Goodby 2011!!!

OK, yet another loop around our local star. In a few days it will be 2012 here on the Earth as we humans, or some of us anyway, keep account of time. Things are going downhill in general, I think that is called entropy. (I know it is called entropy.)

I won't be writing anything of interest because I don't think there is anything of much interest. Interest is internal in me, but as for you...

2010

Hey, 2010. Another two years without a post. Tempus Fugit muy rapido!

Gee...2007 sure went by fast!

Well, well, well. Seems I neglected to post anything in 2007. Did you miss me? No? What a surprise. I originally put some effort into my entries, but since, even though there are millions of people on the net, not one of them seems to visit me, I stopped. My life didn't stop, just the entries. I don't mean to sound bitter, but some feedback would sure be nice. There is someone in here, is there anyone out there?

Halloween Birthdays

My wife's birthday is on Halloween. This always presents a problem if you are trying to plan a party. Like most wives, mine does not like her birthday party to be decorated with witches and old crones, although candy is ok. Also, if you want to go out to dinner, you are disappointing all the dressed up kids who might ring your doorbell. You even risk receiving a "trick", although "trick or treat" is mostly an empty threat in most of the young one's mouths. Thankfully. Luckily, in a way, our street and house are so forbidding that we sometimes get only two or three doorbell rings. Last year, none at all. However, all that leftover candy is not a good idea, especially for me. This year it looks like Silvia and I will be celebrating alone. We intend to go out, even though we risk the wrath of the hypothetical trick or treaters. Tomorrow I will start on the Nutrisystem diet, watch for me on TV in a few months ;{) but tonight, we dine! Legal Seafoods, mmmm.

Torture is NEVER Justified

You've heard the arguments some people are making to justify the use of torture. They make the hypothetical case of something like a bomb placed in a school or hospital or some other place where innocent people or children will be killed unless the suspected bomber tells where the bomb is. They feel this justifies torture of this one person if it will save the lives of the many more people in the school or hospital or other location. So. Torture is justified in their minds because of the relative numbers. Well and good, except that allowing torture to be performed by authority means it will be used, never doubt it. And the fact is, the number of people tortured will vastly outnumber the wholly hypothetical number of imaginary 'victims' whom the torturers feel they are protecting. The surest thing about authority is that it will be misused and abused. Does anyone really think that they can be sure that torture will be justly and carefully used? Can't people ever learn from the past? Cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden to us by the constitution of our country, the MAKEUP OF OUR COUNTRY, which is what constitution actually means. The men and women who were behind the structuring of our country, this United States of America, lived in a very different world than we who are their descendants. They lived in a world, and fought against tyrants, in wars and courageous arguments, that contained and used torture regularly and without much thought. Institutionalized torture and cruelty is BAD, it is truly EVIL, and it is deserved by NO ONE, FOR ANY REASON! Kill people in battle if they are fighting you, restrain them and judge them in OPEN COURTS, but never allow government or their servants to secretly spirit individuals away in the dark of night, and de-humanize and degrade them in your name. And not in MY name! I would rather see a school full of children blown up, than have none of us safe from such acts as are performed in places like Guantanamo, or the secret prisons that President Bush, that immoral fool has 'authorized'. He doesn't have MY permission to do such things in my name, and no one should cravenly seek the 'protection' that creatures such as he offer. What has happened to americans, that they are so afraid that they have lost their minds, and their morals, in this way? Remember the brave men and women of our past, who knew that no life is completely safe, but that the greatest protection for all exists when all of us do what is right to our fellow man, and nothing excuses torture, NOTHING! All of us will die, it is the nature of living things. It is how we live, and the way we treat those around us that is of prime importance. That is what makes us human, that is what gives us worth.

Death and the Fear of Death

The reason coins have two sides and not three is because the universe presents us with a lot of twos. Two hands, two eyes, two feet, two nostrils, two ears, I could go on and on...and I will. Until, of course, the day, or night, that I no longer live among you. The time will come when I am no longer available for others to speak with, or at least if they do speak with me, the conversation will be one-sided. I will be, as they say, dead. The dead do not fear death. They spend a lot of time being dead as well. They will continue with that rather dull occupation until the universe of matter and energy runs out of steam, and everything else. The best way to die is peacefully. I have seen this happen many times, to other people of course, but from what I can tell they don't seem to mind dying any more than they seem to mind being dead afterwards. So WHY is it such a big deal. WHY do we fear death so much? WHY do we avoid thinking about it, while at the same time spending most of our living moments avoiding it with all our powers. We must arrive at the answer to this question while we are alive, because answers we arrive at after death are pretty much useless. As are we. Except perhaps as fertilizer. Some Roman poet put it this way, "Dead, we are the lumber of the world." So true. And he also pointed out that death was no more than "the utmost limit of a gasp of breath." So true again. I love poets, and their poetry. Cogito, ergo sum. Well, perhaps. At least sum gives us something to cogito about. If you are still with me, understand the comfort that arises from dying is as great as, or even greater than, the discomfort of living in fear of it. The sensible person lives and loves it, but realizes that it's a temporary condition, and that's all there is to it. A life spent preparing for another life is a life misspent, but the result is the same to the person when they die, because there is no result. The value of life is in the living, and the loving you do while alive. I think the ancient Beatles said that. So, live, love, and die peacefully my friend. And by the way, on the theme of twos, listen to this poem by my favorite poet. She is extremely spiritual and I do not doubt that she believes in the gods in some way, but there is much more in the poem that follows, which is from her dying mother to Edith...

The Two Tides
To E.M.

CHILD,I beheld thee, one night, swept in by the Tide
on this known shore of Being;
Naked thou wert, and unfain to be here, and thine eyes
were averse to all seeing;
Bitter and small was thy first uttered cry, and filled with
unnamed desolation--
Thou, so encompassed by Love and by Joy in their mar-
veling proud salutation!

Child, in thy turn, thou shalt see me, rapt by the refluent
tide swiftly flowing;
All sound shall be stopped from these lips save only the
last sigh of breath in outgoing;
The face thou shalt watch will grow strange, the word
thou wouldst hear--it shall not be spoken!
Then shalt thou sweep the dim seas for a beacon, and
storm the locked heavens for token!

O child, in that hour of the Ebb, left alone on the ignorant
shore, crying, "Whither?"
I charge thee, Remember, naught didst though know of the
Tide that once brought thee hither,
Loath to thine heritage--thou, the darling of Life, whom
the banquet invited;
So much, and no more dost thou know, what awaiteth the
outbound pilgrim benighted,
What sovereignty royal--what dream beatific fulfilled in
Youth's restoration--
What galaxy crowding in welcome--what guest-rites--
what marveling proud salutation!

One Fine Afternoon

One of my favorite writers is a man who was named Charles Williams. He wrote a series of books which are sometimes called 'mystical thrillers.' I suppose that is as good a description as any. The first one I happened upon I found down in the underground tunnels of an old hospital on one of the islands of Boston Harbor called Long Island, and the hospital Long Island Chronic Disease Hospital. It has since been closed by the city after a long and fascinating existence. But this blog post is about Charles Williams. People donated books to the hospital for the patients, and they were kept on shelves down in the tunnels. One night on my break, around three in the morning, I picked up a book with the cover torn off and read about two pages. I was hooked. The writing was incredible in its complexity and instant fascination. The title was 'The Greater Trumps' and it was about a deck of cards which happened to be the original tarot cards, imbued with great powers but incomplete without a magical table upon which danced tiny golden figurines. The gypsies had concealed the secret of the table, and carried it about with them in search of the original tarots for centuries. I won't go more deeply into the plot in case you should like to read it.
Charles Williams wrote several of these novels. Many of them, in fact most, were more closely concerned with the theology of the Anglican Church of England, but none of them are in the least 'preachy'. You would think that as an atheist I would be put off by this, but I am not. The spiritual side of mankind is often abused by charlatans, but I do not deny it exists. I just deny that the gods do. Don't worry about it, I'll go over it in other posts. Anyway, back to the afternoon I am about to describe. One book which Charles Williams wrote, but which he did not manage to finish due to his early death, was to be called the Figure of Arthur. Anyone who has read the works of C.S.Lewis titled Perelandra, Out of the Silent Planet, and That Hideous Strength would feel at home reading this work. In fact C.S.Lewis was a close friend of Charles Williams. One Fine Afternoon Charles Williams read this chapter, or fragment, to two close friends as they sat with him in his rooms at Oxford College in England. Picture the scene from this quote from the introduction written to the book 'Arthurian Torso' by C.S.Lewis which he wrote at the request of Charles Williams' publisher, There was a third figure present in the scene to follow, whose name you will surely recognize, and who was also a close friend of Charles Williams...
-------'The first two chapters had been read aloud by the author(Charles Williams) to Professor Tolkien and myself. It may help the reader to imagine the scene; or at least it is to me both great pleasure and great pain to recall. Picture to yourself, then, an upstairs sitting-room with windows looking north into the 'grove' of Magdalen College on a sunshiny Monday Morning in vacation at about ten o'clock. The Professor and I, both on the chesterfield,lit our pipes and stretched out our legs. Williams in the arm-chair opposite to us threw his cigarette into the grate, took up a pile of the extremely small, loose sheets on which he habitually wrote--they came, I think, from a twopenny pad for memoranda-and began as follows:---the book follows, and I recommend it and all of Charles Williams' works.

I found this book just recently, and just thought I would share this otherwise forgotten moment with you. Two of the people in that room are well known today from the movies, something they could scarcely have imagined. Lewis for the Chronicles of Narnia, and Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings. I hope you are moved to look for the works of Charles Williams. Search for him(put eerdmans in the search box for publisher to get the correct charles williams) on http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchEntry?the most amazing used book source on earth. By the way, a chesterfield is a kind of couch for those americans who might be confused by the term.