This graphic was with an article in the New York Times on 17 January (click on the link for a better view). I hardly know what to say after studying it. We were warned almost ½ a century ago by President Eisenhower about the pitfalls and folly of letting the military-industrial complex grow larger. We now work to feed the beast. What is criminal is what we could do to improve life in our country (and the world) if we didn’t feed this beast.

True, this graph is about the cost of the war in Iraq, but Iraq is merely a manifestation of the iron grip that the military-industrial has on our economy, our lives, and our very souls. It isn’t that we could have funded universal health care, or universal preschool, or ensure our security by enacting all of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, or conquering cancer, or immunize all of the children of the world against childhood diseases: we could have done it all and have a chunk of change left over. (more…)

Perception is a strange thing. I had studied these photos of Ron Mueck’s sculpture of a boy for quite a while. They are obviously from 2 different exhibitions. The larger of the 2 was in a gallery with soaring dimensions. Also, the photo is taken from a height above. The figure of the boy appears to be looking down at the spectators. There is something slightly menacing about him, as if he’s contemplating standing up and then stomping on the people. Or, perhaps, he’s thinking of playing with them as if they were dolls. The sculpture seems in proportion with the space, it’s the people who seem small and insignificant.

In the second photo, the boy seems cramped. His outsized figure can barely fit in the space he’s been allotted. This time he’s looking off in the distance. He has a thousand-yard stare. The people aren’t menaced by him at all. The space is theirs and he can do nothing but crouch down in it.

Many aspects of life can be contrasted this way. A situation that seems huge in one context, can seem more in proportion (or at least manageable) in another context. Yes, it’s all in how you look at it. (more…)

In Book 7 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates relates the allegory of the cave. In the cave, men are forced to look at what the rulers want them to see. The men can neither move their heads nor avert their eyes. What they do see are shadows projected on the walls in front of them by the unseen people in charge. They never see reality or even who is creating this illusion. However, if the men were allowed out of the cave; they might be blinded by the brightness and mightn’t see the reality in front of them.

This allegory also applies to people living in post-industrialized, technologically-advanced countries today. That would be all of the so-called 1st world nations. I say ‘so-called’ because there are many ways in which we, who do live in 1st world nations, are no better off than those who live in countries that we derogatorily refer to as 3rd world. But more on that another time.

Here’s the conundrum: do we put up with the force-fed shadows on the wall of the cave or do we risk being blinded by the light of the truth outside the cave? Do we fight the shadows in our ‘cave’ in order to find the truth? The only reality we know are the shadows we are allowed to see. It’s not as simple as a politicised press (either liberal or conservative). It’s not as simple as a culture of corruption in D.C. It’s about a system that started as corrupt and can’t seem to get out of its own way. (more…)

Okay. Settle in your seats, sip your lattes, and listen carefully because there will be a quiz later.

Rhetoric is a learned skill. Rhetorical eloquence is an art. George W. Bush is not a skilled speechmaker. He stumbles over words and garbles the easiest of sentences. However, it’s far too facile to convolute what he says with how he says it. A case in point is his recent State of the Union Address.

This speech was a masterwork of false dichotomies in the ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us’ vein and misdirection. (more…)

I’ve been scanning old photos. I’m trying to leave something for posterity, even though I realize that I’m the only one that cares about these images. When I came across this one, I started to wonder how much of all of our lives are kept alive in these old images. Let me explain.

The cake is for a 3rd birthday party, my 3rd birthday party. It looks like I made a good, but not overwhelming haul that day. The little box in the upper left looks like jewelry, maybe it’s a ring? I’d say that the one in the lower right was probably a book. Six presents for a 3-year old isn’t bad at all.

The most important thing in the photo is, of course, in the center: it’s the cake. That cake has assumed hagiographic proportions in my memories. It was a very special cake that had been ordered from the City of Paris bakery in San Francisco. The City of Paris was a department store where I would have one of my better tantrums as a child, but that’s not what this photo was about. It’s a beautiful cake. It’s almost too beautiful for a 3-year old. Therein hangs a tale.

Since my birthday was celebrated on the 4th of July, my cakes usually had a patriotic theme. There are three drum majors on the left of the cake. They are probably plastic. The red, white and blue roses, however, were definitely not plastic. They were made out of pure sugar. Evidently they could be saved “forever and ever.” Why anyone would want to save them forever and ever is beyond my comprehension. Yes, I ate them. I popped them in my mouth and thoroughly consumed those little American beauties. (more…)

This has been yet another annus horribilis. Starting with Boxing Day 2004, Mother Nature has shown us, lest we forget, who’s in charge. From earthquakes to tsunamis to hurricanes and floods; we look weak and our responses have been inadequate on every level.

Our bodies politic have been shaken to the core. Don’t feel that it’s just your system that’s in turmoil: institutions everywhere have been tested and found wanting.

Our faith in those who would lead us has been shaken to the core. Those in power abuse those fragile rights that we, the governed, have always been told are inalienable. Those out of power seem unable to find their way out of the desert. Their voices are discordant when they need to speak as one.

So, where does that leave us? If we have seen the enemy and he is us; then we need to look inward for the answer to what ails us. The human experiment evolves, but it’s based on one basic premise: we must care for one another to survive.

Hobbes said that we must make sacrifices to live inside the leviathan. We give up those freedoms to do as we wish in order that our lives will not be, “short, nasty and brutish.” We can live out our existences inside the leviathan because we are inside. But in order for the experiment to work, we can’t atomize ourselves: e pluribus Unum. And that whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Here’s to the good ship of state and all those sail in her. May the seas be calm in her wake. May the wind fill her sails. May the setting sun see her safely home.

I was just watching “Rashomon” again. Our separate realities is a theme I keep returning to in my meanderings. It lives side by side with my view of human relations as an existential exercise: we create our realities.

In “Rashomon,” whose story was true? The thief, the wife, the husband? Was the woodsman, in the end, telling the true story, even though we find out that he’s a thief? Or, did they each create their own reality because that was what each of them could live with? In statistical analysis, triangulation gives a semblance of the reality behind the numbers. In “Rashomon,” there is no triangulation. It’s true that the thief and woodsman both say the thief killed the husband. But, is that just what conforms to what they each need to be the truth? (more…)

And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart

This time of year always seems a natural time for me to think about how we’re all just stardust. Everything we are, everything we will become is all wound up in the stardust that we are.

High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we’re apart
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die (more…)

Not long ago the HB and I were watching a chat show on the telly. The interviewee was an older comedian. He’s very successful and quite wealthy. He was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt with sandals. His eyes were concealed with dark glasses. His demeanor seemed as if he had looked into his soul and had seen an abyss.

Everyone must go through the ‘darkest part of the longest night’ at some point in their lives: it is a moment when we have nowhere to look for answers but into our own soul. The measure of the person is how we emerge from that night. (more…)

After the flurry of activity yesterday, it’s time to reflect on power and the truth.

Here’s something to ponder: in a representative form of government does anyone have absolute power? The short answer is: no. The first problem is, however, when people in power think that their power is absolute. The second problem is inherent in the concept of power; because power, in and of itself, tends to corrupt.

Hubris is the underlying fault. That is to say: having hubris enables a person’s willingness to believe that he/she can have absolute power. That belief is, of course, foolish. But when has foolishness ever stopped self-deception? Furthermore, it’s imprudent to believe that one has absolute power under any circumstance. (more…)