It was the worst...

natural disaster in Kentucky's history... about 700,000 people were left without electricity, many for weeks. Well it certainly didn't leave them with out power, because the people around here responded quite powerfully indeed. I particularly appreciated a local radio station that spent all of it's on-air time broadcasting storm-related information. And as bad as it was, this storm was actually much less destructive than either the Great Ice Storm of 1998 or possibly the 2008 Northeastern storm which left about twice as many people without electricity for upwards of 10 days or more. The Northeastern storm only rates as the "worst storm in a decade" in New England and in 20 years for upstate New York. Notably, only about 4 deaths were attributed to it, while Kentucky's caused more like 30 which is on par with the fatality rate of the Great Ice Storm of 1998... which left many more people without electricity for two or three times as long all over the Northeast and a large area in Canada.

I've heard again and again that it's too expensive to bury power lines... but with at least three massive ice storms in about 10 years, I'm trying to imagine it would cost more than picking up the pieces.

Reminds me of an interesting word of warning from one of my favorite bands...

and for lovers everywhere... all the best

To all the lovers out there... all through history... clinging together through this world and it's troubles, and especially to those of you who've been told that loving each other was wrong and who had the courage to do it anyway... I wish you the best and may God bless you...

Newman and St. John eloped?

The exhumation Catholic Church has revealed that Newman's grave did not contain his body.

Well! I'd say that if you're wondering how that little trick works, you might want to talk to Jesus about it. He is well known for among other things, a version of the same stunt.

Talk about an inside job... perhaps they leaned Jacob's ladder against the wall and made good their escape.

"Out of shadows and phantasms into Truth"

Breaking news for the Vatican...

As I was maundering around the historical debris of the Victorian era this morning, I encountered an interesting controversy afoot. It seems that in preparation for his upcoming beatification, Cardinal Newman's remains are to be removed from the grave of his dear friend Ambrose St. John where he was buried in accordance with his wishes. English gay activists believe the Vatican is trying to minimize the possibly homosexual nature of their relationship. Seems obvious, since the Church has a lengthy history of everything from minimizing to extirminating persons and things of a homosexual nature.

I’ve suspected that the Catholic requirement that a saint show compelling evidence of causing “miracles” suggested that saints were expected to be persons of such advanced consciousness that their consciousness was able to override common properties of the physical universe. In doing this, they would share this characteristic with Hindu yogis, and Neo in “The Matrix” for that matter.

After doing a little reading, I've learned that the Church has a more Christ-centered conceptualization of what it means to be a saint, and to cause miracles. At least since John Paul II, saints are notably Christlike persons. Interestingly, when considering reports of miracles, they limit the investigation almost exclusively to medical miracles. The evidence is even reviewed by a panel of local medical doctors.

The Church surely must have a different opinion of Newman's status if they're willing to overrule his wishes in the matter of his final resting place. Honestly, I can't see whether his relationship with St. John had a sexual aspect or was just a chaste Victorian "bromance" makes any difference. Real love, any love, is love divine, and spiritually uplifting properties of love could no more be adulterated by that love's sexual expression than by a hearty meal.

The matter is consistent with the Catholic Church's almost universal failure to unconditionally witness God's love for homosexual persons. It is a grievously missed opportunity. Withholding the Church's spiritual community and refuge from these people, who are as much God's children as the highest most pious ecclesiastics can and has already done great, often irreparable injury to them.

Part of the process leading to beatification involves removing several of Newman's finger bones, to be taken to the Vatican as relics. I'd like to suggest the help themselves to the bones of the middle finger of the Newman's right hand. Homophobia is so mean and childish, I think that it richly deserves a suitably childish gesture in response.

But then, as I mentioned, the exhumation already shows that they intend to ignore Newman's own will. What are the chances they'd listen to me, a mere posthumous blogger.

Ah well! I say here's to better times, and a bigger people!

A woman I've worked with for years recently told me how much she always appreciated my efforts to cheer her up. I do love to lighten things up. But, given the indefatigably fallen nature of man, it's not easy. Like my favorite question on the MMPI, I sometimes think of things that are too bad to talk about. I'm human, so there are always those inevitable human moments of hopelessness, doubt and fear. Sure, I make an effort to have a comprehensive and nuanced sense of humor, ready to lighten up every occasion, but I also have a deeply ingrained capacity for despair. I think of it as being in touch with my inner Charlton Heston. Seems like every so often, I'm right down there with him on that beach in the final scene in "Planet of the Apes" cursing and grieving over that god damned human race that finally did itself in.

I started despairing early. By the age of nine or ten, I had managed to reframe my personal horror of death to include worrying constantly about the atomic death of the entire world. I anxiously followed the political ebb and flow of the cold war without entirely comprehending what I was watching. Could there be anything worse? I spent sleepless nights imagining scenes of post-nuclear desolation that I recycled from tacky science fiction movies, comic books and pulp sci-fi magazines.

When I eventually got around to wondering what I personally could do to help the situation, about the only thing I came up with was to become a pacifist (strictly on a trial basis you understand).

Now of course, I realize that I wasn't the only one worrying about the bomb. In fact just the other night, all these years later, I heard Rachel Maddow rhetorically inquiring if she was the only person who "worries" about these things, in her case I think she was talking about the many unsecured nuclear weapons lying promiscuously about these days.

In fact, many thoughtful people were struggling with this problem. Clearly the author the Planet of the Apes, who was on JFK's staff had spent some time on that beach. When I first saw The Planet of the Apes , I found it both exciting and disturbing. At the time, it was quite an unusual action flick. Part of the fun of science fiction is all the "cool" stuff in it when you're a little boy. But for some reason, that final scene really stood out. There was Astronaut Taylor weeping and cursing about the very thing I'd spent so many nights lying awake worrying so much about (yeah, I'll admit it, I even did a little crying I was only about 10 or so).

Years later, after studying art and psychology, I realize the scene is stongly iconic. It makes quite a powerful ending to the movie to be sure, but it also stands alone as a metaphor for one our worst twentieth century fears. If any old picture is worth a thousand words, something as iconic as that is worth infinitely more. Images that strong become archetypal and resonate to psychological infinity.

Fortunately, as I get older and hopefully wiser, I find myself down there with Charlton on that beach less and less. The sum of our fears has yet to come upon us. Man still endlessly teeters on the brink of various types of annihilation but we have thus far refrained from taking that greatest of falls from grace.

Eventually I came to realize that living in constant fear is, if nothing else, impractical. Since we thus far have no set point for our own destruction, we are constantly faced with the problem of how best to constructively pass the time in our lives until it occurs if it does.

Practically speaking, no matter what ultimately happens, anything that we are capable of doing to make a situation better begins in the present moment. If one approaches the question of what one should be doing with one's life from this perspective, there is a rich abundance of simple and basic positive things we can do to make each other's lives more comfortable right now.



It's like the man says... Don't worry, be happy.

Something for the mob with everything...

“After a careful study of Indian religion, one contemporary Christian theologian found twelve basic characteristics in the avatar doctrines: 1) in Hindu belief the avatar is real, a visible and fleshly descent of the divine to the terrestrial plane; 2) the human avatars are born in various ways but always through human parents; 3) their lives mingle divine and human qualities; 4) the avatars finally die; 5) there may be a historical basis for some of the Hindu avatars Rama, Krishna, Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, for example; 6) avatars are repeated: one appears whenever there is a catastrophic decline in righteousness; 7) one avatar differs from another in character, temperament and worth; 8) each comes with work to do: the restoration of harmony in human society and universe; 9) avatars are not world-renouncing, and constantly advocate the importance of action rather than contemplation alone; 10) avatars for Hindus provide "special revelation" as the self- manifestation of Godhead; 11) they reveal a personal rather than impersonal God; 12) avatars prove the existence of a God of grace, in Hindu eyes; as Ramanuja insisted, a man cannot maintain his existence without God and God cannot maintain Himself without man."

Given that the human race has evolved from annihalating each other on a case by case basis to spending most of the 20th century pointing a nuclear bomb at itself and repeatedly threatening to set it off, what else could a thoughtful God give such a persistently suicidal mob?

(Unwraps gift) Why, it's a suicide counselor avatar!!!

Even the New Box is out of the Box

If You Have a Problem, Ask Everyone

Hmmm. So me get this straight. We're having a recession, a drastic climate shift, the unending catastrophe of the Malthusian refugee, the same old decline of our moral and social fiber AND a freakin' renaissance? Like the man said, "Everything you want, you got it right here in the USA"