Pot Poury: Fall '07 He's Baaack
Well I'm back. I will remember this summer for a long time. Nothing really serious or tragic happened but it was a strange, frustrating trip. I might have expected something like that when I booked my adventures with the Murf Murphy travel agency. Trying to recount it succinctly seems impossible, so I will just rely on an explanation by my departed good friend Rosaanne Rosannadanna ---- "never mind".
As happens in these times my intent to publish a reasonable rational to support my claim that America developed a clinical case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder subsequent to 9/11 is basically out of date and old news now that I am finally getting around to publishing it. First, my diagnostic terminology has no tangible value beyond my own ego. And by now there are plenty of voices observing that there is something wrong with us as a country. It is not that we don't know we were conned into going to war with Iraq, or that our freedoms are being stripped away not by terrorist attacks but by our own government; or that more and more of the world has come to believe that if there is such a thing as an axis of evil, we are part of it. Most of us know that. Most of us disapprove of the state of our nation. That disapproval is being voiced: in books, in news articles; in commentaries, not just by fringe group activists but by main stream commentators, by democrats, independents, and (heavens to Betsy) republicans, in song and film and blog. More than ever before in our history we are well informed about the true state of our world in real time. We don't have to wait for Paul Revere to gallop into town before we know whether by land or by sea. Google has the information for us the instant we hit enter, quite often even before we can finish typing the question.
The exponential growth in communication technology and the unstoppable world wide web that facilitates our ability to communicate with each other instantly and any where has profoundly changed our specieshood circumambiency. [What the hell did he just say?] For example, there is an idiomatic phrase that no longer makes sense--- "left in the dark". The black cloth cloak of secrecy that once allowed us to be left on tenterhooks is now made of Saran Wrap. [Ed. Note. Author has been cautioned once again about metaphoric molestation.] Largely because of the Internet, almost nothing that can be observed can be kept secret for long. Lyndon Johnson left us in the dark about what really, or rather really didn't, happen in the Bay of Tonkin. It was years before enough of us found out we had been bamboozled to make a difference, and years more for us to force a halt to our senseless involvement in the Viet Nam fiasco.
There is a hokey little phrase that President Bush tried to use once but got it mixed up. It goes "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me". Just like Lyndon, Bush fed our ever gullible monster phobia to convince us that we were in grave danger from Saddam Hussain's possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction- even that he was well on his way to having nuclear bombs. But things were different this time, this time we knew. No secret agendas uncovered, or clandestine operations revealed, or intelligence gathered since we invaded Iraq has substantively changed what we already knew or suspected before our invasion. One of the most common rationalizations people expressed at the time was that even though there did not seem to be any objective evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, surely the president knew classified information that proved it. Some of the crap they handed us was so juvenile I have difficulty seeing how anyone believed it. Remember the rolling chemical WMD factories? [Hey Azid, I got a really cool idea. Lets mix up all these deadly and volatile chemicals and stuff while we are rocking and rolling down the road in the back of this semi.] I don't really know who this next fellow is but he said it so well I want to make sure he gets the credit for it.
We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth. -Sydney Schanberg
One of Hans Christen Anderson's characters in Keiserens nye Klææder , spoke with equal profundity "But he has nothing on".
One of the key ingredients in the formation of PTSD is a feeling of helplessness. Despite the media barrage of post 9/11 bravado, there was this single apodictic fact : if they could hit us so hard in the middle of New York City and our nation's capital, no one could feel safe- anywhere. But our jingoistic belief that we were the greatest, the strongest, the most invulnerable nation in the world, barred us from consciously accepting the fact that we were just like all the rest, or as our AA friends are so fond of saying, we were in denial. Unable to face our feelings of helplessness we simply banned it from our consciousness, but that terrifying feeling didn't just wither away from lack of attention. It grew. And grew. It became malignant and metastatic until now, unacknowledged and unresisted, it has become one of, if not the, most powerful influences on our national psyche. And ever so subtly, so demurely, our subconscious feeling of helplessness became real.
Now we really are helpless. Students of omnisciency will recall that in my Sept '06 blog I reckoned as how it would be good if the democrats carried both houses because that would give us opportunity to understand that our nation's troubles run much deeper than the party in power. Well we did vote that way, but the body that we chose to rescue us is itself helpless, treadmilling away on issues that are in reality trivial, or pillow fighting about issues that are truly vital to our world. Not being able to pass even a toothless non-binding resolution is simply pitiful cowardice. There is not a true patriot of the kin who founded our democracy among the lot. They whimper when they should be raging. They are in fact incapable of making comprehensive changes. Were they held to military standards, they would be found guilty of desertion.
The constitutional balance of power between the congress and the administration is now only an illusion. Shortly after 9/11 George told the world "you are either for us or against us". Now he speaks more specifically. His message to the congress, to the armed forces, to the American people, has become "you are either for me or against me". When George first began his presidency pundits joked that he was mostly just a figurehead, that the real planning and power was vested in Dick and crew. Whether President Bush really understood at the beginning that he was incapable of complex analysis and planning on his own; that his role was more of an announcer than a planner we may never know. But over time, right before our eyes, he became convinced that he alone is capable of guiding our country, that his path to greatness is being illuminated by his "other father". Now almost all of those loyal friends supporting him, and providing him with the real substance of his presidency, have left. He has grown more and more isolated and is drifting deeper into megalomania.
But the extent of his delusions are not the critical issue. The keystone question is what can we do about it ? And the answer is---- not much, maybe nothing. Impeach him? Surely you jest. I haven't researched it well, but I am aware of only one member of Congress who has the guts to openly question our president's mental stability. And since he has been seeing UFO's, his credibility is not exactly sterling. The Pandorian deluge has begun and it will run its course regardless of what we do. If President Bush decides that God has chosen him to initiate Armageddon, he can push the proverbial Red Button. He can order the planes to fly and the bombs to fall and we can only stand by helplessly and watch it happen.
If we are lucky enough to survive the rest of Bush's term without him starting another war and/or not fabricating a national emergency and declaring martial law, then the gods will have had mercy on our poor, undeserving souls. Harry Truman had a plaque on his desk that read "The Buck Stops Here". That is not true anymore, the buck really stops here ---- on this page, behind your eyes, at my fingertips. We know way to much to blame our troubles on an unstable president and a gutless congress. Well before 9/11 we began to reduce our citizenship duties to the simple act of voting, campaigning for a candidate or a cause was extra credit. Now our country desperately needs our attention, but we can't stay focused long enough to create changes. We clung to the fabled American Dream even though it became obvious that the dream was coming true only in terms of corporate wealth- that the gap between the rich and poor was growing ever wider. And that social security, health care, energy and in fact our entire infrastructure were disintegrating and little was being done to stem the tide. Our complacency contributed to our lack of resiliency following the attack on the twin towers, the sequella of which has turned us into a nation of sleepwalkers.
Time after time when another lie is uncovered or another subhuman practice is revealed or another treaty is broken , we mumble briefly about our outrage and our determination to change things. But time after time our righteous indignation gets sidetracked by some triviality. Citizen revolts get started just fine, Cindy Sheehan began a revolution down by the ranch. It got lots of press and showed signs of spreading but it did not catch fire, it's there but it smolders away, attracting little support and accomplishing nothing. As some may recall, I got my hopes up a bit around the treatment of the Dixie Chicks. I thought that perhaps I was witnessing a strange attractor in its early stages. So much for my chaos theory expertise.
It's apathy some say, but I think it is a symptom of our national illness. What has
happened to the spirit to rise up against injustice that our forefathers had? Indeed what happened to the exploding social injustice fervor of the sixties?
[There are plethora of analyses and opinions out there examining how and why we have become so defenseless and apathetic, and why more and more of the world is getting off our bandwagon- and the growth of militant hatred for us unrelated to national borders. As an off the scale INTP (Myers-Briggs), I have a redundancy phobia , and I am not really interested in an informational pile on. I can't say anything that has not been said. We are not going to be able to pull ourselves away from the "Reality TV Shows" that we are now substituting for the real reality we can't quite face. We will have to be jump started. We can fix this, and I believe and hope that we will, but we are going to have to pay our dues first. For now, I am going to get back to my evolution of organizational structure and chaos theory thingamabob. ] Peace. Jim
As Long as I Am Bitching, Whining and Moaning, Which Does Not Accurately Reflect My Mood after Emerging from My Alternate Universe Sojourn, I Might Has Well Toss in These Tidbits.
I made a pretty big change in my exercise routine this summer. It was too damn hot even at six in the morning to do my semihyperhiking five miles. I knew North Myrtle Beach had a health club of sorts but reasoned it would be poorly equipped and a little countryfied. Checked it out anyway and holy shit! It is far and away the best equipped, well managed facility of its sort I have ever seen. It would be right at home in upscale New York. Check it out here:
I love it, but of course not without dropping a few comments.
1. Both the men's and ladies' locker rooms have individual showers with two curtains- more than half of the men cover up so they are not naked, gasp! in view of the others.
2. I am getting the best strength exercises- in terms of muscle groups worked, rather than weight lifted I ever have- and it shows. But do you understand how silly muscles look on a 73 year old man? It ain't a pretty sight.
3. It is a public facility paid for with tax dollars. Not only is it never crowded, but about 40% of the members are over 60. The reason why is that the membership dues are so high that most of the working class folks can't afford to join the club their tax dollars built. Economic discrimination. My suggestion that they use some tax dollars to subsidize low income citizen memberships, got the old snowball in hell treatment.
Went to an excellent movie the name of which I can't remember. Big stars. Main theme was about the complexities of racially mixed relationships. The previews came on. Every single preview of coming attractions was a low budget movie with black actors. But not one of those previewed movies were going to be shown at that theater or any other theater in town. If there is a high school diploma among the staff, it is not apparent.
Ate breakfast at a restaurant during black bikers motorcycle week euphemistically called sports bike week. Young black couple came in. They stood around without being greeted, finally seated themselves. Some time later I saw them get up and walk out and then I noticed that no one had waited on them. Just to make sure I had it right I checked out all the other customers. No black people. Oh wait, there was one table with four black patrons, and they were all big burly biker type men. Bigotry and cowardice hand in hand again.
One more depressing scene that I wrote just before I left for computer hell that I will just tack on here without updating.
Before I disappear into a maze of DVD's, CD's, some 3.5's and even a few stray floppies, many of which have uninformative labels or none at all, I want to say a few words re: my evolving viewpoint of life here on the beach, starting with an event that is indelibly imprinted on my memory. I was on the return leg of my beach walk when I noticed three people that seemed to be in trouble. When I got to them, I saw one grown man, one teenager pushing an empty wheelchair, and a women that weighed well over 300 pounds apparently collapsed in the surf, her legs twisted in an awkward position under her huge torso. The men were trying unsuccessfully to help her get back in the wheelchair. After asking the pointless question "Do you need any help?" I took her arm and tried to help lift her high enough to push the wheelchair under her, but it was hopeless. A woman passing by, after also asking the pointless question, stopped to help but our combined efforts could not budge her. People passing by. I yelled that we needed help, but no one responded.
Less than a hundred feet further inland there was a row of shade tents, complete with a portable dance floor that some locals use to practice a dance with a huge following they claim to have invented called the Shag. The music they use is primarily the very groovy early rhythm and blues. To me, the dance looks like the jitterbug with a southern drawl, but what do I know? So anyway two men were setting up the facilities and as I approached them to ask for help, the first guy got that oh-shit-this-bum- is-going- to- ask- me- for- spare- change- look, but once I explained the problem he moved to help. The other guy was sweeping off the dance platform and pretended not to notice me. So in my most authoritative Leo take charge voice I said "you too sir, we need all the help we can get". He came along and after several attempts we were able to get the lady squeezed back into her wheelchair, although her butt was so wide the chair could not have been comfortable. But in the middle of that effort, the part that I will never forget happened. In my usual manner of attempting a little levity to ease stressful situations, I said "luckily, the tide is not coming in very fast". And the woman said "I wish it would come up over my head."
As happens in these times my intent to publish a reasonable rational to support my claim that America developed a clinical case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder subsequent to 9/11 is basically out of date and old news now that I am finally getting around to publishing it. First, my diagnostic terminology has no tangible value beyond my own ego. And by now there are plenty of voices observing that there is something wrong with us as a country. It is not that we don't know we were conned into going to war with Iraq, or that our freedoms are being stripped away not by terrorist attacks but by our own government; or that more and more of the world has come to believe that if there is such a thing as an axis of evil, we are part of it. Most of us know that. Most of us disapprove of the state of our nation. That disapproval is being voiced: in books, in news articles; in commentaries, not just by fringe group activists but by main stream commentators, by democrats, independents, and (heavens to Betsy) republicans, in song and film and blog. More than ever before in our history we are well informed about the true state of our world in real time. We don't have to wait for Paul Revere to gallop into town before we know whether by land or by sea. Google has the information for us the instant we hit enter, quite often even before we can finish typing the question.
The exponential growth in communication technology and the unstoppable world wide web that facilitates our ability to communicate with each other instantly and any where has profoundly changed our specieshood circumambiency. [What the hell did he just say?] For example, there is an idiomatic phrase that no longer makes sense--- "left in the dark". The black cloth cloak of secrecy that once allowed us to be left on tenterhooks is now made of Saran Wrap. [Ed. Note. Author has been cautioned once again about metaphoric molestation.] Largely because of the Internet, almost nothing that can be observed can be kept secret for long. Lyndon Johnson left us in the dark about what really, or rather really didn't, happen in the Bay of Tonkin. It was years before enough of us found out we had been bamboozled to make a difference, and years more for us to force a halt to our senseless involvement in the Viet Nam fiasco.
There is a hokey little phrase that President Bush tried to use once but got it mixed up. It goes "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me". Just like Lyndon, Bush fed our ever gullible monster phobia to convince us that we were in grave danger from Saddam Hussain's possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction- even that he was well on his way to having nuclear bombs. But things were different this time, this time we knew. No secret agendas uncovered, or clandestine operations revealed, or intelligence gathered since we invaded Iraq has substantively changed what we already knew or suspected before our invasion. One of the most common rationalizations people expressed at the time was that even though there did not seem to be any objective evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, surely the president knew classified information that proved it. Some of the crap they handed us was so juvenile I have difficulty seeing how anyone believed it. Remember the rolling chemical WMD factories? [Hey Azid, I got a really cool idea. Lets mix up all these deadly and volatile chemicals and stuff while we are rocking and rolling down the road in the back of this semi.] I don't really know who this next fellow is but he said it so well I want to make sure he gets the credit for it.
We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth. -Sydney Schanberg
One of Hans Christen Anderson's characters in Keiserens nye Klææder , spoke with equal profundity "But he has nothing on".
One of the key ingredients in the formation of PTSD is a feeling of helplessness. Despite the media barrage of post 9/11 bravado, there was this single apodictic fact : if they could hit us so hard in the middle of New York City and our nation's capital, no one could feel safe- anywhere. But our jingoistic belief that we were the greatest, the strongest, the most invulnerable nation in the world, barred us from consciously accepting the fact that we were just like all the rest, or as our AA friends are so fond of saying, we were in denial. Unable to face our feelings of helplessness we simply banned it from our consciousness, but that terrifying feeling didn't just wither away from lack of attention. It grew. And grew. It became malignant and metastatic until now, unacknowledged and unresisted, it has become one of, if not the, most powerful influences on our national psyche. And ever so subtly, so demurely, our subconscious feeling of helplessness became real.
Now we really are helpless. Students of omnisciency will recall that in my Sept '06 blog I reckoned as how it would be good if the democrats carried both houses because that would give us opportunity to understand that our nation's troubles run much deeper than the party in power. Well we did vote that way, but the body that we chose to rescue us is itself helpless, treadmilling away on issues that are in reality trivial, or pillow fighting about issues that are truly vital to our world. Not being able to pass even a toothless non-binding resolution is simply pitiful cowardice. There is not a true patriot of the kin who founded our democracy among the lot. They whimper when they should be raging. They are in fact incapable of making comprehensive changes. Were they held to military standards, they would be found guilty of desertion.
The constitutional balance of power between the congress and the administration is now only an illusion. Shortly after 9/11 George told the world "you are either for us or against us". Now he speaks more specifically. His message to the congress, to the armed forces, to the American people, has become "you are either for me or against me". When George first began his presidency pundits joked that he was mostly just a figurehead, that the real planning and power was vested in Dick and crew. Whether President Bush really understood at the beginning that he was incapable of complex analysis and planning on his own; that his role was more of an announcer than a planner we may never know. But over time, right before our eyes, he became convinced that he alone is capable of guiding our country, that his path to greatness is being illuminated by his "other father". Now almost all of those loyal friends supporting him, and providing him with the real substance of his presidency, have left. He has grown more and more isolated and is drifting deeper into megalomania.
But the extent of his delusions are not the critical issue. The keystone question is what can we do about it ? And the answer is---- not much, maybe nothing. Impeach him? Surely you jest. I haven't researched it well, but I am aware of only one member of Congress who has the guts to openly question our president's mental stability. And since he has been seeing UFO's, his credibility is not exactly sterling. The Pandorian deluge has begun and it will run its course regardless of what we do. If President Bush decides that God has chosen him to initiate Armageddon, he can push the proverbial Red Button. He can order the planes to fly and the bombs to fall and we can only stand by helplessly and watch it happen.
If we are lucky enough to survive the rest of Bush's term without him starting another war and/or not fabricating a national emergency and declaring martial law, then the gods will have had mercy on our poor, undeserving souls. Harry Truman had a plaque on his desk that read "The Buck Stops Here". That is not true anymore, the buck really stops here ---- on this page, behind your eyes, at my fingertips. We know way to much to blame our troubles on an unstable president and a gutless congress. Well before 9/11 we began to reduce our citizenship duties to the simple act of voting, campaigning for a candidate or a cause was extra credit. Now our country desperately needs our attention, but we can't stay focused long enough to create changes. We clung to the fabled American Dream even though it became obvious that the dream was coming true only in terms of corporate wealth- that the gap between the rich and poor was growing ever wider. And that social security, health care, energy and in fact our entire infrastructure were disintegrating and little was being done to stem the tide. Our complacency contributed to our lack of resiliency following the attack on the twin towers, the sequella of which has turned us into a nation of sleepwalkers.
Time after time when another lie is uncovered or another subhuman practice is revealed or another treaty is broken , we mumble briefly about our outrage and our determination to change things. But time after time our righteous indignation gets sidetracked by some triviality. Citizen revolts get started just fine, Cindy Sheehan began a revolution down by the ranch. It got lots of press and showed signs of spreading but it did not catch fire, it's there but it smolders away, attracting little support and accomplishing nothing. As some may recall, I got my hopes up a bit around the treatment of the Dixie Chicks. I thought that perhaps I was witnessing a strange attractor in its early stages. So much for my chaos theory expertise.
It's apathy some say, but I think it is a symptom of our national illness. What has
happened to the spirit to rise up against injustice that our forefathers had? Indeed what happened to the exploding social injustice fervor of the sixties?
[There are plethora of analyses and opinions out there examining how and why we have become so defenseless and apathetic, and why more and more of the world is getting off our bandwagon- and the growth of militant hatred for us unrelated to national borders. As an off the scale INTP (Myers-Briggs), I have a redundancy phobia , and I am not really interested in an informational pile on. I can't say anything that has not been said. We are not going to be able to pull ourselves away from the "Reality TV Shows" that we are now substituting for the real reality we can't quite face. We will have to be jump started. We can fix this, and I believe and hope that we will, but we are going to have to pay our dues first. For now, I am going to get back to my evolution of organizational structure and chaos theory thingamabob. ] Peace. Jim
As Long as I Am Bitching, Whining and Moaning, Which Does Not Accurately Reflect My Mood after Emerging from My Alternate Universe Sojourn, I Might Has Well Toss in These Tidbits.
I made a pretty big change in my exercise routine this summer. It was too damn hot even at six in the morning to do my semihyperhiking five miles. I knew North Myrtle Beach had a health club of sorts but reasoned it would be poorly equipped and a little countryfied. Checked it out anyway and holy shit! It is far and away the best equipped, well managed facility of its sort I have ever seen. It would be right at home in upscale New York. Check it out here:
I love it, but of course not without dropping a few comments.
1. Both the men's and ladies' locker rooms have individual showers with two curtains- more than half of the men cover up so they are not naked, gasp! in view of the others.
2. I am getting the best strength exercises- in terms of muscle groups worked, rather than weight lifted I ever have- and it shows. But do you understand how silly muscles look on a 73 year old man? It ain't a pretty sight.
3. It is a public facility paid for with tax dollars. Not only is it never crowded, but about 40% of the members are over 60. The reason why is that the membership dues are so high that most of the working class folks can't afford to join the club their tax dollars built. Economic discrimination. My suggestion that they use some tax dollars to subsidize low income citizen memberships, got the old snowball in hell treatment.
Went to an excellent movie the name of which I can't remember. Big stars. Main theme was about the complexities of racially mixed relationships. The previews came on. Every single preview of coming attractions was a low budget movie with black actors. But not one of those previewed movies were going to be shown at that theater or any other theater in town. If there is a high school diploma among the staff, it is not apparent.
Ate breakfast at a restaurant during black bikers motorcycle week euphemistically called sports bike week. Young black couple came in. They stood around without being greeted, finally seated themselves. Some time later I saw them get up and walk out and then I noticed that no one had waited on them. Just to make sure I had it right I checked out all the other customers. No black people. Oh wait, there was one table with four black patrons, and they were all big burly biker type men. Bigotry and cowardice hand in hand again.
One more depressing scene that I wrote just before I left for computer hell that I will just tack on here without updating.
Before I disappear into a maze of DVD's, CD's, some 3.5's and even a few stray floppies, many of which have uninformative labels or none at all, I want to say a few words re: my evolving viewpoint of life here on the beach, starting with an event that is indelibly imprinted on my memory. I was on the return leg of my beach walk when I noticed three people that seemed to be in trouble. When I got to them, I saw one grown man, one teenager pushing an empty wheelchair, and a women that weighed well over 300 pounds apparently collapsed in the surf, her legs twisted in an awkward position under her huge torso. The men were trying unsuccessfully to help her get back in the wheelchair. After asking the pointless question "Do you need any help?" I took her arm and tried to help lift her high enough to push the wheelchair under her, but it was hopeless. A woman passing by, after also asking the pointless question, stopped to help but our combined efforts could not budge her. People passing by. I yelled that we needed help, but no one responded.
Less than a hundred feet further inland there was a row of shade tents, complete with a portable dance floor that some locals use to practice a dance with a huge following they claim to have invented called the Shag. The music they use is primarily the very groovy early rhythm and blues. To me, the dance looks like the jitterbug with a southern drawl, but what do I know? So anyway two men were setting up the facilities and as I approached them to ask for help, the first guy got that oh-shit-this-bum- is-going- to- ask- me- for- spare- change- look, but once I explained the problem he moved to help. The other guy was sweeping off the dance platform and pretended not to notice me. So in my most authoritative Leo take charge voice I said "you too sir, we need all the help we can get". He came along and after several attempts we were able to get the lady squeezed back into her wheelchair, although her butt was so wide the chair could not have been comfortable. But in the middle of that effort, the part that I will never forget happened. In my usual manner of attempting a little levity to ease stressful situations, I said "luckily, the tide is not coming in very fast". And the woman said "I wish it would come up over my head."
Hey Ma, I am about to push the publish button. Hooray
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