On Facebook, it's Throwback Thursday.

Sounds kind of fun, huh?  Posting an old picture of yourself to delight your friends and family...

But I'm going to put a different spin on it today.

A bit earlier this evening, I did a bit of Internet Tube surfing, and found some interesting stuff.

The first thing I found was a story about a discovery of Neolithic tools on Crete.  This is pretty astonishing by itself, because nobody even imagined that humans as long ago as 130,000 years ago were doing any kind of seafaring, much less over an open stretch of water!  The dating isn't exactly precise, and is somewhat under heightened scrutiny, but still - Neolithic on Crete?  Pretty cool.  We might have to rethink that land bridge out of Africa thing!

The second story (leading from a link on that page) was about Polynesians canoeing around the Pacific, and finally, making it to South America about a hundred years before Columbus.  Proven by dating chicken bones, of all things!  (Did Columbus beat ANYBODY?  First the Vikings, then the Chinese...)

Sounds like humans have been seafaring for a VERY long time...

Then there was this, and it blew my mind once the time periods involved sank in.

In Israel, archeologists have excavated a cave in which they found the oldest confirmed hearth - indicating the domestication of fire - at any human inhabited site anywhere in the world.  Now, this is pretty heady stuff - they say people - like us - began using this cave as a living abode over 300,000 years ago!  A pretty fair chunk of time prior to past estimates of when we began using fire.

But that's not all.  Microscopic examination of the hearth showed that it had been used almost continuously on a rotational basis for over 200,000 years.  That's a lot of fires!

In fact, allowing generously some 40 years as the length of a generation, that is over 5 THOUSAND generations of humans who used that site on a more or less continuous basis over that period.

That's 200 times the length of the oldest known monarchy in Europe, in Great Britain.  2000 times the age of the US!!!

Now, I'm not going to get all New Agey on you.  But I think that there is growing evidence that humans were smarter a lot sooner than we have thought in the past.  But the human condition has always been chaotic.  We have fought, pushed, plotted and schemed to get for our own families, clans or tribes the best possible hunting, fishing, farming and mining grounds at the least possible cost to ourselves and at the expense of our neighbors since the very beginning.  There's plenty of bad (and good) karma to go around!

But to have found a place - near where people are supposed to have broken out of Africa - in which people lived, hunted, fished, made love, and yes, for goodness' sake, COOKED, using fire, for what has to be an amazing period of time at the same location.

Looking back at human habitations as modern archeology has located old cities, villages, and other sites of human activities from the past, it seems to be rare that we stay in the same places for much longer than a couple of thousand years.  Somehow, in the history of any particular place, someone else comes along, invades, burns the place down, and the survivors are either taken away as slaves, or if they remained free, just moved elsewhere, I guess to get away from bad memories, or to a better defensible location.

But somehow, in this one place, in an area that we think has to have been a virtual highway for human migration out of Africa, humans remained for 200,000 years, year after year, decade after decade, century after century.  Building fires, cooking their food, living the good life, making babies, for five thousand generations.

Simply boggles the mind.  Makes everything modern civilization has done over the last two thousand years look like child's play.

Talk about longevity!  We should wish to last that long!

Holidays!

Next week is Christmas and on Saturday is the Solstice.  No matter which one you celebrate (and many people celebrate both) - it is time for family and feasting and spending time watching football - or is it basketball?  Soccer?  Frosty?  I know! The Abominable Snowman!

Oh, forget it, I'm going to Portland, Oregon next week to snuggle with new grand babies and spend time with the parents I haven't seen in longer than I like to think.  So, folks, I cannot guarantee that I'll have time or the inclination to post anything.

But hey, you might get lucky and see baby pictures!  Or, I might have time after all!  I'll be back after the first of the year.

So, for those who care, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy (Merry?) Kwanzaa,  Happy Solstice, and just for grins cause I know I'm early - Happy Chinese New Year!  I know I'm missing something, so if I missed your favorite holiday this month, Happy Whatever-it-is!

Or Merry, or Great or whatever floats your boat...I hope it is just as great as you want it to be!

I'm gonna snuggle babies, so there!

No, they haven't gone away.

Lately, it sure seems quiet, doesn't it?  Except for nut cases like Ted Cruz and Pat Robertson, you'd think all the right wing nut cases had just gone and disappeared!  It's been downright... well, almost... rational lately.

Don't let it fool you!

They haven't gone away, they're just closeted somewhere, plotting how they're gonna close the government and kill the global economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling - all to prove how government doesn't work!  How better to prove that by causing all those Socialist countries in Europe to fail, too!  Bonus!

Listen carefully and you can still hear them, muttering quietly to themselves, hoping the rest of us won't overhear.  It's downright scary, I tell you, when we have to resort to reading about Maine politicians at the township level being right wing crazy in order to get our fix of right wing nut bags.

I mean, what is a progressive atheist blogger going to do for material?  Talk about guns in schools in Tampa?  Geez!  This is maddening!

It's terrible!  In order to fill space, I've got to talk about stories like an atheist in New Jersey of all places whose request for a vanity license plate "ATHE1ST" was at first rejected, but got accepted after all the publicity made them look bad.

Come on, GOOD news?  Is this any way to sell a blog?  Come on, Boehner!  I need CRAZY!  I need Insanity!  Come back to Washington, guys!  Please?  Drama!  Action!  Talking heads!  We need it all!

I might have to resort to going crazy myself.

Oh, wait...

Damn it, I AM going to be happy!

I'm going to tell you a short story.

I went to Costco today, to return some merchandise which had turned out to be defective.  It turned out to be a short trip, surprisingly.  But at the return counter, a young lady waited on me, and she seemed to be, well, a bit worn.  Not sad, not unhappy, just worn.  It must get to you, waiting on folks bringing in stuff they don't want or turned out to be damaged or something.

When she finished, I looked up after she gave me the returned cash and said simply, "Have a nice day!"  Instantly, her entire demeanor changed - she brightened up and smiled (which made her face even prettier) and kind of stumbled out a quick return "Thank you".  I walked away, not thinking much about it because I do this all the time.

But just a while ago, doing the dishes, I thought about it again, and something occurred to me.

Generally speaking, I am happy with my life.  Don't get me wrong, I don't walk around with a silly grin  on my face all day.  But, and this is important, I want to be happy, and refuse to let the little stuff get me down.

I have every reason to like my life.

I have a family that I love dearly and by and large returns that love.  I have a job that more than just pays the bills.  I live in a country that has allowed me to go from a poor GI Spec/4 with a wife and a daughter to a senior IT tech with the Feds barely two or three years away from what should be a good retirement.  I never miss a meal except by choice and have what to most of the world throughout most of history would consider a king's wardrobe.  Well, by size and numbers, anyway.  My stuff isn't THAT expensive!

So, having said these things, I know that most of the human race isn't as fortunate.  But even so, there is one thing I have in common with others I have met who are among that group - I refuse to let life make me unhappy.

Let me say that again.

I refuse to let life make me unhappy.

I've met folks whose circumstances of life are quite a bit less fortunate than mine, and were as happy as can be - because they, too refused to let things get them down.  I met a man on the Metro a while back, and that was his point to me.  He was fully aware that his life was frankly, the pits.  No home, no job.

But the man had a smile on his face and a good word for everybody he met.

I want to be like him.  I want to walk away from as many encounters with others as I can where they walk away with a smile on their faces.  Not because they like me, but because I can remind them what it is to be happy.

In retrospect, that young lady at Costco made my day.  She smiled at me, not just because I said something nice, but because I reminded her that not everybody is unhappy and has their hands out for money.

I want to do that every day.


I know that I post a lot about politics and religion, and much of it is about what I consider bad aspects of them.  Posts about things people say and do that I think are bad for our society and do not bode well for the future.  So much of it isn't exactly positive and upbeat.

So, I will try, at least once a week, to post something upbeat.  Something positive.  Life isn't all roses, but neither is it full of thorns, either!

I hope you had a nice day.

Work doesn't have to be work.

Cyberdaughter from Tampa posted an interesting article on Facebook, entitled, "10 Little Habits that Steal Your Happiness".

It is a nifty little article, which doesn't go into a lot of boring details, but keeps it sweet and simple.  I'd tell you that everything talked about there is good to know.

I'd say a bit more about Number 3, "Working for nothing more than a paycheck".  In over 40 years of working at several different jobs at several different employers, some private, some government, just about the worst thing I've seen people do is to stick with a job they hate.  I had one for a while, and I got away as quickly as I could find a way.  My current job is one that I love to do and frankly, were I retired, I could do it for free!  (Just don't tell my boss!)

Forget the article's advice about, "When you design a lifestyle in which your work is something you suffer through daily strictly to pay your bills, you end up spending your entire life wishing you had someone else’s."  That's wishy washy.  Weak sauce, limp dishwater.

Instead, look at it this way, the fastest way to ruin your entire life, every relationship you've got and poison your professional reputation forever is to take a job, find out you hate it, and stay.  I've seen people who have stayed in such jobs for a decade or more, and they often see their marriages ruined, families alienated, friends run off, and to make things worse, their job performance is often so bad and their professional relationships so tainted that they couldn't move to another employer if their lives depended on it.  They remain only because they keep their performance just good enough to not get fired.  They end up hating their jobs, their boss, their coworkers, the people they ride the bus with and often the folks they see in the same restaurant every day at lunch!

To talk with such folks is poison to the rest of us.  They are cynical, unpleasant, and often have little good to say about anyone, and you end up walking away wondering what they will say about you to the next unfortunate soul who stops by and gets caught by that same rant.

My advice to you is that if you find out that you've taken a job you hate, GET OUT IMMEDIATELY.  Don't wait until your budget is so dependent on the salary that you can't afford to move.  That is suicide, and will doom you to a life of despair and unhappiness.  Go back to the last few companies that  you applied to and try again.  If you have to spend a few weeks out of a job, unless you are about to get thrown out of your living space, go ahead and quit.

Believe me, finding a job you either like a lot or just simply love is worth real, cold hard cash.  You will be happier, healthier and your professional reputation will reflect the improvement in your circumstances.  Your family will appreciate it, your marriage will not suffer (unless you turn out to be a workaholic, but that's a whole 'nuther conversation) and your health will be better and stay that way far longer.  You'll probably live longer, too, since stress is a proven killer.

But again, a word of warning, do pay attention to the folks who say not to allow your job to define who you are.  Even if you love it, IT IS JUST A JOB.  It is a means to an end, to get the money that allows you to live decently, provide for a family and have at least a reasonably pleasant lifestyle.  Letting it define you is a recipe for disaster, mentally, if your company has to downsize and you end up getting laid off.  Don't let your job get intwined with your ego!

But, if you happen to find one you love, that's a bonus worth holding on to, and something to work hard to find.  Believe me, you won't regret the extra time and trouble you had to go to in order to find it.

Hooray for Ireland!

There is a Constitutional Convention in Ireland this year, and they are considering the removal of a clause from the Irish Constitution allowing blasphemy laws.

Dated July 13, 2013, the advocacy group Atheist Ireland has submitted their reasons for removing Irish blasphemy laws from the Atheist constitution.

This is good news, for more reasons than just helping to make Ireland a more tolerant and friendly society.  You see, one of the things that make blasphemy laws in Western countries a bad thing isn't just the Bad Things that can happen because of those laws, it is also because Islamic countries are using the existence of such laws as political fodder to push for International laws against blasphemy.

Religion is always trying its best to use the power of government to protect itself.  This is an international extension of that effort, because it is obvious that even globally, Atheists are the fastest growing demographic in the world, even outstripping the growth of Islam.

Just as obviously, this worries the Imams who have the most to lose in that race.  This is why this news is the best news on the legal front I think we'll hear this year!  Certainly on the international scene.

I commend our Irish brothers and sisters for their wisdom in pushing this agenda.  Our best wishes for a successful conclusion to the effort.

One more thing the US is behind on.

I have been a science fiction fan since I was twelve and I picked up a copy of Robert Heinlein's book, "Have Space Suit, Will Travel".  These days, I waffle between sci-fi and fantasy, but sci-fi was my first love.

A recurring theme in sci-fi is the issue of non-human intelligence.  Robert Heinlein had at least one book, which I can't remember the name of, that dealt with this issue head on, using the literary tool of a trial to show how the legal system might handle the idea of a chimpanzee having enhanced intelligence equal to a human.

Enter the humble dolphin.  People have been fascinated with these beautiful creatures for centuries, and we interact with them constantly along America's coastlines.  Stories abound where they have saved lives, made friends and interact with humans in very intelligent yet somewhat alien way.

It is that alienness that keeps them from being recognized as fully sentient.  Science has shown a very high level of intelligence in them, and some even say they are one of only a couple of species other than humans who recognize themselves in a mirror - a critical test of intelligence.

Yet, we still hesitate to declare them fully sentient - is it because of the profits gained by the big aquariums which draw huge crowds and millions of dollars in profits by using captive dolphins to attract the crowds?  They ARE popular!

Well, chalk up one more way the US is behind the international community in a rather new field:  sentient rights.

Yes, you heard it right, sentient rights.  NOT human rights, but sentient rights!  Defined as the rights of sentient beings of whatever species based on their individual rights as sentient, thinking and aware beings.

We humans have an atrocious record of violating the individual rights of other species, based on our perceived place at the top of the food chain.  Actually, it is based on, in the West for sure, our religious beliefs that we were given, by god, dominion over the other animals.  Dominion is an interesting word, and given the modern umbrella group that called itself Dominionists, it has traditionally meant, in English, that one who has dominion, has control over and can rule over, those over whom he has been given dominion.  It confers god-given rights, powers of life and death, in particular.

It seems that India has passed a law banning "any person / persons, organizations, government agencies, private or public enterprises that involves import, capture of cetacean species to establish for commercial entertainment, private or public exhibition and interaction purposes whatsoever.”

Costa Rica, Hungary, and Chile are the other three countries that also ban that captivity, and it is interesting to note that while only one of those is in Europe, all of them but India are or used to be heavily Catholic countries.  India, of course, isn't, and has a heavily buddhist influence, which at least makes some sense.

So much for Dominionism, at least over animals.  Now all we have to do is prevent them from establishing their "dominion" over Americans.

But, hooray for India, and a BIG high five!

Let this be a tipping point - Please?

The news this week that three young women had been held basically as sex slaves for over a decade in Cleveland this week burst on the national scene like a water balloon.  As if a cold eruption of icy water, it shocked the nation's attention while the very colorful character of the next door neighbor turned hero told his chilling story.  The entire nation was happy for the three and their families as they begin a long and torturous journey for them all in coming to terms with this very devastating epic of horror, sex, and violence.

Right in the middle of the tale, and a particularly nasty part of it, we find that a nationally known psychic, Sylvia Browne, had told the mother of Amanda Berry on "The Montel Williams Show" that her daughter was dead.  Barely a year after her daughter's disappearance, too.  One year later, Louwanna Miller was dead of a broken heart - literally.

As one might imagine, the psychic has said nothing - no apology, no sorrowful admission of failure, nothing.  The entire country seems to be outraged - and for good reason.  Psychics have existed for centuries, and probably longer than that, doing what they do best - take the money of the gullible and the credulous for what is essentially made up pablum.

I mean, come on, people, Google says there are about 1,890,000 results (0.54 seconds) for the search "how to be a psychic medium".  Notice it took less than a second to return that number, too!

This is called supernaturalism.  The supernatural is basically defined as anything our 5 senses cannot detect, and the last two hundred years of frantic attempts by the scientifically challenged to find something - anything - that can be even vaguely construed as scientific evidence for the existence of things in that "realm" have turned up nothing but junk science.

It took even less time to find about 593,000 results (0.38 seconds) for the search "how to expose a psychic medium".

It is fake, folks.  There is nothing to it, so called psychics are criminal confidence "persons", to be gender neutral.  They gain your confidence, take your money and then feed you like a mushroom, in the dark so you can't see the shit they're feeding you!

This so called psychic has denied a young woman her mother at a time in her life when she needs one the  most.  She denied that mother the hope that her daughter might one day be found alive - which she was.

Can this please be a tipping point?  When American begins to end this stupid love affair we seem to have with supernatural bullshit?  Is it possible that this event where the utter bankruptcy of the psychic industry is revealed for what it is can begin to lead us back into a better frame of mind where we can see bullshit for what it is?

I'd like to think so, but the election of that politician who-shall-not-be-named to the Congress on Tuesday in spite of his lies, embezzlement of State funds for personal travel and how he has treated his wife doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies, folks.

We CAN do better.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a rant.

There's been a lot going on recently, and I've not been able to pay as much attention to this page as I'd like.  My apologies to my regular crowd!

First, the weather is moving towards spring - finally - and there's some stuff that just has to happen in the yard in spring.  Longer days, more daylight, less time on the machine the Cyberwife calls my mistress.   Sigh.

Second, two of the cyberdaughters are pregnant, one with her sixth and the other (the oldest) with TWINS!  This'll make nine grandkids by December.  (My family breeds like rabbits - just let us put down roots, and we'll literally own the whole town in a generation, either outright or just by marrying into it!)

Next, one of my old friends on Facebook, Linda G., is dying of cancer.  Lung, liver and pancreatic.  She is not expected to last very long and has been moved to hospice.  Needless to say, her family is devastated, and the folks on FB who all belong to the group she started are all still pretty much in shock.

I got to meet Linda last year when I drove down to Florida to see Cyberdaughter the Youngest as I passed through Brunswick, Georgia, where Linda and a lot of the FB folks live.  It was a rare opportunity to do a face to face with an Internet friend, and it was good to meet her and share a dining experience, however briefly.

I finally have to face the fact that I am now old enough to begin to experience the death of people I know personally.  That is an idea I will need to adjust to.  It is a new one, and I am not certain how well I will be able to handle it.  Stay tuned on that one.

Last, I am working on a book.  Science-fantasy, and I will not (at this time) reveal the plot.  When I am comfy with it, I will perhaps release the prologue to see how it goes over.  So that will take up more time too.

************

Now, I promised you a rant, and I will not disappoint!  It will be a bit nuanced, though, because it impacts upon a couple of subjects I've touched on before.

First, Rachael Maddow had a very good segment the other day about how the right wing press - the mainstream bunch - has finally gone off on how Islam is totally at fault for the Boston bombing and how it is truly our enemy and how we should now go to war against the whole religion.

I have avoided, except in the most egregious cases, covering the right wing crazy stuff, because it has become so damn normal. Every time I turn around, some right wing nutbag politician has gone off the deep end and said something so totally stupid, if this were forty years ago, they'd have locked him behind a padded door.  But it isn't, it is now, and it is so damn normal, it is almost expected.

But this goes beyond crazy.

Islam is followed, nominally, by something over two billion people.  Now, one can argue as to the sincerity of many of them, given the totalitarian nature of a religion that kills people who say they don't believe the bullshit any longer, but there is no doubt that it certainly controls that many.  Meaning that it can command the public loyalty of those billions and can call upon many of them as combat soldiers if needed.  I truly question the wisdom of going to war with a religion that can command such numbers when our single country comprises less than 400 million.  True, we may have the biggest and most advanced military in the world, but as a past military man (I cannot remember the name of) once said, "Quantity has a quality all it's own!"

A population of two billion can command a lot more combat soldiers than we can.  A lot more.

Besides, the idea that every muslim bears responsibility for the crimes of a small fanatical minority is problematic.

I know that I have expounded on the theory that moderate or even liberal christians (and muslims), by continuing to believe in the sacredness of their holy scriptures, bear some responsibility for the fanaticism of the fundamentalists.  There is some measure of truth to that.  By cherry picking the holy books and ignoring the bad parts, you do allow the bad guys to cherry pick their own verses to provide religious cover for their criminal behavior.  Picking the bad ones you have ignored, thus creating a version of your religion that is probably diametrically opposed to what you, as a liberal, believe.

Funny how the same book can support two completely opposed religious ideals, huh?

On the basis of argument in the public sphere, I can argue this quite sincerely, yet believe at the same time that to blame the liberal or even the moderates to the point of war is nonsensical.

There is a definite difference between arguing theology and dropping bombs.  Public debate and argument is something that can persuade people to one's point of view - and a lot of people are moving away from religion, and not just in the US.  There is a growing number of very courageous people, both men and women in the muslim world, who are beginning to take a stand.

Islam is a bit younger than christianity, by about six hundred years.  Funny how that coincides with the period of time after its creation when christianity began its internal struggle we now call The Enlightenment - that period when people began to see through the sciences and a growing sophisticated society that the old simple values of their religion just didn't work any longer.

Islam is now in the midst of their own struggle with the principles of Enlightenment.  Our news media don't cover it much for some stupid reason, but there ARE muslims out there of a moderate or even liberal persuasion who are vehemently opposed to the fundamentalism of the fanatics and argue strenuously against their actions, condemning them at every turn.  There ARE muslims in this country who are committed to the  American ideals of freedom, justice and the separation of church and state, and are willing to serve in our military to fight and die for those ideals.

The willingness of the right wing media to ignore these people and paint them with a broad fanatical brush is stupid, ignorant and ultimately self defeating.

There are plenty of reasons why I fight religious ideas.  The existence of fanatic fundamentalists willing to kill innocent people (even of their own faith) is one of the best reasons I can think of.  But the Islamic faith isn't the only one that breeds these nuts, Christianity has its share, the Jewish faith does and so do the supposedly peaceful Hindu.

The crimes of a few are NOT reason to declare war on over two billion people in dozens of countries.

We do NOT have the resources to win, folks. Think about that, if for no other reason.

Feds make better workers, yes, we do!

Today there was an interesting article in the Washington Post about Federal workers and the sequestration, if it occurs.

A lot of folks, understandably, are worried about their jobs and possible furloughs. One guy went so far as to inform his handyman that a planned build-in of shelving in his livingroom would need to be put off or canceled if the sequestration occurred.

Now, I don't know exactly how to think about it myself, but we've been told by management in my agency that we shouldn't worry about furloughs. FDA is, we are told, is committed to dealing with that loss of funds in other ways, such as cutting back on contracting. Personally, I find that not just comforting, but as a kind of payback, as the widespread contracting out of government functions in the Bush years put a lot of government people either in real fear of their jobs or really did move some folks out into private industry. This gives us an a opportunity to stick it to the Republicans and their private contractor buddies while smiling and obeying the latest Republican madness.

Great job, guys, thanks!

On the other hand, I really, really hate what the Republicans have done to the reputation of Federal workers. Back in my mother's day, when she worked for the Commerce Department and then Social Security then the FAA, being a Fed was a good thing to be.

Of course, the pay was nothing to write home about, but the leave and other benefits were really good, and one couldn't beat the retirement plan. Job security was also a huge draw, and especially if one was a veteran, it was almost impossible to get fired.

Of course the down side to that last was that a few bad apples set an example that the Republicans used to smack us down and make up a stupid myth about lazy Feds who never work, get overpaid and can't get fired, no matter how bad our work.

Look, folks, I've got news for you, even back then, you COULD get fired, if you did something that violated several hard and fast rules, and even if your problem was just bad work, they could simply make your life hell until you just decided it wasn't worth it. Few people have the intestinal fortitude to put up with what a Federal Manager can do to make an employee's life hell.

Which is why the vast majority of Feds don't screw around. Of course, the main reason why is what I know to be dedication. Nobody goes into Federal service to get rich. Hey, if you can work your way up into a senior level position, yes, the pay is nice, but not everybody can do that, and for many it takes literally years to do. It isn't known as a senior level for nothing! But most of us are simply dedicated to doing a good job, because that's why we are here. Many of us chose the agency we work for because we believe strongly in the mission of the agency. I've known and now have coworkers who regularly work an extra 4 - 5 hours a day at times, and a lot of folks take their laptops home and work at email at home so their hours in the office are more productive.

A lot of positions in some agencies mean long days and sometimes weeks away from home on the road, working. Inspectors in the FDA, as junior level workers, spend up to three weeks out of every month on the road. Senior level inspectors mostly do just one. Seniority is nice! I am sure that other agencies have similar arrangements for some jobs.

Some Feds do work that puts them in the line of fire of people who don't much like this country. They put their lives on the line most every day. Some Feds make sure your drugs are safe and effective, others keep your meat safe to eat. A lot of Feds patrol the borders of this country and get shot at regularly. Others spend long boring hours in cubicles doing the inevitable paperwork that keeps a large organization going.

I'll be honest, I've known, in the almost 40 years I've worked for the Federal Government, maybe one or two people that would fit the stereotype the Republicans complain about. The rest, almost completely fit the opposite profile, honest, hard working, dedicated and very very good at what they do. I also know that at least one of the bad workers got fired, shortly after she got hired. That was back in the early 80's, after Carter's reforms.

So, please, don't be down on Feds. We are just like you, honest, hard working, and trying to make ends meet. We've got families, kids and college bills along with the same kinds of daily and monthly expenses you do.

Remember Greece? Remember what austerity did to Greece?

You really, really don't want to see that here.

Slow News Day!

Hey, it happens.  Some days, there just isn't anything exciting.

I mean, all the Senate did was to cut off debate on the Hagel nomination.  Yawn.....

Or, maybe... the Pope resigns Thursday!  (He'll be called Pope Emeritus, can still wear white, although plain so as to not show up the new guy, and he'll have to give up his red shoes...)   <rubs eyes>

The Coast Guard is now upset after having spent hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars looking for a shipwrecked family off the coast of California that turned out to be a hoax...ho, hum...

The middle of the country is buried under a foot and a half of snow...

The CEO of Yahoo! has told her employees that they can't work from home at all any more...

Apple is on the way to settling another lawsuit...

Apple's shares are back up after rumors of a stock split...

The Game of Thrones season 3 trailer is out...

Chris Christy is the eighth State governor to agree to expand Medicare and sign onto the Health Care expansion under "Obamacare"...

We had biscuits and chili for supper tonight!

I know, I always save the best for last!

Some things are great relief, others are just irritating.

Good news out of Alabama today!  That young autistic boy held hostage by the crazy guy has been rescued, and is, physically, at least, ok.  I won't take any bets on his mental well being after five days of captivity with a crazy old man, but at least the FBI got him out alive.  His mother has to be ecstatic!

However.

During the newscast by MSNBC today, the reporter, to pass some air time before the press conference, interviewed a local pastor.   Meh, I guess it was for local "color", or just to pass the time, but talking about passing, the pastor said something that irritates me every time I hear it.

In referring to the suspect the FBI killed, he noted that the man had "passed on".  Aaaarrrrgggggggggg!

No!  He didn't GO anywhere.  He died.  He was shot and killed.  He didn't pass go, he didn't collect $200.  They blew his frikking brains out, the few he possessed, anyway.  It was not a natural death, unless you count the usual manner of redneck death after calling out, "Hey ya'll, watch this!"

In Texas, where I grew up, they used to say (and probably still do) people "pass away".  We have a lot of other euphemisms for the act of dying besides those, too.

croaked
kicked the bucket
pushing up daisies
dirt nap
Shuffled off the mortal coil

And about fifty others.

Americans have this unhealthy phobia about death and dying.  For a christian country which supposedly believes they'll meet their maker and all their dead relatives after they die, we sure seem to hate talking about it!  I've got news for you.  I know plenty of people for whom that particular eternity would better resemble hell than heaven, as their relatives are not the folks they'd rather pass the afterlife with at all.

We'd be better off just telling it how it is.  People die.   They are killed, or they die of natural causes.  The sooner we face that natural truth, the better.

Then maybe we'll start understanding how terrible it is that so many of the things we have or do in our modern society kill so many people, and how simply disgusting it is that we pass it off with euphemisms and try hard to forget it.

Money Laundering concerns about the Vatican Bank.

The Vatican bank has failed to meet a January 1st deadline to make its bank meet EU standards for anti-money laundering measures, causing the Italian Central bank to order ATM machines shuttered until further notice.

The failure to complete that work meant the Italian central bank ordered Deutsche Bank Italia, which handles all bank card payments on Vatican territory, to deactivate its terminals on 1 January.
The five million tourists who visited the Vatican museum last year spent more than 90m euros (£73m; $120m) on tickets and souvenirs.
Cash only will be accepted until a solution is reached. The same rules have also been enforced at the Vatican's pharmacy, its post office and the few shops that operate in the tiny territory.
Collections or donations at Mass will continue to have to be made in cash.

Vatican officials expect the measures to be completed "soon".

It's almost over!

Well, doggone it, there goes another perfectly good year, down the drain.  When we could have used it to fix the economy, end world hunger, cure cancer and AIDS, advance the cause of women and children, begin the process of ending illiteracy around the world and landing on Mars, we wasted it on a stupid Presidential election.

Damn those Republicans, anyway!

As a sort of consolation prize, I’ve compiled a list of some of the most interesting, or influential, or courageous, people who died this last year.  These people were actors, politicians, entertainers, a king or two, and a smattering of pioneers in science, art or most interestingly, civil rights.  Some of these people braved certain death at the hands of political opponents to champion their causes and thus helped oppose dictators and evil in various places worldwide.  Some were successful, others not so much.  Some of these folks worked in the shadows of the better known or in a faceless bureaucracy, but they still made our lives a little bit better for having done what they did.  Some were simply interesting people.

My favorites (so to speak), and the ones I was most sorry to see go were Neal Armstrong and Sally Ride.  Pioneers, indeed.

So, scroll down and read.  Just in the short description of who they were and what they did, you will learn a thing or two.

So, without further ado, here’s the list:

Andy Griffith, 86. He made homespun Southern wisdom his trademark as a wise sheriff in "The Andy Griffith Show" and a rumpled defense lawyer in "Matlock." July 3.
Ernest Borgnine, 95. Beefy screen star known for blustery, often villainous roles, but who won the best-actor Oscar for playing against type as a lovesick butcher in "Marty" in 1955. July 8.
Eugenio de Araujo Sales, 91. Rio de Janeiro's former archbishop who provided shelter to thousands opposed to the military regimes that once ruled Brazil, Argentina and Chile. July 9.
Stephen R. Covey, 79. Author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and three other books that have all sold more than a million copies. July 16. Complications from a bicycle accident.
Jon Lord, 71. British rocker and keyboardist whose driving tones helped turn Deep Purple and Whitesnake into two of the most popular hard rock acts in a generation. July 16.
Kitty Wells, 92. Singer whose hits such as "Making Believe" and "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" made her the first female superstar of country music. July 16.
William Raspberry, 76. He became the second black columnist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his widely read syndicated commentaries in The Washington Post. July 17.
Forrest McCartney, 81. Retired Air Force lieutenant general and former director of Kennedy Space Center who was crucial in getting NASA's shuttles flying again after the Challenger tragedy. July 17.
Sally Ride, 61. She blazed trails into orbit as the first American woman in space. July 23. Pancreatic cancer.
Sherman Hemsley, 74. Actor who made the irascible, bigoted George Jefferson of "The Jeffersons" one of TV's most memorable characters and a symbol for urban upward mobility. July 24.
John Keegan, 78. British academic whose studies of men at war are counted among the classic works of military history. Aug. 2.
Ignacy Skowron, 97. Last known Polish survivor of the opening battle of World War II. Aug. 5.
Bernard Lovell, 98. Pioneering British physicist and astronomer who developed one of the world's largest radio telescopes exploring particles in the universe. Aug. 6.
George Hickman, 88. One of the original Tuskegee airmen and a longtime usher at University of Washington and Seattle Seahawks games. Aug. 19.
Phyllis Diller, 95. Housewife-turned-humorist who aimed some of her sharpest barbs at herself, punctuating her jokes with her trademark cackle. Aug. 20.
Jerry Nelson, 78. Puppeteer behind a delightful menagerie of characters including Count von Count on "Sesame Street" and Gobo Fraggle on "Fraggle Rock." Aug. 23.
Neil Armstrong, 82. He became a global hero when as a steely-nerved astronaut he made "one giant leap for mankind" with a small step onto the moon. Aug. 25.
Juan Valdez, 74. Land grant activist who fired the first shot during a 1967 New Mexico courthouse raid that grabbed international attention and helped spark the Chicano Movement. Aug. 25.
Michael Clarke Duncan, 54. Hulking character actor whose dozens of films included an Oscar-nominated performance as a death row inmate in "The Green Mile" and such other box office hits as "Armageddon," ''Planet of the Apes" and "Kung Fu Panda." Sept. 3. Heart attack.
Joe South, 72. Singer-songwriter who performed 1960s and '70s hits such as "Games People Play" and "Walk A Mile In My Shoes" and penned songs including "Down in the Boondocks" for other artists. Sept. 5.
Verghese Kurien, 90. Engineer known as "India's milkman" who helped revolutionize the country's dairy industry despite his own dislike for milk. Sept. 9.
Chris Stevens, 52. U.S. ambassador to Libya and a career diplomat. Sept. 11. Killed during an attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya.
Peter Lougheed, 84. As Alberta's premier, he turned the province into an oil-powered modern giant and an equal player in Canada's confederation. Sept. 13.
Andy Williams, 84. Silky-voiced, clean-cut crooner whose hit recording "Moon River" and years of popular Christmas TV shows brought him fans the world over. Sept. 25.
Barry Commoner, 95. Scientist and activist who raised early concerns about the effects of radioactive fallout and was one of the pioneers of the environmental movement. Sept. 30.
Norodom Sihanouk, 89. The revered former king who was a towering figure in Cambodian politics through a half-century of war, genocide and upheaval. Oct. 15.
E. Donnall Thomas, 92. Physician who pioneered bone marrow transplants and won the 1990 Nobel Prize in medicine. Oct. 20.
George McGovern, 90. Former U.S. senator and a Democrat who lost to President Richard Nixon in 1972 in a landslide. Oct. 21.
Antoni Dobrowolski, 108. Oldest known survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, he was a teacher who taught defiance of his native Poland's Nazi occupiers. Oct. 21.
Russell Means, 72. Former American Indian Movement activist who helped lead the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee and also appeared in Hollywood films. Oct. 22.
Milt Campbell, 78. First African-American to win the Olympic decathlon in 1956, he went on to play professional football and become a motivational speaker. Nov. 2.
Ewarda O'Bara, 59. Miami woman who spent 42 years in a coma. Nov. 21.
Larry Hagman, 81. Actor whose predatory oil baron J.R. Ewing on television's nighttime soap opera "Dallas" became a symbol for 1980s greed. Nov. 23.
Joseph E. Murray, 93. Doctor who performed the world's first successful kidney transplant and won a Nobel Prize. Nov. 26.
Oscar Niemeyer, 104. Architect who recreated Brazil's sensuous curves in concrete and built the capital of Brasilia as a symbol of the nation's future. Dec. 5.
Norman Joseph Woodland, 91. He was the co-inventor of the bar code that labels nearly every product in stores and has boosted productivity in nearly every sector of commerce worldwide. Dec. 9.
Galina Vishnevskaya, 86. A world-renowned Russian opera diva who with her husband defied the Soviet regime to give shelter to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and suffered exile from her homeland. Dec. 11.
Maurice Herzog, 93. He became the first person to scale an 8,000-meter peak but lost all his fingers and toes to frostbite on the way down. Dec. 14.
Richard Adams, 65. Same-sex marriage campaigner who helped begin the push for gay unions four decades before the issue reached the center of the national consciousness. Dec. 17.
Charles Durning, 89. Twice nominated for an Oscar, he was dubbed the king of character actors. Dec. 24.
Jack Klugman, 90. Actor who made an art of gruffness in 1970s and 80s TV in "The Odd Couple" and "Quincy, M.E." Dec. 24.
H. Norman Schwarzkopf, 78. General who commanded the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991. Dec. 27.

These people often influenced the lives of countless human beings, now and in the foreseeable future.  To those and all the brave notables here, I bid farewell and give them a hearty “Thanks”!   It is so little compared to what they gave us.

Greetings for the Season!

To one and to all, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Merry Happy Solstice, Merry Human Lights, Happy Kwanza, Happy Hanukah, and whichever seasonal holiday floats your boat!

In the meantime, it's snowing in Rockville!  Weather Service says we may have 1-2 inches by 8 pm tonight...

Ok, so you've gotta look real close to see the flakes, but hey, it is snow!  Better than we've had in years.

Your Inner Strength - of Divine Origin or Completely and Magnificently Human?

Today, I read a very interesting post at FreeThought Blogs, entitled, “Jesus, the First Responder? I Don’t Think So!”, which made the point that:

Throughout history, it is not imaginary beings who respond to human suffering, rather it is and it always has been the actual presence of freedom fighters, real, live human beings, who have taught us what means to be human and thus humane.  Jesus, or any other spiritual deity does not deserve this credit!  The credit goes to those of us who are willing and able to struggle for justice and human dignity in the face of cold-blooded killers.  It is we, not Jesus, who are the first responders!

While I agree completely with this sentiment, that isn’t exactly the point of my post today.  I want to take that a bit further and approach it from another direction.

One of the hardest things for many christians (and thus, I’d guess, the adherents to other religions as well) to give up is the comfort and security of knowing that there is this all powerful, loving god who, basically, has your back.  Someone you can turn to for strength and comfort when things get a bit rough.  After all, one of the most reliable predictions you can make about the people of this country is that when disaster strikes, especially something like the Newtown massacre, the churches fill up fast.

One of the biggest beefs I have with modern American idioms is the one where someone says, “Thank God!” whenever they hear that a family member or someone famous recovers from an illness or has a successful surgery - or is rescued from a burning building or sinking boat.

I want to shake them and say, “No!  It wasn’t god, it was that great doctor and his surgical team that did it!” or tell them that they should be thanking the Firemen/women or the Coastguard for rescuing their friends or family.

Which is the point of the old joke.  You know, the one where the guy trapped in his house during a flood and refuses rescue from an SUV, a boat and a helicopter, telling the rescuers that “god will save me”, but drowns anyway.  Upon confronting god in heaven, he is told that of course, god provided - an SUV, a boat and a helicopter!

God doesn’t do rescues.  He doesn’t do surgery.  He doesn’t magically put the answers to that tough test in your head after you failed to study last night.  If those answers are there, it is because YOU studied and remembered them!

People do these things.  Doctors go to school for almost a decade, including working extremely tough schedules in residencies and incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of loans to learn how to perform surgery on that cancer that got removed from Aunt Sally’s throat.  God didn’t do that, the doctor did, supported by an entire team of highly trained, professional and very dedicated specialists without whom no doctor could succeed.  Firefighters go through a tough training school which takes a very special very tough person to succeed in.  Not everybody has the guts to enter a burning house to rescue a dog or a child or an old person unable to exit themselves.  But they do it every day - let’s start giving them the credit, instead of this invisible guy that, if he’s even there, stays pretty invisible.

How do these remarkable people do what they do?  Is it the hand of god which guides their footsteps or their hands?  No.  It is hours and hours of training, practice and experience which allow these remarkable people to save your life.  It is an internal fortitude and strength that keeps them going and helps them to do things the rest of us marvel over.

Is that strength rare?  In some cases, perhaps.  But in most of us, that strength is always there, and we can tap it at will if we but try.

You can do it too.  Have you ever prayed before an especially tough experience, like a board examination or a test or perhaps before running a marathon for the strength to make it across the finish line? To get through without cracking up under pressure?

Somehow, you made it, didn’t you?  And at the end, you said, “Thank god!”, right?

Did it never occur to you that the strength you tapped that time was always there, you just needed a way to tap into it?  That prayer did it.  God didn’t give it to you, you looked way down deep inside of yourself and tapped an inner wellspring of strength and came through in the end, because somehow, you knew you could.  The prayer was just a way of expressing yourself and your determination.

One of the most terrible and demeaning ways that christianity harms people is its dogmatic teaching that human beings are all sinners.  That we are weak, susceptible to temptation, with no will power to resist wrongdoing.  That we need the strength that god or Jesus can give us, if only we ask.  I am always with you, the bible says he tells us.

It is a classic method of, believe it or not, the abuser making their victim dependent on him/her.  One of the telltale signs of an abusive relationship is that the abuser tells his victim, constantly, how weak they are.  How they are stupid, weak and helpless.   He/she then constantly berates their attempts to prove themselves, putting them down, rejecting their overtures unless the victim accepts their abuse and characterization of them.

Sound familiar?  “None shall reach the kingdom of heaven except through me”  “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”.

If you experience this training through out childhood, its no wonder you turn to someone else for strength!

The toughest thing about becoming an atheist is realizing that, in reality, there’s nobody home when you send out that prayer.  That there’s nobody “with you” when you are asking for strength.  (Except, of course, friends and family)

But, slowly, you also realize that, on the other hand, in spite of there being nobody there, somehow, you got through anyway.  You passed that test, you were accepted by the board, you made the finish line.  You begin to see that the strength to persevere, to keep going, to win, was there all along.  Inside you.  Just waiting to be tapped, to be used and recognized.

Just like those brave firefighters, cops and Coastguardsmen/women, you too, have the strength which you can tap and call upon in times of need.  That intestinal fortitude, the guts, it’s there, it’s all yours!

Everybody has it, but not everybody knows how to tap into it and call upon it at need.  That takes effort.  That takes the confident knowledge that the strength is there and requires the ability to reach down and call upon it.  That strength is there and is demonstrated every day.

Remember that young teacher who concealed her class in closets and cabinets, then sat down to wait for the shooter?  The courage that young woman displayed was equal to, even superior to, that displayed by even the bravest Medal of Honor winner.  Usually, they are armed, she was not.  But sit she did, to ensure that she could fool the shooter into thinking her class was somewhere else and she was alone.  Knowing that she would most likely be shot herself.

That took tremendous courage!  The strength she showed was remarkable.  But utterly, entirely human.  Magnificently human!  God didn't stop the shooter from killing her children, she did.  She reached deep down inside and drew out the strength she needed to sit there and wait for certain death.  She had a purpose, and she knew how to succeed at that purpose.

People do that every day.  Unremarkable people, perfectly normal people save friends and neighbors from burning buildings, auto accidents, sinking ships, and just about any other dangerous situation you might imagine.  Every day, perfectly average people pass tests, sit through board examinations, endure imaginable hardships - and do it purely on their own, without the slightest help from invisible beings.  They do it by tapping on that internal strength, and often through knowing that they are supported by family, or friends or a professional network of associates and coworkers.

It’s called being human.  Magnificently human!

Musings...

Sometimes I get to thinking.   Yes, that's dangerous, and my bank account finds the nearest offsite ATM to hide behind.  But not tonight.

Tonight, I am remembering a site or a post somewhere I saw recently that talked about the Universe and how it was, we now think, started from basically nothing.

That alone is an astonishing thought - that this whole big universe, stem to stern, 13 something billion light years across, untold numbers of billions of tons of matter, suns, nebulae, gasses, and planets began from a single speck of...nothing.  In a flash, all of a sudden there it was, expanding at nearly the speed of light and over the next thirteen something billion years, it developed all of those things we read about and see up in the sky at night.  Stars, untold numbers of them spinning around in galaxies of equally untold numbers, being born, aging and dying in often spectacular explosions, the light reaching out over the cosmos, feebly lighting up our night for a few brief weeks before they fade into the star's equivalent of senility and old age or collapse into a black hole.

How the elements of life come together after millions of years drifting through the void after being flung out into the darkness in the smashing explosion of the death of a star, only to develop into...us.

I am amazed by the manner in which these heavier elements - carbon, iron and so forth, dead matter from the interiors of stars, developed over millions of years into the stuff of life.  Life which has drifted, swum, crawled, wiggled and dragged itself out of the sea and through millions of years of evolutionary pressure through the process of natural selection, became human.

Became, among other things, me.

Ok, no, that's not me, but dang, it's pretty isn't it?  Kind of scary too.

Astronomy is beautiful, isn't it?  The beauty of how it all came together, not randomly, but in a very odd way, almost casually, but with increasing deliberateness.  The development of the earth's ecology, eventually, just seemed to demand that some creature would develop intelligence to deal with the pressures that its surroundings placed on its ability to survive.

In fact, it would seem that there are really more than one species that have developed intelligence - dolphins, elephants, any number of predators seem to have some measure of it as well, and finally, the hominids.  Don't discount dogs and cats, who have responded to thousands of years of domestication by matching fairly well with human behavior patterns.

I am constantly struck by the beauty of this earth and the many and varied life forms who inhabit it.  How life has expanded its habitats to include even the most hostile places on earth, whether that is the extremes of the Arctic or the blasting heat of underwater volcanic vents.

Many say that life just seems so perfect as it is, and call it a miracle, giving credit for that miracle to a god who supposedly did it all in just short of a week.

I say that science has given us the much better, much more fascinating truth - the truth of the long, amazing evolution of matter from the heat and chaos of the beginning to the elysian fields of the green, green hills of earth.

Halloween!

Ah, the joys of Halloween!  Little kids dressed up as witches, superheroes, dinosaurs, ninjas (saw one really COOL ninja tonight) knights and movie characters!

Handing out candy like there's no tomorrow!

The customers tonight were more numerous than last year.  The costumes seemed to be more on the store-bought side, but one little boy came as Dracula - and the face paint was fantastic!  Even as a little kid, he was almost scary...

Favorite pic on Facebook:

Second favorite:

Fortunately, no Romneys tonight, that would have just been too much.

Hurricanes and politics.

It was a dark and stormy night, while the moon glowed bright and orange above the clouds, illuminating the storm as it raged at sea, slowly making landfall far to the north.

Millions of humans hunkered down in homes, some safe, some not, while governors north and south ordered evacuations.  Stocked with extra water, batteries, food and booze, we awaited this newest of natures onslaughts.

Businesses closed, governments readied themselves for the storm by closing administrative offices and preparing emergency workers and shelters to assist those unfortunate enough to be too close to the sea’s reach as the storm clawed itself ashore.  News reporters spoke live on camera, guys ashore, ladies waist deep in the dangerous waves, titillating their millions of viewers with pictures of rising water smashing itself over seawalls and cascading into empty subway stations.  More bad news as a beautiful tall ship, the HMS Bounty, sank at sea, and the Coast Guard rescued all but two of her crew.  Another ship, a 700 ton tanker, was tossed onto a New York street like a toy, and an eleven foot surge of water smashed cars together in the tunnels connecting New York to the mainland.

As the storm slammed ashore, trees were swept away, buildings crumbled and construction cranes toppled.  Power stations exploded, plunging half of New York City into total darkness to match the outages affecting millions more on the mainland.  Half of the New York power grid was taken offline to prevent further damage. Water crept higher and higher, to levels unprecedented, inundating entire cities and trapping residents too stubborn to leave.  

First responders dashed to the rescue, pulling people out of attics and busing them to safer places inland, dodging the sharks exploring the flooded front yards of New Jersey.  Firefighters in New York rescued dozens of residents as their houses burned to the ground.  The National Guard in New Jersey rescued hundreds of residents from homes in flooded Atlantic City after their mayor failed to enforce the State's evacuation orders.

Slowly, the storm made its way inland, tearing itself apart, splashing itself across the landscape, fusing part of itself with colder air creeping stealthily south from Canada, dumping inches of cold, wet heavy snow on the hapless humans far below.

As the wind subsides, the growl of its passing gradually diminishes and fades away, the remaining trees slowly ending their mad twisting overnight dance with the wind, while the humans creep cautiously out of their hidden refuges to survey the changed world around them.

And as the Governor of New York speaks to his people, talking of the storm, the damage, the need to rebuild, and the future of similar storms as severe as this one if not worse, Fox News cuts the feed as they refuse to broadcast any references to Global Warming.

The KKK, tribalism and education.

Yesterday, I watched a Nightline segment about the KKK.  For a number of months, they were given unprecedented access to KKK ceremonies and for interviews.

There were two scenes that struck me.  One was an interview of a young man who requested that his face not be shown so he wouldn’t get fired from his job.  In this interview, he told the reporter that he believed that it was right for a “Christian man” to wear the KKK robes and believe the things he did.  He was proud of it, in spite of being afraid for his job.  (Although he still wouldn’t allow his face to be filmed.)

The second was the interview of the “Grand Dragon”, as he styled himself.  An interview in which he described his convictions that blacks were descended from animals, humans were made by god, and there would be a race war, sparked by Obama’s re-election, where whites would be forced into concentration camps.  He also stated that whites and blacks should be separated, by force, if necessary.

He never did explain the apparent contradiction between the ability of blacks to force whites into concentration camps, but that whites would somehow have the power to force blacks to live in separate enclaves.  Logic is, apparently, not his strong suit.

My thoughts on this were tempered by the things we’ve seen posted and stated by the Republicans in this election season.  We’ve been asking ourselves the question, “Why?”  “Why would otherwise sensible people take such crazy, illogical positions and believe such crazy things?”

I believe the answer lies in the attitudes and beliefs as expressed by those hateful, fearful KKK members.

Think about this.  The most obvious answer to the question of what is different between those KKK folks and blacks is the color of their skin.  That is blindingly obvious.

What isn’t, and what we rarely think of is culture.

Blacks have been forced, by circumstances, both social and economic, to live for generations in close proximity to one another and have developed an uniquely American black culture.  So have the heavily bigoted poor whites, for exactly the same reasons!  Both were isolated from the rest of American culture by being poor, and both have been isolated from the larger American culture because of the different culture they’ve developed as a reaction to the economic isolation.

Of course, this is a generalization, and there are obvious exceptions, as blacks are more spread out over the US, and those poor whites aren’t as numerous, and are more concentrated in the South.  But, I believe, the general principle is sound.

The similarity is one of the things that has driven the KKK crowd into violence, because they see their culture dying while the blacks have gotten the advantage of Federal government support at what they see as the disadvantage of themselves.

The solidity of the KKK’s beliefs are undergirded by their twisting of the christian religion into rationalizing their supposed superiority and what they see as the sub-humanity of minorities by claiming god was behind it all.  This justifies their violent approach.  This justifies their culture.

But look at the larger picture, the principles behind what’s going on.

The one thing I see in this smaller struggle is mirrored in other countries.  There are similar groups struggling against a general prejudice and some have been for centuries.

The similarity is simple:  Tribalism.

Us vs. Them.  Tribes, clans, ethnic groups.  Skin color, facial characteristics, cultural differences.  Religious differences.

Nationalism is merely an extension of tribalism, made large and altered to justify the conquering of territory.

Now, don’t get me wrong, tribalism was fine in its day.  It was a reaction of humanity to finding itself in small family units fighting for survival in a hostile environment, often in competition with other human groups.  It set up an evolutionary environment within human culture which forced humans to forge larger alliances to allow for larger groups to make themselves stronger in that struggle and allow larger and larger groups to survive.

As long as there were enough empty places around the globe to allow weaker groups to be forced out of the more pleasant and easier places to live instead of being annihilated, tribalism worked fine, and was a positive force in causing humanity to expand across the entire planet.  I doubt people would have willingly colonized the harsher environments on this earth had they been left a choice.

But today, there are very few empty places left, and virtually none truly livable which are not claimed by one country or another.  In short, human migration is at an end without a truly horrid and violent conflict.  Tribalism, in short, has reached the end of its usefulness as a tactic for human survival.

The problem is convincing those who think their survival still depends on it to find another alternative and start actually cooperating with those they used to think were enemies.

That is one of the truly difficult hurdles of modern education, which is the only permanent cure.

We should get started on that.