We are a very sick society

There are so many things about this story that deeply disturb me. I am really not sure where to begin. However I think the fact that 1500 people were watching what was occuring and it took their collective sense of humanity several hours to initiate contact with the police is about as bad as it gets. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5203176.ece

A Learning Experience for all Concerned

Went to a debate match with Secundus this weekend. Having observed that event, a meeting of pre-teen intellects at battle, I am left wondering was I ever really competitive in school? I know there are lifelong memories I will keep from this one.

Saturday’s event was the first match for Secundus in both oratory and debate. It was also the first match for his school’s debate team. It was a two part event and the morning was individual oratory, the afternoon was debate team competition.

Key moments included Loren's three readings of the Jabberwocky (sp) by Lewis Carroll. This was recited in the oratory competition. Secundus decided to do this the night before the competition. He memorized the whole thing the morning of the event. Speaking clearly he was very impassioned, his overall cadence and inflection was very over the top. For this effort he got a second place in individual non-original oratory. Did he want to listen to Dad? Nooooo. Did Dad try and coach him on breathing technique and posture at the podium, yes.

He wants to be on top, all the time. This was reinforced at the point in round three of the actual debates (at this point his team was 1-2) Right before the prep period started he pulled me aside and said, "If we lose this next one I am going to rip out someone's aorta." I wasn't sure if he meant he was aiming for the heart of his teammates or the cardiac muscles of the members of the other team.

The final topic of the day was "Proposed cell phone use should be banned among grade school students" He went first in favor of the ban and it was like watching the raging Cajun James Carville in grade school. He began, Should kids be allowed to have phone at school? Well consider this. There you are at the end of the day walking out of the building and you flip open you phone to check you text messages and you get so occupied with that little screen you don't notice the crossing guard saying "NO!" or that big truck flying at you. Wham and you're dead. Okay how about those lock down drills we do? What if you forget to turn off your cell phone and what if it’s real and not a drill? There you are huddled in the closet in your class and that cute Hannah Montana ring tone kicks in, well Blam, Blam, Blam you are all dead." I think all six of his points ended with YOU ARE DEAD!!!! My wife and I were both looking for a table to be under by the end of point two. As it went on the room got stone quiet and other parents were slack jawed.

After he finished the other team just stood there like a deer in the headlights. They were so flustered I don't think they put two coherent sentences together. The judge was nice and tried to be professional but finally said that Loren's team had a more compelling presentation. I think even she wasn't sure of what to do.

Hey, my wife says I used to be like that. I don't remember it, but maybe. Was it debate or theater I am not sure. Also I am not sure if I want him to grow out of it or aim for the Senate.

401(K)

Little by little the light seems to be dying.

In every corner of our world things once thought so secure are turning out to be merely props in a play. The plywood facades as we look at them now don’t fool us anymore. The sets of the last two decades back braced by two by fours gaily painted and covered with aluminum to look like silver fall over when you rest your weight against them. Our economic world has been nothing but a shell game that we the marks let go too far.

As I learned early on, for every really hellatiously good night there is a reckoning. Methinks this is soon to be our reckoning.

Let Evening Come (written on a Sunday Night after a good sermon from Pastor Dave)

Dark nights and confusing signs abound in the twilight at day’s end. Tonight as I listen to the news on my radio the strains in our political world mix with the growing shadows which come so early in standard time. I am at loose ends. When I am lost and foundering I usually find my way back to reading Merton and to attending the Sunday evening service at my church.

Every other Sunday the evening service at the church of which I am a part is a vespers presentation. Sung with soft hymns about the day drawing to its end the service seems very organic. Organic in this context means very connected with life at its essence stripped of the artifice of modern humankind’s struggle to push living toward a twenty four hour nonstop affair. Vespers takes us collectively back to a moment when the presence or absence of the sun and its warmth dictated not only animal behavior but human behavior as well.

Vespers marks the end of day, the moment when candles are to be extinguished, the hour when we end our shuffling back to our hovels or monastic cells and pull up a scratchy wool blanket to await the full measure of night's stillness. Vespers is a moment of giving thanks for our meager possessions and life itself and it is a moment of prayer for safety in the unknown. Vespers is lying down in hope awaiting the sun at dawn’s light.

Last night at vespers the reading was from Thessalonians. It was the passage where the apostle exhorted the early church members not to grieve as those without hope for theirs was the promise of reuniting with those who had gone on in faith before. When I read Merton this morning it was complimentary to this. Merton assertion was that fearing death impedes us living life. He implied that with the promise of something sacred we should not be afraid to live taking on all the risks a full commitment to justice, honesty, love, kindness and compassion entails.

A good sermon, a good reading and I am refreshed for the moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5p_U8J0iRQ

On a Cold and Cloudy Day

A cold gray day lies outside the bay window here in my kitchen dining nook. Some red leaves remain on my Japanese maple that is fore and center in my view. The golden leaves of late autumn have been blown down over the past day or so and lie about in the street and on the sidewalks. If the air would dry out just a little bit I would go out and start raking because the city pick up for leaves will happen this week or next. Hunting season starts on the 15th of November and the city must act before that. Any job that requires physical labor, like working in the asphalt plants, pouring concrete and the like must be done by about the 12th or 13th for no hands will be around to do the work after that. Men doing manly things will be “up north” in cabins, cottages and lodges drinking beer, playing cards and hunting.
The air is not dry and a chilling mist is omnipresent. Even here in the warm space of the kitchen I am chilled. The dampness in the air coupled with the temperature that is hovering just above freezing makes my bone ache. While the right thing to do is to just winter up by putting on gloves and a good coat, the coffee I just made and the pear preserves on white bread bagel are much more appealing. There are things to be done that will be done today. Our hockey game is at 3 p.m. and we will be there will bells on. Some basic shopping is required, especially if I am going to make that new recipe. Last night after having watched some really trashy movie (that I laughed at quite a bit) I watched a program called On the Road Again Spain. It was a cooking show populated with very pretty people driving through the gorgeous Spanish countryside to a cheese maker’s factory and to a private meal in a magnificent villa. Oh and there was the obvious and required visit to an El Greco painting in the city of Toledo. Spain versus East Lansing, hmmmmh, not really much of a choice at this time of the year is it?
Well anyway, on this pretty program populated with pretty people they made what was in essence a stuffing cooked in a European version of a wok. Ingredients involved were olive oil, whole garlic cloves bread and chorizo. It looked to be fast and tasty. This may be something we try today, maybe before or maybe after the hockey game.
This morning I watched one of the Sunday morning shows with talking heads blathering on about the potential of person x to fill post y in the Obama White House. My 10 year old summed it up. Screaming in his most indignant voice “Oh for goodness sake people, he was only elected on Tuesday can you give him a chance before you start tearing him down.” Perceptive little puppy that one is. He took the remote and flipped it to Van Helsing and I left the room. However having seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall the night before, I started chuckling as I headed out of the room. If you have not seen it Sarah Marshall is bawdy and raunchy and starts out real slow. However the musical number at the end is worth the price of the rental. It is a musical based on Dracula and it is way, way over the top.
Okay I think I have worked out some of my guilt about not having posted to the blog recently. Hey the kids’ lives are very active and I am here only to be a support structure for those lives. Of course there was that election thing too. Handing out pamphlets took time. And finally there is the lazy factor also. On this cold afternoon I found some energy.

What it Meant to Me

Our election is now over. The hard part of the next era in American history starts today. Challenges abound for President Obama and for us, the American people. Right here, right now is where individually and communally we need to figure out how to put knowledgeable compassion back into our lives and into our governmental institutions.

In e-mails and conversations both before and after the election I have stated without apology or hesitation that I am a socialist. Make no mistake I am a socialist in the broadest sense of small s socialism. Had I been alive in the era I would have been out there with the Diggers on St. Georges Hill.

My belief is that the community I live should be a place where we insure the welfare of the common person without killing the spark of the entrepreneur or the innovator. Individuals should be rewarded for achievement but no one should be left to starve or wanting the basics of medical care.

We are charged with maintaining an environment where our food and water are pure enough to be consumed without deleterious impact on our health. We are changed with setting aside some portion of our individual wealth (goods, food, money and medicines) to insure that all members of our community receive at least a modicum of sustenance and care. Our capacity to think, feel, empathize, sympathize and plan requires us to take the next step in evolution and reject the notion that the weak must be shunted aside in the pursuit of individual gratification.

It would be easy to say that for the past eight years George Bush and his government have ignored the needs of the poorest and feeblest among. It would be easy to say that for the past eight years we have looked the other way and let the rich plunder our way of life through deals cut without transparency in the darkened halls of our nation’s Capitol. But this evil has gone on for quite a bit longer than that. Neither of our institutionalized political parties has really acted in a way that is truly compassionate and caring.

The meaning of this election is very, very simple. It isn’t about the economy. It isn’t about the color of the person taking control of the executive branch. It isn’t about who was or should have been on the ticket of a particular party. What it is about is that enough people have looked at where we are and have found it wanting. Change is the key to what has happened. The results of the election show a desire for a better and more honorable government. This is about a desire for a more responsive and just government. The choice made at the polling booths of this country was about a nation wanting to move back into balance caring for the least among us and working together with a common purpose. It is about moving away from the I've got the biggest pile of toys mentality. It is about leaving the I am going to heaven and you the godless are going to hell mentality.

Obama is not Moses, Jesus, Buddha, the Prophet or even a reasonable facsimile. The Democrats are not the apostles. The Republicans are not Lucifer’s Legion of the Fallen. They, me, you we are just Americans. We have a chance here in this period of transition, a transition that we as a people have asked for, to recommit to the ideals of community and caring, of respect and fairness that made this country the amazing place of hope that it once was.