Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass Ah time......... you fascinating devil you............ Time is something that's always been my companion in reality. I've always been aware of it. With me it's been a little like a roadtrip. If you're driving you know it's going to end at some point, and if you're riding, you don't want to go to sleep for fear of missing something that will never come into view again. But is time the same for everything? I think not. Einstein says that time is a fourth dimension as it meanders through the other three. But is it possible that time is much more complicated than our simple minds can deduce? As things of life journey alongside us on our trip through mortality they're not on the same schedule of longevity as we. Why is this? If they were, life as we know it probably couldn't sustain itself. Why? For one thing, warm blooded animals we consume wouldn't grow and reproduce in numbers great enough to provide us with food. Chickens now hatch and grow to maturity in a matter of weeks ready for slaughter. If it took 15 years for a chicken to get big enough to butcher Kentucky Fried Chicken and Tyson's would have a real problem. Then there's the simple housefly with an average 17 day lifespan. What if it lived the same 80 years we do? I've wondered for a very long time if in fact the fly does in fact live 80 years, but sort of in a different zone. When it dies, if it's managed to avoid its natural predators, the swat, and the chemicals we use to kill it, and dies a natural death, its body is as worn out as an 80 year old human at natural death. But our body has only been aware of a 17 day time passage as the fly was born, grown to adulthood, to old age, and finally death, even as many of us barely experienced a pay period at the factory. Whatever we can't explain away in fact we dress up with theory. If we can't come up with a credible theory we pass it off to supernatural or throw it into the bucket with things that God decides that we can't comprehend. I wonder if there are many dimensions of time entertwined in some way with our journey that we are locked in to, even as we can look at those traveling in another lane? So interesting..... So fascinating....... So formidal..... So complicated...... But so was the wheel, and look how simple that is now. We figured that out. Maybe we can figure this out too..... if we have time............

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass January 26, 2006........... In 1692 the good people of Salem executed twenty people and two dogs for engaging in witchcraft to the delight of those who watched the nineteen who were hanged swing over the gallows. One old man in his 80's was crushed to death by a method known as squeezing, or being placed under wood then stacking rocks on top until the life was squeezed out of him. I couldn't find record of how the dogs were done in. Of course we know now that such charges would be ridiculous in our world and laughed out of court. But, a closer examination of the internet reveals a lot of people who very much believe in the art of witchcraft. A hundred years later found those who wanted to travel anywhere in a carriage or on the back of the beast. Then another hundred years later the automobile was struggling to get out of the idea stage and in ten years the assembly line was a reality. We were advancing in technology. Then one year later in 1903 the Wright Brothers would soar through the air in a powered aircraft forever more changing the lives of millions. On the day The Wright Brothers leaped into a concept so huge it couldn't be imagined. Many rural Americans as a normal practice would slaughter animals for food in their front yards and do away with unneeded dogs rather than feed them. At the turn of the twentieth century those in Afghanistan were living and traveling by horseback as they had for thousands of years. As we grew in maturity the rest of the world wasn't on the same schedule with us as demonstrated by the Nazi's, Fascist's, and Japan's behaviour and brutality of WW2. I believe that advancement and maturity is much misunderstood by most of us and if we look we can see evidence of the damage it can do when we don't all grow together. When a young couple reach the stage in relationship that living arrangements are rearranged, if they don't grow together then the one who matures will look on the one who didn't with disdain and soon whatever the magic was they once enjoyed will be replaced with frustration and what ever behaviour that might have been unimportant once upon a time will become monumental and if understanding isn't reached the relationship will not likely have a long future. We in America have enjoyed the most advanced society to have ever occupied this earth and our first 200 years established us as the major power on earth that ruled ourselves with maturity and wisdom and understood those who had not advanced as we had. But that seems to have changed and we no longer have the same scope of understanding as we continue on to our destiny. While we are preoccupied with which pill the television says we should take and what program can the government give us to allow us to do even less, we should be aware most of Afghanistan still rides their horses wherever they go, and in fact, one of the popular games they play is when a group gets together on horseback and toss the decapitated head of a horse freshly slaughtered at each other. The one who gets the bloodiest loses. Afghanistan did not advance at the same rate we did. And we think we understand them and others like them? It is a problem between us and most of the world. We don't have to tolerate anything. But to prevail we must understand everything....... and we're not doing very good at that.........

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass January 22, 2006.......... This week alone, somewhere over 50 million dollars will be taken from the pockets of American taxpayers and handed to Israel as foreign aid. The foreign aid from America to Israel has been going on since the day the nation was put into existence. Foreign aid in itself is not a bad thing and should be practiced by those nations of plenty to raise the standards of living for those countries in need around the globe. However, the situation and our relationship with Israel bears a closer look. When the nation of Israel was carved out in 1948, to make room for such a state, those already residing there had to give up their homes and be displaced. Palestinians who had lived for generations in the same neighborhoods and buildings had to be moved like it or not. Of course anger came knocking immediately and the end result was the same Palestinian families who formerly lived in what was now Israel found themselves moved to camps behind fences guarded by Israeli soldiers and in sight of the homes and land they use to live in now occupied by the Israelis. I know this is a simplification of the situation, but from the perspective of the Palestinian it is a correct description. From the eyes of all Muslim nations, it is accepted that the Palestinians were grossly mistreated and left without basic human rights without consideration. As Israel continued on, each time there was an issue, right or wrong, America came down in favor of Israel without fail. Each time Israel engaged in aggression or conflict The United States made it known it was on the sidelines prepared to make certain Israel was protected by the full might and fury of the United States as necessary to prevent her demise. This is akin to the neighborhood bully whose Father stands by to make sure the bully doesn't get slapped around by the one he's kicking. In the 198o's Israel made the judgement to bomb a nuclear power plant in Iraq because of the danger of Iraq having this technology, even for the production of electricity, because that could have led to the production of a nuclear device one day. What the problem was, the state of the art jets that made the attack on the reactor on Iraqi soil was from a country smaller than Massachusetts with less than half the population of New York City, who already had nuclear weapons in their arsenal, and guarded, supported and financed by The USA. As the years have gone by the aggression and inhumane treatment of the Palestinians by Israel has grown more calloused and brutal while rather than control a spoiled child we have turned our heads and pretended to the rest of the world that Israels behaviour was justified while the rest of the world, especially the Muslims, watched as the Israelis responded to the stone throwing Palestinians with tanks and missiles. As it deteriorated to Palestinian suicide bombers we joined in the description of crazy terrorists. Israels thanks to us for our support, kindness and money has been to lie to us, spy on us, sell our weaponry to others and generally offend what is right and wrong. While we may be blind to the behaviour of our spoiled child in the Middle East, the rest of the world isn't. And one day like the neighborhood bully protected by his doting father, we might get burned out of the neighborhood. Or.... has that already started? I'm not an anti -Semetic, but I certainly think it never hurts to look at your self from the perspective of all observers, which in this case is the entire world...............

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass January 20, 2006............. I am an admitted confirmed television addict. When I'm at home it stays on 24 hours a day. Even though I admit this behaviour I don't really watch it that much. There's only one weekly prime time show that I watch all the way through and stay up with, and that's 'Desperate Housewives'. The rest can stay or go with the exception of those I absolutely change the channel on of which there are several on that list. I don't subscribe to cable or satellite, so I'm not a news hound either and since I'm getting so damned old I'm one of the few people who can remember the first time I saw a television. I was 5 years old in 1949 and a man down the street in Bonner Springs Kansas had one outside in the yard and the neighbors had gathered around watching it. There was a baseball game on it and I didn't pay much attention to it at that time. I was 12 years old before my family managed to get one and my addiction started then. I can remember what my world was before and during the early days of TV, and the changes were slow. My world was a very local thing and all my daylight hours were spent interacting with local people. Nearly all the news and things talked about was of a local nature. The movie theaters still showed news reels of politics and global happenings on Saturdays. I remember when the Today Show started with Dave Garroway and later his monkey in the mornings. I don't recall any intense news being broadcast all though lots of intense things were going on in the world. I used to spend lots of time with my stepfather in a long distance truck and I remember in 1957 we were in Louisiana and hurricane Connie was blowing Florida away and killing people. That was what the local people in New Orleans were talking about while we were there. We left Louisiana and headed back to Arkansas. When we got back, not many people in my home town had any idea about a hurricane in Florida. Over the years, this medium that has made us next door neighbors to every event on the globe has in the process taken away our bonds with our neighbors next door and down the street. In a regular week we have little time spent with Joe down the street or anything locally but spend hours with the network morning shows, the evening national news shows then the primetime news magazine shows of which there are many. When it's all considered the average person probably watches an hour of Katie Couric or whom ever in the mornings, an hour of national/with 10 minutesof local news plus local sports and local weather each day then during the week acouple hours of the likes of 20/20 or 48 hours then the Sunday news and political shows and pretty soon you've racked up 15 to 20 hours a week of network offerings, delivered by the same talking heads in succession. Katie Couric has no relationship with reality in the world I live in nor does any of the stiff as a board counterparts she competes with. They probably have to go into therapy after each bowel movement so they can deal with the smell of the event. All the people of the national anchor type genre talk about the same things, interview and visit with the same self centered celebrities hawking the same mundane books and usually bad movies or 4th rate music and walking away at the end of the day believing they understand the first thing about the common mans world. They have no idea the common man holds them in such disregard. I remember when the multi-talented and gifted messiah of the media Bryant Gumbel, Today Show person, defied anyone to find a breakfast in New York City for under 30 dollars, and that was when gasoline was under a dollar. It would appear Mr Gumbel is totally unaware of Rosies diner a half mile from my house where you can do the breakfast buffet that must have a hundred items on it, all you want for under 5 bucks, current price. Of course Rosie's isn't in New York City but I bet she has a distant relative in the diner business there. The greatest damage the stuffed shirts and skirts of News TV has done to us is to bore us and make it uninteresting to pay any attention to them at all. We would be so far ahead if the schedule were reversed and we had 20 hours of local news each week and 15 minutes of World and National daily. Fat Chance......................

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass January 17, 2006............. Are we significant? In the grander scheme, if there is one, does us or anything about us have any value or meaning? I've been reading about the solar system, and without fail everytime I do that I get bogged down with the enormity and the hugeness of everything except us and the little circus we call civilization on our little perch hurtling through the nothingness of something so big we lack imagination enough to actually open the door of reality and understand anything about what significance is for our being. I certainly don't have any answers, but I have lots of wonder. We are an incredibly arrogant species. We have only scratched the surface of our own intelligence and brain power and in doing so we insist on putting parameters on the boundaries of our thought process that hampers us from evolving into the kind of thinkers that could broaden our understanding about our significance, our possibilities, and how to take advantage of our universe, or come to the conclusion that we actually have no significance in the universe and are just a bunch of matter riding through space and time on our rock destined to war with each other, play ridiculous mind games and be content to have the best toys to kill each other with and spend our lives pursuing what we percieve as power over everything we touch and everybody we see. From our vantage point as residents of this planet we could be termed as unorganised and ill behaved with no unified direction as a species. The living conditions, comfort, and educational level is so varied over the globe that it is impossible to have a unified effort to understand us and what our possibilities are, or even more important what we could be. We are hamstrung about whether or not there's a God, and if there is, who knows the most about Him, and how do you communicate ? We have no foundation that respects what we know about our timeline that meshes with the basics of any manmade religion and we will fight to the death when two competing religions make a challenge for power over the other. While a portion of our world lives in what can only be described as comfort and plenty, a greater portion live in starvation and oppression. Those in comfort and freedom quickly attain an understanding of the rules necessary to function in their world and work to better their future while the bottom portion of the unfortunate are scratching for lizards for breakfast and not thinking beyond the day they're in and don't care about the significance of anybody or anything except where's another lizard. All in all, if there are intelligence of anykind observing us from afar, they would have to view us as a species trying to come together as a whole, that is in it's infancy. If we are able to reach puberty in our evolvement as a species without destroying ourselves as a civilization, then one day as we survive on our perch hurtling through the great expanse of nothingness, we might figure out if we are significant......... or not.............

Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass January 16, 2006................. I get e-mails and forwards. I usually don't open them but you can tell what the subject matter is anyway. There's always the steady flow of those 'by god, if you're gonna be here then you need to do it like we do or get out' , or those Andy Rooney or Bill Cosby or Doomp Hilton or who knows who that follows with a helping of arrogant balderdash (those guys never say that and would appreciate no one suggesting they did) and the never ending entries about not letting God in here or there. They're all tiresome and generally without merit, but some are inherently dangerous, particularly those dealing with God. It would appear the senders honestly feel a danger to whatever they deem spiritual and want to make sure they say and do all that can be done to save God. Saving God is OK with me but I don't think God needs to be saved and if he's around, then he'll remain around in spite of what any mortal does or doesn't do. It would seem those who forward and promote protection for what ever they believe actually want to force all others to have a dose of what they have whether the recipient wants it or not. And therein lies the danger. Those who pretend or believe they are denied freedom of worship in reality are working toward a cleric government, in our case, a Christian based government. I for one absolutely want no part of such government. To date the only cleric government that hasn't been a failure in human rights and not been agressive to their neighbors is the Vatican ( the country the pope lives in). There is no religious persecution or discrimination in these United States by the government, and this government does recognise God, it just doesn't recognise religion, and that's the problem with many in this country. It's really a simple proposition. The government is disallowed any direction by any religion and likewise isn't allowed to direct any religion, but must protect the rights of freedom of religion and worship for all its citizens. And it is so guaranteed by the constitution. In the governments recognition of God by the presence on its money and prayer in its being, it must also not recognise any sect or denomination which can get tricky. There may not be any scripture from any religion posted on any property owned or occupied and supported by taxpayers money. The reasoning behind that is simple enough. Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Christians and a host of others all pay taxes in this country and the embracement of any sect or kind of religion would be an immediate case of discrimination against everyone except those of the faith recognised. The Christians are quick to point out the majority rule thing, but even though we are a republic majority rule, that certainly does not allow the majority to rule at the expence or loss of rights to any one in the minority. I would hope those who are desirious of whatever they believe to be the standard for everyone else would stop and consider how many wars and deaths in Gods name have occured over the last 2000 years and how stifling religious rule is to those who must live under it. Remember, Galileo spent the last years of his life under arrest because he published a manuscript correctly saying the earth was not the center of the universe and in fact revolved around the sun, in direct contradiction to what the Catholic church believed at the time and expected all others to accept. Tonight would be a good time for all that believe to get down on their knees and thank who ever they believe in that we live in a country that protects your right to be any thing you please, and more importantly cannot be allowed to be driven by the church of any, at any time. Lastly, if any believes that church and state should be intertwined in any way, I would suggest a very close look at the ones who pray to the God of Abraham through Islam in Iran, then ask themselves if that's what they really want before they forward any more e-mails asking for government practice of whatever they believe, and think you should to.....................