6.27.2004
July
I was in college over the summer. I worked in the computer lab, and I lived in the dorms that summer. My answering machine spoke the words of an angel in great sadness. I knew the song of sorrow she sang. She was pregnant and I was the father.
I remember the night it happened as if it were yesterday. We were drinking with a friend of mine from school. He favored “E & J” Brandy. Despite having many years as a sailor living all over the world, I had not developed a strong tolerance for brandy. I don’t plan to ever drink it again.
Afterwards, a stumble, fumbling walk to my dorm room barely awoke me. My girlfriend and I were free to “find knowledge” of each other for the entire weekend. But I was only partially erect from drinking all those straight brandies. The condom did not fit correctly. Our love became heated and I remember the sensation becoming magnificent and not realizing why, because the next moment, I spent.
Moments passed. I felt myself breathe, I heard her breathe, and then I noticed my penis was wet, not the condom, but directly from the woman naked next to me; the woman who would become my wife.
The next day, we were meeting her mother at a restaurant not far from us. I looked at her, driving the car, and I knew. I can’t say what it was. I can only explain that I knew she was pregnant, and it happened the night before because of me. I knew.
Mid-June to Mid-July. She knew I wasn’t in my room. She left a message on my answering machine anyway. It sounded frightened and uncharacteristically upset from the tone I had come to know, both passionately, and affectionately.
I had known the day it happened. She was afraid I would abandon her. I did no such thing. I held her. I cried with her. We had taken precautions and they had failed. I was about to become a father, and she, a mother. I was in my Junior year of college. I was making plans to join the Coal Barges on the local river. My personal history was poised to repeat itself: if math and time be correct, then a bastard I am. I was conceived before (the reason) my parents wed.
My existence is powerful. My existence redirected the course of a man and a woman. Because they were becoming adults in the 1960’s, they were young adults by the end of that decade. They were innocent and immature, but my very existence drove them to become very much more worldly and grown up. I was not really the catalyst. My parents’ lust was. I am nothing but the product of young and inexperienced lust given expression.
Do I despair my existence as much as the preceding paragraph indicates? No. I am here. I exist. Regardless of my impact on my parents. I happened, they chose to try and stay together because of this. Before they chose to part, they chose to create an amazing baby girl who would become my sister.
By the time I was 8, my parents had drifted out of each others’ orbits. My father had reached the age where he knew how to charm and please a woman without trying, and he could not help himself. My mother caught him in the company of his mistress in a restaurant and gave him the ultimatum: “Come now with me and the kids, or stay here and we’re done.” He made his bed. He never wanted to sleep for years after that.
I remained loyal to my father despite evidence to the contrary. As far as I was concerned, he was a god. Not even my mother (the goddess) could convince me otherwise.
I defended him and resented my step-father despite the truth: My stepfather taught me how to be a man, not my father. It would take years for me to really realize the truth of that sentence. I still haven’t told him that. Perhaps he wouldn’t believe me. I’ll be sending this to both my father and stepfather. What they make of it is their business.
History repeating itself. This young, frightened woman 7 days younger than me was devastated. She had the burden of years of hard work to provide and please those who watched over her. She could not prove unworthy of that burden to anyone, even someone who stood by her like I did. Yet here she was, at the dawn of motherhood, convinced I would leave her to face the day alone. It took me a while to convince her that I was willing to hold the days and nights in my hands, and count them as if they were the first gulp of water after 100 days in the desert heat. Despite this deep and moving metaphor, she brought the pregnancy test she had peed on and showed it to me. I was more impressed by the yellow “splotch pattern.” than the “symbol” that confirmed my status.
If you remember far enough back, I already knew. I knew the night it happened. I told her she was “glowing” that very day and why she seemed that way. She had taken my seed, and her sacred “Garden of Eden” had begun to blossom. I was in awe of her, as she unknowingly took on all the attributes of the “Goddess” who once carried me beneath her heart.
I was ready. When she realized and explained that we were not ready. I knew we had to take action. We made plans to go down town to Pittsburgh, to the clinic, and “take care” of this.
Before we could do this, we had to get through the last week of Summer Camp...not as one of the kids, but as counselors. She was able to keep things even in the day, but every night, she collapsed in my arms in a shivering, sobbing, desperate, lost-little girl. Whatever it took to dry those tears and stop those heaves, I was going to go through hell and back to make it come true.
She was bleeding. She was complaining of horrific cramps. She was pregnant. I didn’t hesitate. I got her into the car and took her 20 miles away, so we could use an “assumed name” without anyone knowing. She was hemorrhaging. She was taken back into the back by herself. She told them I was her husband, she used my name. She wasn’t afraid to use it, I wasn’t as afraid of hearing her say it. That was the beginning of my thoughts to marry this woman, because come Hell or High Water, the “next one” was “for keeps!” She was miscarrying. Neither of us would ever know our child. It was blood soaked into “super absorbance.”
We celebrated the miscarriage. We went all over the place, including to the closest Borders Book Shop in our area. Who should we meet? My mother. We both blanched at the thought of the previous few hours. The walk through the tall sentinels of grey and glass. We were greeted at the door: “Mom, Dad, and Think about what you’re doing!” The woman who would be my wife burst into tears. Then she whimpered. She cried. I held her, clenching my teeth and fists, I held her.
They came and called her back. There was some sort of music coming from the protesters down below. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it had the sound of “righteousness” and I knew it was anti-choice advocates, offering their self-important prayers and pity. It was saddening to see another human being, who had no experience, or right, to judge another being who shit the same as he did, who pissed the same as he did, and had the same desires as he did. I angered over anyone who acted moralistic and uttered any kind of egotistical superiority over women from that day forward. I was angry at Christianity for the crimes of a few brainwashed morons.
I fell asleep for the first time in four days. I slept fitfully the whole time she was gone. It felt like an eternity. There was no way I was going to leave that clinic without this amazing woman.
She came out with a smile that felt out of place. She wasn’t pregnant! She had miscarried the week before. They refunded our money. We left, hand-in-hand. We would marry less than three years later, our relationship having “cemented” several summers before.
(I still have the bullet I chewed in half from those days if you’re interested).
J.S.Brown
Written after our Fifth Wedding Anniversary, and nearly Seven years since “July.”
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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I remember the night it happened as if it were yesterday. We were drinking with a friend of mine from school. He favored “E & J” Brandy. Despite having many years as a sailor living all over the world, I had not developed a strong tolerance for brandy. I don’t plan to ever drink it again.
Afterwards, a stumble, fumbling walk to my dorm room barely awoke me. My girlfriend and I were free to “find knowledge” of each other for the entire weekend. But I was only partially erect from drinking all those straight brandies. The condom did not fit correctly. Our love became heated and I remember the sensation becoming magnificent and not realizing why, because the next moment, I spent.
Moments passed. I felt myself breathe, I heard her breathe, and then I noticed my penis was wet, not the condom, but directly from the woman naked next to me; the woman who would become my wife.
The next day, we were meeting her mother at a restaurant not far from us. I looked at her, driving the car, and I knew. I can’t say what it was. I can only explain that I knew she was pregnant, and it happened the night before because of me. I knew.
Mid-June to Mid-July. She knew I wasn’t in my room. She left a message on my answering machine anyway. It sounded frightened and uncharacteristically upset from the tone I had come to know, both passionately, and affectionately.
I had known the day it happened. She was afraid I would abandon her. I did no such thing. I held her. I cried with her. We had taken precautions and they had failed. I was about to become a father, and she, a mother. I was in my Junior year of college. I was making plans to join the Coal Barges on the local river. My personal history was poised to repeat itself: if math and time be correct, then a bastard I am. I was conceived before (the reason) my parents wed.
My existence is powerful. My existence redirected the course of a man and a woman. Because they were becoming adults in the 1960’s, they were young adults by the end of that decade. They were innocent and immature, but my very existence drove them to become very much more worldly and grown up. I was not really the catalyst. My parents’ lust was. I am nothing but the product of young and inexperienced lust given expression.
Do I despair my existence as much as the preceding paragraph indicates? No. I am here. I exist. Regardless of my impact on my parents. I happened, they chose to try and stay together because of this. Before they chose to part, they chose to create an amazing baby girl who would become my sister.
By the time I was 8, my parents had drifted out of each others’ orbits. My father had reached the age where he knew how to charm and please a woman without trying, and he could not help himself. My mother caught him in the company of his mistress in a restaurant and gave him the ultimatum: “Come now with me and the kids, or stay here and we’re done.” He made his bed. He never wanted to sleep for years after that.
I remained loyal to my father despite evidence to the contrary. As far as I was concerned, he was a god. Not even my mother (the goddess) could convince me otherwise.
I defended him and resented my step-father despite the truth: My stepfather taught me how to be a man, not my father. It would take years for me to really realize the truth of that sentence. I still haven’t told him that. Perhaps he wouldn’t believe me. I’ll be sending this to both my father and stepfather. What they make of it is their business.
History repeating itself. This young, frightened woman 7 days younger than me was devastated. She had the burden of years of hard work to provide and please those who watched over her. She could not prove unworthy of that burden to anyone, even someone who stood by her like I did. Yet here she was, at the dawn of motherhood, convinced I would leave her to face the day alone. It took me a while to convince her that I was willing to hold the days and nights in my hands, and count them as if they were the first gulp of water after 100 days in the desert heat. Despite this deep and moving metaphor, she brought the pregnancy test she had peed on and showed it to me. I was more impressed by the yellow “splotch pattern.” than the “symbol” that confirmed my status.
If you remember far enough back, I already knew. I knew the night it happened. I told her she was “glowing” that very day and why she seemed that way. She had taken my seed, and her sacred “Garden of Eden” had begun to blossom. I was in awe of her, as she unknowingly took on all the attributes of the “Goddess” who once carried me beneath her heart.
I was ready. When she realized and explained that we were not ready. I knew we had to take action. We made plans to go down town to Pittsburgh, to the clinic, and “take care” of this.
Before we could do this, we had to get through the last week of Summer Camp...not as one of the kids, but as counselors. She was able to keep things even in the day, but every night, she collapsed in my arms in a shivering, sobbing, desperate, lost-little girl. Whatever it took to dry those tears and stop those heaves, I was going to go through hell and back to make it come true.
She was bleeding. She was complaining of horrific cramps. She was pregnant. I didn’t hesitate. I got her into the car and took her 20 miles away, so we could use an “assumed name” without anyone knowing. She was hemorrhaging. She was taken back into the back by herself. She told them I was her husband, she used my name. She wasn’t afraid to use it, I wasn’t as afraid of hearing her say it. That was the beginning of my thoughts to marry this woman, because come Hell or High Water, the “next one” was “for keeps!” She was miscarrying. Neither of us would ever know our child. It was blood soaked into “super absorbance.”
We celebrated the miscarriage. We went all over the place, including to the closest Borders Book Shop in our area. Who should we meet? My mother. We both blanched at the thought of the previous few hours. The walk through the tall sentinels of grey and glass. We were greeted at the door: “Mom, Dad, and Think about what you’re doing!” The woman who would be my wife burst into tears. Then she whimpered. She cried. I held her, clenching my teeth and fists, I held her.
They came and called her back. There was some sort of music coming from the protesters down below. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it had the sound of “righteousness” and I knew it was anti-choice advocates, offering their self-important prayers and pity. It was saddening to see another human being, who had no experience, or right, to judge another being who shit the same as he did, who pissed the same as he did, and had the same desires as he did. I angered over anyone who acted moralistic and uttered any kind of egotistical superiority over women from that day forward. I was angry at Christianity for the crimes of a few brainwashed morons.
I fell asleep for the first time in four days. I slept fitfully the whole time she was gone. It felt like an eternity. There was no way I was going to leave that clinic without this amazing woman.
She came out with a smile that felt out of place. She wasn’t pregnant! She had miscarried the week before. They refunded our money. We left, hand-in-hand. We would marry less than three years later, our relationship having “cemented” several summers before.
(I still have the bullet I chewed in half from those days if you’re interested).
J.S.Brown
Written after our Fifth Wedding Anniversary, and nearly Seven years since “July.”
TANSTAAFL!
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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6.25.2004
The Laws of Propaganda
- Truth is perception.
- Perception can be manipulated.
- Loyalty can be bought.
- Opposition can be suppressed
- Scapegoats are easy to come by.
- Religious fervor is easily corrupted.
- Convince the masses your cause is a "great moral crusade" and they'll follow you anywhere.
- Know your audience and tell them exactly what they want to hear.
- Manipulate truth by repeating the same information until it becomes the truth.
- Manipulate truth through statistics.
- Manipulate truth by distracting the masses with an overabundance of trivial information.
- Omit certain details and the truth becomes whatever you say it is.
- Give the people reasons to fight amongst themselves over petty issues. Divide and conquer.
- Disguise ignorance as information and people will think themselves aware.
- The more sensational the story, the easier it is to make the people believe it.
- A single appeal to emotion trumps100 facts.
- Information presented as “scientific data” will be taken at face value.
- Keep the masses in a fluctuating state of fear and you can justify any action you wish.
- Turn patriotism into the “state religion,” and the people will gladly turn in their own mothers for treason.
- If the people believe you are “protecting” them, they will gladly give up their rights and freedoms.
TANSTAAFL!
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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6.21.2004
The Soul of our National Spirit
I was born at the end of the Baby Boom. Officially, I’m a member of Generation X. Despite this, I’ve somehow retained a sense of romanticism and sentimentality for the eras I missed. Much of this is due to the stories told to me by my father and stepfather about Major League Baseball when they were boys.
The league minimum salary for baseball players was just $6,000.00 throughout the 1960’s. Men who played the game then played it not because they were well paid, but because they loved every aspect of the game they played. In a time when ball players make six and seven figures, it is hard to imagine what kind of a thrill it would be to see the “big names” coming out to play for the sheer love of it. Perhaps the large salaries haven’t changed the fundamental love of the game, perhaps they have, but as long as money is made such a large portion of the equation, the question will always be there.
The first time I went to Yankee Stadium was 1981. I was 11 years old. The smells of the Bronx mingled with the smells of peanuts, beer, hotdogs, and then...the light at the end of the tunnel opened up upon a magnificent cathedral of baseball. The wide expanse of well-maintained green, the freshly raked dirt, and the white lines stretching outward made me realize that I was not just in any ballpark, I was in the ballpark. Here was the spirit of Babe Ruth, of Joe DiMaggio, of Mickey Mantle. This was the place where baseball was made holy for all time. There are plenty of other Major League ballparks and great teams, but the Yankees were the team that defined baseball in the 20th Century. Historically, no other team has won more Pennants or World Series than the New York Yankees. No other team has given the country so many heroes to call their own.
That day in 1981 has left an indelible mark upon me. Even though I moved from Upstate New York to Pittsburgh in 1984, I never forgot what that was like. There is no doubt that I was happy to have Three Rivers Stadium as close as a bus ride away, but it was a stadium that was born the same year I was, it had no history before that. I remember one summer several years later when I was in college, my mother sent me a newspaper clipping photo of the last time Roberto Clemente was at-bat at Forbes Field; it was the day I was born. I still have that clipping. Three Rivers Stadium had its own charm, but it wasn’t the same thing as a ballpark that had stood for nearly a century. Now even Three Rivers Stadium has become nothing but a memory, yet Yankee Stadium endures.
Baseball has faded a bit in the fast-paced world of the Information Age. As the world has grown smaller, people have lost patience with a game that unfolds oblivious to time. Baseball has always been a game that collected its fair share of memorable moments, while demanding that fans also bear witness to the routine. As with so many other human endeavors; in order to see us at our best, we have to be willing to sit through the everything else as well. These days, it seems just catching the highlights is good enough for many.
Baseball defined this nation. It defined our hearts and our souls. It gave us something to hope for; it gave us something to come together on a summer afternoon and it gave us something to believe in. The loss of this identity with baseball has meant the loss of something quintessential in the American consciousness. It isn’t so much the loss of moral values or manners that has caused our country to decline; it is the loss of baseball.
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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The league minimum salary for baseball players was just $6,000.00 throughout the 1960’s. Men who played the game then played it not because they were well paid, but because they loved every aspect of the game they played. In a time when ball players make six and seven figures, it is hard to imagine what kind of a thrill it would be to see the “big names” coming out to play for the sheer love of it. Perhaps the large salaries haven’t changed the fundamental love of the game, perhaps they have, but as long as money is made such a large portion of the equation, the question will always be there.
The first time I went to Yankee Stadium was 1981. I was 11 years old. The smells of the Bronx mingled with the smells of peanuts, beer, hotdogs, and then...the light at the end of the tunnel opened up upon a magnificent cathedral of baseball. The wide expanse of well-maintained green, the freshly raked dirt, and the white lines stretching outward made me realize that I was not just in any ballpark, I was in the ballpark. Here was the spirit of Babe Ruth, of Joe DiMaggio, of Mickey Mantle. This was the place where baseball was made holy for all time. There are plenty of other Major League ballparks and great teams, but the Yankees were the team that defined baseball in the 20th Century. Historically, no other team has won more Pennants or World Series than the New York Yankees. No other team has given the country so many heroes to call their own.
That day in 1981 has left an indelible mark upon me. Even though I moved from Upstate New York to Pittsburgh in 1984, I never forgot what that was like. There is no doubt that I was happy to have Three Rivers Stadium as close as a bus ride away, but it was a stadium that was born the same year I was, it had no history before that. I remember one summer several years later when I was in college, my mother sent me a newspaper clipping photo of the last time Roberto Clemente was at-bat at Forbes Field; it was the day I was born. I still have that clipping. Three Rivers Stadium had its own charm, but it wasn’t the same thing as a ballpark that had stood for nearly a century. Now even Three Rivers Stadium has become nothing but a memory, yet Yankee Stadium endures.
Baseball has faded a bit in the fast-paced world of the Information Age. As the world has grown smaller, people have lost patience with a game that unfolds oblivious to time. Baseball has always been a game that collected its fair share of memorable moments, while demanding that fans also bear witness to the routine. As with so many other human endeavors; in order to see us at our best, we have to be willing to sit through the everything else as well. These days, it seems just catching the highlights is good enough for many.
Baseball defined this nation. It defined our hearts and our souls. It gave us something to hope for; it gave us something to come together on a summer afternoon and it gave us something to believe in. The loss of this identity with baseball has meant the loss of something quintessential in the American consciousness. It isn’t so much the loss of moral values or manners that has caused our country to decline; it is the loss of baseball.
“People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn into your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door, as innocent as children, longing for the past. "Of course, we won't mind if you look around," you'll say, "It's only twenty dollars per person." And they'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for its money they have and peace they lack.
And they'll walk off to the bleachers and sit in their short sleeves on a perfect afternoon. And find they have reserved seats somewhere along the baselines where they sat when they were children. And cheer their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick; they'll have to brush them away from their faces.
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”
Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones): Field of Dreams
TANSTAAFL!
© 2004, J.S.Brown
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6.11.2004
How We Choose to Honor The Dead
According to my Mother-in-law, I'm unpatriotic and a bad American because I think that Ronald Reagan's service is overly melodramatic facade. IMHO, rather than celebrating his life and achievements, they are glorifying one man above their own belief in God. It seems as though they are turning the whole affair into idolatry: worshipping an image, figure, or statue before God, which would be a direct violation of the First Commandment.
It is a human flaw to see any one human being as somehow better than another. We are all the same "stuff." We all have the same potential to be saints or sinners. We all have the ability to become great leaders of goodness, or great leaders of evil. Honoring a life and a legacy of service to one's country should be done not with pomp and circumstance, but with honest subdued humility and silence. It is not necessary to make a person seem even greater than they were to honor them. Simply honor them. That's all.
As far as my Mother-in-law is concerned, I should keep my disloyal and disrespectful thoughts to myself. I should simply turn the channel and ignore the ceremony in silence if I do not agree with it. After all, who am I to judge? She sees me as a failure trying to disgrace a great man (Ask her any other time, and she will say that Ronald Reagan did nothing to help her when she was desperate and poor. Now that he's died, he's transcended sainthood).
My Mother-in-law is a staunch FDR Democrat who was raised during the Great Depression, but she sees Regan now as a "Father of our country" along with all the others who came before him. She thinks I have disgraced my service to my country and if any of my bosses knew how I felt, they would fire me in an instant for being so disloyal and disrespectful to my country and its people. She comes from an era where people did not question authority and respected all ceremony as sacred. I wonder what her reaction will be if they attempt to replace FDR's image on the dime with Reagan's.
Even if all this pomp and pageantry is meant for some purpose I cannot fathom, I find it repugnant that anyone would want their life to be so distorted and one-sided. Reagan was not perfect. His decisions were not always the greatest. He played a pivotal role in a controversial time, but that doesn't make him anything more than a human being. Let's remember him not for just the good things he did, but everything he did. Let's remember him as a complete person, not just a partial one. Let us forsake the ego in favor of something greater than the sum of our parts.
This ceremony provides politicians with yet another method of winning the hearts and minds of their constituents to their cause. They have used it as both a distraction from the other events of the day, and as propaganda for their own purpose. While we are taking the time to morn the passing of Ronald Reagan, other people are suffering and dying all over the world, and yet we do not blink twice about that. Our collective attentions are so focused in on the grandness of the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. that the rest of the world could blow up and nobody would notice. One human being can make a difference, but no one human being should become so all important that we lose the ability to remember that we are all one human being.
This demonstration provides us with yet another example of how impossible it is to separate religion from politics. They are entwined at the very roots of humanity. They speak the same language and the lines are deliberately blurred so that many people would never realize they had crossed one for the other. Religion was the first organized political system. All other political systems grew out of theocratic orders. As long as we hold onto the idea that we can somehow mix the two, we will never be able to stop warring amongst ourselves over idealology, economics, power, and greed. I only hope we can outgrow this before it is too late.
Ronald Reagan deserves to be honored as a statesman, a leader, an entertainer, and ultimately, as the 40th United States President. Of this I have no complaint. What I have seen in the past week from the media and from ceremonies all over the world is something that does nothing to help the human condition, rather it takes everything that is good about it away. When we make one man out to be greater than he is, we diminish ourselves in the process.
© 2004, J.S.Brown
0 comments
It is a human flaw to see any one human being as somehow better than another. We are all the same "stuff." We all have the same potential to be saints or sinners. We all have the ability to become great leaders of goodness, or great leaders of evil. Honoring a life and a legacy of service to one's country should be done not with pomp and circumstance, but with honest subdued humility and silence. It is not necessary to make a person seem even greater than they were to honor them. Simply honor them. That's all.
As far as my Mother-in-law is concerned, I should keep my disloyal and disrespectful thoughts to myself. I should simply turn the channel and ignore the ceremony in silence if I do not agree with it. After all, who am I to judge? She sees me as a failure trying to disgrace a great man (Ask her any other time, and she will say that Ronald Reagan did nothing to help her when she was desperate and poor. Now that he's died, he's transcended sainthood).
My Mother-in-law is a staunch FDR Democrat who was raised during the Great Depression, but she sees Regan now as a "Father of our country" along with all the others who came before him. She thinks I have disgraced my service to my country and if any of my bosses knew how I felt, they would fire me in an instant for being so disloyal and disrespectful to my country and its people. She comes from an era where people did not question authority and respected all ceremony as sacred. I wonder what her reaction will be if they attempt to replace FDR's image on the dime with Reagan's.
Even if all this pomp and pageantry is meant for some purpose I cannot fathom, I find it repugnant that anyone would want their life to be so distorted and one-sided. Reagan was not perfect. His decisions were not always the greatest. He played a pivotal role in a controversial time, but that doesn't make him anything more than a human being. Let's remember him not for just the good things he did, but everything he did. Let's remember him as a complete person, not just a partial one. Let us forsake the ego in favor of something greater than the sum of our parts.
This ceremony provides politicians with yet another method of winning the hearts and minds of their constituents to their cause. They have used it as both a distraction from the other events of the day, and as propaganda for their own purpose. While we are taking the time to morn the passing of Ronald Reagan, other people are suffering and dying all over the world, and yet we do not blink twice about that. Our collective attentions are so focused in on the grandness of the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. that the rest of the world could blow up and nobody would notice. One human being can make a difference, but no one human being should become so all important that we lose the ability to remember that we are all one human being.
This demonstration provides us with yet another example of how impossible it is to separate religion from politics. They are entwined at the very roots of humanity. They speak the same language and the lines are deliberately blurred so that many people would never realize they had crossed one for the other. Religion was the first organized political system. All other political systems grew out of theocratic orders. As long as we hold onto the idea that we can somehow mix the two, we will never be able to stop warring amongst ourselves over idealology, economics, power, and greed. I only hope we can outgrow this before it is too late.
Ronald Reagan deserves to be honored as a statesman, a leader, an entertainer, and ultimately, as the 40th United States President. Of this I have no complaint. What I have seen in the past week from the media and from ceremonies all over the world is something that does nothing to help the human condition, rather it takes everything that is good about it away. When we make one man out to be greater than he is, we diminish ourselves in the process.
TANSTAAFL!
© 2004, J.S.Brown
0 comments
0 Comments:
