Not for Weak Stomachs: Aftermath of Hiroshima

Let me make this very clear; I'm not encouraging you to click and view these photos. In their own way, these are--in my opinion--as ghastly as the images from Abu Ghraib. You may or may not feel impelled to (I did; I saw the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and museun as a pre-teen, and... well, I felt impelled to see the whole of it).

Having said that, we have two presidential candidates who seem to need see them; one sings about bombing Iran and the other talks about obliterating Iran. Each of them need to be shown these, and asked if they're really ready (good Christians that they affirm that they are--remembering Jesus' admonition that whatever you do to the least, you do to him as well) to do this to millions of other human beings.

I don't think I can accept someone willing to sing or blithely talk about doing that as a political leader.

Excuses, excuses...

I mean to blog more. But I missed all of April.

Perhaps the fact that I'm taking a class online helps explain where some of my time went (I'm a bit behind, too).

I fell down the stairs on the 14th and fortunately didn't break anything. But the injury was still pretty serious; it's only two days now that I've not been strapped up to support and protect the muscles. It no longer hurts actively (I gave up the drugs pretty quickly. Naproxin seemed to do a good job -- of upsetting my stomach. Vicodin did a good job of making me slow and stupid (which is a big part of how I got behind in class). Neither did much for pain).

Taxes--which were almost done (enough to file for an extension) when I fell down the stairs (and were nudged into something that got sent... by my dear wife) ate too much time earlier in the month.

My younger son finally got the kitten he's wanted for at least two years, and I've been grandparenting and being a cat toy.

District Assembly happened. I was able to go (strapped up and very careful)--and it was great. But it did devour time (on the other hand, it also meant that our District Exec was in the area and I finally got the interview he needed to do with me done. So it wasn't just a distraction from things that need doing).

Bills are overdue now. There's plenty of picking up that needs doing that I couldn't do for hte last couple weeks (and some... I still can't). Mess. Clutter. Oh... May is going to be interesting--assuming that the two weeks until I'm pretty much back to normal is accurate.

Cast Out Of Heaven

There is a depiction of Hell in which the damned sit at a banquet table laden with wonderful food, but cannot eat it. Their hands are in fingerless gloves, wrapped around the handles of long spoons—too long to allow them to get their spoons to their own mouths. The damned, selfish and self-centered, suffer in torment.

Heaven, it turns out, is no different. The difference is only that the denizens of heaven are happily feeding each other.

My guess is that they’re not even two different places; the damned are so self-absorbed that they don’t even notice that others are getting fed. Or, if they do, the idea that someone would just feed them is so outlandish and unthinkable that they’re baffled at how those folks are managing to get food.

It’s an attractive notion—that hell is something that we do to ourselves and to each other.

Mohandas K.Gandhi—that Gandhi, the Mahatma guy—wouldn’t sit still for that. Nor would Martin Luther King, Jr. Then there’s that John Murray character, who’s remembered most often for this;

You may possess only a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not Hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper into their theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.

Murray (and I’ll bet the others, too) wouldn’t just be feeding each other. They’d be stepping over the line and nudging full spoons to the lips of the tormented. “Here, taste it,” you can hear them saying. “Take a bite. You look famished.”

I have no doubt of it. Each of them knew full well that they could pour out hope and bring something to those mired in hunger and hopelessness. Each of them knew that it was an uphill struggle all the way. They would happily feed the damned and each other, as well, for as long as it took to save every last one of those lost souls. Sooner or later, they’ll open their mouths—maybe to complain or whine—and in they’ll pop a spoonful of something delectable.

They’d smile, laugh and take delight in the look of shock on the face of that poor soul, and keep at it. Sooner or later, they’ll get the idea.

Of course, folks like Murray and Gandhi and King would utterly screw up that Calvinist idea of Heaven and Hell. If the damned were suffering among the saved, they’d be busy saving them. Damned troublemakers. If the damned and the saved were separated—that classic Heaven above and Hell below idea—they’d be militating to be let out of Heaven, to be allowed to go and evangelized Hell, to preach hope to the damned and to demons. They’d be stirring up sit-ins and protests in Heaven, or stirring up the damned to rise up and help each other; persuading devils to use those pitchforks to pull people out of flames.

Of course, if you believe in the kind of afterlife where the good are rewarded and the evil are punished, you have to wonder what would get done with saints like these folk (and all the others like them—it’s easy to make a long list of people who would not bat an eye but would dig in to do the work of ending the suffering of other souls). They’re too good to put up with in Heaven, and too much trouble to let loose in Hell.

That god? He’d have to evict them. No Heaven for them, and certainly no Hell. They’d be shipped back to the only place left—Earth. That leads one to wonder if the Buddha wasn’t on to something.

Take up your spoons; you have nothing to lose but Heaven and Hell—and if you’ll just start feeding each other, dammit, you can make heaven on earth.

Good stuff here...

On the use--or misuse--of theology and religious language.

I'll admit, I was a sucker for this:

The almighty focus group only knows.

Hypocrisy: Dope Slap!

Elliot Spitzer, having prosecuted a prostitution case and fulminated about how awful it was... gets busted for paying for sex in D.C. (a crime in the District), and for arranging for his obscenely expensive prostitute to come from New York (a federal crime, a violation of the Mann Act). For that, he gets a dope slap (he had to have been familiar with the Mann Act, it's not exactly new or obscure...) as well as a verbal flogging for the hypocrisy.

Of course, there's plenty to go around. The Republican Governors Association called for Spitzer to resign within hours.

The Governor of New York should immediately resign from office and allow the people of New York to pursue honest leadership. The American people are tired of corrupt and hypocritical politicians. The Governor of New York is just another in the long list of politicians that have failed their constituents." – Nick Ayers, RGA Executive Director

Curiously, they haven't gotten around to calling for Senator Vitter, or Senator Craig to resign. No doubt it's a backlog in their heavy duty moralizing schedule that's to blame. Not even that they're wrong. I think he ought to resign. It's just that they lack the, uh... moral stature... to call for it without it being a complete joke. Heck, they haven't even called for an investigation into Senator McCain's close and disturbingly intimate (even to his own staff) relationship with a lobbyist (of course, it's not clear to me if McCain's relationship--if accurately depicted--would violate the Mann Act or not).

It's just marvelous to me that each of these men has thrown stones from their little glass houses. Hubris, indeed.

Six 9/11s A Year--Every Year

Given that it's an election year, we get plenty of fearmongering. Ads, interviews and speeches that imply and suggest (if they don't say outright) that if some candidate is (or isn't) elected, we will suffer hell and damnationattacks on "the homeland" and that billions-and-billions millions many of us will die because "they" will come and get us. Here, at home. In our offices, living rooms, kitchens, gyms, bedrooms.

Scary. If you don't elect the right candidate, you'll get another 9/11. Or maybe, because you were so bad, and God really hates you now, more than one 9/11.

I'm sick of it. It's such specious nonsense (literally), and it's also fantastically hypocritical.

We suffer six 9/11s a year in the United States of America. This year, last year, the year before--and will next year and the year after. We -- our government -- do nothing.

Over 18,000 people will die unnecessarily this year. That many dies last year. That many will die next year. I might be one of them. You might be one of them. If not, your parent, child, friend or neighbor will be one of them. The odds are that we'll do nothing. They have come to get us for years and years and will come this year, and will come next year... and odds are we'll just go about our business--being afraid of other people most of whom would simply like us to go away so that they can try to rebuild their war savaged countries.

We're spending trillions of dollars to protect ("protect") ourselves from things that aren't likely to happen--and doing it badly, ineffectively, inefficiently and venally--and we're not willing to spend billions to protect ourselves from six 9/11s a year.

Just read it.

Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States.

... America ... is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage.

I'm a Universalist. I believe in attempting universal salvation in this life. Salvation from infectious disease, cancer, mental illness and other disorders. Not at some future date, not pie in the sky salvation -- maybe -- in the hereafter.

Today and every day.

Feed the hungry. Heal the sick. House the homeless.

If we accept six 9/11s a year, why not accept just one more and ignore it too? The idea is absurd. So why are you accepting six a year?

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

No, I'm not considering dropping blogging as a means to recapture time, nor to gather together enough still-functioning neurons to do something else important.

I'm just looking at the controversy over General Assembly being--to no one's delight--behind the port security boundary in Ft. Lauderdale. I do understand the upset some feel. I feel some of it myself. There's something wrong about needing to pass through security in order to attend a worship service of one's own faith... or of one you're sincerely curious about. There's something even more fundamentally wrong about having to pass through security run by an utterly dissociated institution--the government--in order to attend it.

I understand that it wasn't intended or planned--and that we were assured that it wouldn't be that way by the time that G.A. happened (lesson: No assurance is worth the paper it's printed on in a contractual arrangement... if it's not in print, and signed. The planning committees need to learn this lesson. There have been hotels that weren't built that we were assured would be, previously. From now on, can we please get all those assurances on paper? Or if not, then we should take note... and make sure that we label them with big caveats, and understand the consequences we'll face if those vapor promises evaporate).

I'm pleased that the UUMA has moved Ministry Days functions outside the boundary.

So what am I going to do? The ethical issues make for a fine challenge, given that I just had an intensive class on the subject. Pity I can't figure out how to turn this into a paper....

I think it's clear that there's no malicious intent. I don't see that there's serious harm, as long as this is not treated as precedent. Yes, some may not be able to attend, and that creates a potential issue of privilege. That can't be fixed at this point, and I don't see this as an issue momentous enough to just spend a million dollars on to fix for this year (if that would even do so). Still, the UUA needs to undertake not to let this sort of thing happen again.

So much for the general issues and abstractions.

Our minister is receiving final fellowship there, and would really like us to be there. My wife's going.

Relationships matter.

So, I'll be going. But I will be making a point of refusing to accept this as a precedent. If it recurs, I won't be going--not even if I'm the one receiving final fellowship.

Up For Air

Two days in -- as far as classes go. But things started full bore back on Jan 2, and the only "free" time I've really had was Saturday afternoon (which I can't remember--I must have studied) and part of Sunday afternoon.

Not that I've not had a good time, mind you.

But classes start at 9 and end at 5, with a generous lunch hour... which seems to feature some important must-go-to bring-your-own-lunch event a half hour after the break begins. And Meadville Lombard's experienced massive turnover and shuffling of the staff, so we modified residential students only began to get ID cards today (though we got keys to the buildings the first day--go figure). All is chaos, but everyone's intentions are good and their responses are prompt and, well, responsive.

But I have another 10 straight days of classes before I get a break--I must have been nuts to sign up for the weekend program too. Classes are good, and the place is warm (and I'm not just talking about the bizarre weather). With that, I hear a text book calling. Or maybe it's laundry that needs doing, or....

How to induce hysteria (in an online student)

Have a more senior student post a remark which implies that someone's comments are fascinating... and that the student is looking forward to the comments of those who've not yet posted (their remarks).

(For those unfamiliar with this brave new world, there are classes in which much (or all) of one's contact with other students and professors is online. Papers may be posted for review, discussion and commentary in order to assist in developing important conversations.)

The implication appearing to be that there's an assignment that's due--or actually overdue--and that some people should get off the stick....

Mad scramble.

What texts are referenced in the comment and the reply?

Crap! Crapcrapcrap! I haven't gotten to reading them--yet! Augh!

Quick, go check the syllabus--when was that paper due? I was pretty sure that I'd done everything due in December already, for that class. Augh!

Oh. Wait. Someone has gone and done the assignment due Jan 3rd (damned overachievers), and then gone and commented on someone's paper for the last assignment... making it look like more than one person had done recent work....

Oh.

Hold the Xanax.

I'll go back to figuring out how to complete another project and procrastinating.

haiku

Growing avalanche
Six thousand thousand thousands
There are rocks below