Been a while since

Been a while since I've been here:
The house is gone,
The family is away but not gone
But sometimes they too threaten to spiral away too,
The job is slipping away.

We decided to leave the house,
Gave it a new owner
and seek green lands.
No longer my home.

I see my children and wife almost every day,
Sometimes wrought in stress, fear and frustration,
Seeking connection against the time and energy I struggle to find.
They will return soon but,
For now,
My family isn't here.

I was finally successful
To a large degree anyway.
Briefly.
Now that's on its way out and,
Even if it should turn around at the last moment,
I am not sure I can trust it, plan on it, rely on it.
No matter what happens in ten days,
That success, opportunity and potential is part of yesterday.
Starting over, again, one more time.

But, as troubling as all this has been
And still is,
It's been a while since
I have felt sad.
Like cold wave radiating from my heart in my chest,
I have not had to deal with "sad" twenty years.
It is not that I have forgotten how to cope with sadness,
It is my old tools, tools of my youth, to manage, reduce and avoid
Sad
Will not work now.

Enemy of The State of Chaos

Editorial Note:

I original started this post in early 2011.  After years of philosophical gnashing of teeth, I decided to "put to paper" what I see in America what I didn't see as working, destructive in the long term.  After completing the initial draft of this posts, I decided that each of the 30 problems that America and the world faces deserved more than a paragraph or two and I started to break each problem into a separate articles. 

I found that posting a problem is not so useful alone; those then being only complaints and thus of little long term value.  So I decided to post some solutions as well.  I thought that rather pompous of me to propose solving the world's problems and this put a bit of hesitancy in my desire to publish.  Likewise, I wanted something easy, if not slightly uncomfortable, to mentally digest.  I set out the structure for the article but it does have some inconsistencies which I didn't fully resolve.

Then life intervened and all work was left in my draft bucket for almost two years.

Sparked to review and express myself again, I reread this post.  I find in them distinct traces of both global problems but also personal disappointments I am still experiencing, unresolved.

Less in the vain of personal resolution, I post this blog with minor corrections (and warts) more to be someone that stands for family, America, our world and your species.  I fear I may be alone in my stand that humanity has a future and it doesn't have to be an "apocalyptic" one.

Jan. 2011:

In response to a concerning question amongst friends, I brought together a list (roughly ascending order) of problems America (and the world as a whole,) increasingly face every day.

This list is pretty long but we, as Americans and as human beings in this world, have been quietly ignore these problems for too long. The longer a person or group of people ignore a problem, the worse the problem becomes. A single problem often becomes two or more problems when left untended and occasionally dominos out of control. All these problems have a few common, "core" sources. However, a discussion at that philosophical and abstract level would take too long, be tedious for the prevailing short-term thinkers and would not allow for immediately answers the questions "what's wrong and how do we fix it." 

Yes, I am catering to your short attention spans.

I don't pull in any punches in my list (or, if I do, I am unaware of it - I am working on being more assertive, bare with me.) I am fairly certain that I will offend some readers (not by patently offensive, personal attacks but definitely from "this is a problem" aspect.)

I believe, as set of interlocking human cultures, we can do better and it is our individual responsibilities to discuss, understand and solve all these problems and prevent new problems. In this respect, you are either for fixing the world or you are for letting the chaos continue is unchecked rule.

I encourage you discuss these problems and/or other problems with family, friends and people in your community, make decisions based on contemplation, consideration and meditation. Then, take actions what fit within the concepts of "right", "works", "positive", "respectful" and "future-oriented."  In short, take what thoughts you have from reading here into the world for discussion as comments, complaints and/or condemnations here do not serve anyone.

Disclaimer: If you are a sensitive type, easily outraged or prone to weeping, mentally unstable, pregnant or nursing, younger than 17 or older than 90, on heart medication or mood-altering drugs, please don't continue reading. When are feeling better, get older or younger, wiser and/or can tolerate a list of potentially stinging barbs, you are welcome to come back and try again.


Top list of things wrong on planet Earth

1. Problem: Living inside, sitting, not moving, not experiencing "in real life", getting tired, fat, lazy and ignorant.
• A solution: Movement, such as exercise or just going for a walk, changes blood pressure and increases cognitive abilities.
2. Problem: Group arrogance, where the group may be a country, state, city or other community.
• A solution: communication with all of your local and national communities, even with those groups that you don't think you can agree with. Of course you don't have to agree with everything you hear but you should be open the possibility you are wrong as well as the possibility you are right.
3. Problem: Failure to education everyone the differences between "need and want".
• A solution: starts in childhood, should be reinforced in all educational systems and must be removed for media advertising in all media formats.
4. Problem: "Money equals success" obsession and misconception.
• A solution: this systemic problem requires systemic solution, starting in education all the way through public life. It will require bold leadership from government, wealthy but primarily must be reinforced in the middle and lower classes in the families. True success comes before money, if money is involved at all.
5. Problem: Worship of teen and young adults to the point of danger.
• A solution: sex and sexuality are the strongest human drives in our active years. Media exposes us to wave after wave of attractive, young and healthy people. Reality, because of other problems on the list, leaves the rest of our population overweight and deemed unattractive. Media picks up on this and reinforces youth-only as beauty. This cycle can easy confuse a developing mind and, at the same time because does not communicate effectively and honestly about sexuality, sexual thoughts can become increasingly unbound by any social or cultural constraints. In the mainstream, this leads to idol worship.  In the non-mainstreams it can lead to predatory, sexual deviants. Sexually unexpressed and undiscussed can turn into violence and broadcasting youth-only messages is kindling to the fire.
• Note: hasn't anyone else wondered where all these pedophiles and child murders are coming from? We have been growing them, training/force-feeding them at home via TV and Internet and allowing them to develop to a crisis point.
6. Problem: "Beauty, fame and sex equals success" obsession and misconception.
• A solution: this systemic problem requires systemic solution, starting in education all the way through public life. It will require bold leadership from government but the primary responsibility lays with the middle and lower classes families. Beauty is purely marketing aspect and should hold diminished value against other, tangible measures of the value of a human being. (Seeking and maintaining) Fame is narcissism and should be treated as such. Sex is a mistreated subject in organized religion when leads to dysfunctional cultures and national laws; religion needs to join the twenty-first century and leave the asserts from two-to-three thousand years ago to be only history.
7. Problem: Being taught by media, politics and educational institutions to think in short, shallow, "quick and dirty", "feel good only" terms instead of critical, long term thinking.
• A solution: this is a systemic problem with corporations seeking to create product, brand and company loyalty by diminished critical thought by using increasingly short advertising campaigns, bursts of information, sponsoring production of media shows with low value and values. Because this is pervasive and even viral in nature, it re-infests education, media, government and public life. The solution is to remove the unchecked, unregulated privileges of corporations and re-institute full educational systems and eliminate the limiting, corporate-education provided in public schools.
8. Problem: "Greed Is Good" as a way of living allows for any number of immoral behaviors to obtain those marks of success.
• A solution: remove the ability of the wealthy, super wealthy and government leaders to provide resources to circumvent legal processes. This will lead to sanctions which can true affect behavior changes in these individuals. All prosecution of high level court cases involved greed and corporations should be broadcast. While financial deterrents should work, the lose of privacy in these matters is often more effective.
9. Problem: "Necessary War" is acceptable, when in fact, its just murder on a larger scale.
• A solution: out law war globally. Any armed acts of aggression will be called murder.
• Rant: Would we as a country (America) be hurting and suffering (from job loss and historic debt that the next 3 or more generations will pay on unless the Chinese buy our country) if we has skipped invading, occupying and "rebuilding" two middle-eastern countries? Do 19 hijackers provide sufficient excuse to commit warfare on 61 million people in two countries, to drain the state funds to drive a immoral war of greed and revenge? Seems like either overkill, misdirection, greed, war-mongering or all of the above. Next time you see a homeless American family, a starving American child or a college student prostituting to make tuition, thank them for their selfless scarifies so we could bomb a second and third-world countries back into the stone age.
10. Problem: Getting on the television news at any cost so you can feel important and successful.
• A solution: media broadcasters should be charged a significant licensing fee to showing "insignificant stories of stupidity for the expressed purposes of fame and/or culturally or philosophically damaging stories without editorial comment nor viewer guidance."
11. Problem: Absents of good nutritional options
• A solution: plant a victory garden: victory over corporate immorality and greed, victory over irresponsible governments, victory over stupidity, victory over history, victory over health problems causes by questionable, dubious and shameful "food" preparation companies.
12. Problem: Breaking of family ties by an overworking culture.
• A solution: limit the amount of time all American employees are allowed work to 30 hours a week, extend vacations an additional week or two per year from the start and bring back family vacations as a much anticipated national past time and re-institute the family dinner every day at a fixed, known time without TV, tablets or smart phones. Conversation builds and maintains families.
13. Problem: The Corporate Immorality where a corporation as the Rights of a Citizen but has no moral obligation of "right and wrong". So, corporations regularly break the law, gambling they won't be caught or, if caught, are "fined" which do not have enough force to affect behavior changes in the corporation. Corporations then trains it's employees (by leadership) and the public (by it's misdeeds) that "right and wrong" are useless ideas that do not apply if you are large, successful and a incorporated.
• A solution: A corporation is a non-citizen entity consisting of collection of people to accomplish a task or task(s). As such, this collection of people should also be provide a checks-and-balances system within the corporation.  Thus, if a criminal activity occurs all of held directly responsible via active, indifferent or neglect of duties. As such, we must redefine and downsize the privileges of non-citizenship entities; remove all ties to any and all political and governmental agencies unless specified by contract; have company owner, the executive staff, board of directories and principle stock holders directly responsible for all criminal actions.  Lastly, add government liquidation of corporations (not take over) as a penalty for criminal activity.
14. Problem: Mental and emotional exhaustion in parents manifested as uncaring to their children. It is then carried forth as uncaring (not exhaustion) into the next generation which is then ready, willing and able to commit any action to sever it's own desires.
• A solution: same solution as #11 but requires most if not all these solutions or solutions like them to make life a little less complicated and allow daily space to "determine, create, refine and enjoy" being family.
15. Problem: The recurring emotional and support isolation of significant portions of the populations, particularly in times of crisis.
• Question: how many office-place mass murders could have been prevented by a having a network of support (in and out of the office) to head off the problem well before someone shows up in the office with a weapon?
• Question: how many disturbed people with access to weapons and munitions would have been prevent from reaching a point of desperation in random public place if their communities had provided regular greetings, conversation and sustained interaction?
• Question: how many child murdered by parents could have been prevented by having a network of support to head off the problem before it reached a funeral?
• Question: how many child and young people would have not been murdered if we have kept better track of their location and who their friends were and who their parents and what the focus of the relationships were for all involved?
• Question: how many people would be alive today if we had a better respect for all primary human drives (gender identification, emotional attraction and sex) and stopped legislating, criminalizing, ostracizing, castigating and fearing those with different variations of primary human drives?
• Question: how many school children would still be alive today if they had parents regularly engaged in them in conversation, guidance, support and education (and turned the TVs, computers, music players, game consoles, and cell phones off) and had safe interactive family time?
• A solution: simple, reoccurring communication: daily exercise of social skills within the family, within the neighborhood, with strangers and (as often as possible) within the city, state and nation and within different countries around the world.
16. Problem: Poisonous "workarounds" for exhausting including illegal drug use, legal drug abuse, and social accepted abuses of chemicals that affect behavior, mood and depression.
• A solution: allows for the creation of a space to relax. This requires a significant portion of these solutions or similar to be implemented. It will also require identifying the unpublished chemicals that affect mood, behavior and depression. Those I know of first-hand are: caffeine, HFCS [High-fructose Corn Syrup] and other types of sugar (in almost all manufactured foods and a fair amount of dining-out meals) and unregulated "energy drinks".
• Note: If should be observed that these workarounds for exhausting are the same as the workarounds for not loving life and usually end up causing increased exhaustion.
17. Problem: Not enough jobs.
• A solution: In America, the working middle class creating economic stability. The American government can't create jobs; it can only provide incentives to business to the private sector. The private sector creates, destroys or exports jobs. The private sector is owned by the wealthy. In times of financial crisis, the wealthy historically destroy jobs, sit on their money doing nothing until things improve, taking government money if they can arrange it. This is how they get and stay wealthy: doing very little to help the poor and working middle classes which, in a crisis, prolongs the hardships borne by all. In America, the working middle class creates economic stability.  The wealthy coroporations need to return the core industries shipped outside the country, retrain and retool America to be a producer of goods, not a only a consumer of goods.
18. Problem: Americans obsession with murder, serial killers, "solve the murder mystery/puzzle" and "sexual offenders" in every aspect of life in every possible media outlet.
• A solution: we need to get some outside hobbies because this obsession is only breeding more murders, serial killers and sex offenders. We need to stop glorifing dangerous and mentally ill people in our culture and celebrate the positive achievements (aka "successes") of our culture and species. What would the local and national news look like if we stopped glorifying murders?
• Note: This also applies directly to the glorification of warfare and "necessary wars".
19. Problem: The escapist mentality into religion that "god/Allah/Budha will save me if I pray enough" instead of taking personal responsibility and personal action to correct the state of local, national and global affairs.
• A solution: stop believing in historical fairytales, at least long enough to help clean up the mess that "wishing a problem away" (instead of participating in it's solution) has caused. If I am hurt, don't pray for me - assist me. If my neighbor is without shelter, don't pray for him - house him. If a foreigner is hungry, don't pray for them - bring them food, water and seeds. Prayer alone does not fix anything in this world - only action can.
20. Problem: Reinforcing lowest-common denominator standards in education, cyclically resulting in the rise of truly stupid people (contrast "stupid" with "ignorant") as a powerful majority, rather than a silent minority.
• A solution: this systemic problem requires systemic solution, classes sizes should be limited to 15 students.  Additionally we all have to change how we view teachers which, today, is not as educators, but as state-provided baby sitters for the benefit of the overworked American family. Educational requirements include parents, community and teachers to work together but our modern culture keeps them working against each other, fighting over time. Removing the time and emotional stresses on families opens up the possibility that teachers will be able to return to teaching; that school can remove metal detectors, barred windows and razor wire because those are meant for prisons, not educational institutions. Regular teachers need to be freed from "no child left behind" to allow students with higher potential to be expressive, and allow average performing students to experience their success as encouragement. Those with diminish abilities (diminish family situations) should be focused in specific, structured course work to identify and correct the problems preventing a child from reaching their potential. Smart children told to wait for everyone else to catch up become restless and eventually act out. Children with diminished interest act out to distract from academic achievements. Both sets of disgruntled students prevent all students from achieving. These are two different problems sets and asking one educator to handle 40+ students with a mixture of these problems, inadequate resource, inadequate wagers just can not work.
• Note: Behaving stupidly not something to ever be proud. Living stupidly should never gain you any extra privileges.  Being wealthy and stupid shouldn't be glorified.
21. Problem: Religious Righteousness coupled with sheer ignorance of the true, historic roots of each religion, and the ignorant posturing of "my god against your god" to the point of violence.
• A solution: legally, include "religious expression" as a modifier to violence action if it is shown to be the primary or secondary motivation for the crime, the same as any other hate crime, doubling the fines, fees and punishment. Hate, especially driving by self-deluded righteousness, has no place in twenty-first century American. Truth, Tolerate and Acceptances are the only options.
• Note: If you really want to follow your chosen religion, you must become a religious scholar and study the history of your religion back to it's original, true inception and understand the historical context from which your religion sprang from. Anything less is just you being lazy and choosing stupidity and to be easily lead by a "spiritual leader."
22. Problem: Living in "the violence of human history" rather than "the potential of the human future."
• A solution: same as solution #8 but also requires the return of context when discussing history. Wars are fought for only two reasons: hatred and greed. Of hatred, it is always because of history of the people involved: revenge. Of greed, not matter how masked the excuses, it is always known to be greed. And Greed Is Bad.
23. Problem: The return of "Might Makes Right" as a globally and culturally-damaging philosophy.
• A solution: When a government shows its self as a bully in the world theater, its citizens think its okay to bully each other too. Solving some or most of the other issues will diminish this "little boy behavior" and allow it to be removed from our collective cultures.
24. Problem: Corporate leaders, media spokespeople and politicians who think that because they have money, beauty, fame and sex, they can say and do whatever they wish because they are "successful."
• A solution: this is an extension of several problems in this lists and solutions for some of most will diminish this dictatorial character flaw. Judicial accountability should be strengthened, fines and punishments increased when the culprit shows habitual disregards for law because of wealth or success. The wealthy and successful should spend more time, not less time in prison when they knowingly, willingly and repeated demonstrate they do not feel the law applies to them. Immediate insolvency should be a punishment for the criminal wealthy.
• Note: It is pure illusion that, with enough wealth and success, nothing you do is wrong. Wrong is always wrong, not matter who commits the action.
25. Problem: "Protest" by stone and stick.
• A solution: This isn't protest; its fear and anger. Riots by stick and stone always ends with weapon discharge, fire and death. True protest requires communication.
26. Problem: "Protest" against your government.
• A solution: if you don't have solutions to the problems you are demonstrating against in your hands and ready to implement, you are only participating in civil unrest. If you can only complain, you aren't qualified to protest. Stay home. Chanting anti-government slogans while looting stores, burning building, shooting people is not protest; it's criminal activity against your nation, not against your government.
  
27. Problem: "Protest" by murder/suicide.
• A solution: this isn't protest; it's only selfishness and should not be praised, revered, celebrated, excused or covered in any electronic or print media ever. If you are contemplating this action, seek some counseling immediately.  If you can't be counseling, then just get too drunk to move.  What ever you do, know that everything will be ok; let the crisis pass.  For those who would be commit murder/suiciders, if there is a Hell, you are going there to burn, forever.
28. Problem: "Protest" by explosives.
• A solution: this isn't protest. Because of your poverty and/or ignorance, you have been misguided or tricked into this situation by someone with an agenda you are not part of. They are not working for your best interested and there is no reward after you detonate the explosive. There is nothing for you to gain from this. Return the suicide vest to "your controller" and, optionally, detonate it there.
29. Problem: "Protest" by terrorism
• A solution: this isn't protest. It's revenge, base, raw, unproductive revenge and fear mongering. I know of no religions which "sanctions "revenge as godly" nor instilling "fear as a virtue from god." Stop and go home to your family, community and country and live a quiet life.
30. Problem: Silence.
• A solution: too many truly good spirited, good willed, well meaning, "morally upright", good people sit idly by and let the evil things happen "around them." How dare we be "shocked and mortified" when something evil finally befalls "one of the good people?!"  We have a responsibility to the human species to interject, object and, when necessary, restrain others from doing harm to humanity. Being silent is the worse of all these problems. The solution is to speak, be heard, engage in conversation and debate, think critically and logically, plan long term and globally, take action immediately, compassionately. And if you can't be bothered to be a product member to this species, then you have a fee pass to remain silent for the rest of your valueless life.

Less Yahoo! in my Yahoo (a meandering discourse)

I've been a Yahoo user for more than 10 years now, probably much closer to 20 years now that I think about it.  I hadn't been thinking about it so much in the last few years until the service went down yesterday for several hours.

Years ago, I ran several Yahoo Groups and used Yahoo chat and irc channels a great deal. Of late, most of the groups have gone dormant, a testament of people waiting for someone else to do something for them.  About 8 years ago, I switched from the Windows Yahoo Messenger client to Pidgin, a cross-platform, cross-chat service client with most of the features I used most: mostly text chat.  It also doesn't waste bandwidth by showing me advertisements.

After the outage yesterday, I started thinking: when is the last time I added a new (and real) Yahoo chat buddy to my contact list?  Sure, I like you get dozens of requests from Yahoo IDs (repeatedly) wanting to be on my contact list but they aren't really people; they are automated spam scripts.   My rules are simple: if you can't start and hold a conversation, I won't add "it".

After a brief search of my contacts, I find I added four new contacts and one "migrated-from-to" contact in the last three years.  Only two were personal contacts; the others work were work related.  Of these, I only chat to one of the contacts once a month or every-other-month at best.

So, today I wonder if Yahoo text chat has run it's course?  I can still use it to contact my existing friends but that list is slowly shrinking.  Honestly, the same decline may be true for most of my other text chat services as well.

Perhaps what's changed is me.  I mean, yes, I have changed but perhaps everyone else is still happily adding value-add chat buddies and it's only me that is stuck with the spam bots. Perhaps the news feed, privacy-invading social networks are sucking up the chat interest in favor of broadcast trivia.  Or perhaps it's the lack of real-time video that makes plain text look so last century.

Or maybe I'm just getting too old to do the things necessary to generate the interest in other people such that they want to chat with me in near-real, text time.

Or maybe I should have brought enough change for the vending machine so I could have my Dr. Pepper and metabolically ignore these ponderings.

So, first, an apology.

An Apology for ... my spelling and word choice mistakes.  Today, I took the time to read my last several posts (I'm tempted to say call them 'rants' but I view rants as basically valueless outbursts and something to be avoided in type.) Seems the spell checker with my browser missed "a few errors" but more likely found are the problems with "wrong word" selection.  In the rush to get the thoughts out of my head in a stream of thought, I can select the wrong word and go on without the proper diligence of a writer.  Witting fatigue and time distractions don't help matters either.

My Daughter is about 19 months old now.  She's great!  My wife and I agreed early this year to move the family back to The States. It was a no-brainer, at least at the beginning of the year.  Now, back in The States, we are trying to fit in with the difficult economic and labor situations and can see some details we forgot to consider earlier.  That's life: a process of gaining experiences.

Now back "Home", I have had a little time to clear my head and start looking back at my experiences in Europe.  I had a hard time but mostly because I felt left out, disconnected.  I didn't speak nor read the dominant language with much of any utility.  After several years of being left out of the conversation, I wasn't really feeling like myself (read: I was depressed.)  Towards the end of my stay, I finally found some quality friends that were available on a weekly basis, if not a daily basis.  Too bad it really came together after our departure plans were set in motion.

After 4 Years, I am back in house.  I got very lucky.  I had good people (aka room mates) who took great care of my place while I was off "having a life adventure".  Other than two missing boxes of personal property (suspected accidental garage sale inclusion,) things at the home turned out pretty well. I even bought my old truck back from my brother-n-law which is in pretty fair shape for its age.

Still, there are Some Things I am Missing.  For my time away, I guess I was dreaming about "my friends back home" and probably had an overly romanticized idea of my home coming with my new family.  I guess being away so long has left a lot of space in a lot of relationships.  In some cases, I was met with rude surprise of an old friend who, having falling on hard and emotion times, decided anger was to be my reception, anger for leaving them to go have more of a life.  Odd and sad but easy to handle: good bye.  Others have had a difficult time understand where my head was at and the struggle to get it screwed back on straight.  Nothing to be done but let them go quietly their own way.

And Then Fate...my wife and I had plans, pretty big plans for getting ourselves setup and going when we got to our new home.  Thus far, after 3 months, nothing has gone right.  The political and economic problems in Greece, the near-apathy of local city government's response to flooding in my neighborhood last year and the expense of just getting the family setup has killed all of our house plans.  The distance of friends and family, the differences in social cultures and need to conserve resources while looking for elusive employment has left us a bit more house-bound and child-bound than we accustomed.  "No, not this way", Fate seems to say.

Oddly, my daughter brings some Solutions.  Want to make new friends?  Have a pretty amazing child; they provide great conversation starters with other parents!  We have meet two couples in the last two weeks with equally amazing children and we are in the process of forming potential friendships, not unlike those my wife and I had in Europe before we left.  It's not the same as 'planning to meet in the park later and decide what to do next' but We will still accept what we can get.

All in all, Things are Ok.  Not too loud, not to quiet, a little more stationary than in-motion, a little less stress but a little more uncertainty and distant worries.  We have to plan our life, not around week day evenings and weekends as it was before I left, but around 5 minutes time slices anywhere we can find them. The house kitchen is getting used and produces healthy foods which we enjoy.  The backyard occasionally gets a visit from the woodland creatures in the dark of night and the cool early mornings just after dawn.  And we get to do a bit of reading or writing when the tired little one ends her daily struggles not to miss anything and slips away to dream.

It's not so bad. 


Disclaimer: written while a little tired, proofread three times while mostly tired, "publish" button pressed while really tired just before bed.  Mistakes most likely are present.

"Say something cheerful..."

I started this blog along time ago. I originally thought "maybe I can make a difference" with the written word and started writing (infrequently) about things that apparently are difficult for people to see and do "The Right Thing."

Yeah, I know. Not enough time in the day to nail 'em all and certainly not an uplifting line of writing. And of course, I am occasionally just wrong. Hell, sometimes I don't even want to come back here to read and write.

Reprieve

Early this year, Kalina was born. She's cute (but luckily doesn't know it yet), curious (and luckily isn't walking on her own yet) and very friendly (good for making friends on airplanes and in airports even when she's not feeling her best.)

Her first two teeth have started their slow, painful accent to their semi-permanently location, having cleared the gums at last. Despite this discomfort, Kalina is cheerful, occasionally chatty (albeit loud) and well-adjusted for the calcium-migration she is currently experiencing.

Plus, I think she's finally figured out that he daddy loves her tiny hugs.

Letting Go

I recently was confronted with a recurring paradox. While I tried to ignore this paradox for years now, I finally "popped" and "took out" a friend.

At issue is the increasing "radicalization" of the religious believers. A friend (granted not a close friend) was off on a subtile but public "I hate Muslims and you should to" while pretending that Christianity and his faith required him to sow his hatred in public places.

The paradoxes (and there are a plethora involved) is primary the forgetful nature of the neo-Christians these days; primarily with the 2nd commandant in the New Testament (paraphrased):

Love your brother as you would love yourself.

Funny how the New Testament gives two fundamental commandments to the faithful in times of peace but the Old Testament is used to inspire cultural and religious intolerance and violence. (I'll leave the posting about these and other cultural paradoxes for another time.)

Initially I ignored his posting because, as an American, he has the right to express himself and I, as an American, have the right to ignore his ignorant, hateful .... self. So I did..for about 20 minutes.

As I continued scrolling through other posts via "a popular social network's" news feed and reading news online, I could see the same themes surfacing... a non-so-subtile, "Christian America is at war with Muslims." I guess I saw one post too many and I went back, grinding and gnashing my teeth...

Usually, I am passive, even purposefully timid when addressing other people's belief systems. I feel it is the utmost of evil to (try to) steal away a faith which makes someone's life understandable and bearable (even if I believe it's patently false.) I believe this is what "good people should do".

But, as I age, I see this is why our world and our species is in such sad shape:

Good people stand still, taking no action.

This concept leaves the world open to the most nefarious deeds, played out in plain sight and rationalized/spun to make it palatable for public consumption, acquiescence and ultimately revisionistic history.

I have been thinking about this and related notions for more 20 years and increasingly so since September 11th. I believe I am (basically) a "good" person but something has recently changed and, that early morning, I felt emotionally compelled into action.

In the public forum, I posted a response from the bile of offense, using the phrase "fake Christians", and layout a definition of "hate mongers" and possibly evening using the word "ignorant." I don't clearly remember. I don't particularly want to either.

I was livid. I was direct. I posted the response and then prompted remove the offending friend from my contact list, stating I didn't want to hear from him and his kind ever again.

I should be clear I am not Muslim, Jewish or Christian (any more). So, my outrage and response was not about defending Muslims or their faith; Muslims can do that themselves. It was about the current American "fad"/trend of hate mongering.

Muslims and Christians and Jews all share a common problem - a small set of truly ignorant people spoiling the name, image, philosophies and peace of the group as a whole.

In retrospect, it was an emotional response (Bravo for me having an emotion; too bad it was probably wasted energy.) While I do not regret my action, I do regret the "drive-by posting". So, when he posted/emailed his "what the hell?!" and asserting that, because I've never "worn a uniform in defense of my country, I wasn't worthy to speak about the subject of being at war with Muslims", I knew I owed him a direct explanation for my post and one apology for leaving the discussion without allowing him to respond.

I also knew it was the last time I would communicate with him.

My email was long and I did get into a little trouble with the wife for delay our departure for some errands that day so I could respond. It felt it was important to respond "in the moment." I know that, as time passes and my blood cools, I often revert to my passive, easy going nature as a "good person should". I didn't want to let this go. I couldn't afford to let this go any more.

I explained to him that his public behavior endangers my daughter. You see, I have a beautiful baby girl and, while she is my third child, she is the first to actually be born. The raw emotions of my history can be overwhelming at times.

While "my friend" first claimed that he wasn't being hateful, he did go on to say he was in fact (very loosely paraphrasing) 'at war with 'people who called "god" by a different name.' He of course couched this under the September 11th and Muslim mosque media events of the moment.

God, please! I hope the rest of the America and The World is showing a considerably more intellect than this.

I explained that his public hate mongering behavior fuels the going "culture wars" (or should that be "multinational corporation wars"...) between "Those Like Us" and "Those Not Like Us". I explained that, taken to the next level, he and his "Christian" friends would force me to raise my daughter in a world where, if she chooses the 'wrong religion', she would be put in harm's way for "choosing the name of god incorrectly." By "in harm's way", I mean murdered for the name of "god".

Oddly enough, he seemed to want to be a religious leader of men but is fairly ignorant of his own faith. Most people are. I'm not a religious or history scholar but I do pay attention and increasingly so. As I recall, the three primary religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity share a common, tangled history. Thus, "god" by an other name...

Blasphemy? No, just distant history.

Anyone using fear and/or hate as a means of inspiring action is a terrorist. Not limited to leaders of nations and 'rich kids' hiding in desert caves, this also includes ignorant, arm-chair chair "generals" and "soldiers of god" wanting to be important, even if only for a destructive moment.

I have spent a fair amount of my 20s "trying to see American Culture" (I didn't have any real hobbies.) Its hard to do from the inside of a culture but I did manage to get a foothold of understanding. From the outside and (more importantly) as I start to care what nations and corporations are doing to my and my family's world and future, I feel sad for the ongoing global radicalization that is currently taking place; sad that it delivers a clear and present danger to, not just Americans, but the entire world; sad that we, as a species are still fighting wars for profit and murdering for the names of our mythical "god."

I put these deepest fears for the safety of my only child and her future into this response to "my friend." And then, I let him go.

Then the last paradox struck me: at least for that day, that moment, I had become a radicalized.

Complaints about Tomorrow

How realistic can you be if you expect tomorrow will be perfect without first cleaning up the horrible mess from yesterday? Those people who refuse to associate the situations of yesterday and today with the rose-colored views of tomorrow as direct "cause and effect relationships" are doomed to repeat all the mistakes of all the yesterdays.

Before You Press Send, THINK!

Before you press that SEND or FORWARD button, stop and think about what you are REALLY saying in your message.

I've been seeing rather nasty, narrow minded, and hate-inspiring messages via social networks lately, masquerading mostly as America Patriotism.

America, Americans and especially The America Flag have much better uses than to be draped over hateful, xenophobic messages. We (People of the World) can do much better than inspiring divisiveness, alienation and separation between different cultures.

Doesn't anyone remember the difference between Right and Wrong any more?! Please make better choices.