YELLOW DOG PUBLICRATS

Down South, yellow dog Democrats have all now become yellow dog Republicans. Sad to say their ability to shift from blind followers of one party to blind followers of another party only demonstrates that many Southerners have an enlarged capacity for "blind following". I'm pretty sure it has something to do with their Bible Belt roots which foster the psychological need to have some godlike personage above them to watch out for them and punish them if they fail to do as told.


SLEEVES, FEELINGS AND LIFE AT A DISTANCE

"... predictably, anyone continually knitting his life into contexts of intention, import, and clarifications of meaning will in the end find that he has lost the sense of experiencing life." (MYTHS TO LIVE BY, Campbell, p. 133)

That brief paragraph is most interesting, for if anyone "knits" his life together by finding "meanings" and has lost "the sense of experiencing life", I might be that one in my 67th year of life. In my drinking years I struggled with the fear that I felt too much and understood too little. I could now describe myself as having been a tad obsessive and compulsive. Now I think I understand a bit more but feel the experience of life quite a bit less. My long dead father's letters to me, what few there were between us, were always detached and distant too, and always quite formal sounding. In those days when I "wore my feelings" on the proverbial sleeve, I'd show his letters to me to my friends and ask them if they didn't also think his letters were very unaffected.

"The first and foremost aim of Zen, consequently, is to break the net of our concepts—which is why it has been termed by some a philosophy of 'no mind.' A number of schools of Occidental psychological therapy hold that what we all most need and are seeking is a meaning for our lives. For some, this may be a help; but all it helps is the intellect, and when the intellect sets to work on life with its names and categories, recognitions [sic] of relationship and definitions of meaning, what is inwardmost is readily lost. Zen, on the contrary, holds to the realization that life and the sense of life are antecedent to meaning; the idea being to let life come and not name it. It will then push you right back to where you live—where you are, and not where you are named." (Campbell, p. 133)

The preceding paragraph is probably why I'm currently trying to begin to practice some form of Zen meditation or discipline which I always find hard to do. I don't have the discipline to sit still and work at something which I imagine will take away from my time for reading and keeping up my journal and Blog. Except for my AA meetings, I've rarely been able to practice anything other than reading and writing on a regular basis. I would hope I could develop something like the following practice for my life which would still free me to read and keep up on my writing projects, uncreative as they've become.

"This, finally, then, is what is meant by the Mahayana Buddhist term zen, ch’an or dhyana = “contemplation.” It is a way of contemplation that can be just as well enjoyed while walking, working, and otherwise moving about in this world, as while sitting in a lotus posture, gazing at a wall or at nothing, in the manner of a Bodhidharma. It is a way of participation, living gladly in this secular world, both in the world and of it, our labor in the earning of a living then being our discipline; the raising of our family; our intercourse with acquaintances; our sufferings and our joys." (Campbell, p. 149)


MORE BUSH FUCKUPS

North Korea has the bombs now, and why not? If your neighborhood contained a roughneck who had no compunction about attacking you just because he felt like it, wouldn't you arm yourself in self defense? If I were Iran, I'd arm myself to the teeth also. This Bush character is a rogue ruler, ready to run roughshod over anyone he pleases. It's the Christian thing to do, he must think.

During Bush's first term, the Centers For Disease Control was required by him to remove all links to comprehensive sex education from its website. Recall, Texas has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the Nation after Bush got done with them when he was governor there. The mess he made in Texas ought to be spread nationwide, don't you agree?


HEROES

When a man no longer believes in heroes and quits searching for someone to lead him that's the chief sign he's finally matured and stepped out of his father's shadow at last to claim his own place in the sun.


A NEW AGE GONE OLD, AS ALWAYS

Toward the end of Chapter Eleven in Vidal's THE GOLDEN AGE, he captures the thoughts of men and women of the arts who "felt" America's greatness in their bones right after the second world war. I was reminded of how we felt under the Kennedy influence as we sensed the approach of a new age of peace and prosperity for the world. Vidal even introduces himself as a character in this chapter who meets Peter Sanford. Peter thinks of Augustan Rome when he surveys the fallen world around triumphant American arts, martial and otherwise. I really appreciate Gore for reminding me of how I felt in those hopeful days of my youth. He captured it for me briefly and intensely.
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"Every hero becomes a bore at last." —Ralph Waldo Emerson