The Man Behind the Curtain and Understanding Pictures

I’ve known for a long time that people read different meanings into pictures.  Their perspectives are focused on how they connect to the pictures in front of them. This image I’ve made in Spark, as I was trying to learn how to use the software, seeking meaning in visual expression.

All Brilliant Ideas

But really what do the pictures tell you.  What do you read into them.  Denotations and connotations — which do you prefer?

The choices you make, may be subtle and not mindful.  There is a USA flag and a fence in one picture.  Does that mean anything to you?  Does it mean that liberty is behind a wall?

Does the bench in the wood mean that nature has be “surbanized”?

Does the stretch of road mean their is hope on the horizon?

Really I’m not really sure there is any meaning which I an promoting.  The picture was just an exercise in learning the software.  How to create a layout.  The pictures were selected by how well they grooved together.

I could write a story from the images.  One could take inferences, and model a fiction. The bench could mean in one person’s mind solitude; in another’s loneliness.  When we use pictures to paint a picture, sometimes our meaning is lost as the party perceiving it have a point of view that is quiet different.  The flag is the strongest and most likely skewed symbol.  Some want to stomp on it, light it afire, send wmds (weapons of mass destruction) at it.  Others honor it like a sacred and holy icon.

I spoke to  neighbor the other day about his yard, and referencing the land of Oz.  His yard was recently redone and planted with rye.  The green is bright and vibrant, much brighter than everyone else’s yard in the neighborhood.  He didn’t get the reference.

Land of Oz

In order to understand the picture you should go talk to the man behind the scenes, the wizard.  Pictures are generated to convey a meaning, most of the time.  To some photography is a form of art, and to others it is a form of message manipulation.  Strong images can elicit strong emotions!

The4 same can be said for modern media.  The images and stories they project carry meaning.  But who is the man behind the media.  What is it that they are saying.  much of the media is owned and operated by a few companies.

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America

According to the above mentioned article there are 233 media executives that control what 277 million Americans read everyday.  The men behind the curtain hold the key to what the message is.

Since the news is controlled by companies, you can bet that the number one reason for the media is to tell Americans something that  these executives want you to know.  [Propaganda is the spreading of information in support of a cause. It’s not so important whether the information is true or false or if the cause is just or not — it’s all propaganda. (Taken from https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/propaganda).] Being a capitalist nation, the focus is on making money. Yes, the imagery of green naturally!

The primary investors in these companies may have something to day about other messages that they want.  The spin doctors use their magic to make the world as green as possible.  Wouldn’t we all like to know what is really going in behind those curtains?

It’s curtains for curtains!

 

Is History Funny?

We have all heard the expression “history repeats itself.” And so we also know that human beings have a tendency to forget harmful and even wicked events. We bury them. And once we bury the history, do we forget it?

It struck me today that when Jerry Lewis died, people start talking about the film e made. Being a natural comedian, and being Jewish, he couldn’t reconcile the events of the Holocaust, so he tried to create film that made fun of it. So did Charlie Chaplin, not of the Holocaust, but of the rise of Hitler, and was and he also Jewish. Maybe Jerry was just smart enough to never show the film, because it would have offended so many of his fellow Jews. His being able to deal with it in a comic fashion, would’ve been anathema to others.

This also coincides with the Charlottesville racist protest of the removal of General Lee’s statue. And the horrific act of a young man from Ohio, plus all the other violence that occurred. So here we have the contrast of a symbol that has grown to represent racism, which is the Civil War, in the southern combatants.

With the fresh violence in our minds, we are struck with the horrors of war, the glorification of the provocateurs, the hate and the anger that was generated more than 100 years apart. Then should we remember this as history, or forget it as a violent, evil past.

Isn’t history always told by the Victor and not the vanquished?

So now we must consider what we’re going to forget. Should we tear down all the monuments in countries related to any war? Why should we glorify the dead fallen in the horrors of war? Should we remove all the stones from the cemeteries? Many of the wars in the world glorify the atrocities of one culture over another. Racism, sexism, colonialism and a whole lot of other isms, should we forget them by destroying the monuments to those times in history?

This really makes me consider any monuments that are designed to capture history. What else are they capturing? Are they also glorifying some wickedness?

So you comedians out there, don’t start making fun of the Charlottesville incident. It may only do your so good, but the rest of humanity is still deeply troubled by what they saw in Charlottesville.  Too some this is the precursor to another civil war in America, and that really is not comical.

It seems to me, that you really can’t make fun of historic events, while the people who suffered from them are still alive. That’s just wrong. You can go back and make fun of Caesar being slashed to death with knives, Napoleon being exiled, and other historic events just as long as everybody who was involved with them are dead. So take a tip from me comedians, start crack in the jokes, but focus on content that occurred before your grandparents were alive.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

 

Of Perfecting the Human Genome

What do we do when we’re all physically and mentally perfect? Congratulate ourselves on eradicating the need to help each other?  Shouldn’t everyone fend for themselves?  Is human society evolving or turning neanderthal?

It’s always best to start a philosophical piece with questions.

How perfect is the human race today?  We still have a world of broken people: financially, mentally, physically, spiritually and socially.  Yet you hear this idea from the Elite that we have evolved into something better.  What are those people smoking?

These social engineering types talk of eradicating illness and defect from the human race. They want to see a perfected human genome.  Like they can control the breeding habits of 7 billion (and counting) people.  Their goal is to eliminate those who are the carriers and not just those who are disabled by the mutations?  But to find those mutations and defects what a police state  we would live in?

Richard Dawkins recent tweeted that the human fetuses who were known to be genetically inferior, like that of a mongoloid or with Down’s syndrome should be aborted.  Is that the goal then why not stop women from having kids altogether after their eggs start going bad starting a age 30?  If you can take away the human right to copulate and reproduce, why not do it to perfect humanity (paradox for sure).  Why not just have test tube babies where pregnancy is illegal.  Hell why not fix everyone so they can’t reproduce.  It’s a Brave New World!

The idea that we can eradicate illness and disability through human engineering mightcreate other problems for mankind.  First there would be less need to have empathy for others, if everyone were well, had great genetics and were resistant to all forms of disease.  Without human empathy, what type of world would we have?

When you are around people who don’t know love, it is funny to see them talk about how there day was.  Oh, I broke a nail.  Oh, I had a ding on my car door.  Those are their problems.  Isn’t it nice that  there are no real problems for those people.  Don’t tell them how their sick, poor, dying and suffering fellow human beings are doing?  You don’t want to get them in a fluster, do you.

Great engineering and design work require human empathy.  Empathy is a human trait that make the world a better place; for we decide to make it better.  That motivation alone is a great source of human improvement.  Instead of planning how everyone else should live, maybe those societal engineers who go live off the streets with the homeless and learn empathetic ways.  George Orwell did.

In some ways empathy is much greater than human love.  Or maybe more precisely Empathy is a higher form of love.

Human love can be selfish.  It can be a give and take.  You do this for me and I’ll do that for you.  Scratch my back, and I’ll return the favor.  Even worse is familial love where things are selfish extended to out families while the rest of the world can go to hell.  The concept that even the wicked do nice things for their families.  The bit about eliminating people’s babies for whatever reason is usually justified by a selfish motivation like not having to support those babies by your taxes.  No empathy there at all.  Such a love is shallow and can breed contempt of fellow men suffering in the world.

Disability, illness and brokenness are reasons to develop a better society. Without these challenges many awesome improvements to mankind would never have happened.  And when that improvement is assimilated into human society, it produces a better life for all – except when those who benefit have no empathy.  Helping someone and not yourself is what gives life purpose.

The reason people need a spiritual life and not a religious one is that it empathy is the outcome:  love thy enemies, means going out and helping those who despise you, not sheltering yourself away from them.

If you accept Dawkin’s idea of a genetically superior society, where taking care of a sickly or disabled person is a waste, then you may be godless too.  The Nazis had this thinking as well. It is noteworthy that the men behind such schemes were executed.  Yet isn’t it true that most of the past civilizations destroyed their disabled.  I read about a Roman bath house where thousands of babies bodies where plugging up the sewage track.  It is believed that these were babies born to prostitutes, who most likely serviced men at the bath house. Those prostitutes were the sex slaves of the time who had no means of supporting children.

When we accept those who are impoverished, down and out, or mentally sick and use their challenges to design something to help them overcome, we are growing spiritually.  The evolution of mankind is spiritual and not physical.  Some of the wealthiest people are those who have the worst of lives.  Happiness comes from serving others.  Personally helping another individual requires a heart, and many people are too frightened to love at that intimate level.

Will our society evolve and make it our business to take care of others, learning how to improve their condition in life, or will be de-evolve and put our genius at ending life, aborting fetuses, and euthanizing our sick and elderly.  Infanticide for whatever reason stands as a testament against mankind.  Even if you use the by-products to make adults healthy (stem cells).  Someone once said that as a whole groups of people are much more amoral than individuals.  When the society has grown calloused and inhuman to its youth, and committed infanticide, then sure the elderly, the disabled, and the sick are one step behind, until civilization falls.

What difference is today’s world from ancient pagan times as people give up their children for abortion, so as to improve their economic opportunity.  In ancient times families would sacrifice their newborn children, so that they could secure a good harvest.  Moloch was one of the false gods that Israel would worship during its periods of apostasy. I suppose that deity has arisen again under banner of the God of money.

We should be able to learn from the past and in this area the problem is that those who are religious are not necessary merciful or empathetic.  They fail at being the representative of a God of Love.  Then there are people who are always trying to live lives that improve the lives of others, but they have moments of completely stupid thinking, like trying to create a better world by eliminating things that aren’t perfect, especially other people.

Some people believe that by eliminating others who think differently from them will cause peace in this world.  But people who only tolerate others like themselves are no more different than the selfish rich man who gives his money to his children and does nothing to improve the society in which they live.   Killing off all the outsiders leaves you the worst type of person.  Taking care of your own and not others all your life, leaves you with life devoid of value.

 

 

Reference Articles

Discovery of Mass Grave:

Suggested Reading: Six Habits of Highly Empathetic People

Euthanasia News

More Associated Reading:

3 Person Babies

Pig-human mix breeding

 

 

 

Quesalupa Cheesy Breaking News

Convenience Foods

People are about convenience foods, and now it seems that fat cats who own the news marketplace are about serving up news that is just as cheesy. They also don’t want to have to do the research to know what is fact or fiction on the internet. Actually companies have cookie which track content you look at and spin everything into your ear that falls within the confine of your tastes, all to drive traffic.  News no longer is about truth.  The Kardashians (Sociological reasons) are news, Sarah Palin is news.  Prince William is news.

Fat Cat Press

Blogs

The quality of news is degraded by the blogosphere, many say. That’s because we can cut and snip out portions of news articles from reputable news sources, but the reputable is corrupted by the capitalism of the internet.  Yes, the advertising is what is paying the bills, and the fat cats who make money need the dollars to stay fat.  So really what is news on the web is only what fat cats think will draw money into their coffers. The chart below show the difference between what the public wants to hear about and what the news agencies place as content.

Oh, those two percent-ers. They could care less what is in the news, and they don’t see their owning newspapers, radio and TV stations and internet news sources as related to public service.  No, they see it from the penthouse view of looking down on their bludgeoning financial statements.  [Did I mention fat cats???]  Did the company make quarterly sales figures, and what we are left with is a Quesalupa new diet?  Cheesy and full of links to girls showing off their skin, what the hell has that to do with news?

Outrageous Carp mixed with News

Even news references are often paid spaces from those advertising, or those selling something, as I’m sure you are aware of half the links are pay-by-click sites driving money into someone’s pocket, and not yours or mine.  Having food, sex, fashion and popular culture, the popular menu items just waters down organization ability to generate decent news coverage.

Write it and they won’t come; Unless you link to popular culture! Then write consistently or your relevance fades fast.

As a blogger, I’m always microblogging and linking to content or cultural aspects of what I’m writing so that I can draw more points from the digital bots, (Google mainly) that reflect the relevance of my pieces. I’m at least up front about it.

[Notice that the first three years I was a super blogger, and now I’ve rejoined the rank ranks]

Do you really think my writing is good enough to put my blog up in front of a quarter million viewers, as it has over the past few years.  I’m writing this thing infrequently, and so I’ve found that to have a voice, I have to build a complex system of other people boxes to get up high enough to broadcast in the world of news and social commentary.  Maybe you are like me and lose interest if no one is reading your posts.  Sites like Yahoo and MSN are full of content they did not create, but snagged from other sources like the Huffington Post, New York Times, Reuters, Associated Press, and a load of sponsored site.   Companies like Taboola are helping drive information regardless of its character, authenticity and accuracy.  The ethic is making money now providing reliable news.

 

My social experience is that you need Darth Vader, Clockwork Orange, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Prince and Michael Jackson type focus to get any real traction on the slippery slopes of blogging. Without them, your content is just zeros and ones floating into a blackhole of the unseen.  Digital conversations with the ether.  The tags are the communication that connects us, not the content.  People are not caring or even wanting your insights and commentary blog world.  They want you porn, your gossip, your pictures of the famous or notorious.  If I could place Osama bin Laden ‘s corpse up, I’d have something that many might like to see especially if it had a video, regardless if the picture was real or not.  Heck didn’t they make an Osama movie focusing on that death scene????  You need some violent psychopathic tendencies to illicit the type of traffic in this “dog eat dog” world.

Advice Point:

When placing popular cultural items in you blog, who cares if they make any sense, they will drive people to your site.

Internet News and Regular News is Corrupt

This graphic depicts the real world of how news doesn’t meet the public’s interest in content. The lines are out of whack.  This is the same reasoning that keeps the cheesy fattening goodness of the Taco Bell Quesalupa on the menu.  Everyone knows this meal is more like a cholesterol and sodium through the roof.   As CEO Creg Greedy, oh I mean Yum Brands Greg Creedy has stated, “Easy trumps better!”  As Yum does care about nutrition and quality, neither does the news agencies we read each day.  So enjoy your cheese, and also don’t worry about indigestion.  The fat cats want your money and they don’t care if you grow stupid by reading the poor quality news and information they  control.  What are you going to get cancer – if it were so they would own medicine?  Oh know, perhaps they do?

Article References

http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/taco-bells-quesalupa-what-exactly-is-it-w163753

Schnell writes: While many lament the seeming lack of quality, in-depth journalism today, a Gawker article argues that the inescapable problem is that you need a paying (in some form) audience (of a large enough size) to do it. There are plenty of free “news” sources to be found online, especially blogs simply regurgitating and putting a spin on wire news reports. But as the article notes, “The audience for quality prestige content is small. Even smaller than the actual output of quality prestige content, which itself is smaller than most media outlets like to imagine.” Even highly respected news sources like the New York Times are resorting to wine clubs, and the Washington Post is giving free subscriptions to Amazon Prime members to drive more corporate synergy and revenue. Rich parent companies are giving up on boutique, high-quality, niche journalism projects like ESPN’s Grantland and Al Jazeera America because there simply aren’t enough TV viewers/online ad clickers to pay the bills. So how do we reconcile our collectively-stated desire for high quality journalism with our (seeming) collective unwillingness to pay for it?

3 stylized facts: i) particular quality news markets are dominated by merely a few providers, ii) demand for quality news appears stable, but provision of news has become specialized; mainstream news is decoupled from quality news, and iii) the dominant business model of internet news mirrors that of radio, television, and newspapers in that costs of news production are recouped via advertising.

6 companies own the America news media are swimming in the money:

The Trash Economy

In the trash economy, they even pay you for picking up trash.
You get fully state benefits, medical, and retirement. All
you have to do is vote!  The state will give you all you need
to live in one handy-dandy, little white-plastic shopping bag.

It’s all about the taxes. Without a balanced approach, states are left with serious problems economically to provide needed state services.  Seems the Republicans are buying power to budget cut their states at the benefit of big business by lower corporate taxation.  But there are serious consequences to this new right wing movement, and that is the cut of education and government services.

You see the logic used by these politicians was that if you cut the cost of government, people will be awarded with more jobs and less of a tax burden, but the tax burden was only lifted really for the businesses in those states. Were they afraid that businesses might move out of state to build plants and operations overseas, or even worst place their corporate headquarters under shell companies on remote islands and in places like Panama, so as not to pay any state or federal taxes at all. 

The problem here is that American governance has been sold by power hungry politicians to those with the money, big money, especially Wall Street banks and investment banks.

States where the governments have been taken over by republicans are in the worst shape – and remember we aren’t yet even discussing federal level politics, though that is also a huge problem. But the states are in sorry shape with the mantra of “Cut Government Spending” has actually taken place, where prisons have been emptied, education budgets halved and all sorts of services have been trimmed.  So who is going to pick up your trash, keep your water clean, your roads fixed, teach your kids, and incarcerate your drug addicts and sellers?

The combination of corporate America taking its work out of the control to improve the bottom line and the trashing of governance and public services has really screwed up states. Tax revenues are down. Stagnation has occurred.  The reduction in revenues has impact what states and local governments are willing to pay people as well.  In one state no one will work at the community centers because they can make more money working elsewhere.  And who really wants to be a prison guard after all for so little pay? 

Whacked by our politicians

How whacked is it? Think about it.  If the jobs are in the public sector and not the private sector, than the money generation for state taxes is taxing those who work for the state – smells like socialism.   We are a socialist country already, as the government already controls too much.  And the real problem is that that government officials are not beholden to the people, but to those who finance their campaigns, and who pay them to pass legislation, or to pull old legislation.  Do you remember the Glass-Steagall Act?

Glass-Steagall Act

Remember or learn that BACK IN 1999, Democrats led by President Bill Clinton and Republicans led by Sen. Phil Gramm joined forces to repeal Glass-Steagall at the behest of the big banks. Yes, the big banks wanted to make more money by handling investments.  When they earn more money, no new jobs are created, only more money enters the hands of their companies, their shareholders and consequently the rich get richer and nothing improves for the poor. The original reason for the Glass Steagall Act was to protect the country from the conflict of interest between investment and banking which caused the great depression in part.  The great serpent, that lying beast, the economic devil in disguise of glad tidings raised its head back at the Bush administration bailouts.

Corporate Bribery

 

Another reason things went south was by letting rich people and corporations hide their profits in shell companies.  That should be illegal.  Those con men selling that to the American people need to go to prison.  Also tariffs need to be place on foreign produced goods, so that manufacturing is driven back to American shores and so that real jobs are created for people to work at, and where they can get off government subsidies and aid. Just think about how many other panama type exposures could happen to reveal how much of America wealthiest hide their money!

 

The politicians have made their masters very happy, and they have gotten fat and rich, but they have devastated their local state economies, gutted state education and ruined state employees’ benefits and pay.  Educators need resources, people need education, and innovation comes from education, not in tax shelters, tax breaks and incentives to invest in the infrastructures of other countries.  Again the rich benefit, and they PAY THEIR FAVORITE POLITICIANS to keep it that way.  Just how the 2016 election is paid for by Wall Street.

Look at the following examples to see how screwed up state economies have gotten:

Misssissippi:

“County officials across Mississippi are warning of job losses and deep deficits as local jails are being deprived of the state inmates needed to keep them afloat. The culprit, say local officials, is state government and private prisons, which are looking to boost their own revenue as sentencing and drug-policy reforms are sending fewer bodies into the correctional system.”

Response; why should the local economy be tied to the working in prisons and drug law enforcement efforts. This is madness. Economies should not be derived from the business of government. Read the article about how screwed up Mississippi is here.

Kansas:

“The bulk of Brownback’s tax moves in 2012 and 2013 revolved around state income tax rates for individuals. Those cuts, which primarily benefited those already wealthy enough to shoulder a greater share of the cost of schools and roads in Kansas, are politically untouchable even in the current calamity. But Brownback’s other signature move has lost the support of several of his fellow Republicans and will likely be at the epicenter of any budget deal lawmakers ultimately achieve.”

Response: another case of cut taxes for the rich, and lose state services like education.  Who needs an educated population?  Voters need to be stupid to vote for republicans who slice the education budget in half.  Who needs trained engineers, nurses, scientists, doctors, civil servants and academics?

Final Thoughts:

What has destroyed state economies is the same thing that has created the Wal Mart American society, the trash economy. What has depleted the Middle class, made the poor dependent on Uncle Sam, and ruined the livelihood of regular Americans, is that the government is now in charge of ensuring the rich get richer.  Without productive jobs to go to, everyone can only afford to buy cheap foreign made goods.  The quality of American life, the American dream in is glory, is fading.  This is the Trash Economy.  Relying on jobs in the public sector where half the country, especially the darker colored ones, is the only economical solution, is bizarre at best. What has to be fixed is how we earn our money.  The rich need to have rules that apply to them.  Throw out congress and elect people who will change the rules on how profits are made, close the tax shelters.  Bring the jobs home, and make it unprofitable for companies to take their work overseas.

Now hiring: Workers are seen sorting as the conveyor belt moves recyclables to be sorted at the Waste Management Elkridge Material Recycling Facility on June 18, 2015 in Elkridge, Md. D.C. and other local jurisdictions send their recyclable materials to the Waste Management facility in Elkridge for recycling. The cardboard and paper products are baled and shipped to China for new product production. The facility is a one thousand ton facility, where it takes in a thousand tons and sends out a thousand tons daily. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

 

Articles referred to in this blog piece

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mississippi-jails-are-losing-inmates-and-local-officials-are-devastated-by-the-loss-of-revenue/ar-BBrLU3D?li=BBnb4R7&ocid=SL5BDHP

http://sandiegofreepress.org/2012/08/how-mitt-romney-set-up-offshore-shell-corporations-bank-accounts-and-paid-no-taxes/

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis

http://www.thenation.com/article/what-happens-when-republicans-try-destroy-public-education/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wall-street-is-putting-money-behind-these-presidential-candidates_us_55b143e7e4b08f57d5d414ad

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-25/what-s-destroying-middle-class-wages-china

http://usuncut.com/class-war/the-trickle-down-disaster-in-kansas-is-so-bad-that-even-republicans-are-trying-to-cover-it-up/

 

America the oligarchy: Cheating for the rich

Ever since I was a kid, I hated the idea of cheating. I didn’t like cheating because cheating made competition null and void. When someone cheated, they were usually a bully type of person. I suspect that’s the same today. People who are really highly competitive, and love to grind down opponents tend to want to cheat. They take drugs, anabolic steroids for one, that make them stronger, leader and meaner. When I see people cheating, I want to mess them up. I want them to feel pain for their cheating. I want to see righteousness not corruption. It still makes me angry even though I’m much older now.

So where people cheating around you? What are they doing that makes you feel cheated. What part of life’s game are they playing and breaking rules. Well for one those who have money and influence over political figures often get privileges in their tax structure, and in other ways that lets them become richer while the rest of us are poorer. That makes me angry.

It also makes me angry about how many of these sports figures are being caught cheating. Make the Barry Bonds a baseball and Roger Clemens. They cheated and they perform better than everyone else around them. For many in America that’s the idea: do whatever it takes to be on top.

That makes me angry about politics too. When people have name recognition: such as the Bush and Clinton families. What are we living in, a land of monarchy or democracy? Either way, supporting Bush and Clinton is like supporting oligarchy. The only person I’ve heard mention anything about this is Donald Trump. He seems like a clown most of the time to me, but a lease he understands that rich people are controlling the election. And him being a rich person, doesn’t that make him part of the oligarchy?

No real conversation

I have been looking at this webpage (blog) writing task today wondering if I’m not turning into a generational reject.  Coming back to these words, and splashing thoughts on the white screen is like an effort to mental masturbate.  The whole thing is like an explosion of misdirected creativity.  Who is impregnated by our heedless banter?  What senseless, soulless, drivel is going to pour out of my twisted mind?  Hell if I know.

What I do know is that we need each other.  In our breathless effort to father some original thought, we are sucked into the vortex of other’s words, works, and ideals.  We stick some tiny little innocuous teeth into a movie, a script, a photo, and album of sound, tracking some source of brilliance that erupted in ecstasy eons ago.  But the creative God never rests, he is pumped always, spilling his seed in the minds of those seeking to enjoy the strokes of creative bliss, over and over.

The leftovers of other geniuses, really paint a picture dripping with color that amazes us, sometime inspiring us to dip our own brushes in to splatter our own attempts of expression.

Without an audience, without a stage, without a readership, we suffer in the world of little closed minds, who do not even sing with the music, dance with the beat, or dare to lick drama off the spoon of life.  The world grinds onward filled with their fear and cowardice.  They are the types to bag Napoleon’s manhood.  We must not succumb to their vile ways or develop their vices, we must fight the darkness of empty minds and souls; we must think and believe.

This blog has received over two hundred thousand reads, but most of those reads are only looks.  I not that readers check out this blog from 300 plus countries too, but after all this time, I have yet to have a real conversation with anyone.  How is it that we pour over articles, blogs, news and facebook sputtering, and never stop and converse with anyone.

I think I need to strap on a nice straight jacket.  Or maybe I should watch Iron Maiden youtube videos. Try one.

Islamic Culture: West not Capable of Understanding

Why is a philosophical question? We ask why when we do not comprehend the rational for someone’s decision. We respond, “Why,” when we look at serial killers, meth abusers, and mentally ill schizophrenics talking to themselves on the streets on every major city in the United States.

 So, when we in the western hemisphere think about warfare, we don’t think like our enemies from other cultures. We have been raised to make women and children our first priority in whatever we do. We want to keep them alive, and that’s why we provide them with the lifeboats first when our ship is sinking.

But the Islamic culture thinks entirely differently, and has an unfathomable logic. Win at all costs. Women and children be damned.

Reports have been circulated for a while about Hamas military operations using human shields.  People in the west wonder why? The reason is really simple.

“Hamas wants the Israeli Defense Force to kill their children, their women, that’s what they want to happen,” he said. “They want to get the propaganda; they want to get the publicity, the sympathy and the pity of the world to by getting the Israelis to kill their population. That’s war effects exactly what their tactic is.”  Watch this in action on youtube. Video Link

The weakness of Hamas also shows in their use of tunnels to send skirmishers inside Israeli territory. But many people do not know that in building these tunnels and the tunnels from Gaza to Egypt’s border. (At least these tunnels we understand – used to overcome economic oppression to allow free trade with a bordering Islamic country. We in the west ask ourselves Why does Hamas pick a fight they can’t win? They know they will never defeat Israel militarily, so why bother? Because Hamas knows what while they can’t win on the battlefield, they can win in the world court of public opinion.

“To date, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have found and destroyed more than 30 tunnels – each having cost upwards of $2 million a piece to build instead of supplying food and medicine to Palestinians in need.” We in the west wonder why not use that money to build facilities and provide food? But we weren’t raised with Hamas’ mentality.

Hamas also uses children to build these tunnels. Nicolas Palham documents the deaths of children in building tunnels: “At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials.” In the west we don’t allow child labor, and especially are concerned with activities that put children in harm’s way. People would get arrested for that. Islamic culture is different.

Here in the west we were raised with Christian morals and European law derived from Roman law and Greek philosophical reasoning. We are taught that man should better others. We are solely and woefully ignorant of the cultural training that folks in Palestine, including the Gaza Strip are raised with.

The type of rational we see portrayed by Hamas and other fundamentalist Islamic militia is like that of the Nazis in the holocaust. We watch in the movie the Pianist as the old and disabled are murdered by the SS soldiers. What is different about what Hamas is doing now?

 

 References

Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon: The Unintended Dynamics of Israel’s Siege

Nicolas Pelham

Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 41, No. 4 (Summer 2012), pp. 6-31 Published by: University of California Press Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2012.XLI.4.6

Downloadable for 22$

Effects of War on Children:

It has been said the Hamas has used children and other civilians as human shields. According to researchers, war’s death toll now includes a 90 percent civilian component.

Children as shields: Warfare Strategy

Understanding Islam and Jihad: Islam Spread by the Sword?

Syrian Christians face new treat – “convert, submit to Islam or face sword”

Crazies like pitbulls

I’ve been living in the LA area for some time.  We have at least 55,000 homeless, and about 66% of those are mental ill.  That translates to about  a tenth of the nation’s homeless are in LA county.

A friend of mine recently took to the streets to visit a favorite Denny’s for coffee and a snack, and was bitten brutally by a pit bull, who was on the lose, and was part of a three-dog entourage for a crazy woman, panhandling on the street corner.  His story makes this somewhat personal for me, but I will not go into the gory details, nor describe the 57 stitches that repaired the wound he received. Nuff said!  LA may be considered the capital of entertainment, but I think it is more along the lines of the capital of crazy.

The real story is that dog mafioso came out to protect the pit bull from being put down after the case was reviewed in court.  The animal protect league in LA has lawyers on the spot ready to defend pit bulls who maim people.  That’s the real essence of the craziness of LA.  You see the man who was mauled got nothing for support, but the damn dog did. ASPCA (the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) sent a lawyer to ensure the dog was not blamed, nor put down.

In one study it was found that pit bulls initiated a dog attack 94% of the time as compared to around 40% by other dog breeds.  In a medical study designed to teach trauma units about the severity of dog bites, I found this quotation: “the gravest injuries would be those caused by pit bulls.”  Another quote I found was from the Maryland court of appeals; it simply read “pit bulls are inherently dangerous.”

An attorney who works to collect money for people bitten by dogs wrote this on his web site: “U.S. health officials estimate that Americans are bitten by dogs 4.4 million times a year, causing 330,000 emergency room visits, and 6,000 hospitalizations and 17 deaths. Among the most seriously injured victims, 70% are children.”

You wonder if those who love these dogs, love people less than the dogs, especially after they plea for mercy for dogs who have truly maimed people they have bitten.  Love is thicker than blood, for sure!

Also, my advice to all, if attacked by a pit bull, punch or kick them as hard as possible in the nose.  Avoid them if you have a choice.  Climb to the highest location possible, like atop a car or truck.   For more advice: Defense Against Dark Dogs. And for those of you with these dogs, keep them on a leash and away from humanity.

Other articles of interest:

http://dogbitelaw.com/press/los-angeles-times-profile-of-kenneth-phillips.html

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2013/06/pitbull_crackdown_los_angeles_antelope_valley.php

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/88/1/55.short

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201301/my-dog-always-eats-first-homeless-people-and-their-animals

The sting of allegory: Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is an epic loaded with allegories laced with the strains of truth which men reject from man’s institutional religions.  In my own spiritual struggles over the last 20 years of my life, I’ve grown closer to unraveling those fibers of fiction in order to peer into my own soul.  Yet, I’m afraid that those poignant messages are lost when the uneducated masses sit before this masterpiece of film.

The first simple message is that those who seek power are crushed by it.  The hobbits, of course, want to live simple lives, not venture from their hobbit holes in the shire http://gusgo.webs.com/theshirefarm.htm , and to basically enjoy the pleasures of life, like hearth and home, the pipe, the potato and carrots.  The ring is for those who want to yield power.  The ring draws the ambitious.  Those tempted to use it, which includes even Gandalf, either succumb to it, bringing out of them their own personal darkness, or spurring them to fight off madness.

That message is the most readily visible part of the story .  It percolates throughout the whole of the three books.  Yet, in the writing, the analogy I’m more interested in is Frodo getting lost away from Sam, and caught in the webbings of the Shelob.   This relates to the spiritual condition of those who have separated from the fellowship of men.  The more people are disconnected with the body of believers, the more easily they are to become prey by the wicked.  The sicker the mind, the more one stumbles, like Froto in the lair Cirith Ungol .

There are whole classes of leeches in the world.  They are known by their own markings: Get rich schemes, pleasure purveyors, selling sex, drugs, alcohol, what will make you cool and fit in.  The tares of these temptations are venomous.  Add to that the tangles such as video games  , television shows , porn    and other entertainments that waste the productive souls of men, and you have a whole web of things to secure men from the light of truth.

The webbings aren’t deadly for Frodo, but in the story he has ventured too far into the dark to be safe.  He nearly perishes due to the perversity of Gollum  , who has tasted of and been consumed by the power of the ring.   Frodo is like us once we have wandered from friends and family who care for us.  Actually the true fellowship would be more akin to those connected to the members of a Christian body who live the commandments to love one another.  I think J. R.R. Tolkien would agree with the assumption.

The wages of sin are death, and just like the poisoned spider sting the Frodo encounters, that is how people who have given in to the darkness cause themselves harm.  The meth addict consumes their own flesh in pursuit of the pleasure of their drug.  The crack addict   too.  Each addict is not intending their own demise.  They have lost command of themselves.  The emotional turmoil inside is so painful that the willfully wash their minds with chemicals to block out the hurt.

Most of the world is so hedonistic or nihilistic that they turn their back on these warped beings.  They need to recover, but that takes the true and unquantifiable force of love – that is the picture Tolkien paints with Sam recovering Frodo, and later when he carries him up the steep slopes of mount doom.

Deeper within my psych, I have realized that the first step for people away from the love of God is for them to step outside the fellowship.  Breaking fellowship removes the unsuspected to a world of pain.  I see that in families, like my own, that once love is lost and obligation is the only tread holding a family together, that family members often hurt each other, and care little if their members wander from the path.  It is worst when the family has turned their back on faith, or with a greater fatalism have curse religion, faith and God – like the atheists do.  Where they have been wronged is that what should have been a loving center becomes a place of pain.  Everyone wants to avoid dens of inequity.

What is most amazing is that even in those dark arenas of despair God’s love can still penetrate.  But those sapped of their will power, left without true friends, for no friend feeds off another, only need to reach back to the fellowship to find comfort.  Families are often entirely inadequate for this purpose.  They are often so concerned about their resources, that they cut off the hand that reaches from within  the darkness.  Unlike the father who has the prodigal son mentioned in the bible, these families say that they will give their own sons shelter for a week, and then if they haven’t gotten a means of supporting themselves, they are out.  I heard a motherly hypocrite  recently talking about that on my bus.  My wife also spoke with a guy who had come back to visit family when he had lost his job, and they turned him out on the street, changing the locks.

Healthy families don’t kick their own when they are down.  But I suspect that before their rebellion started that their homes lacked the love necessary to help the children grow up feeling safe.  I certainly understand that personally.

So the point I’m making here is that Frodo is like anyone who has lost touch with the family of God – which is the true family.  That he needs to connect with those who love and support him.  For all of those out there who have families who only give love if the child meets some level of adequate behavior, you need to realize that that type of love is only a starvation diet.  God’s love is expressed better when people are from the fellowship.  But it takes for some to hit the bottom, to take the venom to their soul, until they are helpless, paralyzed and without support, as if they were stuck in the web, before they can realize their need, face their own shame, and give themselves to the true loving father for whom we are starving.  Everyone needs a Sam.