ON THE BRINK

How foolish can we all be?

A father involved in a custody suit throws his 3-year old son off the top of a`50-story high rise, and then jumps off himself.  Four thugs stole a young man's car in a NJ mall, and killed him for no reason.  These`are not isolated cases.  THEY HAPPEN EVERY DAY, EVERYWHERE.

Politics has taken over our newspapers and radio and tv news stations.  You would think that everything will be just rosy if we get Obamacaare and NSA surveillance problems resolved.  Thems the only two problems we have.

But 'taint so.  We are living in stressed-out times that affect all of us.  We have more and are enjoying it less.  Racial hatreds seem at an all time high.  Gangs are more commonly to be seen on city streets.  Violence between people, between nations, is every day headlines. Nuclear war rhetoric is common.  Lying at the highest levels of government is prevalent.

We have lost our moral bearing, and our heads are in the sand.  I do not know if civilization itself is threatened, but it may be.

We need a renaissance. or we will all pay...some how, some way.

And we need it quickly.

THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE

There are a thousand glib sayings about time...about how time is the master of our lives, about how not to kill time or it will kill you, etc., etc.  But there is one that to me says it all. It was said by Israel Gevant, the greatest, in my mind, unknown philosopher:

      "The best time to do something you want to do is when you are alive."

In the misbegotten name of progress, we humans, we of the super-animal intelligence, have enslaved ourselves to Time.  We are a clock-driven species.  We waken by the clock, we sleep by the clock, we work and eat and play by the clock.  We have come to generally agree that now is not the right time to do this, you must wait for the right time, the best time, the only time.

When we bought into the Industrial Revolution for the benefits it promised, we paid for them with the currency they were not worth:  our time.   Don't want to work today?  But you must or you will lose your job...that is, your freedom to choose how to spend the time of your life.  And without the job, what have you?  Our ancient forebears were smart.  They had no jobs, other than to go out and do their hunting/gathering thing when they wanted to, with whom they wanted to, where they wanted to, for as long as they wanted to.  The common denominator:  wanted to.  How many people want to go to work?  I have often wondered why primitive tribes dance and chant a lot, and seem happy with so little.  Error.  They have a lot...of time to do what they want to do.

Unshackle your life from the bondage of time...and begin to enjoy the time of your life.

THE SHAME OF GETTYSBURG

RAPTURE: ARISTOTLE

THE RAPTURE OF BEAUTY EXPANDS THE HORIZONS OF OUR SOUL

IN ALL THINGS OF NATURE, THERE IS SOMETHING OF THE MARVELOUS 

HIGH CRIME

So, the deputy consul general of the Indian delegation to the U.N was arrested the other day, strip-searched and held in a cell with drug addicts. She has claimed diplomatic immunity; the U.S. says immunity does not apply to non-diplomatic functions.  Her alleged crime: filing a visa form saying she was paying her Indian housekeeper in New York the minimum wage when, in fact, she was paying her less $3/hr.  India is irate about the way she was treated, and has revoked certain privileges accorded U.S. diplomats in India.  The U.S. says she was treated no differently than any other accused.  The potential sentence if she is found guilty: 15 years in prison.

1.  Get the U.N. out of the U.S. and the U.S. out of the U.N.  It is a useless organization and it subjects America to international laws we ought not be subject to.

2.  Diplomatic immunity is unconscionable.  Foreign diplomats have literally gotten away with murder under its irrational protection.  The only reason we accord it to foreign diplomats here is to get the same protection for our diplomats in foreign countries.  Stupidity to match stupidity.  If our diplomats would not otherwise be treated fairly and with justice, we shouldn't send them there.  And if a foreign national commits a crime here, he ought be prosecuted and punished as any American would be.

3.  We ought have no minimum wage.  It is a clear violation of freedom.  An adult ought be free to work for whatever wage he or she wishes...and is an unconstitutional intrusion of the government in the economy.

4.  Strip searches may be appropriate for those accused of crimes involving the use of force, but not for the nonviolent crime alleged here.

5.  Fifteen years for "underpaying" the minimum wage.  Must be a damn serious offense that threatens the very survival of our country!

The whole thing is a pile of horseradish...or something.

RESPECT 101

So, the high school senior walked up behind his teacher and hugged her for a moment. It appears from the video that another faculty member was in the room.  The teacher says he had done that before and she had warned him that he  would be punished if he did it again.  The student denies the prior incident.  The school suspended the student and postponed his graduation for a year.

A lurking error in the story.  If, in fact, there had been a`prior incident, the teacher should have reported it to the school, and the school should have set up a meeting with the student's parents.  The object being to teach the student respect for other people's lives, and the consequences of inappropriate behavior.  That ought be a part of the school's curriculum, ought it not?  Learning why each of us is entitled to peaceful co-existence is a critical prelude to civilization.  If the student then repeats the offense, punishment is warranted.  A one year suspension seems a bit excessive, but punishment is not calculable by a mathematical formula.

When two young men at a mall in New Jersey yesterday wantonly shot a young man in the head and killed him for no apparent reason, it is clear that they too had not learned respect for other people's lives.  The Pythagorean theorem alone doesn't teach it.

RAPTURE: ELIZE and AMIRA

THE RAPTURE OF BEAUTY EXPANDS THE HORIZONS IN OUR SOUL

RAPTURE: THE HIMALAYAS

THE RAPTURE OF BEAUTY EXPANDS THE HORIZONS IN OUR SOUL

THE SIX QUESTIONS

Where was the guard at that Colorado High School?

Is there a guard today at that school?

Is there a guard at every school in the country?

Has the principal of that school been fired?

Are you going to send your child to an unguarded school?

Who made that shotgun available to the shooter?

A PALTRY 3 BILLION

Every .................  (second, minute, hour, day), the federal government spends $35,000 more than it takes in.

second

Sounds like a lot but its only 3 billion a day, what's the fuss about?

RAPTURE: HEART TRANSPLANT

THE RAPTURE OF BEAUTY EXPANDS THE HORIZONS OF OUR SOUL

RAPTURE: ADLER & PERLMAN

THE RAPTURE OF BEAUTY EXPANDS THE HORIZONS OF OUR SOUL

SOMETHINGPERSONAL

"Happy Birthday, honey
You've been so on my mind
You are`so special to me
You are one of a kind"


Are you as tired as I am of receiving...and sending... canned greeting cards with messages written by strangers on the inside...cards that, let's face it, have little personal meaning to the recipient, and are quickly discarded or thrown into a dusty old box never to be looked at again?  Americans buy 6,000,000,000 of those cards each year...making it hard to believe you are really one of a kind.


Well, now, SomethingPersonal, created and managed by my daughter, Kira, has done something about this.  They will interview friends and family of the person you wish the happy birthday, holiday, anniversary, congratulatory, greeting to be sent to, and include meaningful anecdotes and quotes (both serious and humorous) about that person in a beautiful 8.5" x 11" article that can be framed.  Photos may be included.

Now, a greeting that "hits home" and will be looked at again and again and treasured for years.

A STRESS RELIEVER

We are told that we humans are an unhappy lot, unhappier than those who came before us, that we live under great psychological stress, that so many of us need antidepressants to function when awake and sleeping pills to help us sleep.  I have my own view as to one mistake we make that may be a major contributor to this woeful state of affairs.

I am forever deluged with stories about how someone is upset by how a` friend or someone in their family acted.  "After all I have done for her, can you believe my sister did this and that...and it really ticks me off."  "Why in hell's name, does my son want to be a this when he could make a lot more money being a that?  He drives me crazy."  On and on, endlessly.

And therein is the error.  We tend to base our psychological state of health ON WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING rather than solely and completely ON WHAT WE DO.  Our quest for happiness is ensnared in  the unapproved behavior of others.  And because we cannot flip a switch and change what others choose to do, we feel victimized, cursed, and powerless to have things our way, the way "things ought to be."  .  Result?  S-T-R-E-S-S.

It is not within our province to decide how others behave.  There is no way things ought to be.  There is only the way things ARE.  We may like or not like what others do...but we have no right to demand anything.  We live our lives, and others live theirs.  

It is one of the glorious aspects of human life that we each have the free will to create our own individual identity.  And we pay heavily when we do not recognize`and honor that natural fact of life.

WHO ARE THE SAVAGES?

In my prior post, I referred you to two sites that spoke`about the Sentinelese, somewhere between 50 and 259 natives who live on North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal.  They are thought by many to be members of the oldest known living tribe on Earth, which has lived there for over 60,000 years.  And they seem to live now as they did then.

Except for a beach, the island, about the size of Manhattan in New York, is totally covered by jungle trees, making it invisible to the outside world...so that what we "know" about the Sentinelese is based, to some extent, on conjecture.  The Sentinelese  fend off  with spears, and kill anyone trying to come ashore ...and submerged reefs surrounding the island make it virtually impossible for large boats to reach the beach.  They seek no outside contact.  India, which has jurisdiction over the island, has imposed a law which prohibits any ship from coming within 3 miles of the island.  I applaud India for respecting their  "leave us alone" wishes.

The Sentinelese apparently have not discovered how to make fire, have not invented electricity.  In fact, they have not invented oars and propel their wooden rafts by pushing long poles against the ocean floor.  Thus they can go no further out than to where the depth of the ocean does not exceed the length of their poles.

In a couple of other sites on the Internet, the Sentinelese were referred to as "savages".

Sentinelese couples enjoy hugging and cuddling on the beach for long stretches of time at the same time...something we might do well to do.

They have survived for tens of thousands of years without, in all likelihood, monetary currency,  man-made medications, health-disability-unemployment insurance, food stamps, income taxes and a thousand other of our "necessities"...something we ought think about.

When the British somehow managed to kidnap a few of them years ago, they found that the immune systems of the Sentinelese have no defense against a host of modern diseases rampant in the "civilized" world, which suggests that those diseases are not present on the island...something we might wonder about.

Yes, perhaps the Sentinelese are less curious than we are, less imaginative/inventive than we are, less driven than we are, less knowledgeable than we are.  I would love to know what kind of family life they have, whether they believe in one or more Gods, what, if any, is their educational system, and do they have a government, and if so, of what type.

They do not kill their own (like the 160 million we killed in 20th century wars, or the 500,000 we murder each year, or the billion plus abortions we have performed in the past 30 years).

And they appear to be so much freer than we are.  They do not seem to find happiness so elusive.

So we might ask ourselves this question:  Who are the savages?

RAPTURE: THE FORBIDDEN ISLAND

THE RAPTURE OF BEAUTY EXPANDS THE HORIZONS OF OUR SOUL http://www.neatorama.com/2013/07/08/The-Forbidden-Island/#!oSvZN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaPYwlXOTzQ

RAPTURE: SAVION GLOVER

THE RAPTURE OF BEAUTY EXPANDS THE HORIZONS OF OUR SOUL

RAPTURE: NUREYEV

THE RAPTURE OF BEAUTY EXPANDS THE HORIZONS OF OUR SOUL