ARE HUMANS REALLY HUMAN?

7-23-13

The Boy Scouts are an odd lot. They provide us with training for young men on the cusp of adulthood; I was one and remember learning about porn, getting a merit badge in carpentry, learning that masturbation is evil and learning to hate overnight camping. Others do better than that but it is clear their outcomes are a mixed bag. Now that a person's sexuality becomes more open, they had a problem with their no-queer policy. Neither a gay boy or scout leader could scout with the rest of the crowd. Recently, they had a meeting to determine if they might change their policy, essentially to get rid of their noxious rules. Brilliantly, they said no. I say “brilliantly” because against all odds, they stuck to their guns. Are they heroes … or what?

They never offered an explanation, but clearly they believe that LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexul, transgendered) folk are morally and behaviorally impaired. LGBT folk have always been besmirched with such nonsense and further, the calumnly that they would always try to seduce the innocent into their culture. There are ugly parallels. When eighteen, at school in Florida I tried to visit a schoolmate in the private home where he rented a room. At the door, when I rang the bell, was a truculent woman who refused me admittance because she knew I was Jewish and would steal from her. And surely, African Americans and Latinos belong on the list. Or, the wisdom of the plains: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” There are many more examples around the world but time and space limit me to just a few.

Some people just know the capital T Truth and act on it. They know that those people, whomever, are not properly human. Even our god given constitution defined African-Americans as three-fifths of a white person and so justified slavery. Oh yes, they also quoted the bible as evidence that god was on their side.

Knowing the Truth is half the equation. All one needs to add is rage. Do lynchings come to mind? How about killing abortion doctors? How about, as in Norway killing people because the Muslims were infiltrating Norwegian society? How about Columbine and our latest, the Batman killer.

Make no mistake. Whether or not he is legally insane, he surely has a loose screw. There is no way he could have planned and executed his mayhem without defining people as lesser beings who deserve death. Rage and anger and the freedom to purchase killing devices were all he needed. He even turned his apartment into a killing machine, what a guy.

It is very likely that such people have a brain disorder though I doubt there is yet sufficient evidence to make that point. I knew a man who was convinced that the whole of humanity was divided into two warring camps and he was the only neutral extant. Of course, that made him fair game for anyone so he became violent with anyone he met. Nothing like knowing the Truth … it shall set you free to kill.

It is almost impossible to identify such before their vicious acts, but we surely can make their weapons impossible to get. The NRA says no! What do we say?

If you want to have truck loads of fun

Nothing better than a quick-firing gun

The minute you shoot

It goes rooty-toot-toot

Bodies fall - fewer lives in the sun.

WORDS: Are we coarser?

7-9-12

You know the old conundrum, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, has it made a sound?” As a kid, my friends and I pondered the deep philosophical significance of that question; but of course we found no solution. Now that I am older, the answer is obvious: No! What happens when a tree falls is that in the process air is disturbed, and that's it. Only if there are ear-drums present can the organism find meaning in the event. The disturbed air is called a sound and the brain makes a guess about what caused it. So, this obviously tells me that I am smarter than I used to be. Huzzah!

Now that I've established that point, I can segue on to the gist of this essay. The other day, in the Post, there was an article which described the reality that some of our elected officials have publicly used so called foul language. Even though the offending words were exed out, from the context I deduced the word, shit. The author decried such use and quoted some experts, though in what I have no idea (perhaps they were ethicists, a bogus enterprise at best). The consensus, to quote one of them is that such language is “evidence that our society is “coarsening.” Absurd!

When I was a lad, certain words and situations in movies were absolutely forbidden by the notorious Hayes Committee. That idiot organization appeared because movies til then were thought to be too ribald for the general public and, heaven forfend, a child might get to see one! The words virgin, pregnant and damn could not be used in polite company and the twin bed industry got a boost because husband and wife never ever slept together and they wore, not quite coveralls but highly opaque garments. And, when two people kissed, always a man and woman, the screen faded to black. When young, I assumed they then had a snack or listened to music.

A movie, “The Moon is Blue,” broke the rule when one character called another a “professional virgin.” I had no idea of what that meant, but I knew something worth an oooh had occurred. By the time Rhett Butler (Gone With the Wind) said, “Madame, I don't give a damn,” I was a jaded fifteen year old who knew and understood every thing in the world. How long did it take for women on TV became pregnant?

George Carlin, that magnificent humorist had a list of taboo words which he used in his act and by and large, they remain somewhat proscribed. Still, the word fuck has become more prominent. Most don't want their children to use or even know the word but almost any movie will teach it to them.

What am I getting at? This: Spoken woerds have no intrinsic meaning. They are like the falling tree, agitations of the air; it takes a listener who interprets the agitated air and has a reaction. I suppose everyone reading this has some reaction to fuck, but there is a good chance that each one had an idiosyncratic response. And, we are each responsible for our own interpretations. Let me repeat, we are each responsible for our own interpretations. When that fellow said that a politician using the word shit coarsens our society, what he said has no objective meaning. Do you live in a coarser society now that virgin and pregnant are publicly acceptable? Is it coarser because married people in the movies sleep in the same bed or wear somewhat scanty clothing, if any? I don't think so.

Those who pontificate about such miss the reality that the Greek philosopher who said you can't step into the same river twice was right. Everything always changes. Our acceptance of such language simply means that things have changed. We used to laugh at the Brits because the word bloody was not permitted. Why did we laugh? Because that word, absent British meanings, sounds benign; what's the big deal? And even the Brits have figured that out.

Life would be a lot more interesting if people were willing to assume personal responsibility for their reactions. The accusation, “you made me love you” would change to I love you because I love you. Now, isn't that nicer?

If you beg the heavens above

To strike you with feelings of love

Keep clearly in mind

You never will find

That the heavens can give such a shove.

WORDS: Are we coarser?

7-9-12

You know the old conundrum, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, has it made a sound?” As a kid, my friends and I pondered the deep philosophical significance of that question; but of course, we found no solution. Now that I am older, the answer is obvious: No! What happens when a tree falls is that in the process air is disturbed, and that's it. Only if there are eardrums present can the organism find meaning in the event. The disturbed air is called a sound and the brain makes a guess about what caused it. So, this obviously tells me that I am smarter than I used to be. Huzzah!

Now that I've established that point, I can segue on to the gist of this essay. The other day, in the Post, there was an article that described the reality that some of our elected officials have publicly used so-called foul language. Even though the offending words were blanked out, from the context I deduced the word, shit. The author decried such use and quoted some experts, though in what I have no idea (perhaps they were ethicists, a bogus enterprise at best). The consensus, to quote one of them is that such language is “evidence that our society is “coarsening.” Absurd!

When I was a lad, certain words and situations in movies were absolutely forbidden by the notorious Hayes Committee. That idiot organization appeared because movies till then were thought to be too ribald for the general public and, heaven forefend, a child might get to see one! The words virgin, pregnant and damn could not be used in polite company and the twin bed industry got a boost because husband and wife never ever slept together and they wore not quite coveralls but highly opaque garments. And, when two people kissed, always a man and woman, the screen faded to black. When young, I assumed they then had a snack or listened to music.

A movie, “The Moon is Blue,” broke the rule when one character called another a “professional virgin.” I had no idea of what that meant, but I knew something worth an oooh had occurred. By the time Rhett Butler (Gone With the Wind) said, “Madame, I don't give a damn,” I was a jaded fifteen year old who knew and understood everything in the world. How long did it take for women on TV became pregnant?

George Carlin, that magnificent humorist had a list of taboo words that he used in his act and by and large, they remain somewhat proscribed. Still, the word fuck has become more prominent. Most don't want their children to use or even know the word but almost any movie will teach it to them.

What am I getting at? This: Spoken words have no intrinsic meaning. They are like the falling tree, agitations of the air; it takes a listener who interprets the agitated air and has a reaction. I suppose everyone reading this has some reaction to fuck, but there is a good chance that each one had an idiosyncratic response. And, we are each responsible for our own interpretations. Let me repeat, we are each responsible for our own interpretations. When that fellow said that a politician using the word shit coarsens our society, what he said has no objective meaning. Do you live in a coarser society now that virgin and pregnant are publicly acceptable? Is it coarser because married people in the movies sleep in the same bed or wear somewhat scanty clothing, if any? I don't think so.

Those who pontificate about such miss the reality that the Greek philosopher who said you can't step into the same river twice was right. Everything always changes. Our acceptance of such language simply means that things have changed. We used to laugh at the Brits because the word bloody was not permitted. Why did we laugh? Because that word, absent British meanings, sounds benign, what's the big deal? And even the Brits have figured that out.

Life would be a lot more interesting if people were willing to assume personal responsibility for their reactions. The accusation, “you made me love you” would change to I love you because I love you. Now, isn't that nicer?

If you beg the heavens above

To strike you with feelings of love

Keep clearly in mind

You never will find

That the heavens can give such a shove.

6-13-11

TWO WEEKS IN MY LIFE – YAY!

In the two weeks that you last saw me, I was struck by a veritable whirlwind of irksome changes. I might not have complained about myself in the past, but now”s the time. At first, I thought it was a tornado of life changes but in calm contemplation I have concluded that irksome does not qualify; whirlwind suffices. What follows is in chronological order.

Part one: I have known that my hearing has slowly deteriorated, that it has become harder to understand discussions in restaurants, that TV dialogue often degenerates into a series of mumbles and that I keep asking people to repeat themselves. “Say again,” had almost become my mantra. My daughter, in particular, speaks to me while engaging in tasks and I often have to ask for a repeat and she, in her sweet friendly way says, “Will you please get a hearing aid.”

The truth is that I knew the day was coming because of prior hearing tests and so, reluctantly, I scheduled another one; the chart showed that my high pitched hearing ability is essentially lost. I no longer have the capacity to hear upper registers; in other words, I am half-deaf. Kaiser has a hearing aid shop and there I went and after much fiddling with this and that I ordered a pair. I gathered from the woman who helped me that two hearing aids are astonishingly superior to one so that's what I did, I ordered two one for each ear.

When they arrived I learned about batteries that last a week, domes and wax traps, all possible sources of malfunction. There was also the problem of sticking the thingies into my ears. For the first week, they kept falling out. Batteries died and the wax traps trapped wax and now I carry around a supply of each. I had to learn when to adjust the volume: raise it in noisy places but not so high that it sounds like a tinny when breathing.. She explained to me that wearing them trains the brain and that sounded exotic until I realized that the brain learns to ignore the oddness of the sound. I often forget them; I have not yet integrated them into my life style. Having them, caring for them is a shlep. I am still in the try-out period but I think the benefits marginally overwhelm the irks. Remember when I told you I had lost interest in music? I turned the radio on as I usually do at breakfast and heard glorious sound; I can hear what I've been missing and music is back in my life.

Part two: As part of my body existing through time, certain changes occur of insidious onset and that has happened to my kidneys. Over the years, they have slowly been losing their capacity to filter my blood and finally my doc figured it was time to check with an expert, a nephrologist. OK, I saw him and he told me that I have kidney disease of unknown origin, told me to give up dairy products,chocolate and nuts and so it goes, a bereft lover of milk chocolate and other such. There are some sacrifices too terrible to contemplate except if my kidneys get worse I become a candidate for dialysis, a much more terrible outcome then changing my diet. So, you will no longer see me scarf down almond filled kisses. But, worse, much worse, he said that one of my diabetes meds is bad for sick kidneys and must give it up. OK, says I to my PC doc, what's plan B?

Part 3: Plan B is sticking myself with an insulin laden syringe every night.

Now, that's fun. I was given a hundred of the stickers, a bottle of insulin, shown how and where to do it and sent off to be more or less healthy. Now mornings and bedtimes are devoted to fiddling with hearing aids, glucometers and syringes as well as ingesting the multifarious medicines that keep me ticking.

As noted above, it is all somewhat irksome, particularly for a young man. Still, it is doable and has to be done so it shall be.

(This was written about a year ago and all the above has become so routinized that I hardly notice the talks. Yeah.)

My hearing has grown pretty bad

Like my diabetes and kidneys, so sad

Am I now become old?

Do not dare be so bold

That I breaths still makes me feel glad.

CHAOS: What fun!

June 25, 2012

Evolution created us to be hunter-gatherers. Homo sapiens lived in caves and traveled around looking for game and searching for whatever flora fit for their needs. The women stayed at home taking care of the children and sweeping the floor. I suppose there were those who were more successful than others at finding food and it is at least plausible they survived and passed on their genes; the less successful didn't get here.

What does it take to be a successful hunter-gatherer? There are the usual attributes such as courage, skill and strength in the face of uncertainty. Where would the food animals and vegetation be found? What seasons made certain ones more likely than others. How to anticipate the appearance of sharp teeth and claws and adjust accordingly? Obviously, such information would favor survival; absent such information they lived in a chaotic environment. Everything would seem unpredictable, chaotic and most of life is like that.

Chaos is the bug-a-boo, the destroyer the cause of much misery. Chaotic events must be transformed into time-lines, after this, that, and patterns. Our ancient forebears understood cause and effect and did their best to get control. Absent control, they accounted for events with supernatural explanations . . . and denial.

Dear friends, the reality is that most of life is chaotic; but most of the time it moves in slow-motion providing the facade of stability and predictability. But, all too often it rears up and maims or kills us, or our loved ones. I know a young man who, while sitting in a car with a friend was shot by a random gunman. Was he killed? No but he became a quadriplegic. The police never found the shooter nor have they established a motive. He was quite religious before the event and now he is profoundly religious. God's plan is simply a denial of reality. Viet Nam veterans said, “Shit happens.”

We have medical science, laws, police, a military, politics and greater comprehension of the universe all designed to get chaos under control all under the under the illusion of at least partial success. But the core understanding is that all things are probabilistic. The young man was unlikely to get shot and surely unlikely to become quadriplegic. Pedophiles are unlikely to assault your child, The airplane is unlikely to crash. We are embedded in such improbable events and clamor for greater sophistication and better laws and, in truth, the appropriate people try hard but the reality that probability statements are the best we can do belies most of their efforts.

If we accept that our lives dangle from a thin thread how shall we find comfort in living? There is no certainty we will live long in comfort and die peacefully even though we strive for some version of that hope. What seems most reasonable is to accept the reality that the universe is not designed with our preferences in mind so that when chaos crosses the moat around our defenses we do not react with surprise and rage or mourning. Accepting what is bad is a pretty good way of making things better . . . until you die.

“The moving finger writes and moves on.

nor all thy piety and wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line

nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”

All of us want to be certain

To live well before closing the curtain

Our motives are pure

But, we cannot be sure

That chaos won't provide a demotion