Pogo nailed it ... on Orlando, even

For my younger American and for my European readers, I should tell you: Pogo was an opossum, a marsupial native to North America, who lived in the Okefenokee Swamp. He was the central character of a comic strip of the same name, a comic strip known for it satirical look at American social and political issues of the time.

The graphic on the right is the comic strip from Earth Day 1971, in which Pogo utters what is arguably his most well-known, and certainly most quoted line: "We have met the enemy and he is us.". Though made in the context of our own human destruction of our life environment, it is applicable to a much wider range of issues.

Let's face it folks: whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, we human beings are our own worst enemies and as well as every other living creature on this little planet of ours. We are apparently too short-sighted to realize how dangerous we are, to others, of course, but also to ourselves. If we weren't the dominant living species on the planet, I'm sure we'd be contained in some hazardous materials box on a rocket ship to nowhere in particular somewhere out there in space.

The latest reason good ol' Pogo sprang to mind has nothing to do with the environment, however. No, to be perfectly honest, the Parisian climate change fiasco at the end of last year was so much business as usual, so utterly ignorant of anything serious that poor ol' Pogo never made it into my head. It's too easy to ignore the environment and the climate. A couple of sunny days and everyone wants to go to the beach; let is snow unreasonably somewhere and the environmental blockheads will be making lame jokes that no one can even laugh at. I was so busy facepalming myself then that I almost charged myself with assault. Yeah, that's a different matter altogether.

No, I had to think of Pogo again because of the two key notions in his quip: "enemy" and "us". "We have met the enemy and he is us." I suppose the events of this past week also called forth the irony involved in the quotes source, which is, a many know, a parody of a message sent in 1813 from U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to Army General William Henry Harrison after his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie, stating, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours." In those days wars were wars and battles were battles and there was a certain clarity to life, I suppose. Things have changed quite a bit in the meantime, and these days we find ourselves inextricably caught in a hodge-podge of sticky, clammy, and utterly revolting ideas that breathe new life into Pogo's poignant words.

Imagine this: a seriously disturbed and obviously psychopathic individual, who is known to have frequented a nightclub teeming with alternative lifestyles, but whose family's cultural heritage we love to denigrate, and who is known to federal authorities for his bizarre behavior yet is classified more or less as "harmless" (but probably useful as well) and so can still legally acquire a semi-automatic, and appropriately designated, "assault rifle", and who was working as an armed security guard anyhow, goes to that nightclub and kills and wounds over 100 people before the police "take him out". And, to make the madness complete, Daesh wants to take credit. How bizarre is that? And just how bizzare is the aftermath "discussion", or is it simply a media frenzy, with no beginning, no middle, and Lord knows, no end?

The thing about reality is, you can't make this stuff up. Now every hollow talking-head, every no-nothing pundit, and every armchair expert with a social-media feed is telling us who did what to whom and why and for what reason, complete with Constitutional justifications, foregone conclusions, and not an ounce of common sense. Jaws are dropping, heads are shaking, fingers are pointing, tongues are wagging, bile is spewing, presumptive presidential candidates are tweeting, political nobodies are trying to capitalize, hysteria is rising, fear is being mongered, and the world is watching.

Let me make myself clear: this incident was a tragedy; it doesn't matter who was targeted, the attack was unwarranted and unnecessary; it was hateful, despicable, and cowardly; it was a senseless waste of life and cause of pain, not only for those directly involved, but for their friends, family, and all the rest of us. Our fellow human beings were needlessly and pathologically ravaged, and there is not a religious belief, allegedly sacred text, or misplaced ideology that justifies this in any way. The merest "yes, but" reveals you as the insensitive, cruel, and heartless idiot that you are. That's not harsh. It's just that simple.

But what we're seeing (again), of course, is the unabashed, shameful, disgusting, and reprehensible instrumentalization of others' tragedy for our own less-than-honorable ends. The terrorized see only the looming threat of radicalized Islam (even though the perpetrator probably didn't know any more about Islam than they do); the holier-than-thou religionists see only the righteous infliction of overdue punishment upon the iniquitous (though, thankfully, the majority of religious people don't); the deluded 2nd-Amendment worshippers see only Obama's black hand reaching for their guns; the NRA-lobbyists see untold possibilities for more influence; the purveyors of global terror see new opportunities for exploitation and further justifications; the paranoid see conspiracies, the candidates see votes; and the military-industrial complex sees dollar signs. Oh, how proud we must be.

And all this ranting, raving, accusing, weeping, moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth gets us no where, of course. We'll spend the rest of what little time's left to us fixing the blame without once thinking about fixing the problem(s). Once again too many people are slain and traumatized for absolutely no reason at all, because we resolutely refuse to own up to one simple fact: tragedies like this are, by and large, avoidable, because -- and this is key -- they are of our own making.

Events like this happen all over the world, but they don't happen as often nor on such a scale as they do in the United States. There is something to the perception that everything is simply bigger there. The only thing really different about American events are the gun-nut reactions. Just about everyone else around the world sees guns for what they are: sports equipment, not some glorified extensional illusion of something they never really had. The right to own a gun has little, if anything, to do with freedom.

Real rights and guarantees of freedom were given up willingly in America in the wake of 9/11 and in accord with what the so-called American leadership wanted: suspension of habeas corpus, the ability to monitor, search and seize without warrants or just cause, the elimination of special considerations for American citizens and the legal authority to declare them terrorists – through mere suspicion -- and extract them from the civil judicial system, increasingly brutal and capricious law-enforcement agencies. Those are signs of authoritarianism. Only the justifications are different these days. But I didn't see Americans resisting even a little when all that was taken away from them. They just went on yelling "we're free, we're free ... we've still got our guns". I can tell you that when seen from the outside, it come across just a wee bit pathetic.

What events like Orlando bring into the harshest light is where people are willing to draw their lines, and how quickly, too. It is in times of crisis that people's true character comes to the fore. It's then you can see just how responsible all of us are for such things happening. It's no longer possible, it would seem, for us to see things for what they are. The facts mean nothing when you've got your prejudices and opinions to guide you. Yet, at first, and foremost, we're ready to blame anything and everything but ourselves for the tragedies that befall us. It's our rights being threatened (to have guns, of course ... to hell with the rest of them), it's our culture that's under attack (the one that is open and tolerant ... I don't think so); it's our alleged "values" that are being threatened by these others (but we have to ask ourselves which "values" are these and who are the "others").

In this case, as in the majority of terrorist attacks in most recent history, the perpetrator was one of our own: born and raised in the US, radicalized, yes, but maybe not from sources we would like to admit. In the end, the shooter was just another psychologically unstable person, someone who failed to make it in that violence-steeped morass we call American society and who had access to weapons that should have been beyond his reach. But it doesn't matter as long as it keeps the fear alive.

Most Americans, it seems to me, are scared to death, and death is then what finds them. An adolescent longing for good old days that were good for only a part of society; the yearning for law and order, whereby those sworn to uphold the law become ever more brutal and oppressive; the craving for any kind of protection in ever more situations that can never be secured. When you're scared out of your wits, you'll see a threat in every corner, beneath every shadow. And let's face it, most of us live in constant fear these days: the media work long and hard at telling us how to feel and what to think and what to be afraid of. Big, moneyed interests let us know whom to fear.

When you're at a loss for answers, when you can't talk or discuss any more, as I've said before, your only answer to such senseless violence is even more violence. When are we going to get it? When more toddlers kill more people than terrorists, well it's time to do something about gun access first not terror. When law enforcement kills more unarmed people than terrorists, then it's time to do something about law enforcement not terror. When prescriptions drugs kill more people than illegal ones, then it's time to do something about Big Pharma, not petty drug dealers made out to be thugs preying on our children. We've got our priorities all screwed up, that's for sure.

To me it's clear why: Americans killed their society with individualism a long time ago. It's every person for themselves. Only the losers, weaklings and leeches want help from others. Only bleeding-heart liberals would even think of giving them anything anyway. Why in the name of all that's holy would I want to lend a helping hand, ensure that the hungry get fed, the thirsty are given drink, that naked get clothed, the homeless sheltered, or that the sick get healed? And because such things are anathema to us (for even if most polls show that most Americans would like to deal with such things, I haven't seen or heard of a single protest or nationwide movement to address any of this ... well, of course, except Sanders' failed nomination bid, which was doomed from the start as the recent managed selection of Clinton unerringly showed), we allow all this other stuff to happen again and again and again and again. I have little hope that we're going to learn anything from this one either.

No, Pogo nailed it a long time ago: we have met the enemy, and he is us.

The case of the classified data

Recently, and not for the first time, conservative heads were exploding because emails from/to Hillary Clinton were discovered that contained classified information. Some things simply make me chuckle.

First, a disclaimer: I could care less that Hillary Clinton is involved. I'm not convinced she's presidential material (her husband proved he wasn't) and she hasn't really ever accomplished anything that makes me think she could handle the job in a respectful and humanly decent manner. (The last US President who managed that was Jimmy Carter, but we all know how his administration has been spun. End of digression.) So, this isn't about her, it's all about the accusation, and I don't care who's making it.

At the beginning of my working career, I ended up being an intelligence analyst at the edge of the Free World (5 km as the crow flies from the Iron Curtain) at the height of the Cold War. I wore civilian clothes and was primarily charged with gathering intelligence from any and all sources, even exploiting my contacts, whenever and wherever possible. In a sense, I was the "spy who was out in the cold". An important part of my "job" was conducting "liaison" with local national agencies in order to gather, what I was told was highly sensitive information that was vital for the national security of the US of A. Fair enough.

At least once a week, my partner and I would travel out to the railroad crossing point between East and West to get the word on what was slipping over and across the border. The border police were great guys: friendly, helpful, always positive, appreciative of the fact that we could speak the local language, and they were generous. They went through every train that came out of the Eastern Zone and gathered up all the newspapers, for example, that the travellers left behind (litter-leavers know have no national allegiance). We dutifully took these back to our office, where the miraculous happened.

Our "product", so to speak, were "intelligence reports": the more you submitted, the higher you were rated, and we were no slackers, I can assure you. Out came the "form" (everything in the military has a form), the key data was filled in (in triplicate, of course), and the newspapers were simply attached. Everything, however, that left our office was, by policy, classified SECRET. And so, the form was stamped SECRET at the top and bottom of every page, and each and every page of the attachments (i.e., the newspapers) were stamped SECRET as well. This was all bundled together into a double-enveloped package, stamped appropriately, then paper-taped across every edge of tape and on every seam before being taken up to the mailroom for sending to our "customer", the translation detachment at our next-higher echelon of authority. There, once received, droves of translators translated every single headline and word and stamped every page they produced with SECRET on top and bottom of the page. And the translations were reworked as well into "reports" all of which were classified at least SECRET, though those reports in which the analysts believed to see something "important" were classified at higher levels. It would take a total of about 40 years for our newspapers to eventually be unclassified, but in the interim, the national security of the USA would not be compromised.

Yeah, I love it when journalists play the "classified" card. They have no idea what it means. I have some idea and I can tell you that most of what I saw classified were things anybody anywhere with even the slightest amount of interest could have collected for themselves.

But they didn't. Why? Because the "secrets" weren't worth the paper they were written on.

On this day in history

Yes, on this day in history, November 22, 1963, more than half-a-century ago, John F. Kennedy, then President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The assassin was allegedly Lee Harvey Oswald, but the circumstances surrounding this event, the consequences, the actual facts have been long obscured in conspiracy, fantasy, and delusion. We'll never know what really happened and why, and I'm not sure that it really matters in the end. Sure, I was an impressionable adolescent when it happened, and, yes, I think about that day from time to time (and sometimes when the date rolls around again), and, yes, it makes me wonder. (I told you: I wonder a lot; I always have and with each additional year of my life, I am given more reason to as well.)

So what am I wondering about this time? Simple: why do only Americans assassinate their major political figures? Sure, every once in a long while, someone flips out in the Middle East or in Israel and a well-known politician or Prime Minister is killed, but it's almost always someone "from the other side". No, Americans are pretty unique in that they elect someone to the highest office in the land, and then, later, for myriad, stupid reasons, they decide to end their term of office prematurely. Think about it:

• Including the current one, the US has had 44 presidents thus far.
• Four presidents have definitely been assassinated: Lincoln (#16), Garfield (#20), McKinley (#25), and Kennedy (#35).
• Two more presidents are at least rumored to have been assassinated: Taylor (#12) and Harding (#29).
• Two additional presidents were injured in assassination attempts: Roosevelt (#26) and Reagan (#40).
• And, there have been 13 assassination attempts on presidents not mentioned in the points above.

That's a pretty impressive list, if you ask me: 21 of 44 (that's 47%) have been killed, injured, or attempts have been made on their lives. Just how democratic is this? With the exception of Johnson (#36), every single president since Kennedy has been at least threatened with assassination. That doesn't make you wonder? It makes me wonder, I can assure you of that.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what to think about that. My first reaction is, "the US is one violent society." Another thought that crosses my mind is, "why is assassination (well, murder, actually) considered a solution to anything?" More generally, "what does this say about the state of American democracy?" And the cynical side of me wants to know why America is held up as an example for anything political? Be honest. Who really wants a job in which almost half the holders have been murdered or someone attempted to murder them? And the country isn't even 300 years old! So young, so reckless, so irresponsible.

Yes, I wonder a lot ... more some days that others ... sometimes merely because the calendar gives reason to.

The gods of Mammon

Be patient, gentle Reader, be patient; I'm almost done.

Sometimes you just have to get it off your chest. Sometimes you just have to let it out. Sometimes, you just have to vent as well. But, sometimes, you have good reason to.

I think I've isolated the real heart of the issue, the reason why, at bottom, America is the way it is and why most Americans are the way they are. I hate to be the one to break it to you all, but the True Religion of America is materialism. Down-and-dirty, straight-up, unabashed, self-effacing worship of the gods of Mammon.

It's a long and complicated, deep-seated infestation from the Puritans, I am sure, but everything in America in America is measured in terms of things. Things, not just clothes, make the man. The house (even if it's a McMansion), the car (which says more about one than just about anything else), the phone, the tablet, the watch, the jewelry, the places one goes to eat ... that's what counts.

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to see friends from America from "way back when". What did we talk about? Property, investments, retirement options, cars (or pick-ups), vacation opportunities ... that is, pretty much things ... things that one can "have". Value(s) translate into dollar values. You are what you have.

There are those who would hasten to point out that my position on "things" is the result of the fact that I really don't have a lot of things. I don't own property. I do own my car (but it's four years old and over-mileaged). I don't have "investments" to speak of. And I'm about to start drawing modest retirements from both the US and Germany (in other words, two almost-halves almost make a whole ... though it may be more like a "hole"). But, I really don't mind. That's just the way things are. I don't feel like a lesser person because I can't measure up to all the things that others have acquired. It's nothing I ever really wanted to do, and in that, I can safely say, I believe I have been quite the success.

No, in my life, other "things" have been more important than things: what one thinks, what one believes and why, what one knows, how one treats others, regardless of one's relationships, whether one practices what one preaches, how open one is, how tolerant, how forgiving, how honest, how true, how loyal and devoted, how caring, show sharing, how loving, how humble.

In this regard, I have found that I have been pretty much of a rebel, no matter where I have lived or worked. That's OK. I don't mind being different. I wish that more Americans wouldn't mind either. I suspect that there are lots of potentials there, but besides the gods of Mammon, Americans have to also endure the Caretaker of Conformity.

But, it's time to stop. It's time to review and re-evaluate. It's time to reconsider. There are going to be hard times ahead (and this is not just my curmudgeonly cynicism talking), and we are going to need each other more than ever before in our lifetimes. Maybe it's time to convert.

Don't shoot till you see the fear in their eyes

Some of you are probably thinking that I'm being pretty unpatriotic at the moment. There, I suppose, you are right. Personally, I see it as being non-patriotic, not unpatriotic. America could be such a nice place, but it's like I said back in July: it's just hard to deal with all the hypocrisy. I happen to agree with Einstein: patriotism is pretty much an infantile disease, like measles. But, if you like itching, well, hey, who am I to stop you? Isn't that what freedom's all about?

Truth be told, I'm just a bit frustrated at the moment. Since most of you Americans have never been anywhere else, you don't know what it's like to the "token Ami". Yes, I'm the one that family, friends, and acquaintances turn to for the explanations as to why America is bombing this place, or what Americans have against universal healthcare, or how it is that some many apparent "idiots" (their term, not mine) get elected to public office, or why there's a race problem, or how can so many so-called Christians advocate the death penalty. (And, yes, dear reader, I've been asked about every single one of those issues, and many, many more. As the great comics have all noted: you can't make this stuff up.)

In other words, since I was born there and since I still carry a blue passport, I am somehow, magically supposed to know why America ticks the way it does. And all I can tell them is, I didn't really understand it all when I lived there, and now that I'm here and I see what's going on, I understand it even less.

One of the issues that parents, teachers, educators, etc. have to come to terms with when dealing with children and adolescents is how to make them see that their actions have effects on others. That relationship between "me and thee" is a tough one to grasp when you're young. We all know, however, that some of them just never get it. They grow up still not understanding this simple fact of life. And it is this behavior that so many "outsiders" (Americans call the "foreigners") just don't get.

America spends more on defense and less on actual humanitarian aid than any developed country. They have the audacity to demand that others follow suit. While Americans like to think of their country as a benevolent patron, what the benefactors of that "benevolence" experience is more like a mafioso patron. America has unmasked itself: drone assassinations of "alleged" terrorists, the deceits, lies and threats from the perpetual surveillance state, the economic extortion and terror imposed by American manipulated "organizations", such as the WTO, the IMF and World Bank, the perpetual war machine ... this is all America seems to know anymore, and that is, to put it simply, a sad, sad story.

There was a time, and maybe even rightfully so, when America was looked up as the beacon of freedom in the world. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that beacon of freedom in more and more looking like a death-ray of terror. It may be time to regroup.

A deeper view from the outside

Let me say that I am fully aware that some readers were simply offended by the last post. How could I ... how dare I besmirch the image of "the greatest country in the world"? But who thinks it is? That's the party line inside the borders, and I know that for a fact from my childhood. But who else thinks so? Those immigrants who are so desperate to get anywhere other than where they are who sneak in illegally, risking life, limb, and liberty only to be thrown out again if they are caught? Maybe? All those brown people near oil fields who have been shot at, bombed, starved, diseased, assaulted, mishandled, demeaned, denigrated, and demoralized? I doubt it, but who knows?

How insulting is that very phrase, which is quick to fall from American lips for all those who did have the "luck" to be born there? Do Americans really think that there's no better place on earth? And upon what do they base that judgement: only 10% of the American population even possesses a passport, some never use theirs at all, and the majority who do use them to cross over into Mexico or Canada since the requirement for travel documents changed? So, who's seen what to know one way or the other? So again, we hear all the words, we know what each of them means, but together, well, they just don't give us much sense at all. Don't get me wrong, there are many positive characteristics about America and Americans ... and there are just as many for anywhere else and any other people, if you're willing to look. No, most of them never get out, and what's going on inside, well, that gives a lot of us on the outside pause for thought

What do we see? The greatest disparity between rich and poor in the developed world; lack of basic social safety nets (and a hard-line approach to getting rid of the rest of what is left); lack of universal healthcare; the most expensive healthcare system in the world; highest rate of child poverty in the developed world; highest infant mortality rate of the developed countries; a dysfunctional system of government; bizarros as holders of political office (and if you think Bachman, Cruz, O'Connell, Boehner, Gohmert, Paul, ... the list goes on and on and on); the gun fanaticism; the incarceration rate; the violence; the brutal police tactics; the science deniers; the religious fundamentalists who are forcing their beliefs into the school system; the most rapacious form of capitalism ever devised; the cult-like worship of money; the perpetual war machine ... you get the point. That's what it looks like from elsewhere. You need to maybe get out, take a step back, take a deep breath, and then look again.

It all wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so embarrassing for those of us who are asked why things are the way they are? Believe me, there is a lot of scratching-of-heads that goes on outside your borders. It also wouldn't be so bad if you would just stay where you are and only focused on yourselves. You could rape, murder, pillage and plunder each other all you wanted, and the rest of the world would have more than enough reason to respect your national sovereignty. Unfortunately, your government only wages its wars in other peoples' houses. The consequence is that when America implodes -- and it's doing its best to do so soon -- it's going to cause a lot of collateral damage, and the most likely victims are starting to get very uneasy about it all.

A view from the outside

It's that time again ... Americans are getting ready for their favorite unproductive activity: mid-term elections. Not being caught up on the inside, the view from the outside can be quite informative, if you allow it to be so.

Americans like to think they are special. They even like to think they invented modern democracy. What did the Greeks know? We' showed them, they say, and we showed everyone else how it's done. If it weren't for America, we'd all be oppressed in monarchical or tyrannical dictatorships or something of that ilk, or so the story goes. But, that view from outside is revealing in different ways.

Over in Hong Kong, students and others have been protesting and shutting down the commercial sector because the Chinese masters wanted to vet all candidates for their elections. The students asked what kind of democracy that was? And the answer is obvious: it's American-style democracy. Others, in secret or with a token show of transparency, determine who's going to run against whom. Where's the difference? And if that's not bad enough, the candidates selected aren't really all that different even if others -- mostly behind the scenes -- tries to color one of them red and the other blue. After all, how can you choose among more than two? So you're given the choice between red loser or blue loser. But, hey, this is America where losers can become winners! How long did it take me to figure that one out?

And then, right there in the land of the free, with all those billed rights: the highest judicial instance in the country decided that money talks, literally. It used to be one man (later, one person; most recently, one registered and validated ID-carrying person) one vote. Now the votes are counted in dollars before you even get started. Like I have long said, Americans truly have the best government money can buy.

The view from the outside shows us that in fact America has lost the plot. Yes, they love to think they are special, and the word they like best to describe that specialness (for there are negative kinds of "special" -- just think short busses) in positive and glamorous terms, so they call it "exceptionalism". But, let's face it: that's just another kind of "-ism", like consumerism, cronyism, or totalitarianism. And, let's not forget that aberrations are, by their very nature, exceptional as well.

Personally, I wish them a lot of luck in their predetermined game. They're going to need it. The world is watching, but rapidly tiring of all the senseless antics. It's time to get new clowns into the ring.

But, hey, maybe it isn't that way at all. Yet, it really looks that way from the outside.

The dumps

After re-reading the last sentence of my last post, I realized I'm pretty much down in the dumps again. It's too easy to get depressed. Maybe I just shouldn't sweat the little things.

Depending on who you talk to (and I'm not counting Creationists here, they don't know, they can only believe, and I don't have time for that particular kind of nonsense, though ceteris paribus what I'm thinking right now would include their "arguments" anyhow) there have been humans on earth now for a few hundred thousand years. Yes, if you consider our hominoid forebears we can maybe stretch that back to a million or more years, but that only makes matters worse, not better.

What am I talking about? It's simple really: how dumb are we, actually, as a species?

Really. Yes, I know how lots of folks like to go about all our "progress" and technological advances and that we were on the moon and we've decoded the human genome, and ... well, I'm sure you get the picture, but none of that really answers the question. Yes, we've developed what appear to be some very sophisticated tools, and we can accomplish some clever tricks, but what have we really learned? Are we any "better", whatever that may mean, as a species. Is the world a "better" (same qualifications apply) because of us?

And that's where I'm not getting those good positive vibes. I'm not sure we've accomplished much at all.

We're close to having irreversibly destroyed the climate. We've polluted and have as good as irreparably damaged every environment we've settled in. We can't solve the simplest interpersonal problems without raping, killing, maiming, pillaging, and plundering (or at least thinking of them). We're emotionally unstable. We're pretty handy and making weapons, but are hopeless when it comes making a home or ends meet. We are hands down the most selfish creatures that have ever existed, and when it comes to others -- and I mean that in it's simplest sense: someone not us ... people from other towns, regions, countries, cultures, religions, etc. -- we most often display and arrogance and cruelty that would make baboons blush, if they were capable of doing so.

Most importantly, we are the only creature on earth that knows of evil. And committing it, is apparently what we do best of all.

I'm sorry. I'm missing the "better" part ... still.

The luck of the Irish

I've often wondered where that saying came from. One of these days, I'm going to look it up. One of these days. Being of Irish extraction (my ancestors emigrated to the US in the mid-19th century from County Down in what is these days Northern Ireland (it wasn't then). From what I can tell, some of them were originally from there, and some ended up there having been driven out of mostly likely Scotland. Neither part of the clan struck me as being particularly lucky though. In fact, were I to choose a family motto for a crest we'll never have, I'd choose "If it weren't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all." Yes, luck plays an enormous role in all our lives, whether we want to admit it or not.

You think I'm exaggerating. Everyone always thinks I'm exaggerating. I'm not. I don't need to. I've told them a thousand times, "I'm not exaggerating" and they still don't believe me. So, how's this? True story:

I don't play the lottery. OK, no big deal, a lot of people don't. I mean, what are your chances of winning the big jackpot. For all of you who aren't real strong on statistics and probability, your chances of picking the six correct numbers out of 49 are less that one in 13,000,000. No, your chance is not non-existant, and some people get lucky, but a lot more than 13,000,000 who play don't. For that reason, I would only play when the jackpot was "worthwhile"; that is, if there was more than 13,000,000 of whatever was being paid out, I'd take my shot. As fate would have it, though, there was series of non-hits as there is from time to time and the jackpot by this time had doubled to almost €26,000,000. I did a couple of quick in-the-head, rule-of-thumb calculations and figured that if I won, I could probably quit my job. I'd have to move, of course, but I wouldn't have to go job-hunting when I did. But that's not the point.

When the results were published, I knew my lottery-playing days were over. I had managed to miss every single number drawn by +/-1 for all six numbers. A 3 was drawn, I had picked a 4; a 15 was drawn, I had a 14, and so it goes, through all six numbers and to make the delight even more complete, the German lottery pulls an extra Super Number to get you the total jackpot and, yes, I missed that by 1 place as well: a 8 was drawn, I had a 9. And so it goes. I'm not a big fan of omens, but to me that was without a doubt the clearest Cosmic When-Are-You-Going-To-Get-It that I had ever seen. There's no such thing as a near-miss. What I had was a near-hit. What are the chances?

Not being a probability guru, I didn't bother trying to figure out what the chances are that you can get seven +/-1 near-hits in two drawings in one session, but I'm guessing it's at least 1 in 13,000,000 or less.

That's my luck, I've got Irish ancestry. Maybe I don't need to look up what the luck of the Irish means. I think I know.

Going green

Most of you are probably thinking I'm going to go off on one of my ecological tangents, ranting on about how we're raping, pillaging, and plundering the environment, how our obsession -- no, addiction -- to fossil fuels is going to be our undoing as a species, how climate change (regardless of what the non-science whackos might think) is turning all of us into dinosaurs, and how heating the oceans, filling them with garbage and poisoning our freshwater aquifers is less than intelligent, but I'm not. Why would I want to do a thing like that? That's something for every day of the week, but not today. Today's a non-holiday! It's time again to celebrate for absolutely no reason at all.

Yes, today's St. Patrick's Day and all across America, and increasingly throughout the world, people are taking the day to put on something green (well, except for some pretty broomstick-up-the-butt types in Northern Ireland ... but, hey, there are party-poopers everywhere ... and how can you poop with a broomstick up your butt? ... uh, another story), put on their buttons that say "Kiss me, I'm Irish" when they've never likely seen, let alone even, owned as much as an Irish setter, and Boston will turn the Charles River green (with something other than chemical sludge, though maybe not as healthy) and Chicagoans will drink green (literally) beer (whereby elsewhere in the civilized world "green beer" is simply unaged beer, but that's another story too).

What's the big deal? Given the recent fascination with Catholic scandals and the Pope resigning, I can't begin to imagine it's some deep and secret desire to revere the fellow who is Ireland's patron saint because he drove all the snakes off the Ireland. I'm sure if you ask a true Irishman or Irishwoman, for that matter, they'll tell you there have been snakes on the island all along, but none of them were native Irish anymore. Or, is it that we're guilty about what we're doing to the environment? No, no, don't get anxious ... I'm not sneaking off on a tangent, I'm only asking the question. I'd find that a difficult one to believe anyway. Why is it then that hard-working, Puritan descendants (to a great extent, either physically or culturally) would want to celebrate the arrival of Christianity in Ireland? Don't get me wrong, folks, anyone and everyone who celebrates for precisely these reasons has my full and total support. I'm wondering more about all the merry makers. The loud ones.

On the one hand, it is the one day during Lent when the ban on sacrifice is lifted. Whatever you might have given up for Lent, whatever fasting you may be doing, you don't have to do today. What is more, the Irish are known world wide as a light-hearted people. If you don't believe me, leave America, travel anywhere in the world and find your way to an Irish pub (there's no major city on the planet without one) and you'll find a warm, welcoming, friendly atmosphere, where you're expected more than allowed to laugh, and where it's fair game to make fun (or take the mickey out) of just about anything or anyone you please.

No, if you ask me, St. Patrick's Day is to spring, what Halloween is to fall: one of those "holidays" we have no real idea about, other than someone at sometime somewhere celebrated it, and since they both occur in the middle of a dry stretch, are all the more reason to get simply loosen up a bit. OK, I think I get it. Cheers!

Sick and tired

Are you ever just sick and tired of being sick and tired? I am. It's tough living in a mental institution. For those of you who think I'm just ranting around, read a little Goethe. The good man made the same observation 250 years ago. Well, truth be told, I borrowed the observation from him. After all, he was more intelligent and insightful than I am. Of course, he was shrugged off then, just as I will now. At least I can think that sometimes I keep pretty good company.

What is so frustrating is that we can all agree that things could be better, and we can all agree that things should change, but the moment the question arises as to change to what, the arguing starts. In reality, there is only one thing that need change, and that's our thinking.

That is hardest thing that we have to do. Now, I'm not advocating that you simply throw everything overboard that you ever held dear and start anew. That would cause many more problems than it solved. No, no ... I'm fine with small changes, but though small, they should nevertheless be significant. On more than one occasion in this blog, I have advocated just what that change should be, but I'll repeat it again, because it can't be repeated enough: you need to stop thinking about just you and think more about one other person than yourself. When I say more, I mean "more". Not only should you think more about someone else, what you think should be more than what you think of you. In other words, in regard to just one other human being, you make yourself #2. How hard can that be?

Well, truth be told, it will (or would be) the hardest thing that most of you will (would) ever try to do ... and that's precisely why I doubt that it will happen at all. Until we stop thinking that everyone else has something to do to make things better, until we realize that nothing will change if we don't change ourselves, until we take the first step, we won't be going anywhere but downhill. And as we all (or at least those of you who were awake in physics class that day) know, as the journey downhill continues, we'll simply pick up speed.

No, one of the things that I'm simply sick and tired of is having to say the same things over and over and over again. Things that are so obvious it cannot be that we don't see them. I know we see them. But I also know that too many just don't want to see them. If each of you who only choose to see what you wish were the only one affected by your actions, I don't suppose I would care all that much. But you don't. You affect not only those around you, but everyone else on the planet ... and not positively.

Paradox

There are a lot of people besides me who have trouble coming to terms with life in the modern ... or post-modern ... or post-capitalist ... or post-something-or-other ... world we live in. It's hard to keep up with the labeling, that's for sure, but one things the world isn't, and that's post-paradox.

I don't know about you, but obvious contradictions in thought ... and that's what a paradox is, isn't it ... tend to confuse me. OK, I'm easily confused. It's a talent almost, but there are just a lot of things that don't make sense to me and I haven't found anyone to really explain them. Here are a few that I encountered last week:

Lowering taxes will raise revenues ...
Working harder will save time ...
Spending is saving in the long run ...
Helping the rich get richer is the best way to help the poor ...
Restricting access to healthcare makes for a healthier society ...
Waging war is the most effective means of achieving peace ...
Bailing out banks was necessary to preserve a free market ...
Printing money is a move against inflation ...
Lowering requirements will raise academic access ...

OK, I could go on, but I think you get the point. Who thinks this stuff up? But more importantly, why do so many folks take this nonsense seriously?

Well, since I've been into old-fashioned, slowly (or quickly) becoming archaic, words as of late, all I can say to all of this is, I'm flabbergasted.

The weather

No letters. No calls. Only silence. Even the outside commotion seemed muffled, muted.

The sky was gray, faceless. Woody sat, on just such a day, staring intently out the window. There wasn't much of a view: only the buildings across the small span of unkempt grass and hedges.

"Wha'! The phone's ringing," Woody thought. "Nah, it never rings."

It rang. Woody turned and stared at the phone, sitting on the nightstand across the room. It rang again. Again.

"Who the hell could that be? Nobody's called in a long time. Nobody's called."

Again.

He looked at his hand on the arm of the chair and by sheer force of will lifted it, then the other, and finally driving his whole body out of the chair, he found himself lumbering toward the phone.

Again, it rang.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming … man, the phone …."

He lifted the receiver and put it gingerly to his ear.

"The time is 11:20. The weather: cloudy and cool, " a mechanical voice spoke.

Woody smiled and hung up. He turned and walked almost lightly to his chair, sat down and gazed out the window again. A renewed sense of worth flooded his entire being.

Absurdity

Many years ago while taking my MA at a German university, I took a course in modern literature dealing with theater of the absurd. We talked a lot about absurdity that semester, and oddly enough, that in itself seemed absurd to me. After all, the world made sense, we were all going about our lives, there was tomorrow, what was the problem? In one way or another, I've been asking myself the same questions ever since ... but from the other side? When will the absurdity end?

The absurdest idea that I have to deal with is "terrorism". I mean, just look at the word: the root is "terror": abject, unwarranted fear. It doesn't matter what you are afraid of; what matters is that you are afraid. It's legitimized by the "-ism" on the end, like a system, a philosophy, a way of life. And, I suppose it is, for some ... for too many. What is it that we have to fear?

Some will say everything. Maybe they're right, but I don't think so. If you are afraid, two different groups of people have an advantage over you: those who are causing the fear, and those who know you're afraid. They are sometimes, but not always, the same groups. And, just what is it that they use to extort that fear? Property (if you don't secure it, someone will steal it), security (if you don't protect it, someone will take it away from you), or your physical well-being (we can always kill you). Well, I just don't get it. Going in the reverse direction: we're all going to die, we don't know when, so if it is as the result of some "terrorist act", what difference does it make? My security is gone the moment that someone claiming to look out for my well-being invades my privacy. Am I more secure, the more you know about me? Not really. The opposite is true. And, to any materialist, to anyone who defines himself by his possessions (which are more often than not not his or hers at all, but the lender's) ... well, what can I say?

So, in far-away Norway, in one of the most peaceful, social, balanced, low-profile places you can imagine, a right-leaning, Christian fundamentalist eliminates nearly one hundred innocent victims. Is this an act of terror? Not in the least. It is pure and simple absurdity. But ... and I think this is particularly important to note ... it's an absurdity we created. It didn't come out of the dark unknown, the secret chambers of reality to stalk and hunt us down. It came from us, from the meek who hope for all the wrong reasons that we'll inherit anything, maybe even the earth. The perpetrator wasn't some strange, other, dark-skinned, false-believing, foreign, depraved, mind-twisted, extremist. He was, in all probability, the guy next door. How absurd is that?

The point is in the end, that absurdity has become the norm. What Pynchon, Beckett, and others were telling us was as ignored as anything we've been told up until now. The sheer absurdity of our interaction with others, with those around us, with those with whom we can no longer relate because we know only what we know, with anyone who isn't me, with ... well with everyone ... is what should shock us even more than the violence this one single individual may have perpetrated.

We abhor the violence that we see, but we welcome the violence that is hidden. We put ourselves first, we envy our co-workers, covet their possessions and accomplishments, desire what they have, ignore all in need, find weakness in compassion, believe Spencer's spin on Darwinism is the way to go, reject anything greater than ourselves and firmly and doggedly believe that money can solve our problems. That all sounds like absurdity to me.

No, terrorism isn't our greatest threat. It's a red herring. What we need fear more than anything else (if we need fear anything at all) is absurdity. When do we simply say that enough is enough, just a little bit of sense couldn't hurt? We can't as long as we're afraid, but what we're afraid of is simply ourselves. How absurd is that?