Why the Crèche Gives So Many the Creeps

Well it is that time of year again when instead of practicing what the season is about, namely peace and good will towards all humankind, the antagonists are out in force.

Of course you know the basics of this argument. But rather than rehash all the polemics on freedom of speech and separation of church and state, I would rather take up another angle to this issue. A metaphysical one on what I believe makes so many nervous when viewing the Nativity.

Take a look and ask yourself what you see.

What I see are people. Human beings adoring a newly born baby.

My niece delivered a beautiful baby daughter a little over a year ago and every time I have been around her and the baby and the family, guess what? Everyone, including me, is going goo-goo over the baby.

Yes, adoring her.

Her beauty, her promise, her innocence, her helplessness, her need for love and protection and care. Adoring it all and real-izing our individual responsibility to her.

The characters in the image above are human beings doing exactly the same but in a so-called religious depiction. But just exactly what makes it religious?

There are only two major religions that venerate a once living human being: Buddhism and Christianity.

The Buddha and the Christ. The Enlightened One and the Anointed One.

The esoteric message of the Nativity is not simply the birth of a child some 2,000 years ago, but the birth of a new humanity – the real-ization of the divinity of each and every one of us.

Sad to say, yet I believe that too many of us refuse to admit and embrace the living divinity among us that we encounter daily. Even in ourselves. It’s just too much work to have to deal with others – and ourselves – with so much respect.

The Nativity makes so many nervous because it is too graphic a reminder of a gross collective neglect carried out planet-wide and across time.

But give us time. A minority now living among us believes that the message of compassion and love for our fellows on the planet, a message first appearing some thousands of years ago, will enjoy its full real-ization some thousands of years in the future.

We, now living, are simply charged with keeping that evolutionary possibility alive by practicing it to the best of our individual ability.

It is that responsibility that gives too many the creeps when they gaze upon the scene of the Crèche. 

 Merry Christmass.

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My Apologies

If you are a subscriber to my blog I thank you but also wish to apologize.

Over the past few days some cretins hacked into my blog and installed themselves as users. As a consequence you may have received notice of postings that are totally out of character for me – thank goodness they weren’t pornography.

The scoundrels have been booted, the postings trashed and I’ll keep a sharp eye out for any recurring offences.

Again, my apologies.

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Too Sissy For Freedom?

The best writing appeals to us on several levels. This article by Frank J. Fleming, a political satirist, cracked me up and punched me in the gut at the same time.

The ‘Self-Reliance’ Menace

By FRANK J. FLEMING 

At a San Francisco fund-raiser last week, President Obama warned the audience that if he’s not re-elected, it will bring a new era of self-reliance in America. 

In this dystopian future, people wouldn’t be able to rely on the government to give them health care or college or anything else we now consider a need. That’s just an awful, scary thought these days. Which begs the question: Are we too sissy for freedom anymore? 

Not everyone acknowledges how scary true freedom is. Sure, you get to make your own choices, but then government won’t be there to catch you when you fall.
Some people considered freedom worth that risk, though. When the Pilgrims came to America, there was no government to make sure they had food or shelter or even anti-bullying laws that kept others from making fun of their silly hats with the buckles on them. 

Similarly, in the 19th century, settlers moved out West despite the complete lack of cellphone service there. Again, no government awaited to make sure they’d be all right, and if they were attacked by bears, they couldn’t call animal control to come help them (no cell service, remember). 

But we’re a different kind of people now. All the federal government did back then was basically keep an eye on Canada and make sure it didn’t invade. Today, more than half of the federal government’s budget is spent on entitlements and safety nets. In fact, a fifth of federal spending is devoted to making sure we have crummy retirement savings that no one can live on.  

If the Founding Fathers ever found out about that, they’d probably shoot us with muskets. But the fact is they’re dead, and we’ve decided we have other needs as a people. 

Right now, getting rid of any entitlements is unthinkable. If left to our own resources, we’d be too worried about starving to death or not having access to broadband.  

We’re just used to the government taking a larger and larger portion of our paychecks while putting lots of regulations on us to ensure we’re all safe and minimally cared for. It’s not quite all-expansive liberty, but then again, how often do people get mauled by bears these days? 

Entitlements keep increasing, though, as we keep finding new things that we all need and that the government should have a hand in providing. A lot of people consider health insurance a right, while the people who founded this country never even heard of it. Of course, they never heard of electricity or running water, either — other necessities — and probably had to fight off lots of bears while wearing silly hats. No one wants to live under those conditions anymore. 

Problem is, an ever-expanding amount of America’s wealth is tied up in just making sure we have whatever it is we consider necessary now. When settlers relied on themselves, they devoted all their resources to getting ahead. That eventually led to this awesome country that has Disney World, the Internet and cheap and readily available nachos everywhere.  

Maybe the fact that more and more of our resources are used for maintaining the status quo is partly why we’re in such doldrums: With so much of our wealth spent making sure we get basic necessities without having to be self-reliant, we have little left to put toward succeeding.  

Because that’s what freedom is: a chance to succeed — married with a chance to fail. As a country, we’ve decided that success just isn’t worth the risk of failure. Or bear attacks.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_self_reliance_menace_gtEW8snBHWpgrawho0CV0J#ixzz1ch2jvMCu

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Zombies Rule Our Economy

And Just In Time for Halloween! 

I love pop culture. Not TV or pop music exactly but what pop culture can show us and teach us about how most people think and behave. Especially unconsciously. 

Have you noticed the raging popularity of  Zombies in video games, books, TV shows and movies? MSNBC reports that the Zombie phenomenon is worth over $5 billion to the economy.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45079546/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/zombies-worth-over-billion-economy/

 What do you think that’s about? 

Could be the banksters, corporate criminals and the government of BOTH parties have been sucking the life out of us, leaving most people to walk around like zombies, dazed, disoriented and half-dead. 

Zombies, by definition, are walking around controlled mentally and physically by an outside force the source of which cannot be fully determined. 

Zombies stumble about intent on purposes others have created for them and of which they are not aware. 

And Zombies feed off the living. 

Sounds a lot like most members  of Congress doing the bidding of lobbyists for big money interests.

Have you walked around lately and had any conversations with people not of your immediate circle? Have you tried to get a straight answer or even a reason why someone is doing something? 

Clueless. And pretty much hopeless. 

Yet against high odds some still hang on to the idea and belief that we have purpose and aim as they rebuke the encroaching army of Zombie control. 

But Zombies have gone main stream and big time too. Check out that link. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45079546/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/zombies-worth-over-billion-economy/

Does that leaves sane and responsible people in the ever shrinking minority?

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All You Need Is Love. And Work.

WOW, have I been having flashbacks!

OCCUPY has occupied more of my thoughts the past week than I planned on devoting to it. But I can explain. 

I am a child of the ’60s, a dyed-in-the-wool Baby Boomer and the college campus protests of that time were very real experiences to me. 

So seeing all these unwashed and tattooed kids – I’ve earned the right to call them that at my age – brings up a sort of twisted nostalgia. Twisted because my feelings are mixed. 

Like “shaken not stirred” mixed.  

Essentially we back in the ’60s were trying to stop an ill-advised, unwinnable war, a position that has since been corroborated by former Defense Secretary and president of Ford Motors Robert McNamara and participating generals of that war. 

Stopping a war is stopping destruction and death.

Please keep this in mind. I’m coming back to it. 

Currently the protests are against what?

The investment banks that got bailed out? CHECK – All for it.

Our government, any government, has no business saving them. If they were too ill-managed they should be left to fail. That is the free-market credo that CEOs espouse, isn’t it?

The Wall Street brokerage houses that similarly were saved? CHECK – All for it.

If you or I make bad investment decisions, well we have to take the losses. So why shouldn’t they? Besides what they call investments are honestly nothing more than gambling rackets and Ponzi schemes, all of which give true capitalism a very bad name and readily supply the argument socialists love to wield.  

When government gets this cozy with big businesses and banks political scientists have a word for it. They call it Fascism. 

So if that’s what the Occupy protests are about they’d be little problem in my eyes. 

But of course it’s not that simple. 

What too many of them want is for the government to TAKE CARE OF THEM. Talk about a double standard.  

Don’t Bail Out The Banks, Bail Us Out!  

Without working? Just how is that possible? 

Here in my eyes is the crux of the matter: Very few people understand how wealth is created so I’ll state it outright: Wealth is created by working. It is created by providing goods and services to people for them to buy. Do a good job, get rewarded. Do a rotten job, go out of business. 

Simple, eh? And universal too. This fair and logical view is not exclusive to white, English-speaking, European-North American societies and cultures.  

That’s why sometimes businesses go under – and should be allowed to go under – and why people are fired – and deserve to be fired. 

This may sound simple and in my case biased but back in the 60s we long hairs were protesting destruction. What are these long hairs against? Work? 

Yeah, The Beatles were right, we all need love but work is pretty damn necessary too . . .

 OR NOTHING GETS CREATED!

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Having An Extraordinary Life

Bob & Anna Bassett, my dear friends and mentors, are always teasing me about my inability to take a compliment without objecting. So when I came across this video, well I had to share it with them and post it. It’s a real eye-opener on how to have an Extraordinary Life.

Thanks guys!

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