In Progress Part 2

Persons I Would Like To Meet


The first man or woman who climbed upon a horse with the intention to ride.
The first person who gazed at a snowcapped mountain in wonder and successfully climbed to the top.
The guy or gal who made that possible by figuring out that one could skin the hide and fur off an animal and fashion clothing so as to wear it.
The first one to string a bow, cut and arrow and use them to kill for food.
The first person to flake a stone tool.
The genius who first could repeat the miracle of making fire.
The first person to draw a representative and recognizable form on a surface.
Whoever first plunged deeply into the ocean to retrieve a sponge or oysters for food or pearls.
The first man who ate an oyster... and mushrooms.
The first guy who got in his boat and purposely sailed beyond the sight of land.
The one who figured out how to smelt metals.
The first person to measure something.

In Progress Part 1

Work in Progress, Acrylic on Board with Detail, March 5, 2011

Cushing and Chutney Enjoying a Walk

I've Fallen Down 
And I Don't Want To Get Up


"I fell off stage and bruised some ribs. The worst part was that the audience didn't realize I was gone."-Richard Marx

On Saturday, February 18 at 5:30 AM while taking my canine friends Chutney and Cushing out for their morning constitutional I noticed that my driveway had become a sheet of ice. Friday had been one of the rare days of the winter with a bit of a thaw. The packed layer of snow in our long downhill driveway was now a bobsled track. Even though I was half asleep, I noticed this. I was aware of it. I am a recently retired mailman in Maine. I know how to walk on ice. I am aware of the danger of falling. I had fallen a few times as a letter carrier and had never been hurt falling. The one bad back injury I had suffered on the job came from not falling, catching my fall after slipping on ice by quickly bending and then straightening my left leg and experiencing the dynamic jolt of my entire body weight going up the leg and into my spine, damaging my S-1 disc in the process. This injury would finally lead to surgery after seventeen years of working in pain.
I told myself at that time that it was just better to fall and break something than try to stay on one's feet and hurt one's back.

It May Sometimes Be Better To Fall Down
But Sometimes You Have No Choice

The dogs seemed a little reluctant to urinate in their regular spot so, in an adventurous mood, I decided to ambulate down the driveway to the street. Walking down the side of the driveway where there was some snow that I could grip seemed like a good strategy. But, of course, as I approached the end of the driveway there was no more snow and I fell. I didn't have a chance. Almost before I knew what was happening I landed on my right side and on my back. Instantly I knew I was hurt. It wasn't the fault of the dogs. They didn't pull me down. I just went down all by myself. They approached me and licked my face in sympathy.
I let them lick; I got up, and then they finally pissed.

Oh, The Pain, The Pain!

I struggled back to the house and spent the next two days trying to get comfortable around the spreading pain in my right side. I hoped for bruised not broken ribs. I went to my physician who ordered x-rays. The radiologist at the hospital read them as negative. After two days I started to feel better. On the fourth day I was feeling much better.  At bedtime on the evening of the fourth day I went to brush my teeth feeling very pleased about the improvement in my ribs. I was enjoying a new toothpaste (A natural brand,Organique Neem and Pomegranite by Himalaya, made in Bangalore, India. I'm not being paid to say that.) and in the process I sneezed and instantly felt like I got kicked in the side by a horse. I returned to the doctor the next day and he pulled up my x-rays from the internets. He uttered words to the effect 'By golly they missed something here. You have at least two broken ribs'.

Broken Ribs From the Outside After Eight Days

Happy Days! Have Some Drugs

He prescribed oxycodone, which I despise, having taken it when my back was at its worst just before surgery in 2002. But you have to keep down the pain of broken ribs so you can breathe deeply to avoid getting pneumonia. That drug messes up your digestion, your sleep patterns, and it makes your brain sluggish. How people can take this stuff for fun I'll never know.
Broken ribs are one debilitating thing. I have had no energy because pain limits my ability to move around. And lack of activity breeds lack of activity. But I'm feeling better now and that's it for the oxy. Back in the day we took drugs to have visions. Psychedelics [ψυχή (psyche, "soul") and δηλοῦν (deloun, "to manifest")] were used to enhance experience.  It seems like a lot of people today are looking for something to shut down their brains and avoid experience.
But enough of my old man rant, no one wants to hear it.

The Driveway Today

Almost all of the snow we have enjoyed this winter remains here in Hiram.

Cecil Rhodes Monument, Capetown

"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life."-Cecil Rhodes

A Short List of Recent Prominent Rhodes Scholars

Extracted from the document: List of American Rhodes Scholars 1904-2011 


Click here for another very useful list of Rhodes Scholars sorted by occupation and position.


Thirty-two of the brightest young Americans are awarded Rhodes Scholarships every year. Prominent Americans like Bill Clinton, Robert Reich, David Vitter, Richard Lugar, Bobby Jindal, and David Souter were  chosen Rhodes Scholars in their day. 

I am not making a judgement  about any one of them.
In fact, I am certain I would have accepted a Rhodes Scholarship had I applied and been offered one in my youth.

I do find execrable the notorious colonialist Mr. Cecil Rhodes. He instituted the scholarship program with a fortune wrenched out of Africa. With funding from the Rothschild Family, he founded the De Beers diamond mining concern in 1888. Through a shrewd strategic mix of price fixing, a captive labor force, monopoly and inventory control De Beers  ensured that diamond prices were maintained at a high level and profits were maximized.

The questions to be asked are 'What becomes of Rhodes scholars?' and, 'How does their Oxford education (or indoctrination) affect their lives, and ours?' and,  'Do they have a secret handshake?'
I only half jest.
We must consider the racist, or racialist as it were, views and agenda of Anglo-Saxon superiority held by Mr. Cecil Rhodes as revealed by these quotes from his 1877 essay, "Confession of Faith". 

It is up to each of us to determine whether the original agenda of Cecil Rhodes, which is reflected in these quotes,  persists as  Raison d'être of today's Rhodes Trust.

"Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one empire." 

"There are some subjects on which there can be no arguments, and to an Englishman this is one of them, but  even from an American's point of view just picture what they have lost, look at their government. Are not the frauds that yearly come before the public view a disgrace to any country and especially theirs which is the finest in the world? Would they have occurred had they remained under English rule? Great as they have become how infinitely greater they would have been with the softening and elevating influences of English rule. Think of those countless 000’s of Englishmen that during the last 100 years would have crossed the Atlantic and settled and populated the United States. Would they have not made without any prejudice a finer country of it than the low class Irish and German emigrants?"

"It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race, more of the best, the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.
To forward such a scheme what a splendid help a secret society would be, a society not openly acknowledged but who would work in secret for such an object."

"Once make it common and it fails. Take a man of great wealth who is bereft of his children perhaps having his mind soured by some bitter disappointment who shuts himself up separate from his neighbours and makes up his mind to a miserable existence. To such men as these the society should go, gradually disclose the greatness of their scheme, and entreat him to throw in his life and property with them for this object. I think that there are thousands now existing who would eagerly grasp at the opportunity. Such are the heads of my scheme.
For fear that death might cut me off before the time for attempting its development I leave all my worldly goods in trust to S. G. Shippard and the Secretary for the Colonies at the time of my death to try to form such a Society with such an object."

A List Of Recent Prominent Rhodes Scholars

1999
Benjamin Edward Cannon – Oregon State House of Representatives (2007-present)
Jonathan J. Finer (CFR) – former embedded reporter for The Washington Post during the Iraq War (2003)
Antonio Ramon Delgado –AD The Voice, singer and hip-hop artist; singer of Painfully Free album

1998
Noam Scheiber – senior editor of The New Republic
Ebrahim Patel (CFR)

1997
Jeremy Andrew Vetter – Assistant Professor of History at Dickinson College
Annette Elizabeth Salmeen – awarded a gold medal in swimming at 1996 Summer Olympics
Benjamin Todd Jealous – President and CEO of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (2008-present)
Tali Farimah Farhadian (CFR, S&B 1997)
Former Associate of Debevoise & Plimpton [law firm in New York City]
Lawyer in the Office of the U.S. Attorney General (2009-2010)
John Maxon Ackerly (CFR)

1996
Michelle Diane Gavin (CFR)
Foreign Policy Advisor to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (1999-2005)
Special Assistant to the President and National Security Council Senior Director for African Affairs (2009-present)
Priya Radhakrishnan Aiyar – Associate of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, P.L.L.C.

1995
Rachel Maddow – host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC
Zayde Gordon Antrim – Assistant Professor of History at Trinity College (2006-present)

1994
Zachary J. Ziliak – Associate of Mayer Brown [law firm in Chicago] (2007-present)
Andrew J. Zawacki – author and poet
Dacia Meek Sampson Toll – President of Achievement First; founder of Amistad Academy in New Haven, Connecticut
Eduardo M. Penalver – Associate Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School
Randal D. Pinkett – Co-Founder, President and CEO of BCT Partners

1993
John R. Unger II – Member of the West Virginia Senate (1998-present)
Stanley J. Panikowski III – Partner of DLA Piper [law firm in San Diego, CA]
Julie M. Mikuta
Member of the Washington, D.C. Board of Education (2001-2004)
Partner in the NewSchools Venture Fund West Coast office [San Francisco, CA]
Alison Morantz – Assistant Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
Pamela Dawn McElwee – assistant professor at The School of Global Studies at Arizona State University
David K. Ismay – former Navy SEAL Platoon Commander
M. Taylor Fravel, Jr. (CFR) – Professor of Politics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Eric Garcetti – President of Los Angeles City Council (2005-present)
Peter Beinart – Editor of The New Republic (1999-2006)

1992
Catherine M. Sharkey (S&B 1992)
Professor of Law at New York University School of Law (2007-present)
Professor of Law at Columbia University Law School (2003-2007)
Richard A. Primus – Professor of Law at University of Michigan Law School
Piyush Robert Jindal
Governor of Louisiana (2008-present)
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (2005-2008)
Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation (2001-2004)
President of the Louisiana State University System (1999-2001)
Nikolas K. Gvosdev (CFR) – editor of The National Interest
Jonah Edelman
co-founder of Stand for Children organization;
son of Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman
Noah Feldman (CFR)
Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School (2007-present)
Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law at New York University (2006-2007)
Cory A. Booker (CFR) – Mayor of Newark, New Jersey (2006-present)

1991
Kenji Yoshino
Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law (2008-present)
Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School (2006-2008)
Professor of Law at Yale Law School (2003-2006)
Jason R. Zimba – Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Bennington College
Leonard P. Stark
Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (2010-present)
U.S. Magistrate Judge for the District of Delaware (2007-2010)
Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware (2002-2007)
Jesse Malkin –(former?) economist at  Rand Corporation, (which has been called America's University of Imperialism) married to uber-conservative, author and writer Michelle Malkin
Goodwin Liu
Professor of Law at University of California at Berkeley
Appointed Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Barack Obama in 2010
Peter Blair Henry (CFR)
Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Economics at Stanford University
Dean of New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business (2010-present)
Brad Ronnell Braxton – Associate Professor of Homiletics and New Testament at Vanderbilt University


I have gone back only twenty years, to 1991, in this document, pulling out some prominent names. You can be sure that these younger Rhodes alumni will be heard from more and more as time goes by. If you explore this list further you will find some very interesting curriculum vitae of Rhodes Scholars since 1904. There are many Federal Reserve bankers, prominent educators, diplomats, businessmen, and politicians. Not many of these men, and lately women, earned a living getting their hands dirty, shattering our illusions or our chains, or creating something to improve the physical or spiritual lot of humanity. Do your own research. Correct me if I am wrong.

"The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial."-Assistant Attorney General Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach, in a  memo,  dated November 25 1963, two days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This was a "rush to judgement"  indeed.   After being a prisoner of war of the Germans and Italians for two years during World War II, Nicholas was named a 1949 Rhodes Scholar.  Lyndon Johnson appointed him Attorney General in 1964, replacing Bobby Kennedy after his resignation. Two years later, Katzenbach  was named Under-Secretary of State. After the Johnson administration went away, Katzenbach became general council for IBM in 1969 for the duration of its thirteen year anti-trust proceedings. He obviously had intimate knowledge of the government's case and, as it turned out, IBM survived the litigation. He then served on the board of directors of MCI and in the same capacity for Verizon after the two entities merged when MCI came out of a bankruptcy. 

Links:

Office of the American Secretary, The Rhodes Trust

The American Association of Rhodes Scholars
Rhodes Scholars Chart Sorted by Occupation (A Must See)
The Rhodes Trust and Its Administration, Anthony Kenny (PDF)

Cushing Crashes My Passport Photo Session. No You Cannot Come With Us, Cushing. 

Addendum: My wife Beth thinks I bash the British a bit too much. I, in fact, love the people of old England. It is the Royals, their Empire and their minions I dislike. It is their financial system and the bankers of the City of London I dislike. It is the remnants, the Ghost of an Empire which the United States has been tasked to defend that I dislike. Wherever you see American troops in the world, which is almost everywhere, you see the unfinished business of the British Empire being attended to.

“If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.” -Mike Huckabee this week on WOR radio.

Mike should be reminded that the grandchildren of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted their grandparents.

Well, that, and the inconvenient fact that Obama didn't grow up in Kenya and never really knew his father, meeting him once at the age of ten.  It seems that the Right is prone to fantasizing. But the Left tends to ignore facts. Well, maybe, those who one would expect to  be on the left here in America ignore the facts and instead are swayed by simplistic Rightist phantasies. 

The origin of the term "Mau Mau" is uncertain. Later an acronym from the Swahili "Mzungu Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru" meaning "Let the European go back to Europe (Abroad), Let the African regain Independence" was adapted as the meaning of Mau Mau. It's hard to see what's wrong with that. There are people here in the United States saying much the same about Mexicans. There are some Native Americans who might say it about Euro-Americans but their numbers are few and their voices are soft. But their blood is strong in the Mexicans. What confusion!


"To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible and promote the best interests of humanity." -Cecil Rhodes' "Confession of Faith"

It seems that Mike Huckabee's notion of the Mau Mau Rebellion may have been influenced by exploitation films like this 1954 Joe Rock and Elwood Price documentary narrated by Chet Huntley. There were staged scenes of topless African women chased by men with machetes.The Mau Mau and Kenyan London School of Economics educated leader Jomo Kenyatta were, of course, characterized as Communist influenced savages. The reality is below. Kenyatta spent most of the time of the rebellion in prison for 7 years being convicted of ties to the Mau Mau Society in what is now seen as a kangaroo court.

25,000 to 90,000 Mau Maus were killed by the British in the 1950's in an ultimately futile effort to extend colonial rule. Perhaps 30 white settlers , 200 British soldiers, and 2,000 African soldiers fighting on the colonial side were killed by Mau Maus during the eight year emergency. 

In the Future Our Teachers Will Come From Space

A Thought on Education Generated by the Events in Wisconsin
"Universal education has created an immense class of what I may call the New Stupid, hungering for certainty yet unable to find it in the traditional myths and their rationalizations." —Aldous Huxley

 Teachers should make a lot more money and they should be a lot easier to remove for incompetence. Teachers need unions, but the teachers and the unions need to see themselves as a professional guild which jealously protects the quality of its membership.  A teachers union should be the first party to act to remove one of its own who cannot perform. We need better teachers. How do we achieve that?
I want to get teachers who are expert in the subjects they will teach and I propose that they be paid well for that expertise. Therefore, candidates for the teaching profession should have a degree in a real subject, at least to the Masters level, and then get an education certificate as an afterthought. A teaching certificate shouldn't take more than six months to  a year to earn. It should be earned as a simple practical exercise with  mentors. A teachers union/guild should set high academic standards for admission. In my experience most teachers have an insufficient grounding in the subjects they teach.
Alternately, if someone has enough practical experience and expertise in a subject to pass a stringent examination, academic credentials could be waived.
We now observe the strange phenomena of teaching "professionals" who keep going to school to get higher degrees in subjects related to education which are primarily useful for becoming high paid administrators. These administrators are more interested in education as a meta discussion more appropriate to the training of a prison warden than as a process to transform  ignorant children into informed, thinking adults. A teacher who earns an advanced degree in a subject that is actually being taught rather than about the process of education should be monetarily rewarded and subsidized for the effort.
We cannot expect academically weak teachers to produce strong students. I would rather take my chances hiring an intelligent, interested, person who has knowledge in subject curriculum to instruct children than a trained "teacher" who has spent more time immersed in education technique, theory and philosophy than any subject one might need to know to become anything but an accepting slave.
The selection of teachers now is akin to signing stat-geeks and superfans to play on a baseball team. You will end up with a motley group physically unsuited to the task of playing baseball who, in theory, know what it takes to win, but don't have the tools themselves to do it. 

Irina Shayk in Ocean Drive Magazine

Cristiano Ronaldo Is Doing Very Well

I pronounce the curse (as explained in my earlier post) of Paris Hilton's sorcerer  a failure. Cristiano Ronaldo has a new friend.

As we can see in this story from the Hollywood Reporter, Sports Illustrated Cover Girl Irina Shayk is hot. And what was Cristiano's reaction to her SI photographs? She told Huffington Post, "Pure smile!"
Everything is 'pure smile' in Ronaldo's world. He is on a record setting pace scoring goals for Real Madrid and says he feels 'phenomenal'.
Pepe, the witch from Malaga, predicted he would deliver a second career ending injury for Ronaldo last year. "In four months maximum, he will never be able to play football." boasted Pepe in October of 2009. He was obviously wrong.

Sultry Irina looks fine in a yellow bikini.

Maine! Does it Suck? You Decide. 
(Or, Is This The Way Life Should Be?)


Are We the Stupidest State? 
Last night Christopher Knowles linked on Facebook to a Disinformation story from this site,  titled "The United States of Shame" which put every state in a negative light revealing a shameful statistic about the achievements and character of the people of each state. Unfortunately, according to the chart,  Maine appeared to dwell in a special form of darkness and was declared the "Dumbest State" (apologies to mute people) in the sense of intelligence (or wasted intelligence) revealed by the ubiquitous SAT test. Maine scored the lowest in the country. Yet Maine spends the 5th most money per capita on education. I wondered how this could be. I had never been especially impressed by the brilliance of Maine's education system but I doubted we could be worse than some of the benighted states I had visited in my life.
Then  it came to my attention that Maine requires SAT testing of all high school students, even those who are educationally challenged. This would obviously skew scores to the low side. Many states in the West and the South  have very low optional participation in the SAT test. In twenty states only 11% and under of all students participate.  And some have as low as 3% participation. That does not even take into account the variable high school drop out rates of the states. When only the best students with college ambitions are taking the test, obviously scores will be higher. 
The wisdom of  Maine's full participation policy is another matter. 
For a full comparison of participation by state see this chart..
In fact, standardized achievement tests show that Maine scores at or near the top nationally.  And Morgan Quitno's Education State Rankings, 2005-2006 ranks Maine at #5 best educated, right in line with spending the 5th most per capita on education. As we all know there is a difference between intelligence and education. As the Wizard of Oz stated, "I can't give you a brain but I can give you a diploma."  So, the article that generated this post must be ingested with a few grains of salt.
However, given the impetus of this article, I decided it would be fun and interesting to further muse on worsts, lowests, and most embarrassings about Maine. I had wondered if something was wrong in the State of Maine.
I did some research and found that the answer was MMMMaybe.
Our state motto is DIRIGO, Latin, "I Lead" and indeed we do lead in many things. 
Here is what I found.


We Are the Most Drugged Out State
According to the Morning Sentinel, January 4th of this year Maine residents enjoyed the highest addiction rate to opiates (which excludes heroin and morphine and I assume to be mostly Oxycontin, good old hillbilly heroin) in the country in 2008 with 386 persons out of 100,000 over the age of 12 treated. We were followed by Vermont at 331 and no other state close to those numbers with Delaware next at 149. But maybe we just have a great and enjoyable treatment program for drug addicts that everyone wants to experience! Word gets around. 
It must be understood that we are not talking about illicit (or illegal) drug use. The number one state for that is Alaska. Maine is only number 12, a good but not great effort in that field.  




We Are the Oldest and Whitest State
This Bangor Daily News story from 2009 revealed Census Bureau statistics that indicated Mainers are the oldest and "least racially diverse" meaning whitest, state in the nation. But it is a neck and neck race with Vermont. Maine also has the lowest percentage of children under 5, despite the fact that our child death rate is low and we rank 45th in that statistic.   We are almost number one in the lowest birth rate in the country with 10.3 live births per 1000, barely ahead of Vermont at 10.2. Who would want to bring a child into the world as a Mainer? I think I'll look up rates of impotence and frigidity in Maine. I suspect they are high. We are the most sparsely populated state.   But looking on the bright side, our lack of sexual activity has allowed us to enjoy very low sexually transmitted disease rates. We are #41 in Syphilis, #43 in Gonorrhea, and #48 in Chlamydia. Our HIV rate is very low with 2.7 diagnosis per 100,000 population in 2008. 
 For what it's worth, it is also revealed by statistics that Maine contains the highest percentage by far of baby boomers, of which I, admittedly, am one. 

Our Business Climate Is Execrable
Forbes Magazine has also declared the great state of Maine as the absolute worst state in which to do business.  What is the problem? Predictably, Forbes blames our high taxes.
I suspect that Maine is a great place to do business if you have been here a long long time and you know the right people. But if you are an innovative entrepreneurial outsider who wants to establish himself here you might not be welcomed with open arms. Maine is quite clannish.  I admit that is pure speculation, but it is speculation born of 35 years in the state.

We Are (By Some Measurements) The Highest Taxed State
Yes, Yes, I know statistics can be skewed according to the bias of selection. (See the first item in this post.) But some criteria put us as the NUMBER ONE TAX BURDENED STATE. Depending how you figure it we usually make the top five, the best effort I've seen is twelfth. What are we paying for? Probably a lot of it is infrastructure. We are a relatively large state with a very small population. Each of us has a proportionally greater amount of infrastructure to maintain than, say, Rhode Island, which  is also one of the most heavily taxed states. What is their excuse?

We Are Safe!
I don't want to look at just the dark side. Public records reveal that Maine is the second safest state in the land and we have the 5th lowest crime rate. It just goes to show that if you have an old, drugged out, and unsexy population which lacks in ambition, most people will have far too much inertia to be criminals. Maybe things will change when our shiny new casino is built.

I kid 'cause I love.

The Shelf of Mysteries

Super Bowl Halftime

The Eye

Of Horus

Is Upon You

Football, Au Revoir 

Allright! That's it for football and the mindless worship of the final game and congratulations to the Packers. Here's to next season (hoisting one last drink) if there is one. Let's hope the players and the owners can resolve their differences to do what both really want to do: make lots of money. One of those differences is lengthening the season to 18 games. But there are problems.

I understand why the players are not enthusiastic about the 18 game season and I think that the players should not have to play two more regular season games. These guys take enough punishment.
But we still have the problem of those pre-season games that everyone despises. I have a solution for implementing the 18 game season. Go with eighteen regular season games. Get rid of 2 exhibition, excuse me, pre-season games. But, you ask, how do we do this while not forcing the players to participate in two more games?

Require that every player on an NFL roster must have been given two weeks off by the end of the season. After the last game of the week on say, Tuesday morning, teams must announce rosters for the next week, taking into account that they must give everyone on the roster two weeks off by the end of the season. Players off the roster for that week would not be allowed to practice with the team.  This approach would require strategy on the part of the coaches, so they might not be on board with anything like this that makes their job harder than it is. But it would add to the hype for the week when a Bill Belichik  announces that Tom Brady is out for a game with the Raiders and they would get to play the disrespect card. All kinds of fun would ensue.

Sometimes these things would take care of themselves when guys get dinged up and need time off for injury. If you pick up a guy during the season via trade or waivers you would take into account whether he has had his personal bye weeks yet. It would be illegal to just cut a guy near the end of the season if he hasn't had his bye weeks yet. Rosters may have to expand a bit. This rule change would really help the game and give us more real football and  more income for the owners without taking advantage of the players.

Red Sox pitchers and catchers report a week from tomorrow.

Two Months Away....

Daffodils, April 8, 2010 in Hiram, Maine

Now.....

The View from my Study

A dwindling woodpile,
the half-buried pond garden,
with four feet of snow. 

“It's time for the human race to enter the solar system.”-Dan Quayle, the Sarah Palin of his time


MUNDUS VULT DECIPI, ERGO DECIPIATUR- PETRONIUS

Vice Presidents in my Lifetime and Some Things They Have Said

"The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk." -Alben W. Barkley

"I leave you gentleman now and you will write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you I want you to know — just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you."-Richard M. Nixon

"Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills. Someone had to tend the store."-Lyndon Johnson

"Edgar, the law says that you must retire next January when you reach your seventieth birthday and I know you wouldn't want to break the law. But the nation cannot afford to lose you. Therefore, by virtue of an act pursuant to the authority vested in the President, I have today signed an Executive Order exempting you from compulsory retirement for an indefinite period of time."- Lyndon Johnson making J. Edgar Hoover FBI Director For Life

“I apologize for lying to you. I promise I won't deceive you except in matters of this sort.”-Spiro Agnew

"Write it when I'm dead." Gerald Ford to reporter Thomas M. DeFrank after Ford responded "You're right." when DeFrank commented that President Nixon was a "goner" during an interview four months before Nixon's resignation.

“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”-Gerald Ford

"I looked upon him as my personal friend. And I always treasured our relationship. And I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because I felt that we had this relationship and that I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma."-Gerald Ford on pardoning Richard Nixon

"No. 1, Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin. And two, the commission found no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic. And in my judgment, there has been no new evidence that would undercut those two conclusions, Oliver Stone notwithstanding."-Gerald Ford

"The chief problem of low-income farmers is poverty"-Nelson Rockefeller

“You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure about you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.”-Nelson Rockefeller

“If you are sure you understand everything that is going on, you are hopelessly confused.”-Walter Mondale

"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."-George H.W. Bush

“I have made good judgements in the past. I have made good judgements in the future.”-Dan Quayle

"A zebra does not change its spots."-Al Gore

"I had other priorities in the sixties than military service." -Dick Cheney

"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."- Dick Cheney

''If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong.''-Joe Biden

A motley crew to say the least. It must be stated for the record that not all of these quotes were made while these men were Vice Presidents (Nixon,Ford and Johnson). But all quotes are insights into their characters.

Musing of the Day:

Anyone who thinks an Islamic country can suddenly become a secular democracy is deluded. The United States was created to be a secular democracy and it must constantly struggle against the inertia of religion to continue to be one.

The Extra Credit Quote of the Day
"The pontifex maximus ''Scævola'' thought it expedient that the people should be deceived in religion; and the learned ''Varro'' said plainly, that there are many truths, which it is useless for the vulgar to know; and many falsities which it is fit the people should not suppose are falsities."-Augustine 

I muse.

Privacy? What privacy?

There is no privacy. There is nothing you can do. But there never was any privacy. You just needed the connections or the money to find things out. Now, anybody can find things out. It's much more democratic.

Chutney Ensnowed

My Jack Russell Terrier, Chutney, needs his anal glands expressed. I love dogs.

Michael Hudson

Michael Hudson says in this VIDEO that the average stock in America was held for 22 seconds last year. That tells me that big traders are manipulating the markets and that I don't have a chance when I buy a hundred shares on Ameritrade. There should be a huge tax on flipping stocks like that. It would put an end to shady programmed trading.

"A slave is one who waits for someone else to free him." - Rosellen Brown

The Dance of Death, Hans Holbein (1497-1543) 

You can be sure that when or if the secret of physical immortality is acquired (and it is a goal being actively pursued) then only a favored few will be given the prize.

Then the Earth will become even more a kind of Hell. 

Then the only way we will be able to rid ourselves of our Masters will be to kill them. 

Death has been our friend. 

He visits the rich and the poor alike in his rounds. 

When the privileged purchase the ability to stay his knock on the door, this planet will  enter a stasis.

 We shall be burdened with the same masters for thousands of years.

If we have not been already. 

Nicolai A. Berdyaev, A "Radical Christian" in the Best Sense

I last quoted Nicolai back last March but you can't get hurt having a little more.

"Egoism, self-seeking, self-conceit, pride, the will to power, hatred of others, violence, all become virtues when transferred from personality to the nation as a whole...National self-conceit and pride is a lie, just as much as it is by the way ludicrous and stupid...[nationalism precipitates] men into a fictitious and illusory life."    -- from Slavery and Freedom


"The greatest temptation of human history is the temptation to exercise sovereignty and in it there is concealed a most powerful enslaving force...The whole disquieting and tangled problem of sovereignty is bound up with the fact that man has a natural disposition to dominate others. He is in search of his kingdom and he devotes his strength to the establishment of it, but his kingdom makes him a slave."    --from Slavery and Freedom


"Habitual, time-hardened slavery may not appear to be a form of violence, while a movement which is directed to the abolition of slavery may appear to be violence." from "Slavery and Freedom"

Nicolai A. Berdyaev

Tahrir Square Cairo, Getty Images, MacDiarmid

Egyptian Army Called In as Protests Rage

Oil Price Spikes Towards $100

                                               28 January 2011 Uprising in Egypt

Police in Cairo on Wednesday January 26 prepare to keep Order.

Reports of ‘massacre’ in Suez as protests in Egypt move into third day | Raw Story

Regardless of the reassuring statements of experts and authorities and politicians around the world about the stability of Egypt, things there remain volatile. Change can happen quickly in any country. Egypt is a country of breathtaking poverty and concentrated wealth. This is a situation the human spirit will not tolerate for long.

Inspired by Tunisia and Egypt, Yemenis join in anti-government protests The Washington Post

Yemen is a country on the Arabian peninsula that has no oil. The people are poor and suffer under President Ali Abdullah Saleh who has held office for thirty years in this nominal democracy. President Saleh has enjoyed the support of the United States. This support has translated into little benefit for the people.

“True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.”-Akhenaton

Broad Protests Across Egypt Focus Fury on Mubarak - NYTimes.com

It is about time. The Arab world has suffered under the boot-heels of their leaders and privileged class for far too long.

Quotes:

"This is the biggest protest I've seen in this era. I'm not part of any group or party. We've all just had enough."-Zeinab Khalifa, artist 


"We came here for a reason: to tell Mubarak that we don't want his corrupt regime. I came with three of my friends because we're all educated — we're all protesting for our jobs, for our rights; to get married; and for the future of Egypt." -Ahmed Mossad, 22, a translator


“We can confirm that Twitter was blocked in Egypt around 8 a.m. PT today. It is impacting both Twitter.com @applications.”- Tweet from Twitter

“The government is illegitimate, the president is illegitimate.” -crowd chanting in Cairo


“The young people decided. They haven’t seen a government listening. They got quite excited by the Tunisian change of power, or revolution, if you’d prefer to call it that.”-Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations nuclear agency




"I am here because of the poverty and because of the corruption. Nothing in Egypt is going as it should. This is the first chance the people have got to express how messed-up the country is. We want four things. We want the Minister of the Interior to be fired. We want people who have graduated to get jobs. We want the President to limit the time he is in power and we want an end to the emergency law."-Bashar Abdelmenem, a 22-year-old medical student

All or nothing at all
Half a love, never appealed to me
If your heart, never could yield to me
Then I'd rather (rather) have nothing at all
All or nothing at all
If it's love, there is no in between
Why begin then cry, for something that might have been
No I'd rather (rather) have nothing at all
But please don't bring your lips so close to my cheek
Don't smile or I'll be lost beyond recall
The kiss in your eyes, the touch of your hand makes me weak
And my heart may go dizzy and fall
And if I fell (I fell) under the spell of your call
I would be, caught in the undertow
So you see, I've got to say no, no
All or nothing at all

"All Or Nothing At All" Lyrics by Jack Lawrence, music by Arthur Altman

first recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1939

Billboard #2 in 1943

Sinatra claimed he and Harry James were fired from the Victor Hugo cafe in Hollywood after performing it to an empty house in 1939.

"The struggle between the two worlds can permit of no compromises...Either We or They."- Benito Mussolini

“You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”-Matthew 23:24:

The desire for an unambiguous black and white world that is certain and where one knows the rules and there is no doubt of right and wrong is the root desire and need of religion and government. This desire cannot bear individual point of view.  This desire projects upon the people a superior godlike point of view that actually emanates from the rulers of state with the acolytes of religion in their thrall (or vice versa) and is perfectly congruent with their interests. This desire for a spiritual authority actually represses true spirituality because it relies on Faith. And the beauty of Faith (belief without evidence or proof and belief in the presence of evidence or proof to the contrary) is inculcated into the minds of the people from birth. It has always been in the interest of the rulers to turn off both the rational and irrational minds of the people.

Natus est Dei Filius, non pudet, quia pudendum est; et mortuus est Dei Filius, prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est; et sepultus resurrexit, certum est, quia impossibile.— Tertullian (De Carne Christi V, 4)

"The Son of God was born: there is no shame, because it is scandalous. And the Son of God died: it is wholly believable, because it is foolish. And, buried, He rose again: it is certain, because (it is) impossible."

Tertullian's words are often condensed into the phrase
Credo quia absurdum- I believe because it is absurd.

The unknown world of Knowledge (Gnosis) must be cloaked by established Religion and the State in the cape of Fear, partly because Gnosis is a fearful thing and partly because Gnosis is a threat to the establishment.  All the liberal humanities of the Renaissance are Gnostic. All progressive impulses in man arise from Gnosticism. Conservatives know this well and that is why they must see the world in black and white and this is why they tend to encourage State Religion (Formal or Informal) whether they actually believe in it or not. The Irony is that Gnosticism and its sundry practices produce a better man than Faith based Religion which somehow has a blind spot for the constant and simple touchstone of Gnosticism, which is the Golden Rule.

I Heard An Angel

I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing,
"Mercy, Pity, Peace
Is the world's release."

Thus he sung all day
Over the new mown hay,
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown.

I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath and the furze,
"Mercy could be no more,
If there was nobody poor,

And pity no more could be,
If all were as happy as we."
At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.

Down pour'd the heavy rain
Over the new reap'd grain ...
And Miseries' increase
Is Mercy, Pity, Peace.

-William Blake

After Tunisia, Is Egypt Next? - Eric Trager - International - The Atlantic

There can be a time for freedom. It comes unexpectedly, like a sudden sea storm.


"The developments in Tunisia are like an earthquake. Arab rulers will try to loosen up their regimes by giving some freedom, providing jobs and education and other things. Then they will try to become repressive again." Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi opposition activist based in Riyadh

“What is this for? To change Zine al-Abidine? Hasn't he told you he would step down after three years? Be patient for three years and your son stays alive." Muammar Gaddafi, a lonely voice in support of the vile Tunisian government. Violence and unrest have been reported in Libya.

"What happened in Tunisia is a model. It shows that can we can do it."-Amir Salah, a researcher at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies

“I think we may be seeing an opening in the Arab world, economically at least. Many in the government circles are racing around, trying to fix this. There is definitely a fear in the air. Especially since many of Tunisia’s neighbors are worse off. Egypt is in many ways worse than Tunisia, at least economically speaking.”-Magdy Sobhy, an economist at the Egyptian state-funded Al-Ahram Center think tank.

"Great meanwhile is the moment, when tidings of freedom reach us; when the long enthralled soul, from amid its chains and squalid stagnancy, arises, were it still only in blindness and bewilderment, and swears by Him that made it, that it will be free! Free? Understand that well, it is the deep commandment, dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be free. Freedom is the one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man's struggles, toilings and sufferings, on this Earth."-Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

George Frederick Watts, Portrait of Thomas Carlyle

Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation has led to the fall of the corrupt Tunisian government. 

Self-immolations across north Africa follow suicide in Tunisia | World news | The Guardian

The human spirit, in the end, will not bear repression. Those who desire to shackle their fellows will fail in the end. Religion, Dictatorship, and Militarism all will fail.

To do such work as pleases me,
Near woodland pools and under trees, 
You'll get no work at all; for I
Would rather live this life and die
A beggar or a thief, than be
A working slave with no days free.

William H. Davies, No Master, 1910

Reform of the Arab world will come from the people. It must come from its own people, from their own despair and their own disenchantment and their own will. 

Trails in the Sky
Or, How to Ruin a Beautiful Day
Southern Maine
December 30, 2010 
about 12:30

I wonder why?

Busy Doing Nothing

Here I am working on another woodpile. You can't do any better than fresh air, exercise, clean living and no boss.

Chop that wood
Carry water
What's the sound of one hand clapping
Enlightenment, don't know what it is- Van Morrison, "Enlightenment"