Current Affairs « The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Current Affairs ... Public Policy ... Science ...

I’m still a bit ambivalent about the global warming debate. Just a few years ago, it seemed like Al Gore and the United Nations had won it; the human species was clearly headed for accelerated extinction because of rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, gases put there by modern civilization. The situation seemed so serious as to justify immediate, radical measures, including limits on development in the undeveloped nations, and reductions in standards of living in the developed ones.

Over the past few years, however, the vested interests that have the most to lose from such an approach have fought back, as you might expect. However bogus many of their arguments are, they have allowed other, more honest skeptics to be heard. And I believe that to be a good thing.

At this point, I myself have no doubt that greenhouse gases from human development have increased temperatures and will continue to do so; and that this will cause significant environmental effects, many of which will seriously effect certain inhabited areas. And yet I agree with some of the skeptics » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 5:21 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

◊ Hereafter and Heretofore in Kyrgyzstan

Current Affairs ... Philosophy ...

First off, I recently sighted a nuthatch and some juncos in my backyard (birds, that is). That is a sure sign of winter’s approach; i.e., birds coming down from the hills just west of here, seeking food to fatten up on so as to get ready for the lean season to come. A group of juncos take up their winter homes here in the suburban jungle, from November thru April. “So little snowbird take me with you when you go, to that land of gentle breezes where the peaceful waters flow”, as Anne Murray once sang. But they ain’t going nowhere for a while.

Today is Election Day, and we local bureaucrats still get today off (yea, I know, we don’t deserve it; given the current mood among the electorate, Governor Christie and the Tea Party people will soon yank Election Day, along with lots of other job benefits, away from us). Since my brother is still out of work, we got together to see the early showing of Clint Eastwood’s latest film (as a producer), “Hereafter”. I found Hereafter to be quite a compelling and gratifying movie. It’s about people who are “possessed by death and the afterlife”, and focuses around visions and near-death experiences (including those of Matt Damon and the easy-to-look-at Cecile De France, who is actually from Belgium). Hey, leave it to Clint to give us a beautiful woman to help ponder the ultimate metaphysical questions!

“Hereafter” is very well done, very tasteful; a real movie in the classic sense, a flick that relies on plot and acting and lighting and mood, not on big stars and noise and big crashes and outrageous scenes, which so many movies do today. » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 3:37 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, October 28, 2010

◊ An NFL Khatru

Current Affairs ... Personal Reflections ...

Something or other got me thinking today about Yes – the art-rock band that had its fame and glory in the early 1970s (Yes is still around in one incarnation or another, playing at state fairs and local art centers). I was specifically thinking about the opening routine Yes used in concert back in the early 70s, which was captured perfectly on their first live album, Yessongs. I was hearing it all in my head this morning, and remembering the time or two that I myself experienced a Yes show back in my youth.

Ah yes, Madison Square Garden in New York. The opening act started at 8, but was mostly just a distraction. They got off stage around a quarter to nine, and everyone in the seats got restless. Then just before 9, the lights went out, the arena went dark – and you could feel electricity pulsing thru the crowd. You could see hundreds of yellow light spots amidst the crowd – young people toking up. And then, very quietly at first, you heard the opening notes of the lead-in theme song. That was a recording of the finale to Stravinsky’s Theme From Firebird Suite.

The Firebird went on, resonating in the darkness for another 2 or 3 minutes, growing in volume and intensity. On the dark stage, » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:27 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, October 9, 2010

◊ RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

Current Affairs ... History ... Society ...

1.) Was the Vietnam war a mistake? It’s a question that still matters to us aging Baby Boomers. I had a thought on the subject the other day. It seems to me that there are wars that a nation has to fight. Those are the “holy wars”; where the other side is not just trying to plunder your bounty, but is trying to change your way of life. I.e., where the other side is trying to impose some sort of vision, be it religious (e.g. Christian or Islamic theocracy), or philosophic (e.g., Communist or Nazi fascist utopia). Whenever a nation or a tribe convinces itself that it has a plan for the world and that instituting that plan requires the use of firepower, about the only cure is to fight fire with fire. War is hell, but utopian visions that require belligerence are an even worse hell.

The USA fought the Vietnam war because it was trying to stop Soviet Russia from instituting its Marxist-Leninist vision, which indeed had been promulgated through the use of firepower and other belligerence. Was Vietnam really a Marxist holy war? It was being fought by Asian visionaries; but what was their vision? Did Ho Chi Minh want to see collective farming in California? It seems to me that the Viet Cong and the Vietnamese Communists were a bit more pragmatic and nationalistically inspired. From what little I know, the “eastern mind” is quite pragmatic. It doesn’t dwell on grand visions of how humankind should live their lives. This can be seen in the difference between Buddhism and the major western / middle-eastern faiths. (But admittedly, there are forms of dogmatic Buddhism, and Buddhist holy wars have been fought).

It’s too bad that Kennedy and Johnson and MacNamara and Rostow and Kissinger just couldn’t seem to grasp this. » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:47 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, October 3, 2010

◊ Rocky, the Janitor of Social Virtue

Current Affairs ... Personal Reflections ... Society ...

As I get older, I give conservatives (the true conservatives, anyway) credit for putting emphasis on the notion of “values” and “virtues”. They have a point; no matter how good and effective the government is, no matter how extensive its social programs are, no matter how just and effectively enforced the laws are, a nation and the society within it will not hold together unless there are unwritten personal rules which everyone respects and plays by. That’s what values are all about; they are based around certain simple notions, such as the “Golden Rule”, and reflect many hundreds and thousands of years of accumulated wisdom passed on from generation to generation.

The conservatives complain that values aren’t holding up so well in present day America; we are trying to replace value-driven self-regulation with more and more programs and written regulations, and that is causing thing to go to hell. Well, I don’t entirely agree; but it is something to ponder.

In my pondering, I tried to think of some people from my youth (in the early 1960s, when values hadn’t yet declined too much yet according to some conservative thinkers) who truly lived “value-oriented” lives. People who could be called “the salt of the earth”. People who no one much noticed, but quietly did many tiny little things that collectively help keep life civilized. Yes, like the raindrops that collectively assemble themselves into rivers and oceans. I can think of many people from my family who were like that. But my memories of my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives is probably clouded by sentimentality, given how long they have been gone. So I have picked out a guy who was not a member of my family, but still impressed me and many others that I grew up with as a really good person.

That guy’s name was Rocco Locarro, Rocky as everyone called him (I have discussed him before on this blog). He was the janitor at McKenzie Elementary School » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:45 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

◊ Things Never Change

Current Affairs ... Religion ...

My last post sort-of made the point that Nazism never really died. Back in the 1940s, Carl Jung noticed a similarity between the Nazis and Islam; today, the message of certain radical elements of Islam would no doubt be heartily approved by Adolph Hitler.

Someone once said that the Nazis were especially pernicious because in order to effectively oppose them, you had to become Nazi-like yourself. Ironically, the radical Islamists are now inspiring Nazi-like behavior on the part of their opponents.

Yes, I am talking about Christian minister Terry Jones’ plan to burn a stack of Qurans this weekend as to commemorate the 9th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. Can’t he see the irony? Did they not show movies of Nazis burning books in public squares in the 1930s, when Rev. Jones was in elementary school? (They sure did show us those movies in history class when I was in school).

Further irony: the Quran says a lot about Jesus as a miracle worker and a mighty prophet of God, born of a virgin. OK, it does imply that Jesus was not “the Christ”, God’s Son. I’m just saying, Jesus is also going down in flames in the midst of this.

I can’t say that Christopher Hitchens is entirely wrong in all the negative things he says about God and faith. People really do become drunk with the notion of God and act like drunks, whether Nazis, Christians or Muslims. Including drunken bar fights, but on a political and international scale.

I’m also starting to see why the Buddhists stayed away from a “strongman God” concept throughout their history.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 5:17 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, August 29, 2010

◊ On the Hazards of Morality

Current Affairs ... Public Policy ... Society ...

I read an interesting article the other day by Thomas Sowell that got me thinking about moral hazard. “Moral hazard” was once an obscure term used in the insurance industry, but in recent years it has become one of the hip things to say when you are talking about government policy. Since Sowell is a conservative, he uses the phrase to attack liberal government policies, i.e. safety nets against personal economic downfalls. The hazard of such policies, according to the conservative theorists, it that it makes people lazy and wasteful given that they are guaranteed against significant loss; and this laziness causes a lot of negative, unintended consequences.

Sowell cites some of the usual conservative targets, e.g. welfare for low-income parents. According to conservative analysis, the federal and state Aid For Dependent Families program significantly increased the birth rate amidst poor, single women. This led to the cycle of inner city and rural decay that resulted in crime, gangs, children without fathers, and broken schools in our poorest neighborhoods.

Given that the conservatives pretty much took down welfare as we once knew it, Sowell also goes after some new targets, such as unemployment insurance. » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 3:01 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, August 26, 2010

◊ A Chat With An Editorial Writer

Current Affairs ... Public Policy ...

I had an interesting conversation at work recently with a woman who was once on the editorial board of the largest newspaper in the state. As a former editorial writer, she obviously stays up on politics and current events, both local and nationwide. So it was interesting to get her perspective on the direction of politics and government leadership, and whether the press and the pundits are helping or hindering things.

Like myself, my associate is troubled by some of the current trends. The Obama Administration and the Democrats seem to have overplayed their hand; the “national political consensus”, which gave them control of Congress and the White House in 2006 and 2008, was not as liberal and big-government oriented as they had hoped. And yet they acted as if there had been such a mandate. They are now being attacked for this by their opportunistic opponents, just as they had opportunistically attacked the Bush Administration and its Congressional supporters when the GOP majority was vulnerable. What goes around comes around, and the Democrats are not doing a good job of defending themselves. Pelosi, Reid, Dean, Frank, and almost all of the rest seem a bit like deer in the headlights. The ones from the redder states (including possibly Harry Reid) will be the first casualties.

To some degree the current political angst stems from the economy, perhaps the worst economic situation the USA has faced in 80 years. But then again, » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:22 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, August 22, 2010

◊ Religious Controversy, Contd.

Current Affairs ... Religion ... Society ...

I put my 2 cents in on the Catholic parish ‘revolt’ going on out in St. Louis in my last blog entry. So, for what little it’s worth, I shall now move over to Islam and throw a few coins out about the Park51 / Cordoba House mosque that a Sufi imam wishes to build near the former World Trade Center site, a.k.a. nine-eleven ground zero. I think that we all agree on the outlines of the controversy: here in America, the First Amendment guarantees groups like Imam Feisal’s Cordoba Initiative the right to purchase property and put up a center for religious worship. There is no evidence that Feisal would use this facility to forward the cause of radical Islam or to promote terrorism or even anti-American attitudes. No one has suggested that Feisal and his associates would do anything illegal in their planned new mosque. However, the site involved does have a strong 9-11 connection; a part of the landing gear from the hijacked United Airlines flight 175 Boeing 767 crashed into the Park Place building after the plane decimated WTC tower 2. Despite all the mayhem nearby, no one in the building was hurt (this sort-of brings new meaning to the Foo Fighters’ recent hit song, “When The Wheels Come Down”). Obviously, having a mosque at such a site offends many people who lost family or friends on 9-11, given the radical Islamist inspirations of Al Qadea.

So, the argument is not about whether the law can stop the Imam from building. It is more focused on whether he should build, given American sensibilities. The last poll number I saw said that about 64% of Americans are against it. I guess that the next question is, if the Imam does go ahead and build, are the many Americans who have bad impressions of Islam as a whole justified in their attitudes (and thus, in their “sub-legal” prejudice against Muslims, e.g. social shunning, suspicious stares at anyone with an Arab appearance, etc.). In a January, 2010 poll, Gallup reported that about 43% of Americans feel some prejudice against Muslims, and 55% view Islam negatively. I think it is safe to say that these numbers will increase if the Park51 mosque is built. The next question is, should they?

Some writers have pointed out a bit of western hypocrisy, given how America and Western Europe responded to Islamic outrage when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons critical of Mohammad and Islam in 2005. » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 2:11 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

◊ Schizm at St. Stans?

Current Affairs ... Religion ...

Given that my grandparents all came from Poland and that as a boy I went to church at a Polish Catholic parish, I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when I came across a recent NY Times article about the St. Stanislaus parish controversy in St. Louis. St. Stans was a nice Polish church not unlike Sacred Heart in Wallington, where I grew up (although as an urban-based parish, it might be a bit more like Holy Rosary in Passaic, where my mother was raised). About five years ago, the parish got into a disagreement with the St. Louis archbishop (Raymond Burke, at the time) regarding ownership of the land and buildings at St. Stans. It had something to do with protecting diocese property from being seized in law suits stemming from clerical abuse. (Ah, what a tangled web that has been weaved . . .). The board at St. Stans decided to stand its ground about parish control of the property; the secular law was pretty clearly on its side.

However, the priests who performed all the Catholic rituals (masses, confessions, baptisms, marriages, last rites) at St. Stans also agreed that the archbishop was their boss. So, when the bish got ticked off at those stubborn lay people on the parish board, he decided to pull his guys out; no more priests. The idea was to get the parish board to reconsider, given that they now had a Catholic church without any Catholic sacraments happening inside of it. In a nutshell, the parish board decided to see the archbishop’s bet and raise him one, by finding a priest from another parish to come in and get the sacramental mill rolling once again. They found their man in a priest named Marek Bozek, a guy in his thirties who grew up in Poland but who became a priest and served the church in the USA.

For the past 4 years, Bozek has been keeping the holy fires burning at St. Stans. But Archbishop Burke struck back » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:25 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

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