The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

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, September 5, 2010

◊ Jung, Hitchens, Jews and God

Psychology ... Religion ...

Last I heard, Carl Jung is still the psychologist-icon of choice for liberal Democrats. But perhaps they are forgetting that Jung had some views regarding Islam that might make Obama and Pelosi supporters squirm a bit. Here is something Jung said in 1939:

We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Mohammed. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future.

Jung was not a Jew, and does not mention the anti-Semitism that forms the common denominator between the Nazis and some schools of Islam. Nonetheless, rabid anti-Semitism is the sore thumb that sticks out from this quote.

Christopher Hitchens has an article in the September 2010 Atlantic making the point that anti-Semitism has been much more than a Nazi and Islamic fascination. » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 6:59 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

◊ Hawking’s Design: Not So Grand

Philosophy ... Religion ... Science ...

Stephen Hawking once wrote that if science ever comes up with a unified field theory (i.e., the grand unification of relativistic gravity concepts with quantum particle mechanics), humankind will then “know the mind of God“. Now Hawking has a new book coming out (“The Grand Design“) that in effect says, “scratch that; there’s no God with a mind to be known”.

Back in the late 19th Century, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche got a lot of press by proclaiming God to be dead (in a book that he titled “The Gay Science”; the future irony was not apparent at the time, obviously). Now, more than a century later, Hawking is back with a science book even more “gay” (in the sense of being joyously self-confident), which buries philosophy as well as God! (Yep, philosophy is dead, per Hawking).

“Grand Design” will be released this Tuesday, and it will probably be many more months until I get around to reading it. But I have read some articles and excerpts and book reviews out in advance of the book, and I believe that I catch the general drift of Hawking’s argument. » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:31 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Friday, September 3, 2010

◊ On the Verizon of Enlightenment

Personal Reflections ... Society ...

It’s difficult for me to appreciate just how important the cell phone has become. I must admit that I am often out-of-touch with the cultural mainstream. I have no idea who the young movies stars are these days. I don’t watch reality or talent-search TV shows, and I still remember Jimmy Carter as being a good President. I don’t have an iPad, and even worse, I never even bought an iPod! I got my first cell phone back in June (and I’m still pretty clumsy when using it). And as you might guess, my phone is the most basic model available, way behind all those sophisticated little devices that everyone stares at and and fiddles with during the “in-between moments” of life. I got it to use in case of emergency (and even then, I might not remember who to call or even remember what buttons to push!).

Being a bit more attuned to the ways of modern America, my brother showed me a little phone trick the other day, something I wasn’t aware of. I.e., that you can turn a cell phone off and on by holding down a certain button. I was previously under the impression that it had to be on all the time. Well, perhaps mine did, as the phone did not come back to life after being powered down, despite pushing and pushing the buttons.

So we drove over to a Verizon store » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:13 pm Read Comments (2) / 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

Saturday, August 14, 2010

◊ The Enduring Legacy Underfoot

Personal Reflections ... Photo ...

People who came of age in the past twenty years or so don’t remember much about “The Bell System“. But for old fogies like me, Bell Telephone (aka “Ma Bell”, the nick-name given to AT&T and the local affiliates that ran most of the telephone phone system in the United States up thru 1984) was once a way of life. It was how you made a call. The bell logo (which was a tribute to the telephone’s founder, Alexander Graham Bell) was almost everywhere you looked; on phone books (remember those?), on phone booths (ditto), on your phone bill, on maintenance trucks, advertisements, utility buildings . . .

But the world has changed, and the Bell System is an idea whose time has long passed. There are all kinds of different companies out there today offering a menu of different phone services. But the old Bell organization should not be forgotten, as it was well run; in the first half of the Twentieth Century it allowed the telephone to become a critical component of American life, for both business and social purposes. Bell / AT&T did its job and did it well.

And interestingly enough, you don’t have to walk very far today in most any town before you can see evidence of the old Bell organization. You simply need to know where to look. And that is to look down. There are still thousands and thousands of manhole covers in the streets bearing the Bell logo (ah, “manhole cover” — another antiquated, politically incorrect phrase!). Given how long cast-iron covers last, it could be many decades before the last symbol of the old Bell infrastructure is put to scrap. I took a little walk around my own neighborhood, and hardly had to venture more than two blocks to find several old Bell covers. So I snapped a few pix, in tribute to the enduring legacy of the old AT&T / Bell organization. Enjoy!

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:46 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, August 12, 2010

◊ 8-9-10

Personal Reflections ... Society ...

On Monday afternoon I was working on another piece of bureaucratic paperwork, and I had to write a date next to a signature. For just a second, I noticed that it was 8-9-10. How ’bout that.

Hmmm, for the next four years we’re going to get sequential dates like that. That seems to me like something to be celebrated. I mean, why is January 1 any more sacred?

But no one else (that I know of) seemed to notice. I didn’t see or hear any comment about it in the paper, radio, internet nor TV. And that’s too bad. Nice little things like ascending date numbers are always overlooked. We all want the big thrills in life, and we live in on-going disappointment about how rare and unpredictable they are. So why not focus on the little things that you can count on?

Hey, 9-10-11 is coming! We all should start thinking now about how to celebrate it, as a part of the on-going celebration of our lives.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 6:20 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

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