So this one time, while I was learning to spin fire my teacher Mark Lerro of Urban Lotus was explaining the directions I should face relative to spectators when performing various fire tricks.
"For example," he said, "Look at the three-beat weave... when you face your audience head-on it looks crazy and chaotic; when stand at [a particular angle to them], they can see the order, the perfect symmetry of the motion and the fire."
The man was just trying to tell me where to stand, but my Huckleberry brain donned its straw hat and started off barefoot down a trail of thought with goodies for grandmother wrapped in a handkerchief and tied to a stick draped over its pink, bulbous, and wrinkly shoulder. I started thinking about the absolutely fascinating reality of chaos and order coexisting in the same time and space.
I love that idea, and the fact of it, and I don't think that it is a unique situation. I think chaos is pretty much always present in order and that order is pretty much always present in chaos.
This becomes especially apparent at the micro- and macro-levels. The totally random and sensible-as-clockwork natures of global weather patterns, and the rule-bound and utterly nonsensical behavior of subatomic particles that disappear to God knows where, and then reappear, all by the billions in a billionth of a second. And how in this way (and many others) at every moment we are made anew, automatically and through our various interventions like water flowing over skin taking with it an effluence of skin cells that are immediately replaced with whole new cells, and the sheer wonder that the physical body and you woke up with and it's secret chemistry will not be the same when you go to bed--and the staggering liberating implications of all this.
Consider the strange science-magic of touching another person--how you figuratively and literally become part of each other, because you both shed electrons onto each other, and how incredible and important it is to be fully present and conscious of this in those moments of embrace, recognizing what you are giving and what you are carrying away with you.
I think that's all I got right now and certainly all the minutes I have right now but I'll write more later. I have been thinking about the way slip-sloppy lickety-splititude and rock-solid immobility coexist at all times in language. So look forward or dread more on that, so please you. Talk to you later, you monkeys.
By the way, if you like steampunk or kind of-historical fiction or fun of any kind, check out the book: The Strange Affair of Spring-heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. It's the first book of what looks to be a series in which the real-life 19th century blokes Sir Richard Burton, explorer, and Algeron Swinburne, poet, investigate bizarre crimes in an alternate history in which Technolgists, Eugenicists, and Libertines battle for control of society in the aftermath of the assassination of Queen Victoria. (The author alters the story of a real 1840 attempt on Her Majesty's life so as to make it successful, creating at very different looking world.) In this story, they investigate a string of werewolf attacks, an evil talking ape, as well as a bizarre apparition that has begun terrorizing the London streets. It's a silly premise, but it's wicked fun.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
It's just a bill, sittin' up on Capital Hill
Been a while since I have posted, and I don't like it. I prefer to write more often than this! I resolve to post more. I've been sick the past few weeks. I had bronchitis, took antibiotics and then got better for a while, and then it came back with its buddy pneumonia. I am still trying to get rid of it, but all in all I feel gradually better every day.
Now. Let's talk about the revered "Founding Fathers" of this country. Throughout our public, political discourse I hear people on every side of the political spectrum repeat the same refrain over and over like it's "Om Mani Padme Hum" or something. They keep belching up the words, "... what the Founder's intended."
A couple of examples:
Delaware Sen. Mark Cole: "I think this gets back to the original intent of the commerce clause. I think the founding fathers intended states to regulate their own commerce."
The Huffington Post: "The founding fathers never intended to give us a hands-off government."
Of course, there are countless others. I could fill a book with the number of times Glenn Beck--the conservative Oprah--has whined or wet his pants in grief over our departure from the Founders and the fiery apocalypse that will apparently result.
As for me every time I hear this argument, I have the same involuntary reaction:
Who cares?
Gasp! What is this blasphemy, you ask? It's simple. The statesmen who established our government were admirable men who bucked centuries of tradition to establish something new. However, they were men, not deities. They made mistakes and they made compromises. They also were not unified bloc who spoke with one voice or shared a single set of opinions.
Like our current legislatures, the First Continental Congress, Constitutional Convention and so forth was rife with factions that had competing interests. It was a place of debate, juggling priorities, and compromise. The very statement, "The Founders intended ..." or "The Founders believed..." is ludicrous, no matter what follows it. Any statement beginning with those terms should be regarded with suspicion. These were intelligent, complex men whose worldview cannot be contained in sound bytes in a TV news spot.
(An aside: Current average length of a hard news "story" on cable/network news: 15 to 30 seconds. It's amazing to me that people watch this crap and walk away thinking they are informed. It's context-free babble that's either horribly skewed in one political direction or so neutered by the fear of being perceived as bias that they do nothing but repeat what the politicians on both sides say and call it a night, but back to our program.)
That is not to say that the study of their history or ideas is not worthwhile. However, like any study of history--whether of Jefferson or Caesar or Garibaldi or What Have You--it should be approached with respect. Searching through documents looking for bits and pieces that will support your current political wish list doesn't count.
It is not enough for a conservative to quote Thomas Jefferson saying, "A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
Likewise it is not enough for a liberal to quote Thomas Jefferson saying, "I hope our nation will crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
See how messy this gets? Neither of our major modern political parties represent the interests of the founders, who by the way, are dead and have no interests. Neither of them is more "true to the spirit" of the founders than the other, just as none of them are comparable to Nazis or Maoists or Communists--No matter how convenient such comparisons may be for those who wish to manipulate popular opinion.
Such statements suggest nothing to me but the fundamental weakness of the person making the argument. I don't want to hear some silly comparison to George Washington or Adolf Hitler. (Hitler had two legs -- Obama has two legs ... COINCIDENCE, I ASK YOU???????) Try to convince me on the merit of your ideas, demonstrate how a proposed policy will benefit the public, and be honest about its negative impact--for all actions have both positive and negative consequences if you look hard enough. The American public's apparent demand for perfection, for its cake and the right to eat it to, is embarrassing childishness. So is its preference for platitudes and mythology over demonstrated experience and hard data.
These founding fathers of ours lived in the 18th Century. Their problems to which they were responding existed in a social and historical context that no longer applies. Their apologists love to point to this fact when considering the founders' treatment of women and the question of slavery. "Well, ahem, they were men of their time, you can't judge them by the standards of today, ahem hmm." Got news for you, that applies across the board--not only to certain unseemly details.
And can we please stop having useless arguments over what religions "The Founders" might have belonged to? Not only--again--are the founders lots of people with lots of different beliefs and opinions, but it just doesn't matter. This country, at least on paper, has a secular government. (Even though you do still have to be Christian at least in name to be elected president for some reason.) The whole purpose of that is to render the personal beliefs of leaders irrelevant. And we are better off that way.
Compare that to the pointless "religious" wars of history, some of which lasted for decades allegedly based on nothing more than this: --"oh look a monarch has come to the throne who doesn't like the way you have interpreted ancient Jewish mythology and rules that he's not going to follow anyway--guess thousands of people have to die." (I say "allegedly" because 9 times out of 10, a religious basis for war is just a cover story for a political or economic motive. It's simply easier to convince people to die for Christ or Allah than for Little Lord Poopiepants to get more land, such as with The Crusades.)
In this country, everyone is free to practice or not practice any religion or spiritual path they choose. Or at least they are free from government interference in the practice of their religion. (Their neighbors are still free to spew hatred at them if they don't go along with the majority.) Religious freedom cannot be preserved if religion is brought into government. Period.
And for the frothing conservatives who think we are or should be a "Christian" nation--I would really love to see their reaction if the version of Christianity the government were to adopt didn't fit the one they are most comfy with. "But MY beliefs represent the only really true faith!" says the Catholic or Mormon or Seventh Day Adventist or Baptist or Muslim and/or so forth ... Guess what buddy--that's what they ALL say. It's called marketing.
Just wait until the corporations pick up on this: "Dr. Pepper is God's chosen beverage, or was until Coke came. Drink Coke--or spend an eternity in hell. And you can't just drink any cola--Pepsi is for the infidels,it is a false cola, and don't get me started on that silly turban-wearing 7 Up." If the founders had ANY intentions regarding religion and government--it was preventing us from having stupid debates about the personal beliefs of dead men so we could focus on matters at hand.
The other side of the coin is whether they "intended" the Constitution to be static and iron-clad, or whether they considered it to be a "living document." That doesn't matter either, because they don't get a choice. It's a living document, whether they intended it to be or not. Here's why: All documents are living documents. Every time a new person reads a document, that document has the opportunity to take on new meaning. Like the founders, we are people of our time and place. We do not exist in a vacuum. Our context, our time, place and perceptions all influence how we interpret a text. Just as the Bible was used to both support slavery and oppose it, multiple, opposing interpretations of the constitution exist and all can be proved based on the text--because there are no perfect signifiers. Language is arbitrary. Cherry pick the right phrase, remove it from its historical and cultural context, and you can claim the Constitution or the Bible or Green Eggs & Ham supports or forbids just about anything.
Words are slippery, juicy, sloppy things. While it's comforting and empowering to imagine that we can pin them down--it's a delusion. Does immutable truth exist? Sure, probably. But you and I will never be able to touch it--at least not with language, and whatever else Truth may be, it's certainly bigger than political squabbles based on competing self-interests in one little country on one little planet in one little galaxy at one little moment in time. As Heisenberg demonstrated, the mere act of observing a phenomenon changes it; it will never be what it was before you saw it. The reader of a text brings as much meaning to it as the author does. There is no escaping this reality.
Nor must we forget that the founders also acted with a degree of self-interest. Out of population of more than 12 million in the 13 colonies that comprised our nation, the founders "believed" that only about 2 million should be able to vote, that only white males who owned a certain amount of property should have a voice in government. They disenfranchised women, people of color, and people who were not wealthy enough. In short, they placed the power in their own hands and the hands of people just like them--their own gender, race, and social class. But you know, ahem... they were men of their time ...
That is true; they were men of their time: The 18th Century, a time when bathing was considered unhealthy. :-) Therefore the measure of a modern policy is not determined by our speculations over what they might have thought about it.
The solutions to our problems are to be found in the 21st Century, not the 18th. In the 18th century, slavery was considered an acceptable practice. Our very Constitution enshrined it (the result of a compromise to ensure ratification--not the result of unanimous agreement) until it was later amended. The fact that the Constitutional Convention developed the amendment process itself demonstrates their own fallibility, their recognition that the nation would need to change with the times, that America was and always will be a work in progress--like every country and like every person. No matter how desperately some frightened individuals may wish we could move America backward to a more wholesome, more fictional age--it simply cannot be done. I personally believe further that it shouldn't be done--but I am a man of my time.
But if you don't believe me ... then consider what "the Founding Fathers believed:"
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and constitutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep the pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
--Thomas Jefferson
Now. Let's talk about the revered "Founding Fathers" of this country. Throughout our public, political discourse I hear people on every side of the political spectrum repeat the same refrain over and over like it's "Om Mani Padme Hum" or something. They keep belching up the words, "... what the Founder's intended."
A couple of examples:
Delaware Sen. Mark Cole: "I think this gets back to the original intent of the commerce clause. I think the founding fathers intended states to regulate their own commerce."
The Huffington Post: "The founding fathers never intended to give us a hands-off government."
Of course, there are countless others. I could fill a book with the number of times Glenn Beck--the conservative Oprah--has whined or wet his pants in grief over our departure from the Founders and the fiery apocalypse that will apparently result.
As for me every time I hear this argument, I have the same involuntary reaction:
Who cares?
Gasp! What is this blasphemy, you ask? It's simple. The statesmen who established our government were admirable men who bucked centuries of tradition to establish something new. However, they were men, not deities. They made mistakes and they made compromises. They also were not unified bloc who spoke with one voice or shared a single set of opinions.
Like our current legislatures, the First Continental Congress, Constitutional Convention and so forth was rife with factions that had competing interests. It was a place of debate, juggling priorities, and compromise. The very statement, "The Founders intended ..." or "The Founders believed..." is ludicrous, no matter what follows it. Any statement beginning with those terms should be regarded with suspicion. These were intelligent, complex men whose worldview cannot be contained in sound bytes in a TV news spot.
(An aside: Current average length of a hard news "story" on cable/network news: 15 to 30 seconds. It's amazing to me that people watch this crap and walk away thinking they are informed. It's context-free babble that's either horribly skewed in one political direction or so neutered by the fear of being perceived as bias that they do nothing but repeat what the politicians on both sides say and call it a night, but back to our program.)
That is not to say that the study of their history or ideas is not worthwhile. However, like any study of history--whether of Jefferson or Caesar or Garibaldi or What Have You--it should be approached with respect. Searching through documents looking for bits and pieces that will support your current political wish list doesn't count.
It is not enough for a conservative to quote Thomas Jefferson saying, "A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
Likewise it is not enough for a liberal to quote Thomas Jefferson saying, "I hope our nation will crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
See how messy this gets? Neither of our major modern political parties represent the interests of the founders, who by the way, are dead and have no interests. Neither of them is more "true to the spirit" of the founders than the other, just as none of them are comparable to Nazis or Maoists or Communists--No matter how convenient such comparisons may be for those who wish to manipulate popular opinion.
Such statements suggest nothing to me but the fundamental weakness of the person making the argument. I don't want to hear some silly comparison to George Washington or Adolf Hitler. (Hitler had two legs -- Obama has two legs ... COINCIDENCE, I ASK YOU???????) Try to convince me on the merit of your ideas, demonstrate how a proposed policy will benefit the public, and be honest about its negative impact--for all actions have both positive and negative consequences if you look hard enough. The American public's apparent demand for perfection, for its cake and the right to eat it to, is embarrassing childishness. So is its preference for platitudes and mythology over demonstrated experience and hard data.
These founding fathers of ours lived in the 18th Century. Their problems to which they were responding existed in a social and historical context that no longer applies. Their apologists love to point to this fact when considering the founders' treatment of women and the question of slavery. "Well, ahem, they were men of their time, you can't judge them by the standards of today, ahem hmm." Got news for you, that applies across the board--not only to certain unseemly details.
And can we please stop having useless arguments over what religions "The Founders" might have belonged to? Not only--again--are the founders lots of people with lots of different beliefs and opinions, but it just doesn't matter. This country, at least on paper, has a secular government. (Even though you do still have to be Christian at least in name to be elected president for some reason.) The whole purpose of that is to render the personal beliefs of leaders irrelevant. And we are better off that way.
Compare that to the pointless "religious" wars of history, some of which lasted for decades allegedly based on nothing more than this: --"oh look a monarch has come to the throne who doesn't like the way you have interpreted ancient Jewish mythology and rules that he's not going to follow anyway--guess thousands of people have to die." (I say "allegedly" because 9 times out of 10, a religious basis for war is just a cover story for a political or economic motive. It's simply easier to convince people to die for Christ or Allah than for Little Lord Poopiepants to get more land, such as with The Crusades.)
In this country, everyone is free to practice or not practice any religion or spiritual path they choose. Or at least they are free from government interference in the practice of their religion. (Their neighbors are still free to spew hatred at them if they don't go along with the majority.) Religious freedom cannot be preserved if religion is brought into government. Period.
And for the frothing conservatives who think we are or should be a "Christian" nation--I would really love to see their reaction if the version of Christianity the government were to adopt didn't fit the one they are most comfy with. "But MY beliefs represent the only really true faith!" says the Catholic or Mormon or Seventh Day Adventist or Baptist or Muslim and/or so forth ... Guess what buddy--that's what they ALL say. It's called marketing.
Just wait until the corporations pick up on this: "Dr. Pepper is God's chosen beverage, or was until Coke came. Drink Coke--or spend an eternity in hell. And you can't just drink any cola--Pepsi is for the infidels,it is a false cola, and don't get me started on that silly turban-wearing 7 Up." If the founders had ANY intentions regarding religion and government--it was preventing us from having stupid debates about the personal beliefs of dead men so we could focus on matters at hand.
The other side of the coin is whether they "intended" the Constitution to be static and iron-clad, or whether they considered it to be a "living document." That doesn't matter either, because they don't get a choice. It's a living document, whether they intended it to be or not. Here's why: All documents are living documents. Every time a new person reads a document, that document has the opportunity to take on new meaning. Like the founders, we are people of our time and place. We do not exist in a vacuum. Our context, our time, place and perceptions all influence how we interpret a text. Just as the Bible was used to both support slavery and oppose it, multiple, opposing interpretations of the constitution exist and all can be proved based on the text--because there are no perfect signifiers. Language is arbitrary. Cherry pick the right phrase, remove it from its historical and cultural context, and you can claim the Constitution or the Bible or Green Eggs & Ham supports or forbids just about anything.
Words are slippery, juicy, sloppy things. While it's comforting and empowering to imagine that we can pin them down--it's a delusion. Does immutable truth exist? Sure, probably. But you and I will never be able to touch it--at least not with language, and whatever else Truth may be, it's certainly bigger than political squabbles based on competing self-interests in one little country on one little planet in one little galaxy at one little moment in time. As Heisenberg demonstrated, the mere act of observing a phenomenon changes it; it will never be what it was before you saw it. The reader of a text brings as much meaning to it as the author does. There is no escaping this reality.
Nor must we forget that the founders also acted with a degree of self-interest. Out of population of more than 12 million in the 13 colonies that comprised our nation, the founders "believed" that only about 2 million should be able to vote, that only white males who owned a certain amount of property should have a voice in government. They disenfranchised women, people of color, and people who were not wealthy enough. In short, they placed the power in their own hands and the hands of people just like them--their own gender, race, and social class. But you know, ahem... they were men of their time ...
That is true; they were men of their time: The 18th Century, a time when bathing was considered unhealthy. :-) Therefore the measure of a modern policy is not determined by our speculations over what they might have thought about it.
The solutions to our problems are to be found in the 21st Century, not the 18th. In the 18th century, slavery was considered an acceptable practice. Our very Constitution enshrined it (the result of a compromise to ensure ratification--not the result of unanimous agreement) until it was later amended. The fact that the Constitutional Convention developed the amendment process itself demonstrates their own fallibility, their recognition that the nation would need to change with the times, that America was and always will be a work in progress--like every country and like every person. No matter how desperately some frightened individuals may wish we could move America backward to a more wholesome, more fictional age--it simply cannot be done. I personally believe further that it shouldn't be done--but I am a man of my time.
But if you don't believe me ... then consider what "the Founding Fathers believed:"
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and constitutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep the pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
--Thomas Jefferson
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