Don’t be Vulgar

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In recent days, mariner and his wife have had family guests from both sides of the family. It is refreshing to experience the familiarity of family and at the same time feel grateful that, in the United States at least, life goes on despite the vulgarity of the headlines. Reality, too, plays out as friends and family suffer ailments and discouraging circumstances. The overview, however, is that life goes on – despite shootings, racism, war, social abuse and economic distress.

This is not to suggest that one should ignore or be indifferent to the vulgarity of our times. As a member of a democratic society of 350 million people each living an ongoing life, one still is inevitably linked to a responsibility to all 350 million citizens (a different kind of family) to take care of our democracy even as we are distracted by personal life experiences. That vulgarity is part of the nation’s social experience is a side effect of social change. The thesaurus offers other words for vulgarity: tasteless, lewd, licentious, rude and offensive among many more. Vulgarity is a litmus test that identifies dissatisfaction and stress. Vulgarity easily promotes a response of increased rudeness and offensive behavior which makes it hard for an individual or a society to ease vulgarity through compromise and compassion.

The tools one needs to be successful in managing stressful change are found in one’s ongoing life. It is important that life goes on. There is strength in familiarity that helps dealing with vulgarity. There is strength in family unity that helps dealing with vulgarity. There are feelings of security and day-to-day accomplishment that help to weather vulgarity.

Maybe it’s a good time to visit one’s family just to reinforce confidence and even satisfaction that there is a rational side to society. Maybe it’s a good time to take a deeper look at vulgarity to figure out how to make life go on in the midst of significant social change.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Returning

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Mariner is of an age that the past, the vital, three dimensional experience of his past life, has faded into brittle memories. Sure, there is the memory of interesting, emotional and benchmark moments of the past that can be recalled as short, tintype memories. But what is missing is the personal, fully reconstructed past – a moment that reinstates one’s life in this moment as if it were still that time – real, fully normal, fully existential feeling as if time has not passed. One is not remembering; then has become now.

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) discovered long ago that playing old music that was popular in ‘the day’ provokes pleasurable feelings in viewers that take them back to the real days as if those days had not passed by. Yesterday, PBS broadcast a collection of Nat King Cole songs and memories that brought the past into the present. This sensation is hard to explain. One isn’t reminded what it was like – one is watching Nat as if time had not passed. Of course one is listening to Nat; he is a popular entertainer. The mind doesn’t correlate then and now. It is now.

There is a slight hangover of melancholy, of course. As an individual moves through life, history changes things; the brain and the body shift slowly toward old age. Mariner wrote a post recently that described time as breaking off in chunks. That seems apropos; people live their lives in periods of time that are chunks of the past.

Why does one have melancholy? The good old days typically are that period of time between 10 years and 25 years of age. An individual experiences constant maturing through many nodal points of personality, physical change, and new horizons of perception and capability. It is similar, if less frenetic, to the hyperactivity of a two-year-old learning language, independent reality and physical skills on a daily basis. In other words, the good old days are days of new adventure, new awareness, new feelings. It is a time of engaging in newly discovered realities.

There is no change in personality when one is old. The body changes but not in the direction of adventure as much as in the direction of disability. It grows more difficult to sustain vitality and to explore new things. Years ago a friend of mariner said, “Life is like an automobile tire that can’t be changed for a new tire. It loses grip; it loses strength; it starts to leak and finally it has a blowout.”

The challenge for old timers is not lingering in the memory of Nat King Cole but to keep learning. Learning and conquering new life experiences is what makes the good old days so special.

Ancient Mariner

 

The State of the Nation

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There’s an oft-told story about Albert, a seasoned old timer, who one day decided to go to the large shopping mall nearby. He walked to the large water feature in the atrium at the center of the mall, stripped naked and climbed into the water where he sat fully content. Needless to say, some people were offended by this and immediately reported Albert to mall security. Albert was swiftly removed and turned over to the police charged with indecent exposure.

The next day, Albert was back in the pool. Again people reported him to mall security. Albert was removed from the pool but mall security felt sorry for this somewhat addled old man and just put him back on the street.

The next day, Albert was back in the pool. But things were changing. A few weeks later two shoppers passed by the water feature. One of the shoppers was new to the mall and immediately noticed Albert in the pool. The seasoned shopper said, “Oh, don’t pay any attention. That’s just Old Albert – he sits in the pool every day about this time.”

The moral of this story is that the electorate prefers acquiescence rather than remedy.

There is an actual medical account of a middle-aged man who suffered a severe accident that destroyed his normal brain such that he could no longer think. Scientists were interested in his case because a small part of his brain, where habits reside, still functioned. His wife adapted to his odd behavior except for one thing: Her husband made bacon, toast and eggs every morning before his accident. It was a habit he could still perform – about seven or eight times a day. He had no memory, just habits. But he rapidly was growing too fat. His wife managed the situation by removing the bacon from the refrigerator. Unable to think his way past this dilemma, he stopped making breakfast.

What we learn from this story is that generally the electorate doesn’t need to think to be comfortable.

Does anyone have other stories describing the electorate? We elected Donald Trump for Pete’s sake.

To the indolent electorate, take some vitamins, electorate. There’s an election looming.

Ancient Mariner

 

The New World

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It’s difficult to write insightful responses to the world scene when the world scene is completely uprooted from what one would call ‘status quo.’ Mariner is reminded of a trip through Dallas on its interstates on a Friday at rush hour. There is no trip through Dallas on a Friday during rush hour. Here in the United States, Donald’s mythological perception of himself is similar to pushing in the clutch to release any productivity from the gears of governance. Further, he is a life-long bully, capable only of punching back at reality but never able to reconcile it.

But there is more. An entire planet exists outside the myopic world of US television. In the spirit of representing Amos, the world is lost; no one knows how to replace the world of 1964 with a new cultural, economic and political reality. Conservatives do not accept that Reaganism is over. Britain does not recognize that local economics has moved on to international economics. The Middle East is struggling with religious differences that the western world reconciled in the eighteenth century. Africa is struggling with even more primitive political circumstances because of the arrested development caused by colonialism in the nineteenth century. China is feeling its oats without accommodating civil rights. Russia is constricted by an economic authoritarianism that the US should pay attention to as a future of its own economic philosophy – one that leads to an inability to compete as an equal in the new international marketplace.

But there is hope. As fragile as the American experience may be at the moment, there are built-in procedures in the Constitution that allow the United States to redefine itself – if the political state of things had perceptive representatives with vision beyond their own careers.

But there is more. The planet Earth is not a political being. Earth is its planet and no species has any rights beyond survival of the fittest. Frankly, Homo sapiens is not a willing participant. Earth will deal with this insurgence. Climate change sounds innocuous but it is a real and present influence on the future of humanity.

Add to this uncontrolled mix the influence of technology. It is impossible to foresee the future of human life – in the day-to-day perspective at least – where the description of ‘job’ will change and the view of capitalism and socialism will change dramatically, and the reverence for planet rules will be more respected.

It is a journey to say the least. Mark the year 2021. It will not be over but the direction of what a new world looks like will be in view.

Ancient Mariner

 

Our Democracy at Work

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AT&T maintains a formidable presence in Washington. The company spent more than $15.8 million on Washington lobbying last year, and its lobbying spending in the first quarter of 2019 put it among the top two dozen companies, according to a POLITICO analysis of disclosure filings. AT&T has 17 in-house lobbyists and also retains nearly 30 outside lobbying firms, according to disclosure reports.

Readers need to know that AT&T owns:

•HBO and Cinemax, as part of Home Box Office Inc.

•TBS, truTV, TNT, Studio T, and TCM, as part of Turner Entertainment Networks

•Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, as part of the TBS, Inc. Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media (AYAKM) division

•CNN and HLN, as part of CNN News Group

•The websites Super Deluxe, Beme Inc., and CallToons

•DC Entertainment

•DC Films, including all of the “Batman” movies

•Turner Broadcasting International

•Turner Sports, including the website Bleacher Report and the rights to March Madness and NBA playoffs

•The CW (50%)

•Warner Bros. Animation

•Hanna-Barbera Cartoons

•Fandango Media (30%)

•Warner Bros. Consumer Products

•Warner Bros. Digital Networks

•Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures

•Warner Bros. Pictures International

•Warner Bros. Museum

•Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank

•Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden

•Warner Bros. Studio Tours

•Warner Bros. Pictures

•Warner Animation Group

•Warner Bros. Family Entertainment

•NonStop Television

•New Line Cinema

•Turner Entertainment Co.

•WaterTower Music

•Castle Rock Entertainment

•The Wolper Organization

•HOOQ

•Blue Ribbon Content

•Warner Bros. Television

•Warner Horizon Television

•Warner Bros. Television Distribution

•Warner Bros. International Television Production

•Telepictures

•Alloy Entertainment

•eleveneleven

•Warner Bros

Is democracy threatened by this? What happened to antitrust regulations?

 It is an age of corporatism unbridled by a government that still thinks only in terms of the printed page. How will AT&T influence our opinions not just for entertainment but for news and an understanding of reality? This is too much control over a public’s perception of the issues of daily life.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

New Stuff

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֎ Beginning next year, FedEx will deliver seven rather than six days a week, to accommodate our insatiable online shopping habits. “Online shopping is seven days a week,” the company’s COO told the Wall Street Journal. The company expects that the number of package deliveries in the U.S. will double by 2026. [The Wall Street Journal]

Mariner’s wife, and a zillion other inveterate shoppers, is dismayed at this kind of news. Box stores of every ilk are disappearing on a daily basis. Where will folks shop? Online doesn’t count; one must arrive and walk the aisles, touching and musing about every item then going to a competitive store to start all over again walking the aisles. Mariner’s wife confesses that often nothing is actually bought – unless there is probability that it will be returned anyway. Online stores try to emulate shopping by sending several examples from which to choose but it isn’t the same. Where is the parking lot? Where are the automatic doors? What’s down this aisle? Where is the checkout line?

֎ Billionaire inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk wants to transport you from Los Angeles to San Francisco at a speed of 600 miles per hour. To do this, he is proposing to create a high speed train system called the Hyperloop that will cut travel time between the two cities to just 30 minutes! [Inhabitat.com]

When mariner was young, he remembers reading an account of a person riding in an early version of an automobile before they were a common sight. The person feared for his life as the automobile approached 30 miles per hour. “Humans aren’t made to move this fast,” he said. Young mariner remembers urging a friend of his father, who was taking them for a ride on a new, unopened airport runway, to go faster – go 60 miles per hour! It was exhilarating! Bon voyage, travelers – and don’t pull the emergency stop cord.

֎ Daniel Neiditch is seeking $85 million for a 15,000 square foot space located at 42nd St. and 12th Ave. in Manhattan. He is offering a list of perks to go along with the property to justify the high price:

– A pair of seats on an upcoming Virgin Galactic space flight (retail price: $250,000).

– Two Rolls-Royce Phantoms and a Lamborghini Aventador roadster.

– A $1 million, 75-foot yacht that’s included (along with five years of docking fees on the Hudson).

– A summer stay in a mansion in the Hamptons that typically rents for $350,000 a season.

– Courtside seats to the Brooklyn Nets (worth $225,000),

– A live-in butler, private chef, and a year’s worth of weekly dinners for two at the flagship restaurant of Michelin star chef Daniel Boulud.

– $15 million to pay for renovation. The condo has been on the market for five years, in large part because of its exorbitant price, but also because it requires renovation and the new buyer will need to displace current residents. (The ‘penthouse’ is actually 13 separate units on one floor which are filled with month-to-month renters.)

Do readers feel as mariner does that this offer is too surreal? It just doesn’t seem to have any excited expectation about it. Perhaps one would be more interested if one had a billion or two and could take on the property just for something different to do. But mariner likes the new idea of packaging goodies with a home for sale. How would that alter market pricing? One could sell a junk house for a lot of money by including some neat stuff.

Ancient Mariner

 

In Defense of Criticism

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From time to time mariner is chastised for his skepticism toward what he refers to as ‘pew’ Christians. Similar to his favorite prophet Amos, mariner criticizes the behavior of those who come to church on Sunday for a social hour with some ritual thrown in and that’s the end of it. Prophet Amos said,

“Seek the Lord and live, or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire, and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it. Ah you, who turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground.” (5:6-7)

Throughout his lamentations Amos focuses on duplicity. The Israelites feign allegiance to God but sell slaves, will do anything for improved self-interest, wealth and comfort, and who visit harm on perceived dissidents and the poor. That sounds a lot like a modern nation with which we may be familiar.

Every religion has rules for social behavior whether it’s Moses’ Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of Jesus, the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, or the Five Pillars of Islam. Some of the rules at least appear to be easy to follow; some rules strike at unpleasant and unfair attitudes that often do not survive a day. Fortunately, all major religions contain a central kernel based on love. Each religion holds love to be a creative force that makes one’s life and all of reality a better, healthier and growing experience – a life in synchrony with the Great Creator.

Theologian Paul Tillich identified the influence of culture, politics and economy on Christianity – and other religions by inference – and concluded that Christianity is highly, almost fatally modified by three ‘quasi’ religions: capitalism, authoritarianism, and communism. There were other examples as well but these three were the primary examples. Add to Reverend Tillich’s philosophical insights mariner’s street pragmatism: Never work with Christian volunteers who are participants in one of Paul Tillich’s quasi religions.

In one sentence, in this case focusing on Christianity, the difference between Christianity and the quasi religions is the quasi religions placate an individual with worldly benefits and advantages while Christianity requires unending personal sacrifice and 24-hour compassion for the wellbeing of all others. In mariner’s generalist manner, he has adopted the Two Great Commandments as the core verb of it all and reworked them into a phrase that fits any cultural or religious environment: Pass it forward – with continuous and fervent intent. That goes well beyond the pews and out into a needy world. Sunday services are for renewal in commitment and energy – not for a social hour once each week and reciting a bit of liturgy, turning it into wormwood.

Ancient Mariner

 

Are Government Budgets Adequate?

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Mariner, like many citizens, notices that the 114th Congress (January 3, 2017, to January 3, 2019) left the nation $21,683,971,652,591.44 in debt. For clarification, that’s 21 TRillion; it’s a record; Republicans held both houses, which is ironic. Despite this indebtedness, Republicans along with Donald fight to keep tax policies in place that guarantee insolvency without even considering new costs related to infrastructure et al. However, the grenade in the well is not any current budgetary conflict. It is the cost of climate change. The next paragraph is the latest assessment and targets thirty years from today:

֎ [curbed.com] A growing body of work underscores the dangers facing coastal real estate. In addition to the “Underwater” report, the U.S. government’s most recent National Climate Assessment found that between $66 billion and $106 billion of real estate will be below sea level by 2050, and that within an eighth of a mile of U.S. coastline lie businesses and homes valued at a total of $1.4 trillion [will be below sea level].

That’s current value. What would it cost for mariner or the reader to trash their current residence (who wants to buy a home underwater?), purchase new property in an increasingly competitive real estate market, and build a comparable home at three times the original cost? If mariner figures rightly, the cost is more like $4.6 trillion. These stakes are too rich for state governments to even imagine what could be underwritten by a state tax base.

Racist conservatives are discontent with the rate of immigration on the southern border. Wait until they realize that a wholly American emigration of 280,000 citizens will encroach on everyone’s backyards. Housing, already a troublesome topic, will suffer its own tidal wave of space, cost and adequacy.

Mariner’s assumption is that the US will suffer severe solvency issues (spelled ‘depression’) if the tax code is not seriously retargeted to garner trillion dollar amounts to cover costs above and beyond infrastructure and discretionary spending – to say nothing of building a wall and going to war with somebody, anybody will do.

Ancient Mariner

Where in the world is Carmen Santiago?

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This line is a ditty from a children’s television show that gave clues to her whereabouts. Today, there is no question – everyone always knows where Carmen Santiago is. Between the cellphone, Wi-Fi, the GPS, car radio, doorbell technology, health tracking, drone surveillance, street cameras, facial recognition, gait recognition, tollbooth cameras, gadgets like Fitbit, etc., everyone knows where the reader is at any given moment. Even one’s pets are tracked.

To older generations, tracking seems unnecessary, invasive and controlling. The newer generations have been born into the tracking world and generally find it a convenient tool and are not bothered by Big Brother aspects. This difference in attitude between the generations is truly significant despite its subtlety and, sadly, any sense of how to manage the ethics of corporate and government manipulation of individuals without their individual authorization.

Cognizance of Big Brother is spawning a new movement to live off-the-grid. Move to the Northwest; move to Alaska; move to Central America; live below the radar of electric service, telephones and other implied intrusions by Big Brother (Big Brother is synonymous with government regulations and corporate capitalism). Of course only a small minority can accomplish an escape from tracking.

The industry that is making the largest splash at the moment is the insurance industry. Today, policies are being rewritten to include tracking as an element of premium cost and even whether one can purchase insurance. Don’t skip one’s exercises or eat unacceptably, or have to use COPD or have a pacemaker – the rates are higher or, God forbid, one is denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions or … one has a history of not complying with tracking devices.

As 5G emerges, industry will be able to track an individual’s wear cycle of clothing, that is, one does not determine for themselves that it is time to recycle a shirt, refrigerator or automobile. A new one will arrive when Big Brother decides it is time by tracking electronics built into one’s clothing and devices. In that time, the last drop of profit will be sucked from the human cash flow creature.

For the sake of decency, mariner will not describe the centralization of income, debt or personal investment. Simply, there will be no need to carry a few dollars in one’s wallet. Yet, everyone must pause while we endure Donald – an individual who has no sense of the broad reality that confronts the entire human existence on this planet because of technology, environment, the ethics of individuality, and the economy of diminishing returns.

Please vote intelligently in 2020.

Ancient Mariner

 

Now to the Court

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The electorate has been misinformed by the Executive Branch and uninformed by the Congress. Now it is the Court’s turn. Aside from the many legal challenges percolating from the mire of political infighting, the Supreme Court is considering some cleaving decisions – cleaving in that large portions of American society will rise or fall on those decisions.

Increased activity largely is from the conservative side of society trying to leverage a newly conservative court. But long overdue Constitutional issues also are on the docket e.g., citizenship, gerrymandering and Native American rights. Needless to say, soon Roe v. Wade will be addressed; one or two Presidential authorities as interpreted by Donald eventually will come before the Court. In the near future, voting rights will be addressed – especially as they are violated in Dixie.

֎ Native American rights – In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled Monday in favor of Native American rights in a Wyoming hunting case. There is another Native American rights case to be decided this term — a case from Oklahoma that deals with tribal territorial rights. Justice Neil Gorsuch — who is a champion of American Indian rights has been the deciding vote on several cases including Monday’s — is recused from this particular case. That means the court could deadlock.

֎ Political and racial gerrymandering – Three states, Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland, are before the court dealing with redistricting. Gerrymandering by race is one issue. The others are political party gerrymandering. Any rejection of gerrymandering will have immense impact on future elections.

֎ Separation of church and state – This particular case is known as the “cross case.” It’s about a World War I memorial concrete cross that sits at an intersection in Bladensburg, Md. — and whether it should be allowed to continue to stand on public land. The Federal government asked the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the cross, which critics say is an unconstitutional state endorsement of Christianity as the state religion.

Mariner notes other religion/state conflicts in many places – even money – where Christian doctrine and state authority are represented as co-equal. This confusion, generated in an early age of the nation despite the freedom of religion clause in the Constitution, is what causes consternation among Evangelicals and conservatives when the state takes actions in behalf of the US citizen which do not represent the authority of Christian doctrine.

֎ Census citizenship question – Donald’s administration is trying to add a citizenship question to the upcoming census. The court will decide whether it can. Based on questioning during oral arguments, the court’s conservatives agree with the Trump administration and allow it by a narrow 5-4 majority. The Census Bureau, however, states that there could be an undercount of 6.5 million people if the question is included.

֎ Race, murder and jury selection – This is a case about bias in jury selection. A Mississippi death row inmate was prosecuted six times for the same crime by a prosecutor with a history of racial bias in jury selection.

֎ When is a word too dirty to be trademarked? – A clothing designer, Erik Brunetti, tried to trademark his “FUCT” line, but it was rejected. The US Trademark Office has not exactly provided standards about what constitutes “immoral,” “shocking,” “offensive” and “scandalous”, leaving the justices to decide whether the term will be allowed.

Other potential cases of consequence:

-Gundy v. US: A sex offender case dealing with how much power is too much to give to the US attorney general for his application of the law.

-Gamble v. US: A double jeopardy case to decide whether a state and federal government can try someone for the same crime.

Major issues remain outside the priorities of all three branches of the Federal Government: cash in elections, Electoral College and misrepresentation in the Senate, antitrust enforcement, bank regulations, and not last and not least, privacy and state security.

Ancient Mariner