General

Many things in modern life have an epicurean appeal, a flare that even the most ascetic among us may be hard done by to resist. While it is certainly true that a contemporary, urbanised life demands much of us, sometimes to the point of inducing breakage, this same life also affords us much time to indulge in activities and offerings that were proscribed to our agrarian forebearers. The homestead, with its round-the-clock duties and chores, akin to the care of an infant that a parent must provide, was no friend to a life of leisure and indulgence.

The natural instinct of human beings is towards cooperation and sharing, but, distorted by competition, personal ambition and nationalism, self-interest and greed have become pre-eminent motivating forces, distorting action and corrupting the policies of governments.

Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Breeze driftin’ on by you know how I feel
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me
And I’m feeling good
I’m feeling good
— Nina Simone, Feeling Good, 1965

I find Al Franken’s greatest transgression to be his vote as a super-delegate (in the Dems’ July 2016 national convention) for H. Clinton (and thus for Wall Street and the neocons), instead of Bernie Sanders, who was favored by the voters of Franken’s state (Minnesota) in their Democratic Primary. When questioned about it he arrogantly stated that he knew better than the voters he was supposed to represent. This was an anti-democratic transgression, a misuse of power he had over the regular citizens.

It sent patrons and users into fits of puzzled anger.  It numbed a good many more who had placed mistaken faith in its operations.  Rapacious, predatory Uber, a ride-hailing company famed for its international ruthlessness, had behaved accordingly.  Last week, the firm revealed that it had received a massive hack in 2016, failing to notify customers and regulators that a breach of security had taken place.

Apparently there are seven things that piss off the Christian God more than anything else.  And, not surprisingly, those seven things are all common traits in both those who worship Him and in those of us who doubt or deny His existence.  Real or imaginary, you’ve gotta give the man upstairs credit for His sense of humor.  Too funny…incorporate faults and flaws into our DNA, and then punish us for them.  Even threats of Hellfire and damnation don’t seem to carry much weight in deterring good Christians from lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, or pride.  One would strongly suspect tha

All good things arrive for them that wait – and don’t die in the meantime.”
— Mark Twain
It is damp, drizzly November once again, the grim grey in-between month, a time for dying and a time, above all, for waiting.  Waiting for the fallen dead foliage to be buried in snow, waiting for the shortest day to come and go, waiting for the New Year to usher in great changes.
Waiting – so what’s new?

Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of the greatest of man’s literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.

Let’s just start of with the base assumption that “violence is bad.” This is a truism, of course, but in embracing what is a self-evident truth, we often loose sight of what violence means when discussing violence within the wider scope of human expression and political framings.

We all do it. We say something, in the moment when said, sincerely, or perhaps just quasi-sincerely. But when what we’ve said demands action on our part, we flounder. Is this a folly of human interpersonal dialogue– a planned or accidental obsolescence of discourse? Or is it that we contract ourselves to our own voluntary intentions, only to be unable to fulfill our end of the agreement when a summons is made?