James Crystal |
Saturday, January 29, 2005
When are people going to wake up? Imagine a timeline chart starting exactly fifty years ago, with a 'thread' for each human then alive, and add a new one for each human who's born since then. A HALF CENTURY! What a lot of human 'water' has glowed-flowed since then, based on all that had most recently happened, say in the previously crucial fifty years! It was a little less than a short DECADE after VE and VJ days, and the free world had adjusted to an Iron Curtain, as the Cold War was as sure as rain---just as the palpable fear of a reign of incoming ICBM'S tipped with A-Bombs gripped the American consciousness. Practically all the humans in high positions of power, today, were children then, getting shaped and shaded by all the 'pubic' 'licking' = PUBLIC institutions, just like what's happening, now, in the even WORSE dumbed down and 'freedom-ed down' 'winning' modifications and new cretins, 'er creations, since then. What drove me to the keyboard this afternoon is all things having to do with the estimable Edward 'Ted' Kennedy. It's time to expose him. Keeping my timeline in mind, and extending it to the previous fifty years, form a subgroup of humans who composed the Kennedy clan, with special attention on the 'God Father', the 'Don', papa Joe. If I'm not mistaken, he got his start as a drug runner, perhaps the ultimate 'libertarian', as he practiced the 'black market' art of providing alcohol to willing consumers. And, we all (should!) know about his ignoble stint as Ambassador to England in the running up to WW II, as he exhibited Benedict Arnold tendencies, by his actions and thoughts---America couldn't cut the mustard, he GASSED, his butt cut, compared to the Germans. Well, as a practicing propagating rabbit-like Catholic, he found a willing co-conspiring 'vagina', and managed to create a lot of investments for the future. One, Joe Jr., was killed fighting the Germans (old-fashioned dad was correct, at least in his own familial case), so it became necessary to try to ride as high as possible with the second 'in command', John Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, way at the back of the progeny line, baby Edward bid his time, living through much the same kinds of times as I did---we're about the same age. The BIG diff, of course, is that he was a son of Big Daddy Joe, sort of his little TOE---who would, eventually, get his chance to dip IT---"It?"---into the public 'water', as well as that infamous Chappaquiddick creek. We are all (or should be) sick of the noospheric Potemkin village know as the Days of Camelot, when JFK and Jackie conned (Jack and Jackie 'jacked up') so many people---People Magaziners, all---for so long, right up until today, for the most deluded ones. Let's simultaneously keep in mind everything about the Kennedy's, except the 'Dear leader', Ted---don't forget the lawyering Robert!---and now get up to today's speeding BULLET. Mr. Outrageous, Not-so-easy Ted, has quite a thread, on our timeline. I'd say it's more like a quilt. Or, at least, many frayed and scattered leathery sinews, all based on what he learned from his misguided past. He's the son of a 'Manuel Noriega', American style. You could truthfully say that he's one of the best examples of an Alpha man, out of control. Here's a controversial statement---he really doesn't have any political leanings. To be political, in the true sense of that word, there must be other people with whom to negotiate, in order to make a deal. While we weather Un-sir Ted's many excursions into insanity, I contend that it's actually tres simple to nail him. The world according to the HARPING Ted only has ONE human = himself, and as far as he is concerned, all apparent others are mere means for him to gain more power. Granted that the assassination of his two brothers spices up the Kennedy stew. But, I maintain that only makes it more obvious---he's the last standing, hic, Kennedy! And, knowing that he can never win the popular vote for President, because of his past 'indiscretions', he's chosen, in his waning years, to burn his bridges behind him, and thus 'make his mark'. THUS! THUS? Ah, here's where my point-making rubber hits the HAPPY road. The very Universe is subtly conspiring to wake us up, and Mr. (T)ed is the horse's ass, trying to talk us into---what? The forked-tongued Kennedy needs four legs to stay up, since he's such a sod. However, recall, yet again, his particular timeline, right up to now, the day before the most momentous election in Iraq. (An aside---in the many-year-ed play of humanity, a single cycle around the sun by the Earth is an instant. As I pondered the Iraqi election, believe it or not, something Heidegger wrote about mathematics came to mind. "The mathemata, the mathematical, is that 'about' THINGS which we really ALREADY know. Therefore, we do not first get it out of THINGS, but, in a certain way, we bring it ALREADY with us. From this we can now understand why, for instance, number is something mathematical. We see three chairs and say that there are three. What 'three' is the three chairs do not tell us, nor three apples, three cats, nor any other three THINGS. Rather, we count three THINGS only if we ALREADY know 'three'. In thus grasping the number three as such, we only expressly recognize something which, in some way, we ALREADY have. This recognition is genuine learning. The number is something in the proper sense learnable, a mathema, i.e., something mathematical. THINGS do not help us to grasp 'three' as such, i.e., threeness. 'Three'---what exactly is it? It is the number in the natural series of numbers that stands in third place. In 'third'? It is only the third number because it is the three. And 'place'---where do places come from? 'Three' is not the third number, but the FIRST number. 'One' isn't really the first number. For instance, we have before us one loaf of bread and one knife, this one, and in addition, another one. When we take both together, we say, 'both of these', the one and the other, but we do not say, 'these two', or 1 + 1. Only when we add a cup to the bread and the knife do we say 'all'. NOW we take them as a sum, i.e., as a whole and so and so many. Only when we perceive it from the third is the former one the first, the former other the second, so that one and two arise, and 'and' becomes 'plus', and there arises the possibility of places and a series. What we now take cognizance of is not drawn from any of the THINGS. We take what we ourselves somehow ALREADY have. What must be understood as mathematical is what we can learn in this way." Pages 252-253, "Basic Writings", Martin Heidegger (All bold and capped words are my doing) Swell. I leave it to you to attempt to understand all that, philosophically, if you wish. Let's apply this analysis of 'three' and 'third' to the recent NEW elections. By my count, beginning after free men breached the Berlin Wall, there've been many more elections than three. However, I am inclined to view tomorrow's ballot casting by the newly freed Iraqis as equivalent to the BIG number THREE. The S-Curve of the 'business' of free elections has been upward sloping for some time, now. It could be that Iraq will prove to be the inflection point, after which bursting-hearts in many humans will compete to outdo the Iraqis. In short, in the noospheric dimension, in CW awareness, Iraq will be seem as the dam-breaking number THREE. Thus, looking BACK from its success, more and more people will join together to DEMAND freedom. Look at what's happening in Jordan! Back to our 'boy' Ted. His predictable antics are the actions of a mole, just as damaging as the worst Soviet spy, except his mission is to destroy the modern Democratic Party. Admittedly, he's likely NOT doing this consciously, but---by their FRUITS may ye know them! Therefore, I say, go ahead and call him on his stupidity, in public. But, know, like the number 'three', that he is ALREADY a THING of the past, and thus he is serving the cause of FREEDOM, in his own terrible way. Just be careful what you wish for! Does any freedom-lover TRULY want the left wing, qua socialists, to do other than self-destruct? Hush, Sweet Charlotte! What briar patch? St. Patrick banished snakes. St. Ted is banishing leftists, who are human snakes!
Friday, January 28, 2005
I've been devouring a classic twenty-year old book, and am inspired to offer the following section, elucidating, somewhat, the differences between Alpha and Omega men, and the need for transcendence of their 'extreme' strategies---'ULTIMATELY'! "The Practice Of The Way Of self-Sacrifice (or self-Transcending Love-Communion With The Divine Person) Is Individual, Always Present, Generally Producing Harmony (or The Order Of Balance and Fearlessness), Even Sometimes Disorderly (Where Loveless Order Has Suppressed Creative Life), and Inherently Free. The conventional Moralities (Alpha and Omega) Are Each (As A Style Of action) Sometimes Engaged, In A Dynamic or Creative Play Of Application, but one who Practices self-Transcending Love Of God In The Context Of conditional relations and events Always Exceeds The Limits Of Alpha and Omega. Actions In The Mode Of Alpha (or Virtues and Duties) Allow Detachment, Calm, Even Purity, Orderliness, and Desireless Effectiveness, but Alpha Has No Moral Rule or Effective Means In Situations Of social Chaos and human Disorder That Require Creative and Even Aggressive action (and The Alpha Strategy, In Itself, Generally Does Not Take The conditional Dimension Of Reality Sufficiently Into Account). Just So, actions In The Mode Of Omega (or Effective physical, emotional, and intellectual Creativity) Can Achieve Many individual and collective Goals, but, On Its Own, The Omega Strategy Eventually Leads To The Exploitation, Degradation, and Suppression Of the individual and Mankind, Because The Omega Strategy Is Not Based On A Regard For The Total Need and Obligation Of the individual human being (Especially The Spiritual Need and The Obligation To Transcend the conditional self In The Context Of The Higher Stages Of Life). Therefore, Beyond (and Even In The Midst Of) Virtue, Duty, and Creative or Aggressive Pursuit Of goals Of conditional Change, There Must Be The Constant Way and Practice Of self-Transcending God-Communion In The Context Of conditional Reality. The conditional worlds Are Built On The Sacrifice Of every thing, event, process, or being that appears. The conditional worlds Are Built On Sacrifice, Not On Preservation, Survival, Conquest, or Attainment of conditional Reality. Therefore, Senior To conventional Morality (Whether Alpha or Omega) Is The Artful Practice Of Sacrifice of self In God, Under all conditions, and in all relations. That Art Involves A Willingness To Engage action Always In Love (or Divine Communion), but Variously, In A Dynamic Fashion, Sometimes In The Alpha Likeness (Conservative, Passive, Even Apparently Detached and Introverted), Sometimes In The Omega Likeness (Aggressive, Even Apparently Attached and Extroverted), Without Requiring One or The Other or Both Of These Two To Account For The Totality Of human Circumstance. Therefore, Sometimes Virtue, Sometimes Duty, Sometimes Passivity, Detachment, or Receptivity, Sometimes Creativity, Passion, or Aggressiveness, but Always This self-Sacrifice, or Persistence In Love-Communion With The Divine Person, So That Love-Radiance Replaces The Act Of self-Contraction. Conditional human Existence Is Not Merely A thing To Be Preserved, but A Process To Be Fully Understood and Fulfilled. The conditional Cosmos As A Whole Is Not A Fixed System Of Order (The Goal Of God), but An Open-Ended Theatre Of Sacrifice In God. Life Is Made Of A Little Temporary Order, A Constant Tendency Towards Change, and An Ultimate and Absolute Demand For Sacrifice. Therefore, All Of This Is A Dynamic Play Of Order, Change, and Sacrifice, For The Sake Of Growth and Transcendence, and Not For The Sake Of conditional Existence In and Of Itself." Pages 247-249; "The Dawn Horse Testament of Heart-Master Da Free John", 1985 I especially love "Life Is Made Of A Little Temporary Order, A Constant Tendency Towards Change, and An Ultimate and Absolute Demand For Sacrifice.", which I underlined in 1990. The Heart-Master ALWAYS has a Way with Words! More, More! "All beings and things and conditions and events Simply or Merely and Only ARE. They ARE Exactly and Only as they Appear to be. The beings and things and conditions and events that arise Are Not what You think About them. Reality, or God, Is Always Already Prior To what You think, or Prior To thinking itself. Merely To Observe and To Feel whatever arises (Exactly as it Appears) Is To Completely know whatever arises. Merely To Be IS Who You ARE. The Feeling Of Being Is What every being, every thing, every condition, and every event IS. Interpreting-mind Relaxes Naturally When You Merely or Simply perceive and Feel (and Thus Directly know) beings and things and conditions and events themselves. Verbal mind and Abstract thinking mind Relax Naturally When You Are Merely or Simply Being, As or What all beings and things and conditions and events Are, Instead Of Imagining You know (and Instead Of Seeking To know) What or Who they Are, or What or Who You Are. Perceiving-mind and experiencing-self Relax (or Dissolve In Bliss-Brightness) When You Simply Are, Inherently Free, and Freely Indifferent (Even To the actions of Your Own Natural body-mind). Hear Me, Understand, and Thus Consent To Be the body (or the total body-mind), Without self-Contraction, Merely perceiving, Without an other thought (or Without thought in Addition To perception). See Me. Stand Free and Be. Transcend all knowledge and experience In The Inherent and Infinitely Expanded Radiance or Feeling Of Being Itself." Pages 312-313. Sleep tight.
Here's a great article by MELIK KAYLAN that richly illustrates perhaps my pet theme, that the NOOSPHERE is what's happening. Kaylan clearly proves the point, that it's way past the time to start doing what America does best---SELL, SELL, SELL! If we fail to compete with the brainwashing counterparts to Zarqawi, we are, in effect, condemning many people to death, in the future. How can you change the mind of anyone, unless you give the TRUTHFUL story to those poor deluded fools, who absolutely believe America is the Great Satan, so they can at least wonder---"Maybe I'm missing something?" The following is the final paragraph from the article--- "The defense that George Bush is a bluff Texan who values deeds more than appearances just will not suffice. He did not win a second term by neglecting spin: He only neglects it abroad. There's a dire sense that Americans don't bother to persuade others anymore because we're horrified they're not like us, or because they think ill of us. Yeats said that out of the argument with ourselves comes poetry, out of the argument with others comes politics. Democracy is all about argument, persuasion and politics. If we want Iraqis to think we always intended above all to bring them democracy, then we should persuade them that we are, first and foremost, in the business of argument." There you go. "Talk is cheap", as a saying, implies that there must be DEEDS, as well as talk. Well, in this case, maybe you could say, "Action is cheaper", when it isn't accompanied by STRAIGHT TALK. In fact, it seems to me that when you factor in the bottom line, that is, the amount of money spent on ACTIONS---such as in Iraq: $100 billion or so---a wise person would realize that the trivial amount of money required to TALK would have a huge Return On Investment! Come on, George! A sin of omission is still a SIN! And, in this case, it's possible to avoid with a lot of "CHEAP" TALK!
Thursday, January 27, 2005
The WAVE-PARTICLE story seems to have been resolved by physics. While we humans pop out at the end of the LONG WAVE of material-becoming, apparently beginning---THIS space-time---at the Big Bang, as self-assumed PARTICLES = egos, the only final solution, or END of 'his story', can be that the Law of the Excluded Middle, the Either-Or, forceps that try to make sense of it-all is not really the END of ANY story. My story is always MYSTERY. Every 'MY' could be rooted out in Dick Enberg's now famous "Oh My!" Hidden, AS clear daylight, in that simple expression of wonder is OM. That human sound emanation is YIN-YANG, with the "O" physically equating to the open rounded lips as they throw out air, and the "M" physically equating to closed pressed together lips that modify the inner humming WAVES, even as the gross body cannot stop SOME noise from escaping. It's a sheer OPEN and SHUT case! Wavering, one WAVE on top of, and permeating, all others. The ever ongoing play, from the putative singularity of the ONE and ONLY prime POINT-of-BEING-BLISS-CONSCIOUSNESS, the Big Bang, very space-time can be understood to be a WAVE. It-all is always WAVING aloha! Hello-goodbye. Or, shouldn't that be better stated, "good hi-good bye"? Every greeting is backed by a farewell, and vice versa. It's the in between that can be realized as the literally cutting-the-edge of BEING-BLISS-CONSCIOUSNESS. What a BEAM to ride! As you live your BEAMING hot-body PARTICLE, 'er particular life, try to go at once forth and back from the Big Bang, as the Universe coalesced into, and AS, itself, over all those ten to fifteen BILLION years since the LIGHT switched ITSELF on = YOU! You know---all the Fancy Dancing into quarks, subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, plants, animals, humans. Go forth and back, at lightning speed, BE LIGHT! Play IT-ALL as a LOST gain, Sam. Well, it's SPACE to do my own particular WAVE, that was 'planned' by entries from my subtle dreams, this morning---- "Undertows" and "crashing surf" were on my inner mind AS I shifted from prone to upright. Recently, some fairly deep reading---for ME---about James Clerk Maxwell and his earth-shaking four equations that unlocked the secret of electromagnetism, centered on his description of how light moves through space. Especially poignant were the two kinds of WAVES, longitudinal and transverse. (Have you ever wondered what the difference is between FM and AM radio? Ah, I remember being absolutely clueless about this when I was young! Maybe the WONDER about this particular vital WAVE dance was a prime mover in my lifetime avocation, reading and studying cosmology and popular expositions about physics, such as "The Dancing Wu-Li Masters" and "The Tao of Physics", among many others.) WAVE: [[ ME waven < OE wafian, akin to GER waben, to fluctuate < IE *webh-, to move to and fro, prob. identical with *webh-, to weave]] I shan't WAVER! Oh, wait. The definition of that word, ITSELF, wavers! What the angel else is gong on, or, shall we say, undressing, than that every word, over time, gains new and distinct meanings? THAT is WAVERING, or, WAVES in action. The first, the most basic, the LIT-UP-into-BEING definition for WAVER is, of course, directly from WAVE---"to swing and sway to and fro; flutter". Ah, but notice what number two---which ALWAYS tries harder---says: "to show doubt or indecision; find it hard, or be unable, to decide; vacillate". All the other five 'more mature' definitions are variations on number two, except the glorious number five: "to vary in brightness, to flicker: said of LIGHT!". There spit (slit, smitten, skit, skip, slip, snip---SIT and RIP!) is! The first and fifth meanings are the core essential ones, neutrally pointing to the HOW of physical reality, and all the others come into being via overworked human MINDS---which exhibit a key assumption: DOUBT! Pure and blissful WONDER, animated by a childlike open-eyed BEING-of-MYSTERY morphs, over an ADULT-TIME, into tiny self concern, dare I say it---WAVERING worry turns people into WARTS! A couple of other words nearby WAVE demand elucidation, and both of them are very TIMELY, given the way reality has been forced and forged into a noospheric religious war. So many Christians have come out of the woodwork, goosed by domestic secularists of the shrillest power, AND by the many expressions of 'bullets-coming-at-you' stuff from the deadly cutting edge Islamo-Fascists. Enough, already! WAFER---come (round the) union Catholic ritual: [[ME wafre < NormFr waufre < Mdu wafel, wafer, WAFFLE]]. WAFFLE: [[Du wafel, akin to OHG waba, honeycomb, OE wefan, to weave]]. Notice how it-all WEAVES TOGETHER? WAIF: [[ME < NormFr, prob. < ON veif, anything flapping about < veifa, to wave, swing < IE *weip-, to turn, var. of *weib- > L vibrare, to vibrate]]. With this word, as with WAVER, the first definition is eye opening---1. "anything found by chance that is without an OWNER". WAESUCKS! (look it up!) Talk about WAVING PARTICLES good hi? The word, WAIF, requires a THING, and an OWNER! A prime example of the wave-particle DUALITY! With all of the above as a spontaneous prologue, I will now, at the everlasting END, try to expound on what I initially THOUGHT I was going to say. Return your awareness to our present moment, keeping in mind as much of the past, especially the recent past, as possible. I believe there is a WAVE of CONSCIOUSNESS swishing through the noosphere. In CW terms, perhaps we can use the phrase, "Information Revolution". Help! I'm very tempted to deconstruct those two words, in order to get to this NEW WAVE. Yikes! Writing THAT last sentence seems to have sentenced ME to a time in a mental "jail cell" that wants to compare a woman sitting in a beauty salon, getting a NEW WAVE permanent! I will try to resist---and, let YOU imagine all the analogies. I WILL say this. Hark back to the way the words I related 'grew' new (WAVING) definitions. You could say that all that is merely proof of a rolling revolution occurring in the noosphere. Thus, an "In-Form-ation Re-volution" can be understood as a kind of return to the root of BEING. That is, every human always has a certain set of assumptions that drive the way they choose to live and act. The long WAVE of CONSCIOUSNESS, that I ASSUME is literally taking PLACE and TIME, has infected each single human, to a greater or a lesser extent. So, a NEW turn, or a re-volution, expresses itself by smacking each person's assumptions with NEW and truer 'forms', which come on IN their noospheric "SAYS-WHAT" pool. A photon, as it 'crosses' space, experiences NO time, and at once 'has' longitudinal AND transverse WAVES that come along for the ride. Let's try to apply this FORM in motion to our noospheric WAVE. While humans cannot help being almost completely seduced by WHAT they SEE, the plucked part of the all-pervading electromagnetic spectrum, the most sensitive ones also cannot help wondering, in an ecstatic, not a doubting, way, about all the rest of it-all---the UN-SEEN reality (with 'seeing' meaning all the ways of capturing the WAVING fluctuations 'out there', and 'in here' = within the body-mind, including all the logical deductions about how it MUST be, in order to stay in order, to be consistent). Use the approaching climactic revolution in Iraq as a budding example. You could say that all the 'crazy' enemies of freedom are the UNDERTOW, trying to pull people into the deepest nothingness, under the SEA of coming CONSCIOUSNESS. "Don't wake up to your true Self!" they scream, with bullets and bombs in a cacophony of death. The few 'leaders' in the Iraqi population, who are birthing the revolution, are like the bursting froth of each WAVE that breaks into every day's consciousness. All of them, by being atop the WAVE, are eligible for death, and some of them are killed. They are the FIRST WAVE. Simultaneously, the entire set of 20-some million humans living within Iraqi borders, called citizens, is exhibiting longitudinal AND transverse WAVES, in consciousness. And how do these two WAVES fluctuate, in awareness? Hmmm? What IS the WAVE? Say GOOD HI to George W. Bush! Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, FREEDOM! Paradoxically, no one needs to 'wrap up' anything. While my previous exhortation to go at once TO and FRO, in consciousness, from the Big-Bang to NOW, physically, was the funny Queen for a Day, the best advice very reality, AS physics, can give, is that ALL is very simply modified FORMS, IN Light, AS 'photons', those absolute WAVE-PARTICLES of----MYSTERY! Therefore, the "WAVE" that's being considered, HERE-NOW, is nothing other than LIGHT, and at the present SPACE-TIME of us oh-so-gross humans, another word for that is---FREEDOM. I will stop, and let you try to imagine EACH other human, as your very SELF, WAVING longitudinally and transversely. Imagine THAT! THAT imagines!
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
I was right! Peggy Noonan comes out swinging in a piece at opinionjournal.com. Not only does she affirm what she previously wrote, but she's even more adamant about what she believes. "Bush went TOO FAR!" Well, while she writes a good tune, and her '"nuts with nukes" phrase is cute, among others, except for one key point, I still think she doesn't get it. When GWB waxed so eloquently about freedom, he somehow managed to insert the tempering word, "ultimately", after all. I think that very fact is quite enough to nuke all the nutty nay saying from our dear secular nun, Ms. Noonan. In a unique twist, she did seem to score a good one, by noting that freedom isn't necessarily going to lead to a good outcome---witness the French Revolution. Her idea that as bad as some tyrants are, they do keep the lid down on GARBAGE, does seem to have some merit. But, doesn't it reek of the same old same old attitude that permeates all the old realists? Humanity is over two hundred years past what happened in France, when freedom was unleashed. My goodness! It's not as if the United States is going to have to go everywhere, physically---read, with the military. Here's the thing. Natan Sharansky is the de facto Secretary of State-Defense! What Bush has fully accepted from this man is his heart-opening story about what it meant to hear Reagan declare that the USSR was an Evil empire! President Bush, I believe, sees EVERY human as a clone of Sharansky, especially those in the worst of places. And his WORDS were meant to inspire all of them, just like they did Natan. I think there is no doubt that certain places will have to get worse before they get better, so, let (SOME OF) the garbage, itself, FREE! Oh, by the way, here's the money quote from Peggy--- "Life is layered, complex, not always most needful of political action. For many people in the world the most important extrafamilial relationship is not with the state but with the God. Pope John Paul II helped free his beloved Poland from the Soviet yoke. But when he looked at Poland some years after its freedom was won, he wondered if many of his kinsman had not chosen a kind of existential enslavement to Western materialism. He wondered if his people were not in some ways less free. It wasn't a stupid question. It was at the heart of life." What she writes is perfectly true, but given the way the END of history seems to be going, with more and more people free POLITICALLY, why not go for BOTH a this-worldly free political reality, AND within that better world, each human can choose how to have "the most important relationship with God"? Besides, does the Pope REGRET Poland becoming free? Actually, the whole CW human game must be transcended. It's not about seeking salvation as an Alpha Man = the Oriental strategy, wherein you try to go in and up, and escape all involvement with the gross world, or as an Omega Man = the Occidental strategy, wherein you try to deeply involve yourself in this gross world, and perfect it. A True Man must finally see the fruitlessness of such a dilemma, and go for Radiant Transcendental Being and Bliss, as the Consciousness that is Only.
Here's the latest new fancy dancing Internet creation that 'proves' the Chinese came to America way before Columbus. I wonder how "1421---The Year China Discovered America" will finally play out. This year is the 600-year anniversary of Zheng He's first voyage. He was the leader, the Chinese admiral, for all the around-the-world trips that culminated in the 1421 A.D. world encirclement.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Don Luskin is way ahead of the new GAME, that's sure to grow, once more and more hot shot go-getters wake up to the still-not-fully-used POWER available via the Internet. Mr. Luskin has been frisking, for a long time, the standout 'sore thumb', Paul Krugman, perhaps the poster boy of the elite set of famous liberals who continue to reach an audience, and CON them. Recently, three particular instances of 'correcting the record' come to mind. Probably the most relevant one has to do with the present attempt by GWB to reform Social Security. Exhibiting their foot-in-the-mouth-disease, Now-Nowism, the leading darks of the Democratic Party trotted out the predictable and oh-so-tiresome old arguments, essentially saying that it's NOT in a crisis. Then, some wise guys checked the record, and laid out some juicy quotes from Slick Willie and some of the very same Janus-faced liberals now against reform, who were, THEN, all for it! My favorite example was an old quote from the ever-wrong and ready-to-show-it, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., which makes him look like weak spit. The third one slipped my mind, but just remember all the predictions about the war in Iraq, which every step of the way proved out to be wretchedly FALSE! Here's MY prediction---as the still-wet-behind-the-ears rising elite conservatives and libertarians, who man the mikes and blogs, get more and more experience, they will learn to do more complete and better research about the individuals on the left who they interview, or allow to spread their Now-Nowism tripe. They will be forced to hire a lot of 'joke writers'---read the piece by one of those who served Johnny Carson, in today's WSJ---who diligently dig the public record in order to find all the standout mutually contradictory past statements by all the slicksters they encounter, in order to TOTALLY EMBARRASS them! Say you have an advocate for X on your program. Without being TOO much of a wise ass, after allowing them to present their NOWISM case, quote them from their THEN-ISM old days, something that is the direct opposite, and ask them---"Now, I'm confused. You say today X is up, but yesterday you said it was down. I don't get it." I know---the noospheric power elites are pretty practiced in deception. But, keep in mind that the essence of the political GAME is to convince the most people who are on the margin, those moldable fence sitters. So, by following in Luskin's trailblazing path, over time this powerful exposing strategy should chip, chip, chip away at the credibility of so many---way TOO MANY!---fooling liars! The Truth is all about opening up and being transparent about as much as possible. The parting of this murky SEE will be a sight to behold! All EYES will SEE, as they pick up this 'HAMMER' and 'SAW'!
Victor Davis Hanson has a great article today, with the following quote--- "Precisely because of proven American resolve in Iraq, the United States now commands both military and diplomatic options—well short of another Iraq-style invasion—that were not at its disposal previously." With the latest WFA (World Freedom Association) Super Bowl game only five days away---Iraqi elections---both despite, and because of reading all my regular sources, including the above essential VDH, I find myself almost giddy about what seems likely to happen. Down, EUPHORIA, down boy! Let me share with you my current insightful reason to expect a positive result, when January 31st rolls around---my best guess is even that is will prove to be a very positive outcome. As I wrote the word 'expect', from out of a hidden corner of the brain the very simple formula for "Expected value", from statistics, instantly flashed, like a neon sign, tempting one to EAT HERE! I'll spare you the details, and just say that the product of the probability for all the GOOD multiplied by the GOOD (positive in a math way), added to the probability for all the BAD multiplied by the BAD (negative in a math way) can be used by anyone, from the worst pessimist to the most naïve optimist. The four variables are what must be guessed at, for anyone wanting to come up with their own Expected Value. I think that there is a huge amount of GOOD, epitomized by the probability that 60-80% of the eligible population will vote---that's 10-14 MILLION pairs of feet on the ground, who will put hand to ballot. The amount of BAD comes from a small number of killers who multiply their power with large weapons, but even if they murder 100-1,000 voters, that'll be a tiny pinprick, compared to the 'nuclear option'---the voting by MILLIONS of people will rip a massive hole in the tyrannical 'balloon', and the escaping 'stale' air will BLOW all other Arab's minds. Likely the best NEWS, IMHO, is that the twin probabilities for either a GOOD or a BAD outcome also portend a big win for freedom. In simple terms, let's just assume that the probability for GOOD is 80% and for BAD it is 20%. You do the math. Turning the HASSLE into the HAGGLE into CONSENSUS What has been one of the most used arrows in the quiver of the "Realists" and other defeatists, concerning bringing freedom to the Arab realm? Oh, look out---the ARAB STREET won't like it! Ignore the warring and the other political maneuvering going on in the Middle East. What is the defining characteristic of the many tribes in that region? They are master HAGGLERS! While TR is famous for a soft talk and a big stick, they are almost the precise opposite. Thus, the West, led by the USA, shaken out of its isolationist torpor by 9-11 into pursuing its self-interest, has been lawfully engaged in a supreme HASSLE job, over there, over there, the yanks HAVE come! So, cheap TALK is meeting expensive ACTION, which is bringing about the coming to a PRICE, which is in equilibrium. In short, all the ARAB STREET blustering has been exposed as empty words, mostly, and the final price of the negotiations is---FREEDOM, for them, via voting. Yes, the key thing may be to recall the useful truism, "Politics is war by other means". This means that ever since the freeing of Iraq, what is essentially happening is the morphing from WAR to POLITICS. That's why the election in five days is so absolutely vital. While no one really can know exactly how the Iraqi people will act, come next Sunday, let's apply the Expected Value concept again. I think there will be two kinds of people, to begin with. According to polls, about one fourth or one fifth of them will be too afraid to vote, thinking that the chance of getting blown up isn't worth the 'offer of a lifetime' to vote. Then, the other people will vote despite the chance of such a death, but maybe a lot of them will vote believing if they are killed, it will have been worth it. Mightn't these brave souls lead a surge of patriotism, which makes the Afghanistan turnout look middling, by even convincing some timid compatriots to follow the crowd? I think this is what is going to happen. After all, those Iraqis who survived many decades of Saddam are, in a deep way, used to violence, and now that they're being given the opportunity to take control of their own lives, a couple of reinforcing hopes and fears should propel them into the voting booth. They might think, logically, that if they are too afraid to grab freedom, this time, a new Saddam-like future will come about. Also, with a positive hope animating them, they may believe that they HAVE TO vote, in order to deserve their freedom. NEGOTIATING Thank Allah for Zarqawi! His recent clear statement about the 'evil' of democracy was perfect, and perfectly timed! Keeping in mind the war-politics metric, which is a transparent reflection of the barbarism-civilization metric, when we examine the talk and/or action poles, whenever there are at least two separate individuals, driven by wants and needs, a whole lot of NEGOTIATING is going on. So, in all the warring and all the politicking, whether by actions or talking, like a swinging pendulum under the sway of the force of gravity, humanity is trying to come to equilibrium---either freedom or slavery. Combining all the ARAB STREET CW, all the talk, all the action, from hassles to haggles, to consensus: all of it---what is the one word that's missing? POWER! Heretofore, all the ARAB STREET nonsense has been about empty TALK, and also implying there are enough radicals who will do full ACTIONS that cause trouble. Well, guess what? When Iraqis vote on the 30th, it will be the merging of TALK with ACTION that will finally be full of POWER! Until that glorious day, Arabs will have been free to give their OPINIONS, which never made any difference---besides being mostly beliefs that were the complete opposite of reality (such as America is the Great Satan), they also had no POWER. In effect they were brainwashed liars! Of no account! But, when each one of them chooses to vote, they will be full of POWER, since what they SAY by their voting ACT will no longer be a wrong and empty OPINION, it will be a FACT that counts! To even make it more emphatic, I'll bet more than a few Iraqis harbor the thought that their 'lonely' vote is truly a blow for all the many billions of other humans, still disenfranchised. Yes, they vote for EVERYONE!
Monday, January 24, 2005
Brother, do I ever have some SPARE time for you! Or is that space? My life IS a Spartan kind of existence, holding on to as much SPARE space-time as possible. Let's say it is sprinkled with sparsely seasoning. I will now spar with the etymology of SPARE. SPARE: [[ME sparien < OE sparian, akin to spaer, thrifty, German, sparen, to save: see SPACE]]. SPACE: [[ME < Ofr espace, < L spatium < IE base *spei-, to flourish, expand, succeed > speed (hello TR!), L spes, hope, ON sparr, OE spaer, thrifty]] I thought, maybe, that SPARE related to SPARTAN and/or SPARSE. According to my dictionary, though, SPARTAN simply comes from SPARTA, the ancient city in Greece, with no further sources. However, SPARSE deserves to be laid out, despite not being connected to SPARE. SPARSE: [[L sparsus, pp of spargere, to scatter: see SPARK]]. SPARK: [[ME sperke, < OE spearca akin to Mdu sparke < IE base *sp(h)er(e)-g-, to strew, sprinkle]] Well, it sure seems like there are a lot of essential connections between all these words. I am especially prodded to notice that the last IE base of SPARK calls to mind the word SPHERE, here. When I encompass the WHOLE ONE, AS the Big Bang, which could be understood as the ever-growing outward expansion of a SPHERE, from the mysterious Point of Singularity it supposedly started from, why, can't you instantly say "YES!" to the very physical universe, whose gross physical 'stuff' is indeed sprinkled and sparking, all over as PLACE, all the TIME? Snapping consciousness back to our delimited HERE-NOW, let's try to make some sense of it all. Maybe one of the most folded-in truths can be related to the Depression Era phrase I parodied, "Brother, can you SPARE me a dime". The way "life and death" of Americans has played out, to date, continually reduces the set of extant people who even know that saying, or what it related to. Perhaps that’s a major SPARE point! A little over 200 years ago, Marie Antoinette was a very unique example of the few people who had the luxury of enjoying a life of leisure, the essence of a space-time full of SPARE goods, while almost all others had NO SPARE goods. Nowadays, at least in America, the most poverty-stricken, in relative terms, can hardly keep from tripping over all the SPARE CHANGE that permeates society. Our times are permeated by too much TIME, and too few demands, creating a lot of anxiety and ennui. A fish swimming in water doesn't notice it. A got-it-made human, swimming in the plethora of physical and non-physical goods, in America, usually isn't sensitive enough to come to complete rest in their true state. Allow me to expand into SPACE what our TIMES, in their CHANGIN', truly have to offer to the REST of the world's citizens who are currently not over the hump and into the SPARE reality. When I was a kid, one of the expressions of America's born essence, was at once an excuse, and a truth---"As rich as this country is, even if it were possible to spread the wealth equally to every human alive, there are so many people who are so dirt poor, about nineteen for every one of us, that it wouldn't make any real difference if it were done." In other words, 'SPARING an American DIME' was a fool's errand. However, SPARKING off of Bush's inaugural speech of last Thursday, there's a new SPARE kid in town! That ancient bromide about teaching a man how to fish verses GIVING him one, and then another, ad infinitum, that YOU caught, has perfect resonance with the gist of our President's message. GWB SPARED no words, he did NOT eat mince pie, as he repeatedly rifled the minds of every human alive! Maybe part of the SPARE America is about to pick up, in the worldwide game, 'bowling for dollars', is expressing the transcending of that famous saying about FISH. What is actually being DONE, in Iraq, as we write, by America? Our country is SPARING no effort, in her own self-interest, as she simultaneously TEACHES the many millions of people living within Iraqi borders HOW to be FREE, and by having entered that area with her own courageous citizens, she is even GIVING them precious 'FISH'! What comes to my mind are wells in a desert that need priming. Each Iraqi, indeed every human, is that WELL---and, here COMES the American freedom-bringing JUDGE! No EXIT strategy can EXIST, when it comes to freedom. Someone---was it Fred Barnes?---was NOBLE, today, as he explained the full depravity of the entire concept of an EXIT STRATEGY. Yet again, another subject screams out for more decent exposure, by yours truly! Allow me to chase the cut, in my own radical way. At home, the most vital WAR in our civilized country, is taking place in Washington D.C., with the most crucial battles occurring in the hidebound Senate. Think of the retrograde Democrats as a secular Taliban. Actually, the phrase, "Civil Rights", flitted through my mind, this morning, and it became obvious that the top dog liberals like Senator Byrd, et al, are driven by a desire to promulgate CIVIL WRONGS. What else can be truthfully said about the way they keep blacks on their plantation of dependency, for just one obvious example? Ergo, the time has come for this roaming countryman, ME, to lead us to query, "What is the EXIT strategy for the freedom-lovers to employ, which will purge the Senate of its deadly dregs, like Kennedy and 'Osama' Barack---all of them?"
What about Johnny Carson? What he accomplished and showed all of America was who he was--- a child from another generation far removed from what's presently going on: rap anti-music, Paris Hilton, Michael Moore, etc. I think the key statistics that define him are when and where he was born, and where he grew up. As a child of the depression who came of age at the age of eighteen, say, in 1943, I believe his service in the Navy during WW II made a lot of difference in his life. Where that mostly mattered, to him---and the majority of his cohort---will be largely avoided, in all the public discourse: his smoking. Don't get me wrong. Whoever wants to suck in tobacco (of any other) smoke is fine by me, as long as it's done in private. However, with parents and other relatives from a generation about ten years older than Carson, who almost all smoked their whole lives, I do have to say that such a choice resulted in a horrible end of life for most of them. Good old Uncle Charlie, a wonderful man, went through a long painful time with most of his lungs non-functional, having chosen to experience emphysema because of a lifetime of smoking. It was horrible, for him, and for me, when I spent some time with him, near the end. And, dear old dad had his larynx removed, ended up "talking" out of a slit in his throat, and died from a baseball-sized tumor on his neck. So, for me, as I watched various TV programs, yesterday, and couldn't avoid all the Carson-ending manias, there was even a process in consciousness worthy of note. At first, like all people these days, my first reaction was self-defensive, a neutral "So what, everybody dies" attitude. Next, I wanted to know how old he was. Then, I allowed myself to observe some of the replays of him, and the praise from other oldsters who knew and loved him. Finally, after all that, some station wrote that he died of emphysema, and all of a sudden, there was poor suffering Uncle Charlie---and all the rest of the things 'Carson' didn't matter. Maybe the key aspect of Carson was his private-public manner of living. In any case, for me, I suffered, in congruence, or solidarity, with him, as it became obvious that his last years must have been a seemingly interminable 24/7 time of suffering---in PRIVATE. You can bet the painful constriction of his chest, and who knows what other bodily diseases he suffered due to smoking, were certain to shake him out of any 'strong-ego' thoughts, because he had become famous. In short, as he shuffled of his most recent bodily coil, my guess is that, at the deepest level, he regretted having chosen such a filthy killing habit, of smoking cigarettes. It reminds me of all the brouhaha concerning asbestos. Every inhalation of cigarette smoke is equivalent to taking a tiny knife and cutting part of the lungs. Over time, he died of countless such cuts. Finally, Walter Wriston died last week, at the age of 85. I read his wonderful book, "Twilight of the Sovereigns" (highly recommended!), and it was either in that book, or somewhere else, that he wrote about his attitude toward smoking. He, himself, had been in the service in WW II, just like Carson, and I think he was as 'normal' as the next guy, then, by regularly lighting up. However, later, when he moved up the corporate ladder, he managed to quit. This led to one of his 'filters'---pun intended---when it came to promotions. Anyone, who was too weak or too stupid to stop smoking, was ineligible for one. Walter's thought was that such a person was unqualified for higher positions, since their judgment was, ipso facto, as stained as the yellow teeth they should have---despite dental cover-ups! So, as for the private life of Johnny Carson, as a mega-star whose personal habits could run amok, since they didn't hinder his performances, he got to choose his own dire end. Why am I reminded of Dostoyevsky's "Notes From the Underground"? Finally, in an apparently unrelated matter, The History Channel shone, last week, with ten hours of imperfect shows about all of America's Presidents. As a graduate of a Rough Rider's Roosevelt High School, I've always enjoyed the history of the 'energetic' Theodore. Just to prove there's an almost infinite amount of meaningful detail to absorb, about any subject---meaning that the whole story is ALWAYS not known---I was shocked to hear that TR drank a GALLON of coffee, every day! No wonder he was so ENERGETIC! He must have had good genes, and/or a cast iron stomach, in order for his body to have served as a 'sieve' for such watered down speed. The spectrum between coffee and cocaine might be narrower than CW acknowledges, so that you might say that TR was almost a coke head!
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Bush's inauguration speech was, what, three days ago? And Lincoln's, from 1865, about 51,135 days ago. Mustn't forget FDR in 1945, 21,915 long 24-hour periods in then past. So, it sure seems like a lot of bugs have been forced into the light---the revolution does eat her own. See Peggy Noonan and Bill Buckley. Maybe one of the phases a human must go through is ”useful idiot". With (dis?)respect to Noonan, maybe it's time to call a shade a shade. When she served Reagan by penning soaring speeches, she was at the start of her race to fame, in secret, since we didn't really find out about HER, until much later, probably when she wrote her own book, about being at the 'revolution'. Over the long, gray 8-year line (or was that a police line-up) of Clinton depravities, Peggy provided lots of commentary that helped us make it through the trough filled with the slimiest people a presidency has ever had---at least in my lifetime. Then, in perhaps what should have been her last at-bat (seen in retrospect), she let us in on her own inner thoughts, even before Bush was nominated for the Republican ticket, in 1999 or 2000, that she believed he was very Reaganesque. However, AFTER W became president, it's all been downhill for Noonan, IMHO. (Ah, I'm back in 1960, after JFK wrapped up the Democratic nomination, when the big question was, "Would he take orders from the Pope, or follow the American Constitution.") Well, folks, since 2001 Peg has been moving one leg after the other down the slope leading to Rome, and the Pope! She's, in effect, a NUN! Hence, so much of her 'wise' opinionating is at least flavored, if not almost totally permeated, by a Roman Catholic perspective. I write from my own personal experience, as I found myself going from an "Oh boy!" to an "I gotta read this" attitude, when finding her latest public 'confessions' (of a sinner?) in the WSJ. As for dear essential-for-the-revolution (may I call you?) Bill, whose fifty-year ride has surely been spectacular, while his own analysis of Bush's speech was more esoteric, by trying to show how sloppy and imprecise the use of English was, I think we should also at least notice and acknowledge that he, also, is a Roman Catholic. I know, I know. This doesn't seem very relevant, because his arguments don't seem to need anything with that particular religious 'fervor' to be proved. Even so, I am led to use this as the cliff to jump off of that leads to what I really wanted to write about. What TIME is it? WHERE is it? In, and AS, our four-dimensional playing world, "You are never in danger of KNOWING anything!" can be, primordially, 'seen' and 'heard' AS acting ITSELF out, from in, in the terms of TIME and SPACE. Take TIME, for an in stance. (Take my WIFE, please, take her!) If any ONE asks any other ONE, "What TIME is it?", the answer is always wrong, because, as we know, as soon as you SAY your answer, the moving 'hand' of TIME has killed that in standing attempt to STOP TIME. The same 'thing' is true wrt SPACE. No matter how motionless any ONE seems to be, by the very dint of BEING, change is a' happening, blowing in the wind. If alive, any ONE had to have previously eaten stuff that was outside the body, and therefore, inside the bodily boundary, SPACE is moving. Time for some 'MEAT'. With all the above as prologue, let's get to the REAL IDEAL, or the IDEAL REAL. As some insightful commentators noted, one of the keyS, if not THE key, conclusions to draw from the inauguration speech is that what has been called the REALISTIC 'out' stance foreign policy is kaput. Isn't it loverly, to find the political dimension playing out perhaps THE most basic philosophical dilemma, that between IDEALISM and REALISM? Gosh, tweezers. It seems like only yesterday, when I was a young adult, taking a philosophy class, and for the first time (in THIS timely LIFE!) ran, head on, into the study of these two ways of grokking the world---and, this was after some ex cathedra struggles with Heidegger. First, some basics. Plato, of course, was---and IS---the man. It took me some TIME to fully realize that IDEALISM did stem from the concept of "IDEA". Even though I, myself, was too mental (and, thus, way too full of IDEAS, at that time), with my WHOLE life ahead of me---which, of course, meant that REALISM was expressed by the body's urge to merge with 'other' HOLE people: women!--- what transcends all that remained hidden, for a long TIME. It could be that IDEALISM, qua IDEAS, is the mind-in-action. Admittedly, Plato posited an IDEAL reality of which any REAL reality was an approximation. Thus, to this day, the CW understanding, even especially wrt Bush's speech, must be agreed upon in this way---"What is now true, the REAL, is far from IDEAL. FREEDOM (for individuals) is the IDEAL, and the REALITY, in too many places, and (our) times, is that NON-FREEDOM prevails." Thus, the BODY-of-HUMANITY is the REAL, as it NOW is. Hence, the other way to play with IDEAL and REAL is in terms of TIME. The REAL is always the NOW, the instant, the standing-in, the PRESENT, the pre-sent, which is 'NO ACCIDENT', caught like a still photograph, as this NOW, even though it always flows in un-catch-able ACTION, truly. The IDEAL, thus, always is truly an IDEA about the FUTURE, which never arrives! In this understanding, then, we can glimpse, perhaps, some of the frustration exhibited by people like Peggy Noonan, who point out that there is NO perfection in THIS world, according to THEIR beliefs. Okay, here's my big CRASH POINT, for today. At least since the end of WW II, when containment of the USSR was the REALISTIC modus operandi that aimed for the IDEAL self-implosion of that 'destructive destruction' system, as it competed with the free world's 'creative destruction', the American men in power were what are called REALISTS. They played 'America' hold 'em. They played the cards they were dealt, which was a very REALISTIC strategy, for their TIME. However, TIMES change! What's the big REAL-IDEAL change? Can we keep the CHANGE, or is it TIME to attend to our spare CHANGE? What about America's SPARE 'tire'? Wow! "SPARE" needs its own exegesis---another TIME, perhaps. Suffice to say, today, that maybe one of the flowers, that's presently bursting into overflowing 'GOOD' bloom, is that America, and, truly, the rest of the First World, is so successful economically, that it has a huge amount of SPARE goods = POWER, with which to infuse the IDEAL-REAL play. Assume that America has, until 9-11, say, mostly used the REAL lens, with which to see all places foreign, which determined how she dealt with them. And, that, domestically, even though REALISM always stunk up the place---witness slavery, women's right's, pollution, et al---the thrust has always been toward IDEALISM: trying to be, herself, that shining city on a hill. Well!!! Finally, I think I've gotten to my Bush point. GWB has shook the whole human BUSH, and being as fully informed of all the REAL threats from extreme IDEALISTS of an Islamo-Fascist nature, as well as all the other strains of 'cancer' infecting the enslaving powers in places like China, Russia, etc, the whole IDEAL-REAL game has reached an Hegelian moment. It is no longer possible to hide behind America's borders, and be REALISTIC (in the old 'Kissinger' sense) when dealing with the rest of the world. In precise terms, the time has come to speak openly and clearly, eschewing so much diplomatic speech---no more euphemisms! It's almost paradoxical---seemingly. What Bush has done is to engage in some very straight talk. Here's a perfect analogy, IMHO---Bush is a Doctor who has done as many tests as he could on all the 'patients' = countries of the world. In a maximally elegant use of the bully pulpit, he managed to tell the entire set of other counties, as if he were their own personal physician, one-to-one, about their disease. To an advanced case of 'cancer' = no personal FREEDOM, as in the case of the worse country, North Korea, his message was as clear and blunt as could be--- "You are dying. Freedom is the cure." Just so wrt a country like France---"You are clinically 'INSANE'. America wants you to be FREE from your mental illness, and all your meddling in ENSLAVED countries must stop!" Duck "NUANCE"! Be proud to be FOR FREEDOM! In short, the time for nuance about human FREEDOM is long past. Remember to Monroe Doctrine? The Truman Doctrine? Well, NOW we have the Bush Doctrine. Given the way suicidal Islamo-Fascists are acting out their rock-solid IDEALISM, and the REALISTIC existence of too many tons of WMD, based on his own rock-solid promise, embodied in the oath of the office of the President of the United States of America, Bush has been forced to defend whatever liberty still prevails here, by telling the rest of the world that IT is ours TO DEFEND! Stay out of ALL spheres! The only possible foreign policy posture, for NOW, and for the FUTURE, is to be totally REALISTIC, and fight for the IDEAL of human freedom, everywhere. Thus do REALISM and IDEALISM dance, in our TIME. That's my REAL IDEA!
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