MY COMMENT ON A COLUMBIAN ARTICLE

Read the article here.

Gosh, I wish I was rich enough to own 83 foot schooners, then I might be able to see through the eyes of a rich person, to walk in his shoes. But I made my shot at it and, like most, was not able to find room in that 1% of Americans who rule America and its economic fortunes. So I do my best to vote in such a way to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and to keep the American middle class from being further eroded by the decisions of politicians who are in the pockets of schooner owners.

The best way to protect America and its Constitution is to do everything in our power to make sure that a good strong middle class continues to exist and that poverty does not grow to undermine social stability—even if it might mean increased taxes and allowing Bush's tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans to lapse. Thus defended, the Constitution won't be so stressed in its efforts to protect all Americans as to fail. Laws without a human touch are bound to fail eventually.  

Most interesting is the name of the schooner. Sounds like just in pre-WW II Spain, in South America, and in the Catholic Church during Hitler's regime, religion is being put into the service of the wealthy to suppress the poor and other minorities. One of the things to guard against that history has taught us is when the church forgets Christ's message to serve the poor and begins to politicize itself and become a mouthpiece for the rich. Such a historical trend is now coming to America in a big way. Since we're a younger country and have not learned that lesson, I fear we'll someday have our turn at fascism too. 

THE COLUMBIAN (VANCOUVER WA PAPER) WON'T ACCEPT THIS LENGTH

I like free market principles. Here in America they've done a wonderful job of stopping inflation dead in its tracks. With so many people out of work, no one except the richest 12% can afford to buy anything. That definitely keeps prices in check. And wages too.

Let's see: the free market (i.e. unbridled greed) has brought us outlandish CEO benefits and income, the Savings and Loan mess, the dot.com bust, the great Depression and current great Recession, bank failures galore, exploding gold values (for those who can afford gold), the collapsing dollar, corporate corruption, corporate ownership of the Republican part of the US Congress (think Tom Delay and his K Street project), a widely increasing gap between the richest Americans and the poorest, a continually shrinking middle class, the outsourcing of our entire manufacturing base (in search of profits first) along with its good-paying jobs, mortgage failures, the destruction of unions by which working men and women used to have some say about their pay rather than being totally dependent on what their bosses want to pay them (except when Dems manage to raise the minimum wage), financial collapse, cheap come-on printers with expensive ink, ownership of much of America by China and other big investors. Yes, the one thing we do not want is for we voters to have any control whatsoever over the economic forces that dominate our lives.

As to private health care insurance—haven't we seen where that takes us? The public option for health insurance is just that, an OPTION. No one has to use it, so let's try it out and see what happens. If we don't like it after 5 years or so, we can change it, drop it or keep and expand it. It's optional for Pete's sake. What's to fear? Only those who know it might succeed as well as Medicare to hold costs in check fear the public OPTION.

Another thing about private insurance with many competing plans. We've seen how the financial industry has bamboozled the average American with small print and hidden clauses and devious practices when it comes to credit cards. They have no scruples when it comes to profits. To make correct health care choices, one even now has to be an insurance whizzbang to always make the correct choices, and the insurance industry will do everything in its power to fool and trick the average American who, every year, becomes less literate and less able to inform himself by carefully reading the small print. We already have much anecdotal evidence about health insurance surprises for people who did not know exactly what they were getting when they tried to save money on health insurance. I've had occasion to appeal a health insurance claim. Talk about devious decisions and lawyer-like ways to use language to obfuscate an issue! They're masters at it already.

I'll tell you this, when I see widespread honesty at the highest levels of corporate life and a desire to balance profits with social responsibility, then I'll turn my economic welfare over to unregulated, free market capitalism. I can at least vote for change when it comes to politicians and a public OPTION in health care insurance.

SEEING IS NOT HEARING or MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING

We went to see our play and our seats were three-quarters back on the lower level, maybe a bit farther from the stage than that, so I couldn't hear about 3/4 of the play. My ears are truly shot. I can understand that I could have used hearing aids in that one situation of live theater. I think they'd have helped, but in a movie theater, not usually. I try not to remember when I sat in theaters and could hear everything. Not hearing well distances me from people and situations, but even hearing devices that I use in movies don't help when there's background music or street sounds or when characters whisper. If I'd been able to get seats closer, I'm sure I'd have heard just fine. The last time my wife and I went to Interplayers in Spokane I could hear just fine and my son's improv performances are always hearable. 

I'm looking for science to find a way to re-stimulate the little hairs that increase hearing, but the hearing aid and hearing aid battery industry is so huge, I wonder if research is really underway on hearing defects. Hearing aids, like vision aids, are in the control of non-professionals whose sole purpose is to sell devices. They'd hate to see medical treatments that would improve hearing, yet I'm sure that someday, it'll be as simple as a drug or other treatment to restore almost complete hearing ability. 

PS: It didn't rain, not a whisper of it. 

EATING EXPENSIVELY

We've eaten at two pricey restaurants in this tourist town of Ashland in which Southern Oregon University is located and the Shakespearean Festival. We conclude that all spendy restaurants feature at least two things. One is slow service. The other is food without much flavor. We conclude that Wolfgang Puck has an audience of jumble-brained patsies. Bring me some roast and fried potatoes. 

DEMONSTRATING IGNORANCE TO MANY PEOPLE

Today, my wife and I drove over to the Crescent City on the Northern California coast. Coming back along I-5, we passed a garage or shed with its back to the highway. On its surface in large letters, its owner had written: PRAISE GOD.

My wife and I laughed. Praise God. Is that the being who doomed the entire human race to die because they exercised the supposedly free will he'd given them to use in a free way? What's to praise? Seems he really didn't mean them to have free will except as limited by his king like orders. So they weren't actually free. So, for disobeying a little thing like eating and becoming as wise as god imagined he was wise, this god fellow murders every human being on earth, constantly, each and every day. Then, as atonement for his unrelieved cruelty toward the human race, he makes it up by killing his own son. That's right, two wrongs somehow make a right. 

Then there's another piece of insanity in that whole scenario. As I recall, this hypothetical superbeing was afraid that his human slaves would eat of the tree of life and have eternal life. Now wait a minute. I thought these human being already had eternal life. That's why god decided that they must die, that he must take away their eternal lives, but then why was he afraid that they'd eat of the tree of life since they already had eternal life before he doomed them to die? Something awfully circular and crazy in this whole account of the origins of the human species and life and death. Funny no one ever noticed these things back in the darkest days of human intelligence. Seems that for humankind to really get wise and intelligent, they took many millennia. Why did this hypothetical superbeing think that ignorant twosome had grown wise in the first place? They were pretty ignorant after all, so if their intelligence, dim as it was, nearly equaled his intelligence, he (the hypothetical one) was himself dumb as a post. Lot's of twists and turns in here, aren't there? 

Praise god, my ass. Glad to be rid of the hypothesis of him, I'd say. 

HELLO FROM SHAKESPEARE

So... for the first time since I've lived out west (30+years), I've come down to Ashland, Oregon with my spouse, Mertie, for to see its Shakespeare Festival which runs nearly year round. We two groundlings are going to see Much Ado About Nothing on Saturday night, and, of course, there's a 60% chance of rain on Saturday night with temps down into the 50s. We've chosen a play being presented in the open air arena, a mockup of the Stratford theater where Mr. Shakespeare, himself, presented his plays. Of course, everyone we talk to down here tells us it never rains when a play is being presented, miraculously. Yes, the weather is in sympathy with Shakespeare. Or is it the doubling and troubling three witches up on the barren hillsides that surround Ashland who control the weather? Or could it be the local chamber of commerce, making sure that such rumors float North on the lips of groundlings like Mertie and I?

More later.

MORE CHURCH SIGN NONSENSE

A recent local church sign read: "Character—what you do when no one's looking."

Of course, I thought. But then I thought deeper. Pride, I believe, is one of the 7 deadly sins. Well, if one becomes aware of having done a "good" deed, then he is being pridefully self-congratulatory. If one takes self-worth or pride in what he's done, then he's got the character of a sinner. In order to be free of the sin of pride, he must also be unaware of what he's done. In short, the only good deed is a thoughtless one or one done without thought at all. Actually the only act which could be considered an act free of pride (self-congratulation) would have to be an unconscious act. Of course, one can always counter-balance a good deed by telling everyone that's he's done the good deed. That would counter-balance his pride and make his act an act of good character.

Christians just never get it right, do they?