Vatican Shifts Stance on Heretical Astronomer

Vatican Shifts Stance on Heretical Astronomer

In a stunning success for science vs. faith, the Vatican is now ready, or willing, to acknowledge that planet Earth does revolve around the Sun, and not as the Church believed 400 years ago. But the news coming out of the Vatican doesn’t exactly put it that way, in fact, no mention is made in any of the recent reports that Galileo Galilei’s observations were accurate, or assumed to be correct, or favored a scientific view that could be easily replicated. Instead, in a recent deliberation at the Vatican, “Science 400 Years After Galileo Galilei,” Vatican scholars came to believe that the astronomer was “one of the faithful.”

This comes after a trial of heresy, a sentence to life imprisonment, then a reduced sentence to house arrest. I am not certain if he was able to keep his telescope. What seems an odd addendum to all this is word that L'Osservatore Romano recently published a story about alien life in the outer universe. All this comes about as Pope Benedict XVI is working toward correcting a perception that he is anti-reason, or more simply put, an opponent of science. Perhaps the alien story was a stretch.
Even so, with all the preparation, excitement and hoopla for Galileo Galilei, some Vatican officials aren’t as forgiving as the Pope.

To help celebrate the 400th anniversary when he pointed his refracting telescope to the Heavens, the United Nations is calling 2009 The Year of Astronomy, with papers and presentations all over the world celebrating the mix of (some) faith and (plenty of )science. Then what happened to the statue of Our Astronomer tentatively planned for the Vatican Gardens? It appears that, according to the Vatican newspaper, “The dramatic clash between Galileo and some men of the Church left wounds that are still
open today.”

Who, pray tell, is still seething? Who, pray tell, is still pouring pride into the “wound”? Just how long will this go on? Regardless of the naysayers, we’re hopeful the statute will go up, and in the Gardens. I do forget the layout of the Vatican Grounds, but perhaps on a sunny day, the soon to be standing statue might be viewed on the same azimuth as the Obelisk in St. Peter’s Square, if one has the courage to make such a climb.

One of the more impressive statues in the Square, this is an Aswan granite guide to the Time of the Day which once graced the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, before Emperor Caligula brought it to Rome as booty in 37 C.E., and later was moved by Pope Sixtus and countless slaves to St. Peter’s Square in 1585. Galileo Galilei was about 21 at the time, fourteen years before he set his eye to the Heavens. I’ll have to check if the young Italian was on hand to witness the big move. In the meantime, when you’re visiting Florence again, or for the first time, be sure to stop in the Museum of History and Science to catch up on Galileo’s life and scientific discoveries. Perhaps the Museum has moved a Bible into one of the displays to confirm that the Astronomer read from the Book of Genesis.

Sources: msnbc.com, and “moving the Vatican Obelisk,” from a blogsite “on landscape and architecture.

Obama Chooses Family Friend for Inaugural Poet

Obama Chooses Family Friend for Inaugural Poet


With much excitement, anticipation, toes crossed and breath held, we all wondered who might be selected as the poet for Barak Obama’s Inauguration. Would it be the new Library of Congress Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, or her predecessor, Charles Simic? Would Maya Angelou be invited back for a repeat of “On the Pulse in the Morning”? Who has the fortitude to stand before 4-6 million shivering Americans and world guests to listen to the waxing and waning of “an occasional poem,” as they are so terribly named? Who even memorizes poems these days as Robert Frost did on a cold January in 1961? Is there such an American poet who has been vetted of appropriate metaphors and synecdoches for such an auspicious occasion?

Lyndon Baines didn’t even want to waste time with such triviality at his Inauguration. And Ike? Does anyone remember a poet honoring the great General? Well perhaps this is unfair, for who remembers the Benediction at any of the Inaugurals? Okay, can anyone out there (without Goggling) remember a line from any of the Presidential Inaugural speeches, with the exception of “Ask not….”? Lines do seem to fade once the party’s over, don’t they?

So we do have a Presidential Inaugural Poet, and she is Elizabeth Alexander of Yale University who has a remarkably fine list of honors and achievements, and you can find more about her by going to the www.npr.org site
and searching for her interview on Thursday, Dec.18. But I was just wondering, what do you think would be appropriate images or even lines of the Inaugural Poem?

Who could forget Maya Angelou’s?

Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, and into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope --
Good morning.

A favorite image is seeing old man Frost reading from memory his closing lines of such solemnity:

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

Those lines do sound today a bit heavy handed with the piano key-iambic hitting just the right stresses. But heck, it was cold out, and we never got to hear the poem he wished to read, as he didn’t wear sunglasses for the intense snow glare that day. Anyone remember “Dedication”? It’s even more somber, if that’s possible. What is it about “the state of somberness” which gets these Inaugural poets bringing out the chariots, or cheerleaders? Sorry!

Now Miller Williams had it right, when he stepped up to the podium for Bill’s Second Inaugural. The photo of Bill sitting behind Miller who is reading is near priceless for “rapt attention of a poet reading a poem.” Here’s a stinger of Miller’s:

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s talk about the dead, a favorite for all poets.

And then there was James Dickey of all people, standing up for Jimmy Carter in 1977, choosing not to read a piece written for the occasion, but instead, pulling out a favorite of his, “The Strength of Fields,” with a rip roaring closing line of

My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can.

Now I am getting goose bumps; aren’t you? Okay, enough of this inaugural poetic torture. What would you like to read at the mike? Do you have an inaugural line? A title? Please submit your lines, images, metaphors and synecdoches, and I’ll try my best to cut and paste something that might catch the attention of the Academy of American Poets, for who knows what we might be able to create? We might be making inaugural poetic history here.

Please, though, no “hope springs eternal” lines. We’ve gotten the point on that one. Also, no blubbering. No whining. No chest puffing. Nothing too bellicose. Please, only one personification per poet, please. Think out of the sonnet box. Be grand, but not too grand. Be strong but not too strong. Be fresh, like Ezra Pound (see college modern poetry textbook) insisted. Perhaps a little pedestrian, but some nobility as well, for a Kennedy is bound to be in the audience. No “send forth” instructions. We’ve already done that. Keep it family style, too, as we don’t want any nipples showing that might need to be covered, after all, the meteorologists predict the temps will be in the low 20’s. Finally, and with some reservation as a poet who loves long historical poems, keep it to two pages, please. The public isn’t ready for a modified epic, at least not when teeth are chattering. So here’s your challenge. Send a few lines, titles, noble thoughts, and we’ll try to paste together a hit for the Yes We Can Team.







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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Returns

Sir Gawain & The Green Knight Makes the Top 100 Notable Books of the Year

The news is quite astounding, and reflects much on the power of a good poem, written, some say, in the late 14th Century in a dialect few of us can converse in, but imagine the surprise when the newest translation of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight showed up on the New York Times Book Review “100 Notable Books of 2008.”

This calls for much celebration, not only among living poets, but all of us who take an interest in literature that lasts beyond the year of publication.
Let’s all find a copy (for some, look in an old college literature anthology, English Lit Vol. I) of the poem, and set aside time between New Year’s Eve Day, and New Year’s Day to savor some of the mind-tripping Middle English 101 stanzas that aren’t all that long, if you don’t mind a giant who loses his head, and some pretty steamy scenes, and a potential second beheading.

May I suggest we read it to our loved ones over whatever hot drinks when sipping throughout the New Year, but please, try to find a green scarf to help carry all of us back in time to knights, a lady fair indeed, and one very sharp axe that does draw blood.

Go ahead and stimulate the economy by actually buying the new translation by Simon Armitage (Norton, $25.95), but I am sure you can find other editions not quite so pricy if you look around. So as you are all making your trips for Holiday Merriment, be it Christmas or Hanukkah, or Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, or Kawanza, take time to bring in some firewood, find some extra lap warmers, see what kinds of English teas are tucked away in the back of the pantry, and see if there’s even time for baking a batch of scones.

With much anticipation, we begin:
No, I have come to this court for a bit of Christmas fun
fitting for Yuletide and New Years with such a fine crowd.
Who here in this house thinks he has what it takes,
has bold blood and a brash head,
and dares to stand his ground, giving stroke for stroke?
Here! I shall give him this gilded blade as my gift;
this heavy ax shall be his, to handle as he likes.
and I shall stand here bare of armor, and brave the first blow.
If anyone's tough enough to try out my game,
let him come here quickly and claim his weapon!
I give up all rights; he will get it for keeps.
I'll stand like a tree trunk -- he can strike at me once,
if you'll grant me the right to give as good as I get
in play.
But later is soon enough,
a full year and a day.
Get up, if you think you're rough,
let's see what you dare to say!"
(Paul Deane, trans., 1999)

Armistice Day Remembered

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Below is an op-ed piece that appears in the Nov. 11, 2008 New York Times. Today I also begin a short section on Holocaust Studies in my World of Ideas class at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and I'll provide a little information about the Treaty of Versailles which was signed in June of 1919. So I thought this might be an appropriate piece for all of us to read. Your blogmeister, DeWitt Clinton


from The New York Times
November 11, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
A Holiday to End All Wars
By ALEXANDER WATSON
Cambridge, England

TODAY is the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended the First World War, and it will be commemorated very differently on each side of the Atlantic and across the borders of Europe. It’s a reminder that not all “victors” experience wars in the same way, and that their citizens can have almost as much difficulty as those of the vanquished states in coping with the collective trauma of conflict.

For Americans, Veterans Day celebrates the survivors of all the nation’s 20th and 21st century wars. In France and Britain, by contrast, the mood is altogether more somber. In these countries, it is the dead who, since 1919, have been the focus of the ceremonies.

Why this difference? After all, for citizens of all three countries the date marks a shared victory. In the jargon of the time, Nov. 11, 1918, was the day of their soldiers’ triumph over “Prussian militarism,” the vindication of a “fight for civilization” and the successful finish of a “war to end all wars.”

In the years after the war, official ceremonies in the United States reflected these victorious ideals and celebrated “world peace” — it was only after World War II that the day was dedicated specifically to veterans. The touchstone of loss and suffering for Americans remained the Civil War, the world’s first industrial conflict, which 50 years before World War I had taken the lives of more than 600,000 soldiers. Memorial Day (or as it was originally known, Decoration Day) was first instituted in May during the late 1860s to commemorate these fallen.

In contrast, it was only in August 1914 that the horrors and shock of modern warfare came to Europe. The Great War, as the conflict is still known in France and Britain, was a prolonged and vicious struggle demanding the commitment of nations’ wealth and manpower on an unprecedented scale.

Over four years, armies millions of men strong clashed indecisively in horrendous conditions. For the first time on this scale, genuine home fronts formed, as civilians were targets of bombings and food blockades. British war losses, at more than 700,000 men, remain the heaviest in the country’s history. French and German dead were even more numerous, totaling 1.4 million and likely 2 million, respectively.

It was the need to come to terms with this immense loss of life that shaped European commemorations of Nov. 11. On the armistice’s first anniversary in Britain, a two-minute silence was observed at 11 a.m., the time the fighting ended; industry was shut down, traffic halted and people across the country fell quiet to remember the nation’s dead. In France, public grief was expressed more loudly, local communities gathering every armistice day to hear the names of the dead read out by a war orphan, and responding in unison, “mort pour la patrie” — “died for his country.”

Cenotaphs were built to comfort the bereaved whose relatives had no known resting place — the bodies of hundreds of thousands of men had been lost on the battlefield or eviscerated by shellfire. In 1920, “Unknown Warriors” were chosen and entombed in London and Paris; Rome followed suit in 1921.

In towns and villages more modest memorials and plaques to the fallen were erected, becoming an enduring feature of Europe’s landscape. At veterans’ insistence, Nov. 11 was declared a national holiday in France in 1922, and Germany too introduced an official “people’s day of sorrow,” or Volkstrauertag, in 1925 to honor its war dead.

Today, the commemoration of Nov. 11 varies greatly across Europe. For Poles, the holiday is not a day of mourning but rather of celebration, commemorating the rebirth of their nation in 1918 after more than a century of occupation by Austria-Hungary, Prussia and Russia. In Italy, the war dead are remembered on Nov. 4, “the feast of the fallen,” the day in 1918 that fighting came to an end on its battlefront. Across Central Europe though, the greater horrors of the Second World War have subsumed those of its predecessor within popular memory; in Germany, for example, commemoration of the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities now takes precedence over the losses of the last century’s first conflagration.

Yet in France, where the death toll of 1914 to 1918 exceeded that of 1939 to 1945, the dead of World War I retain a strong grip on the national conscience. Across the country today, local mayors will lead remembrance services, the names of long-buried soldiers will be read out, military bands will play and citizens will sing “La Marseillaise.”

In Britain, where an estimated three-quarters of the population paused during the two-minute silence on the armistice’s 80th anniversary and where, in 2002, a BBC poll rated the Unknown Warrior as the country’s 76th greatest citizen, public memory of the war is even stronger. Visit the country (or its former dominions including Canada and New Zealand) in November and you will still see paper poppies being widely worn — a reference to the blood-red flowers which grew on the shell-torn battlefields and to John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields.”

The brainchild of an American educator, Moina Michael, the poppies have been sold since 1921 to support war widows and veterans; a record 37 million were purchased in Britain in 2006. Even 90 years after the war’s end, the rites and symbols of what George Kennan termed “the great seminal catastrophe” of the 20th century retain their poignancy.

Alexander Watson is a research fellow at Cambridge University and the author of “Enduring the Great War.”

My Friends, Our Long National Nightmare is Over

MY FRIENDS, OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER

Somewhere in the hazy craw of childhood memory, I can still see Dwight Eisenhower “inspecting the troops,” a Boy Scout Jamboree somewhere in safe Republican Kansas in the late 1950’s. I’m sure, as nearly always, he “carried” Kansas in the Electoral Votes, but I do recall someone saying how he scowled at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. I’ll admit I can still see Tricky Dick, but mostly due to the occasional documentaries on History Channel, as well as a slightly improved memory of his decision to bomb Cambodia, to prowl around in Democratic offices looking for scuttlebutt, and being somewhat paralyzed, as we all might have been who are still alive, by the Watergate Hearings.

Those Victory hands still pop up occasionally in my abdulla oblongata, or somewhere up there, when I see presidential candidates ascend or descend from planes from various political trips made across the world, or here in the U.S. I’ll admit I remember more from President Ford on Saturday Night Live, than I do of his presidency, but mostly I connect a few wires to the Fall of Saigon, and the Aftermath, which is still a nightmare.

Mostly, I remember Ronald Reagan as amusing, as someone who didn’t seem to attack civil liberties, or undermine the Constitution, though we still need to investigate more of the Iran Contra scandal, though most of us would just like to forget it, but perhaps not the Nicaraguans. For eight years we lived under his doting leadership, and though the specific days are just about as hazy as when Dwight Eisenhower walked by, we probably did not seem to revile the actor, but we tolerated him, knowing he earned the respect one has to accept for a landslide victory, or was it two?

George Elder was a statesman I suppose, and though no one wants to really consider that Kuwait was a legal province of Iraq before European powers separated it from the northern provinces, shortly after WWI, I still sense that George Elder was not motivated by madness as his son would be regarding who actually owns the oil fields. So as poor as my memory is, life under Republican presidents up to George the Younger was not miserable, in fact, some of those days since Dwight must have been pretty good.

But that all changed eight years ago today. I can remember “Florida, Florida, Florida,” as Tim Russet so ably put it. And then we were off to the Supreme Court to decide who would lead us into the Age of Terror(ism). The memory of 9/11/1001 is, of course, burned, singed on all of our memories, much more than any aching memory of being overrun by North Vietnamese regular Army soldiers who captured for a few minutes one mountain top somewhere in South East Asia. Soon, without precedent (perhaps I can be corrected on this) we learned that all laws and justice, a bit to our surprise, would emanate from the White House, even if they were illegal and unprecedented.

Soon we were going to muscle our way against the world, intimidating everyone, as if we were not behind George the Younger, then we were against him. Actually I didn’t want to be behind him, or in front of him, as he was such an intimidating cowboy with such unusual swagger and smirk. Well, I’m no White House historian, but looking back, it seems like the eye of Hurricane Katrina was actually hovering inside George Bush’s Office, and so the level of devastation and destruction is nearly impossible to record, but many writers will begin the herculean task.
Our world shrank after the dismissal of the Kyoto Accords, and whether it was graft, or stupidity, or just proof that absolute power does corrupt even born again Christians, to a certain degree, (and you can decide how much), we became an old crumbling Roman Empire, with too many enemies from too many borders. But last night something changed, a sea shifted, and so without tearing up, I’m just glad to have lasted as long as we all did in our makeshift foxholes. Perhaps we can join other earthlings in learning how to live together again.

Just in Case II

Just in Case, Chapter II

Just as everyone I see has shorter fingernails, and other signs of an expected crisis, I now realize we may have to reconsider moving to an abandoned nuclear silo, or nest of silos, to live out our days as deprived democrats. However, I do have some good news regarding the General Election. We have made new arrangements to launch a NASA space vehicle to the planet Uranus which we have heard on good authority has no RNC (Republican National Committee) offices, or even better, no lobbyists. Sadly, the planet also does not have any DNC offices, so we’d be pretty much on our own out there. So we are rounding up all those who’d like to take the life journey with us, and though we are moving into our senior years, we’re not too worried about arriving when we are over 200 years old, as the opportunities are just too great to pass up. Some of you may be wondering where we will launch, and I can say, unofficially, we have reconnoitered a downtown skyscraper scheduled for demolition and we’ve been rebuilding the launch vehicle in the old elevator shaft. Of course if the Election does go haywire sometime around the last Florida votes are counted, we realize the possibility of a few downtown buildings buckling and collapsing as we make quite a bit of boom boom as we skedaddle out of town.

We’ve actually been receiving bon voyage cards, so many are asking about our supplies for the 140 year trip. Definitely, we’re thinking of a dairy herd, as who’d want to go without cheese that long, but we do wonder how many pots and pans we’d need for a few wheels of Colby or Cheddar. We’re also thinking about a barn full of hay for our high flying mo-mo’s. I actually have some farm experience, so we’re taking a field of broccoli sprouts, as well as a number of other stable vegetables that will get us through until we land sometime in 2208 or maybe, if we’re lucky with wind speed, 2206. Right now we’re trying to figure out the formula for converting soy beans into soy burgers, but I’m sure it’ll come to us soon. We’ve also asked the local bakery if they’d supply us for say, a long trip to Uranus, with a variety of loaves, just to keep us happy and contented. Butter is no problem, as we can call upon or Holsteins to change their routine every now and then.

We also have plenty of room for a menagerie of beasts and fowl, so we are now scouring the far corners for some of our favorite critters. We’ve spotted rare red-beaked cranes flying through the DMZ between North and South Korea, and they’re expected, well, we’ll keep the doors open until the very last minute as we very much would like their company on our long flight. We’ve also asked our botanist friends what would transport well, so we’re making a list of plants and small growing things that we just shouldn’t do without. Oh yes, we’re negotiating right now for a truckload of bottled Evian, though it’s a bit pricy buying wholesale.

Many are wondering about our opportunities in a place where no Republicans or Democrats have ever been spotted. Of course we’ll open a listening post, in case any wish to follow our flight path, but for the most part, we expect a lot of hiking, and we’re told, on very good authority, that a herd of Blue Point Siamese are looking for a trainer, so I am taking a few extra “cat dancers” toys to see if I might apply for the position. My wife is right now packing away all of her pastels and water colors as we’ve also heard the planet is looking for a good visualist who can capture the radiant colors for a travel-to-Uranus campaign offer that is just too good to turn down.

Of course we’re packing favorite books, and yes the Tibetan Book of the Dead is at the top of our list, along with a few verses of Genesis (we like the Noah story), the Bhagavad-Gita, who couldn’t travel without that wonderful story, and of course, our subscription to The New Yorker. My wife has asked if we can’t add a few catalogs, in case we get an internet link and can do some on-line shopping as we speed by the planets.

We’ll be working right up until November 4, and we’ll even calculate a delay if the Supreme Court has to decide, again, who will capture the White House. We do have a few seats left, but please, if you do want to consider travelling with us, be sure to bring a few peanut butter and jellys as it could be a long ride. I’ve also been speculating on inviting a few young people to come aboard, something like Lot’s daughters, just in case we need to keep the population growing as we sail into our future. The details of that are still a bit iffy, as we’ve not worked out a good enticement offer. But you’re invited, so just email us your arrival plans, and I’d suggest only one piece of luggage with one carry-on please. Yes, we’re serving chocolate cookies as Midwest Express has arranged for us to buy all of their jet engine fuel, as long as we promised to take pictures of any new planetary airports for future expansion plans.

Oh, yes, of course, we’ll shut down the launch engines if enough blue states can carry us into a new era. Yes, we’d still have those lobbyists, and those nastier than usual Repubs, but perhaps we can find a way to all get along, at least until another General Election. So wish us well, be sure to vote, cross your fingers and toes, and take a few good deep yoga breaths. It’ll all work out, someway.

Just in Case

Just in Case (Plan B)

Just in case Dems are swindled (“the Bradley effect”) out of another General Election, I’ve decided to form a “more perfect union,” though I’m still struggling where to either buy or rent land for the new Capitol. Yes, of course we would have a foreign policy, and as well, something domestic, but perhaps these will not be priorities in the new Administration.

I’m currently searching on Google Maps for the closest (from Milwaukee, Wisconsin) underground nuclear silo, or nest of silos, as a possible site for the new Clintonia, as historians might refer to it someday. In many respects, this perfect union will be like a much-looked-forward-to sequel to another Governor’s “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” with of course creatures identified as female terminators, aka T-Xers or “Terminatrixes,” as Republicanators.

Yes, we’ll have a farm policy but to the surprise of the new electorate of disenchanted Dems, we’ll need to establish soy as the new protein base, allowing the atmosphere above Clintonia to cleanse itself of bovine gases, which may take a decade or two. (Note: we may need to sell all our beef to foreign governments to raise cash for our new Treasury, but perhaps we should keep the dairy herds, for who doesn’t like Cheese Heads? This loss of beef may disappoint carnivorous Dems, but to appease the masses, I’ve found a supply of Kikkoman soy sauce with a big distributor in Wisconsin which would add a dash of flavor to the poor legumes. Some have suggested we plant acres of broccoli, perhaps to honor another Rebublicanator, the great George W. Bush ’41, who had much to say about the cultivated cruciferous plant.

But on to the more important business of running the “perfect union.” We will form Departments and Agencies, though in a brief review of who will immediately be living in the nest of silos, we can’t have as many “heads” as our new space will be quite restricted. Our first mission, however, will be to set sail for Cuba not only due to the amiable amigos, but because the warm waters will be therapeutic to all those who suffered through the disaster known as the 08 Debacle.

I can say this with some authority that we will move the National Endowment for the Arts up to the Department level, and perhaps expect our new citizens to partake in the artistic life of the new Clintonia with more verve and enthusiasm, reading not one book every year, but possibly two. Since we’ll be producing soy beans by the ton, perhaps even able to export the little ones, we might not need an Agriculture Department, but let’s keep a slot open in Interior for someone who likes trees, oxygen, polar bears and arctic ice, some of my favorite agenda items we’ll want to defend in the next Administration.

As to Commerce, we’ll all need to know how to better add and subtract from our checkbooks, with no overdrafts anymore, as we just can’t afford it in this more “perfect union.” Perhaps we can use a TYME machine for our national bank. As to Justice, crime will diminish, I’m certain, as we’ll melt down all known weapons of both mass and individual destruction, so everyone will have to learn the art of debate and diplomacy all over again, in case they missed it in the 10th Grade! I admit I favor Al Gore for the Department of Energy. Is anybody really going to challenge that?

We can expect a new Department of Sports, and to everyone’s shock and awe, we’ll be making “triathlon” the new national sport, with everyone taking swims, rides or jogs on a much more individual, and group, basis. This will cut down the need for Health and Human Services, but we will probably have to open a few clinics for those who keep falling off of their new bikes with clip shoes, or for those who suck in too much lake water while trying to learn the Crawl. Soon the country will experience national fever for their new tri team.

We have much to do everyone. Someone should try to find a good zerox machine, but perhaps we can all stay in touch with a My Space account. Now, we do need to designate who’s cooking dinner on what nights, and who’s willing to wash up after. The little ones will need to be taken care of, so we will need lots of dads and moms to volunteer some play time on a regular basis. Anything else? Oh, I almost forgot, we’ll want to make an open invitation for Barak and his family and all of his election team to join us, perhaps in Havana, for a farewell to the old country, and a HooRaw for the new Republic. If the weather is nice, we just might make Havana our winter White House. In case the Election is favorable, however, and we all hope it will be, we’ll put all these ideas down the silo, and cap it until we face another bleak “End Times.”

Doomsday Machine May End Earth as We Know it With All of Us Spinning in a Black Hole, Forever

If you are interested in sub-atomic particle theory, as I am, the news of the Hadron Collider starting its engine today is too much to pass by. Many news outlets are stoking the improbable (probable) fear that our planet will be sucked into a new Black Hole that could escape from the underground Collider. For background, please scroll down this blog to March 27, 2008 for background on philosophical perspectives on this ominous day, only hours before the anniversary of September 11, 2001.




Ten things I’d like to do before being evaporated into a black hole by the Big Hadron Collider
1. Cast an early vote for the Presidential race.
2. Ride the Amtrak coast to coast.
3. Hike through Hungary with a food critic.
4. Hike the modestly difficult trails in Zion National Park.
5. Swim around Manhattan Island sans stinging jellyfish.
6. Read another good book.
7. Write another great poem .
8. Orchestrate orgasms for everyone of appropriate age.
9. Refrain from grading any more papers.
10. Review Hebrew lessons.

Ten things we might all want to do before being evaporated into a black hole by the Big Hadron Collider
1. Review rules for early voting.
2. Start digging a “black hole” shelter.
3. Contact everyone we’ve ever known and tell them how wonderful it was to know them.
4. Explore possibilities of being launched into space on a commuter flight.
5. Review rules of geometry, and, if possible, sub-atomic particle theory.
6. Invite everyone over for a feast, even if it is dark out.
7. Stop by the science store, and buy a telescope of any power, for possible gazing.
8. Make plans to move into your bank vault, if #2 is not feasible.
9. Kiss Kiss Kiss everyone you possibly can.
10. If time permits, review the Tao de Ching.

Ten things I wish I had done before being evaporated into a black hole by the Big Hadron Collider
1. Walked down and walked back up The Grand Canyon more often.
2. Held my mother and father when they left this Earth for good.
3. Visited with the Dalai Lama about human suffering with a chai latte.
4. Came in last in the Beijing Olympic Triathlon.
5. Raced on a horse in the Il Palio Festival in Siena, Italy.
6. Helped more students to write more amazingly.
7. Been chummier with my siblings.
8. Loved my sweet heart more.
9. Invested in a local Greek restaurant.
10. Talked with Socrates more.

Ten things I wish we had not done before being evaporated into a black hole by the Big Hadron Collider

1. Not elected so many Republicans into office.
2. Learned how to speak with the larger insect, bird and animal world.
3. Not invented weapons of mass destruction.
4. Not discovered ways to murder each other.
5. Not abandoned Africa.
6. Not discovered oil.
7. Not invaded countries.
8. Became better listeners and diplomats.
9. Not let a country be controlled by influential lobbyists.
10. Learned how to save the polar ice shelves.

Waiter, There's a Head in My Soup!

Waiter, there’s a head in my soup!

Do you faint in your soup bowl after donating blood? I usually do, in fact, I’ve been asked by one organization to never show up again, for I not only fainted on the cot while giving blood, but passed out later into the chicken soup. Physicians tend to call this phenom a vaso vagal syndrome or an even more syncopated term, a vaso vagal syncope.

A few days ago I had a real major syncope as I was minding my own business lying peacefully in a state of post spinal and general anesthesia as 70% of my pesky prostate had just been removed, when out of nowhere, really, nowhere, my heart beat and blood pressure starting dropping precipitously into never never land, and the nurses had to call in a quick response team. Of course I was all clammy, with my eyes rolling around in the back of my head, but other than that I was pretty peaceful. Everyone around me was not. Lots and lots of white coats. I was pulled back to this earth by an injection of atropine, and with that I resumed a “normal” heartbeat of about 44 beats. “What happened?” I asked. Dumb question. It’s a question I’ve been wondering about lately, for I’ve been fainting near pools of blood most of my life.

In high school I tried organizing a blood drive for my dad’s church or perhaps for a school event. Everything was going fine, at least in my distant memory of the early 1960’s, but I do remember landing in the soup bowl and being fished out by very kind blood donors. Years later, standing in line for a blood donation at college, I could hear the simple questions being asked of every student donor, and one question caught my ear, “have you ever fainted?” Of course I had had only one incident, but by the time I was seated for the “interview,” and the question asked, I bravely but oddly said no, then landed on the floor. I was not asked to return. My short life as a donor had a terrible track record. I pretty much gave up the idea, until a synagogue was sponsoring a blood drive, and surely an incident (really two) as a youth could not linger all the way into mid adult life, so I bravely volunteered, and wasn’t asked if I ever fainted. While on the bed giving blood, I left earth again. After being called back, what could be more refreshing than some hot chicken soup? Waiter, there’s a head in my soup!

Years ago, while exploring the writing life in Bowling Green, Ohio, I had a tooth extracted. The shock of losing an important body part was quite stressful, so I closed the door of our bedroom and just tried to accept the bloody hole in my mouth. I was quite good in the dentist’s office, with all of the right sedatives to dull the pain. My wonderful wife suggested as a pick me up, let’s go out for dinner. These were the pre-tofu days, when we were still licking our lips over baby back ribs. It was a wonderful evening, and the entire restaurant was doing great business on a Friday night. My wife decided to freshen up in the ladies’ room, and when she returned, our entire table had been cleaned of all unfinished dishes and drinks, as I had, Oh No, landed face down in the baby backs. Obviously, I was the town drunk, so management cleaned up the table, and me, and had propped me up against a bench near the exit door. The waitress was all smiles, and said our table had been “taken care of.” My wife didn’t quite know what had happened, but realized I had once again, aimed for the chicken soup, this time, a slower reaction to the surgical procedure of the afternoon.

So it’s like this, pretty much all my life, yet whenever it happens, I hardly know what’s going on, but others are certainly responding around the maelstrom. I’ve had other moments. I still recall getting an inoculation in a doctor’s office in Milwaukee years, even decades ago, and after the injection, the doctor left and said I could wait a few moments if I wanted to. He left, and later nurses found me on the floor, looking for soup I guess. They propped me up, and then left the room knowing I was okay; a few minutes later, they found me slumped all the way over in my chair. This happened years before the synagogue blood bank night. I admit I do get a little light headed when checking out the sales on the lowest shelf, and sometimes coming out of long yoga positions with my head way below my heart, if I come up to fast, well, I just look for a close wall.

But last Wednesday night I’ll admit was a doozy. But probably not any more of a scare for the hospital than when I went in, years ago, for a simple colonoscopy. After what I thought was a perfectly safe “black out” sleep, I was awakened by the attending physician who said, “We thought we lost you!” I calmly remarked “where did I go?” The procedure hadn’t even started, as I was given a good dose of Demerol. Now I wear a necklace with the good words, “no Demerol.” I had crashed so to speak, but in medical terms, I “experienced” an a systole. Flat liner. I’m not sure how long I was flat lined, but I still have some consciousness, so it couldn’t have been too long, right? Reaction to Demerol, right? But the attending doc might want to consider the old vaso vagal syndrome. The next time I went in for the same test five years later, the same doc said we’re going to do something different today. I actually got a little medicine that increased my heart rate, so I wouldn’t “drop” again into no no land. Things went swimmingly that time.

So, after my prostate was adjusted accordingly with a 70% reduction, I assumed we were all on green lights, but without anyone advising me otherwise, I did go all clammy, I did start flapping my arms, I did roll a few eyes, and then another black out, without soup. If this syndrome of mine should continue, I have been offered a tip-top table to experiment on, where the cardiologist places me on a surfing board completely horizontal, then vertical, then horizontal. Cool, kind of like the Gravitron ride at the circus where the drum is spinning so fast, the floor drops out from everyone’s feet. Then the skin sort of does the Mach 1 thing of flapping in the wind. Very cool. I might have to try it if this syndrome persists, but usually this occurs when I notice blood pools coagulating.

P.S. The pee is flowing like never before, at least in recent memory. The BPH or benign prostatic hyperplasia is pretty much gone. The surgical procedure, TURP or Transurethral (yep, that’s up the penis) Resection (yes, a creative word for removing organ matter) of the Prostate went very well. I didn’t stay awake to consult on this one. Before, the “stream” was like a garden hose after the water was turned off. Now, the stream is something like a red fire hose, and it feels like it, too. Strange how one can laugh while doing something so human.

Okay, enough of this. Next time will be visiting on something much more civilized.

Stinging Jellyfish Attack New York City Triathletes

Stinging Jellyfish Attack New York City Triathletes

Though it reads like a seedy headline from the National Enquirer, this time, the truth was floating and bobbing in the warm waters of the Hudson River on July 20 for the annual New York City “Olympic Distance” Triathlon. This year I arrived much earlier for the swim start, and was much less panicked due to the efforts of my niece who also raced on Sunday. Looking out onto the river, men in my group leaned over the edge and noticed the bobbing pink-red lion’s mane jellyfish, and said with great confidence, one of the wise swimmers said, “Oh those guys, they won’t sting. You believe me right?”

I wanted to. I really wanted to, as I still have some residual trauma from a man-o-war sting operation off the coast of Miami when I was a kid. The pain was so intense, so shocking, that I was sure I’d been chunked in two by a shark. But the overconfident triathlete was wrong this time. They did sting. And they stung hundreds of the swimmers, but luckily, I did not irritate any of the jellyfish, and had actually forgotten them as I was trying hard to keep up with my own swim strokes as well as swinging arms and legs to my right, my left, my rear, my feet, and way too close for proper lane etiquette. The early swimmers (I started at 5:59 a.m.) had a stronger current, so I recorded a WR of 23:57 though in the pool where I train, the same swim sans jellyfish would have taken 45 minutes minimum.

Unfortunately, one triathlete, from Buenos Aires, was pulled unconscious from the Hudson. An initial autopsy was inconclusive, but many of the triathletes wondered if he was stung multiple times, or had an allergic reaction, or simply was overheated in his wet suit waiting for his start time. I’d never heard of deaths in triathlons, but of course they occur in longer leg races, with one dying earlier in the year in the New York City marathon trials for the Olympics. Surprisingly, five others have died in triathlons this year, all in the water. Oddly, I did not know any of this was happening until I was visiting with my step-nephew who was also in the race.

The transition area (one of two) had about 1500 look alike bikes, so we had to practice what our area would look like when gasping for air with half a wet suit clinging to the bottom half. In Transition One, the trick is to get the wet suit off, the helmet on, the shoes on with or without socks, and run with bike until a nice volunteer says you can mount for the ride. Try doing that when you are out of breath. Races are often lost in the transition area, and of course, I was a bit slow, but once out on the West End Highway, I started to remember the climbs and descents (nothing like the Tour de France, of course, but a climb for an old guy is still a climb). My niece and I concluded that the Department of Transportation had actually altered the terrain since last year, and even the year before as it was much hillier than either of us remembered. But I sense the road was just the same, our memory just a bit poorer as we are placed into older and older age groups. This year, I wasn’t as terrified descending one of the long climbs at 35 mph, but I still wondered about what I would do if I hit an unidentified object and began to sail away from my bike. But that didn’t happen, so we both pushed as hard as we could through the route, and finally came back to our transition area (again!) to dismount, and get ready for the run to Central Park.

This was the most grueling part of the race, as who wants to run their best time after a long swim and an even longer bike ride, but the stakes were high, as I was trying just to match my time from last year, or improve by a second or two. Just as with the bike ride, the route seemed longer than last year, but I sense it was just fatigue and exhaustion setting in, and of course, the temperature was in the mid 80’s for most of the triathletes. A far too cheery volunteer greeted us at mile 3 and said this was “his hill” and it felt much more of a demanding grade than last year, but I knew that if I could get to the north end of Central Park, then most of the remaining kilometers would be a descent, but that also was a fuzzy memory. Someone passed by me (actually hundreds passed by me on their way to the finish), a young woman who saw my Wisconsin triathlete outfit, and said she was from Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee. How often does that happen?

But the person that kept me on pace faster than maybe last year was actually my niece who started about 15 minutes after my start, and our agreed upon signal was hearing “Hey Uncle De I’m right behind you.” Then we would sprint into the finish line together as champions. So when the flags started appearing, and the well wishers’ whoops got louder and louder, and I heard no “Uncle De…,” I decided I had about 2 minutes of sprint air left, so I picked up my pace from a fast jog and decided to try and pass a few ahead of me. What a thrill that was, as I was usually the person who heard “passing on your right” most of the route. It’s quite amazing what a race like this can do. I ran across the finish line a little better than last year, and was greeted with a medallion (everybody gets one), an icy cold towel, and a commemorative ball cap and the best cold bottle of iced water I’ve ever tasted. What a great way to see 31.93 miles of New York City in three hours, thirteen minutes and 50 seconds!?

Repeat Dreams of Olympic Triathlon

REPEAT DREAMS OF OLYMPIC TRIATHLON

What’s the point of climbing the mountain if you already have before? If you swam the English Channel, why risk becoming fish bait again? Is doing something “over” like repeating Freshman English? This morning I was out on my two wheeler spinning up and down Lake Drive off the shores of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee. A stunning sunrise. Not too many automobile drivers to face down at 5:30 a.m. Even the local coffee shop near the yacht club was closed as it was just too early for any human activity. But the air was quite humid, as storm clouds were brewing above, so I wanted to get in three long loops up and down the Drive to get in about 40K of cycling, the distance for the upcoming New York Nautica “Olympic” Triathlon on July 20.

I’m not exactly sprinting up the hills with my low gear, but I am making some tiny improvements. The old swimming hole for open water practice has some dangerous blue green algae, which in one report, is even dangerous to touch, as many of the local lakes and rivers have been infused with all sorts of dangerous runoff by-products due to the abundance of Biblical rains last month. So I continue to go back and forth in the indoor pool, pretending I am swimming down current in the Hudson in a few weeks. Actually I can visualize the meter markers: 1500, 1200, 900, something like that. Last night I just had to get into my wetsuit to see if I could remember the technique for getting it on, and of course, getting it off in less than a minute. The “off” exercise of getting the wetsuit off is quite demanding, especially if you try doing it standing up. That’s the sign of a “seasoned” triathlete. New triathletes often fall down trying to get all that rubber off in order to get to the next stage.

I do miss Pewaukee Lake, as creepy as the weeds were last year. There’s something euphoric about swimming, or attempting to swim, in open water. No buoys, no pushoff at either end, no concrete bottom; no, instead, weeds sucking you down, the markers for a turn are too far to see without binoculars, and the real problem is drifting away from the turn buoys, as there are no “lane” buoys to help you go straight down and back. But I do appreciate the level of fear when I am far out, way out, and the faster swimmers passed by 10 minutes ago. So perhaps in not risking death to the blue green algae, and e-coli, I may be in for a bigger shock than last year when I dipped into the Hudson for the first time in my life. I knew Cosmo Kramer in one episode of “Seinfeld” had attempted a swim, but I am having trouble finding the particular episode to draw upon any of his swim stroke tips.

The fast jogging has been slowly improving. What’s helped is to make the gym treadmill my friend, as well as a track field in west Milwaukee where I find encouragement from younger, speedier, thinner triathletes who think nothing of 8 800s. So it’s all coming together, whether or not I am ready for the Nautica Redux. The run through Central Park last year was quite exhilarating, but to have to swim .9 mile in questionable waters, and bike up the West End Highway in low gear, only to turn around and race down it in terrifying speeds, is really too much for older people. Who knows, it could be the hottest day in New York City. Most of all I hope I have the good sense to “PICK UP THE CHIP” (timing device) before I join my age group holding onto the rope that keeps us all from drifting.

I must have fallen during one of the training sessions, for now I am starting to wonder about an even longer distance, the so called 70.3 or “half Iron.” That would be 70.3 miles to travel, with a longer swim, more hours on a bike seat, and then a twice as long jog/run as now. Hey, I’m even thinking about trying a half Marathon this August. I probably will need to be certified soon, but for now, I’m either “in training” or resting from training. I am hoping, but not expecting, to break last year’s time by at least a second, maybe two. We’ll see. I need a nap now.

More Suffering On Its Way

More Suffering on Its Way

Many of you are enjoying the sunny days of June, planning a picnic, going for a swim perhaps in a favorite lake; others might be contemplating a lunch outside, or maybe even attending to the weeds circling your tomatoes. Others will be standing in line for job fairs. Some will be sorting through the remains of their home, if they can even find what once was their home. Others are still floating in rivers and bays, not yet quite buoyant to pop up and be spotted, or nibbled on by finny creatures. Sooner or later, we’re all in tears, wondering why this has happened to us.

In the new issue of The New Yorker, (June 9-16, 2008) James Wood wonders about it as well, or we could say, on your behalf, as he reviews a number of new books which update the constantly befuddling conundrum of suffering. If you have made it this far in the blog, I would urge you to read the article, “Holiday in Hellmouth,” either in the print edition, or in the on-line edition before reading any further.

Now that you have at least glanced at the essay, I do wonder if good people would ever stop lamenting our sorry situations when we are down and out, groveling in our religious pity over terribly troubling life experiences that take us to the very depths of who we are as creatures of this earth. As you know by now, the book review/reflective essay is beautifully written to invoke our own miserable lives when something breaks down and reminds us of something more powerful has caused this to happen, or at least we might want to think so.

Suffering is something we can all relate to, right, for who doesn’t have a little empathy or pity for someone or some country or even a few whales who have gotten themselves onto a beached predicament. We all have feelings, right? Some of us express them better than others, right? Some respond impulsively with a check to alleviate the pain. Others talk about it at the water cooler, if there even is a water cooler anymore. Others just shake their head, somewhat relieved what has happened has not yet happened to themselves, a reminder that we are all close to what Job has already experienced eons ago.

But for all the Jewish and Christian references Mr. Wood reminds us of as he reviews several new books on our oldest theme, I do wonder why he has not balanced the essay with any Eastern traditions such as Buddhism which has something quite powerful to say about suffering. Heaven, or the idea of Heaven, writes Mr. Wood, is the concept that seems to “right” all the wrongs that have blemished this earthly life. And linked to Heaven, of course, is the Messiah, or the Awaited Messiah. In other words, it’s been bad, but in the next life, all our troubles will somehow vanish, that is, unless we’ve been tried and sentenced in the Heavenly Court for crimes that created someone else’s suffering.

But the Buddhists do have something that balances all of this, which Mr. Wood has strangely left out of his absorbing essay. Life is suffering, the Buddha would say. But when bad things do happen to Buddhists, no one cries out why did a Greater Force cause or allow this to happen? Life simply includes moments, perhaps even years, where things do go badly, but we can alleviate this suffering by becoming a little less absorbed in or own ego, and assisting others who are in pain and who are suffering. But there’s no Messiah, or God, or Heaven as a reward for this action, for there is simply the loving act of assisting others that lessens the burden of suffering. For both Buddhists and Hindus, the cycle of samsara, of life, death, and rebirth, in some way provides an answer to this suffering.

As much as I enjoy the films starring Sharon Stone, I do wonder why she so naively blamed the earthquake in China on China’s “Tibetan” problem. She blamed this tectonic motion in the Sichuan Province on bad karma. A few days later she apologized when she realized her foolishness about Chinese karma. I wonder what brought Sharon Stone to this enlightenment on Eastern thought. Was she, like many of us, empathetic to the cause of Tibetans? Probably so. Was it a response to their suffering? Probably so. Did the scheduled gay pride parade in New Orleans actually cause Hurricane Katrina, as Pastor John Hagee argued from his pulpit? Probably not.

The frustrating experience of reading this wonderful essay in The New Yorker is that if feels like it could go on for another hour or so, or a few more days at least. Suffering may be our biggest mystery, especially if on our picnics, or swims, or weeding our gardens, we step into the even more mystifying abyss of why are we here. Perhaps we can address that next time when I will propose that we read a terrific little Roman classic by that ever happy writer, Epictetus.

Pondering Space

Pondering Space

As some of us will draw up hankies, or noise horns, or anything that will draw attention to the final end of the longest primary in American history, may I remind you that space may not be what you thought it was, at least from your college science perspective. I know, some of you are still reeling from the pain of losing Pluto to sub-planetary status, but try to get over it, as we have much much more work to do in understanding all the new space around Pluto, and beyond Pluto, space that we forgot to include back in our science class. Now scientists are telling us we should be watchful, not of who’s going to be on the Platform as the presumptive candidate of either Party, but of a new dark force, aka “dark energy,” as described by a science news writer, Dennis Oberbye, in the June 3, 2008 edition of the New York Times.

From one simple perspective, we may have to invent a new metaphor of Newton’s falling apple to be able to appreciate what has always been going on in deep space, but we’ve never been able to talk about it before, as we did not have the technology to measure what was “out there.” Now with the aid of a supercollider (see “Chasing God on the French/Swiss Border Mar 27,2008 blog) scientists will be able to hypothesize that perhaps all of our theories about the universe may be too SMALL.

According to the science article, “Dark, Perhaps Forever,” we could be tapping more than $600 million to search for this “dark energy.” And more than a few scientists think this may not be enough. But even more problematic is the idea of our concept of the universe, that we are actually in the one and only universe. We may not be in the one and only, in fact, it’s looking more like one in a zillion, as reported in the Times. And that takes us to the “meaning” question, doesn’t it, as we all want to know that we actually have some relevance in this big old neighborhood.

But according to one interviewed scientist, Dr. Edward Witten, in light of this new dark force, we may have to reconstruct what’s in our heads about what’s out there: “Before the discovery of the dark energy, quantum physicists tended to assume that the ‘vacuum’ we live in has some deep meaning that reflects nature’s deepest secrets….But if ours is only one of a zillion in a haystack, there is nothing special about it, no secret to be found.” Those remarks reflect for many of us, as long as there is a universe “out there,” or “in us,” surely we must have some meaning, but if the universe is only one of so many that we can’t count, does our “meaning factor” still hold up as defined by our religious texts, keeping in mind some of the religious texts don’t even bother to bring it up!

If everything works out, and the deep space budget can keep expanding exponentially, then sometime mid next decade, scientists will launch “J-dem,” (aka Joint Dark Energy Mission, as reported in the Times article). Perhaps then we’ll have a better fix on just how deep is deep space, but then, scientists are not completely sure they’ll have all the definitive answers. Some of you may be deeply disappointed to have invested so much in something so big, but like we’ve been doing ever since we put together the first machine, we keep trying to define ourselves by objects made by ourselves.

I don’t know about you, but I’m staying up for this one, as it’s almost too exciting to fall asleep over. In the meantime, if you are still looking for meaning, you can watch tonight’s finale of the Democratic Primary contest, or at least the possible end of the finale, or maybe the idea of the possible end, depending on political “dark energy.” Everything keeps changing, right?

Addendum on Race Talk Blog

Here's a recent op-ed on a need for a national dialog on race. Thought you might want to at least know about this upcoming conference.
Blogmeister, DeWitt Clinton

By William S. Cohen and Janet Langhart Cohen
Special to CNN


Editor's Note: William Cohen is a former Republican senator and defense secretary in the Clinton administration. His wife, Janet Langhart Cohen, is a former TV journalist, model and author. They are the co-authors of "Love In Black and White," a memoir about race, religion and their experiences as an interracial couple.


William Cohen and Janet Langhart Cohen say that U.S. racial prejudice is still too divisive to be history.

(CNN) -- In 1835, Alexis DeTocqueville, in his seminal work, "Democracy in America," prophesied that the abolition of slavery would not eliminate racial prejudice, which he declared was "immovable."

Sen. Barack Obama, in running for the presidency of the United States, is challenging DeTocqueville's bleak assessment of the human heart. It remains unclear whether the Illinois senator is on a hopeless mission, or whether the American people will decide to make history by breaking with it.

Any discussion of race or racism inevitably stirs uncomfortable reactions. America is, indeed, a nation of immigrants. Most of our ancestors came here in search of a better life. Africans, however, arrived here in chains to make a better life for others. Yet to date, we have been unable to discuss the horrors of the enslavement, lynchings, segregation and degradation of African-Americans without prompting resentment or indifference.

"That's all in the past," is a common retort. "We had nothing to do with it. It's history. Get over it." The problem, however, as the results in a number of the primary states reveal, is that racial prejudice is not history, and neither whites nor blacks are over it.


While Obama has moved the subject of prejudice out from the shadows, more than his exotic name, origin and religious affiliation are at issue. When Colin Powell, one of America's most accomplished military leaders and diplomats, contemplated running for the presidency in 2000, his family feared for his safety. Also, during that same year, when Sen. John McCain ran for our highest office, he was the victim of a vile, racist smear in South Carolina.

There are deep grievances held by black Americans over their past and present treatment by the white majority and equally profound resentments held by many whites over what they see as preferential treatment for the black community. Unfortunately, a discussion of the racial divide in our country is too often reduced to sound bites or shouting matches. Moreover, the preachings and exhortations of several prominent religious leaders, rather than nurturing and appealing to our spiritual needs, have instead served to inflame passions and reinforce old falsehoods and antagonisms.

We are convinced that what is needed in America is a serious, open, civil dialogue on racial, ethnic and religious prejudice. To this end, in July, we are convening a conference in Washington on race and reconciliation with political, spiritual and business leaders. Our goal: to further a national conversation about the need for truth, tolerance and reconciliation.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writers.

Race Talk

Race Talk
Haven’t you had it with the “race” question? Perhaps you’re still fuming over the “female gender bias” question, both of which have turned the Democratic Presidential nomination process into a shooting gallery. I’m no expert on either, as many of you know, but I do work with men and women as university colleagues in a town called Whitewater, of all places, and I have also taught, at several universities, students of both sexes and of many nationalities and races for, well, let’s see, since stepping off a plane from Vietnam in 1970. But the issue of race has simply made me crazy enough to shout, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” The character Howard Beale (Peter Finch) was mad about something else in “Network,” but I really am screaming as I write this to you all.

“Race” in my humble opinion, is now bogus, for it no longer has any meaning, in any context, and I am certain it has always been used to demean and invoke fear in one or the other, depending on who has had the larger stick. I am sick of the political, childish methods that many Americans have about their “fear of the other,” for it’s not always fear of the (insert color) man. I do admit I’ve lived behind the veil of whiteness all my life, but perhaps it is my experience as an educator that allows me to see that all students are not only equal, but that no student in my mind deserves more or less attention simply because of skin pigmentation.

When I recently heard West Virginians (over NPR evening news) describe their opinions about the candidate Barak Obama, my first reaction was what has made white West Virginians so fearful of a qualified nominee? I admit, also, I did find it hard to simply understand Appalachian dialect in reference to the Democrat from Illinois, (“Whites look out for Whites, Blacks look out for Blacks”). Hearing that, I sensed not just disgust, not just intolerance, but a sincere and deep hatred for someone who aspires to lead our nation in the post Bush era.

Has any discussion over differences ever been clarified through the myopic lens of race? Has it ever settled any misunderstanding? Has race ever clarified a position between groups that disagree? Has color of one person ever adequately defined a person’s human qualities? Has distinguishing race as the only factor in an argument ever made both parties equal in stature? Has the word “race” ever lifted one up in admiration and esteem? Perhaps it is possible that we are all racists when we are confronted with our own terrible fears of the “other,” but how much of that is something we’ve learned from our own culture, from our own parents, or even from our own true blue friends?

I also admit (I admit I’m doing a lot of admitting here, but bear with me, subscribers) to Democratic Party principles, and would easily be placed far left of center on any political position, but I just have to say, Let’s start a debate not about whether race is a factor but whether or not race has nearly always denigrated meaningful relations between human beings.

I see remnants of European Colonialism and its racial superiority, and even see the 19th and early 20th Century pseudo science of Eugenics as a factor woven into our national discussion in this primary season. The discussion has made politicians, and those wanting to vote for politicians, and those commenting about politicians and the electorate, as nothing more than an ugly bear baiting screened-in event where we pay other people to humor us with disgusting epithets and slurs.

So even though our forum here is small, I wonder if we can consider whether talking about race in any context would ever make us more thoughtful, engaging citizens. Call us Canadians, Bolivians, Afghanis, Greeks, Egyptians, Kenyans, Belgians, or even Americans, but from this moment on, I urge you, as “Roseanne Roseannadana” might if she were still on “Saturday Night Live,” to talk amongst yourselves and see if you can find a purpose in defining a person, candidate or not, through the lens of race. Though sociologists have probably already discounted the merits of race as a determining factor in ethnicity, I hope that someday soon (and it needs to be soon) we can have candidates (and applicants, and all the rest of aspiring individuals) who will be seen for what they can offer an electorate, and not on how they will or will not carry the white or the black or the brown vote.

I am always reminded of the sincere and heartfelt remark of the Dalai Lama: “Treat everyone as a friend.” That requires almost too much of us, but it certainly is a concept to try to wrap around our view of not seeing each other as one race or another.

Comments? Reply To All, if you wish.

Chasing God on the French/Swiss Border

CHASING GOD ON THE FRENCH/SWISS BORDER

What are you doing this summer? Some have made plans for wandering through Natural History in New York City. Some will see relatives. Some hope to find a beach, even if it is still cold. Most of us will mow lawns, or sit on lawns, or pull weeds from lawns. But what are our particle physicists going to be doing in an underground reactor facility beneath farm yards and mooing cows on the French/Swiss border? Remarkably, miraculously, they will be searching for the last argument in the Big Bang Theory, the “God Particle,” for those of you not in the particle physics/string theory business. Though no priests, rabbis, clerics, imams pastors or gurus have been invited to even witness the event, in case a miracle does happen, what is most exciting about the study is the possibility of knowing, finally, What put the bang in the Bang?

What we’re all crossing our fingers for is the hope for finding what is known as the “Higgs boson,” or for those who have jobs in fields unrelated to particle physics, this is the key, or “missing link” to Aristotle’s notion of The First Cause or The Unmoved Mover. Let’s review, quickly. There’s you, then there’s your wonderful parents, then we have your grandparents….see where this is going? Let’s go all the way back. Back further than anyone can really imagine. Yes, that far back. So perhaps there was something that caused something that caused something to be formed, yes? Okay, what caused that? That I believe, as a non-particle physicist, has frustrated scientists for eons. For the non-particle thinkers, this is a no brainer. Why not say….God?

Okay, this is where it gets a bit more complicated? Isn’t it obvious the place we’re at, or in, or on, is such a lovely place, despite the trash not being picked up on Thursdays, that surely we should come to our senses (our Bicameral minds, to quote a psychologist, Julian Jaynes, who wrote on the evolution of the consciousness, 1976) and realize something Intelligent made Everything. But according to Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, quoted in a recent interview with Newsweek, “the more we learn about the universe, the less sign we see of an intelligent designer.”

Here we have to go to religious texts, to clarify one point. All religious texts remind the faithful that God was the Agent behind the Cosmos. Okay, but who wrote the texts? Here I am always reminded of Tip O’Neill, former Speaker of the House, who commented that “all politics are local.” If you believe that, then perhaps we can spin his remarks to include, all “texts” are political. In other words, anything written has a purpose, an agenda, perhaps with the exception of assigned English papers. Even the beloved Rambam (Rabbi Moses b. Maimon, or Maimonides, 1135-1204 C.E.) questioned if YHVH was the creator of the Universe, which contradicted everything that Aristotle and every Jew wants to believe about the Creator. The Rambam simply mused that we’ll never know. So, we’re back to the people’s views. Literate people. Essentially, those who have special vision, either mystical or holy, who “know” how the Universe came about. Well, that’s what our summer scientists are hoping to find out. But what if they find not the “God Particle” but the “Not-God Particle”? Will we lose our sense of Purpose?

Here’s where it gets tough. If you already believe that A) the world is made by a Maker, and that Maker, in many different names and religions, is God, and B) that God gives purpose to life, then no matter what our particle physicists find this summer, it won’t matter, because we’re hard headed people, and we don’t like change. Besides, that would be a very threatening proposal, of which few if any Real human beings would really believe our underground scientists. But…are you still with me…? But, what about the greater percentage of living and non living forms in the Cosmos that don’t perceive their purpose? Would these “elements” feel devastated? Perhaps not, as H.S., or homo sapiens, deemed it necessary to claim Authority not only above Everything, but also claimed a text which proved it. There you have it. Thanks again to Julian Jaynes who helped us, even if his theory is questionable, to imagine when ancients began to think for themselves, instead of relying on the signs of a god in his Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

So, if you’re still with me, how many will vote for finding the Higgs boson? Here are a few more important questions. How much will this cost? How many bottles of French wine and how many wheels of brie cheese will be consumed when the flying protons are at rest in the Large Hadron Collider? Will the French government really protest the summer Games in Beijing? Will Switzerland’s right wing party banish Middle Eastern minorities out of their country? Who knows what will happen? Let’s wish our particle fellows God speed.

Boomers, Do You Know Where Your Car Keys Are?

Boomers, Do You Know Where Your Car Keys Are?

The bad news is out. Depending on who has demented genes, a lot of us are going to leave this world as idiots?

A new study targets a whopping 18% of us who are going to end up babbling away our end days as our brains turn into fried brains, a delicacy I can vaguely remember my mother serving up to us kids back in the mid 20th Century.

By one study, the Alzheimer’s counters predict10 million of us are headed off to baby-land.

Frankly, I am opposed to these statistics. The most recent research predicts that one in eight of us poor boomers are destined for dementia, the Mother of all Miseries. Five million of us are already babbling. By 2030, we’ll be up to 8 Mill. By 2050 we’ll have about 11-16 million babblers needing help with digestion and elimination. Not good, everybody, not good.

So it really isn’t about losing keys, is it? After all, we just forgot where they are. That doesn’t mean our brain is mush, or does it? Instead, we should be asking who is our President. When my mother was asked, she replied, “What a silly question.” When asked what day it was, she replied, “Don’t you know?” Mother was good with her crafty questioner. I’m sure the oblique answers reminder her of her 7th graders who also didn’t know the answers, but came up with smart replies. One recent student of mine, when asked a Socratic question, replied, “Sorry, I was zoning out. What was it you asked?” Okay, then, that’s it. Alzheimer’s could be a cover for simply poorly phrased questions.

For the record, I am completely opposed to ever being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Those most likely to be diagnosed are those who have two parents who never knew what hit them. That would include me as both my parents had some kind of dementia. So let’s not take this lying down in our bedpans! People, we have to go on strike. We have to write to Congress. Any district will do, as the disease does not favor red or blue states, or labor, or farming, or industry. Let’s take to the streets, People. All of us need to march to our local pharmacy and demand a genetic recoding kit. Go ahead, say it, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” We have to work together, insisting that we keep our memories, even if we want to forget a few of them.

Yet if it does seem inevitable that a meteor will land in our brains, then I’ll settle for a compromise. How does this sound…a postponement, a lengthy delay, a “I almost forget about infecting you with the plague” condition? Here’s what I will agree to, possibly with amendments: I will agree to “onset” no earlier than five minutes before my “end times.” I would prefer to receive the seven awful years of existence while I am already in a coma. That’s reasonable? Numbers always tell the truth, don’t they? We can’t fight the numbers can we? Here’s a plan, concocted in the last three minutes, for making this work, even if you have awful genes:

1. Start talking about oatmeal with your significant others. The therapy will be meaningful, and besides, you can also make cookies from the little flakes.
2. Read a book, a challenging book, a book about something you know nothing about, a book that might open your mind to something you know nothing about.
3. Take in a play, even a silly one. Doesn’t have to be Shakespeare.
4. Start playing with numbers. Try it with cards, or with puzzles.
5. Memorize all the queens and kings of England, beginning with (let’s make it easy)Elizabeth I (1558-1603).
6. Hit a ball, or ride a bike, or move the legs on a track, or path. Start swimming!
7. Listen to “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” for a week. Bet you can’t stop after a week.
8. Try holding Salamba Sirsasana (head stand) for 2 minutes.
9. Okay, why don’t you add some suggestions…?

I’m going home now, as I am so distraught about this. But where did I park my car?

Vatican Announces Jews Can be 'Enlightened'

Vatican announces Jews can be ‘enlightened’

{Subscribers: Warning, the following includes provocative religious commentary}

I am quite dumbstruck by Pope Benedict XVI who announced recently that God would be asked to “enlighten (Jews’) hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.” According to the 2/7/07 USA Today’s edition, if the Good Friday prayer is answered, “all Israel may be saved.” For reference, blog readers may wish to access the original news item by searching for “Good Friday prayer revisions spark debate.”

The word “enlighten” is an improvement from the Vatican for the word “faithless,” sometimes translated in various Catholic prayer books as “perfidious” or “treacherous.” Much of this change has to do with the Pope’s unraveling of Vatican II doctrines, which may seem to the faithful as too liberal a view of Christian-Jewish inner faith dialog. I had hoped by now the Vatican would have reviewed its long history of hatred and fear of the Jew, but I am afraid Pope Benedict is far too conservative a figure head to allow for such reasonable tolerance.

This prayer, of course, takes me back to a perspective of teaching about the Holocaust in my university classes. Students are surprised, even if they are Catholic, to learn how much poison has been used to degrade and humiliate, even to quarantine Jews from the Church’s faithful. Sooner or later, the argument always comes back to who crucified Christ. What caught my eye and ear last semester when I raised this history of the Church were a few young men, or boys, snickering on the back row. Since they had not snickered before about any topic, and did not sicker after the presentation, I had to wonder just what they were thinking. I wish I hadn’t been so tolerant of their whispers. Did they have the same lesson from their local priest? I suspect so.

On an interfaith (Catholic, Baptist and Jewish) journey/pilgrimage to eretz Israel, or for others, the Holy Land, I welcomed the opportunity with my rabbi friend and Catholic priest to join them for a Sunday service at one of the beautiful churches in Jerusalem. The fact that we were “shot at” with stick rifles by young boys in the birth village of Sirhan Sirhan was another story, perhaps another blog. What I still remember is the Phillipino priest who reminded the faithful of who, once again, murdered Christ. I bring this incident into my class when we review Catholic Church policies that, in part, shaped the Holocaust. But surely the word “enlighten” is a safe word, isn’t it?

It does assume Jews are unenlightened. What is it that Jews don’t know? Why does the Church insist, or even return to failed conversion policies? Do we need to be reminded of the Vatican’s history of kidnapping Jewish children and baptizing them in the name of the Lord? Do we need to review the history of Pope Pius XII and his much debated history of indifference to the plight of European Jews? It is well documented how many Jews he protected within the walls of the Vatican. What isn’t as clear is his outright and total rejection of the Jewish policies of the Third Reich. Is this where the word “enlighten” is taken to? What other context is there? Jews should have converted when given the opportunity in the last 20 centuries. They didn’t, or if they did, it may have been simply to save their lives.

A few months ago Pope Gregory took issue with Muslims in reciting an old text composed by a medieval Byzantine emperor residing in Constantinople. In that speech he quoted the emperor’s views on forced Muslim conversions, something he was probably concerned about as Constantinople was under threat as the old capitol of the crumbling Eastern Empire. The Pope might as well have signed one of the scandalous cartoons depicting Muhammad which enraged millions of pious Muslims. He has not exactly apologized for those remarks; rather, he clarified what he was intending to say, not what he meant to say, or how Muslims interpreted what he meant, or intended to say.

Why does the Church keep doing this? The Old Testament is not “old” to Jews. It is simply, and very clearly, The Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. Jews have no need to convert to Catholicism. Jews have no need to be enlightened about the Savior of the World. For Jews, that didn’t work. It still doesn’t. Why does an institution as stately as the Vatican keep repainting the story that Jews are the epitome of the Devil? (See Church history, Medieval Period).

When I learned today that I was going to be “enlightened” on Good Friday regarding what I should believe, and if I believed it along with all the other Jews alive, and in blessed memory, then all of the Holy Land would be saved. Is it only because of the heartfelt Rhapsody which would initiate the beginning of the End Times? Don’t we have enough work to do on the ground, without getting into Christology?
Though this short missive will not make it to the desk of the Pope, I do wish His Holiness would use some common sense, based on the terrible results of this campaign that has been diligently spent on Jews for two millennia. Jews do not need to be saved. They never have, nor will they ever be saved by the Vatican’s teaching. What will repair the damage is for the Church to not see as its main business the hysterical need to convert everyone on the globe who is not yet saved.

Pass the matzah, please.