Recent Updates Page 64 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:03 am on November 8, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: alcohol, , , ,   

    Building the Perfect Religion: Humility, Moderation and Sobriety? Ouch… 

    Well, I guess sex is no big deal, after all, in my perfect hypothetical religion, basically just: cover your genitals, please. And don’t do it in public. And hide it from the kids. Dress moderately. Homosexuality is okay, as long as you don’t demand the right to march down Market Street in only your jockstrap. Abortion is a horrible thing, but ultimately a woman’s right to choose, for lack of better options. I would only say to women who see this issue as only an issue of women’s health: we’re talking about a human life here, okay? At some point it becomes murder, which is not okay… what else?

    Like sex, most religions don’t deal with issues of sobriety directly, but many do, being prohibited outright in some. Once again I see no clear path either way, but it has certainly been an object of contention over the years. To this day, many counties and cities in the USA are ‘dry’, not allowing any sales of alcohol; and many others are so restrictive that they accomplish much the same purpose, allowing mixed drinks only in eating establishments, for instance, the only stand-alone bars limited to beer.

    But mention Christianity or the West to much of the world, and the first image that comes to many foreigners’ minds is alcohol—and drunkenness. It’s pretty accurate, really. Historical scuttlebutt is that the Celts invaded the Roman Empire looking for wine, long after they themselves had had a reputation for beer, from which the Spanish word for it—cerveza—comes, apparently. They likely invented wheels and pivoting axles, too, so the buzz is not necessarily bad, just disgusting for a lot of people, it seems. I concur. It’s messy. There are cleaner highs, if you just gotta… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:07 pm on November 6, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    The Decline of Western Civilization: RIP Amerika, Christianity, Capitalism, Democracy, etc… 

    Well, we had a good run, we did, Western Civilization, that is, as first articulated by Greece and Rome, before taken up again by London and Paris some 1000 years later, then New York, Toronto and Sydney for the final roll-out. Democracy was our method, Christianity was our mantra and capitalism was our madness. It worked spectacularly, until now, until we’ve run out of resources and ideas. Now we’re put to the test: what’s next?

    Well, it doesn’t look good for the home team; seems capitalism is something of a pyramid scheme—works fine when you’re on top, with lots of resources and free time. Now other non-Westerners can play the game as well or better than us: first Japan, now China, with India, Brazil, and Russia hot on the horizon. Where does that leave us? Well, it should leave us defining the next era, beyond capitalism, beyond consumption, beyond die-hard democracy. But it’s not.

    We’re totally unequipped for what comes next, all of us Westerners, Amerika the least, screwing up the Mideast, sowing our dreams of democracy, and leaving nothing but chaos in the wake—enough, already. We Amerikans have nothing to teach the world about politics, least of all democracy. We can barely get a budget bill through Congress to pay our debts. Now we’re destroying the environment, while still pushing the political and economic agenda of growth growth growth. We’re sick. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:52 pm on November 5, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Great Vowel Shift,   

    Monolingual Cunning, Surviving Vowel Sh**ts… 

    Anglo culture has always seen the need to separate people by class, and American culture is getting there, little by little, kept from it not so much by virtue as by a belief in progress, and the fundamental theory that merit makes virtue, and not vice versa.

    But to use language as an enforcement tool seems perverted, developing a special ‘palace language’ that only a select few can or care to master, as almost certainly happened with the 14th century English vowel shift—upward, which substituted for the French that was no longer in upper-class vogue, they now in league with renegade Scotsmen and Catholics universal…

    I think Europeans are lucky to have so many languages to contend with, keeping their minds fit, and keeping their thoughts occupied; we Anglo-Americans should be so lucky to have multiple approaches to life, instead of being forced to create new apps and programs to occupy our time, or use language to subjugate the lower classes as the Brits did with their native Celts and the Mexicans do with their native Indians.

    Instead of passing ‘English only’ laws, maybe we should pass laws requiring proficiency in a second language, like maybe Spanish, since that’s the language of our neighbor Mexico and its many compatriots resident in-country, not to mention the fact that we stole much of this country from them as part of our ‘manifest destiny’.

    Yeah, that sounds like a good idea—require it. Our we could just continue our current course and delineate social classes by proficiency in tech talk, text-speak, twitter-food, gobbledy geeks: naahhh….

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:46 am on November 1, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Building the Perfect Religion: Balance, Humility, and–wait for it–Sex… 

    Okay, back to the work grind: creating the perfect religion. We’ve got work to do, and time is growing short. Some people say you can’t do that, cherry-pick the best of each religion, that you have to take them fully blown, as handed down, all or nothing. I call b*llsh*t. Ever heard of Protestantism? I smell the workings of religious corporatist monopolies whose major goal is to preserve themselves, not liberate you and me from the seminal sweat and tears of life on this planet and the fear and anxiety of life with no plan. Let’s cut to the chase scene: one man’s divine writ is another man’s working lunch.

    So let’s get started. Here’s what we’ve got so far:

    Building Blocks for the Perfect Religion:

    1. Balance: the first tenet previously noted as primary in my metaphysical system is balance, the middle path, avoidance of extremes, and most importantly, everything—ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING—in moderation, the emphasis on balance matched by the emphasis on diversity…
    2. Humility: second on my list, though not necessarily in importance, is humility, (not humiliation), either inflicted or received, simply a recognition that we are but small cogs in a very big picture and that our lives are infinitely better by finding our proper place within that system rather than trying to bully others and impose our will.

    Okay, now let’s get this next tough one out of the way, since it won’t get any easier: sex. I don’t know why none of the major religions deal with this directly, though it’s always implied: ‘right actions’, ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’, etc., but this is just beating around the bush, no pun intended. The fact is that our Western-oriented system of values puts sex right at the top, even when that is re-cast as ‘love’. It’s really still pretty much the same thing—passion. See the beautiful patterns in a leaf? That’s love. Baby’s smile? Love. What will be left when our civilization collapses? Same thing—love. Oh, boy… (More …)

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      davekingsbury 8:04 am on November 2, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      Philip Larkin had a go at doing the same. I reckon yours would be more fun, though

      Water

      If I were called in
      To construct a religion
      I should make use of water.

      Going to church
      Would entail a fording
      To dry, different clothes;

      My liturgy would employ
      Images of sousing,
      A furious devout drench,

      And I should raise in the east
      A glass of water
      Where any-angled light
      Would congregate endlessly.

      From Philip Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings, Faber & Faber Ltd, 1964. Reproduced without permission.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 8:43 am on November 2, 2015 Permalink | Reply

        I like it. I like it a lot–metaphors with meaning. Poets rock, or used to, anyway, though I’ll admit to always having been more aware of Larkin than actually reading his stuff. Something sticks in my mind from him, though, will have to look for it. Thanks for your comments!

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:02 pm on October 30, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , push button,   

    Push-button Society, al borde de un ataque de nervios… 

    That’s what we Americans are, a push-button society, coddled and cuddled, just push a button for everything, then don’t even wait for the results, just assume that the button delivers the goods as ordered, even more so now that we’re all digital, with digital demands and digital expectations, virtual commands and virtual libations, all bundled in one perfectly-priced package and displayed for consumption…

    These buttons all connect to machines, off course, machines designed to make our lives better, supposedly, but in reality divorcing us from the very source of our own being, Nature, while killing that very source, too, so to leave us with nothing, eventually, no machines and no Nature, either, victims of our own excess, and our own unreasonable expectations. Hey, at one point, there were even push-button cars, trying to get women interested, I suppose, by allowing you to shift gears by button. Remember counter-top blenders? (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:26 pm on October 28, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: fuel, gasoline   

    Running on Empty 

    When I got into my van this morning, then cranked it up, I noticed a warning light on the dash that I’d never seen before. “Warning!” it screamed, with a slightly Midwestern accent. Probably no big deal, of course, but you never know, like the time I got a warning about my wheels, or my tires, not sure, so got worried, like maybe I’m about to lose an axle on I-10.

    Turned out to be a warning about tire pressure, so I had it checked in Banning, CA, they deflating all the tires uniformly, then re-checked in Tucson, AZ, because the light never went off, they re-inflating all the tires and cursing everything Californian, finally getting the light and dash message to go off, also.

    But this was a different light, never seen it before, and shaped like a gas pump, so must mean: Yeow! When’s the last time I filled the tank? I can’t even remember. That tells you how often I drive. I’d drive even less if I didn’t have a hostel to run. I made do without a car for five years in LA, which tells you as much about modern LA as it does about me. It’s better now. Me? Meh, good question… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:39 am on October 25, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Trading God for Cosmic Energy (at pfennigs on the thaler)… 

    If you were like me, child of God-fearing parents and long Sunday mornings, lost in the deserts of Palestine in search of God or mammon or meaning or meatloaf, then you either resent that steepled ‘spired stupa’d snow-job or you got lost in the desert sand-job. Now maybe you even laugh at those who take comfort in their ‘invisible friend’ of wrath and redemption or maybe you take comfort in warm fuzzy atheism, complete with images of brutalist architecture and heavy-duty condoms…

    …or maybe you figured why throw out babies with bathwater, so decided to get all spiritual—NOT RELIGIOUS—and picked up some New Age training tapes, full of quasi-pseudo-science, complete with uncertain principles and stringy theories and quantum leaps and jumps through hoops of illogical syllogisms and irreconcilable silly jism lying lifeless on roadsides and undergarments…

    …promising you communion and redemption and transcendence and deliverance, all at reasonable prices. You’d be polishing the halo on your ‘energy body’ and getting in touch with your spirit being ASAP. There’s only one problem: there’s no proof of any of it. We’re back to religion’s square one, just without the god: belief. We’ve traded our invisible God friend for an invisible energy field. Even acupuncture, which I tend to think of as something that works, can only prove how with the help of a sympathetic culture to back it up. All of which is to say: Asian scientists find proof; Western scientists don’t. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:25 pm on October 22, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Indians, Western movies   

    I Never Liked Western movies, not really… 

    …until now, that is, what with all the cowboys and Indians fussing and fighting, and people getting knocked over the head with gun butts—not good. Back in the 60’s and/or 70’s, there was much “to-do” over violence on TV, with all the ensuing Congressional committees and so on and so forth, which all seems rather quaint now, what with violence many times over that now standard fare on evening TV, and sex out the wazoo, the yin-yang, the whatever, you name it…

    With regard to the violence, the concern was that kids would see the gratuitous stuff and emulate it at home and elsewhere. I’d say that sentiment proved prescient, given the current level of violence in the USA, now just a major Reality TV show. Even all the hubbub over ‘Natural Born Killers’ long ago seems quaint now, even though it made it to the halls of Congress (the fact that Quentin Tarantino intended it as humor seemed lost on them, though not future fans of ‘Pulp Fiction’)…

    But the proof was more personal, the fact that I walloped my older brother over the head with the butt end of a toy gun to great fanfare, distress and concern, and loss of liberties to myself (sent to my room, with no conjugal visits). No, that did not go over well, and my protests that, “All the cowboys do it,” didn’t seem to help. No, I was in deep do-do. Nevertheless, I survived, but will we?

    Now I like watching Western movies strictly for their historical value. After all, when that genre was all the rage in the 50’s, there were still people alive who knew that era first-hand, and even if they got much of their visual input from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows, still there was a direct line of transmission from the authentic previous era of the 1880’s, if not the 1850’s. The Oregon Trail is still there, if you know where to look, and so is Silver City, NM. In fact the old West is pretty much still alive, if you know where to go, not Italy, maybe Argentina, guns optional…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:26 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Modern Religion: Waiting for Godot, or ET, or the Eternal NOW… 

    Buddhist Temple in Laos

    Buddhist Temple in Laos

    I’ve always marveled at how certain songs just feel good, regardless of whatever words are being sung, while other songs are sad for the same reason, something about minor keys, I think. Words are the same way, it seems, especially when you’re trying to get all philosophical. I mean: nobody really wants to hear about categorical moral imperatives—borrrring. But everybody loves to hear about the ETERNAL NOW, philosophy in a spray-can, shake well before using, get in touch with your energy, etc. Why are such words and ideas attractive?

    Simple, dahling: because it feels so good, and it can’t be proven or dis-proven—nice touch. We Western Europeans used to exult in our rationality, our Age of Reason, beyond superstition and the dictates of the Mother Church. And it worked fantastically—up to a point. We still love the fruits of such labor, but not the labor itself, and the discipline that achieved it in the first place. Now we want all that and superstition, too, but without the church, thank you. That means New Age fad religions and pop psychology and life-coaching: people who can’t run their own lives will try to tell you how to run yours. Isn’t it wonderful to be alive in 2015 with so many options? (More …)

     
    • mary's avatar

      mary 11:19 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      serendipidy, now that is a good word, joe powers told me what it means, i still miss him.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 11:33 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply

        Tales of Serendib, ancient Sri Lanka, world’s oldest continuously Buddhist country… .

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:24 pm on October 14, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Catholicism, indulgences   

    The Sale of Chocolate Indulgences in 2015… 

    Me: Bless me, father, for I’m about to sin…
    Priest: Sorry, we don’t give pre-clearances, whatcha’ got in mind, anyway? Just curious…
    Me: They’ve got cheesecake on sale at Fry’s…
    Priest: Oh yeah? How much?
    Me: $1.79 for two full slices…
    Priest: Yeow! Two full slices? What flavor?
    Me: Chocolate swirl…
    Priest: Ooh; say, you don’t happen to have any of that on you now, do you?
    Me: (thinking) I might…
    Priest: Hmmm… I see… You are familiar with the sale of indulgences? Spot of bother back around half a millennium ago…
    Me: (light bulb flashing internally) You are familiar with the sale of cheesecake? Three bucks a slice in the deli case, more than five bucks in a resto, nothing like it five hundred years ago…
    Priest: (nodding) Well played, my friend and disciple; that little sin’ll cost you a pair of ‘Hail, Mary’s’ and a well-washed spoon… and mum’s the word, not to your friends or even your mum…

     

← Older posts

Newer posts →

c
Compose new post
j
Next post/Next comment
k
Previous post/Previous comment
r
Reply
e
Edit
o
Show/Hide comments
t
Go to top
l
Go to login
h
Show/Hide help
shift + esc
Cancel