December 2009 archive

Unselfish Solutions, Selfish Complications

I have recently been musing over a particular passage of scripture.  The frustration I and many have felt regarding the health care legislation that has stalled in the Congress has led me to wonder if perhaps a solution exists that has never been attempted prior to now.  The power of the blogosphere has provided me a sense of solace and inspiration that comes from rational explanation and insightful commentary, and I cannot overstate my confidence in the visionary souls among us.  It is a temptation to lament and understate our own capacity to bring about change, but quite another one to solicit answers from the passionate, knowing that through collective action, much good can be brought to pass.  It is in the spirit of facilitating dialogue that I write this post, my prayer being that it will find an audience and give rise to subsequent discussion.  

As a bit of needed exposition, St. Paul wrote an epistle to the church in Corinth, a city which had fallen into division and disorder.  The Corinthian church, mirroring the makeup of the city where it existed, had been fraught by immorality and spiritual immaturity.  In a letter whose endearing images and passages are still in wide use today, an age where strict devotion to organized religion is increasingly on the wane, our own skepticism cannot yet overtake the power and thrust of the text itself.  Shortly after outlining a beautiful definition of the concept of selfless love, Paul spends several subsequent chapter, talking about incorporating this degree of unconditional devotion into practice in one’s daily life.        

Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially the gift of speaking what God has revealed. When a person speaks in another language, he doesn’t speak to people but to God. No one understands him. His spirit is speaking mysteries.

But when a person speaks what God has revealed, he speaks to people to help them grow, to encourage them, and to comfort them. When a person speaks in another language, he helps himself grow. But when a person speaks what God has revealed, he helps the church grow.

Now I wish that all of you could speak in other languages, but especially that you could prophesy. The person who prophesies is more important than the person who speaks in another language, unless he interprets it so that the church may be built up.

Language is a construct of humanity.  To someone who does not speak a particular tongue, the sounds themselves appear mysterious, impenetrable, and indecipherable.  Moreover, there would be no point to a system of language at all if only one person spoke it.  Language, and indeed, the richness of language depends on the number of people who speak it and whether or not they share their own spiritual gifts with everyone else.  At times, we seem to believe that talking one-on-one with God or with our muse of inspiration is sufficient to undertaking the vast number of challenges which face each and every one of us.  Injustice is rarely ever consigned to one singular person, nor can one individual begin to turn the tide without help from others.      

Our earthly existence is a basically selfish, self-centered one.  What drives our economy and feeds our desire for riches is a sense of private ownership.  We would go so far as to copyright our own thoughts if we thought others might use them without permission or if there was money to be made in selling them to others.  I, me, and mine are the search engine keywords that drives capitalism, but they are utterly incompatible with one’s spiritual life.  Imagine if we all believed that our own innovations were to be used for the benefit of all, rather than for the benefit of a privileged few.  Indeed, if we spoke what God has revealed to us and translated it into the common vernacular rather than insisting it be phrased in a different language that locks out others from understanding, how many problems could be solved!      

Far too many people are covetous of what has been granted them by God and in so doing, they fail to understand that spiritual gifts are given to benefit all of us.  If one’s spiritual gift is that of forming a new language of a new social movement, how much richer would that language of reform be if everyone spoke the same tongue, not just the inner circle.  Ego has no part in the metaphorical church of which each of us is a part.  I have seen far too many movements and far too many groups established for altruistic means collapse under the weight of division caused by elitism or by covetousness.  If one is blessed by the gift of far-sighted analysis, don’t lock it away from sight!  Explain it to us, since which that which was granted you may have come from your brain, but it is God who gave you the ability to think it.

The members of the Corinthian church were using the gift of language for their own benefit, to make themselves feel better about themselves.  Clearly, the problem stemmed from the fact that there were too many foreign language speakers in the gathering and not enough translators.  This runs contrary to the health and growth of any established group.  Our greatest aim is to treat others in the same way we wish they would treat us and if we are granted talent in other areas, well and good.  But our talents are worthless if they merely lift us up and lock others out.  Humility isn’t merely a virtue we are to follow for its own sake for some sort of aesthetic rationale—it is a moral guidepost that points us towards a healthy society.  Lest we forget, it isn’t all about us.  It was never all about us.  It never will be all about us.    

In this circumstance, we have the answer.  We have always had the answer.  The answer, of course, is complicated by a day to day existence which runs contrary to that which we need for health and peace of mind.  Isolating ourselves from the madcap pace and twisted expectations of the world is no solution.  Any worthy challenge seems daunting at face value.  I have said this before and I will say it once more.  We must get our own selves and our own house in order before we can ever expect to reverse course. One cannot begin to love anyone else until he or she loves himself or herself.  By this I do not mean romantic love or narcissistic obsession, but rather a genuine point at which we make peace with our own failings, our own shortcomings, and our own flaws.  Until we do this, ego will drive us and with it a lust for individual achievement will follow close behind.  Those two things give rise to the inevitable hierarchies and unfair systems which are the antithesis of equality and social evolution.  The only requirement in life is love.  Everything else, as the saying goes, is just commentary.                

This Week In Health and Fitness

Welcome to this weeks Health and Fitness.

First cancer genome sequences reveal how mutations lead to disease

The pattern of mutations in cancer could eventually be used to tailor treatments to particular patients

Scientists have reconstructed the biological history of two types of cancer in a genetic tour de force that promises to transform medical treatment of the disease.

The feat, a world first, lays bare every genetic mutation the patients have acquired over their lifetimes that eventually caused healthy cells in their bodies to turn into tumours.

The procedure gives doctors a profound insight into the biological causes of a patient’s cancer and marks a major milestone in progress towards personalised anticancer therapies and strategies to prevent the disease.

“This is a really fundamental moment in the history of cancer research. We have never seen cancer revealed in this way before,” said Mike Stratton, a co-leader of the Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge.

This is a stunning breakthrough in understanding how cancer mutates, treating it and, perhaps one day, cure it.

Turkana, in his essay at the Left Coaster, provides more information and further discussion in understanding the importance of this monumental break through.

Huge Medical Breakthrough: Cancer Genome Sequenced

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time and in January it will be coming to you from Paris, Fr. for awhile. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

Sitting Bull Was Right (HBO’s Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee)

Photobucket

http://digilander.libero.it/Bo…

Historical revisionists of American Indian history portray indigenous people being as violent as white Europeans were before they arrived on this continent and after settlement. Consequently, HBO’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” was no exception in the scene with Sitting Bull and Col Nelson Miles on the Buffalo Robe, as Miles justified the genocide he was committing as “You were as violent as we are, we’re doing the same thing to you that you did to them (paraphrasing).”

Docudharma Times Saturday December 19




Saturday’s Headlines:

Many Goals Remain Unmet in 5 Nations’ Climate Deal

Rising prices spark a new gold rush in Peruvian Amazon

In health-care deliberations, Senate is a surreal world

No longer the New Orleans Ain’ts

Karzai to keep half of cabinet including warlords

Myanmar’s generals plow a rich furrow

Neo-Nazis suspected of raid on Auschwitz ‘to rewrite history’

French court fines Google for scanning books

Gaza must be rebuilt now

Iranians accused of seizing Iraq oil field

Morocco allows Western Saharan hunger striker to return home

Filming ‘El Traspatio’ was a death-defying act

Peace Prize Winner Declares Historic Victory (GBCW)

Update: See ya! Y’all go on blaming America for the all world’s problems without me. I’m sure my departure won’t cause you to miss a blame America-first beat! The idea that any American could suggest the United States is evil is simply mind-boggling.

Meaningless drivel….this way…

Obama’s Epic Fail. The Wapo is scathing:

President Obama helped broker a climate deal with a group of leading nations that provides for monitoring emission cuts by each country but sets no global target for cutting greenhouse gases, and no deadline for reaching a formal international climate treaty.

I Claudius and Caligula’s Victory over Neptune. The UK Times ridicules President Peace Prize for making the same bombastic claims. The Times made no effort to blunt the scale of the President Puff-ball’s defeat:

The United Nations climate change summit ended last night without setting any emission reduction targets.

President Obama forged a non-binding agreement with his counterparts in China, India, Brazil and South Africa but it was unclear whether all 192 countries would accept the compromise text….

The agreement merely repeated an aspiration to keep the global temperature increase to 2C without explaining how that would be achieved. The final text also failed to mention any deadline for turning it into a binding treaty.

Obama’s climate accord fails the test If you thought the right-wing press was harsh, check out Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor of the reflexively right-wing Independent.

…the accord is not legally binding, merely a political statement.

The key timetable for turning it into a legal instrument by this time next year, which is what the world desperately needs so that cuts in CO2 emissions really are carried out, was dropped from the text during the immensely difficult and seemingly-intractable talks which lasted all day and late into the evening. In effect, that makes it toothless.

Copenhagen ends in failure Hey, wait a minute, I thought this an unprecedented breakthrough, an historic agreement. What’s up with the Guardian?

Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, said the deal had “the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It’s nothing short of climate change scepticism in action. It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush.”

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport.

Dropped from the text Gee, where have we heard that phrase before? Oh yeah, from the LA Times: “After days of secret talks, Senate Democrats tentatively agreed tonight to drop a government-run insurance option from sweeping health care legislation, several officials said, a concession to party moderates whose votes are critical to passage of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.” Our champion is now back in Washington to take on the snowstorms sweeping the eastern seaboard. Mr Obama himself admitted that a binding deal would be “hard to achieve”.

No kidding.

Climate summit recognises US deal

Delegates at the Copenhagen summit have passed a motion recognising a US-backed agreement on climate change.

But correspondents say it is not yet clear whether the motion is unanimous or what its legal implications are.

Delegates at the climate summit had been battling to prevent the talks ending without reaching a final deal.

Earlier, a US-led group of five nations – including China – tabled a last-minute proposal that President Barack Obama called a “meaningful agreement”.

However, it had been rejected by a few developing nations which felt it failed to deliver the actions needed to halt dangerous climate change.

The majority of nations had been urging the Danish hosts to adopt the deal.

“The conference decides to take note of the Copenhagen Accord of December 18, 2009,” the chairman of the plenary session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) declared on Saturday morning, swiftly banging down his gavel.

To be accepted as an official UN agreement, the deal needs to be endorsed by all 193 nations at the talks.

This agreement isn’t a move towards achieving a reduction in CO2 out put or other forms of pollution which have contributed to global warming. Its just another way of avoiding any real changes in the behavior of the worlds nations or its people. After all with no verification there was no reason to even call this an agreement.    

The Army of the Amazons

Deleted to avoid crazy woman

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

FRIDAY NIGHT DISTRACTIONS

I think we might be all in need of this prescription, judging from the events in progress

Take a few images as needed, to distract you for a little.

Smack a few down with a little wine or a beverage of your choice.

May heighten the effects of herb, or versa vice.

Safe for all ages, but do see a good friend if your erection or pheromone release lasts for more than 6 hours, but do not necessarily wait that long.

I would also like to thank you for all the good wishes on Teri`s behalf.

She is doing well, but mending slowly, which I think is best anyway.

I compiled all the wishes (almost 4 dozen) on a word doc. & presented it to her.

She was very surprised & wondered who all you people are, to be so thoughtful.

Thank You All.

Here in Sunny California, this is the flag we fly.

Please stay safe warm & dry for all of you in possible harms way from the present weather.

MALIBU FLAG

 MALIBU FLAG DSCN1358

We’re Keeping Score Too, Brother

That’s what President Obama evidently said to Representative Pete DeFazio based on his voting against Obama’s legislation, including the stimulus bill, the climate change bill, and one of only two democrats to vote against the bank bailout.  According to The Hill:  

http://thehill.com/homenews/ho…

“DeFazio has emerged in recent months as one of the most vocal liberal critics of the Obama administration, blasting the president’s team for not getting tough enough with Wall Street. He’s also taken on his own party for failing to move left-leaning legislation through the Congress.”

According to reports, it appears this president and administration is just as, if not more, sensitive than the previous  president and administration.

“Obama himself has taken notice.  “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama told DeFazio during a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, according to members afterward.”

To President Obama:

Ya brother, go ahead and keep score.  You and your sidekick Emanuel.  It appears Emanuel may exhibit symptoms of a classic Napolean bully, only picking on those who he knows he can beat up.  A little chickenshit who only spouts off his mouth when his big brother is standing behind him.    

“But Emanuel, known for his blunt manner and ability to bend members of his party to his will, did not raise his voice with the Oregon Democrat.  “Rahm does not yell at me,” DeFazio said, “because he knows that I yell back.”

Well, brother, I can call you brother can’t I?    You can call me brother just as you called Representative DeFazio brother.  I’ve always thought all men were created equal, which means to me that I only have to call you Mr. President out of respect, if I choose.  Sometimes I do, but you brought the brother thing up.  You and your sidekick want to keep score do ya. Kind of like Nixon’s “Enemies List”?  Did you get some kind of presidential playbook?  We know what that means, you don’t say it for nothing.  It means you will get your revenge.  It was, pardon my french, a fucking threat.  You will do something about that DeFazio dude for having the audacity to vote against your bills.   Of course I don’t believe you have the guts, pardon my french again, to do shit.  To that I say, go back to high school, brother, if you want to play those games.  Eleven dimensional chess my ass.  That’s pure bullshit.    

Sincerely,  Underdog.

Obama, the brother dude, is on the verge of becoming one of the tragic figures in history.  Every dig of the shovel is creating a bigger hole with which he will not be able to climb out of.  It appears his overall maturity level is not in keeping with the important responsibilities he has been assigned.  He has proven to be a caretaker of the system, one whose only goals are to retain power and feed the corporate, MIC and Wall Street cash cow for himself, his cronies, and his interests, and lie his ass off to do it.  And if anyone gets in the way, he is keeping score.  

Back to the President:

Well, brother, we’re keeping score as well.  So far, you’re behind.  It’s only the first quarter of the game though.  But you’re far behind now.  You have your Obamabots, but they’re dropping like flies. You will retain a low 20 percentile just as Bush did.  And the real left, and I’m talking about the real left, not those that think they are left, forget it brother.  They’re gone.  You aint getting them back without some kind of Hail Mary pass now.  I don’t think you have it in you for a comeback.  I think you’re outta there in four years man.  And deservedly so.        

 

Random Japan

TRENDS

The Japan Communist Party’s official newspaper, the Akahata Shimbun, enjoyed an increase in circulation for the first time in 21 years

Bosozoku motorcycle gangs saw their numbers dwindle to 11,500, from a high of 42,500 in 1982

Local governments across the country are setting up miniature torii in places where illegal garbage disposal occurs in an effort to “appeal to the better nature of even the basest trash dumper”

Fashion-conscious but cash-strapped Japanese women are renting handbags for use on special occasions

Koban in Tokyo have begun installing women-only toilets and “nap rooms”

Seafood and produce falsely labeled as being of Japanese origin are “rampant” in Taiwan

At least one out-call sex service in Tokyo specializes in married women in their 40s and 50s

Won’t get fooled again! Again.

1979 San Francisco.  We were working on a hard-fought rent-control ballot initiative.  Hard-fought between the coalition of tenant organizations and the Democratic Party stalwarts on one side (seemingly) against the landlords and downtown developers who ran City Hall under Mayor Dianne Feinstein.

Even more hard-fought was the struggle between the tenant organizations which had created the campaign in the first place and ran the campaign’s district committees (I chaired District 6, the Mission), against the Democratic Party’s consultants (the little wigs) and Democratic clubs and official leftists, over whether the campaign would be a consultant-based media affair, or grassroots tenant-based.  The underlying question was whether the district committees would last beyond election day.

The money went to the consultants and for TV ads, while the district committees were starved.  The measure had been gutted even before the campaign began, in order to appease a few prestigious Democratic clubs that in the end actually opposed the initiative.  In the home stretch, it became clear that Prop R was going down.

Now a whiny voice pipes up from the back of the room.  “Hey, old guy, is this gonna be another of your boring stories about how you had to walk 20 miles through the snow to get to an SDS meeting?”

“Shaddup, kid, there’s a point here somewhere!”

As I was  saying, in the final weeks, the campaign bosses went into a pseudo-frenzy.  Once more to the barricades, voter registration, lit drops.  The campaign came down to getting a slate card under every door in the city.  No volunteer was to be left standing as the polls closed.

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