Thanks for Frog Hospital.
Your most recent edition has an admirably matter-of-fact tone that neatly bookends your desire for normalcy.
I would not change a thing.
However, I would add that -- in addition to the re-definition of "Normal" which is arguably the core provocation of our ongoing Culture War -- half of us have gone crazy by virtue of that selfsame re-definition.
I've probably mentioned before that I now read an ever-expanding body of philosophical and political writing only to realize that the "same words" mean antithetical things to people at opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Just today, I created the following meme --- not because it's pithy or witty, but because it's important and people should have access to it... a neat encapsulation that can be sent to correspondents as a simple way to make an important point.
Lincoln's Lyceum Address
Notably, you and I will read Lincoln one way... and Elaine and Laura will read him antipodally.
It is hard not to conclude that one of these two groups has lost its mind.
What's propelling conservative "patriots" --- who, whether they admit it or not, prioritize "theocracy" (or some other autocracy) over democracy --- is the ubiquitous fear among conservatives that their core credos, inevitably reliant on criteria that are not rational, will, through Reason, be proven wrong.
To prevent political suicide, Lincoln cited the need for cultivating a "political religion" that emphasizes "reverence for the laws" and puts reliance on "reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_Lyceum_address
To prevent political suicide, Lincoln cited the need for cultivating a "political religion" that emphasizes "reverence for the laws" and puts reliance on "reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_Lyceum_address
For better or worse, Science/Reason is proving many core credos wrong, or at least introducing enough doubt about Judeo-Christianity's central historical beliefs that people begin to see how their essential credos can collapse, not because the cornerstone gives away but because the walls crash upon the floor. (See God's killing of Ananias and Sapphira: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananias_and_Sapphira)
Here is a brief enumeration of scientific findings that undermine belief:
Anthropogenic global warming: Since God only expects us to be good as individuals and not as parts of a political "collective," surely He will "take out the garbage" with no need for global cooperation.
Evolution: Creation took place over seven days, during which "light" was created before the sun, moon and stars were created.
The denial of psychological findings that relate to The Shadow and Projection: Conservative Christians are compelled to identify evil "over there, far away" and never originating within the unacknowledged wrongness of their own shadow selves.
Best Pax Posts On Psychological Projection And "The Shadow"
Best Pax Posts On Psychological Projection And "The Shadow"
Free Will is FAR less "free" than we thought. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/08/mental-health-free-will-and-your.html /// http://paxonbothhouses.
Putative Authorities are far more self-centered and downright sleazy than we thought. Recently, Ken Burn's "The Vietnam War" revealed that Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all prolonged a war they considered futile only to enhance their likelihood of election.
And behind it all we witness the pitched battle between Power and Love:
Republican presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan, the living American who has served longest as a White House senior staff adviser, observed: “The Republican philosophy might be summarized thus: To hell with principle; what matters is power, and that we have it, and that they do not.”
“Where the Right Went Wrong"
“Where the Right Went Wrong"
"Power tends to corrupt. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Almost always great men are bad men."
It is worth reading - or re-reading - how Lord Acton coined his "power dictum" against the backdrop of the First Vatican Counsel's debate over The Doctrine Of Infallibility and how Lord Acton, a devout Catholic and Cambridge historian, believed such declaration would be the worst possible heresy, opening the floodgates of ecclesiastical abuse. Recently, I suggested to Laura that it wasn't The Second Vatican Counsel that began the undoing of Catholicism but The First. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton#Religion_and_writings
It is worth reading - or re-reading - how Lord Acton coined his "power dictum" against the backdrop of the First Vatican Counsel's debate over The Doctrine Of Infallibility and how Lord Acton, a devout Catholic and Cambridge historian, believed such declaration would be the worst possible heresy, opening the floodgates of ecclesiastical abuse. Recently, I suggested to Laura that it wasn't The Second Vatican Counsel that began the undoing of Catholicism but The First. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton#Religion_and_writings
Many people, particularly authoritarian Christians, are obsessed with "salvation assurance" and will do ANYTHING to preserve that assurance. To this end they cannot even debate reasonable propositions like Acton's historically-predicated assertion that the Papacy would be irreparably damaged by declaring infallibility.
And this refusal to debate -- coupled with blind determination to believe Infallible Authority -- is why...
And this refusal to debate -- coupled with blind determination to believe Infallible Authority -- is why...
The other day, I was surprised to hear myself say -- not because I said it, but because of the casual tone with which I said it: "Christian conservatives are the most dangerous people on earth."
"Has America Lost Its Mind?" 1A's Brilliant Interview With "Fantasyland's" Kurt Andersen
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspo
Televangelist Jim Bakker Resurrected: If This Doesn't Scare The Bejesus Out Of You, Repent For Your End Is Near!
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspo
Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Organized Religion And The Everyday Validation Of Violence
The Christian Doctrine Of Damnation... And The Destruction Of Christ-Spirit
The Christian Doctrine Of Damnation... And The Destruction Of Christ-Spirit
"My Gripe With Christianity"
And here's The Good Christians' poster boy:
We Are Known By The Company We Keep: Evangelicals LOVE Donald Trump
Yes, it fact checks.
Pax tecum
Alan
"American Theocracy," By Kevin Phillips
On Sun, Oct 22, 2017 at 2:57 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:
--FROG HOSPITAL -- October 22, 2017Sending Manuscripts to the EditorBy Fred OwensI mailed a check to the new editor. Then I will send her several manuscripts, short ones and long ones. She will read what I send her and then we will have a discussion as to their worth and ultimate destiny....... this could be fun..... One manuscript is a memoir of 30,000 words called the Falcon Journal. I wrote this in 2005 in two weeks at a campsite in Falcon State Park, located in Starr County, Texas, on the banks of the Rio Grande River.... My girlfriend Laurie read the Falcon Journal and said she liked it a lot........ Another manuscript is a novel of 41,000 words called Push the Bus which I wrote in 2007 but did not complete until last year. The novel takes place in the same campground where I wrote the Falcon Journal, so we have a connection -- a short novel and a short memoir, both set on the banks of the Rio Grande River in Texas.Mabel, the old woman who lives across the street, likes to read every thing I send her. I print out a manuscript and walk across the street and give it to her and she reads it. She likes me, but she doesn't like me that much, so her opinion has a degree of detachment..... Well she liked Push the Bus quite a bit and she told me so two times. I had been concerned that she would be offended by the salty language. There is one character in the novel who is named Tucson and he cusses a blue streak from morning until night. You get used to it after a while.Mabel grew up on a ranch on Montana and she said she had heard that kind of language before, so it was no account to her.Talking with Stuart Welch, former owner of the Rexville Store near LaConnerStuart Welch, my good friend, is an expert on everything. The words "I don't know" never pass his lips. If I ask him a question, he will have a ready answer and he is often right. We discussed the upcoming World Series. In a previous conversation, more than one month ago, Stuart stated that the World Series would be between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers. "Stuart, you were right about that!"Stuart and I discussed the World Series because it is "normal." Normal is getting to be important because the world is getting very weird -- fires and hurricanes and the fury of potential wars. The weirdest thing of all is that man in the White House. You can say a lot of things about Donald Trump, but nobody thinks he's normal.I miss normal. I need normal. I'm a Democrat but I wish Dwight Eisenhower was President. He wasn't the greatest President of all time, but he was normal and he had a good smile.Some of the world is still normal, like the Santa Barbara Kiwanis Club. The Santa Barbara Kiwanis Club has been meeting every week for lunch since 1922. It used to be all men, now it's about half women. The club has evolved over the years, but it is quite normal. I belong to the club and all the members are more normal than me and I like that.And my girlfriend Laurie is having new vinyl windows installed in her home. Six new windows and two sliding doors. Getting the whole house done. Using a local contractor. Installing new vinyl windows is a good thing and very normal.So maybe the world isn't going crazy, although Ireland got struck by a hurricane and the woods are on fire in Santa Rosa in northern California....... Santa Barbara is safe so far, and has been spared the wildfires, but it is bad luck to even say that, so erase that thought.You can drive only two miles from Laurie's house and see the charred black scars on the old palm trees where the Painted Cave wildfire leapt the freeway in the high winds and destroyed 427 buildings. That was in 1990, but you don't forget something like that.And we are not lucky in Santa Barbara because the fire could strike anytime and everywhere you look it is dry and combustible.Unfortunately, wild fires in October are normal, although many people would dispute that and declare a connection with increased drought as a result of climate change. I'm not getting into that discussion.To repeat:The World Series is normal.The Santa Barbara Kiwanis Club is normal.Wildfires in October in California are normal.Donald Trump is not normal. Definitely not normal.Blowing Hot and ColdI'm blowing hot and cold on this manuscript. It's a memoir I wrote in 2005 called the Falcon Journal, because I wrote it at Falcon Dam on the Rio Grande River in South Texas. I had a winter camp site right on the banks of the river. I could see Mexico on the other side of the water. I could see the twinkling lights of the little village in Mexico.I wrote about the birds, because South Texas is a big winter attraction for birdwatching folk. The tropical birds come this far north. The northern birds come this far south. There are more species of birds in South Texas than any other place in the country, and the birds congregate along the banks of the river.I didn't even have binoculars or a guide book. I just liked camping there under the acacia tree. I left out crackers for the road runners.I wrote the journal -- about my second grade teacher, Sister Virgina. I had a crush on her. I wrote about the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius. I wrote about my girl friend Gail Murphy and the trip we took to Mexico in 1970.The journal is spare and strong and rooted in a place -- Falcon Dam -- that made me whole. That's why Laurie and Mabel liked reading it.I said I was blowing hot and cold on this manuscript while I am reviewing it. I always feel that way. Why would anybody want to read it? I ask myself that question.I prefer the living room
I sit on the couch in the living room with my laptop. I keep it plugged in because my battery is iffy. I set the laptop down on the coffee table when I need to stand up and do something.The coffee table was custom made by Laurie's grandfather, made from maple or ash -- she's not sure about that -- but it is a very sturdy coffee table and not cluttered with magazines and old fishing reels and ceramic what-nots. A very uncluttered coffee table, I would say. A very tranquil, un-busy coffee table.I have imagined writing in a proper writer's study, with a desk and a lamp and a bookshelf lined with treasured volumes. A window to look out of, or an aquarium. A radio. An easy chair. A door that closes and shuts out the world so that I might focus on my writing.But the truth is that I don't really like to work in a quiet, austere environment. I prefer the living room, which has a front door, so I can leave. I prefer the living room because my three housemates are coming and going and I might say hello and have a brief chat. I prefer the living room because it has the TV and the radio. And it's near the kitchen where there is food and coffee.I like the sound of traffic, so I keep the front door open. I can hear the crows cawing this time of year, they are busy feeding on the pecan tree in the back yard.In short I prefer working in a sea of distractions. I had ADD before it was cool. I have the attention span of a gnat in heat.thank you for reading this,Fred
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