The 'Problem' with Society

Everybody talks about it.  Everyone has a different answer for that question we all ask ourselves.  What is the problem with our society?  Is there a problem with our society?  Obviously - we have these school shootings, government building suicide massacres, and crazed bombers willing to sacrifice hundreds of potential victims for their 'cause.'  It shows some sort of flaw within our social structure, does it not?  I love to hear what people say.  For this reason, I give an answer/fact response to what most people consider the reason why these things occur.

1. No God in School - There are several things the Supreme Court has allowed within schools, as well as disapproved.  Here, you will see the various landmark cases the supreme court ruled.  If one has studied the law of school, or the rights of the students within the institution, one would know that God can exist in school.  However, in all cases, it must be the students doing the praying, by themselves, without coercing others through the use of captive audience privileges (i.e. praying in a speech made as an assignment; leading prayer over the loudspeaker, and so on.).  Students may pray, but to themselves or in a group of like-minded students without forcing others to participate through the use of peer pressure.  This decision was made to protect the religious rights of every student attending the state supported facility.  By not forcing a student to pray a Christian prayer against their will - say they do not pray the same way as Catholics, or Methodists, or Lutherans; Maybe they are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist - It is actually enforcing that student's right to pray on their own.  School's may give a 'moment of silence' as a time for prayer, allowing their students to pray of their own accord.  Whether or not they do so is their responsibility.  If there is no God in school, it is because the students responsible for praying on their own are not doing so.  Why?  Are they not being educated at home what the religion they follow expects, or do they simply not wish to do something through the compulsion of religious guilt?  Maybe we should be looking somewhere else.  Maybe we should think about how socialization can be better delivered through a system of education that has now become the nanny for half of America's families.  Maybe we should see what time those violent offenders went through school and what policies were in place during their tenure.  That is a better place to start than No God in School. Things take time.  Monsters aren't grown overnight.  The change needed to end this will take generations to accomplish.  Maybe we should be researching new ways to socialize our youth.

2. Gun Control - While this might seem an easy band-aid to put on the problem at large, it does not come close to addressing the real issue of what it is that causes this insanity to occur.  But let's take guns - look at the amount of people trying to sell them to you.  People are trying to tell you that you need them - they're for safety, to protect you from other people who have guns that want to steal your money.  Thing is, how can you tell if a guy has a gun?  Then, when you know he has a gun on him, how do you know if he's not going to pull on you at some point and try to rob you?  Let's take two images: White man with a cowboy hat and a gun holstered at his side, and black guy in a Nike sports jacket with baggy jeans and Pumas - which one has the FOID card.  Which one did you choose?  I don't care, it forces a racial decision based on a prejudice built into our culture through images played out on what?  Television and media.  They show you the second image, with a gloc held sideways and left hand grabbing the crotch.  They show you the image of the cowboy gunslinger trying to show off for his lady.  But what if, in reality, the FOID card holder was the second image, not the first?  Who cares?  Both guys have the same potential to rob you with their gun.  It's not the gun that's the problem, it's the person wielding it.  When our society praises the use of guns on television and in movies - heroes solving problems by blowing stuff up, or shooting their antagonist to 'have the final say' - we end up with a society that has an insane passion for guns and violence.  PG movies can have thousands of bullets fired, and hundreds of explosions - as long as they don't show sex, say the five no-no's, or show too much blood - any child can see them with a parent.  Cartoons have heroes fighting epic battles to save the princess, or save the world, or preserve the whatever.  Video Games have people shooting victims, killing for money, stealing cars and then going on drive-by's.  We become so desensitized to the reality of violence, we laugh.  When it happens in life, we wonder why such a thing could possibly happen.  And people say gun control is the problem?

3. Mental Health - once again, we attempt to put a band-aid on a problem rather than find a solution, or attempt the solution.  Why are so many of our children being diagnosed with depression?  Why do so many go untreated?  Perhaps it is due to the fact that many parents do not have access to psychiatric help.  Perhaps it's the stigma of having a child with an 'issue.'  Many parents who have disabled or exceptional children suffer from medical bill syndrome - as in, not having enough money to pay for treatment.  They stretch themselves thin - having to have one of them with the child at all times.  It becomes a trial of their lives.  When such a student cannot be cared for in a certain way by the parent, they need to seek outside support.  If they cannot afford it, they rely on family.  If family cannot, and friends cannot either, it rests solely on the parents.  It's like sitting on a time-bomb with bipolar or mentally affected children.  If the child cannot be cared for appropriately in the first 3 years of its life, the stress on its body and mind can create mental issues in the future - such as severe depression and bipolar disorder.  As most in our society either come from or exist in a single-parent family, the chances and risks of a child being exposed to parental arguments can imprint on it the emotional base of self.  If a child is not fed properly and with nutritious foods, it does not receive the appropriate amount of vitamins and minerals to build a well-supplied brain and can have a mental health problem later in its life.  Poverty does more harm to our Mental Health than anything else, and many people who need care are getting it from prison treatment facilities - which is far too late to have a real effect.  We need to address the problem of poverty in the nation that controls roughly 80% of the world's wealth.  Welfare is not the answer, it too is a band-aid.  We need to address the problem of food nutrition in the parents as well as the kids.  Who cares if the kids get a good meal at school if they go home to pop-tarts and hot-pockets?  We need higher standards in our foods, and we need to adapt dieting to our psychiatric treatments to ensure proper mental support through food choices.  Our stomachs may be full after a cheeseburger, but if the cow that created the hamburger was shot with steroids, fed with corn and slaughtered with a hundred others, chances are, that meat's not going to have much nutrition in its protein.  The cheese was processed with loads of salt for preservation, and the bun is nothing but empty carbs and sugar for our body to handle.  Twenty minutes after a fast-food cheeseburger, the hunger arrives again - because there were no nutrients received.  Add the tomato, the onion, the pickle - and it makes up some - but they are so minute against the onslaught of calories from the cheese, meat and bun.  Take a different burger, made with better meat, a thick tomato, a fresh onion, a whole wheat bun - the nutritional value increases.  Organic farming could be a solution, one that would require millions of people to start working as farmers throughout the land.  If our manufacturing jobs changed to growing organic foods instead of our stockpiles of guns and ammo, maybe we could nail two birds with one stone.

There are too many reasons to fully point out - but these are the three that are always mentioned in these horrific events.  There is art in the argument - the way we all like point the finger at everyone but ourselves.  Let's face it, we are all to blame for this - because we continue to do nothing about the root problem.  We let it fade away until the next one happens, and then it starts all over.  We act all high and mighty about our cause to bring gun control/mental health awareness/God in School to the forefront of politics - but it turns out that none of these can possibly prevent something like this from happening, ever.  If someone wants a gun bad enough, they can find it - anywhere.  Be in the right state, and you can buy it without questions.  No matter how much we medicate the social problem, the patient can always choose not to take the pill.  No matter how much we put God in school to repress our society with religion, there have always been violent offenders - they just use God's name as a reason for the act.  Look at Manson, look at Jim Jones, look at 9/11 - all of these were inspired by people who wanted God's praise, or had God's plan when no else did.  Religion is no cure, government is no cure, and medicine is no cure to this solution.  Social reorganization is the solution to this problem - a restructuring of our priorities.  Do we continue to build the weapons of war and march our kids to 'honor' and 'freedom'?  Or do we finally put down our guns, our pills, and our Bibles, and look at what our neighbor really needs, rather than force upon them what we think they need.  Let's turn our swords to plowshares; Stop glorifying war, and help build a positive society by supporting the people that need our resources - whether domestic or abroad.                  

A Thought on Holidays

We all love them.  They're the time when we get to enjoy those precious moments with family that we crave all year - you know the moments: Hearing uncle Pete burp the alphabet, watching as grandpa/grandma try to walk up stairs without falling, getting told what you should really be doing with your life/how to live your life by people who have no idea what your life is like.  They're the moments we think back on, whether with frustrated rage or patient love, we all have those moments.

But why?  Why do we continually celebrate these holidays?  Well, two reasons, really - from my experience: Upholding traditions whether family or social, and because everyone else is doing it.  Let's face it - we wouldn't be out Christmas shopping unless we thought we were getting something in return, right?  You know it - it's that thought deep in the recesses of your mind while you plow through the lines on Black Friday.  It's only natural to think so.  By this time, every generation alive has been getting gifts for whatever winter holiday they choose to honor.  From the time they are born - Baby's first Christmas - to the time they start having their own family, people expect gifts from their loved ones.  When they do not receive them, there is disappointment.  When they do get gifts, it's not exactly what they wanted, but they'll take it anyway, put a smile on their face and tell you they love it before they return the gift and get that thing they really want.  Sometimes, they judge you by the gifts you're able to give.  Even if it breaks you, maxes out your credit card, or makes you miss an important bill, that gift is important.  It shows the family that you have something to bring to the table.

This is where our tradition starts - the table.  The winter holiday was the most important when we began celebrating as a human culture.  It was the start of a new year, when the winter was often harsh and unforgiving, and the family members that were still alive would gather with what they had stored for the winter to help each other continue on.  Many times, it would involve a family feast - and every member of the family would bring something for the rest of them to eat.  Those who did not have anything to bring to the table were seen as irresponsible, or selfish.  By not bringing something to the table, it meant that others in the family had to compensate, or eat less than their fill.

We were also celebrating pagan gods during that time - gods of nature and the earth, the ones who controlled the harvest and the ones who controlled the weather.  We also began sacrificing things - rare meats, foods, herbs, and more.  The better the sacrifice, the better off you were in the eyes of the social organism.  It became a status symbol.  When food became more plentiful, and more easily obtainable, we turned to gifts.  We stopped sacrificing meat, and started donating money to organizations that helped the poor through the tough times of winter - this happened first during the time of Rome, then again when Kings and Bishops ruled Europe.

Our holidays were created to align with certain changes in the seasons.  Winter was the time of hibernation - we would give each other food to last out the remaining winter, and pray to whatever god we worshiped to see to our needs.  There was a late-winter/early-spring celebration to commemorate our survival, and then Spring to honor life and the abundance of food.  Early-summer/Late spring (May-July corridor) was reserved for honoring fertility and new life, as many new marriages or children would be starting their lives.  After this came the celebration of early harvest - the early-fall/late-summer time, and then we would celebrate the harvest around the time of mid-late fall (October-November).  Winter would set in, and the winter holidays would once again start.  It was an easy routine to understand for people living with the land.

Religion had a massive impact on these holidays.  Once food became plentiful enough for anyone to attain with the right ingenuity, or because they were living in the right climate zone, we needed new reasons to gather.  At first, as I mentioned before, we celebrated feast days of our pagan gods - each one a representation of a different season or time of the year.  As the Roman Catholic Church formed, they consolidated the holidays to the most important parts of the life of Christ - Christmas (Christ's Birth) and Easter (Christ's death and resurrection).  The other holidays were put into perspective from there - Fat Tuesday (last day of the Christmas season and the beginning of Lent), Mother's Day (a feast day for Mary, mother of Christ), The Assumption (Mary's ascending into heaven), The Visitation (celebrating when the Angel Gabriel told Mary of her pregnancy), All Hallow's Eve/All Saints Day (the night and morning celebrating the passing of souls to heaven to become saints in the army of Christ).  Every one of the holidays had their roots in pagan tradition.

Here's a link to each one of the holidays for verification:
Christmas
Easter
Mardi Gras
Mother's Day
Father's Day
Halloween
Others

So, why do I bring this up in a blog that tries to find the art in the commonplace of mankind?  Quite simply put: They are the origin of the family tradition and have become symbols of our familial bonds.  The art is in the image of the father carving the roast as his family waits eagerly for food; The mother slaving over preparations for a grand meal; The children dancing around the fire/Radio/TV/Video Games (depending on your time-line) as the elders enjoy seeing the youth abound.  These are images paramount in our western civilization and culture.  Norman Rockwell comes to mind, as does Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.  Whatever the root - whatever the image - the tradition remains alive in its new incarnation - a testament to our past struggles as a species on this unique world.

Secession? Really?

Just read This article.

Let's start this one with a history lesson:

The Civil War was the last time we, as a nation, had to deal with the secession of states from the union to form national bodies of their own.  It started because the Slave states of the South had become the minority in Congress and the population, and their views were on the way out.  The measures they sought to pass were often blocked or denied, while northern restrictions on their well-being and business (plantations with slaves) became constrictive. The South felt they had no choice but to form their own government, their own currency, and their own exchange that saw to their needs. The Confederate States of America was formed during this time, consisting of all the states that had agreed to secede from the Union. The United States of America went to war to bring them back into the fold.  

At first, the Confederacy was winning the battles. They fought and defeated several generals the North had claimed would trounce the South. The North raised army after army, and sent thousands of men to their death, while the South fought a war of attrition with what they had.  In the end it came down to three major things that occurred during the war that lost it for the South:

1. 3 Gruesome and costly defeats - I'm speaking of Antietam, Vicksburg and Gettysburg. These three losses were what changed the course of the war for the South.  They didn't have the population to match the North, and could not sacrifice as many as they at each battle without suffering irreparable damage to their numbers.  Between the three of them, the battles took over 500,000 southern lives. When Grant took over, and used the North's 3 to 1 population ratio into effect to overwhelm the South, it proved the statement that winning battles does not win the war. The South could not compete with the loss of life like the North. They surrendered after four bitter years of struggle - grudgingly at that. 

2. Raw Material Economy - Much of the South's economy was focused on the production of raw materials. Before the secession, they would ship their raw goods to the north, the north would turn them into manufactured goods, and the south would purchase those goods from the north. It was a cyclical symbiosis. Plantation owners made profits, while the common man often worked in the mines, had his own fields to plow, or worked on the sea in fishing or merchant vessels. When the secession occurred, this meant that the North had to find a new seller, and the south had to find a new buyer. It is always easier to find a seller than it is to find a buyer. The South didn't really have the industry to use their own raw materials, at the time, so they started building some. Their production didn't get too far off the ground. In essence, because they could not raise enough money as a government and country on their own, and because many of the buyers on the market were trading with the north as well, the south's economy suffered.

3. Lack of Political Alliances - Europe didn't want to get involved in the war. The South couldn't bring them over. France and Britain had their own issues, and a surplus of cotton. They didn't need the South's cotton, or other raw materials, and weren't in a situation to back either side. Russia was in full support of the Union. Because of this, the Southern economy fell, the more versatile northern economy grew, and, without friends, the south could only attempt to keep them uninterested in helping the north. 

Okay - enough with the history. Let's look at it today. Right now, the federal government has a split between the House of Representatives and the Senate. Republicans (rural voice) have the majority in the former, and Democrats (urban voice) have the majority in the Senate. The Executive Branch remains in the control of Democrats. There was recently an election that affirmed the presidency of an African-American for a second term. States of the South, traditionally an ethnically prejudiced people, have just signed a petition to secede from the Union. In fact, many people from every state have signed such petitions - nowhere near the majority voice - but the conversation has gone there. 

Is this a joke? Really? Has our unwillingness as a society to accept our neighbor's voice as legitimate gone to such an extent that people are willing to destroy their own country? Has the propaganda machine of the right taken this too far? Well, let's play this out, shall we?

Okay, so we let them secede. What do they have now? Untold trillions of dollars worth of debt to a foreign nation who has the most powerful weaponry on the face planet that may or may not accept your new currency that is backed by severely less population than it was before. They try to pay off the debt, but their GDP doesn't even cover the interest, so the U.S. knocks at their door with a drone and says pay up (from their bunker in Washington while they're watching the camera on the drone), or be conquered. They can't pay up, they become a colony, and have even less say in the government than before they seceded. How does that sound? Or, maybe we let them stay on as their own country, and we just blockade the interstate highways in and out - the U.S. did build them - and start charging them massive taxes on their incoming goods. Since they owe the US so much money, we can probably arrange some sort of deal where they become a protectorate, and they can start holding all of our manufacturing plants we would have otherwise built in China, because we wouldn't be paying them anything - they'd be working off their debt. Hell, that actually sounds like a good idea. Can we just enslave the whole former state that wants to secede, and then have them work off their tremendous debt to the federal government for all their nice public things - it'd be like a prison state, only a debtor's prison. 

So, before you jump on this Secession bandwagon - please think. I just really can't believe that whole "The South will Rise Again" thing is still there. The "patriot" waving the flag of the Confederacy in the face of his unaccepted black president - it looks pretty sad doesn't it? Whether or not it is born of racism, the image is, in and of itself, something of racist creation. Perhaps this is the last gasp of a generation who embraced racial segregation - perhaps it is a sad look at our near future. What I am really glad about is the fact that many of those people voicing opposition are older crowds. I would have no concern about a bunch of old people taking to the streets - don't think it would last long or go very far.  The March of the Walkers.      

A Solution to Social Welfare Programs

Welfare Queens, holding babies in each arm and one on the back, with three hanging onto each leg.  It's the portrait our far-right society paints for those on state benefits or welfare programs. Takers, they say. They sit around on their ass collecting my hard earned money so they can keep sitting on their ass.  Lazy sons-a-bitches. Who the hell gave them the right? Damn Liberals and their whining. They just want stuff from the government, they're not willing to work for it. They're not motivated to get a job, they can just sit on their ass all day collecting the taxes from my hard earned money.

This is not a productive image for the conversation as a whole, but it's where conservative viewpoints begin.  I like to think of it as the safety net, but living within proximity to a social worker's nightmare has given me a bit more perspective. I have seen some of these welfare queens of which the conservative masses speak. I also understand that this dependency comes from a culture born to generational poverty. This cesspool of crack dealers, prostitutes, welfare queens and alcoholic bums (as conservatives would have you believe it is) comes from a legacy of outright racism. The city is called East St. Louis, and it is nowhere near the shape it was in 60 years ago.

But how did it get so bad? People I speak with at work tell me it's "because the blacks moved in." I cringe, and can't help but look sad at the accepted explanation. So, I did some research. Though I use wiki-links, this research was done at both the Missouri History Museum and several libraries in St. Louis and Belleville regarding the social changes.  I also studied the histories of the cities surrounding East St. Louis. It's quite interesting, but in the interest of time, I will summarize the knowledge gained.

After the Great Migration north (there's a link in East St. Louis note), the the race riots - where a mob of 3000 white men went around and randomly beat black men for fraternizing with white women - and the industrialization of East St. Louis with American Steel and Aluminum Ore, as well as the shipping yard expansion, East St. Louis became a booming city. What happened? Well, on the Missouri side, this was about the time that North City also began booming.  The booming industrial jobs were creating a black and white middle class that could compete. Things were going well. Until the jobs moved out of town. A new Interstate highway system was being proposed and was running straight through East St. Louis to create a new Poplar Street Bridge. Because so much of East St. Louis was consumed by the new interstate, the people that could move out did. Of course, those people were the whites. Blacks didn't make a high enough wage to afford to move out. Some people stayed.  They tried to keep going, but the jobs moved south, west and east - mainly because the Eads Bridge was no longer of any value for shipping, and East St. Louis and North St. Louis were both using it as their min artery in the shipping businesses.  North St. Louis and East St. Louis dropped in population right about the same time. The industry and jobs moved west, several of the citizens couldn't. They got stuck working other jobs that didn't pay as much.  Eventually, they couldn't care for their property, and things got bad. Property values dropped, jobs left, poverty rose, and crime began to seep into the system. Civil Rights passed, Welfare passed. Jobs were coming and going, but nothing like the old days. The people that left created their own communities, or built onto existing ones. Fairview Heights was created in the 1960's, just after the Interstate was built. It had a mall, and a huge up-welling of citizenry right about the same time East St. Louis dropped, same as many of the cities surrounding it, using it's Interstate exit/entrance as a source of life. It could be considered a diaspora of sorts... former communities of East St. Louis "sticking together" after the big split.  What does this have to do with Welfare? The people that got 'left behind', so to speak.

Eventually, after decades of job loss in that city, generational poverty began taking hold, and people became dependent on government aid to get by.  Why? Because of where they're born and to whom they were born. They took advantage of welfare to pay for the things the needed (sometimes alcohol or drugs) and lived in Sec. 8 housing while receiving food stamps. Everything was seen to for them. They're on Medicaid now, too, so you know that means they're clogging up the Emergency room for flu treatments. How do we stop this?

Remove the money from the system. Include resources. Give them resources. Pay for rent, utlities, medical bills, transportation through public systems, and food, but don't pay them cash.  Increase the food stamp allotment, and expand food stamp purchases to include hot food, clothes, toiletries and other essentials of daily living (i.e. utilitarian items - broom, dustpan, mop, sponges, etc.). This way, all essential necessities of living are provided.  The increase is paid for by the decrease in cash allowance. Take the $800 or so cash and spread it out between living expenses and healthcare costs. This resource based approach to government aid programs can help change the way our society works. Now, if someone wants cash, they either go sell some crack on the side of the road, or they get a job. Either way, it's not my cash they're using for their stuff. What this would need is to say that if someone took a job that earned 100% poverty income, the benefits would end.  So, people could have a job and receive benefits, too. That way, the system is being supported through their own work, and the people sleep safe knowing that some lazy-son-of-a-bitch isn't using their money for drugs.

I can also suggest a work-for-cash-benefits program where people on welfare can have a chance to simply work for the money they once received. Those that become a part of the program would be merged with the city works unit and employed to clean litter, mow abandoned fields, care for neglected properties, or be added to the roster for some sort of city works labor unit, depending upon qualifications.

This is a simple change, but one I think will never get implemented. Why? Our economy thrives on money. Having money, spending money on something you shouldn't - it's a thrill. Our society has allowed us to believe that we need it - money, that is. By giving people cash benefits, we provide the market with stability, a ground floor from which to start. The beneficiaries can go see movies, buy a cellphone, pay for an iTunes account, whatever. They spend it. The advertising exposure increases, they stay where they are because they're comfortable, and the economy has a solid consumer for life.  Throw in food stamps, and someone is making $1,000 or so dollars a month, which can buy whatever they want in both food and other items. It's a freedom of purchasing power, but it's also poverty. It's dependency, and with that dependency comes votes.  Vote for the guy who gives you cash - that's how conservatives tell it.  That's why it will never change. Both sides win - business and government - when people have cash and buy "stuff."

But here's what they don't show you.

The mother who raises multiple kids on her own, and has no time to work, or can't find work with a fitting schedule. She gets government aid, provides the kids a home base, and helps them onto their own feet so they can get out of the ghetto in which they might live. The kids go away to college, find a job and move on to bigger and better things. Why don't we ever see this picture coming from the right? Is it because they're so embroiled with the idea of racial stereotypes that they completely ignore the stories and just think of all black people they meet outside their paradigm as welfare dependents, or is it because they're so angry that the Liberals created it and are benefiting from it electorally? If it's such a horribly run program, why don't Republicans ever try to fix it, rather than just cut the funding to it? Wouldn't a Constitutionalistic approach to government include welfare, now that it's a law and all? Wouldn't one, instead of ending or cutting something, attempt to solve the issue at hand with common sense?

If we don't like the system, then we need to fix what we don't like about it. People I know complain about the cash benefits. End them, spread the funds throughout the remainder of applicable benefits, and expand those benefits. Cash, in order to fix the system, must come from the work of their own hands, and not from tax dollars. The Imagery of welfare must change in order to please the image based culture of the right.  

   

The Educational Problem: What it is; How I Think We Can Fix It

Okay - this, is gonna be a big one, yet another, so make sure you get your drink before you read on, or have time where you'll be interested, because I have a lot to say on this issue.  It is my belief that education is the central crux of our social society, and having public access to such a thing is not only a gift, but a way to build our social organism.  That being said, go get your drink...

Welcome back, or thanks for reading on.  If you would like to be both welcomed and thanked, feel free to consider yourself both.

So, there are several issues that are central to our problems with education.  I will address those I feel are the most important in the line of issues plaguing the public education we know and experience.

1. Money: Each year, Schools vie for money, applying for grants from the state and federal government so they can continue to provide the same education they have been providing, or improve/adjust based on raises/cuts.  They have a committee of teachers that work on grant-writing for each area of educational focus.  They gather the data and the numbers and present it to the writing team, who then formalizes it and presents it to the local Board of Education (depending on the school) and Superintendent for approval.  They then present it to the state/federal government, and wait for approval/denial. When the money is given, the schools can continue working bonus programs that supplement the learning done in or out of class.  Otherwise, the schools get a percentage income based on the PROPERTY VALUES of the homes within the district.  They do this because they receive their money from the taxes on the land.  You pay for your school when you pay your property taxes.

So, the state gives each school a certain number of dollars based on the total amount of taxes divided by the total number of students.  This creates an issue of equity.  In a wealthy district, the school is given more money per student.  They will have more money to provide for the kind of education people in poorer districts struggle to maintain.  The logic of this is: If a wealthy school has more money, they will not need the grants for which poorer schools apply.  Therefore, the poorer schools will match the funds of the wealthier schools by earning grant money from the state/federal government.  But logic isn't followed by everyone.

Vouchers: While this, at first, seems like it would be a benefit to the overall educational experience, these are a detriment to the public school system as we know it.  Why?  Well, it just so happens that because the ADA passed, as well as IDEA, all government buildings now need to have specially designed facilities to aid the physically or mentally impaired.  This is a good thing.  I wholeheartedly encourage the example it sets. However, this requirement does not apply to parochial or private institutions of learning.  They do not need to supply the facilities.  Because many do not, it gives the parent of an exceptional student only one option: public school.  What does this do?  Traditionally, exceptional students do not perform well on standardized tests when they take them.  Many do not.  But those with middling conditions often find themselves generalized due to the demands of IDEA.  Because the general ed population consists of these students, teachers have to adjust their lessons accordingly in order to be in line with the IDEA guidelines.  What does this do?  This allows students who would not normally be considered eligible for state exams to be eligible.  This also means that those students with behavioral disorders, not considered severe enough to warrant separate attention, also take these tests - right alongside Sally Smartypants, Class Genius.  This, in turn, creates numbers that do not reflect the teacher's ability, or many of the students, but the school altogether as whole.  These numbers are printed in the newspaper - we see them.  We say, well, Sally got a good score, but the school got an average score.  We don't stop to consider why - we jump the gun.  We say that these bad numbers mean it's a bad school.  What happens then? People become less likely to move into the district...land values drop...people take their kids, move, and go to the successful school district that has consistently high scores.  Or, they stay where they are, get a voucher - which takes money from the taxes that would have gone to the school, though not all - and send their kid to the private school that has consistently high performance numbers.

Now, the intelligence pool at the school has dropped because X amount of students left after hearing the bad scores.  Those that do not send their student away now send their student to a school where his chances of educational success have just dropped by a percentage relative to the value X. Even more so, the prestige of the neighborhood and value of their home have both dropped because their school is less desirable.

Answer: To remove the inequity within our school organization, we must first remove the inequity in funding.  Every school gets the same amount per pupil - based on an average of the state as a whole.  To say one child will receive $7,700, and another receives $4,200, is to say that the child in the district receiving the greater portion of dollars has more worth and value than the child in the lesser. This is dependent upon where the parent lives.  If both pupils go to the same schools for 10 years - 7-17 minimum - you see a difference of $35,000 between just those students.  Imagine how many students stay in their districts from start to finish during the course of their public education, then multiply that by $35K.  That's a big difference in the type of education and extra-curricular supplements a school can offer - all because of where you live.  Now, if each student received $5,950 instead, each school would be able to offer the same things.  Only a federal curriculum would be needed after that to fully make each school provide equal education across the board.

2. Keeping Kids On Task: We, as a society, have begun to do things to our kids that are reprehensible.  It is inherent within the social structure of our society and comes in the form of television and video games, as well as smartphones.  We have allowed them to become distracted - we have allowed them to take charge.  Many times, teachers and parents complain that one or the other is not doing enough, when clearly, both are trying very hard.  They do not think to place the blame on the student for slacking off so he could web-surf/game/text on his/her smartphone/pc/game platform.  When they do, the student does what the student needs to do to succeed, and continues about life interested in his/her hobby.  Where does it start?  How can we stop this? Simple, enforce both parental and school rules, and restrict the use of electronic devices.  Studies have shown that the students of parents who limit the amount of electronic exposure their students experience often have students with higher IQ's and higher grades.

Studies have also shown that less exposure leads to students having higher attention spans - in that the reverse relation is observed.  Students with higher attention spans will be less likely to be distracted during a lesson in class and excel in areas of learning concerning math and reading (which also effect comprehension of science). These students also aid the teacher in tutoring other students to success as well - I can tell from experience.

Answer: By restricting the amount of electronic entertainment to which a student is exposed, one can passively encourage academic growth within one's student.  This being said, we must also be the example so it is less easy for the student to dip back into old habits.  Yes, that's right, sometimes, we have to turn off the TV and play with the person we brought into the world.  Isn't it so difficult?

It really is, though isn't it? This answer comes with much more complication than the first. The further we delve into the reason of our children's successes or failures, we see why.  We have a couch and TV based society. Every night, we get home, we hug our loved ones, sit on the couch and snuggle as the show of night comes on - or some facsimile thereof.  Not everyone likes the show of the night - some people have their own.  So, they go set up their own couch and TV area.  Or, we have two jobs to put food on the table, and have to work, so the kids are watched by the babysitter, or the oldest sibling... which means TV or video games for the night.  Whatever the situation, as technology becomes more accessible, it becomes harder and harder to limit control of the imagery to which our children have access. Enforce what you can.

3. The Grading Scale: We have this philosophy we preach in schools to children that as long as you give it your best effort, you'll do fine.  But we don't give examples of best effort outside of grades.  How can we really know if someone's A was because of their best effort and not because the questions were just that simple?  What happens if someone doesn't know how to give his/her best effort because they are not given an example of what it is outside of grades? Children don't see their parents giving their best efforts at work - mainly because the kids aren't at their parents' workplaces. Whatever the case, the grading scale attempts to place value on the knowledge presented in the work of the student. Whether the student understands by test time is up to the teacher.  If that student doesn't understand the knowledge, he receives less than an A and the teacher moves on - maybe the student is tutored on the side.

The grade is placed; That grade has value. That student sees the grade, and places the value on themselves.  Many times, it discourages progression in the area of weakness.

Answer: This is the biggest one, and simplest - Stop using it. Hire more teachers, lessen the class load on each, better fund educational institutions to meet the growing needs, and allow the teachers the time necessary to ensure that each student understands the principles explained.  Administer tests, but only for record of progression as opposed to placing value on student performance, and make sure the tests are fair for the students involved.  Big load of work there - easy to say, harder to do.  This is why I place this last.

These are just three of the problems public education is facing - and there are many more.

Where is the art? Outside the inherent struggle that comes with trying to understand the universe, or the Thinker posing on his rock, there is the teacher surrounded by eager students...too many to teach all at once.  The face of desperate hope in the shadow of a problem too large.

The Argument For and Against God... (To get this out of the way)

Faith is an interesting thing the humans have, the belief that some being of great power is watching over them...keeping track of their every move.  This belief has affected many things, including art, society and politics... as if I had to tell you.

It is not that this belief goes without challenge.  In fact, many people have argued against it.  The picture of the early 20th century existentialist atheist comes to mind, bespectacled and whatnot. The whole "God is Dead" thing Nietzsche brought about during his time - basically saying that we have outgrown and no longer need it as a social drive as it existed - comes to mind. There are a lot of philosophers who weigh in on the conversation about the existence of God or the definition thereof.

So, what is God?  The western concept presented is "something that which nothing can be greater," with the qualities of omnipotent, omnipresent, all benevolent, all knowing, yadayada.  You know the guy - God.  Okay... so this God creates a Universe, and in this universe is the existence of evil, which is a counter-principle to the all-benevolent God. Why does God not eradicate this evil with his righteous will?

Well, as it turns out, when God created this universe, he gave mankind and all sentient species possible the gift of Free Will. Because we choose to do evil, it is our will that creates the evil.  Because God is all-benevolent, he will not destroy the life creating the Evil, but rather asks us to apologize and not do it again.

But, if God KNEW giving us free will would create something counter to its ultimate will, and cause suffering among those of its creation, then why did it give us free will? Why not remove the free will altogether to save us the pain of awareness and existence?

Because it needs our true love, not forced love.

Wait a minute...what?  So, this God gave us free will so that we could choose to love it, knowing that it would cause suffering and harm to its creation through evil. This either negates the omnipotent aspect of the God, meaning that God needs a specific type of emotion to sustain itself, or the all-benevolent, meaning it would sacrifice its own creation's well-being to ensure its continued power.  If the first is true, then there is something greater than God.  If the second is true, then God is not all-benevolent...why worship?

In comes the eastern based notion - a change in the definition of God: "The sum of all things."

I think somewhere it was written that what is done to one of God's people is done to God.  If the new definition applies, then it makes sense in a very different way than before, doesn't it.  What about the one about gathering the flock together - makes a whole new meaning.

In this definition, the "sum of all things" would include good and bad.  The image of the Yin-Yang comes to mind.  But good and bad are subjective qualities - what could be good for one may be bad for another.  Why would an omnipresent, omnipotent being even consider what is good and bad when it is beyond morality?  It would not consider a hurricane bad if it was created to release pressure in the atmosphere to avoid a greater catastrophe later.  The "sum of all things" sees beyond the here and now, where we exist.  To attribute human conditions is to deny the very existence of the being itself.  If God is "the sum of all things" then we are one collective cell of God in the greater picture of the universe at large.

The Hindu philosophy has two separate entities of the God - one in the self, giving us awareness, and one greater collective ocean thing.  The one in the self is the Will of of God, the other being the source of all life.  If one were to believe this notion, and apply the new definition, one would find that philosophical thought has us all being God's hands on earth.  If we are the will of God, then the collective decisions made are most certainly decided by God.  Everyone would be considered a small piece of God's greater puzzle.

But the Christian churches don't like this idea.  They cling to the old hierarchies even when their own philosophies mesh so well with the new definition.  The Holy Trinity is a perfect symbol of the correlating relationships - God the source, God in Humanity and God through All. Christ, if one might believe in his existence, spoke of freeing the self through God - to love God with all your heart. mind, body and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Would God being the "sum of all things," not correlate to mean that loving your neighbor as yourself would be to love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul?

So, yeah, the God argument.  It's a wonder that we waste our time as a human species trying avoid this possibly imaginary being's wrath when it could be a falsehood.  Who knows? Personal experience is the only deciding factor. This is where the art is found, in our willingness to believe regardless of doubt: the hope of a doctor who prays God helps him/her find a treatment (using medical science which was once considered impeding the will of God) that will work for their patient, or the biogeneticist who loses a brother due to the lack of donors for a transplant and swears to God he will work on a safe way to clone human organs so no one else has to suffer.

In the end, it is our decision what we believe.  I think what I think, as do you.  No one is wrong, no one is right.  Whosoever discovers the truth will not be around to speak it.

      

Religion: Merging Myth with Truth

Nearly every religion on earth depicts a certain myth in which they ask their believers to ascribe.  Maybe one myth has a little more truth behind it than another, but each one of them tells of a story about a mythical force known as a god, or tells of a prophet of said god.  As commonly accepted knowledge, we understand that many gods of the ancient world were based on the elemental forces of the world - the ones we could not yet control ourselves.  We developed a myth behind how we came to know fire, why the climates of our areas were as they existed, why we should or should not eat certain foods, and the list goes on.  Fact is, back then we, as humans, had not yet developed the luxury of life to begin trying to understand the natural world around us.  We were just trying to survive the year intact.  As we progressed as a culture, we began studying the science of things.  This allowed us to begin understanding how nature worked.  However, as we grew in knowledge, we found we needed religion less.  Granted, it's taken centuries, but give it time, and soon religion will be simply something of tradition and philosophical belief.  It will take something great, something truly remarkable to help us push aside religious repressions for scientific progress.

But, I repeat - It will take something great.

We have come to know, as a human species, that a god exists who created everything.  Where that god is and what it is doing is a complete and utter mystery.  In fact, why that god places us here is also a mystery.  Did we grow from nothing to gain awareness and understand ourselves through one of the most remarkable processes of creation?  It's something everyone asks themselves at some point in life.  Where did I come from?  Why am I here?  It's one of the most basic questions we ask ourselves.  Some of us have an answer - our parents.  Some of us look deeper - but where did they come from, and so on?  Should I really believe that I was just some ultra-kick-ass sperm that managed to get lucky at the right time?

So, the conversation goes - There was this God up in the clouds who sent its (son/messenger/prophet/avatar/ananta) to us to explain what it wants from us... which is: respect life and love God, in a nutshell. Okay, I can do that. Then comes the religious dogma -
"Well, in order to do that with us, you have to go to (Church/Synagogue/Mosque/Temple/Religious Building), give the organization 10% of your monthly income (though they do have low-income arrangements), believe that so-and-so is the Chosen of God and all the religious tenets that go with him, deny any previous faith and believe that, of all the possible religious organizations that MIGHT have gotten it right, we are right and all the others just don't interpret things right."  They don't say it outright - but it's there.

Turns out, a lot goes with that dogma. Each one of the religions center their beliefs on the idea that something happened some time ago that can be legitimized through historical documentation.  Let's take the Jews.  One of their beliefs states that Moses, a Hebrew born baby, was found in a basket near a river, nursed to health and lush life by a noble woman and adopted into the family of the Pharaoh only to find out the truth, turn on his adopted people and run to the desert for a period of time where he took a wife and a herd.  During this time, he saw a bush that burned without burning speaking in a voice that penetrated his soul. He was to take his people from Egypt and into Canaan, where they would find lush valleys for fertile growth.  So, he goes back, talks with the Egyptians - they don't like the deal.  God called forth his wrath upon the Egyptians before they relented, letting Moses lead his people from Egypt to Canaan.  As they were about to cross the Red Sea, they were set upon by Egyptian military, and Moses called once again on God to part the waters.  God did so, and the waters parted, allowing them to cross.  They traveled to the other shore, and that's when they hit the foot of Mount Sinai.  People were turning on him, and he had to seek out God's advice.  So, he traveled to the mountain top, and stayed there for a while.  The people melted their gold down, and started praying to their familiar gods.  Moses returned, and in a fit of anger at their betrayal, threw down the tablets, breaking them.  He returned to the mountaintop - and came back with ten commandments, or laws, for which the people were to follow.  He enlisted Joshua to help him organize his forces into a military, while Aaron saw to the scribes and became like a pharisee of Jesus' time.  After this, they set forth, being guided by a flame at night and a pillar of smoke by day.  When they ran out of food, they were given sweet bread from the ground - Manna from heaven. When they ran out of water, Moses drew water from a stone, after God told him to do so.  He hit it twice, which meant he would not see the Promised Land.  Then, from atop a mountain, he watched as his people were lead by Joshua to the Promised Land of Canaan, where they went on to slaughter the people who lived there and claim it for their own.

Now, what do we have to back this up?  Well, turns out Egyptians don't like writing about things that happened poorly in their culture, so through a reference of number of Hebrew slaves they had at one time, and the number they had at another, we know there was a mass exodus.  We know now that the book of Exodus was finalized as a written document some time in the 4th century BCE (399-300 BC). We know that Joshua did actually lead his people to retake their homeland in the valley of Canaan, where the clans of Israel once held sway, before "Joseph" brought them to Egypt...if that really happened. Because of these correlations, we are willing to believe all the magic happened.  We attribute the magic to God - God, this all powerful universal being went out of its way for this one tiny little spec on a tiny little spec in the massive universe of creation.  And so the myth becomes a truth.  Because it really happened - I assure, word for word, the way it was written.  It wasn't just some megalomaniac's way of embellishing the truth with a little mythos so the people of his time would think he was some chosen oracle of the divine principle.

Because it really happened, we will never allow ourselves to believe otherwise.  So, why is it that all this happened for Moses, but nothing of the Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Celtic, Native American, Hindu, Chinese, Japanese or African myths were true? Was it because they used different gods for different things, and someone knew better - that only one god was doing everything?

Maybe it's due to the fact that in our early stages of civilization, we were spread out and relatively small in number.  Each small civilization had their own gods and their feast days.  As the small civilizations grew and began meshing with each other, they found they each believed in different gods, but held similar feast days.  Eventually, as they grew into nations, they began celebrating the foreign gods' feast days out of respect for the other nation they might have conquered or befriended.  With all those gods, it was hard to keep track of which god you were celebrating, and how to properly celebrate.  Why not simplify the whole thing and say that One God exists and that each time we celebrate, we celebrate It, or one of It's messengers?  There - the whole thing's solved, and all that rabble we were going on about for centuries is just that.

Here's the real Truth: The social construct of Religion was created by man, and so it is flawed by nature.  Until we can see through the myth and into the reality of its belief, we will never accept the truth that it does not matter if there is a God watching over us or not. It is not for us to know what happens after death - it doesn't matter.  Maybe there is, maybe there isn't an afterlife.  Doing something to attain glory in the afterlife is only brought from the desire created by not having something in life. The only thing in which we are guaranteed in life is death.  What I believe, what you believe, doesn't matter in the long run. We die, our bodies stop moving and start decomposing. Religion would have us believe many things about the afterlife, and why you should lead a positive life.  Here's a good reason - when you're at the end of your life, and you look back on it, do you want it full of regret?

I'm not saying end religion - just saying, there's a lot of bullshit to wade through before you get to the Ultimate Truth. What is that truth? I don't know...yet.      

Why Obama Won 2012

"I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting." - Barack Obama 


It's been 16 hours since Obama was declared the 2012 winner in the United States Election of the President of the United States.  It is now official that he will be in office for the maximum number of terms.  To Obama and his campaign, I say congratulations.  I saw it coming a mile away, but didn't think it would be as close as it was.  However, since much of this campaign stank of 2004's rot, I guess I should have expected a tight race.  Literally billions of dollars were spent on campaign ads - thanks to the Citizen's United decision by the Supreme Court.  Some say Romney spent more, others Obama.  The numbers could be turned either way depending on how you looked at the spending.  But campaign ads weren't why Obama won.  

I noticed, just before the election, that Romney had a few rough bumps on the landing - The Jeep plant thing, the "Politicizing of Sandy" thing - and the people in certain battleground states began shying away from him...at the last minute.  Romney had been on a roll.  After the Binders of Women thing, he pulled a fast one on us and began closing in on Obama's lead by giving us a glimpse of what his plans were.  They were good, too.  For the most part.  But the gaffes weren't why Obama won this election.  

I thought once that the African-American communities would want an African-American president instead of a White-Anglo-Saxon-Mormon.  Never mind the backgrounds, for some, the racial difference is enough... and vice versa.  Let's face it - racism is something that has built our society, whether we like to admit it or not.  Almost every form related to your person, be it ID, Birth Certificate, college application, work application, tax form or survey, regards your "ethnicity" as a background.  It's there.  Moving forward, I also figured much of the Hispanic/Latino vote would go his way, especially since he's for the Dream Act .  But, his racial qualifications weren't why he won this election. 

The news that he had won a majority of women voters and youth said a lot.  And homosexuals... of course he was going to win over the LGBT voters after being in favor of Marriage Equality.  If Obama begins to throw his weight around, and gets enough bipartisan support, he could make legal something that has been socially illegal, if not lawfully, for over 3000 years.  How much literature has been written, how many stories have been told of the forbidden homosexual love?  It reflects that history, that social repression we place on ourselves with or without laws... and here's a president - easily the most powerful man on the face of the planet - for overturning it.  But having an open social outlook is not why he won this election.

Obama, during his first presidency, not only talked the talk, he walked the walk.  He made sure those people helping him got theirs, and did the same for those aiding or hampering him on the other side.  He got Bin Laden (even though there may be some doubt to Bin Laden's true involvement...not going to argue that point here).  He helped Egypt create a government for itself, and respected it.  He did the same for Libya.  Even though things backfired a little, he was patient, and saw their mourning as a sign of friendship and peace.  Rather than go in guns blazing, he took the higher road, and extended trust in their capabilities to aid our search for those who committed the act.  He ended the War in Iraq (though some do not believe that to be true, so I hear through people I meet).  But the leadership he displayed to get us where we are, despite every effort of the opposition party to negate him and unseat him, is not why he won this election.  

Obama won because of the masses.  Obama won because more people voted for him.  If the government is the will of the people in this country, then the election is our voice.  Like it or not, that's all it boils down to.  We gather together, every two-four years, depending on our interest, and decide who is going to lead our country for the next four years.  We do so because we want to feel like our voice counts.  I did.  Whether my voice really counted or not, I was one of the millions that voted.  When I finished, I placed my ballot in the box and watched it sink into the ocean of votes to count later.  I wondered, how many other people did the same thing, even though their vote "didn't really count."  Add 'em up, you get an election.  And that's why Obama won.                   

Image vs. Reality

I wonder to myself a lot about reality - what it is, how it's composed, what elements comprise the whole of it all.  90% of it is said to be based on personal perception, or collective perception.  It's a vast thing created by our human organism to give solidity to a flowing mutable world.  It is our rock, and at the same time, it is changing every minute of everyday of every year of our lives.

As a way to keep track of things, we like to compartmentalize them into categories of reality based on the most reliable source of information - Our senses. We see someone dressed in a suit and assume they are well off. We smell something gross and our version of reality shuns the source.  We see a certain food before tasting, and don't like how it looks - we refuse to eat.  Until we are forced to eat said food, our reality does not know the taste, but knows it tastes bad.  It looks bad, right?  But how does it smell - if it smells good, maybe we'll try it.  If it smells weird or funny, maybe not.

This practice goes a long way for us in our lives. It dictates social norms, like attire and eating habits.  It tells us the difference between a symphony and a cacophony.  We use this common imagery to dictate those who appear good or bad.  And there are people who enjoy confusing things for us so they can make a buck, gain a political office, or get away with a crime of some sorts.

Let's take taxes, for instance.  In our society, we have the common belief or understanding as a majority that taxes are bad. We don't like them because they take our hard earned money and give it to someone else.  But what's the reality?  Well, those taxes go to the government, the government pays someone to do a job. With that job, someone in our community gets money for themselves, and can use it for whatever purpose they deem fit.  Let's say they buy something they need.  Turns out, you sell what they need.  You then get their money - which was your money to begin with, but, because it was paid into taxes which paid the person's salary, you don't think about it as being yours - and you give them some service or item in return.  Then, because you earned money, you pay a portion of what the person just paid you to taxes, and the whole cycle begins anew.  So, really, by paying taxes, you ensure the continuation of a paid position in government and a customer who needs your item or service.  However, because the image of a taxing government is bad, you decide to hate taxes, and argue against them no matter how much they benefit your community.


Let's take another example, more befitting the theme: News Media.  When this form of media coverage began, it had all the journalistic integrity of a newspaper - which upholds the journalists's Code of Ethics.  This code is something into which many sign willingly, others do so because their editors demand it of them.  All the journalists who sign onto this code are held by it - their jobs and careers on the line every time they speak/write what they say.  So, because News Media, paper and print, upholds this code, we begin to believe what it is they say/write as fact, or as close to fact as can be.

About 15 years ago (the current time is 2012), something changed.  Television Cable News stopped upholding this standard.  Why?  They were a 24 hour news station - they needed some programming with entertainment value, something that would bring in the ratings.  They needed money.  They needed shows that would draw money.  Hence, we have the Glen Becks, Bill O'Reilly's, Rush Limbaughs, Rachel Maddows and Chris Matthews's.  They draw attention due to their fiery, off the cuff and call-it-what-it-is attitudes.  They draw viewers, viewers draw sponsors, sponsors make commercials to put in those people's time-slots, and everyone makes money if they just get you off your couch long enough to buy their food/clothes/electronic gadget/drug/First-world necessity.

Why did the news start to change?  Money.  One simple demon that spins this world around.  Fox gets paid by the conservatives, MSNBC gets paid by
liberals, and CNN fights to keep the independent center.  In order to mask the rouge, they call themselves entertainment news - which does not have to hold the same standard of news broadcasting.  So, they can get away with telling blatant lies; Editorial/Opinion columns in newspapers are held to higher standards than the aforementioned names.  BUT because they appear on a NEWS STATION, people tend to believe what they say as fact ALL THE TIME.

So, when someone - say Rush Limbaugh, for instance - paints a picture of a political figure in one light, or one image, while another - say Chris Matthews - paints the same guy in an entirely different image, our reality is confused.  We have half the American FDR. He's the classic populist politician working for the people in one light, and the satanic-anti-christ-fascist-socialist-communist-Islamic-racist-African whose presidency-should-not-be-legitimized-or-it-will-be-the-end-of-days in the other.
population believing wholeheartedly that Barack Obama is of Islamic fundamentalist belief, while the other half believe he's the next

In reality, Obama is a modern president like any other - doing what needs to be done while making sure his friends at the top get theirs.

In another case of image versus reality, let's take our social lives, or dating atmosphere.  The battle of the

sexes - the classic struggle between the image of man - the more common image would be the "stupid-but-handy-with-a-tool" look - and the image of woman - which, in this case, the more classic example would be the "Suzy-homemaker-soccer-mom", while the more modern would entail the "no-nonsense-business-woman-who-knows-what-she's-looking-for-just-hasn't-found-it" example.  That's often where we start.  The images.  But then what's the reality?

In reality, we are all just people looking to get along
in the world, to find someone to love who understands and accepts us for who we are.  But we are often times insecure with ourselves - we don't fit the image we want to portray because we don't have the right body or face, or because we have some random thing about ourselves that makes us unattractive. This is what we tell ourselves. Why?  Because we know, deep down, that we want that image, too - we want to be and date that model/actor/cover-photo.  So, because we place it upon each other to be that, we will not accept ourselves unless we are anything less.  Because we do not accept ourselves as who we are, we try to be something we're not because that's what we think the other person wants.  We trap ourselves within the image, and lose reality.

We lie to ourselves, denying who we are or what we've done through some sort of justification.  We all do it.  Then, because we lie to ourselves, we lie to other people.  With relationships based on lies, the end is inevitable. In all cases.  Eventually, those lies unravel, and truth is revealed.  When that truth hits home, and reality is seen, it's either a great moment, or a tragic end, depending on the truth told.  One can only maintain an image so long.

We have dating sites - on these things, they allow you to paint your own image of yourself.  How many lie?  How many times have you "liked" something a cute guy/girl likes just so he/she will like you?  How many times have you feigned interest in a hobby of a good-looker just to hear them talk about it?

This is, in and of itself, the truest Human Art - the painting of the self.  What is the image, what is the reality? What is the painting you show to other people?          

Why We Must Accept the "Arab Spring"

The Arab Spring has become quite the topic of contention.  But more than that, the Arab Spring Revolution, and the way we have been treating it in our culture, paints the long standing picture of mistrust between the two fundamental ways of the past: Christianity and Islam.  Christianity, an extension of Judaism, states that only through belief in Christ the Lord can one attain the heights of heaven, the forgiveness of God, and eternal bliss of the heavenly afterlife.  You must follow His example of life that is recorded in the Gospels, which are a true statement of Jesus' existence in this world - where he was born of a virgin, crucified, buried and rose three days later.   In Islam, one must submit oneself completely to will of the One God, and believe that Mohammed the Prophet was spoken to by an Angel and given the Quran to lead his people to unity and greatness.  The book is used as an addendum to the Torah and New Testament scriptures that make up the first two books - with the belief that Moses and Jesus were Prophets, as Mohammed.  Yet, only through the teachings of the Quran, one can find the Emanation of the One God in the afterlife - which is why it is considered the truest word of God.  This does to Jesus what Christianity does to King David of Judaism, and the Christians didn't like it.  

Fast forward 1300 years, pass up a few crusades and Jihads (which were both created through the religious ideal of Holy War), a restructuring of governing principalities after WWI, the Iranian issue after WWII, and the Zionist victory, we have our Revolution.  Is it any wonder why the Arab nations wish to control their own nations for once?  British and US interests have been dictating policy over there for quite some time, very similar to the way the British government dictated policy to the Colonies before they revolted.  Now, Arab colonies are rebelling. The only problem is that, for the most part, they are revolting against the NATO selected governments.  This poses a problem, because we still have this underlying fear of Islam, and many of the governments elected have Islam as their principle document of Faith in the writing of their constitution.  Yes, in many ways, this has the possibility of removing many of the rights women have.  But should we not have faith in their system of government to be able to gradually restore or grant those rights?  Let's look at a country who had similar beginnings.  

In 1776, the United States of America was created.  After suffering horrible losses in the French and Indian War/The Seven Years War, the Colonies, now under much heavier British control, demanded a say in parliament for the taxation of their goods and services that were paid to the crown.  Some of these colonies were Puritan - the New England region.  The Puritan government was based solely on the religious orthodoxy and dogmatic principles they embraced.  They were seen as extreme Christians by outsiders, and were persecuted for their religion in England.  They helped create the doctrine in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.  Many of our founding fathers originated from the New England Puritan Colonies - and quite a few of our Presidents.  We didn't have our "perfect document" right at the start.  When we won the Revolution, and gained our Independence, we did not go right into our current Constitution.  We began with the Articles of Confederation, which did not succeed in the long run.  We found we had to have the proper balance between federal and state governments, while giving everyone a voice through representation.  It took a few years for us to realize our mistake, but in the long run, we made it to our living law.  

I will also note several things we did as a budding nation - slavery not needing to be mentioned for the obvious social flaw.  Women could not own property in many states.  Those that did allow women to own property only granted it through a husband's death - as frontier territories and states allowed, since husbands would often get killed by Indian raiding parties.  But that still didn't get women a vote.  After the Civil War, certain Amendments were made to allow every race a vote - but not every gender.  We didn't give women the right to vote for well over a century through our country's progression.  Even then, we allowed laws to separate which rights applied to which people based on color or gender.  They were eventually overturned, and cultural progression advanced to our present state, where we argue whether or not certain laws should apply to certain sexual orientations.  

We have no right to judge our fellow man for basing a country's principle document on religious belief - we did the same. We have to accept that Islam is not inherently evil, as we hear from FoxNews over and over, because we have the same principle of Holy War within our religious dogma as they do.  The Christian principle may be a bit different, but the overall ideas are the same.  We need to understand that when some crazy guy calls out a Jihad against the United States, not everyone in the Islamic community will follow.  We need to trust that the government will track down and possibly capture/dispose of them before they are able to come into the United States.  While 9/11 was a tragedy of massive proportion, and someone had a definite inside track to be able to pull it off, there is a lot of evidence towards it being a false flag operation.  Regardless, we eventually tracked down and eliminated the person who supposedly plotted the attempt.  We got our revenge/justice.  Now, we need to back off and let the region start governing for itself.  We need to let them go through their own progression of statehood, learn what works and what doesn't, without getting terrified of who's leading them.  We had the Insurgent George Washington, who fought many British soldiers using guerilla warfare tactics before the term existed, as President of our country.  Yet, we have a sector of our American culture that insists Washington is a hero, while proclaiming Arabic leaders terrorists, even though many of them used similar tactics if translated through time and technological progression.  

Why should we accept the Arab Spring full out?  We'd be hypocrites not to. 

"Hate never yet dispelled hate.Only love dispels hate"

"Let he that is without sin, cast the first stone"

"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."

“He is not strong and powerful who throweth people down; but he is strong who witholdeth himself from anger”

Mayan Cosmo-what?

Oh yeah, it's 2012, isn't it?  And it's almost over, too.
Which means the date for which all the religious zealots have been waiting is upon us.

RUN FOR THE HILLS!

Ah, the end of the world nuts. What a great picture of humanity. When they're alive, we laugh.  When they've been dead for thousands of years, we take them seriously. Nostradamus, John the Revelator, Jeremiah, Isaiah... all of them taken seriously because something happened to coincide with one of the lines of text. Random Coincidence? Most likely - in fact, I'd be willing wager that, if a study was taken of people who believed in end of the world theories in general, we'd find that 75% or more of our country doesn't buy into it, 15% or less might believe that something like that could be possible, and 10% or less believe wholeheartedly that it's going to happen, and soon.

Honestly, and after much thought about it, coming from a background of belief where Revelations is not literally translated, I say it's a bunch of crap. Revelations as fact was not something that came about in our western culture until around the Protestant Reformation (the first millennium CE at earliest), when educated people began reading the sections of the Bible the priests had left out of the sermons/homilies.  Before this period of time, the Church had maintained a solid 1000 year grip on Western Europe. The Catholics had managed to convince everyone that their religious text was fact (so as to keep control of the people and maintain an order to a chaotic land), and that everything in the text had ACTUALLY happened (and that Jesus and God were both white skinned).  So, when people began to read for themselves this factual text, they began to apply their own theories to their social organism.  These people begat more, and those begat more, who eventually landed on our continent and developed into our nation.  Now, we have people believing religious text as fact, even when science directly contradicts half of the book's credibility (none of the gospels included in the Bible were actual texts from Jesus' time, circa 40-80 CE, 11 years after his death, and most even considered were Greek translations.) - I think I've argued this point before, but onto the end of the worlders.

While they represent a very small sector of our population, they are there, and they are insistent.  But this Mayan Cosmogenesis is something else.  For the first time, religious zealots from completely different regions and belief structures, are arguing for a date made on a calendar by some other religious leaders, who used their insightful astronomical predictions for Creation Myths and seemingly unreachable End Times when their gods will return and destroy the world.  The most amazing part about it is, not knowing the true nature of the date, some of our religions have placed their own belief on that same date.  Jesus will return; The dead will be resurrected for the final judgement; the Messiah will take his people home.  It's the Grand-Daddy of all "End-of-the-World" days.

Having faced 1999, Y2K, 1991 (and the supposed anti-christ then - Saddam Hussein) and several solar eclipses, I have no fear of this Galactic Alignment (when our sun crosses the galactic equator)... but for all that, is it any wonder that I am still a bit curious? What if one of those crazy guys wearing his End-is-Near sign, clutching his bible in hand and shouting to the apathetic masses that they must repent is right?  Wouldn't that just be the biggest joke of them all!

Got my popcorn. Less than two months away - if it happens, it'll literally be the Fight of All Time! God vs. God, God vs. Devil, Devil vs. Dead, Dead vs. Us!  I wouldn't miss it - in fact, I don't think I could miss it if it actually happened.          

Faith Affects Political Ideology - News Flash or Nothing New?

"I never thought of myself as racist," says the older woman who knows she's about to say something that, taken out of context, would sound entirely racially prejudiced.  "And I don't think of myself as a bigot in any sense of the word, but I do have every belief, in my heart of hearts, that Obama is a muslim, and is helping those terrorists that hurt us on 9/11."

Everytime I hear this, I can't help but feel a loss somewhere deep within.  It's crushing.  Truth is, unless some shocking evidence comes out saying so, there never has, and most likely never will be proof that any of those alleged claims are true.  The closest thing they have to go on is his name: Barack Hussein Obama.  Sounds like a terrorist - must be one, right?

I often wonder why it makes me sad to hear such things.  I think maybe it's because an entire ethnic group will have that stereotype association to any of their names or pictures by a very large sector of my home country.  I think maybe it's because a man who could possibly change things for the better and lead our nation into this new century of technological rennaissance is getting resistance in the form angry white people forming a lynch mob to hang the black president, who, by the way, wasn't born here, and believes in a heathen tribal faith, and is a nazi-fascist-socialist-anti-christ.

I'm not saying Obama is perfect.  Look at the numbers.  They reflect a person who put too much on his plate at once, and is now asking for more time to finish the meal.  Whether or not it is his fault, it becomes his legacy in the next term.  But anti-christ?  Nazi?  Where are these people getting these things?  And that's when I look at which people are saying these things.

For the most part, the conservative wing of the Republican party is christian/faith-based/tradition-based people out on the farm, or members of affluent small-town/suburban families belonging to communities whose major form of regular social interaction is church/the corner bar.  It is where the social sectors collide and exchange ideas.  Those who do not show up to church have a common perception in their community of not caring, or not having the right priorities, not being well off enough to attend (i.e. needing to work).  This goes as far back as the Puritans and our continent's first English settlers, when those who did not appear for Sunday services were seen in almost the same light as blasphemers.  This happens across the nation, in every sector - not just the conservative wing of the Republican Party.  But it controls the Republican platform the most - as the major component of the right wing is the religious conservative bloc.

What religion does when it enters politics - which it did during the Bush administration - is begin to take over the conversation with belief and idealism, as opposed to fact and scientific data.  Because fact and scientific data so often counter belief and ideals in real-life situations, they can be at odds.  So, I contest that when someone applies the idealism based in religion to their political ideology, there becomes a stand-off in the conversation.  For instance: Grover Norquist, who takes his political stance on taxes to an idealistic-to-religious type of extreme.

More importantly, this religious line of thinking goes into traditionalism, and often relies on hearsay of accepted opinion as opposed to facts and data.  So, when a traditionally reliable source says something - say a certain Christian radio/TV host has a hunch that maybe Obama has similar qualities to the anti-christ in the Book of Revelations (going back to the late 19th century interpretation that the Prophecy was yet to be fulfilled; as opposed to the interpretation that it already happened in the fall of Rome, or the interpretation that says it was just a metaphor they used to create a proverbial Last Battle), and then gives a quote from the Biblical text - they are more likely to believe it over the fact that Obama was not a solid candidate until after the primary (and even then needed a financial collapse to push him over the top).  There was no sweeping victory.  In that manner, Ronald Reagan could have been the anti-christ.  But don't try to convince one of them of that - they might call you a blasphemer.

Because of this, we have people believing fervently in things that are not true because they apply their traditionalist practices of thought to the political atmosphere, rather than separating them for pragmatic applications.  It does not help that their sources of information are tabloid-esque programs specifically designed to corral them into a particular way of thinking.

This aspect is yet another portrait of American Tragedy passed on through the ages, just one more picture on the wall of our social gallery: The Faithfully Used.

Truth vs. Ideology

I was listening in on a conversation today.  There was an elderly couple, maybe in their late sixties, speaking with a person appearing to be of some sort of Spanish or Hispanic background by skin tone who was most likely upper 50's to early 60's in age.
"Hey, my political buddies!" says the single man as he sits down at the table.  The conversation then went to the traditional "hello's" and "how's the wife" kind of conversation one might hear at church, and then they got into.
"That Mitt, he's got a tough road ahead," said the woman.  "But he really said it right when he was talking about those 47%."  I stopped listening at that, knowing the kind of news source they'd been listening to, and what kind of talking points they were going to spew from their mouths.

A week later, the presidential debate.  What a riot that one was.  The president looked baffled almost the entire time - and rightfully so.  Mitt pulled one of those Romney's, and changed his message drastically to win some votes.  Go figure, politicians saying things to get votes - who'd have thought it could happen?  It made me wonder why our arguments - both left and right - seem to be so far apart and yet, so similar.

My opinion on this: Unwillingness to listen to the other side - people trapped within ideology, unable to see the truth.

Here we have two ideological standpoints - conservative and liberal/republican and democratic.  The one factor joining the two together used to be factual data that proved one or the other right.  However, with the advent of political propaganda machines in the form of cable news, we have lost sight of the truth, and have found ourselves locked within ideology.

For reference on this notion, I look at Global Warming.
Facts: Global Warming/Climate Change has been accepted as consensus with the scientific communities of the planet, and conclusions from this theory have stated that humanity causes a good amount of the pollution causing the change.  By burning fossil fuels at the rate we do, we risk increasing the global temperatures to irreversible states due to the amount of greenhouse gases we emit.

So, what do we do about this?  Well, conservatives still have yet to accept the facts.  They continue to deny humanity's involvement in the 'myth' or 'hoax' of the scientific community, and their benefactors (mostly big oil tycoons like the Koch Brothers) double down on carbon energy by saying catchy phrases like "drill, baby, drill," or come up with new ways to sell energy (i.e. Clean Coal - which to many in the scientific community is an oxymoron).

Liberals say we need a carbon tax - a way to regulate the amount of carbon produced and churned into our atmosphere - so that we can make sure people are going to keep their fossil fuel consumption to a minimum. Then again, there are those within the conservative media as well as liberal that argue this tax would make us pay to breath, as humans emit carbon dioxide through exhalation.  Many argue it is a liberal plot to steal our freedoms - people like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, as well as outspoken opponent Alex Jones.

Overall, however, on the global warming issue, we have yet to reach social consensus - however, we do socially accept the need for better fuel efficiency, solar power, wind power, geo-thermal and bio-fuel.  I think it's funny that more people would accept facets of the solution to the global temperature issue than believe that the global warming issue needs to be addressed, or even exists in the first place.

And this is only one argument where truth goes up against ideology.  God and religion, sex education, creationism vs. evolution and many more social arguments get stuck where they are due to people refusing to believe facts over their own ideological standpoints.  This is one of our biggest tragedies as a species, in my humble opinion, and one that must be fixed before we find it killing ourselves.

If Humanity were a hero in an epic poem, they would be one of those all-powerful gods whose only flaw - the unwillingness to believe something contradictory to the principles of the self - would be its own undoing.

This is where one of the great aspects of human art rests - the contradictory.  Though science and religion could go very well together if married, they will eternally be separated because of the dispute over where everything originated.  Beatrice and Benedick come to mind from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.  And what a fitting analogy: Science, the bitter woman trying to get the last word in on an lover, knowing she's right and makes some good points, and Religion, the pessimistic yet hopeful man still bludgeoning people over the head with the same old tales.

To make the point on the original note - the whole truth vs. ideology: Since ideology is spinning the truth into its own tale, we can no longer see the facts as they are.  Things are happening in front of us all, but we all have a different story on how they happened.