Category Archives: Advocacy

Walking as a Cultural Phenomenon

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When was the last time you rode a horse to the Post Office, elementary school, fast food restaurant, relatives, friends or a nearby shopping district? Probably not for a long time if ever. Most likely you ride in or on a vehicle. Walk? Poo – who has time to walk? Walking is for health obsessives and retired people. However, it is true that the most important physical function of Homo sapiens is walking. Walking was our survival tool back in the early days; we could walk all day without stopping. Still present today are parts of the brain that lie idle until you walk.

Walking has more benefits than lifting weights, yoga, meditation, housework, gardening – even swimming. None of these are bad; in fact if you pursue them, continue! But walking is magical. The whole brain – conscious and unconscious, troubled and untroubled, thinking and unthinking, healthy and unhealthy – knows immediately when you begin to walk. At a proper pace, walking even induces meditation, leaving the rest of the brain to pay attention to the erstwhile idle walking instructions.

The benefits of walking have been proven over and over and over again. The health industry is rife with advice to patients to walk. Mariner went to Mayo Clinic recently with four diverse conditions in mind. Every physician said walking will improve mariner’s situation.

Why don’t we walk as part of our daily routine? Time. Time is why we don’t darn socks anymore, don’t have clothes that should be ironed, prefer to survive on frozen, ready-to-eat meals, order everything online instead of using storefronts, use Interstates instead of US highways, put up with abuse when flying, driving one’s self and the kids to a neighborhood event instead of walking, on and on . . . except watching television. We always have time for television from 5:00AM to 2:00AM; certainly there is no time to walk for Pete’s sake!

Actually, we all have time. It’s just not how we do things. Using mariner’s town and family as an example, we do drive everywhere even though walking anywhere in town is not a great effort. Two things must occur: 1, slow the day down. Believe it or not, everything still will be accomplished. 2, if your destination is within a mile or two, walk instead of drive. In mariner’s town this applies to the bank, Post Office, laundry, three family households, library, churches, golf course, convenience store, discount store, lumber yard, fair grounds, car garages, etc. In our town, we can walk to two gas stations. Simply make time in your time-driven schedule to walk as part of your daily experience. Simply say to your family as you leave, “I’m walking to the Post Office.”

Mariner will not engage in the detailed chemistry or benefits of walking – information is everywhere; just type ‘benefits of walking’ in your search engine or go to your library.

If mariner must walk, you must walk, too.

Ancient Mariner

100010101110111001001101111110010001011000100100101

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Next Thursday mariner plans to upgrade his eyeglass prescription. He is undecided about whether to tune them to Dish or DirecTV or Roku; so many options . . . His bridgework is due for an upgrade, too. Should he include the health monitoring package? Which hospital? . . . My dog is having a chip implant so mariner always knows where the dog is; mariner plans to have an implant as well so the dog, among others, always knows where mariner is.

Someone suggested an imbedded mood chip that automatically dispenses an antidepressant. That is depressing – how about a chip that helps with sex? Mariner has joined a clothier website that sells chip-embedded clothing. Integrated with his weather app and his appointment calendar, it buys his clothes and each day picks his outfits. As to what to eat for breakfast, a meal is set out based on his key nutritional KPIs (such as hydration, body mass, and hemoglobin levels) recorded from that health option in his teeth. Mariner is not sure the dog cares about that. To drive to work, make sure to fasten your seatbelt. That’s all you need to do; the car drives its self and knows where you are going because it is integrated with your appointment…. There is a keyring bauble that can locate one’s cellphone no matter where it is – usually at home when travelling. As to locating one’s smartphone, it’s the other way around: the smartphone always knows where you are.

– – – –

Writing recently about how humans can wage war with telecommunications, mariner became interested in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Chicken Little already has fled to the basement to build a lead-lined safe room. We are familiar with the servant robots that sauntered about on the Jetsons; we are aware of robotic machinery in factories; we are aware of desktop functions like editing, faxing and checking out Facebook. We are aware that businesses like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, et al, know our every move, taste, income, political preference, when we will buy an automobile and what model – more than you know yourself. AI has invaded our bodies and our brains or, in other arenas, makes better decisions than human brains. This is scary stuff!

For the moment, humans are not entombed in coffins at birth as depicted in Matrix. But AI technology is well on its way to living your life for you. A new phenomenon called ‘fake news’ has emerged. We are susceptible to fake news because we no longer live in a human-based sphere of empirical knowledge. For many, the existential reality is hundreds of TV channels that have no foundation in a person’s empirical reality. This includes television news as well as many fabricated websites on the Internet.

Searching for meaningful truth, we defend ourselves with ‘truthiness,’ Stephen Colbert’s invented word that says truth is what feels right, not what facts say truth is. Mariner visited Facebook for a few weeks. Facebook is an alternative reality which sits at the center of life experience for active participants. The smartphone is the portal through which we give our sense of self away to the AI world. At some point, AI will know enough about you to replicate you in an AI world. At that point, it may be time to pick out a coffin.

– – – –

Before closing his post, mariner asks that we pause to honor the passing of Fats Domino. He died Tuesday at the age of 89.

Before closing his post, mariner urges every reader to contact their Congressman to press for impeachment. The Donald phenomenon is no longer about compensating for a King complex; it is about stopping a brutal, unnecessary war, perhaps nuclear, with North Korea. Removing Donald is the only way to unplug a tragic and imminent future.

Ancient Mariner

 

Uncle Sam needs YOU

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Here is some encouraging news: in the 2018 elections, 209 democrats are registered to run for the House of Representatives. This is quite a phenomenon. See past elections in the following chart provided by the Campaign Finance Institute:
Democrats Republicans
2004 22 – 29
2006 48 – 24
2008 57 – 49
2010 40 – 78
2012 42 – 40
2014 45 – 52
2016 44 – 28
2018 209 – 28
The desire to rid our governments of fleas (earlier post) has taken hold. This is a welcome army for reconstruction of failed governments – especially the failed Federal Government. But the party is short on Generals – especially Generals who will articulate the goals, who can instill unity, who can arm the campaigners with the words and common cause that at the moment are missing weapons.
The republicans know they are in a fight in the 2018 elections. However, it is not a level playing field. Gerrymandering alone will defeat democratic campaigns; as will the money, indeed the wealth in many republican coffers. Those of us who consider ourselves unattached to electoral activity must now help our enlisted activists and campaigners. Mariner is reminded of the many efforts by common citizens who supported WWII by collecting string, metal, and gave up many food items in the household; even gasoline was available to civilians only in limited amounts. But American spirit was high – it was the least they could do and do willingly.
Can we raise our spirits to help the political troops? Enthusiasm is contagious. Since Kennedy, there has not been a natural democratic advantage of this magnitude. Perhaps it is the eclipse…
The least we can do is nag fleas with letters and telephone calls. Let them know what legislation is not allowable and what they are bound to do to serve their constituency first – even before their lobbyist managers. Remember the Civilian Defense Corps? It is your time to do what you can do and do it willingly.
Ancient Mariner

Pick a Degree

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One thing about which every one of every political persuasion can agree is that the United States of America is dysfunctional. Even more critical is the slow but obvious move toward authoritarianism. Today, Sessions introduced procedures whereby the press can be sued – no longer a free press. Whether a Donald Drumpf follower, or Bernie the revolutionary, or Mitch the turtle, or Paul the vampire, or Jeff the leprechaun, or out in the oceans saving whales, one can agree that the US culture, its governments, and its economy are similar to a herd of horses that have escaped from a corral – running willy-nilly and snorting gleefully at their independence from accountability.

Mariner has written numerous times about the plight of our ethics, economics, and the tsunami future we face no matter what one believes. He will not iterate these circumstances here. If the reader wants detail, feel free to roam the library in the sections at the top of the screen.

The topic today is to explore to what degree you can, or are willing to, bring the horses back to the corral.

Mariner is reminded (from another time) of the chore of shining his shoes. It was not something he enjoyed. Shining shoes had nothing to do with the day’s reality. Shining shoes was tedious; it was messy and never failed to get shoe polish on his dress pants and shirt sleeves if he made the mistake of dressing first. Fortunately, general dress codes have shifted away from sharp looking leather. Make note, however, he still shines the few pairs he has when a shine is needed. He is blessed that he doesn’t wear them very often.

Do you have a chore you don’t like? Perhaps it’s a bothersome detail like balancing checkbooks or washing the dog; maybe finally raking the leaves out from the garage. There are more such meaningless chores – as many as can be imagined.

Well, imagine one more: cleaning out and fixing your nation. Not something one thinks about on a daily basis but wow does it have a lot to do with reality. The chore of cleaning out and fixing the government can be done with varying degrees of participation.

Before we start defining degrees of participation, let’s consider an overarching strategy: Bring ‘nice’ back. And ‘fair’. In other words, rebuild the center – both in legislation and with elected officials. Fixing the government will require cleaning out bad influences that over time destroy our centrist democracy: gerrymandering – a terrible malpractice. Redistricting committees should be made up of common citizens like a jury in a trial. Money – it has been analyzed many times and it always is the same: Congressmen and other Federal and State elected folks spend five hours a day soliciting lobbyists for donations so the officials can run in the next election. There are two things wrong with this: (1) lobbyists own our legislators; our laws have overwhelming phrases, words, regulations, etc. that make corporate interests happy – to our disadvantage. (2) Maybe if the elected officials could spend that five hours working in committees, something may get done! Further on the money issue, the communications industry makes a killing during elections. Sure it’s a business working to optimize profit but ads are the other side of why so much money is needed to run. What if contributions could come only from the district in question?

Finally, the Federal Election Commission needs some teeth so they can restrict folks like the Koch brothers from deliberately swamping a local election with endless money. This is a practice of the political parties as well.

Then there’s the whole blocking freedom to vote issue. Those who practice eliminating votes are prejudiced by race, class and power.

So that’s the strategy – eliminate practices that are bad for centrist democracy. Further, elect candidates that are nice and seem fair and intelligent. If a campaigner spends too much time talking about one-sided, special interest issues, be wary.

— Degrees of Participation.

Personal opinion – Not every person is an extrovert or has intense opinions. This degree asks only that you telephone your appropriate representative and express your personal opinion whenever you learn of a public issue about which you have a preference. This is not a bad experience; officials and their staff are always nice – after all, you are a vote. A good example is the mariner’s town: loose dogs were a nuisance. Townspeople called their town council members. This provoked a planned approach for dog ordinances.

Citizen Representative – You may feel that a group has more influence than one person. Besides calling your representative, you regularly attend meetings of local issue groups or a political party. Further, you may have a cause like clean water or a common cause group that expresses your views. Donate a stipend – even a dollar or two helps. Become active during election season; campaign for a candidate, vote in primaries and again, if you can, contribute a stipend.

Citizen advocate – besides calling your representative and becoming active during the election season, participate in ad hoc groups advocating a common cause. Visit elected official offices in Washington, DC, perform sit-ins, and attend rallies.

These are varying degrees of engaging in the task of fixing our democracy. The situation is so dire as to take the nation down dark roads if we don’t fix it now. Remember: rebuild the center.

Ancient Mariner

Cultural Resistance

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Having presented Gar Alperovitz’s idea that if a democracy is to sustain itself in the future, citizens must become personally and physically active in supporting their policy issues – whether local or national. Mariner feels this is a tall order for today’s common culture. There was a time in the past when a telephone line was the only door to the outside world. In rural and exurb areas, a caller shared one line with four or five neighbors. Individuals could learn a bit about what was going on by listening to the radio and reading newspapers but to communicate with one another was more difficult than we may remember.

Consequently, “clubs” were common. Churches, too, played a role as a central location where neighbors could gather and talk to one another. When mariner moved to a small Iowa town in the 1960’s, he had a choice of a stamp club, coin club, VFW, Masons, Eastern Star, Lions, garden club, American Legion, playing card club(s), Rotary, sewing club, bars (where everybody knows your name) and informal groups that met regularly in hardware stores, gas stations and morning coffee shops. Outside activities were frequent and included ice cream socials, dinners, corn festivals, lunches, baseball, a larger county fair (larger inclusion than today because of the farming community and forgotten homemaking skills along with as many local booths on the midway as professionals). Size of the town? Nine hundred, tops.

Television was new. Areas contiguous to the town didn’t have electricity until after the war (1946-54). Television provided something to do at home besides darning socks, sewing buttons, crocheting, canning, playing cards and working jigsaw puzzles… and going to meetings.

The Internet and powerful multipurpose telephones that need no wires have crushed face-to-face group participation. The closest thing to a club is a special link of users many of whom have never met one another and frequently don’t share a common neighborhood or state.

The reader gets the point. Today’s culture is fast; it is comprehensive in content; it is dismantling not only human contact in neighborhoods but even the need to visit a retail outlet where humans used to gather – Amazon takes care of that.

Alperovitz suggests our survival requires us to reverse this trend. Civility, fairness, honesty and all the other virtues unattended by corporations et al, are in our hands. However, culturally today’s folks are unaccustomed to physically leaving home to have discussions with other humans. That requires a lot more overhead than watching CBS News. Has the reader ever accompanied a group to visit their state legislator’s office? Governor? US Senator?

It is refreshing to see organized groups who fight for ownership of their policies. Can we turn the cultural norm? Even if wildly successful, it will take time – maybe even a new generation.

Ancient Mariner

Generalisms

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Mariner has been writing often about myths. Myths are a legitimate, indeed critical part of religious understanding; without myths, the indescribable spirituality we draw from our faith would not be possible. From the same box of tools for explanation is the generalism.

Everyone uses generalisms every day. We use generalisms to express opinion without having to give a lecture and in the context that offering the generalism does not mean it is absolute. A simple and innocuous example is:

Larry says, “Hello, Tom. I plan to have a Thanksgiving dinner this year. What do I need?” One knows instinctively that Larry does not want a half-dozen recipes dictated or directions to the library or a show and tell about Tom’s last four Thanksgiving dinners. Tom uses a general statement to offer Larry an opinion: “Oh, maybe the common items are a turkey, potatoes and gravy, some vegetables and desert, like a pumpkin pie.” A generalism is an excellent means for expressing a large, unofficial collection of information. It should be noted that a generalism is not an idea; it is an assimilation.

Like myths, while absolutely critical to insightful communication, generalisms can be abused:

One can adopt a literal value for a general statement. This is called prejudice. Good or bad in intention, a generalism is not a specific, formulated entity; making a general statement innately means there are many exceptions and diverse perspectives included – one cannot legislate by means of generalism. It is this error that confronts Donald at every turn. Further, one cannot live a healthy and insightful life trying to act according to a set of prejudices.

One cannot infer a further generalism from an existing generalism. That is the same as executing a split-middle in a syllogism: All cats are four-legged animals; all horses have four legs; therefore all horses are four-legged animals. The derived generalism: all animals have four legs; ducks are animals; therefore ducks have four legs.

However, it is this abuse, building a generalism referencing another generalism that is the foundation of racial prejudice in the US: Whites are successful; blacks are less successful; therefore blacks are not the same as whites. The derived generalism: Successful whites are ambitious; blacks are not as successful; therefore blacks are not as ambitious. One can imagine the multiplicity of prejudice by those who believe generalisms to be literally true.

Broadcast news has drifted from investigative reporting to information of viewer interest, that is, generalisms and placating viewers. This weakness has allowed Donald, among many other misrepresented issues, capable of running an entire campaign and Presidency leveraging generalisms. Donald’s flamboyant pontifications were the news – invalidated by facts. News organizations have lost credibility as a consequence; individuals and legislation hurtful to our culture succeed without scrutiny or public awareness. Generalisms are not always the proper form of communication for the task at hand.

Three cheers and a gold plaque for NBC White House press reporter Peter Alexander when he corrected Donald’s claim to have the Electoral College’s highest win votes in history since Ronald. Peter had done his investigative homework and called out Donald on his blatantly touted falsehood; Donald wasn’t even fourth. Asked how the public could have faith in him if he lies, Donald said someone else gave him the information. Except for Peter, would the public have accepted the generalism not knowing the facts that make the generalism false and self-serving?

Generalisms are not facts, they are presumptions.

Yet, because the public prefers not to spend time postulating and judging facts, generalisms are more entertaining therefore draw a larger viewer share. As the official prevaricator of information, broadcast news owes the public more than entertaining generalisms. A condition lasting several generations, the public will require therapy to restore the requirement for facts.

[The first news center was converted from a public service to a profit center in 1977 (20/20). By the late 80’s all news was competing for profit rather than better news based on facts.]

The public has become lax about being correctly informed – paradoxically, during an era when more facts are free, more information is quickly accessible and more available than ever. If the news won’t investigate, the viewer is vulnerable unless the viewer decomposes news generalisms into the ‘facts’ that may or may not support them.

Ancient Mariner

 

Do we at least still love our mothers?

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In one way or another, the past three posts deal with H. sapiens’ relationship with the physical world. Other post series deal with H. sapiens’ treatment of fellow humans and some deal with how H. sapiens has allowed the machine ethic to take over theology, government, economic priority over life, and morality.

Just to highlight each subject:

Humans have started the sixth major extinction of life in the history of the planet.

Humans have destroyed the orderliness of the planet’s biosphere to the point humans will join other creatures in unnecessarily becoming extinct with them.

Humans have chemically altered the chemistry of the planet sufficiently to receive their own geologic epoch – the Anthropocene Epoch; Geologic epochs usually last two or three million years but humans ended the Holocene Epoch after just 11,500 years.

Economics continually grows more abusive to the planet population as international scope and computerization focus on an intense gathering of wealth for the few and in addition, without conscience increase the hardship on the quality of life for the rest.

Similarly, governments support corporate interests and refuse to openly and fairly care for all their citizens equally.

The measure of human worth and virtue is measured in dollars.

In sociology, a machine is any entity that is used to more easily achieve a goal. Machines can be a hammer, sunglasses, nuclear weapons, governments, organizations and prejudices. Humans have replaced religion with machines. Life according to a higher plane of existence and transcendent ethos is disappearing very rapidly. Today, it’s the machines that dictate morality.

Mariner believes this is overwhelming evidence that religion has been obliterated in the West; the East is catching up quickly. People today have lost faith in themselves which is what religion is all about. People chase the machines. It is a plastic world with no ethos, no reward for life, and no intrinsic value for achievement.

Consequently, the mariner will offer a generic religion starter kit for those who feel the absence of spiritual happiness.

 

RELIGION STARTER KIT

First, you need a god. How you envision god is very, very important. Many of you are aware that several practicing religions forbid any image of god – not even writing a name for god. There are two reasons for this: first, god has no shape; god is not a thing. God is a state of perfect being. Second, you can’t worship images, not even presumptions of images. The Jews call this Baal worship. The Christian Bible cites god in several places saying “you will have no other gods before me.” That includes pictures and words of god; they truly don’t look like god at all[1]. God is a singularity. This will have meaning in a moment.

Many religions have the same creation story where god creates a perfect world in a special location. God puts a male and most often a female at the location and they do something they aren’t supposed to do. This creation story is very important to the manner in which we utilize god in our lives. The story establishes something called ‘duality.’

Duality is a condition of existence. Everything – everything – has two or more sides or values. Examples: start and stop; top and bottom; light and dark; far and near; man and woman; good and evil, and so on. Do not try to find an exception. There is only one exception: god. In perfection, god cannot have more than one state of being. God by definition is a singularity.

Duality is our opportunity to sense more than one value for something. To move through life, we are constantly bombarded with things which require us to judge the correct value. In the area of religion, this judgment is about good or evil values; whether something is right or wrong in merit. There is an affinity between singularity and good judgments; there is a rejection of singularity when judgments are bad.

Now you must add an item to the starter kit: faith that a state of perfect being exists. You should seek feelings of perfection and what that does to your feelings of self. A hint about what perfection feels like is a transcendent sensation that lifts you above duality and is very, very peaceful. It isn’t so important that you imagine some literal moment; remember god isn’t a thing; god is a state of perfection. Further, your human desires likely do not reflect perfection – you exist in a dualistic reality. Speaking anthropomorphically, god draws you to be like god – to exist in a state of singularity. But first you need a god.

In the starter kit is a set of measuring devices which you use to measure the amount of perfection in an event, thought or motive in your life. These measuring tools are sort of like handy decision aids like a pregnancy stick or a ruler to measure legal fish or the air pressure in your tires. The scale on each of these tools has words to help with measuring:

Is this event, thought or motive good duality or bad duality? How much of god’s singularity is present? How much beauty? How much love? How much order? How much truth? How much empathy? How much compassion? This set of words determines the quality of an event that is created by humans. It is not advised that you invent your own sticks. Usually they measure bad duality. For example, common measuring sticks of bad duality are opportunism, prejudice, pride, greed and avarice. When you think about it, a state of perfection doesn’t have much that can be measured. However, all of dual reality can be measured for compliance with a state of perfection.

When you have this much of the kit assembled, it is time to practice your religion. Always carry your measuring sticks with you; your measurements will help you focus on god’s singularity and to live a happier and more satisfying life. The remaining parts of the starter kit require some seasoning on your part before you can assemble them.

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] Religion is about answering ‘why’ we exist and ‘what’ provides goodness in our lives. The mariner references old religions to help with understanding; the starter kit is quite transparent when it comes to sanctification, ritual, interpretation of goodness and what a transcendent being looks like or how it is identified. The generic identification of god is up to you. Joseph Campbell suggested that the term ‘myth’ always gets in trouble because people place their faith in the myth rather than in what the myth represents (Baal worship). Campbell said, “A myth is a metaphor for things we cannot easily explain or articulate.” So it is with the term ‘god.’ A common metaphor is “Goodness is godliness.”

The Real News

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Tom Friedman, a prolific writer of politics and economy, has a favorite phrase to describe the behavior of human society. In regards to our attention to really important issues like global warming, environmental destruction, over population and critical resources like water, he says, “Humans are really enjoying the golden age of doing anything we want to the Earth to indulge our overconsumption and indifference about the planet’s resources. It’s like jumping off a tall skyscraper and saying, ‘Look, I’m flying!’ which is enjoyable until the first floor where everything goes splat.”

From the Earth’s perspective, we are easily distracted by bright lights and noise – things like war, Donald, flagrant disregard for the side effects of mass destruction of irretrievable habitat and disruption to the Earth’s sensitive balance of our biosphere. Despite severe warnings from our birth mother, we are trashing ourselves into extinction. “Yes, old news – I’ve heard all this before.” That indifference is the very issue!

We are no more sensitive to the finer threads of existence than our brother monkeys, who in ignorance at least follow the rules. Lust and primitive satisfaction are all we can handle. The dollar bill, an ignorant interpretation of intrinsic value, dominates our self-control. We have no feeling of debt to our planet and in Trumpian fashion, don’t hear what we don’t want to hear.

Our planet is in charge, however, and will tolerate only so much obnoxious abuse and destruction. It will have the last say.

So the primitive and simplistic economy of capitalism – a mistake sanctified only by the industrial age near the end of the 1800’s because it was easy and self-serving – will permit the dollar wealthy to fly in first class to the first floor.

Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in 1517. It wasn’t the first attempt but this time it succeeded. For the first time in western civilization, man’s spiritual core was no longer bound to theological virtue. Western Christianity hadn’t always been the wisest ethical guide, what with wars, murder and intense judgmental abuse but still, it was theological and as such had a place for planet stewardship – if only by reference and not by obligation; Adam and Eve had to alight somewhere.

If one thinks about the entire history of religion and faith covering 12,000 years, one is aware in the beginning that the faith part was more the guide to our ethical lives than mortal achievement. Of course it wasn’t perfect but religion played the role of managing our morals from beyond our petty perimeter of day to day life. Then, it still was God’s world; we had an obligation of some sort to planet stewardship and the living environment on it.

Then steam and oil were discovered and new ways through chemistry and engineering were found to increase the cost to the planet for each human. But the big deal was the discovery of the Americas. Humans had their own brand new planet – a blank canvas that God hadn’t mentioned. Western civilization needed a new bible for this opportunity. In 1904, Max Weber wrote the new bible: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and in 1915 the new testament, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Max Weber was no intellectual slouch; he was well educated and has an impressive bibliography. Max, along with Karl Marx and a few others, emulated Martin Luther in that they opened a new era of human-managed ethics called ‘sociology.’ In very broad terms, according to Guru, ‘sociology’ is a term that implies that human behavior is human-managed behavior.

At that moment in western history, we became our own god. “Why do we behave this way?” Just ask Freud or Yung or Max or Karl – our new set of apostles. What little obligation we had to care for God’s world was replaced by a profit spirited pocketbook in a godless world. It was a Trump moment.

Today, despite many different theologies, disciplines and practices, there is no way for us to reach beyond our belief in our own social behavior. We are our destiny; we need no validation at the Holy Gate.

It was Madeleine Albright who commented, “You can’t expect Congressmen to tackle global issues; they were elected to bring home the goods today.”

The mariner has mentioned in the past many, many times that we are in the midst of great universal change – greater even than just the Earth’s biosphere. We are on increasingly stormy seas. Where is our compass? Is it whatever provides us the most dollars? Is it even more humans? Is it war? What device among us is not tarnished by us? What will give us guidance to focus on issues of humanity and not on issues of our ego? Dare we restore discarded religious virtues cast in a modern perspective? Where is our compass to show us the way to care beyond our simian prerogative?

ADDENDUM – Mariner received an email from his advocacy organization, Food and Water Watch.; a very above board, independent and serious group that looks out for our wellbeing:

Food & Water Watch

Everett,

We just got our hands on Trump's to-do 
list for the EPA - and as expected, it's 
horrifying. Starting today, the Trump 
administration will start trying to methodically 
gut the Environmental Protection Agency.

On inauguration day, the Trump 
Administration took all references to climate 
change off of the White House website. Now, 
they're beginning a months-long rollout of 
budget cuts and roll backs of key regulations 
designed to protect our air, water and climate 
from corporate polluters.
The leaked to-do list makes it clear that 
Trump will follow through on promises to gut 
the agency.
*  The document identifies opportunities to 
cut programs, including $513 million from 
"state and tribal assistance grants," $193 
million from ending climate programs and 
$109 million from "environmental programs 
and management."
*  The administration outlines initiatives 
they want to stop, including "Clean Air Act 
greenhouse gas regulations," clean car 
standards and clean water protections.
*  The to-do list also includes a plan to 
permanently change how the EPA uses 
science to prevent the agency from returning 
to "its bad old ways as soon as an 
establishment administration takes office."

Ancient Mariner

 

The Wind Is Changing

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The mariner does not make predictions or propose a direction at this time but feels the wind differently. Just a small whiff that may mean nothing.

Donald sees himself as king of the world, not just the United States.

Four larger democracies are suffering from authoritative would-be kings who hold no allegiance to human rights and intend to “fix things” and not be wrong about it. (US, Russia, Greece and Turkey) The fuse is the Middle East.

Donald already has infringed on freedom of the press telling it when and where it can receive canned news releases. Individual threats have been made at several specific news agencies. Where is enforcement of the First Amendment?

Donald already has made it clear that his judgment is not to be fair but rather never to be wrong and he will visit his wrath on those who may insist he is wrong. (Sounds exactly like Kim jong il).

It is obvious his scope of importance does not separate the opportunity for profit at the expense of human welfare – wherever profit may take him internationally.

The mariner can go on endlessly with these thoughts but two cultural indicators are emerging that hold his attention: too many crooners and incidents of swing music are popping up on entertainment media and too many Father Knows Best shows are popping up – signs of transition in pop music and entertainment suggest instability in cultural values – couldn’t ask for a better barometer.

Our last chance to avoid war is to stop Donald absolutely without fail at the emolument clause with an impeachment. A bleak future with the US Congress is far better than a world with Dictator King Donald.

Ancient Mariner

Loyalty is Everyone’s Mandate.

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During the holiday season many, many charity organizations are working at maximum speed to spread the cheer that someone cares for the wellbeing of another. The reader should become aware of the many efforts at feeding, gifting, paying for, providing shelter, providing warmth, and providing other critical support to the growing number of those left bereft and friendless by our abusive society.

Do you attend religious services? Your place of worship inevitably supports several charity projects – probably even sponsors volunteer activities in house to distribute evidence of care and concern but even more, befriending those who can’t afford friends. That includes more often than not families with children.

The best gift is you. That is hard for many people to do. But once one gives with personal effort and time, once one shares with another face-to-face, hand-to-hand, there are two gifts: You receive one, too, and it will be the best gift to you for the whole holiday season!

Our national culture slowly has worn thin. Citizens relate combatively. All the circus acts in politics, all the pretending that when whole industries have discarded wage earners, there is no human impact and that their futures are chopped off – leaving them homeless and penniless with families to support – these are not bad people; these are not failed people; these are not to be scorned; at least not yesterday why today? The US was founded on a new philosophy among nations that every citizen is responsible for every other citizen.

We have forgotten that in the US, we aren’t loyal to a regime or an ideologue. In the US, the strength of our society is not loyalty to the flag. No, it isn’t. We are loyal to each other. Not just in political rituals or paying taxes; each of us has a bonded responsibility to look after our fellow citizens and they must look out for us.

Loyalty to one another is a political mandate to keep the US together and strong. It is not a game for soft-hearts or ‘liberals.’ It is a hard game to be played every day, in every moment. Eric Metaxas said the US is founded on freedom. Freedom requires belief in freedom; freedom requires loyalty; loyalty requires virtue.

Now show your freedom, loyalty, virtue and wisdom: get out there and create some truly precious and needed holiday spirit!

REFERENCE SECTION

ERRATA

In a recent post lamenting mariner’s fortunes at the voting box, there was a poorly phrased sentence about the Presidential terms of Lyndon B. Johnson. To clarify, LBJ finished JFK’s term when Jack was assassinated; Lyndon won his own term in the next election but declined to run for a second elected term.

Did you forget your reading assignment? It’s “If You Can Keep It” by Eric Metaxas, copyright 2016, Penguin Random House. ISBN 9781101979983 hardbound — ISBN 9781101980002 ebook. $26.00 hardbound. Or see your library.

Ancient Mariner