End of the Calendar Prophecy

I hope and pray that everyone is preparing themselves for the end of the calendar as we know it.  Anyone know where I can buy a new Maya Calendar since my old one ends tomorrow?  Anyway, here's wishing everyone a Happy New Calendar.

OOOPS

I should be writing stuff, shouldn't I?

Choosing The Lesser Of Two Evils

Merely postpones the inevitable.

Sign Of The Times

Walk/Don’t Walk signs can be very helpful when crossing a street. Like stop lights for automobiles they help control the flow of traffic. Without them it would be close to impossible to get across a busy intersection. They are really convenient when intersections have turn arrows for automobiles. Even should cross traffic be at a stop nothing can ruin a day like being hit by a car turning into the path we’re walking.

But are they absolutely necessary? 

I’m talking about when the walk path is clear, no cars are coming –or are a significant distance away to not cause injury or death- and the sign indicates “Don’t Walk”. Should we stay or should we go? Should we cross the street because we can or should we stay put because the sign says so? Do we put all our faith and trust in a machine to tell us when to walk safely or should we use our own intellectual abilities to reason as to when it is safe to walk? When the sign says emphatically “Don’t Walk” although our intellect tells us it is safe to do so, do we obey the sign or our own confidence in accomplishing the task before us, that being crossing the street safely?

I do not raise these questions idly. I have too often seen people standing at a street corner with no oncoming traffic and not attempting to cross for no other reason than that a little square box with a red phrase told them not to walk. These people put more faith in that mechanical sign than in their own common sense. They obey a machine that tells them not to do something they clearly could do instead of obeying themselves.

What does this say about humanity when they more readily obey a machine, while helpful is not the final say on our behavior, instead of our own common sense? What does this say about people who defer solely to a machine instead of themselves when they could clearly make a decision to take the initiative and override the machine’s instructions?

Are we getting too good at following orders? Are we becoming so good at being told what to do that we cannot cross a street confidently without first getting an other’s permission? In this case a machine’s permission? What does it say about us if we cannot act of our own volition but must wait for permission to do something we are clearly capable of doing all by ourselves? 

If we cannot cross the street safely without first getting someone or something else’s permission what more does that say about our individual abilities? Can we trust the people to critically think? Take the initiative? Problem solve? Take responsibility? Question Authority?

One can tell a lot about a person just by the way they cross a street. And what it tells us isn’t good.

And election day is coming up.

Suffering With The Compassionate

Compassion is "to suffer with".  How many people do we know who claim they are compassionate are really suffering with someone?  How often does it appear that someone claiming compassion is not suffering in the least with another?

I heard an ad on the radio where the voice over claimed that compassion was giving someone a glass of water.  I, to this day, cannot fathom how giving someone a glass of water entailed suffering of any kind on the part of the giver.  But it apparently made the giver feel better about herself.  The voice was also mentioning this as encouragement to the listener to be equally compassionate.  Well, I've given out more than my share of beverages and I can't recall ever feeling a sense of suffering with the recipient of said beverage.  I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of these recipients were far from suffering before I gave them their beverage.  Although they may have suffered afterward if they didn't like the beverage I gave them. 

The people behind this radio ad was a missionary organization.  Now, depending on where this glass of water was given and to whom it was given it might have been an incredibly charitable gesture.  But a compassionate one?  No where in the radio spot was there any indication of how the giver may have been suffering with the receiver. 

And there's nothing wrong with charity.  Faith Hope and Charity?  It's one of the Big Three.  But compassion is more glamorous.  It implies empathy and empathy is the new sympathy.  Everybody wants to be empathetic.  And when understood as "to suffer with", when used in a sentence compassion often doesn't even make any sense.  But it sounds good.  It makes the giver sound and seem important and special. Even if it's nonsense. 

Why be accurately charitable when we can be arrogantly compassionate?  Because we can get away with it.

When someone tells me that they are compassionate, or has compassion, I wonder if they really know what they are saying.  Do they really suffer with others?  Now, lending an ear is not suffering with another.  Saying "I understand" over and over again is not suffering with another.  Repeating "I'm here for you" is not suffering with another.

Mother Teresa had compassion.  Maximilian Kolbe  had compassion.  Father Damian had compassion.  They did a bit more than go around handing out glasses of water.  They gave more than their ears.  They did more than understand.  When they said "I'm here for you" they were also "there with", "suffering with" and verily truly really meant it.

Do we?

A Prayer Against Despair

O Lord, please protect me
From my own stupidity.

The Disease Of Sin Exists

Long before the symptoms of sin appear.

God Is Love

Sin is its own punishment

What On Earth

Our abuse of the earth will only destroy the world

Her inability to accommodate us, the world

Will not be her destruction, merely ours

The earth will eventually evict the world

Before we ever destroy her, keeping our deposit.

Our Other Selves

Others are blamed for everything.

If only they would…

If only they wouldn’t…

If only they did…

If only they didn’t...

To others we are the other.

The Boss and The Bureaucrat

Last night I had thought about adding my literary voice to the multitudes who shook their collective heads in amazement that bureaucrats in London wouldn't let a couple of senior citizens named Bruce and Paul stay out past curfew to sing a few songs for their fans in Hyde Park.  But curfew is curfew.  Rules are rules. The letter of the law will be obeyed even if the Spirit In The Night suggested otherwise. 

Now, the thought of pulling the plug on The Boss is kinda amusing.  Considering his reputation for playing three hour plus concerts the thought that the only way to get him off the stage is to cut the power and make him go home would be of the highest compliment for him and his band.  The bureaucratic fear that he might entertain the public into infinity unless he was stopped should put a smile -or big grin- on any and all Boss and E Street Band fans.  But he is an American and when in London...

But.  But...  Mr. McCartney?  Sir Paul McCartney?  A Knight!  If only he had his horse and lance.  A knight and Member of the British Empire is unceremoniously told he can't stay out past 10:30pm and play with his friends.  This is now the second time the city of London has shut down a concert involving Paul.

Not only did The Boss give the public more than their money's worth with a three hour plus concert he threw in a mini Paul McCartney and the E Street Band featuring Bruce Springsteen concert as an added bonus at no extra charge only to have it all pretty much immediately shut down by the powers that be because they were more concerned with rich neighbors of the park instead of a public that was having a wild but innocent time courtesy of two artists grateful for and to their fans.  Bureaucrats are rarely talented and also rarely grateful to and for anything except themselves and their rules.  And that is why the concert ended the way it did.

This never would've happened in Asbury Park.

 

Reality Check

 

Scowl and stare

Glare if you dare

The world doesn't care

Whether it's fair

 

Worth or Value at a Price

If money grew on trees
Eventually there'd be
No more public property

Self Distraction

People who can't stand to be alone

Can't stand to be with themselves

Materialism

When the going gets tough

The tough go shopping

Prophet And Loss

What does it profit a man

To try to gain the world and fail

And lose his soul

Wants Wanting

Socialism:  We want what's ours


Communism:  We want what's yours


Capitalism:  We want what's ours and yours


Americanism:  I want what's mine and what's not mine and what's
                          left over

Communication Breakdown

If people speak

Only when spoken to

Who would speak first

No Expectations

No disappointments.

Once Upon A Time

People lived happily ever after.

No Shoes, No Shirt...

My kind of woman.

Leadership

I, as of this writing, have a follower to my blog.  That makes me a leader.  I am a leader.  I take my responsibilities as leader seriously and will not let my follower down.

My first act as leader will be to dole out (Bob Dole was a leader) gingerbread houses to all the homeless.  This will also solve the hunger problem in my blogdom.  You see, a leader is always thinking.

Many have asked me (actually, nobody) that since I have solved the homeless and hunger problems what will I do about the naked problem amongst my soon to be multitude of followers.  Yes.  I agree.  There is not enough nakedness in my blogdom.  I will most certainly rectify this problem once I solve more pressing matters that need to be ironed out.

Why is the sky blue?  Hey! Who put peanut butter in my chocolate!?  Who put chocolate in my peanut butter!?

Thank you for following my leadership.

Greatness Declared

A great nation does not deserve great art.

A great nation produces great art.

If a great nation does not produce great art

It does not deserve great art.

Nor is it a great nation.

The above is based on a public radio announcement I repeatedly hear. I found it odd that a great nation (meaning us) were not to create great art because we are great but rather we are entitled to great art because we are great. If we are great our art should be a sign of it. If we don’t have great art that should say something about our greatness. And the fact that we feel entitled to something we aren’t doing says even more.

And who decides what is great art? Maybe we have it and the people running the ad aren’t great enough to see it. If we are a great nation there should be great art out there already and these people need to come down from their ivory tower and find it instead of telling us we are entitled to what we don’t have when we in fact already have it. Or admit we don’t have it and then rethink what it means to be a great nation and whether or not we are one.

First Post/Intro

It has been suggested –more like strongly urged- to me that I create a blog. This pretty much an order has been impressed upon me by my manager and all around encourager.

You see, I am a poet/photographer with a website that my encourager in all things created for me to help promote my work. It is she who has been urging me under threat of constant badgering that I write a blog. And so I did. But because of the subject matter of my photography it is an adults only blog and she wants me to write one that is open to all. So, I created this blog site and she is now pleading with me to fill it with something. Anything.

I think this is a great idea and greatly appreciate her efforts –she built the website after all- but I know nothing about blogs and/or blogging. So, here I am writing by the seat of my pants without a net. I don’t know if this is anything but it is something.

I don’t see this blog as having any consistent content. I see it as being a series of random musings, and thoughts. The subjects will often change, as will the style, but the person writing them will not. I don’t know how the reader will take to the random subject matter but it will make the blog more interesting and fun for the blogger to write it. And hopefully it will be fun for the reader who will get a variety of subjects to read about.

I tend to be a first amendment absolutist. I will not deliberately set out to offend anyone but nor will I shy away from my opinions merely because someone out there may not like it and/or disagree with it. Anyone who believes their ideas are worth listening to needs to allow others the same courtesy otherwise they have as little right to speak as they give others.

This first blog isn’t much to write home about. It’s just a vague introduction. But it’s a start.