It’s amazing how much Orwellian double-speak there is out there these days. Over the past few days, while perusing the local newspaper site, I’ve noticed a site ad for Horizon Blue Cross entitled “The Bag Is Back”. It’s hard to tell what the graphics were implying, but after looking at it 10 times, I finally figured out the story: an old doctor’s bag (used back in the days when doctors still made home visits) is found during an archeological dig. Well, maybe that means that Horizon Blue, a typically nasty health insurance company, has had a religious experience and is now encouraging a kinder and gentler kind of medicine.

Sorry, not quite. Horizon Blue Cross is not suddenly encouraging doctors to bill it for their time in making home visits. No, the big blue X is just using the bag as a symbol. “The medical bag makes a universal emotional connection to a time when health care was easier”. Oh, so this is about emotions. When big corporations start talking about emotions, hold on tight; get ready for some big twists.

The Bag ad encourages you to check out a special web site, “www.thebagisback.com”, which then gives you some clues about where “the bag” is leading. After another link or two, you arrive at a plug for Horizon Blue’s new Health Savings Account plan. Ah yes, Horizon is encouraging employers to save a few nickels by sticking their employees with this lame excuse for health coverage. If you’re not familiar with it, a Health Savings Account is an insurance policy with a very high yearly deductible, combined with a “savings account” that makes up for a lot of the deductable (but still socks you with $200 or $500 yearly out-of-pocket). If you don’t use all of that savings account within the year, you can hold on to it for future medical expenses, or you can cash it out (subject to some tax penalties). The theory behind this is that when people get sick, they will act as “shrewd consumers”, nagging their MDs about every stupid test that he or she orders. Hey, doc, do you really need to do that blood test? It’s costing me money, you know. Thus, the sick person is expected to act as the agent of the insurance company in controlling health costs (which continue to skyrocket for a variety of reasons).

This is definitely Orwellian. I mean, when you’re really sick, do you want to haggle with your doctor? And when you’re not exactly sure if you’re sick, as is often the case, what then? An HSA arrangement will encourage many families NOT to seek medical care at an early stage. Sure, it may be great for people who have a lot of education and make enough money; they don’t have much to lose and can take the longer-term view. But for the struggling working class and the working poor, every day is a skirmish on the cash flow battlefield. When the credit card companies are on you night and day, you’re gonna be tempted to overlook that strange bleeding that you developed the other week, so as to cash out whatever you can from the HSA. Yea, the Health Savings Account is a wonderful idea for the professional types who thought it up. But it could well be deadly for the $8 or $10-an-hour people who it’s gonna be forced upon.

And then Horizon Blue Cross has the chutzpah to claim that it’s like a doctor’s bag, a symbol of caring and healing in the home. Orwell said in 1946 (back when doctors still used bags to make house calls) that all political language is designed “to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Looks as though the big corporations have learned their lessons quite well from their political friends. So well, they can use them on us even when the topic is our own health.

I don’t read or watch much science fiction, because it can be so cheesy. But there is actually some serious science fiction out there, and serious science fiction can be very serious. Science fiction is about the only mode of literature (other than philosophy) that can ponder the biggest questions about humanity and its future.

The biggest question, in my opinion, is this: does our race have much of a future? Will we learn to get past our ape-like urge to gather into battling tribes, and instead adapt a one-world point of view? Can we learn to cooperate more and compete less? Can we avoid throwing our planet’s ecology totally out of whack and shutting down its capacity to sustain us? Can we stop recklessly gulping down all of our available energy resources, handing future generations an IOU promising that “we’ll come up with something” to replace it? (Politicians and corporations talk about the promise of hydrogen as a replacement for oil, but I’m old enough to remember when nuclear power was the energy miracle of the future). Can we do something about the horrible distribution of wealth in this world, where the richest 1/10 of 1 percent live on 10,000 times the annual income level of the bottom 1/3 of the world’s population? Can we see the ridiculous contradiction of a business economy that ties all the people of the world closer and closer together so as to better exploit them, and then thinks that it can just walk away with the profits and not get stabbed in the back (e.g., through terrorism?).

Some of the more optimistic science fiction writers seem to think that we will learn the lessons in time, such that the human race will be around for eons to come. Wars and strife will eventually go out of fashion, and humanity will get down to collectively solving the problems that would otherwise make us go the way of the dodo bird. In a few centuries, as our planet runs out of usable resources, we will be able to find new homes for ourselves out amidst the stars (“ad astra”, as the NASA motto goes). Human kind might then become a unending seed of consciousness and intelligence that will broadcast itself throughout the Milky Way and eventually beyond, to the “billions and billions” of galaxies out there (remember Carl Sagan?).

Wouldn’t that be something. Ideas like that one are good for battling depression. It’s nice to think that we’re here for something after all, that we’re all part of some grander plan for our species that puts our messy, seemingly irrelevant lives into context. Problem is, no one can say if it has a real shot of coming true. There are so many things that could overcome humankind; some unforeseen super-plague, an ecological collapse, a war that gets out of hand and spreads too quickly, a comet or asteroid crash that darkens the planet. Oh, and here’s another interesting doomsday possibility: a gamma star burst somewhere in our corner of the Milky Way. (As though tsunamis weren’t enough).

Astronomers and biologists have recently done research on why some stars suddenly throw out stupendous amounts of energy, mostly long-distance gamma rays. Our own sun couldn’t do it; it’s about 15 times too small for that kind of event. But there are still plenty of big stars out there within range of our solar system that potentially could go blitzo one day. And when they do, they wipe out just about all life forms on any hospitable planet within five thousand light years or so, by stripping away the protective upper atmosphere. Unlike most of the other scenarios, there ain’t a darn thing we could do if it did ever happen (thus, it won’t make a good summer movie). Some biologists think that such a starburst may have caused a big extinction (Ordovician) that happened 450 million years ago (way before the dinosaur extinction, which seems to relate to an asteroid impact near Mexico).

As with the comet and asteroid scenarios, the chances of a near-by gamma burst happening anytime soon is incredibly small. Nothing to stay up at night worrying about. But the chance is always out there lurking, causing grounds for existential doubt.

So . . . . Are we the ambassadors of the Universe’s destiny? Or are we just smears on a cosmic petri dish, ready to be trashed at any time? Ponder that one after you’ve been entertained by Revenge of the Sith.

SMALL TIME GENIUS: It’s the height of the Spring season here in the northeast, and the annual cherry blossom festivals have been held in the various urban parks where the town fathers had the foresight to plant a bunch of Japanese cherry trees. Of course, Washington DC is the big show for cherry blossoms, but up here in New Jersey we have a pretty good display in North Newark, of all places. There are probably other cities too with cherry tree zones.

However, my favorite Springtime blossom site is on the campus of Rutgers University in Newark. It’s nothing much, just one small corner between two modern concrete buildings. But when they were putting the Newark campus together back in the 1960s, someone had the foresight to plant a row of a certain kind of tree, one that develops tiny little purple blossoms all along its branches. They put the line of purple trees in just the right place, set off by a lawn and some regular green trees and a handful of evergreens. In late April and early May, the bare branches of these trees appears to be outlined in purple. Then the regular leaves kick in and they turn to plain old trees for another summer.

Cherry blossoms are all white and puffy and obvious. These trees, whatever they are, have a more subtle appeal. But if you stop to ponder them, you can appreciate their weirdness. I managed to get a decent shot of them today (after the Mother’s Day rituals were completed). Hope you too can appreciate the small-time genius of the nameless planner who thought to put these unique tress in this obscure little campus courtyard. Whoever she (or he) was, my hat goes off to her (or him). It’s said that “you never know the good you do”; but the purple tree display shows that “those who see the good that you do never know you”. Well, same difference I guess.

AN INTERESTING LAMENT: Sometime during early childhood, all of us come to realize that the world doesn’t exist to keep us warm, dry and comfortable. If you had a good mother, it may have seemed that way for the first year or two. (This would be a good time to wish all of you maternal types out there a Happy Mothers Day). But as with most sales transactions, that was just a special introductory offer. Things soon get down to the basic give-and-take.

Another thing that you soon realize as a child is that not everyone in the world is interested in what you’re interested in. You can usually find someone who shares one of your interests, and once in a blue moon you find someone who can talk about 2 or 3 things that are near and dear to your heart. But it’s just about impossible to find anyone who completely shares your interests. Thus, you usually wind up marrying someone who, for a little while, claims to be absolutely fascinated with you; but in reality, she or he finds many of your interests to be trite and meaningless. Ah yes, that limited-time introductory offer, once again.

Not much to be done about it. It’s just a shame that in this lifetime, there’s little to no chance that someone will come along, get to know you, and say, yes, I understand why glass marbles and civil war history and butterflies and Victorian novels and touring Australia and starting a software business turns you on. I see how it all comes together. I know how you feel. Yea, it’s a shame that none of us are every completely appreciated here on earth. Maybe that’s what makes us all so unruly and uncivil sometimes. We all need something from each other that no one is able to give.

Oh well, maybe in another life.

BUT ON THE BRIGHER SIDE OF THINGS: The “wiki” movement on the internet is one of the brighter things happening out there today. Just when it seems as though every site on the internet wants you to pay $15 per month to use it, the wiki people come along and set up good, free stuff on a volunteer basis. Do you remember when the Encyclopedia Britannica web site was free? That sure turned out to be a “special introductory offer”. But we still have the Wikipedia, which gets better and better every day and is still completely free. It’s at www.wikipedia.org. Whatever you are interested in, there’s probably something about it on the wiki. And if not — then write it yourself!

And Now, Irshad Manji: I’ve noticed the sparks of a not-yet-formed women’s movement with the Islamic faith. Many thinking Muslim women realize that the whole trajectory of Islam will have to be changed in order for them – and for their brothers in faith – to lead better lives and to realize their truest spiritual aspirations. Back on March 18, 2005, I noted a woman who leads prayer services amidst an Islamic community in New York City. And on Nov. 16, 2003, I mentioned Shabana Rehman, the Pakastani / Norwegian performer who uses comedy as a means to confront regressive Islamic attitudes – as well as hypocritical western attitudes. Now we have Irshad Manji, the Islamic writer and TV show producer from western Canada. In case you haven’t heard of Ms. Manji yet, her web site is: www.muslim-refusenik.com.

Irshad Manji is saying a lot of good and interesting things, and is definitely taking a lot of risks in saying them. She is also enjoying her celebrity amidst the western press, and I wonder if it isn’t going to her head a little, as happens for just about everyone who “catches fire” with the media. For example, the pajama incident on HBO. Still, I wish her “Ijtihad” movement well . . . . ijtihad being “Islam’s lost tradition of critical thinking”.

Ms. Manji posts a lot of her mail on the web site, and as you would expect, much of it is critical of her pro-modernist, pro-feminist interpretations of the Quaran and her blunt comments about politics and attitudes within the Islamic world. She comments on most letters with a biting wit, turning it loose against her foes and against liberal western supporters as well. But sometimes she just posts a message and lets it be. Here’s a quote from one of those letters, one that I find worth pondering:

“God is something that we are not ready for yet. There’s too much power in it and we don’t know how to absorb it. So let’s forget about God as we know him, and let’s live to help others. Let’s live a life in which our biggest worry is how to make this world a better place for everyone, black and white, Indians, Orientals, Occidentals, everybody and everywhere.” – Bruno

Good one, Bruno. And thanks for posting it, Ms. M.

IRONIC FOOTNOTE #1: The Buddhist definition of the word “manji” is a swastika; to the Buddhists, a swastika represents Dharma, universal harmony, and the balance of opposites. To other people . . . .

IRONIC FOOTNOTE #2: It shouldn’t make any difference, and if I had more integrity I wouldn’t mention it, but Ms. Manji plays up the fact that she’s a lesbian. I guess it adds to her “in your face, you old mullah” personality, which the media seems to love so much. So, I consider her sexuality to be fair game for a little counter-jab at Ms. M. As it turns out, Barry Manilow is also gay (according to a recent biography, although he doesn’t talk about it). To connect the dots, you could take one of Mr. Manilow’s hit tunes and twist one word, and it would go: “Oh Manji, you came and you gave without taking, but I sent you away . . . . “

BUT THE MOST IRONIC THING: Barry Manilow was brought up as a Jew, although he avows having an affinity for Christmas music. Ah, Barry, why not do a joint concert with the former Cat Stevens, have Ms. Manji MC the show, and let it all blur together. As the Buddhists would have it.

DANCIN’ FOOL: One thing I could never figure out – I guess it’s just me – is why people like to dance so much. Dancing is one thing that my mind just wasn’t wired for. I could never figure out how to move my body in a graceful fashion. Whenever I did try to dance, I looked like Rip Van Winkle or Ichabod Crane or one of those other lanky, mythical old guys who lived somewhere in the hills near the Hudson River, up past Bear Mountain (maybe also something like Jim Carrey’s rendition of Lemony Snicket). My own bodily interpretations of music just aren’t like most people’s. They’re rather ugly (more like boppin’ up and down to the beat). I once took dance lessons, and that made it less ugly. But it still wasn’t any fun; I wanted to bop up and down, and they made me shuffle from side to side. So for the most part I’ve stayed off the dance floor (and have regretted the handful of times when I violated that rule).

Obviously, I can’t relate to metaphors about life being a dance. Perhaps it all relates to my Myers-Briggs temperament. I’m a mongrel mix of INFJ and INTJ. The N, T and J elements combine to keep my mind from grasping the feel of dancing, and the “I” element keeps me from any great craving to dance with someone else.

For the most part, I’ve had a full life. I’ve experienced in some way most of the good things that life and society have to offer. But dancing is the one aspect of human experience that I just never connected with. I honestly think it was biological destiny; people who are good dancers just take to dancing like ducks take to water. I just don’t have those genes. And I don’t regret that; dancing dosen’t even look like fun to me, and romantic dancing just looks like a vehicle for sexual frustration more than anything else. If people like me ran the planet, one thing’s for sure. There wouldn’t be much dancin’ going on. Other than some boppin’ up and down in the street, now and then . . . .

Here’s a good quote from Roman Catholic Cardinal Jean Lustiger, who was considered by many to be pope material (except by Cardinal Ratzinger, who held all the cards). There are a lot of things that Cardinal Lustiger believes in that I find quite regressive (e.g., his insistence on the Church’s continuing rejection of any ministerial role for women). But this particular thought of his, regarding politics and the state of the world, seems to be right on target. Cardinal Lustiger says that “the failed experiment of Marxism has been replaced by the rise of powerful wealthy elites that control an increasingly unequal and unreflective society; this will be the weakness of democracy. Democracy needs citizens, not consumers. When people are merely consumers of politics, they are more easily manipulated. And thus, conformism becomes stronger than ever before.”

Good one, Cardinal. Nice to see that someone else “gets it”. I hope the rest of the world also sees it before it’s too late. But talking about democracy, perhaps what’s good for the goose is good also for the gander. Perhaps the Roman Catholic Church could also use a dose of democratic citizenship, and go a little bit easier on the “manipulated conformism” of “powerful elites”. Oh well, maybe the next Conclave . . . . maybe the windows will open again some day.

I sometimes get interested in the question of why people are interested in what interests them (say that three times fast). Earlier in the week, there were several news items that got people’s attention in my office. Some people focused on the lousy start that the Yankees were off to. Others were interested in the Papal Conclave in Rome. And then there were the ladies in the secretarial pool. They were meeting in little groups and gravely discussing the report of a huge wave that almost took down a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Hmmm, I started wondering why that concerned them so much. Here’s what I came up with after some pondering: cruises are basically designed for and marketed to married middle-age women in pink-collar jobs; i.e., women whose marriages are way past the stage of romantic idealism, and who generally don’t have demanding professional careers to divert their attention.

The responsibilities of holding a job and raising kids and owning a house (and maybe also taking care of aging parents) will surely trample the sweet visions of happiness that were present at the start of most marriages. This applies to both men and women; but for whatever reason, pink-collar women seem to miss the youthful notions of romantic destiny to a greater extent. A two-week cruise is a temporary cure for that, a synthetic bubble where the romantic illusions can be rekindled for a week or two. The pressing responsibilities of life are put on hold. In every direction, things are made to seem new and entertaining. There are warm sea breezes, starry skies at night, fresh flowers in every corner, fine food, entertainment, nice people, and port cities to discover (and shop in). You get the feeling that it’s safe to be in love again with your grumpy old husband (or your frumpy old wife). They don’t call it the love boat for nothing.

So, with that in mind, it starts to make sense why our female clerical staff was so upset by the storm report. How could mother nature be so callused as to threaten a cruise ship, a vessel full of middle-aged couples (much like them and their hubbies) trying to re-kindle the notions of togetherness? How could a killer wave hit the love boat? What has gone wrong with the universe?

I’m having some fun at the expense of my female office-mates here . . . but only up to a point. I’m also a bit of a romantic and an idealist, although in a slightly different sense. I’d also like to believe in “love”, although perhaps in a less sensually-oriented fashion than what passes on cruise ships. I’ve had a lot of huge waves hit my own idealism over the years, so I can sympathize when someone else’s dreams get battered. Yea, ladies . . . . . it’s a tough, stormy world, ain’t it.

MAGNOLIA MUCK: Spring has definitely sprung here in the northeast. Birds are singing, and trees and flowers are blooming everywhere. So what’s not to like? Well, to be honest, I have mixed feelings about magnolia trees. They’re very pretty and they smell nice when in bloom, but their petals drop quickly and form a brown muck on the sidewalk. It serves as a reminder not to get too caught up in the seductive joy of April and May. Magnolia muck testifies to the fact that autumn isn’t all that far away. All bodily objects are subject to decay, without exception. To paraphrase the Christian ritual for Ash Wednesday, “remember that you are muck, and to muck you shall return.”

Well, just a quick reality fix. Now get back out there and enjoy the birds and the flowers and the rhythms of life. While ye may.

This week, a stray beluga whale came up the Delaware River as far as Trenton, NJ. Belugas generally live up in the North Atlantic around Newfoundland, so this one was really out of its territory. New Jersey sent out some wildlife specialists to check the whale out. They determinded that it was a old male loner who was taking a journey and maybe took a wrong turn, or just got hungry and figured that river fish was better than nothing. For now, the whale seems healthy, so the State is gonna leave it alone. But they wonder if it’s gonna hold up OK in non-salty river water (I wouldn’t call it “fresh water”; this is New Jersey, after all).

I can sympathize with that whale. That’s the way that life sometimes goes. You take a journey, look for interesting new horizons, and sometimes you find your true home. But sometimes you wind up on your own, far from a friendly and supportive environment.

I hope the beluga eventually finds what he is looking for and what he needs (salty water with plenty of oxygen and plenty of fish, nice temperatures, other whales like him, no boats to cut him up — he already has a propeller scar on his back). New Jersey is a tough environment for non-aggressive creatures like whales. And for non-aggressive people, too.

FOLLOW UP — HAPPY ENDING (we think): Helis the beluga went south the other day, and they think he made it OK back to the ocean, where he belongs. So maybe NJ wasn’t so bad on him. He probably got his fill of shad and herring and decided to move on. New Jersey officials did a good job in keeping anyone from messing with him. All right, sometimes you can do OK in Jersey; so long as you know when to get out.