“As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.” said Jim Greer, Florida Republican Party Chair.
He's fanning the flames - blocking what might be an inspiring speech for children by THE PRESEIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BASED ON WHAT HE THINKS THE MAN IS GOING TO SAY.
At least so far you can't use that in a court of law. Yes sir Judge - lock this man away because I think he is going to do something I don't approve of...
A) They have never heard the speech.
B) It was George W Bush who "bought" the banks!
I have never been more disgusted with Republicans. Nothing that they fear is in the speech - except perhaps that kids will find nothing fearful in Barack Obama - that the children of scary fanatics will find it is their parents who are crazy
Listen to the speech on CNN OR READ THE SPEECH
Monday, September 7, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Coming out heathen
In case you missed it, I am an atheist. That is not what I believe - merely what I lack a belief in...
Being an atheist means I do not have a belief in a god or gods. By inference it means that I regard religion as a vestigial organ of human culture best understood as psychological metaphor. I think that human beings invented gods and god-appeasement rituals, partly in an attempt get protection and control over a dangerous natural world beyond their understanding. And partly in an attempt to get control over their own impulses for the good of the tribe. And often to get and keep control over each other....
As a possible hanger on of the brights movement ** with a naturalistic world view - I am interested in living in this world, this universe, and in this present life. I believe that everything that is, both within us and without us, arises from the natural physical world. That what most folks refer to as the soul is merely the amazingly intricate human brain. (I suggest a book called "The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by Oliver Sacks which shows how our very core changes when the brain is injured...)
I think when we die, that we are gone forever - so cherish this one life you have. Never throw it away as few folks I know have done. Cherish it. You only get this one, so live it well.
For those of you who think an Atheist is an immoral angry monster - well, you are suffering from a stereotype - a prejudice - a form of bigotry. I am just a human being, with a catalog of merit and defect, just as all you religious folks are. Nothing more, but nothing less. A human being. As a secular humanist, I believe that each human being should endeavor to live a good and moral life using his or her individual talents for the good of society, life in general, and for the life of the planet. Living toward this ideal does not requires the assistance, inspiration, commandment or hellfire threats of various gods and religions.
** the brights movement is a loose internet-based alliance of people with a naturalistic view of the world, who see life in terms of the testable, beautiful physical world and who do not find it necessary to cobble imagined gods or goblins, spirits, ghosts, supernatural powers, fairies, what have you, onto a reality that is already complex and amazing.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Poem: Tea at the end of the World - how crazy people who fear it mightcause it
a poem from my chapbook, Inverse Origami
Incoming at 4 oíclock... "Tea?" he asks,
slinging shiny steel kettle onto black coils,
citing communist conspiracy
revealing two red mugs
and two tarnish-patina-ed teaspoons,
my host, a post-glasnost peddler
of prefab fiberglass bomb shelters
pounds the pine table
predicting economic collapse
and unidentified flying objects
from the Book of Revelations.
Circumlocution, no pause, no breathing,
he's apple-pie slicing,
cerated knife in hands
ticking minutes
he does not have
years he will refuse to see
that he ís plastering over gaps in the logic
smoothing over the entrance
to a room under the lawn.
No matter if some other pie bakes
fragrant apples cooking easily
peeled and unpeeled the same,
he would seal his own fragility
under the browning crust
in under ground chambers,
closing his steel door
with its peephole and gun-sight,
sheltered from nuclear hell
by a thickness of cement
from change by brittleness of belief.
Radioactive words
firestorms over tea with mint:
"Commie pinko feds, homos with aids, the IRS,
fat people, stock brokers, illegal aliens
Don't trust, just stock up
on canned goods and ammo....."
He shoots peach-marmalade volleys,
apple-crisp pudding, his eyes, his ears impervious
to the kettleís screaming, to oven doors slamming
his cards face down, without looking, he folds,
pours boiling water for tea,
smiles and makes a little joke,
flexes eyebrows overgrown
as untended graves,
arching hoar-frosted inch worms
measuring Armageddon.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Mail Snoopers, Identity Theft, A Locking Mail Box
Monday, I answered the doorbell to discover a visitor with my family’s U.S. Mail cradled in one hand while the other hand flipped slowly through the first class envelopes. This is the second time I have found this nosy individual going through the mail. Getting caught garnered neither an apology or an explanation, not a blush or a fumble on either occasion.
I have done my share of house and pet sitting, and done numerous stints taking in mail. I have retrieved mail for friends and neighbors. I just don’t look at it letter by letter – it’s not my business even when I have been asked to retrieve the mail – unless i have been asked to watch for something in particular.
But this person has not been asked to bring in the mail and it is none of her business. I am very offended by it. And TAMPERING WITH THE MAIL IS ILLEGAL!
And I thought, if this woman is reading the envelopes, what is she looking for? Is she planning on Identity theft? I didn’t think so BUT it did raise the question – who else might be pawing through the mail without ringing the bell?
So I went to Lowes the same day and spent $27 on a locking mail box. You can’t tell it locks until after you lift the lid. Would love to see her face when she realizes….
I have done my share of house and pet sitting, and done numerous stints taking in mail. I have retrieved mail for friends and neighbors. I just don’t look at it letter by letter – it’s not my business even when I have been asked to retrieve the mail – unless i have been asked to watch for something in particular.
But this person has not been asked to bring in the mail and it is none of her business. I am very offended by it. And TAMPERING WITH THE MAIL IS ILLEGAL!
And I thought, if this woman is reading the envelopes, what is she looking for? Is she planning on Identity theft? I didn’t think so BUT it did raise the question – who else might be pawing through the mail without ringing the bell?
So I went to Lowes the same day and spent $27 on a locking mail box. You can’t tell it locks until after you lift the lid. Would love to see her face when she realizes….
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
So-called medium reveals her intentions
“I’d love to go to a Red Hat meeting with you,” a so called "psychic" & "medium" declared to my 80-year-old Mom who had not invited her to go. She inquired about details, while Mom remained vague, and pointedly did not mention any. ”I LOVE hats! I have a whole collection of hats! We’ll go, just you and I,” she continued with considerable enthusiasm .
Poor Mom didn’t invite her, barely knows her, has been something of a captive audience until this point. This person failed to notice her silence, or the grimly bemused smile on her face. After several more comments along this line, she announced “It’s a date then,” as she heads toward the door without once noticing the older woman’s reaction. So much for her claim to be psychic…. or even sensitive to others….
After the woman left, my mother turns to me and I know I am in trouble… “If she shows up there I am going to stop going to meetings,” she said glaring at me. (And, in fact, she did stop going!) This woman was not listening to her, and Mom hates that. She didn't care what Mom wanted, she wanted what SHE wanted - which was to invite herself along to her group meeting.
It was me who brought this person, who is a self-declared psychic, self-declared spiritual “guide” into the house. The so-called psychic and I serve in a volunteer organization I am fond of, and I have been trying to figure out how to handle our philosophical differences for over a year now. (I am a secular humanist, a non-theist, a naturalist. etc) She has aggressively befriended me, calling repeatedly with invitations - which makes me a bit nervous - and we always avoid talking about our core beliefs.
Now my Mom has been a realist all her life, worked for 25 years for a police group, has seen all manner of hucksters, deceit and fraud. Because of her police background, Mom thinks such people are purposefully manipulative con-artists looking for bereaved emotional marks to swindle. And she might be right.. Mom noted many of the red hats are widows, vulnerable to someone who might "guide" them to dead loved ones for a fee, or to curry favor, or find a place to live for a while...
And, though I worry about the sanity of this tale-spinner who says she talks to the dead, guides people to recall their past lives and has “remembered” over 100 of her own (story telling of a different magnitude indeed….) – Mom might have the clearer view. And I am sure this so called "psychic" woman is “telling stories” – but to us or to herself? I wonder if her "stories" have become such an integral part of her persona, that she can no longer separate her self from her inventions.
The other alternative is the possibility that she is a charming manipulator. She is a careful listener, an astute observer of body language, a clever story-teller, seemingly a very caring sort. Surely she is self-deceived, not inwardly cold and calculating. Maybe. But this bid to get Mom alone has given me doubts. What could make it easier for a faker to channel the dead to the living - then talking to them when they are still ALIVE, and asking just the right questions about their relations to younger relatives and friends? She has confided about other elderly folks who she'd "befriended, who had "passed over," mentioning furniture and even a car "gifted" to her by grateful relatives." Once she asked a grieving relative if she could live in the departed's home until it was sold. That request was not granted. Who know's what "psychic" revealations might have resulted from unfettered access to the deceased's belongings.....
This culture wants to believe so badly it tosses science and logic aside, gives credence to folk who need to feel "special" by inventing supernatural powers for themselves, and who are accepted because of their very real and often quite subtle, talents of listening carefully, observing carefully, recalling details, having a good sympathetic "graveside" manner. Yet often these same folks blatantly manipulate others for emotional or financial gain, for services, support, living quarters, or items tossed out when the estate is dissolved, stored and later sold on ebay or the like. (This particular woman did maintain a storage locker crammed with stuff and an active ebay account.) Today we have psychics featured on tv shows, we have fraudulent ghost hunters – ( and these folks really ought to be ashamed because deception is involved in each filming….
But what can be expected in culture where a large segment of the populace can no longer make a cogent argument, separate opinion from fact, tell fakery from science, where warm fuzzy but false feelings are valued over what is real….
Poor Mom didn’t invite her, barely knows her, has been something of a captive audience until this point. This person failed to notice her silence, or the grimly bemused smile on her face. After several more comments along this line, she announced “It’s a date then,” as she heads toward the door without once noticing the older woman’s reaction. So much for her claim to be psychic…. or even sensitive to others….
After the woman left, my mother turns to me and I know I am in trouble… “If she shows up there I am going to stop going to meetings,” she said glaring at me. (And, in fact, she did stop going!) This woman was not listening to her, and Mom hates that. She didn't care what Mom wanted, she wanted what SHE wanted - which was to invite herself along to her group meeting.
It was me who brought this person, who is a self-declared psychic, self-declared spiritual “guide” into the house. The so-called psychic and I serve in a volunteer organization I am fond of, and I have been trying to figure out how to handle our philosophical differences for over a year now. (I am a secular humanist, a non-theist, a naturalist. etc) She has aggressively befriended me, calling repeatedly with invitations - which makes me a bit nervous - and we always avoid talking about our core beliefs.
Now my Mom has been a realist all her life, worked for 25 years for a police group, has seen all manner of hucksters, deceit and fraud. Because of her police background, Mom thinks such people are purposefully manipulative con-artists looking for bereaved emotional marks to swindle. And she might be right.. Mom noted many of the red hats are widows, vulnerable to someone who might "guide" them to dead loved ones for a fee, or to curry favor, or find a place to live for a while...
And, though I worry about the sanity of this tale-spinner who says she talks to the dead, guides people to recall their past lives and has “remembered” over 100 of her own (story telling of a different magnitude indeed….) – Mom might have the clearer view. And I am sure this so called "psychic" woman is “telling stories” – but to us or to herself? I wonder if her "stories" have become such an integral part of her persona, that she can no longer separate her self from her inventions.
The other alternative is the possibility that she is a charming manipulator. She is a careful listener, an astute observer of body language, a clever story-teller, seemingly a very caring sort. Surely she is self-deceived, not inwardly cold and calculating. Maybe. But this bid to get Mom alone has given me doubts. What could make it easier for a faker to channel the dead to the living - then talking to them when they are still ALIVE, and asking just the right questions about their relations to younger relatives and friends? She has confided about other elderly folks who she'd "befriended, who had "passed over," mentioning furniture and even a car "gifted" to her by grateful relatives." Once she asked a grieving relative if she could live in the departed's home until it was sold. That request was not granted. Who know's what "psychic" revealations might have resulted from unfettered access to the deceased's belongings.....
This culture wants to believe so badly it tosses science and logic aside, gives credence to folk who need to feel "special" by inventing supernatural powers for themselves, and who are accepted because of their very real and often quite subtle, talents of listening carefully, observing carefully, recalling details, having a good sympathetic "graveside" manner. Yet often these same folks blatantly manipulate others for emotional or financial gain, for services, support, living quarters, or items tossed out when the estate is dissolved, stored and later sold on ebay or the like. (This particular woman did maintain a storage locker crammed with stuff and an active ebay account.) Today we have psychics featured on tv shows, we have fraudulent ghost hunters – ( and these folks really ought to be ashamed because deception is involved in each filming….
But what can be expected in culture where a large segment of the populace can no longer make a cogent argument, separate opinion from fact, tell fakery from science, where warm fuzzy but false feelings are valued over what is real….
Thursday, August 20, 2009
A Song: It's love that makes you free
Here is yet another song resurrected from my past. I am testing a new mic on this recording and it looks like it's a move in right direction. The mic is a Blue Snowball. So far so good. For other recordings I have had trouble with distortion on loud or high notes and had to jump through technical hoops to minimize it. This mic seems to handle it all well.. Just a bit a reverb added to this one no noise control needed.
Just a note: It's NOT romantic love nor religious nor spiritual love that I think sets anyone free -- it's the aspect of love which is accepting self and others as they really are - as full human beings with both virtues and vices - with a rational mind, a slippery core of emotion from the rat brain too.....
It's love that sets you free
by Mad Mar Walker
Stubble-Bearded Papa
What have you got to say?
We never did that much talkin' anyway
Half of what you tell me
I know it is a lie
The other half is guaranteed to make me cry
Refrain:
Love won't grow that easily
It's raging up like the sea
Love it is that pains your heart
And It's love that makes you free
Weather can be sunny
Weather can be mean and bad
Love can be sweet
it can be sour and sad
Try to start a fire in the pouring rain
You can light the body
Buddy, can you light the brain?
Ref.
I've known my share of stubborn old men
One or two I'd like to see again
Faces like sand paper
hearts like stone
Breathing fire they burn you
right to the bone
Ref.
coda: It's love that makes you free
All Rights Reserved
Just a note: It's NOT romantic love nor religious nor spiritual love that I think sets anyone free -- it's the aspect of love which is accepting self and others as they really are - as full human beings with both virtues and vices - with a rational mind, a slippery core of emotion from the rat brain too.....
It's love that sets you free
by Mad Mar Walker
Stubble-Bearded Papa
What have you got to say?
We never did that much talkin' anyway
Half of what you tell me
I know it is a lie
The other half is guaranteed to make me cry
Refrain:
Love won't grow that easily
It's raging up like the sea
Love it is that pains your heart
And It's love that makes you free
Weather can be sunny
Weather can be mean and bad
Love can be sweet
it can be sour and sad
Try to start a fire in the pouring rain
You can light the body
Buddy, can you light the brain?
Ref.
I've known my share of stubborn old men
One or two I'd like to see again
Faces like sand paper
hearts like stone
Breathing fire they burn you
right to the bone
Ref.
coda: It's love that makes you free
All Rights Reserved
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Kerry Boys & Pierce Campbell
Well, let's see -- what have I been up to. Late Sunday afternoon I took a trip to Bethel to check out a well-known group The Kerry Boys with Pierce Campbell at the gazebo:
Very folky. Absolutely perfect production and sound. Smooth, flawless and everything you would expect. Attendees were mostly grey which surprised me, with a smattering of families with kids playing on the grass. The concert was free, and fairly well attended though the attendees spread out in what little shade was available.
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