Crosswalk America

Seeing

@ Duck and Decanter in Phoenix, AZ

June was Monday Night at the Movies at First Church, First UMC Phoenix. I don’t know if that is what it was called, but that’s how I think of it. The theme was where God was seen (by us) in the movie.

One of the movies we watched was the HBO movie Temple Grandin. The movie was based on the life of Mary Temple Grandin. It is an impressive film about a very impressive person. Temple sees the world differently from most of us and the film made that clear. See could, for example, ‘see’ the heat on her arrival in Phoenix and asked if people actually lived in Phoenix. At times, I can almost see the heat here, in Phoenix, and ask similar questions.

In the movie Temple asked another question that I also identified with. When an animal or person died, she would ask “Where did [he, it] go?” Lots of folks believe they know the answer to that question. Me, I’m not so sure. I read in the Old and New Testaments various answers to the question. I believe the Quran has some answers. Buddhists also have answers, but still I remain skeptical. Oh, it’s easy enough to say “Heaven”, “a better place” or “Paradise”. Really? And, exactly what do those destinations look like? I don’t know. It seems that there are many answers.

Temple ‘sees’ visually in her mind, yet, she cannot see where the life force goes when it departs the body, just as I cannot.

I have played Sudoku online at Sudoku.com.au for several years now. Often members leave brief messages that include a time stamp. On day, I noticed that one of the regulars had solved a really difficult puzzle in less than three minutes. I sent her a message asking how she had managed to solve it so quickly. I thought of her reply while I was watching Temple Grandin. She told me that the puzzles have an option be solved as a jumbled picture puzzle. She is an artist and so solving the puzzles as a jumbled picture puzzle was usually very easy for her.

Hmm, that’s something new.

I wonder if the artist can see where beings go when they die.

Related articles

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

"She's So Good!"

Lesson from Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin my hero!

God & Country

I know a man. He is a likeable, friendly 60 something. I have known him and his wife for at least a decade.  Always, I smile when I chance to meet up with him. I haven’t seen his wife since she went into an Alzheimer’s care facility a few years ago. My friend is always upbeat and positive although I know the daily visits with his wife trouble him.  Although he retired from the military sometime ago, I suspect he soldiers on doing his duty just as he did for more than 20 years.

Last week he had a nice lapel pin on. It was a U.S. flag, brightly colored red, white and blue, artfully draped over a gold cross. When asked about it by another friend, he said “...  to him it stood for God and country”.  I thought about saying something but didn’t. Whatever I said wouldn’t change anything and quite possibly would antagonize him. He is my friend and I am still glad to see him when we meet. Still, I am conscious of the pang I felt when he linked “God and country”. He is not alone of course. Most “Christians” would probably link the two if asked. But, I always wonder how citizens that are Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccan, or whatever, might feel about country being joined to Jesus in some operation right out Frankenstein.

Maybe, they feel the same as I do about it.

Maybe, the same feeling is felt by the Sunni rebels in Syria towards the Assad family who belong to the Alawite sect of Shia Islam.

Or maybe it was like how the Shia majority in Iraq felt about the Sunni Saddam Hussein.

I can guess that Jews in Eastern Europe felt the same unease living in the Christian nations of Russia, Poland, and Germany.

After the Islamic Moors were kicked out of Spain (by the point of the sword) in 1492, Spanish Jews probably had a similar feeling until they too were told to leave or become Christian. They were robbed, raped and in general abused as they left.

When the Pope gave most of the new world to Spain, Native Americans in the Spanish portion automatically became Catholic – only Catholics lived in Spain and Spanish possessions – they had similar feelings no doubt.

Good things rarely happen for minorities in lands where laws are made because “god says so”. Especially if the god that is doing the saying isn’t your God.

 

 

Philomena

 

@ Duck and Decanter in Phoenix, AZ

Barb, my wife, and I went to the movies on Thanksgiving Day. A friend had given us a gift card (with a voucher for popcorn) and so it just seemed the thing to do. Here in Phoenix, the day was gorgeous if a bit chilly at 74. Yeah, I know, but the wind was blowing.

The movie, Philomena, was the best I have seen in awhile. Why IMDb only rated it 7.8, I don’t have a clue. It is better than 7.8. The New York Post’s film critic also dissed it. He did such a hatchet job on it that Philomena Lee, the woman whose search the film was about, replied to his review in writing. You can read about that here.

The film is the story of how a young Irish girl came to give up her baby (born out of wedlock). Fifty years of total silence later, she begins talking about her experience and eventually meets Martin Sixsmith who helps her with the search for her son. At the core of the story is the complicity of the Roman Catholic Abby (pictures here) where  Philomena Lee was sent to have her child in separating (by selling the boy for adoption) him from Philomena  and then in covering up the less than righteous act.

Although freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Irish Constitution, Ireland is a Roman Catholic country and the laws reflect the large majority of Roman Catholics. In the 1950’s The Roman Catholic Church held a special position in the Irish Republic which was taken away in 1972. So then, at the time Philomena Lee became pregnant, she not only was ostracized by the conservative Church and society, but also had no protection under the law. It was legal for the Abby to “sell” her son, Michael A. Hess. They called it adoption, of course, but it took money to “adopt”. Lots of Americans had money in the 1950’s. There were many Irish children “adopted” by wealthy Americans.

Later, as society’s view of such shenanigans changed there was a convenient fire at the Abby that destroyed all records of such adoptions. The fire did not burn the paper that Philomena had signed giving up all parental rights. The film brought out the fact that the “fire” had been a bonfire and the only damage was to the records. This is eerily similar to the scandal of priests abusing children in current times. I am not singling out the Catholic Church here. In Canada there was the scandal of abuse of native Canadians in church run schools. In this country many Protestant churches supported first slavery, and then segregation. Such things happen distressingly often.

And, it is not just with religious institutions that we have wrongs that happen. I’ll mention just a few diverse secular instances.

·         The pedophilia scandal at Penn State.

·         MPs in England cheating with expense claims.

·         Politicians in the US circumventing election laws.

·         The sexual abuse in the US military.

I could make the list much longer. So, if our churches and religious institutions are no different than our secular institutions, why do we need/have them?

In the case at hand, Philomena and her son, someone at the Abby realized that evil had been done, hence, the bonfire. Destruction of records, (White House tape erasure, the Abby bonfire), book burnings, and refusals to make data public are done because of fear that something will become known. Protection of institution or person has become more important than anything else. They have in effect become god. Just like Jesus.

Seems odd a Christian church would replace Jesus with itself.

Better Late - than Never

I have been back some time now from Australia. In Australia, I attended the Common Dreams Conference in Canberra where I wrote several posts, but did not for one reason or another publish.

Here is the first as written on 24 September. Minor edits are included.

 

@Common Dreams Conference ANU Campus, Canberra, ACT Australia

 

The conference starts today. Check in is at 3:00 pm. I tried at 1:15 was politely told to move along. Ordinarily, I would have just walked around the campus getting acquainted with the lay of the land. It is too cold, windy, with the possibility of showers. Nasty outside. I am warming my heels in a coffee shop/eatery. I am too old to fit in here, although I can spot other Common Dreamers or professors sitting in out of the wind.

I came early to do things such as add funds to the bus pass Judy, my landlord for the week, loaned me. Then there was the matter of replacing my wireless mouse that found its way to Barb’s suitcase and an early return to the states. Another bummer. The first two weeks in Oz was great with only minor glitches. The morning we left the hotel in Melbourne was the turning point. We had the wrong time for our flight to Sydney. We were late; the error was easily rectified with the exchange of a hundred dollar bill. Actually it was two fifties, AUD. My leaving my Australian phone in the limo that transported us to the airport was not so readily fixed. Then, my bag was overweight. Books and papers, wireless mouse, meds and other items unceremoniously transferred to Barb’s suitcase. Not all of managed to migrate back to mine after we landed in Sydney.

I’m a little grouchy. I’m cold. I spent yesterday trying to retrieve the phone, grocery shopping and trying to find free WIFI. Two McDonalds in Canberra with free WIFI. I was forced to try one after finding out that the Mall’s free version only lasted 30 minutes. The first one had unreliable connections. Found the 2^nd store and was able to do most of what I needed to do. Canberra is completely different in the WIFI situation than the other Australian cities I have visited.

Sydney, and Melbourne are big cites of over 4 million each while Canberra is only about 300,000. I don’t think that makes the difference, though. Cairns, don’t pronounce the “r”, is about half the size of Canberra. I found Cairns just as cosmopolitan as the larger cities. Two factors that come to mind is that Canberra has no building older than 100 years. It is also an inland city; the others are on the coast. Historically coastal cities are almost universally more cosmopolitan than inland cities.

Canberra’s commerce is the government of Australia and that also lends itself to certain stodginess. Less hustle and bustle for sure. At any rate, Canberra exudes a provincial air of being out of touch with real life. There are no Starbucks either. The coffee isn’t the reason for my wistfulness. Drinks rivaling those of that chain’s are available in plentitude. No, the thing about Starbucks is the Starbucks card.  I found that my card was good in Australia and even better, the exchange rate was better than any bank I could find. Ah, how good is that? If there is a Starbucks in this provincial backwater, I haven’t been able to find it. The good news is: the McDonalds that has the free WIFI has coffee as good as Starbucks.

I wonder if Jesus found Jerusalem as backwards as I find Canberra. I note that he did not find his disciples in Jerusalem. What he found there was hidebound traditionalists wedded to the old ways. They killed him for preaching a new way.

When I first learned that Canberra, like Washington DC, was deliberately set aside to be a national capitol, I thought: “How cool”.

Maybe, it is because the power leaders come from elsewhere unlike in Jerusalem where the leaders were from there. At least the religious leaders. Although, that particular tactic hasn’t appear to have worked for the Vatican.  Or in Washington DC. Jesus’ disciples seem to have come from Capernaum and the immediate area surrounding. While not a seaport, Capernaum was a fishing port on the Sea of Galilee. It also was close for communication and trade with the cities of the Decapolis. It is easy to imagine fishermen, such as Simone Peter, trading with merchants from larger cities. Funny thing about traders, they accept others who are not like themselves. Pissing merchants or suppliers off means no deals. In such environments, people become used to others with different ideas, looks and even gods.

When Jesus came preaching his good news, the fishermen could look past their prejudices and see the possibilities. They saw the future and embraced it.

 

I wonder...if we (the USA) could move the nation’s capitol to, say, San Francisco. Australia is on its own here.

Throw away

Throw away

@ Home in Phoenix, AZ

 

I took a woman, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, to Haven Senior Horizons several days ago. Haven is an adult and elderly psychiatric care facility. The woman, let’s call her Cassie, was looking forward to going. Cassie knows she has dementia and she and I talked about memory, meds and other discomforts that come with age. Our laughter was of the nervous kind that tried to hide the fear inside both of us. Cassie did seem to be comforted by my sharing frustrations with not always being able to remember details or names. I have a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment which I like to poke fun at. In my case, I see a neurologist every three or four months to check on progress. I take a med that seems to help the memory. The good news, for me, is that I was rejected for a study. My memory is too good. Still, Cassie liked knowing that she is not alone in growing old ungracefully.

 

Cassie has a family. I am not sure how large a family, but I know it includes at least one daughter and some siblings. She had been living with her family until recently. Cindy apparently had a little resentment about the family because they were no longer willing to care for her. With not much income she became homeless. I had talked with Cassie before and attempted to get phone numbers of family members. Mostly she was unwilling to give me any numbers except for her daughter. She said her daughter had been in a very bad auto accident recently and could not help her. We did reach a friend of hers in California that Cassie asked to help get Cassie’s personal stuff from storage and send it to her.

 

On the day we went to Haven, Cassie was waiting for laundry to be finished at the Justa Center. Members can have one load of laundry done a week. The load has to fit in a milk crate. Not much for a week’s wear. It wasn’t done yet so Cassie and I went to the shelter she had been staying at and gathered her belongings there. The total belongings at the shelter consisted of one carry on suitcase, clothes in a 5 inch high, 36 inch by 24 inch plastic bin stowed underneath the cot she sleep in. The clothes we placed in a black plastic garbage bag.

 

While Cassie was filling the bag, I looked around the shelter. It is a shelter for women located in an industrial area. The room with the beds is large with industrial lighting, cement floors, block walls and one large screen TV with a couple of couches and chairs clustered around it. I would guess around a hundred beds, all the same size – smaller than twin – with plastic bins beneath them. The only other personal items were bottles of water beside some of the bins. Outside the ground is completely paved with concrete. Another industrial building butts up against the concrete. Chain link fences topped with razor wire close off the street on one side and the concrete yards opposite to the road. Benches, various vans, some chairs with large metal cigarette ashtrays are scattered around the periphery of the yard. The temperature gage in my car registered 107 F as we loaded Cassie’s stuff and walker into my car.

 

I went in with Cassie and carried her belongings. Then I drove back and fetched her clean clothes. We had forgotten her small case with meds, so I retrieved that also. Back at Haven, I was told that Cassie had too much stuff and that they could not store it. I told them that Cassie would not be going back to the shelter and couldn’t store it there either. What will happen to her things?

 

I don’t know the answer to that. Don’t know where Cassie will go after Haven. I know Cassie has anxiety; she takes meds for it. Anxiety is common in older people and especially with dementia. I don’t think throwing her possessions away will help that. I hope she is able to keep them.

 

⁵⁷ As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

⁵⁸ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Luke 9:57-59

New International Version (NIV)

 

Cassie already has no place to lay her head.

 

²² When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

 

Luke 18

New International Version (NIV)

 

She is almost there; only a few belongings to throw away (or be thrown away for her) before she has nothing.

Again....

@ Duck and Decanter in Phoenix, AZ

I am beginning to think that no one in Washington DC has ever read any history. The last one, that I know about that had, was John F. Kennedy. He created some discussion when he referred to the Mexican-American War as an imperialistic war. Lots of people, mostly politicians, who had never bothered to look at the facts about that war, were upset. Later, he too seemed to forget any lessons to be learned from history.

His lapse was Vietnam. The French gave us a very clear example of what would happen in Vietnam. Ðiên Biên Phú was in the newsreels in 1954, and the subsequent end of French rule in Vietnam later made the newspapers as well as the history books. I read both. I think John. F. Kennedy did too, but apparently he forgot. The military brass either didn’t read about it or they forgot because by 1964 we were in full fledged war – never declared. Seems like, Congress discussed the hell out of it, but never really did anything about it. The country was divided. We lost, of course.

We came out of the war scarred. The military was in really bad shape by 1975.We had lots of draft dodgers in Canada, lots of chemical abuse in and out of the military. Most of us felt a sense of disgrace at having lost a war. (I don’t know if that’s really true – I did, and most people I talked to in the years after did.) The country in general faced a tough times with the long lines caused by OPEC demanding to get paid better. Economically, times were tough.

Eventually the economy got better. I think the military got better – I wasn’t in it, so this is an outside opinion. Colin Powell had learned lessons in Vietnam and rose to the top. Dessert Storm, when we and our allies kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait was the proof of how much better. But, again we made a big mistake. We didn’t finish the job. Opinion, theories, excuses, and explanations about why we didn’t are plentiful. I think we could have, should have. It was dangerous to leave. Having left, we should have stayed away. We didn’t.

We should not have returned. The time for that was past. When we went back it was harder and more expensive.  We won but also got embroiled in Afghanistan. Not only didn’t we learn from the French, we didn’t learn from the Russians. I think they were there for ten years. Russian supply lines were a lot shorter and didn’t have in ocean in the way. They lost. What are we going to get out of Afghanistan even if we leave on speaking terms with whoever is running the country? They are not going be thankful.  And, it is costing a lot of American lives to leave. Money too, I think. Nothing has changed fundamentally. I have read that the poppy trade is coming back as the big cash crop in Afghanistan. The Taliban is coming back.

The big loser in this latest ignoring lessons of history is the budget. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have cost us a bundle. It is hard to balance a budget if you are paying billions to finance wars. But, not to worry. Congress isn’t even trying to come up with a budget. The result of doing nothing is the present sequester where funds are automatically cut from government operations.

You would think that by not working on the budget, congress would have lots of time to work on other problems that plague our country. Not yet. In 2012, congress passed the fewest laws since records began to be kept. They are on track to do even worse this year.

But they are busy talking. Talking about things like what to do in Syria. Senator John McCain even visited there. That worries me. We can’t afford another war. Even a limited one. And, when did a war ever remain limited?

The personnel in military have been running multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is hard on the troops. Suicide rates are way up. PTSD care for returning vets is out of sight. Family problems within the military are at very high levels. All those National Guard called up with their units have financial problems because they earn a lot less in the near East than they do at home in the US. How do you raise kids with mothers or fathers disappearing for months, multiple times? How do you maintain a marriage with that happening? Then there is the death toll. That is really hard for the families, not to mention the person doing the dying.

Meanwhile, the Tea Party (an unorganized rabble of especially poor historians) wants to shut the government down because they are pissed about The Affordable Healthcare Act. Not since slave owners, poor white Southerners and other malcontents fired on Fort Sumter because the country as a whole elected Abe Lincoln president, has such a “do it my way or else” attitude been seen in American politics.

Oh, not the same?

It is.

The idiots that started the civil war did so because they were afraid that Lincoln would abolish slavery. Lincoln hadn’t even taken office yet. Still, they fired on federal troops because they were afraid he might. Never mind that the people they fired on were just doing their job. Never mind that slavery was only defensible from an economic standpoint (i.e. the slave owners had paid good money for the slaves). Otherwise it was against every decent human standard as well as the idea that every man had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, it was just plain evil. That innocent, God fearing people whose only sin was that they had elected a president in accordance with the constitution, would die never occurred to them. The reason that abolishing slavery was so wrong to them was “states rights”. They said: the federal government had no right to interfere with the states right to do anything even if it was evil. Now mind you, no interference had taken place, but they were afraid it might. What to do? Take their ball and go home. No matter what the cost.

The war mongers never gave Lincoln a chance.

The Tea party is determined to not give The Affordable HealthCare Act (I am NOT going to call it Obama care) a chance. Will it work? I don’t know. They don’t either, but by damn they don’t want even the chance to find out. What we have now isn’t working too well. Maybe, they haven’t noticed.

I have some questions for everyone that is so dead set against it.

Do you have poor people in your state that cannot pay for medical care?

Is anyone that got laid off last year without insurance?

Have anyone that is now homeless because they paid for cancer treatment?

 

Arizona does. Our Governor, Jan Brewer, knows Arizona can answer yes to all of those questions. Taking a lot of flack, she got Arizona to opt in. It was the right thing to do. We will find out...unless the Tea Party and fellow travelers start another civil war.

 

Here is one last lesson from the past.

“If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

Jesus of Nazareth, ca 30 CE as recorded in Mark 3:25 sometime around 55 to 60 CE.

 

That statement has been proven over and over ever since it was penned.

 

 

 

 

 

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What Slavery Cost - OpEd

Out of touch.

@ Duck and Decanter in Phoenix, AZ

This photo is from The USS Ramsey West Pac cruise, ca 1968, but it could have been taken by any sailor between 1964 and 1975  in any other Olongapo City bar. It could have been of me.

I am NOT a 60’s guy. I missed the sixties, or at least most of it. First there was the US Navy and Vietnam. Then family life, with kids, and learning how to work for a living mixed in with going back to school. I’m not complaining, I’m just explaining that what was happening in the civilian world or the latest music was not high on my priority list. Besides which, Country music seemed a better fit with Phoenix. Anyway, it’s hard for me to be nostalgic about that time. Especially the music.

Regardless of that when, Barb, my wife, suggested we go to the Happy Together 2013 Tour  with another couple, I was all for it.

 

According to examiner.com: “The Happy Together 2013 Tour will bring together five of Baby Boomers’ favorite musical acts: The Turtles featuring Flo and Eddie, Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, Mark Lindsay, formerly of Paul Revere and the Raiders, Chuck Negron, formerly of Three Dog Night, and Gary Lewis & the Playboys.

 

I should also mention that I am not a baby boomer – I am older than any baby boomer. In fact, I am just a tad younger than Chuck Negron.

Anyway, the performance was awful. Even, painful at times. None of those guys should be singing. Chuck Negron did the best. Maybe, I was influenced by the fact that I knew most of his songs.  Three Dog Night didn’t form until 1967, and if I have my facts straight, didn’t take off until 1969. It was then more of a seventies’ band than a sixties’ band. He made up for the best singing by a really bad fake hairpiece. Chuck performs regularly which probably helps his singing. I hope he has better hair days in his other gigs.

I could remember words to about half of the songs. Mostly that is because I do sometimes listen to 60’s music on satellite radio. Others, I could associate with times and places where I was in those years. The majority of those I heard while sipping San Miguel beer in Olongapo, PI. I suppose that counts as nostalgia. If so, I did get some good out of the performance. (See what nostalgia is good for.) The backup band, consisting of two guitarists, a drummer and keyboard player, were younger and much better. Had they played loud enough to bury the singers’ voices it would have been better. I also enjoyed the reactions of the three baby boomers I was with. They acknowledged that those in the performance had lost “it” as we rode home listening to the 60’s on satellite radio.

It was as if the Happy Together 2013 Tour performers were locked into the 1960s and the only change was that they had lost “it”. The audience too, seemed to be locked in that time because there was applause after every song with people standing politely. I thought of several parallels. The first was the Emperor’s new clothes by Hans Christian Anderson. Someone needed to tell everyone connected to the tour that there was nothing left of their voices.

I thought also about Christianity and THE Church and how the Happy Together 2013 Tour could serve as a parable. I imagined Jesus sitting down to a meal with me and some gay and lesbian friends.

“There were some men that God had given great talent. Because of their abilities and hard work, they became rich and famous. They gave much pleasure, and many worshipped at their feet. A generation passed and still they sang. The same voices sang the same words to the same worshippers, but it was not the same. They and the world around them had changed. If you have ears, listen! 2000, (and more), year old words sung, (in a different language), have to be listened to differently. Only the melody is the same, and it must be played with new hands to sound as it did then.”

Being as dense as a stone and rather slow, (like Peter), I asked:” Lord, is the melody then more important than the words?”

He had compassion for me and said: “Only the melody can be danced to. Go, dance the dance of life. Be not as those men or those who worshiped them, singing and hearing with old voices and ears; listen to young voices with new ears. Listen, learn, and dance in the world of today, not as it was in past generations.”

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Random thoughts about human Sexuality

^{@Brueggers Bagels, Phoenix}

⁶ How beautiful you are and how pleasing,
    my love, with your delights!
⁷ Your stature is like that of the palm,
    and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
⁸ I said, “I will climb the palm tree;
    I will take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like clusters of grapes on the vine,
    the fragrance of your breath like apples,
⁹     and your mouth like the best wine.

 Song of Songs Book 7

I first read these verses as a teenager. Asking my pastor about them and the Book Song of Solomon, I was told that the book was an allegory for Christ and the Church and their love for one another. Maybe, I thought. Still, they seemed pretty graphic to a 1950’s teenager. I gave up on understanding the meaning.

Some thirty years later, I was reading a novel, and two of the characters repeated parts of the book to each other. I knew, instantly then, the true meaning of the book. It had nothing to do with Jesus and his church. It was about men, women, love and sex. Indeed, it is a celebration of love and sex.

The Song of Solomon (AKA the Song of Songs) popped into my thoughts as I was reading a blog about unfaithfulness.  The blog or column was written by a man that was a son of a father that had cheated. He remembered growing up with problems caused by the father’s infidelity. He swore he never would never cheat– and did, of course.

Most people I know condemn unfaithfulness and express the view that sex is wonderful but best between people that love each other. The Song of Solomon viewpoint. The Song goes a bit further and implies that the woman should be a virgin. Except for the virginity bit, many in modern western culture would agree if asked. Why then, is there so much straying by people in marriage or committed relationships?

The breach of the ideal appears to be as universal as the ideal.

And, not just in modern times. Homer said that the war with Troy was started because of Helen, (married at the time), hooking up with Paris. Roman history is full of examples such as Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. Precocious Churchill figured out that his mother fooled around by keen observation. The twenties had The Great Gatsby, the thirties had FDR, and the forties had Ike. The fifties music is full of sex and the sixties even more so. I lost track of what the seventies, eighties, nineties and millennial decades did with sex except to note that there was and is lots of it around. Public figures, pastors, televangelists, presidents, us commoners, all partake of sex. It seems prevalent at all levels of society.

I’m not going to bore you with statistics; you can goggle them for yourself. I will say “everyone doesn’t fool around”.  But why do so many? Many are monogamous but many are not. Is sex a cultural or a biologic thing? I am convinced that humans are hardwired for sex which means that sex itself (including being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or just plain queer) is a biologic deal. What about monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, celibacy, or “open” marriages? Is it OK to have multiple sexual partners serially with or without the sacrament of marriage? Is marriage a sacrament? Where does the hard wiring end and the cultural begin.

I don’t know the answers to any of the questions I have asked. I had thought that by the time I achieved my present age, 70, I would know. Sex is still in my life. Not to the extent it was, but still around. I think sexual thoughts, and feel sexual desires. I am working on my third and last marriage. I am just as clueless about the whole business as I was as a teenager. As a teen, I professed to believe that sex outside marriage was wrong. That belief did not stop me from trying to get in my girlfriends’ pants.

Experience has taught me that there is more to life than fulfilling my sexual desires. I am not sure that if I had the body, including hormones, of a teenager and my present state of mind, I would do the same things I did when younger. I like to think not, but hormones have a way of letting our bodies ignore our minds. I wonder if that is to reason why monogamy is more preached than practiced in the United States. Could it be that simple? I’m not sure. Rarely is anything about human beings simple.

Then again, today I am not convinced that sex before marriage is necessarily a bad thing. The sex I had before, outside of or in marriage did not cause any permanent harm to me or anyone else. So perhaps, I would just not feel guilty. If I did believe it was wrong, I would hope, I would not engage in it. The knowledge of what I did when younger reminds me that I don’t always manage to do what I believe to be the right thing.

I know people that have been celibate, others that have “cheated” in their marriages or committed relationships. I also know people that have remained monogamous throughout long marriages.  In my personal experience, practice of sexual conduct doesn’t seem to be related to sexual orientation, race or religious belief. It just seems to be related to being human. Some humans are monogamous. Some are faithful and others unfaithful to that ideal. I think it works for some and not for others.

Problems arise only when the biological impulses cause humans to cross cultural or religious lines. Then we feel guilty and ashamed.

What about me? I am hardwired to be straight – heterosexual. I have decided, through trial and error, that being - serially - monogamous is good for me, and that too works for me.

Apparently it doesn’t work for everyone. I am willing to accept that others have their own trials and errors, and so I don’t bother to read about it in the news.

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I'm Sick of Hearing About Your Smoking Hot Wife

Counting beans, staking out territory and providing lip service

Once upon a time, there was Mare Island Naval Shipyard,  MINS. It was founded, if that word can be used for a navy base, in 1853. It was, in fact, the very first US Navy base on the Pacific coast. Mostly, they built submarines there. During WWII 50,000 civilians worked at  MINS building and fixing ships. Mare Island, where the the Navy Base and MINS was located, is separated from Vallejo, CA, by the Napa River. During WWII and for a few years after, there was a hospital and a Marine Corps barracks located there. By 1963 the old hospital building housed a computer school and the Marine barracks housed the students.

I was eating lunch and playing Double Deck Pinochle on a balcony of the old hospital building when the news of Kennedy’s assignation reached us. It’s funny how I can remember what I was having for lunch that day, (PBJ sandwich), but can’t recall if it was before or after THE day when Robert McNamara made a visit to the school and shipyard. The Department of Defense, DOD, had made a short list of bases up for closure, and as Secretary of Defense, McNamara was making the rounds. Why he was making the rounds, I don’t know. You see, McNamara had made his name and fortune doing statistical control. First he did this in the US Army Air Corps, then later at Ford Motor. He was, then, a bean counter. Why he couldn’t count beans, make decisions, and determine the value of the shipyard from the Pentagon, isn’t clear.

At any rate, he came to MINS. Bear in mind here, it was the shipyard that was under threat of closure. The school was just something that needed a building for school and a barracks for the sailors going to school there. The huge closed hospital building and WWII barracks were empty after WWII, and were just begging for tenants. So the chain of command looked something like, a Captain or Rear Admiral as Commander of the Naval base, (and shipyard) and an Officer In Charge, OIC, maybe a Commander, one rank below Captain, for the school. The OIC had an executive officer, XO, always a hatchet man who does the dirty work. Below that are lower ranks taking care of business with the bottom layers, the students and the instructors.

So, the Admiral tells the OIC in charge of the school, the OIC in charge of the shipyard civilians, and whatever other minions he has running things, “...the Secretary of Defense is coming. Make things neat, look busy and find reasons why the Navy can’t do without us.” This is the Admiral's territory, and if this territory isn’t here, he might have to go to sea and not be able to use the golf course or the tennis courts. They don’t have such facilities available at sea. Lost to history is the reaction of everyone but the OIC of the computer school. This is 1963 and computers are on the upswing.  The school OIC isn’t worried that they will close the school. Computers are becoming necessary to the modern Navy. But, they would have to move the school and Mare Island is conveniently close to such weekend destinations as Napa Valley and San Francisco. He also plays golf with the admiral which he thinks is good for his career.

So, the OIC dreams up a demonstration of how computers will solve many of the Navy’s problems with handling data in air and sea battles. That of course does not involve any personnel below the rank of Chief Petty Officer. In order that things look tidy and to make it look like the lower ranks are busy he tells his XO to get ready for an inspection.

Normally, the school and the barracks are cleaned daily by the duty section of students. The school has six section duty which means 1/6 of the students have duty each day and one out of six weekends. Ordinarily, an inspection might mean an extra couple of hours work by the duty section. Because this was the Secretary of Defense, it meant more hours by the entire school, staff and students. I was assigned to the head, Navy talk for restroom. Urinals, toilets and sinks, with no showers, thank God. Showers were in the barracks. I think we started after lunch, around 11:30 am. We finally left after eight pm. The mental image of the Secretary of Defense running a white glove under a toilet rim and saying “It’s clean; we don’t have to close the base.”, is imprinted in my mind to this day.

My experience of that day demonstrates an absurdity of the military. Nearly everyone has an example of the civilian government bureaucracy being dysfunctional. I’ll mention only one, the congress of the United States today. The worst half of the Congress seems to be the Senate.

These days we have the Veterans Administration, VA, more properly United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Actually, it existed then, in 1963, as a slightly less dysfunctional organization. The VA is a civilian organization run by civilians under the Secretary of the department who is a member of the president’s cabinet. Its sole purpose is to serve military veterans of the United States. Because of its purpose, the department seems to have inherited most of the flaws of military organizations, and civilian governmental organizations, with few if any, of the redeeming qualities of either.

I am not one to dismiss bureaucracies as bloated, inefficient entities that need to be pared down to a manageable size, say three or four people, as most politicians do. We have bureaucracies because they are the most efficient means we have of making a government work. Kind of depressing, that definition. The problem is that we have to have large organizations with myriads of rules to cover every eventuality. The United States had 21.5 million military veterans in 2011, and so, we need a very large organization to serve them. We need a lot of different rules because each veteran has different needs, different situations, and different entitlements as veterans. Veterans that served in war zones generally have the more programs and benefits available. 7.5 million Served during the Vietnam era, and 5.1 million in the Gulf War era, 1990 to present. Of course not all of them served in the actual war zones. The rules are different for each. The reason for the difference is that the rules are set by Congress. In short, it is complicated.

Then, there are different forms of benefits. The GI Bill, schooling benefits, is probably the best known. But, there are health benefits, administered by VA Healthcare, and housing benefits, such as GI loan programs. Those are just the largest; there are others. They are each administered by separate organizations within the VA. Every organization has its own rules, responsibilities and turf. And, so do the individuals that comprise each organization.

Merrill’s law for organizations: Rules increase as a power of e to the number of choices.

Rules = e ^{number of choices}

e = approx 2.71828...

so, for 2 choices we need e² or at least 7.389046 rules

and for 10 choices we need e¹⁰ or at least 1096.628 rules

Note: this formula gives a minimum number of rules.

You do the math for millions of choices.

The VA has special benefits and services for homeless veterans. On a given night, between 65,000 and 130,000 veterans are homeless. There is uncertainty about the actual number – both of those figures come from the Veterans Administration. One of every seven homeless is a vet. 50% of the homeless veterans are from the Vietnam era. Regardless of the actual numbers, there are way too many.

The sad truth, according to the U.S. Department affairs, is: “The number of homeless Vietnam-era veterans, male and female, is greater than the number of soldiers who died during the war.”

A couple more facts and then I will be done. The number of Vietnam Veterans is decreasing, but their health needs, (and hence number of new claims), is increasing. The number of Gulf War veterans is increasing (and number of claims for all services). This is a perfect storm of new claims for the VA. Each new claim must be tested against the millions, (billions), of rules. Takes time, don’t you know.

According to the VA there are 953,000 claims in process at present. Claims are handled by humans – mostly. Humans make mistakes, are territorial, have personalities, like some people, and dislike other people on sight or sight unseen. Unfairness is built in. Each decision made can be appealed.

I wonder what the number of appeals is.

The homeless veterans submit many claims. Most don’t have a mail address; those that do often don’t inform the VA what the current one is. Mail or in person is the only way to learn if a claim is approved or disapproved.

Every year, in Phoenix, there is a “stand down”. In military talk a stand down is when a unit is pulled from the combat zone for R & R. The VA participates and vows to end homelessness among veterans. The VA also vows to eliminate the backlog of 953,000.

It could happen.

Not with the present set of rules and organization. I have not heard of any changes being made.

If nothing changes, nothing changes. This includes the backlog and number of homeless.

Is it possible the system is broken?

I just hope they don’t try to fix things by getting a McNamara clone to run his finger under toilet rims.

You may remember a story from the New Testament about a bureaucracy in turmoil and the head of the bureaucracy trying to change a bad decision by other members of the bureaucracy.

Pilate eventually washed his hands of it.

Change for 50 years

@ Duck and Decanter in Phoenix, AZ

Back in the fifties, America was a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, WASP for short, nation. Most of us growing up, then, believed it always would be. Manufacturing employed the majority of people. It was unimaginable that our way of life could be based on anything else. Akron, Ohio, where I spent most of the fifties, was a shining example of the modern American city where things were made. In Akron’s case, the things were tires. The economy of Akron revolved, (pun intended), around tires. Black people lived on Howard Street. Various ethnic groups lived peacefully out of sight in other parts of town. There were a lot of small communities of people from Eastern Europe, Italy, wherever. It wasn’t exactly all protestant. Hoban High, a Catholic school, was a perennial football power house. If you looked, there were blemishes on the WASP, blue collar worker, cityscape.

But, for the most part, the non-wasps were only accepted because they acknowledged the WASP’s dominance. Looking back, I see signs that changes were beginning. Main Street was becoming a little seedy down town with small shops starting to mingle with large department stores. The people on the sidewalks were mostly white but, Bar B Q restaurants were opening around Main and Market with a mixed clientele of black and white. I marveled at them and wondered what the pans of cooked meat tasted like while we stayed at the Portage Hotel on the Northwest corner shortly after arrival in Akron. The Portage was once one of Akron’s finest hotels, but was in obvious decline by the early fifties. Negroes, as we called black people then, were more common on this part of Main.

It’s all different now. I read that the last tire shop moved out of Akron sometime ago. The population is about half of what it was in the fifties. Akron is a model of the rust belt. The change isn’t all bad. In the fifties, women were careful not to hang wash on the lines when the wind was blowing. Soot from the tire shops would dirty it. Now of course, no one hangs laundry on the line to dry. Since the wind blew from the West most of the time, the rich lived in West Akron. They moved to the suburbs or out of state and the less well to do moved in. Mostly they were black. Living in Akron isn’t worse today than it was then, it is just different.

Like Akron, America has also changed. We elected Kennedy, a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, President. I should say you elected him; I voted for Barry Goldwater. Just as Akron and America changed, so did I. The seventy one year old that I am now would not vote for Barry today like the twenty-one year old did. The reason my vote would be different is not because of religious or ethnicity reasons. It is because Barry held on to outdated values that needed changing. Kennedy recognized that America was not living up to the ideals that we preached and that our society needed to change in the modern world. Kennedy’s words “Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country.” are well remembered. Less well remembered is his alluding to the Mexican-American war as an imperialist war. A war we fought for less than idealistic reasons if not outright nefarious designs on Mexican territory. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that Barry would never have thought that the Mexican American War was anything less than America fulfilling its destiny. The reason I don’t know for sure is because I never heard or read of anyone asking him that question.

When I voted for Barry, I would have said that the Mexican American War was a “good” war and we, America, was justified in fighting the war. The war and the reasons for it haven’t changed but my understanding about it has. The change in my thinking started when I read of Kennedy’s view and started thinking about such things. Just as his words about doing something for my country stirred me into a different way of thinking about service, his view of imperialism, (by the US), moved me to view history differently. Together, the ideas he gave voice to, enable me to see my country in a different light. Not always right, not always good, but able to change for the better.

My experiences with life have taught me that things will change. Change in itself is neither good nor bad. Change can be good, it can be bad; change will happen. I might as well get used to it. I might as well try to influence the change for the better. I can do that be asking: ...what can I do for my country...

What can you do?

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Irish soldiers fought for Mexico during Mexican-American War