) and tied him to an evil villain in Iraq whose very existence threatened innocent Americas with toxic mushroom clouds. We have a cast of thousands from from Iran, suspicious interlopers from Palestine and Israel, and critics from France and Germany. We also have far too many deaths, a training ground for explosive experts, daily episodes of bloody carnage, an overstressed and faltering military, a mountain of debt, 5000 pairs of cracked rose colored glasses, a spendthrift, dithering domestic government under the control of a majority party with third rate skills and delusions of grandeur, and a spinelsss minority party of groundhogs who see their shadow and burrow away to hide. To the terminal shame of all those who prefer stage presence to overacting and melodrama, we have the height of slapstick comedy.

With such a badly conceived story and poorly executed plan, is it any wonder it would take an outsider (Patrick Fitzgerald) two years to wade through the butchered prose, fractured reporting, poor quality stage props and mangled scenes to get to the crux of the plot?

Over two hundred fifty years ago, our original drama was conceived, cast and produced by a learned and dedicated group of thinkers, writers, and designers. Today, their magnificient idea is hardly recognizable. Those responsible for maintaining the integrity of the message and the honorable nature of the craft have been unwilling and unable to do the real work of protecting and maintaining an historic treasure. Ham handedly, they've taken short cuts and forged new paths through mental terrain unfit for human habitation. They've cheated and short changed the members of their cast and their audience. They've resorted to faulty advertising and questionable marketing. Like blind rhinoceros on a mad rampage, they've trampled the rights of others, broken the covenant of their positions and instead of cleaning up the messes they've made in their playpen, have hired other incompetents without conscience to merely brush the broken pieces of public trust under the rug. The detrius and offal is now so high, no one with awareness can avaoid stumbling over it.

Prior to our current horror and legacy of deceit, we had the legacy of Richard Nixon and the Watergate coverup. Prior to that glitch on the timeline of history, we had the legacy of Ronald Reagan the Iran-contra, and prior to that, we had the legacy of another ill conceived and poorly executed war - Vietnam. Possibly the most similar legacy for contemptibility, coercion, deceit, lies, and intiminidation all under the guise of patriotism and flag wrap would be Joseph McCarthy and the exploited fear factor of a Godless red menace. All that pomp, ceremony, grandstanding and posturing left the certitude that we had to have a recognizable enemy beyond our borders so we would not notice the enemy within, and that shoddy tactic and sleazy approach hasn't changed. The only new element to the legacy of Now, is a legacy we embraced in 1912 through 1917 during the days of silent movies. Max Sennett brought us the Keystone Kops, a band of incompetent, loud, frantic and energetic nincompoops remembered for their bumbling, bungling, lunacy and thoroughly stupid attempts at being saviors and men of action.

Isn't there some way our polarized nation and our few capable but disaffected public servants can come together long enough to say it's time we saw the end of all the jerks, shysters, and underhanded scalliwags sucking at the national teat? Can we not clean our own house and throw out the trash and garbage? Has this country lost all semblance of responsible action, determination and the shared spirit of a treasured nation that believes in itself, each other, and its experiment in equality? Haven't we the strength and clear vision to run all the bastards out on a rail? If we cannot find the courage to face the pettiness of our individual complaints and ignore both the real and perceived slights perpetrated against us, we will never achieve our own promise. Our current legacy will never change and we will continue to repeat these same monumental mistakes again and again. Our continued betrayal by our leadership is horrific enough. Our betrayal of ourselves will surely kill us.

The contagion and seduction of the cult mentality...

Why do we seem to have an inbred fear of freedom, of standing alone, apart and above the mundane so that we deny all that makes us singular people to embrace all that curtails our right to choose? When and why do we learn to distrust our own judgment and blindly submit to the judgments of others? When does the action or philosophy of any group cease to be a fun inspired community endeavor while it turns the concepts of 'comfort,' 'good,' or 'just' into the weapons of determined marauders who blatantly steamroller the rights of any who disagree? When, if ever, do we realize our group has become a mob? Even worse, when, if ever, do we wake up to the horror that we have joined a cult?

There are significant similarities between mobs and cults. There are also frightening differences between mobs and cults. Usually leaderless, most mobs are born from a single idea coupled with good intentions and they burst into being like a super nova in space, pulling us along in the heat of the moment, enthralled by the shared heat of emotions run amok, only to fade into bad memories of strife, conflict, harsh pain and embarrassed shame at our loss of direction and self-control. Fortunately, few of us feel beholden or tied to the mob or its actions. There must be a solid 'vessel' to accept our trust and loyalty, and as mobs crumble of their own weigh and momentum, so too does our need to belong desert us. We're left with only a few bruises, scars and recollections of shared but fading insanity.

Cults are more seductive than mobs. First, they have recognized leaders who reach out to embrace and caress the lonely, the confused, the blindly adamant and the fearful. The leader has an anointed and invested hierarchy, not only to offer comfort and guidance when the leader is apart from the group to ponder lofty ideas and plans, but to keep the members corralled, controlled and grateful for inclusion, aware of and adhering to the rules always set down to assure the survival of the group, the expansion of its ranks and the supremacy and power of the one in charge. The cult offers a haven and refuge, an assurance of worthiness, a recognition and appreciation of conformity. It offers succor when hungry, encouragement when needy, and loyalty in return for loyalty, and all a 'member' must provide is a unique contribution to the benefit of the cult, be it money, physical work, the recruitment and conversion of new members to the cause, or the protection from harassment, rumor, harm or exposure of the leader, the lieutenants, and the cause itself. In preying on human weakness, cults find and hold their greatest strength.

One of the most wealthy and subversive cults today is the cult of fashion. Its members are predominantly women although the leadership is usually male, supported by female deputies. Any adult woman who buys and wears underwire bras, stiletto heels, and clothing best designed for adolescent girls has succumbed to the seduction of the cult over her own good judgment. Any woman who tries to alter her body to fit the fad of the moment at the cost of her comfort and health is ruled by the cult. So, too, are all those who encourage such self defeating actions, be they female or male.

Sports franchises, be they college teams or professional, are cult inspired. Team members regardless of their personal attributes and attitudes are lauded and worshipped as idols by owners who understand and manipulate their team's fan base to the greater glory of the franchise's bottom line. If not a cult, why would any groups of good will or good sense, near bankrupt the cities that house them and a next generation's future by building bigger and gaudier arenas for gladiatorial games while residents at their locations go without decent housing, education, enough food, or good health? The games in ancient Rome also had a cult following prior to that country's fall. What's the difference between hot dogs, beer and football and Rome's gift to the masses - a little bread and a circus?

The appeal of the cult is one reason grown and supposedly mature men still guard the secrets of college boy groups like Skull and Bones.

The appeal of cults is one of the reasons there is still a Klux Klux Klan.

The appeal and promises of cults is the primary reason there are specific political parties whose campaigns, false promises and negative actions are for the good of their party rather than the benefit of this nation or its entire population. Caligula, an emperor of ancient Rome made his horse a Senator prior to that country's fall. Funny, but often a sound similar to a whinny can be heard on Capitol Hill.

The comfort of belonging to a cult is one of the reasons individual religions and religious sects survive. Every major recognized religion in today's world represents the oldest surviving cults. Names may vary, but each cult's method is always the same, preying on superstition, weakness, and fear by offering community, absolution and life without end.

Business interests whatever their 'product' and whether domestic or global, are cults whose technique is control and whose goal is power even when their basic cause is money.

If you read the above, you need not take my word for it, but at least think about it. Make your own list of how many cults you have unwittingly and unnecessarily joined. Are those cults a burden? Do they make you feel free? Do they offer you joy and comfort at no cost? Does it bring you joy to never have to think for yourself?

WARNING!! Don't hand the hucksters your brain!

There's an old adage that says one picture is worth a thousand words. Adages, usually considered generalities, always contain a grain of common truth. The commonality in this one is that the brain tends to 'see' stored memories as full color pictures, and those mental images were first painted with recognized words before ever being enhanced by smell or feel. First...There is always a word.

We rarely think about the practicality of our basic learning, storage and retrieval system as we step past our first curiosity about the names of things, and advance to school exercises in spelling, vocabulary and grammar. Unconsciously, we relegate words to that hazy no-man's land of usage without thought as we listen to broadcast news, watch a movie, or do a crossword or jumble puzzle in our off time. Instinctively, we know the importance of the words we use to talk with each other, but we're usually blase and imprecise, convinced common ground will translate for us if we err. Another adage exhorts our listeners to hear what we mean, not what we say.

Somewhere in today's shadows, strange and unexpected changes have happen to words. When that occurs, even stranger things happen to previously known and recorded history. Repetition of such secretly changed words and events also corrupts our understanding, and thus, the pictures we see in our mind's eye are also corrupted. What may at first glance seem to be a phenomenon is actually a simple yet underhanded technique. It is the creation of a false picture in the mind through the purposeful mutation of words in order to negatively or positively alter our understanding. Inherently subversive and dangerous, this practice in corruption is called propaganda. Sadly for us all, too often we don't recognized that a forger has switched images or splashed filthy paint on our mind's pictures until it's much too late.

During the last decade many healthy and exact words have been corrupted to become 'labels.' The first mutant spawn on such a list of words is 'liberal.' Originally, liberal meant generous, wide ranging and unprejudiced, usually referring to the broadening of a mind, such as with a liberal education. More recently, however, the word's corruption has made it a political cudgel, an ugly label and profanity thrown around carelessly to discredit the basic humanity of a large number of people. It's opposite word, 'conservative,' has also been disease stricken, losing its common meaning; wishing to conserve things around us that positively impact the quality of our lives. The first conservatives were conservationists, eager to understand, explore and protect their immediate environment. Now, corrupted, conservative means rigid, greedy and lacking in compassion and caring.

Two other words generally used to designate special qualities of individuals or groups who impacted our shared history in positive ways are now also badly corrupted. The first one is 'elite.' Besides being a designation for a particular type font, elite used to mean a choice part or the best of something, rather like the old agricultural term the 'cream of the crop.' Now, it's another word used to degrade people. Its users conveniently forget, for example, that it was the elite during the Dark Ages, the clergy and the landholders who supported them and the monasteries, that ultimately saved centuries of previously gained knowledge for the generations to come. Since today's fundamental religionists are involved in this word turn around today, it is particularly ironic that Martin Luther, father of the Reformation, was also an elitist within the original definition.

The same sneaky and ridiculous about face in meaning has occurred to the word 'intellectual,' those changing its meaning ignoring that it was those of intelligence that advanced ideas, practicalities, inventions, and human health. Instead, we're to disdain any people who think, and even worse, who think for themselves, as though the only individuals worthy of trust or emulation are those who have little intelligence, limited creativity, and no more desire than to sit still or move backwards in lock step.

The list of words could go on and on, but that is not the problem. The real issue is that a group or groups of determined but unscrupulous mischief makers with a secret agenda have victimized all of us with their conceited and concerted efforts to muddle our thinking and corrupt the pictures within our minds. Using our own mass media, loud volume and constant repetition of slyly corrupted words as handy labels for the ills of the world and the various people who inhabit the world, these propagandists have implanted false ideas, fears, hatred, and bigotry in our basic level of communicating - our common understanding and free usage of the words we see as brush strokes to paint visual pictures in the privacy of our own minds.

It is essential to the integrity and ownership of your own brain and voice that you stay ever vigilant.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop? What if the shoes belongs to a centipede?

Constant tension, stress and ineffective efforts at crisis management seems to be our current state of affairs these days. If there is such a thing as a "national psyche," right now our collective personae is either fixed in a state of country-wide catatonia or in full paranoia. As all the old jokes and wise voices caution, paranoia doesn't mean someone or something isn't out to get you. That's why so many folks recommend never looking back...as certain as death and taxes, something nasty is gaining on you.

It is not unreasonable for people to want to feel safe and secure. Isn't that why we wear clothes and live in houses or apartments as opposed to swinging naked from the trees? But in a volatile world created and inhabited by humans, how can either safety or security be assured? It can't, and it never has been. Even the natural forces of this world - earth, air, fire and water - cannot be tamed and may turn feral at any time. Fortunately, Mother Nature has provided us with a few internal warning systems. We have our eyes to notice what shouldn't be there, our noses to sniff out smoke or other troubles, and our skin with those tiny hair follicles that stand up all over, or just on the back of our necks. And most important of all, we have that little hormone called adrenalin that readies us to kick ass or run like hell.

What Mother Nature never prepared us for, however, is the pitiless repetitiveness of 24/7 cable news, the tattletale nature of the Internet, and the hate and bigotry laced vitriol of talk radio. All three of these 'communications' anomalies, for differing reasons, keep our minds and hearts in a state of constant crisis. No wonder we're slow to react, slow to learn, slow to put two and two together to realize we're about to be screwed for the umpteenth time. So handy initially, adrenalin overload makes your stomach churn, your blood pressure and heart rate rise dangerously, and eventually sends you over the edge into complete collapse. When you're reasoning ability goes to sleep, any unscrupulous thug with a gleam in his eye, a smarmy smile and a good ol' boy manner, could convince you to pick up that Uzi, destroy your own children, and then put a bullet into your own brain that hasn't been functioning well to begin with.

When fear takes over, becoming a permanent resident inside you, your ability to separate reality and fantasy falters. You become irrational. You become so self protective physically that your discernment disappears and your brain may as well be mush. You regress to infancy, willingly allowing anything or anyone who appears to have 'authority' to dictate your thinking and your actions. You automatically believe what you're told, forgetting that hatred and bigotry are the children of fear. You simply lose that special aura that all humans have - your humanity, your recognition of those things we all have in common, your awe at the normal state we call life, your ability to function calmly and decently, your knowledge of your right to make your own decisions as they affect your existence and that of those you care about and love.

Fear is a centipede walking your backbone and hiding in your soul until, like the Phoenix, it rises to your throat and chokes the life out of you.

Dislike politics? Politics absolutely loves you!!

Remember all those little warnings your mother gave you as she tried to prepare you for life? Be nice to your brother or sister. Never run with scissors. Always wear clean underwear when you go out. Never discuss sex, religion or politics.

The first three might still apply, but the last three have been murdered by modern life. Even if you don't talk about it, movies and television soap operas, to the consternation of the morality police, have outed sex. Conservative republicans, to the consternation of supporters of the separation of church and state, have outed religion. And politics, to the detriment of the effective and efficient functioning of the entire nation, wants you to be deaf, dumb and blind.

Frankly, I've always found it amusing and frustrating when someone tells me they never discuss politics or don't like politics or distrust politics or the government. Although neither teachers, politicians or the political party in power will ever spill the beans, it is the citizen who is complacent, uninterested, unaware and unconscious that they love the most. And considering that only about half the country exercised their rights of citizenship in the last election, there are a lot of you out there for them to love.

Too bad few comatose citizens will bother to read these comments, but let me put them in context anyway. Anytime you hit a pot hole in the highway, don't complain because you're to blame. When the price at the gas pump jumps again, grit your teeth and pay up. It's your fault. If you lose your job because the company sent it elsewhere, just start job hunting again because you asked for it. If milk costs too much, or your pension disappears, or the interest on your credit card charges jumps to 50%, or your mother-in-law loses her home and moves in with you, or your kids do poorly in school, or your property tax triples, or you can't find a doctor who will take you without insurance, or the water from your faucet smells funny, or the bridge down the road isn't safe to cross, or any of hundreds of other calamities befall you, don't cry, or wail or make threats. You were simply loved to death for your disinterest.

It's when you don't care or are not involved or don't see what's happening around you that you're letting politics do whatever it wants and not what it's supposed to do. You're letting politics control you because you can't be bothered to monitor and control them. Your awareness matters. You knowledge makes them nervous. Your informed complaints, issued loudly and frequently, give them palpitations. Your refusal to blindly agree to whatever they propose makes them rethink their strategy. Your involvement in your community, your demand for higher standards, your willingness to vote with your brain, your feet, your voice and your conscience is the only that will deter corruption and encourage honesty.

We always hear that prostitution is the oldest profession. What we don't hear is that prostitution answers to politics because politics was not only there first, but politicians were the first marketing executives, advertising gurus, prostitutes and pimps. Never forget that as the consumer, whether in the political equivalent of Wal-Mart or a Lexus dealership, you are the one with the power. You are the one that controls the communal purse. You are the one that determines the environment in which political games will thrive or die. All you need do is wake up, stand up, and every time they deserve it, give them hell.

Megaphones, ears and silence – missing pieces in a circular puzzle

The larger world and our individual turf within it have become frantic, stress filled environments. The assault never ceases. We’re bombarded by unwanted sounds, from the warning beeps of vans and trucks backing up, the ring of cell phones in public places and the gabble and babble of their oblivious users, the clang, rattle and thump of garbage cans being emptied, the blare of radios, i-pods, and whatever else has replaced walkmans, the beeps of microwaves, ovens, cars, clothes dryers, security systems being turned on or turned off, the wailing of alarms on parked cars lightly brushed in overcrowded parking lots, strident raised voices in confrontations of every description, constant television as background noise, baby sitter or empty entertainment. The world is a megaphone on steroids.

Is it any wonder we’ve been dumbed down? Is it any wonder so many people seem incapable of rational thought? Is it a surprise that when we cry out in anger or discontent or loneliness no one hears? Is it a surprise that conversation is a lost art? Will our ears eventually become as physically useless and unnecessary as our appendix, a residual organ ignored until it ruptures or grows malignant?

The argument could be made that we are all still in infancy when it comes to listening. As babies and young children trial and error teaches us that when we yell or cry or throw a tantrum, mom or dad or someone else comes running and directs all their attention toward us, seeking to make whatever bothers us go away. We grow up expecting to be the center of attention, to be heard, coddled, or eased. Yet, we rarely learn to listen – not to others, not to ourselves and certainly not to the silence that could give us respite and relief.

Listening – really listening – takes effort and concentration. It also takes practice and can be harder work than we’ve ever done. So much tries to grab us, to subvert our attention, to sell us cars, cosmetics, legalized drugs, fast food, a political agenda or something else either bad for our well being, or presented as essential to our image of ourselves and our competition with others. Most often, the product is something we neither want nor need. What we actually hear during these times is only superficial noise, an overlay of the huckster’s come-on, because we can’t process what has really been said. We don’t know how to listen.

We’ve become so attuned to the presence of empty promises and noise that we’ve learned to fear silence. Our ears detect an emptiness and we panic, too flooded with adrenalin to listen and realize that silence does not mean devoid of sound – the sounds that could comfort and help us learn about ourselves because they encourage us to explore what we think and how we feel about what we think. Silence can gently take our hand and lead us to introspection, it can release memories we hardly remember we have, it can stimulate awareness of the energy of life all around us, it can create understanding of our worth and purpose in the immediate and broader world. It can offer a promise of ease when the megaphones of this modern world once more intrude and deafen our minds.

For many years, daily reading of The New York Times was as essential to me as my first cup of coffee. Part of that was my years living in New York City, part of it was the quality of the investigations and writing, and part was because at the end of each article sufficient background was given on the issue being reported that you were up to date even if you'd missed a previous article.

Over the past couple years, however, I've not been as consistently satisfied with the Times' quality or objectivity. In fact, I've been very dissatisfied with all forms of U.S. based 'media,' none of which have held to traditional standards of objectivity, accuracy, timeliness, or competency. Much of that is due to our current political environment, including our so-called wars, one on terror (which is a total misnomer since it isn't possible to effectively wage war against a tactic) and one in Iraq (which hasn't been any more effective than it was necessary in the first place). Bash, slash, burn, doublespeak, malapropism, incessant spin, falsehood, innuendo and purposeful omission are not conducive to anyone's understanding or grasp of reality, but those are the things that have showered down on us.

As the old saying goes, I've learned to take most things I hear or read with a grain or two of salt. But, last week a Times editorial annoyed me enough to chew the legs off a grand piano. The date was October 8, the editorial's title was "New Thoughts on Old Boy Deals," and the subject was the suspicious switch from the administration's constant practice of awarding lucrative no-bid contracts to a select list of corporations to suddenly seeking a few bids. The comment within that editorial that made my hackles rise was: "We must step back and congratulate the administration for agreeing to hold a fair auction."

Oh, really? Balderdash!!

Why on earth should any of us congratulate this administration for finally taking a semblance of responsible action, especially since that action was only camoflage clothing for for their reprehensible past behavior? Congratulating these unconscionable charlatans whose disregard for any citizens not within their immediate circle of corporate sleaze is like saying thank you to a serial rapist for not gleefully sodomizing victim number 1,776 for the fiftieth time. As I also wrote in my letter to the editors of the Times, even if our citizenry was culpable in baring their behinds by voting for this administration a second time, they still deserve better - from this administration and from the New York Times.