Humble Pie and Sour Grapes

Okay.  This is the third week since being laid off.  It is time to talk about two foods I have been living on since my termination:  sour grapes and humble pie.  

Humble pie comes first.  In fact, you get one or two big spoonfuls of this simultaneously with your pink slip.  More of that later.  The only thing I will say here is that humble pie is way more filing than cheese cake.  When you leave the office you can barely make it to your car.  You feel as though you’ve gain an instant ten pounds.  

I ate so many sour grapes within the first week of my unemployment that I spent the entire next day with stomach pains.  The day after that, however, I was back to snacking, popping them into my mouth like popcorn.  This even when the grapes were so sour that my eyes were watering and my tongue was paralyzed.  

I must digress for a moment because there is at least one person out there― rather intelligent and very self-satisfied― who will say, “Why don’t you just make lemonade?”  If you can go right from lemon to lemonade, then you are in the company of people like Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul.  You are already polishing up that saint head-gear that you will be wearing after you die.  Me?  I can’t even find the lemons these  people talk about.  I did spend an entire day searching.  They are small yellow things right?

     Let’s face it, blaming every person in all three times zones (paste, present, and future) is not healthy.  There is, however, an immediate surge in adrenaline.  I think this may even be necessary to get some of us through the first day or two of a terrible situation.  I also think that among the countless sour grapes I have eaten, some of them represent valid points.  Sour grapes are not sour because they are necessarily untruths.  The are sour because of the ramifications for one’s psyche.  Let us say that the boss is an asshole.  I mean that if you connected him to the assholometer, that indicator would be up near the 100 percent level.  And then you go analyzing him and find 20 specific examples of his assholism.  These may well be true.  But they are still sour grapes and may be just as debilitating as blaming God or President Obama for your job loss.  I know it is not easy― I can take three truths and turn them into 50 sour grapes.  I can also find sour grapes in the least likely places― a teacher I had in middle school, the Koch Brothers, Apple Computers, etc. 

The problem with using measurements is that you can never be satisfied.  You readily exchange the Assholometer for the “Not Worth Being Alive” or, my favorite, the Hellometer (I like the Dante’s version, the Inferno Scale).  Now the Asshole becomes so bad that I would stick him down with Brutus and Judas in the lowest level of hell.  

     Sour grapes is a defense mechanism.  But defense mechanisms rather quickly become offensive, in both senses of the word.  One does not want to remain passive when one is fired, because being fired is a life-altering assault against which you have little if any power.  Sour grapes put us on the attack.  I like to season my sour grapes with a dozen or so curse words I can then use in limitless combinations― a good curse word can wreck the most sacred or the most neutral noun to which it is attached.  It gets ugly quickly.  

     It was only in the third week that I went for the pie.  Humble pie is a lot like limburger cheese― an acquired taste.  There is nothing tempting about it.   When you have been living on sour grapes for two weeks, however,and there is nothing else to eat, it is better than nothing (barely). The problem with humble pie is getting it down in the first place.  Sour grapes have the same appeal that sour patch candies do― there is a market for them.  The minute humble pie hits the tongue, the body responds with the gag reflex.  I am actually surprised Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods has not featured humble pie among some of his other favorites: squirrel brains, cow urine, spleen sandwiches, raw fish eyeballs, and maggot-filled cheese.  But it is so hard to eat much humble pie because we are not wired that way― we are conditioned for advancement.  

     A little bit of humble pie, however, may be just what the doctor ordered.  You

quickly discover such realities as:  the business did not fall apart without you; you are replaceable; you are capable of really fucking up big time; the life you thought you were leading was really controlled by someone who can take your livelihood away; you are now one of those whom you may have always stereotyped as having intrinsic flaws; the qualities that you liked most about yourself were the very one’s your employer transformed into faults and then fired you for them.  Humble pie definitely takes you down a peg or two.  It’s like you are playing parcheesi, and you are one roll away from getting into the home safety zone, when a competitor lands on you so that you have to start all lever again.  The feeling of loss is what fills you up.  Standing up is hard enough, let alone brushing yourself off.  

So what can you as a Christian do? 

1.  Know who you are!!!  

Remind yourself of your role model:  Jesus Christ.  On Palm Sunday he was hailed as the Messiah, King of Israel, worthy of David’s throne.  Five days later he was arrested.  On the sixth day he was met with shouts of “Crucify him!!”  Now if this happened to the Son of God in six days, are you surprised that it happened to you after one year or twenty years of work.  Even if you were the greatest employee in the history of your company, you are not Jesus Christ.  So remember what Jesus asserted when he was at his weakest, when others were telling him who he was or how much power they had over him.  Before the kangaroo court when asked if he were the Son of God, he responded:  “I am:  and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the Power, and coming in the clouds" (Mark 14:62).  And later when Pilate threatened Jesus with his own power, Jesus answered, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11a).  Jesus KNEW who he was.  You need to know who you are, and you are NOT what your boss says about you.  You are not what the subsequent gossip mill claims you to be.  

You are blessed.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved . 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 

(Ephesians 1:3-7)

And you are loved:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

2.  Know that God is in direct control of your individual life!

He is the only power that can produce greater good from evil.  Some of you know that you may not actually be doing what you ant to be doing.  Maybe this is a way, albeit not an easy one, to get you out of a rut and into something you enjoy.  I am not saying that God created the bad situation.  I am saying that God has the power to convert this bad situation into something good for you.  

The financial problems may be enormous.  Do not think big.  Consider what you and your family need to survive.  Work at surviving.  DO this while you are studying for another career, or searching for a better job.  And do not take something just for the money.  That is a recipe for making a bad situation worse.  At this point you need to be sitting on a mountain in Galilee listening to Jesus’ words of comfort:  

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:  And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 
(Matthew 6:28-33)

3.  Know that God Listens to and Answers Prayers!

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you (

Saint Augustine characterizes this kind of constant prayer (always, asking, always seeking, and always knocking) not so much as a way to get what you want, but as the best way to establish a real parent-child relationship with God, when he writes:  

Diu desiderata, dulcius obtinentur: cito autem data, vilescunt. Pete, quaere, insta. Petendo et quaerendo crescis, ut capias. Servat tibi Deus, quod non vult cito dare; ut et tu discas magna magne desiderare. Inde oportet semper orare, et non deficere 10.    Augustine Sermo 61

Those things long desired will be sweeter when you receive them; things given quickly will grow cheap.  Seek, ask, and don;t give up.  By seeking and by asking you will grow so that you may receive.  God is protecting you―he does not wish to give you things quickly so that you may greatly desire great things.  That is why is it good to prayer and not to cease praying.  

Private Poems on Someone Else's Laptop

John 3:16

Uncle Don is dead and gone 

does anyone remember

When he wore a hat 

and tall loose pants

Held up with two elastic blue 

Or polka dot suspenders?

He socked his boys and locked

them up in the pantry for hours

Aunt Fran would hide

And make mincemeat pie

Rolling dough and lying low

Dusted with gold metal flour

One Sunday at the Pentecostal 

church he found the Lord

He nearly swooned

In the spirit filled room

But he stayed awake long enough to take

His heavenly reward

He began to wear a wooden cross

And a PTL lapel pin

And he whacked his kids 

Like he always did 

for the lord above says out of love

That's the best way to repel sin

I began to think and dwell for hours

On how sins can be erased

How the first shall be last

And  the slow shall be fast

And what is the same by another name

Is God's amazing grace

Elegies From the Dead

Shovel o’er me all that soil, dump in 
Rotting petals stripped of pleasant odors 
Corrupting the rest of what’s corrupt 
This is not a tulip bulb, not a cup of
wildflower seeds nor a pumpkin patch
Do you think I’ll naturally just hatch
with the first warm wind of March
Do you really fear the early frost?
Do I even hear those lazy lilacs start
to dare one another to wriggle out
Do I hear those whispers. Most
Garrulous incidental crop of quips
Dare me to speak?  My lips
the ones that lovers, she or Paula, kissed, 
are fraying like the covers of
olden pew Bibles. From kitchens drift
aromas— bacon fat or roast beef stew
or noodles oozing cheese.  You miss
how moldy velvet lining tastes
collapsing into this elapsing face
Are you thinking some hasty thought?
Did anyone remember how deeply I
pondered, how the weight of an issue
stuck like moist snow on the feeble 
branches in my brain.  How can such
plebeian notions be worth so much
more than those?  Have I gallantly tramped
an overall inch from the damp to the dry? 
How far does a reckless boy think he
has moved.  Mountains and oceans and free-
ways with calico cats and canvas campers
Where do they go, the group that dumped 
me?  Those who crumpled tissues, stone-
choked in their throats.  So they won’t return?  
Have I become so erased, so adjourned
Even you can’t cheer me up, won’t even try?


His Senses Sense Creation

Matted left leaf color of masan's egg
Three streaks of butter blonde
Glued by the dew to St. Teri's toe
Lizards in the mortar maze
Like the steel orb knobbed
Round the holes in a game
You saw our King?
Wide-set eyes creamy nape
Open collar, slim-fit  pants
And that convergent bend
Wedged under the cheeks
The switchblade gnawk of the tongue
From the roof when the words
Exude and the unsealed lips
The third swallow after the
Foods ooze over the gullet
The barren nose that sniffs
And springs and clamps
A stinky clue or two left lying in a laptop
The swallow twits and the bat creaks
The Gourmand plucks the last
Off with a satisfied huff
The cypress tree is one or two leaves away
From the panes from the august
Chamber of King Widget

Apologia cum Concilio

Francis Fairfax is not a scam
Would a scam do this?
Serve time on school boards
Give bones to unwanted dogs
He forecloses or purchases low income homes
An attorney serving this neighborhood for years
Frank Fairfax knows a scam and wants to protect you
From unscrupulous makers of fake clubs
Spoiling your Sunday morning swing
Taking its toll on your handicap
Frank Fairfax won't stand for that
Know your dealer and the feel of real clubs
Be forearmed and ready in advance
And keep yourself in the swing

Non Haberes

Sealed envelope
Waiting
Vagabonds sip and talk
Sinatra and local produce
There is a handoff
Nothing else but
This will tell you all you need to know
A red haired woman wrapped in polka dots
Chirps venti latte soy one shot of espresso
Two comes a mouth tied up in a mustache
The sharp ice edges are barely worn in the coffee
He's gone
Could this finally be the end
Slurps of tepid cocoa
And a hissing from a barista in the
Direction of headphones and laptop
Grande skinny caramel frapp
Near the shadows of the restroom
Come pudgy quips about the sweetener
My cup, my cup


Invocation

Stained saints and earnest cracks
Simple formats and holy water
Songs from the frayed Hymnbook stacks
Preaching in the cedar larder
The Study Room swoons with inky markers
Archway books and musty magazines
a broken carousel and several barkers
plywood blocks bright blues and greens
On Sunday, Wendy was confused
"Gloria patri is a parish member!"
and Little Ed made paper cubes
from the leftover papers in the pews
folded shaped and pressed and blown
Around the middle of December

Says Who?

Interesting and disturbing conversation overheard between two seasoned educators.  The gist was something like, "You know not everyone is college material.  Some kids just shouldn't be going to college."  Is that shocking?  Obviously I didn't think it warranted me to  interrupt with an objection.  I didn't want to cause a stir.  Or maybe I didn't want to get on the "bad list" which I am convinced exists in every private school.  Or maybe I am simply a coward.  Well, now and then, even a coward's conscience gets pricked.  And I feel it necessary to apologize to every single high school graduate who will not be entering college this summer.  All it would have taken was a polite, "There's another way of looking at this.  Personally, I think every student should have the means to attend college, and teachers should at least have that desire for all their graduates."  Instead nothing.  I also know that when roused, I find it very difficult to respond reasonably.  Reason always seems to arrive too late.  So instead of risking one or two curse words or unattractive
combinations of the same, I chose to reflect later.

So who is it that weeds out the "not college material" from among us?  I am glad that it wasn't my own counselor who after a feint in the direction of my transcript and no doubt taking greater account of my rather playful demeanor (I am being kind to myself) during my high school years declared me not only to be unworthy of any one of the seemingly endless list  of scholarships that was being printed out as I sat there (and continued to do so after our three minute meeting) but to be an unlikely candidate for higher education at all.  He may have mentioned something about trade schools, but I had already checked out if I had ever checked in.  With the exception of good friends and one or two teachers, I had not invested much in learning during my high school years.   I really don't think many of us could have been unanimously declared "college material".  I think the blame for that must be spread around, but that does not really concern me here.
 
I was fortunate to be accepted at the one college to which I applied, Duquesne University.  I don't think I realized how fortunate I was.  Looking back, there really was no good reason for me to be accepted.  My transcript including SAT scores was far from stellar.  What happened to me at that school, however, was so significant that it is very easy for me to succumb to adjectives such as inexplicable, astounding, miraculous, maybe even magical.   Those adjectives would suffice were it not that every single class I took, all I learned in them and remembered, all I learned in them and have since forgotten, and every good grade I earned was ultimately derived from individual professors.  I am not sure how many of these professors loved students (I think most did).  I do know that the majority at best loved what they were teaching and at worst knew what they were teaching.  Every single class was a lecture, and every single class was another slice of something for which I became gluttonous.  It was there I learned that I was designed to be a learner, that this was really a part of becoming human.  I knew I wasn't special.  I knew that from high school.  But damn it if I didn't feel special.

There are voices today in education that charge a hefty sum to come and speak to an audience of students and their parents and to give them anecdotes and aphorisms which, like a Big Mac, are very tasty, and earn instantaneous applause.  For example, that if our public education system in America were a business, it would have been in bankruptcy long ago.  But Big Macs for all their taste and calories offer little nutrition.  How should education be likened to a business.  Are students the products?  Is profit based on the number of students who go on to college?  Who make a certain amount of money?  If a product is defective should it be destroyed?  It seems to me that when we serve humanity, we must accept results that reflect the differences among human beings.  Of course anyone who has even skimmed through Plato knows how analogies can be used to explain anything.  So I may be silly, but I am worried about the thinking behind this one.  I am afraid that it will be easier to encourage whole populations of students into a non-college itinerary than to worry about the calisthenics counselors might have to do to help them matriculate somewhere.

Another aphorism is that no student believes that he or she will graduate from college with a ticket to a good paying job.   For this one, I am going to refuse to argue that we should think about changing the economic structure of our country rather than to endeavor to withhold advanced education from certain unworthy students.  Suffice it to say that the U.S. economy was strongest when the labor force was a college-educated one.  I am going to take a different direction, primarily because as much as education makes better workers, education means so much more.  Education, particularly a classical education in the liberal arts, has a humanizing effect on human beings.  Feeling that privilege of being human actually means more to feeling a purpose and joy in living than almost anything else expect for faith, religion, or spirituality.  If a teenager from a less than adequate public school system will not gain a high paying job after earning a B.A. or B.S., that does not give anyone the right to deny that teenager from the greater and possibly less measurable rewards of learning.  Who do we think we are?

Maybe someone in that zenith called the really rich fears educational fairness more than economic equality.  After all, who knows what will happen when an economically distressed population has the confidence to think and to learn and to speak out.  What if, God forbid, a college graduate working at a McDonald's considers it nonsense that a CEO is getting 10 million dollars a year more than her because the CEO is just that much smarter.  No one who benefits from an inequitable system wants people to start thinking.

So I will continue to maintain that all students should have higher education as a dream, and that every educator should have as his or her goal to help a student fulfill that dream.  And what may be a very bad business practice, may, as a finale, recreate this country into something more like the democracy it can be.

Catherine Tatum Yao (April 18, 1995- February 21, 2012)

Dear Catherine,

I am reminded of the shock and sadness of a year ago.  

But as I was feeling that sorrow once again--thinking of how much your absence means to us, you seemed to speak to me...

Weep not for me but for yourself.  

Stop and look deep within yourself.

I know you have been thinking that if you had been around, things might have been different.  

Do you reckon yourself a savior?  

Do I need to remind you of that incident when

you would not even give them a ride and then what happened to A.T.  You have no secrets up here.  

And before you excuse yourself because you were young,

I tell you that was the start of a lifetime of neglect.  If you do these things in a green tree, what will you do in the dry?  

You don’t want me to remind you of all the times you walked by, failed to act, laughed when you should have cried, leaving this one and that one-- you wouldn’t even know some of the names, or if you remembered, you would too easily rationalize your way out.  Did you even think to ask that question “What will happen to them if I do not help?” No.  You are too busy asking, “What will happen to me if I help? How much time will it take?  Why is it any of my business?”  You just pass numbly by.  And often in a hurry.  Is this a race?  Are people hurdles or poles to be avoided.

Do not honor me with words but deeds.

If someone needs to speak, be the ears

If someone needs to hear a kind word, be the mouthpiece.

If someone is sitting alone, pull up a chair and sit down.  What makes you think you are too good, so much better?

If someone needs to be discovered, be the perceptive mind, the sensitive soul (that same perceptiveness that makes you so good at finding flaws and faults)

Does someone need to be honored?  Be the award.

Is someone wounded?  Be the bandage.

Does someone find the world so cold?  Be the hearth.  

Is someone thirsty for attention?  Be the spring.

Is someone exhausted?  Be the mattress.

Is someone lost?  Be the map.

Is someone in a storm.  Be the canopy.

And when someone needs a touch of heaven, say a prayer (and don’t just promise to pray).  Get down on your knees, shut out the lights, and pray like you’ve never prayed before, not a quick mumble but as long as it takes-- till your heart breaks.

If someone needs more than you can give, find a professional as soon as you can.  Don’t delay.  Don’t think too much. Don’t worry about how you might look.  Don’t rationalize-- saying that maybe she doesn’t want you to interfere.  Interfere.  And interfere again.  

I am in a perfect place.  Don’t worry about me.

Imagine the way it feels when you drive through those first fat December snowflakes, that feeling that Christmas is near.

Or that delicious anxiety before your first kiss, the satisfaction afterwards, that sleepless night spent in replaying it again and again in your memory.

The relief after an extremely hard test is over.

That afternoon in April when the rain has rinsed the last of winter from the air, when you can smell the greens, the pinks, the yellows of spring even though you cannot yet see them.

All good things you feel, the sensations, and the memories of them-- multiplied to infinity and eternity-- that is heaven.

Without bodies our senses are entwined to become something more complex and more receptive to pleasure than is able to be described.

There are countless others, and the congregation only increases our own awareness, our perceptions, our joy.  

I have met those I knew before, but I know others, those who were never part of before, as intimately as I could have ever know anyone down there.

Sometimes I feel that we are grander than galaxies, and sometimes I know that we could all fit comfortably on the head of a pin.

Sometimes I feel so overwhelmingly far away from before, and sometimes I feel that there is only the flimsiest of translucent curtains between us-- like those windows that reflect your image when you look into them from the outside while those inside are able to see you-- I feel I could reach through and touch my friend, my brother, my mother.

All reasoning, all understanding, all remembering, all wisdom comes from The Divine Love.  How can I describe indescribable love except to say in the crudest terms-- when you plug a lamp into an outlet, there is light, and the lamp has fulfilled its purpose.  So it is that I am permeated by The Divine Love so that it radiates through me, through all of us.  

In the end, it is all about love.  And to the extent that you are connected with The Divine Love where you are, is the extent to which you can generate a measure of it.  And generate it you should-- that is your purpose.  It is part of whatever destiny The Divine Love has for you.

But don't let anyone tell you that you can love too much, that you can get too involved--

love has no terminus post quem except as to meet and exceed the needs of the Beloved. 

And your Beloved is your neighbor, even your enemy, your Beloved is the someone who needs to be loved.  

This is the only command that matters, that makes the difference between evil and good-- love one another, for love is the fulfilling of all morality and all virtues.  It is the only real proof of the death and resurrection and eternal life and power of The Divine Love.  

Do you want to be a savior?  Good.  You covet that recreative, restorative power to love that way.  But know that to save and to lead means to be the last, to be the least.

Not the spires, the arches, the columns, the friezes, the metopes, the sculptures that become the foci of every pair of awestruck appreciative eyes that come into this holy sanctuary, but the foundation laid down in the dirt and the clay and the rubble.  That’s where the love is, from where that beauty grows.  Be that love, though no one sees you, though no one has reason to remember your name.   

And you know how much I loved Starbucks.  Pick out the drink and the flavor you think I might enjoy, and share it with someone.  Do this in remembrance of me.  And in the twinkling of an eye, we shall all be together again.

The Right to Own...Death

As I sat last night at a Christmas service with mixed choirs including the children's choir, I had mixed emotions and was indiscriminately tossed between the joy of seeing young  children enjoying a church Christmas celebration and the aching sorrow knowing that 20 families in Connecticut have been robbed of this joy.

Feeling sorrow and saying our prayers for the families, however, is not enough-- faith without works is dead.  The most well-organized lobbyists in Washington, D.C. are those of the NRA.  Their members are those who in the midst of a mass shooting chide anyone from using a tragedy involving guns to even consider regulations.  They speak out against demeaning the memories of the victims by politicizing  the tragedy.  Of course, there is no right time to discuss the regulation of weapons.  They criticize the media for exploitation for the gun lobbyists and owners of these types of weapons do not want the public to see what carnage semi-automatic weapons can do.  It is exactly the time to talk about regulation of semi-automatics with large magazine capacities since they were not only used to murder 20 children and 6 of their teachers in a school but in nearly every mass shooting since the 1980s.  For the first time, however, we are dealing with victims so very young.

While the Internet is not a safe place for gaining verifiable research, one can learn much from the responses that gun owners have given for the need to possess semi-automatic assault weapons such as those most recently in the Connecticut massacre.

The most prevalent answer is some variation on the fact that they can.  Consider the following

"As a free man living in a so called free country, i am not going to justify my needs to anyone."

"My response to 'Why do you have/want/need an assault rifle?' would be "I want one."

"Same reason I have a 4 slice toaster instead of the more pedestrian 2 slicer: I want it."

"Because I can."

"Because they are a citizen and not a subject."

"why do you need a ball point pen, a computer or TV, surely the founders hadn't thought those would ever exist." 

"My usual reply is 'That is none of your business. Why do you have what you have? Do you want me nitpicking and asking you about why you own your posessions too?'"

"Do we really need these things? Yes, I may not use mine for the same purposes as the next person but mine is a precise and efficient tool that I use on a weekly basis. I don't use it for mass shootings of human beings for the reason that I am a law abiding, level headed American citizen. That should give me the right to own whatever the hell I want."

Then there are those who own guns because it is American.

"It's the people's last recourse against tyranny."

"It has less to do with the needs of the individual than it does with the needs of the Republic.  The Republic of the United States of America needs citizens to keep and bear military grade weaponry in order to have a pool for a well trained militia and as a final line of defense against all of the enemies of the Republic and its Constitution, foreign and domestic."

"Owning a black rifle is a civic duty, not an individual want or need."

"because governments,...all governments, eventually seek total power over those they govern....and fuck you, thats why."

IN fact, if everyone were to do this civic duty and be armed in public, many believe we would all be safer:

"In my opinion the only real deterrent is armed citizens who will react when they find themselves in those types of situations. It ain't much but it's a hell of a lot more than some "make me feel safe" ban on something that will only serve to disarm the ones that don't need disarming."

And then there are those who argue that since there are many more things than guns that may be used to kill, why not simply ban everything:

"Why not ban any vehicle that is faster than the speed limit? Why not ban long butcher knives? Why not ban the ability to "Supersize" your fast food order?  These all make just as much sense as banning large capacity magazines."

"In the right hands, a hand full of spoons and butter knives can injure many people, just like a seriously foggy morning and a slippery road. Should we, then, ban spoons, butter knives, and bad weather?"

"Anything could be used as an assault weapon look at David and goliath one little rock is all it takes I have an ar15 I didn't buy it to harm any one just to have fun with and kill pigs and stuff" 

"Might as well ask why someone needs a car that can go 160 mph when 70 is the speed limit. Or why do you need a compound bow when a traditional bow can do the same thing." 

"Tobacco kills more people then guns so, why not ban tobacco. Just another example."

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people, just like alcohol don't kill people, it's the people that are irresponsible and abuse it that kill and harm others due to alcohol. Ban guns, ban alcohol, ban drugs, ban whatever you want irresponsible people are still gonna find something&abuse it and it will get outta control and hurt others"

Sometimes, believe it or not, doing something simply because one can is not a good enough justification.  It is rather unsettling to know there are people in our communities who may never take the time to consider why they do the things they do.  What ever happened to "the unexamined life is not worth living."  For these people, there is no direction.  They are placed on the earth to do whatever they can get away with.

Civilization, however, is a process of collective self-examination and constantly refining our laws to a changing technological landscape and our moral absolutes to an ever-diversified human race.  In the process, some things we held to be morally appropriate in the past, such as indentured servitude or slavery, we recognize to be unjust.  And some things that we had no need to regulate-- such as highway speeds and air traffic-- justify the creation of new legal parameters.

And why do I feel particularly less safe knowing that a large group of those who own semi-automatic assault weapons are dong so to fulfill their civic duty?

I am also fairly confident that some of the weapons on hand in the U.S. Armed Forces might be able to take down a group of armed citizens fighting against tyranny.  I do believe at one time the weapons available to the federal government were similar to those of the cobbler or cooper-- the Second Amendment made more sense then.

While our friends have certainly identified a variety of things that may be lethal if in the wrong hands, I think we would all agree that while we would never ban our favorite McDonald value meal, many of us might consider banning extremely foggy mornings.   The truth, however, is that while many things can kill, guns are designed.  And semi-automatics are designed to kill more quickly and with less effort.  I have no doubt that anyone premeditating a mass murder will not choose butcher knives, spoons, butter knives, cigarettes (to force victims to smoke several packs a day until a large number contract heart disease or COPD and die?), drugs (to force a large group of people to ingest lethal amounts of drugs?), a slingshot, or for that matter perform an elaborate bad-weather dance to whip up a lethal storm.  The weapon of choice is the semi-automatic weapon with large magazine capacity.  When armed with semi-automatics, an individual is not only instantly more powerful than those he wishes to kill, but is able to kill many more victims.  For these mass-murderers the semi-automatic is the coward's choice.  Those who own these weapons must accept the fact that the potential for extreme carnage in the wrong hands outweighs their own right to possess them.

But for the fact that we are living through a nightmare in which the most innocent have been violently taken from us, their arguments would be part of a SNL routine.  The fact that they will continue to make these assertions and in mass numbers demonstrate how little they value humanity and how they will continue to dismiss logic, reason, and morality in favor of their own selfish and unexamined rights.

But our entire society has been whittled down to the financiers who compound the largest profits of free enterprise and the consumers who feel entitled to have as much as they want.  As a society, we are losing our sensitivity to how safe we and others are in having and using what we possess, and we are continuing our insensitivity to how our desire to own and the investor's desire for exorbitant profits affect the workers who produce what we possess.

This time, however, we must decide between a semi-automatic and a child.  This should be an easy choice, right?  Where your treasure is, there is your heart.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT

Dear Mr. President,

     You have been elected at a very singular moment in American history.  You have been elected to begin the process of resuscitating an American middle-class that has been subject to the unfettered license of business leaders and financial moguls for the last thirty years.  For decades now, the very rich have benefited from continuing income tax cuts from a one-time high of over 90 percent to an all-time low of 28 percent.  Capital gains taxes and corporate taxes have also been so unconscionably low that CEOs and investment bankers have used their financial license to accumulate reckless amounts of capital for themselves and stockholders even as they cut jobs, reduce wages, eliminate benefits, and convert pensions to the 401 (k).  At the same time as businesses were booming and a few were drowning in new wealth, the workers no longer reaped any of these rewards.  In fact, the so-called entitlements weighing down the federal deficit are programs or agencies that are doing what the leaders of finance and industry have historically refused to do-- reigning in risky investments; working for an industry's long term health and not the short term pay-off; eliminating pollution; making products that are reasonably safe, food that is uncontaminated, and pharmaceuticals that are well-tested before being marketed; ensuring that workers have safe working conditions, monthly income upon retirement, adequate health care, unemployment income when they lose their jobs, and public assistance when they too often fall into poverty.  It is time for the top two percent to pay a little more!
     The federal government has had to spend trillions, while the top two percent have made their millions and billions relying like spoiled children on the federal government to spend whatever amount necessary to clean up their mess.  If it weren't so ignominious, we would almost have to laugh at the way in which the same people whose behavior has compelled the federal government to spend itself into debt, continue to demand a reduction in spending.  The Republicans preach that their upper class constituents require less and less financial regulation and taxes, but they do not believe that these same individuals have any other responsibility than making money for themselves and their stockholders.  The very rich have forced the federal government into debt and then complain that he government is spending too much.  The truth must be told that while government spending does not benefit the upper two percent of Americans, it is their reckless and avaricious business practices which are the proximate cause.
     If supply side, trickle down, economics really works, then why does a middle class salary have less buying power today than it did thirty years ago?  Why is America forced to have a greater number of two wage earner households than any European country?  Why has the typical CEO's salary gone from 40 times the average worker's to 400?  Why, over the last 40 years, has the compensation for American workers risen only 10 percent while the companies they work for have realized an 80 percent rise in productivity?  Why have big business lobbyists, whose sole job is to entice elected officials into supporting corporate interests, grown from 175 in 1971 to a record 15,137 in 2007, nearly 2,000 of whom are former government officials?  Why do Americans own only 40 percent of the nation's housing stock, when we owned 70 percent in 1985?  Why do only 18 percent of workers receive employer paid health insurance when 80 percent received this benefit in 1980?  Why do only 35 percent of workers receive life-time monthly pensions when 84 percent received them in 1980?  Why do the richest one percent of Americans take home 23 percent of the income?  Why does this same select group earn more money than the economies of Canada or France?  Why, during the Bush II years, did corporate profits rise to their highest level since 1943 while money going toward employee wages fell to its lowest level since 1929?  Why have the wages of a worker in Germany risen 30 percent since the 1980s while the wages of American workers have risen only 5 percent?  Why, in the last ten years, have U.S. companies hired 2.4 million overseas workers while eliminating the jobs of 2.9 million American workers?  Why can so few make so much money?  And why can't such incredible corporate profit trickle down the way we were promised it would? The reason lies in the fact that this economic theory was designed and implemented for no other reason than to increase the profits of CEOs, stockholders, and financial institutions.  Henry Ford did not have to attend an Ivy League School to understand that the best economic policy to garner profits for owners and investors is to keep workers healthy and happy, for as consumers, they will purchase and increase the demand for the excellent products they help to create.  Unfortunately the worker is no longer even an after-thought in what has come to be an "increase profits at any cost" mentality.  This is not only immoral, it is not only bad economics, it jeopardizes the freedom that all Americans are guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution-- if the majority of Americans lacks the freedom to earn a decent wage because a select few are taking that right away, then the Constitution is not worth the paper it is written on and America, at least in economic terms, is no longer a free country.
     Mr. President, those of us who voted for you did so because we believed that you would right our ship, that you would begin the turn-around that will take back the economic power for the majority which, since the mid 1970s, was actively stripped away by the prevailed few.  You won this election in spite of the high price paid to PACs to defeat you.  And you will certainly continue to face the tyranny of the plutocrats in the form of their high-priced lobbyists who will promise elected officials anything to solidify the status quo.  Let the inordinately wealthy understand that America is not an aristocracy but that it remains a democratic society where the majority rules.  Keep your eye on the prize, steeled against the criticism and insult delivered from the right.  We have your back because you have promised to have ours.


Sincerely,


David Kuyat, Ph. D.

White and Wrong Answers

Why did the Republicans lose?   Too many gifts to the 47 percenters?  Too much "urban" vote?

This guy right here is "urban" enough for me!!

The sanest rationale comes from those who say that there is nothing wrong with the Republican message; it's just hitting the ears of Hispanics and Asians all wrong.  According to this premise, a simple tweaking of the Republican platform-- maybe adding the words Hispanic and Asian along with Israel and God-- will find many minority voters banging down the Republican doors to get in.

A less sane one sounds like this:  a majority of American voters are now takers for whom the Obama-Democratic message of big government resonates and for whom individual success is instantly maligned.  According to this premise, there is no salvation for a country that is heading for political and moral destruction.

I think that there is a far simpler reason why the Republicans lost the Presidential election.
The answer lies in the answers to a few questions.

Evangelicals are
a) a cult that features a white Jesus
b) true white Christians
c) true white Americans
d)  all of the above


A tea party is
a) a bunch of white people with white rage hating the federal government because that's easier than blaming themselves
b)  a bunch of white people with white rage hating the federal government while accepting all the social advantages that derive from the federal government.
c) a bunch of white people period
d) all of the above

Abortion is
a) something white men should be fighting against
b) a procedure rare among white men
c) something white men are far better able to discuss than women
d) all of the above

Same sex marriage is
a) something that white men either dream about or fear
b) something that keeps white homophobes going to Chick-fil-A
c) something that white Jesus hates
d) all of the above

Paul Ryan was chosen as Mitt's VP because
a) he was a white conservative who would appeal to other white conservatives
b) a white guy whose sexy gym pic would increase the white male turn-out
c) he was really really really white (without a trace of "urban")
d) all of the above

Average white voters in the South
a) are 80 percent likely to vote for a white guy
b) have fantasies of living as overseers of large slave plantations where they can rape and abuse black people they way they were born to be treated
c) think the Confederate Flag is a symbol of all that's great about being white and American
d) all of he above

The correct answer:   Republican = WHITE

The reason why Romney lost was because the largest part of the Republican constituency is not the ardent Catholic fighting against abortion or the really rich guy who loves the financial license Republicans grant him, but the white racist (most from the old Confederacy, a great deal from the very white states of the Midwest).  Racism was simply not a huge draw for Hispanics or Asians or any other minority group.  And it was not a draw for white women.  And it was not even a draw to whites on the left and right coasts.

Let's face it!  The Republicans are never going to be able to expand their base as long as their base is a group of white racists.  And the Republicans are not gong to be about to change their message to a more universal or appealing one since their message is created by white racists.

There are two things equally true for this constituency
1) they live in hatred and fear of the black man
2) the Republican Party is a comfortable place for them to exist and procreate

88 percent of Romney's support came from white voters

In Southern states Romney overwhelmingly won the white vote (89 percent in Mississippi; 84 percent in Alabama;  68 percent in North Carolina;  62 percent in Arizona;  65 percent Missouri, 61 percent in Florida and Virginia)

These are the only states we have exit pols for, but you better believe that the whites in the states of the old Confederacy supported Romney from between 60 to 90 percent.

These people aren't going anywhere, although they talk a lot about secession.
Lest you think that it is absurd to think that so many years after the Civil War there are whites who still formulate their identity as members of the Confederacy, keep several things in mind.  There has never been such animosity among Republicans to the results of an election as there has been this year.  Whites are publicly talking about secession.  There has never been such hatred of a candidate as there has been to Obama-- there are web images showing him lynched or depicted in simian terms or whites sites
hailing the merits of white dudes and despairing at how much has been given away to blacks.  .  There is a severe insecurity problem among many whites who simply cannot understand the world and heir won place in it when the highest elected office is held by a black man.  Bereft of self-confidence, these people lash out against the same "other" that has always given them the greatest surrogate fro their missing self-assurance and has instilled within them the deepest level of fear-- the black man.

There is no good reason for any nonwhite group to vote for a Republican knowing that their greatest constituency believes that American is first and foremost a white nation.  This transcends any possible connection that any nonwhite group might have with Republican policies.  And let's make no mistake-- the Republicans were counting on this racist voting block to carry them to victory.

So all this talk is cheap.  Republicans will win elections when the white racists prevail; they will lose when the white racists lose.  Simple.  Unless heavy duty statements arise from leaders of the Republican Party that they abhor any and all manner of racism, the Party of Lincoln will live and die by racism.