Oil is not the only mess in the Gulf of Mexico

Based on the various media accounts I've read it's a mess, reminiscent of Robert Heinlein's little ditty,

When in danger and in doubt
Run in circles, scream and shout!

The danger and the doubt are certainly present -- probably as much of the latter as of the former, and the screaming and shouting are abundant. It seems as though an analogy to elephant matings is appropriate: lots of stomping of feet and roaring, everything done at a high level, with results, maybe, in eleven months.

While the stomping and shouting are going on at all levels, high and low, numerous foreign offers of assistance are being "considered" and multiple bureaucracies are having red tape parties. Meanwhile, tropical depression - tropical storm - tropical depression - tropical storm and maybe moderate hurricane Alex with maximum forecast winds of up to eighty-five knots may or may not be getting ready to do mischief with the oil recovery measures; unlike responses to the oil "spill," Alex is forecast to become better organized before June 30^th. A hurricane watch has been issued for Baffin Bay, Texas, which means that storm force winds may hit there within the next forty-eight hours. Lesser winds of gale force accompanied by high seas may strike the oily areas. If that happens, or becomes likely, whatever oil recovery steps are now in progress will be seriously disrupted for up to two weeks. Predictions of events to come in more than a day or two are useful but far from perfect. The official track guidance, provided by the multiple computer models, recently shifted a bit to the north; it is thought to be of below average confidence.

Various proposals have been made, many of them fitting into a psychiatrist friend's classification of lunatics into three groups -- sad, mad and bad. Others appear to be rational and might even work were somebody actually in charge. According to U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor -- a Democrat from Mississippi,

It’s criminal what’s going on out there," Taylor said minutes later. "This doesn’t have to happen.”

A scientist onboard, Mike Carron with the Northern Gulf Institute, said with this scenario, there will be oil on the beaches of the mainland.

“There’s oil in the Sound and there was no skimming,” Carron said. “No coordinated effort.”

Taylor said it was a good thing he didn’t have a mic in the helicopter, because he might have said some things he didn’t want his children to hear.

“They’re paying all these boats to run around like headless chickens,” Taylor said, as reporters gathered to hear his assessment of the Sound.

His frustration is understandable. The Taiwanese owned oil tanker - skimmer A Whale, reported to be the world's largest, departed port in Norfolk Virginia on June 25 and should be in the area soon; maybe she will receive the authorization needed to help and a waiver of the Jones Act; or maybe but probably not. There have been many offers of assistance from other countries, and most of them remain "under consideration."

Oil skimmers are not "good enough" because they suck in very oily water, separate most but not all of the oil and discharge a very little of it back into the sea. Perfection is sometimes the worst enemy of the merely excellent.

Is all of this the fault of President Obama? Of course not. He didn't personally cause the BP oil rig to explode and sink, and apparent mismanagement by BP is largely to blame. It would have been in BP's best interest not to cut corners and thereby to create the mess. BP is paying a big price as are its stockholders and employees. BP may well face bankruptcy. Tough.

The highest price is being and will be paid by the folks living in the Gulf area and the environment in which they live and from which many of them will have great difficulty, perhaps for years, in earning a living. The psychological damage is likely also to be great.

To the extent that President Obama is to blame, it is for the abysmal lack of coordination coming from the executive branch of the Federal Government, of which he has now been the chief executive officer for seventeen months; we are now more than two months into the aftermath of the oil "spill." There needs to be coordination and the responsibility for it can't be delegated to various federal agencies with different agendas by a CEO who has little clue what's happening or what needs to be done about it. During World War II, Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt were far more aware of what was happening. They both, and Prime Minister Churchill in particular, took a far more lively interest. It would not be reasonable to expect President Obama, with no executive experience and far less experience with oil "spills" than Prime Minister Churchill had with the realities of war, to come even close. Still, if President Obama is as intelligent as has been proclaimed he should bring his intellect into focus on this problem and direct his minions to lead, follow or at least to get out of the way. There are big problems and small problems, and a competent CEO should be capable of figuring out which is which and providing useful guidance in dealing with the big ones. The three most important qualities are focus, focus and focus and President Obama has thus far demonstrated not even one of them. That's a major part of the job he fought so effectively to get. Having got it, he should do it. If that helps him to keep it, so be it. Keeping it, however, should not be his principal focus.

Dogs, Horses, Humans and other Animals

We currently have four dogs, six horses and one cat. Many of us have had animals as pets, yet I wonder whether and to what extent we know them. All are very different, among species, within their respective species and even within breeds. However, they neither lie nor conceal their emotions; perhaps they don't know how, and that's probably a good thing. There are plenty of people who do that exceptionally well. I have learned more from our animals than they have from me.

Temple Grandin, who has high-functioning autism, earned her Ph.D. degree in animal science at the University of Illinois. She is now a professor of animal science at Colorado State University. One of her books, Animals in Transition, makes, well I think, the point that animals are generally autistic and "can't see the forest for the trees;" they focus on detail and don't merge them into a general picture.

That's the big difference between animals and people, and also between autistic people and nonautistic people. Animals and autistic people don't see their ideas of things; they see the actual things themselves. We see the details that make up the world, while normal people blur all those details together into their general concept of the world.

Here is a video of a twenty minute talk on autism. Ms. Grandin, with the help of her own autism, has done quite a lot of work making slaughter houses more humane by such "simple" things as looking at details – shadows and beams of sunlight most of us don't notice – seeing them as cows do, and recommending fixes. In 2004, she won PETA's "Proggy" award, in the "visionary" category. Her

improvements to animal-handling systems found in slaughterhouses have decreased the amount of fear and pain that animals experience in their final hours, and she is widely considered the world's leading expert on the welfare of cattle and pigs.

Ms. Grandin's Animals in Transition is well worth reading, and I won't even try to summarize it here; rather, I'll hit only what I consider the high points. She discusses research tending to show that many animals have their own language systems; prairie dogs, for example, have been found to communicate using nouns, verbs and adjectives. A researcher found evidence that the prairie dogs are not born knowing the various calls but instead learn them from other members of their colonies; the different colonies have different dialects.

Some animals resemble "idiot savants," now more often referred to as autistic savants, who have specialties; they are geniuses in some things – card counting, spouting off lists of prime numbers, being able to tell the day on which one was born when told the date – but don't measure up in others. The things which some dogs, autistic savants in a way, can uniquely do are very helpful to humans. There are seeing eye dogs and there are even seizure alert dogs; the latter have been trained to recognize seizures and to help when they happen.

The dog might be trained to lie on top of the person so he doesn't hurt himself, or bring the person his medicine or the telephone. These are all standard helpful behaviors any dog can be trained to perform.

Some few of them however, perhaps ten percent, have learned on their own to predict seizures. How they do it is unknown, and it seems unlikely that any human can detect signs of a seizure half an hour or so in the future visually, by sounds or smells. Yet, some dogs have learned how to do it and to warn their masters of what is coming.

Ms. Grandin makes a good case for the thesis that some animals use musical language, rejecting the automatic "no way" some researchers have come up with.

It's time to start thinking about animals as capable and communicative beings. It's also time to stop making assumptions. Animal researchers take a lot for granted : "animals don't have language," "animals don't have psychological self-awareness" – you find blanket assertions like this sprinkled through the research literature. But the truth is, we don't know what animals can't do any better than than we know what they can do. It's hard to prove a negative, and proving negatives shouldn't be the focus.

Ms. Grandin also notes some research studies indicating that humans and wolves may have evolved together, developing symbiotic relationships.

Maybe the most amazing new finding is that wolves didn't just teach us a lot of useful new behaviors. Wolves probably also changed the structure of our brains. Fossil records show that that whenever a species becomes domesticated its brain gets smaller. . . . This probably happened because once humans started to take care of these animals, they no longer needed various brain functions in order to survive. I don't know what functions they lost, but I do know all domestic animals have reduced fear and anxiety compared to wild animals.

Now archaeologists have discovered that 10,000 years ago, just at the point when humans began to give their dogs formal burials, the human brain began to shrink, too. It shrank by ten percent, just like the dog's brain. And what's interesting is what part of the human brain shrank. In all of the domestic animals, the forebrain which holds the frontal lobes, and the corpus callosum, which is the connecting tissue between the two sides of the brain, shrank. But in humans it was the midbrain, which handles emotions and sensory data, and the olefactory bulbs, which handle smell, that got smaller while the corpus callosum and the forebrain stayed pretty much the same. Dog brains and human brains specialized: humans took over the planning and organizing tasks, and dogs took over the sensory tasks. Dogs and people coevolved and became even better partners, allies, and friends.

Is this all abject nonsense based on cooked data and other fantasy? I don't know, but I do know that it fits well with my own perceptions of horses and dogs.

Our dogs: Sunshine, an Akita, is the half sister of an Akita bitch whom my wife and I loved dearly, Shadow, so named because she tried to follow us everywhere. Shadow had a mind of her own and was the most intelligent dog I have ever known. She lived up to the Akita reputation.

Their devotion is unquestionable when the bonding is strong; their intelligence is remarkable, and each of you with an Akita living in your home know they have a marvelous sense of humor and fun. They are sensitive and intuitive to their families, seeming to read one's mind.

The quote provided above is from a heart-rending story about a young Akita named Kuma, whose master had died; he very much wanted to join him and finally managed to do so. The Akita beed originate in the Akita Prefecture in the mountains of northern Japan. The link provides a short history of the Akita breed, including Hachi-Ko, one of the most revered Akitas of all time.

He was born in 1923 and was owned by Professor Eizaburo Ueno of Tokyo. Professor Ueno lived near the Shibuya Train Station in a suburb of the city and commuted to work every day on the train. Hachi-Ko accompanied his master to and from the station each day.

On May 25, 1925, when the dog was 18 months old, he waited for his master's arrival on the four o'clock train. But he waited in vain; Professor Ueno had suffered a fatal stroke at work. Hachi-Ko continued to wait for his master's return. He traveled to and from the station each day for the next nine years. He allowed the professor's relatives to care for him, but he never gave up the vigil at the station for his master. His vigil became world renowned, and shortly after his death, a bronze statue was erected at the train station in his honor. Then, in 1931, The Akita was officially declared a Japanese Natural Monument.

During the Second World War, most Akitas died; there was insufficient food, and many were slaughtered for their pelts, much prized for officers' great coats. There were only a dozen or so left at the end of the war. Two of them belonged to Morie Sawataishi, who was instrumental in reviving the breed.

Nearly four years ago, Shadow managed to sneak out of our house one night, went down to a nearby creek, and was bitten on a hind leg by a fer de lance, a very aggressive and venomous pit viper; they are nocturnal hunters. Shadow came back in the morning, limping on three legs but otherwise joyful to be back with us. She deteriorated and a veterinary friend came to see what she could do, spending the night with us. Shadow died at 2:00 a.m. on December 5, 2006.

Shadow had what may have been an instinctive tendency, but I think was a unique one, to teach other animals how to play; they seemed to understand exactly what she was doing. She and some of our horses took turns chasing each other around; it was all good fun and they enjoyed it and each other. Here is a photo of Sugar, one of the foals, lying peacefully on the ground as Shadow seems to whisper in her ear. Sunshine shares many of Shadow's traits, including her devotion and sense of fun.

When another bitch, Honey, about whom more later, had pups, Shadow ignored them until they were several weeks old. Then, she tried to teach them some things. I remember looking out the window and seeing Shadow lying on the lawn, with all six young pups lined up attentively in front of her. Shadow was clearly the teacher, and she appeared to be emphasizing her points by gesticulating with her paws.

Whenever a potential conflict seemed about to arise between dogs or between dogs and horses, Shadow sensed it and would intervene – not dangerously but simply by getting between them and preventing any conflict from developing. She was the alpha, and there was no mistaking it. She knew it, other dogs knew it, and so did the horses.

When Honey adopted us, she was in pitiful shape; she appeared on our back porch, malnourished, weak and fearful of humans; it was obvious that she had been mistreated. Reluctantly, because we did not want another dog then, we put out some food for her. She kept coming back. When we finally allowed her into the house, Shadow and our "boat cat," Pumpkin, who had adopted us when we were docked at a marina in Venezuela, ganged up on her and tried to chase her away – once. Honey wouldn't leave and they made peace.

Ruff, one of Honey's sons, chose his own name. When he was only a few weeks old, I asked him what his name should be. He replied, "Ruff," and so be it. He is very sweet, gentle and not very bright.

Princess is part Akita and part "finca dog." On the morning when Shadow died, my wife and I went to cry on the shoulder of the woman who had bred her. We cried together, and she gave Princess, a then eight week old pup, to us. Sunshine came to live with us a few months later when she was about eight weeks old. Like Shadow, Princess has a mind of her own and sometimes behaves in ways I wish she wouldn't. She has lived up to her name, regal bearing and all. She doesn't have quite the sense of humor which Shadow had and Sunshine has, but her devotion is indisputable.

There is a clear chain of command. Sunshine is the alpha prima, Princess is second, Ruff is a distant third and Honey is last; however, at feeding time, Honey often mounts her son Ruff from the rear to remind him that she is his mama and to stay away from her food; he does. They undoubtedly recognize their familial relationship; the mother – son relationship is remarkable. Other positions are occasionally challenged. Not long ago, Sunshine developed a dermatological condition and it was necessary to take her to the vet. He had to anesthetize her to shave part of her fur and deal with the problem, which he did successfully. When we drove her back to our finca, she was still a bit wobbly and Ruff sensed it; he tried to challenge her, with no success. Despite her temporarily debilitated condition, she quickly put him in his place; there was no fight.

On rare occasion it has been necessary to break up dog fights, particularly when the chain of command had been challenged, often but not always in the context of food. Doing so can be dangerous. Several days ago, Sunshine managed to grab from the kitchen counter a container of chicken liver I had cooked to mix with the dogs' food. Sunshine wanted it, and that was that. Akitas are notorious for their possessiveness when food is involved. Generally, I know better than to leave that sort of thing in reach; I goofed. None of the other dogs got involved, so the potentially fatal dog fight I had feared didn't happen; they are probably smarter as to such things than I am. When I tried to get Sunshine away from the yummy liver, I couldn't. All else having failed, I kicked her, hard, and she still wouldn't relinquish the food. I finally grabbed her by the neck and she bit me on the left hand and wrist, missing an artery in my wrist by less than an inch. Within minutes, the dispute was over and Sunshine was banished for a hour from the house while my wife attended to my wound and I took a nap. It is necessary to disabuse any dog of any incipient notion that he is the alpha vis a vis his master, but I went about it the wrong way. I behaved stupidly and now know better how to deal with such a situation. Here is the best advice I have found. Next time, I hope I can do better. Ms. Grandin notes,

Dog owners must establish themselves as he alpha, period. This is the one rule you must not ignore. A dog who thinks he's the alpha in the house is dangerous, because dogs will fight any lower-ranked pack mate who challenges them. If the family dog becomes the alpha he's going to be especially dangerous around important resources like food and his resting place.

When Sunshine was allowed back in, she was very submissive --head down, ears back -- and seemed to beg forgiveness. She had behaved as her instincts had dictated, and we made up immediately. When an alpha dog attacks one of his subordinates, it is common when the argument has been settled for the alpha to initiate the peace-making process; perhaps it is a sense of guilt and perhaps it is not. The alpha does so by approaching in a non-aggressive manner and licking the face and mouth of his victim; "kissing" on the mouth is common among dogs. That does not mean that similar flareups will not recur.

Our Horses: Unlike dogs, who are predators, horses are prey animals. Their principal defense is flight, though they will stand and fight if necessary. A mare has very little time to teach her foal sufficient survival skills, including the need for flight, and while the foal remains vulnerable will place herself between the foal and the perceived source of danger. While foals are able to walk and run within a very short time of birth, there is much to teach and little time for it.

Horses will also defend their turf from other horses and establish chains of command. When dogs put their ears back flat against their heads, they are signaling submission or lack of aggressive intent, whether it be to another dog, to a horse or to a human. When horses do the same thing, they are signaling that they may attack; it is a warning. The next signal is a baring of the teeth, soon to be followed by a bite if the warning is not heeded. The warning signals and their sequence are universally recognized, respected or not, by other horses. Perhaps strangely, our horses recognize that the first signal they use to show hostility means the opposite when displayed by our dogs.

Horses and dogs are very different animals. That horses are prey animals explains why their eyes are located on the sides of their heads (similar to chickens), giving them roughly 270^o rather than 180^o vision. They can nevertheless be surprised by an approach from their blind spot, directly to the rear, which is why doing that is a bad idea likely to result in being kicked. Some are more easily frightened than others – just as people have different personalities, they all have different "horsealities." Due to their eye placement, horses have poor three dimensional vision and can't well gauge the depth of streams when asked to cross. Until they learn to have confidence in their riders, they trust their own instincts which can be frustrating to all concerned. That is why gaining their trust is the most important part of training them.

When we bought Flash, a handsome three year old jet black Colombian Paso Fino, he had never been saddled. I spent over a month grooming him, doing other things he seemed to find pleasant, getting him accustomed to the saddle pad and then to the saddle – first, showing them to him and then putting them on his back. He was frightened and that's why it took so long. He had previously been treated poorly, and that's probably part of the reason. Genetics may well have been involved as well. When Flash came to accept the saddle, I put some weight – with my hand – in the left stirrup and repeated the process until it no longer seemed to upset him. At the same time, I did lots of dismounted ground work, teaching him to yield to pressure where I would later apply it for communication: where the reins would press on his neck and where my legs would press against his body. When I finally mounted him, there was no problem. In less than six months, he became quite an enjoyable ride but remains very "spooky" and is afraid of strangers. He would be dangerous for a novice, or one unable to deal with vigorous shying, to ride.

Several years ago, we decided to have Flash gelded; as a stallion he had been very sweet and gentle, most of the time, but had started to show some undesirable stallion characteristics. Before doing so, we wanted to breed him to one of our mares, Pimienta, a paso fino – quarter horse mix. The mating ritual was beautiful. [[photo 3]]. Eleven months later, Pimienta gave birth to Sizzler, and Shadow was one of her first friends; they met within hours of Sizzler's birth. An immediate bond of trust was apparent [photo 4]. Flash recognizes his familial relationship with Sizzler, and they seem to get along as a father and his daughter should.

Teka is a paso fino – quarter horse mix, rather a dark gray gelding when we bought him but now almost white. Teka was at first a problem. He wanted to do what he wanted to do, rather than what I wanted him to do. We eventually got over that problem, and he now seems almost to read my mind. When I want to turn left, he senses the shift of weight accompanying the turn of my head in the desired direction and responds accordingly. A barely perceptible shift of my weight to the rear tells him I want him to stop. He will go from a dead stop to a full gallop with the slightest signal, a minor shift of my weight to the front and gentle leg pressure.

What does any of this have to do with human interactions? A lot, I think. Humans are predators, not prey animals. We are also to a great extent pack or herd animals, similar in that respect to dogs and horses. Perhaps as Ms. Grandin suggests, this is an evolutionary development. Humans want to have leaders who will care for and protect us -- or in any event claim to do so. Unlike other animals, human leaders sometimes lie, and we often believe them. Instinctive or not, we have long been conditioned to these things. Over time, that may be why we developed ideologies, religions, tribes and political parties. Perhaps if we didn't have them we would find ourselves adrift. That's one of the reasons I suggested here a need for an artificial god if there is not a real one.

It strikes me as unrealistic to expect us to behave any time soon much differently than we do. If it happens, it will be a very long evolutionary process and I see no clear signs that it's happening. It's all very well to wish that we would all sing kumbaya and just get along with neither hostility nor rancor. It ain't likely to happen, not with opposing packs of dogs, opposing herds of horses, or opposing packs of humans. On the other hand, . . . .

Boredom, the Curse of the Cruising Life

I wrote this back sometime in 2001 or maybe 2002, and it was intended as a spoof of my fellow cruisers. Most don't have the attitudes suggested, and it's grossly unfair. Still .............

The teak sparkles with countless coats of varnish, the stainless steel glistens, and the fuel filters are new. You just changed the oil and replaced all the rusted hose clamps. The halyards and sheets are pristine. The refrigeration works perfectly, and the ice maker puts out more ice than you can possibly use. The new frambis you brought back from the States has been installed, and as soon as you figure out the instructions (translated from Japanese into Ubangi and thence into English) and determine what it is for, you will play with it. You’ve been dragged from your favorite cruiser hangout to see a few of the more interesting sights in Puerto Mujeres Feas. You’ve read Caribbean Compass cover to cover and memorized all the interesting advertisements. Nobody in the anchorage seems to want any help, except for the guy who wants someone to go up the mast and retrieve a lost halyard. You’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt, and have no interest in repeating the experience. There isn’t a pot luck supper till next Tuesday, and you have read all of the really good books available at the book exchange. What can you do to stave off boredom? You could, of course, pull up the anchor and leave. But you are waiting for mail and it looks as though the weather might get rocky in a few days and what’s the point?

This is a problem constantly faced by cruisers, and the U.S. Government has finally created a new mental health program designed specifically to help bored cruisers cope. Unfortunately, it will remain in the beta test mode until 2005, and is currently available only in Idaho. So, for a while at least, it is up to you. Better get busy. Here are some ideas. They all involve getting out of the “cruising rut” and mixing it up a bit with the locals. You will enjoy it, and they will benefit immeasurably from the experience as well.

Learn a Foreign Language

Many of the places frequented by cruisers have quaint and colorful foreign languages. Given even a passing acquaintance with the local language, you will be able to interact with the local foreigners and discover many interesting things about their primitive cultures. You will also be able to tell the waiter that you wanted a cold beer, not the exotic mixture of fruit juice and curdled goat milk he just served. Want to have your injectors cleaned, no problema. Just ask, in the local foreign language.

This project can occupy you for days, if not weeks. There is so much to learn! Here are six simple rules, applicable to all foreign languages prevalent in the Caribbean with the exception of pigeon English:

1. Foreigners are obsessed with sex, and everything has a sexual component. The boat is male. The house is female. The dog can be either male or female, depending (strangely) on its actual sex. The fuel filter is male. The fuel itself if female. The propane bottle is bisexual. Properly, you need to use a verb, pronoun or adjective of the corresponding sexual orientation. As a cruiser trying to learn a foreign language, this is all very difficult. You are not a professional linguist, so just ignore the problem: use the same prefixes and suffixes for everything. It is not only easier that way, it is the ultimate in political correctness, like bisex auto body shops. Some particularly dense locals may experience difficulty in understanding you, but most will have no problem. They will be so happy that you are trying to communicate in their own language that they will offer you free beer at every opportunity.

2. Avoid irregular verbs. There are more than enough regular verbs to meet all of your simple requirements.

3. There are numerous tenses: present, past, future, present perfect, present imperfect, future perfect, future imperfect, past perfect, past imperfect, future really good, past not so great, etc. Don’t bother. Just use the present tense.

4. There are formal pronouns and verbs. Properly, to ask someone you have known for less that six months for a glass of water, you should use the formal forms of the pronouns and verbs. It is all very classist and connotes a less than democratic attitude. Use the informal forms with everyone. It’s friendlier that way, and you don’t want to seem to be a snob.

5. The imperative is used when telling someone to do something. It’s sort of complicated, so just use the present tense first person and speak more loudly and with more authority.

6. Often, simply adding an “o” at the end of an English word will convert it into Spanish. It’s worth a try. One minor caution: you do not want to buy “gaso” for the dinghy. It sounds a lot like gasoy, which is diesel fuel. In any event, English should be the universal language, so it is perfectly acceptable to use English words if the foreign word is too obscure. By placing English words in an easy to understand context, you will help the foreigners to learn English. They will appreciate your efforts.

Follow these simple rules, and you can learn to speak any foreign language real good.

Discover the local culture.

Now that you speak the local language, you can easily learn everything worth knowing about the foreign culture. The first thing to do, of course, is to get off the boat and head into town. Do not go to the cruiser bar, where all of the other cruisers speak at least some English and probably don’t know any more about the indigenous people than you do. You want to experience these things first hand. That’s one of the reasons you came cruising, isn’t it?

In any town of reasonable size, just going for a walk will allow you to meet many interesting foreign people. On the pretense of trying to sell you a hat, a package of chewing gum, or even some charming native handicraft, they will approach you in pitifully broken English. Surprise them! Speak their own language. You can do that, now that you have learned how. Engage them in a discussion about their culture. Ask why so many of the local people wear funny clothes and ingest strange food. Why is the “Gringo tax” so high? Why is petty theft a national pastime? Haven’t they learned to watch football on television?

Visit a local outdoor meat, fruit or vegetable market. Ask about the many colorful fruit and vegetables which are unfamiliar to you. Why do they coat the hanging goat carcasses with insects? Is it to cure the meat, or just a misguided effort to keep the flies off the customers? Go ahead. Ask. They will appreciate your interest. You might suggest that the carcasses be sprayed with DDT; that works.

Check out a local cathedral. They are all very beautiful, and most are in a state of quaint disrepair. Some cruisers feel that without the appropriate formal clothing (long pants, a clean shirt, and even shoes), going inside might seem disrespectful. Don’t worry. The religious functionaries in such places spend most of their time inside, in cool, dark places and sadly have little opportunity to meet cruisers. Anything you would feel comfortable wearing at a local cruiser bar is just fine. A cruiser knapsack can be used to cover your head, should you feel a compelling need to conform to the local custom to that extent.

Get Involved in the Local Community. Cruisers take a lot from the foreign communities they visit, and a little “give back” can go a long way to help the local foreigners. Befriend a foreign child, and teach him how to clean your hull. It is a skill that will enrich his life, and provide him a way to earn a living when he grows up. Take some little street urchins sailing, to provide an incentive to study and work hard so they can have their own sailing yachts when they grow up. Organize a pot luck dinner and raffle to benefit the local leper colony. Collect English language soap opera magazines from other cruisers and donate them to the library, so that the foreigners can learn all about American culture. Take an interest in the politics of the foreign country, and be sure to offer your helpful suggestions on ways that things could be done so much better, like we do in the States. Just keep in mind that many foreigners are very sensitive, and avoid any suggestion of superiority or of indifference to their rich and multifaceted primitive culture.

Learning the local foreign language, discovering the local culture, and helping the foreigners you meet in strange places to understand the cruising life will go a long way toward the avoidance of boredom. You will gain a newly awakened sense of satisfaction with what you have accomplished. It should all be a major part of the cruising experience.

On Memorial Day We Might Pause to Remember General Robert E. Lee

There are and have been few like him.

It occurred to me as I watched this video, sent by a friend as appropriate for Memorial day, that General Lee is well worth remembering on that day.

It is said here that

Between battles, Union and Confederate troops showed little animosity toward one another. Union soldiers often traded coffee for southern-grown tobacco. From behind earthworks, bands often played concerts, including the other side's favorite songs. On occasion, Confederate and Union bands would join in concerts when camped close together. A Union band gave a concert for the troops stationed at Fredericksburg, VA. After a playing a few favorite selections of the troops, a voice called from the Confederate positions across the river, "Now give us some of ours." The band played "Dixie," a favorite of both sides, "My Maryland" and "Bonnie Blue Flag."

That sort of thing makes such a remembrance seem even more appropriate. Last year, I wrote what follows to commemorate his death on October 12, 1870.

General Robert E. Lee died one hundred and thirty-nine years ago on October 12, 1870 (now celebrated as Columbus Day) at the age of sixty-three. We, as a nation, have done with heroes and few remember him. The anniversary of his death will likely go generally unnoticed and unremarked upon. Yet he inspired a nation, or at least a fledgling nation, the Confederate States of America. Those who reminisce about him do so because of his devotion to honor, duty, integrity, for his compassion and for his wisdom. He had those now sadly rare qualities in rare abundance; although I (obviously) never knew him, I miss the likes of him today. When I read a news story dealing with our congresscritters, our president, or His administration, I scratch my balding head and wonder what happened.

The anniversary of General Lee's death having been called to my attention by an article in the Canada Free Press, I read again Rod Cragg's Robert E. Lee, General, A commitment to Valor. I could not find a link to the book on Amazon or even on Google, but somehow I had bought a copy at a used book store in rural Panamá. This article is largely based on it. This song is about General Lee's life.

General Lee's father, "Light-Horse Harry Lee," distinguished himself as a cavalry commander in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1829, Robert E. Lee eventually rose to the rank of Colonel as commander of the U.S. Army's Texas Department in 1860. Although he considered slavery a "moral and political evil," he declined command of U.S. forces when Virginia seceded and resigned from the U.S. Army to take command of Virginia's military forces. He felt that it was his duty to do so; his sense of honor compelled him. "I did only what my duty demanded; I could have taken no other course without dishonor." He valued honor highly, and because of it chose to fight on behalf of his home, Virginia, rather than for the Union. On April 20, 1861, he wrote to the Secretary of War:

Sir, I have the honor to tender my resignation of my command as colonel of the First Regiment of Cavalry.

Very respectfully your obedient servant,
R.E. Lee, Colonel First Cavalry

In a letter to General Winfield Scott, Commanding, United States Army, Lee wrote on 20 April 1861,

General: Since my interview with you on the 18th instant, I have felt that I ought not longer retain my commission in the army. I therefore tender my resignation, which I request you will recommend for acceptance. It would have been presented at once but for the struggle it has caused me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted the best years of my life, and all the ability I possessed.

During the whole of that time -- more than a quarter of a century-- I have experienced nothing but kindness from my superiors, and the most cordial friendship from my comrades. To no one, General, have I been as much indebted as to yourself, for uniform kindness and consideration, and it has always been my ardent desire to merit your approbation. I shall carry to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind consideration, and your name and fame will always be dear to me.

Save in defence of my native state, I never desire again to draw my sword. Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the continuance of your happiness and prosperity, and believe me, most truly yours,

R.E. Lee.

When a substantial number of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy left to join the Confederate Army at the outbreak of the war, a special retreat ceremony was held at West Point, and Dixie is said to have been played in their honor.

Following many military successes and some defeats, Lee was promoted to General-in-Chief of all Confederate armies in 1865. Colonel Ives, an officer who served on General Lee's staff, wrote "His name might be audacity. He will take more desperate chances, and take them quicker than any other general in this country, North or South." Another wrote, "His soldiers reverenced him and had unbounded confidence in him, for he shared all their privations."

General Lee was compelled to surrender to General Grant at Appomattox Virginia on April 9, 1865. A Northern officer who observed him at Appomattox wrote, "In manner, [Lee was] grave and dignified. . . which gave him the air of a man who kept his pride to the last." A private soldier who had served with General Lee throughout the war wrote,

As Lee came riding alone into Richmond [after his surrender], his old followers immediately recognized him and followed him to his home where, with uncovered heads, they saw him to his door. Then they silently dispersed.

Later that year, he wrote to an English correspondent who had offered a place to escape the destruction of Virginia following the war. He said, "I cannot desert my native state in the hour of her adversity. I must abide by her fortunes, and share her fate."

There are many quotations from General Lee. Here is one of my favorites: "Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or to keep one; the man who requires you to do is dearly purchased at a sacrifice."

Here is the text of General Orders No. 9, HQ, Army of Northern Virginia, Appomattox Courthouse, April 10, 1865:

After four years' arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.

I need not tell the survivors of so many hard fought battles who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them, but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss which would have attended the continuation of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God may extend to you His blessing and protection. With an increasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

Robert E. Lee, General

To compare General Lee with any living person of note would be an exercise in futility. He was a man perhaps unique to his time, no politician, and the world in which General Lee lived was vastly different from the world in which we now live. Any comparison would be as pointless as it would be futile. Still, General Lee's sense of honor and its necessary adjunct, integrity, stand out as remarkable, and both qualities are sadly missing from many of those who now strut on the world stage. We should perhaps spend a moment to reflect on the character of General Lee in evaluating those who now have become our leaders; I am afraid that nearly all of them would suffer from the comparison.

A Modest Proposal to Pomote Domestic Tranquility

Published on Opinion Forum on May 20, 2010

Huff and Puff and down fall the houses of falsehood

Here is a truly fascinating article from Huffington Post by Jim Taylor, PhD in psychology and lecturer at the University of San Francisco, a well known bastion of unbiased intellectual thought. Mr.^* Taylor complains that the sources of information nowadays are too many, too prolific and too motivated by politics and/or ideology, and that we lack the resources, intellectual and otherwise, to distinguish "facts" from "falsehoods" and from opinion. President Obama recently said much the same. They are, of course, right correct.

Mr. Taylor directs his message not to those whose "facts" are incongruent with his.

The reality is that, for these extremists, when ideology comes face to face with the facts, facts are the victim. You need look no further than the birthers, truthers, death panelists, and Sarah Palin devotees to see the profound disconnect from fact for those who hold extreme ideologies.

Rather, his message is directed toward the reasonable folk who agree with him.

This post is directed toward to [sic] everyone else, those who, whether a Republican or Democrat, Christian, Jew, Muslim, or atheist, environmentalist or industrialist, socialist or capitalist, are reasonable people who believe that truth should trump ideology, who are interested in separating fact from fiction, and want to know both sides of an issue before forming thoughtful and well-supported opinions. Just look at the health-care legislation. Decent people can disagree about what is the best health care system for America, but that determination should be based on facts, such as how many people will be covered and what will the costs be, not ideology or prostituting to special interests.

Truth is good; untruths are bad; distortions, spins and misinformation are bad. Gosh Darn! We agree.

However, Mr. Taylor's prescription (in this context, perhaps I should accord him the honorific "Doctor") is as follows:

The federal government should create a Department of Information whose responsibility it is to determine the facts behind any decision that confronts our country. I know what you're thinking: This sounds like something that belongs in a totalitarian regime. But the reality is that someone has to decide on what is factual and what is not. So who can we trust to give us the most accurate information available? Big Business? Traditional media? The blogosphere? I certainly wouldn't trust any of them.

Though our government is far from perfect, it does exist, at least in theory, to serve the best interests of the American people. That's more than can be said for any other influences in our society; everyone else has a self-serving agenda. And our government already decides what is factual in many areas, whether the Office of Management and Budget deciding how much the health-care legislation will cost, the Federal Reserve describing the state of our economy, or even the decisions handed down by Supreme Court (though, interestingly, they are called opinions not facts). I know, budget estimates are often wrong, the Fed has made glaring economic-policy mistakes, and the Supreme Court has made some lousy decisions, but those mistakes may be more a reflection of the complexities of life and honest disagreement on ambiguous issues rather on than intentional misinformation.

Here's the next part of my proposal. Anytime there is a factual dispute, the Department of Information would render a decision on what the facts are. Those parties who come out on the short end of those decisions would not be allowed to use their "facts" any longer (just like having potentially dangerous drugs or products taken off the shelf). If they do, there would be fines levied to punish the transgressors. This system would not only make clear what the facts are and empower those who want the facts to be known, but it would also discredit the lunatic fringe and reduce the influence of their views on the majority of people.

Now that's a stupendous idea, despite that ratty old Constitution written by a bunch of long dead obscenely rich white male jerks (please excuse the redundancy) obviously cursed with an overabundance of Neanderthal genes! It should be tossed into an (ecologically sound) trash bin. Should it fly (and Mr. Taylor acknowledges that it might not -- but then, scientists were once said to know that a bumblebee couldn't fly), anyone who advocates that 2 + 2 = 6, that the Germans and Japanese were the bad guys and the United States and Great Britain were the good guys during the Second World War, that Arizona's Jim Crow immigration law is reasonable and constitutional or that under the Health Control Law costs are likely to rise, medical care to suffer and/or that the old farts might get the short end of the stick – being in all cases clearly misguided, politically and/or ideologically suspect wrong – would have to shut up or be punished by fines. Big fines, I hope. Perhaps Huff and Puff and Daily It's So Kos I Say So should get some of the fine proceeds. That will show those damn Fascist ideologues on the right. If only King George Bush II the Perverse or Prince Cheney the Unspeakable had thought of this and implemented it! But then President Bush's faith-based initiatives were bad and President Obama's faith-based initiatives are good. Maybe there is an ideological difference. Or maybe President Obama is the physical embodiment of faith.

What are facts, anyway? Obviously, it a true fact that man made global warming is happening and that the consequences will be draconian unless we cease spewing toxic CO₂ into the atmosphere – now, Damnit! Saint Al the Gored is correct, there is no legitimate scientific dispute and civilization as we know it will fall into oblivion if he can't buy another mansion or jet aircraft out of the (non) profits from cap and trade transactions. Once upon a time, more physicians preferred camels to any other, well, I suppose, cigarette.

Back when the Health Control Law was passed and signed, and only some of Santa Claus' elves (and maybe Rudolph) at the North Pole had read and understood it, there were no "facts;" only opinions based, quite likely, on the same reliable sources as those upon which Attorney General Holder relied in criticizing the new Arizona immigration statute – television and newspaper reports by folks who hadn't bothered to read it either and who, I might suggest, were among the ideologically blessed. Responsible officials can't be bothered with the trash spouted by those of impure ideology or worse. Get thee behind me, Satan, Fox, Beck, Palin, Rush et al! Make way for The New York Times and MSNBC! Quick! Before they die.

Still, if there were to be an official governmental arbitrator of what is fact and what is falsehood, it would greatly simplify life. The entire problem of separating the wheat from the chaff would be pushed off on someone else and hidden behind one of Douglas Adams' SEP (Somebody Else's Problem) fields where nobody could see it. The SEP field theory was noted in the second (or was it the third?) of Adams' five book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. I have read that "Adams had a keen interest in the effects of drinking on intelligent people, and discovered that you can get past writers block by drinking vast amounts of alcohol, blacking out, and waking up in a cow field." I don't believe it for a moment and hence it is not a real fact.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that alcohol is inexpensive and there are plenty of cow pastures here, I have implemented a remotely similar strategy at home. We have four dogs. Two of them are too puppy-like and carefree to worry, and I don't like doing it myself. So, I have delegated all responsibility for worry to the two pups who seem best fitted to the task. Getting a lobotomy might serve the same purpose, but might not be covered by my health insurance: it might be covered under the new Health Control Law, but I don't know and need a Department of Information to tell me. Regardless of that, the pup delegation costs absolutely nothing. I have denied them internet access, imbuing them with a degree of purity generally lacking in others. Now, I can be happy and carefree. Something similar would, in my carefree state of mind, be superior to Mr. (Dr.) Taylor's offering, and might also encourage the adoption of unwanted puppies otherwise doomed to execution. That, at least, seems worthwhile.

________________________
^*When I was in undergraduate school eons ago, people with medical degrees were referred to as Doctor. It was considered snobbish for a PhD to refer to himself as "Doctor" because all of his peers also had that degree. Even lowly instructors and the post-doc teaching assistants who handled small seminars for the Big Man had them. Students absorbed this perception, and Professor Doctor Smith was referred to simply as Mr. Smith. Alas, that was then and this is now, but I still adhere to the notion.

If There is No Real God, How About an Artificial One?

First Published at Blog Critics on May 4, 2010

We need at least to conduct ourselves as though there were one.

Judeo-Christian religion in the United States is far from dead, but other religions are increasingly viable. In addition to Radical Islam ("eighty percent of the prisoners who 'find faith' in prison convert to Islam,"  generally of the radical kind), Leftism, Multiculturalism, Progressivism and the like seem pervasive. Even the Church of Global Warming, while modestly weakened, remains sufficiently vibrant that absolution may yet be had by buying dispensations. Mere ideologies perhaps, aside from Radical Islam, but their adherents bring religious passion to their dogmas and consider it churlish, if not criminal, to question them. While the Judeo-Christian religions remain vibrant, the others seem not only indignant but overtly hostile; there is at least a chance that they will prevail, if not soon then eventually. As suggested below, that would be unfortunate.

Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other neat stuff, died in 2001. Although his memorial service was held at the Anglican St. Martin in the Fields Church, he had described himself as a "radical atheist" in order not to be confused with mere Agnostics. Adams did not "believe" in God, nor did he "believe" that there is no God. He was "convinced" that there is no God, and that is rather different. Like Adams, I don't "believe" one way or the other; unlike Adams, I am not "convinced" that there is no God and consider myself an Agnostic rather than an Atheist. I am also partially color blind and can't distinguish various color shades. I understand that most others can do so and I act on the assumption that the various shades exist. I accept that my sensory perceptions as to such matters may be inferior to theirs and also that there is no cure; stuck is stuck. Somewhat analogously, other people may have superior ability to sense the divine than I do; so be it  There is nothing I can do about that either; again, stuck is stuck. Although in some ways I behave as though they may be right, just "going along to get along" wouldn't work because belief cannot be faked; there is also the problem that there are very many divergent perceptions of the divine. It seems unlikely that all of them are right but it is quite possible that all of them are wrong.

In a 1998 speech, Adams propounded a fascinating question, "Is There an Artificial God?" He suggested that there is and cited an example from Bali.

Now, rice is an incredibly efficient food and you can grow an awful lot in a relatively small space, but it's hugely labour intensive and requires a lot of very, very precise co-operation amongst the people there, particularly when you have a large population on a small island needing to bring its harvest in. People now looking at the way in which rice agriculture works in Bali are rather puzzled by it because it is intensely religious. The society of Bali is such that religion permeates every single aspect of it and everybody in that culture is very, very carefully defined in terms of who they are, what their status is and what their role in life is. It's all defined by the church; they have very peculiar calendars and a very peculiar set of customs and rituals, which are precisely defined and, oddly enough, they are fantastically good at being very, very productive with their rice harvest. In the 70s, people came in and noticed that the rice harvest was determined by the temple calendar. It seemed to be totally nonsensical, so they said, 'Get rid of all this, we can help you make your rice harvest much, much more productive than even you're, very successfully, doing at the moment. Use these pesticides, use this calendar, do this, that and the other'. So they started and for two or three years the rice production went up enormously, but the whole predator/prey/pest balance went completely out of kilter. Very shortly, the rice harvest plummeted again and the Balinese said, 'Screw it, we're going back to the temple calendar!' and they reinstated what was there before and it all worked again absolutely perfectly. It's all very well to say that basing the rice harvest on something as irrational and meaningless as a religion is stupid - they should be able to work it out more logically than that, but they might just as well say to us, 'Your culture and society works on the basis of money and that's a fiction, so why don't you get rid of it and just co-operate with each other' - we know it's not going to work!

So, there is a sense in which we build meta-systems above ourselves to fill in the space that we previously populated with an entity that was supposed to be the intentional designer. . . and create one and then allow ourselves to behave as if there was one, all sorts of things begin to happen that otherwise wouldn't happen.

Let's assume for purposes of argument that Adams was correct. Then comes the tricky bit: what sort of artificial God should there be and how should we go about behaving as though He exists and cares about what we do and don't do? Egocentric to raise such questions? Perhaps, but if an actual God made us and is "good," He surely included a healthy dose of ego as well as lots of less desirable attributes. If He exists, I hope that he will not be much offended by the process.

For devout Christians and Jews, these questions probably needn't be answered; their beliefs suffice. Adherents to Radical Islam, the "religion of peace," probably don't need to answer them either, but it might be useful for all of us if, while taking qat breaks from suicide bombings, honor killings and beheadings, they were to give some thought to the matter.

Since Christians long ago ceased burning witches and heretics at the stake and now generally abjure the killing of Jews for having crucified Jesus and thereby kick-starting Christianity, the God of the New Testament might be a good model for an artificial God. The United States, like the rice farmers in Bali, did pretty well until He was shoved to the side by multiculturalism and became decreasingly relevant to the behavior of modern American society. Multiculturalism is not a very propitious God.

Here is what I make of it all. We should act on the assumption that the United States' Judeo-Christian heritage is good rather than bad, that it merits our determined defense and that there are objective standards of right and wrong. Like the rice farmers in Bali, some of us may not know exactly where the standards came from or why, and there is less than unanimous agreement at the periphery as to what they are. Still, I think we can agree that the basics do exist, that they work and that we ignore them at our national peril. It strikes me as plausible that the basic moral teachings of traditional religions which succeeded over the centuries did so because their basic principles worked and were grounded in the nature of man. A variation on a principal teaching of Christianity, the Golden Rule, was articulated by Socrates and many others long before Jesus came on the scene, and if generally observed, it works. The concept of individual charity toward those less fortunate has roots at least as deep, and it would be a good thing if there were enough of it for the government to curtail its own politically directed, profligate and often socially disastrous efforts. My frame of reference, lest there be any doubt, is countries which, like the United States, have their roots in the Judeo-Christian religion but don't enforce an official state religion. Other countries might fare better than at present under such an Artificial God, but I lack sufficient familiarity with them to offer even remotely useful suggestions.

There must be tolerance toward those who disagree, within limits: those who wish to celebrate Saturnalia, or nothing at all, rather than Christmas, for example. That seems very unlikely to harm others and they should be free to do as they wish; that tolerance must be reciprocated if it is to persist. For example, those who wish their non-belief to be tolerated must learn to tolerate such things as Christmas trees, Easter bunnies and the public display of the Ten Commandments. I understand that in some communities, Jews work overtime during Christian holidays so that Christians can be free of secular obligations; I also understand that in some communities this kindness is reciprocated. Those who consider abortion an abomination per se should act in accordance with their views; however, they should not force others, on pain of criminal prosecution or private violence, to adhere to those views; neither should they be required to support, financially or otherwise, abortion or those who advocate abortion.

Kipling's In the Neolithic Age offers some useful insights.There, he essentially channeled a tribal singer from the Neolithic age, who recounted how he had murdered a rival who didn't approve of his songs and a "mammothistic etcher" whose art he didn't care for, because he knew his own work was right and theirs was wrong. His totem saw the shame, and in a vision of the night appeared to him, commenting that "there are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right." Then, the silence closed upon him and he awoke in a modern age, once again a poet.

Still the world is wondrous large,--seven seas from marge to marge,--
And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;
And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu,
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.

Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
And the reindeer roamed where Paris roars to-night: —
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And — every — single — one — of — them — is — right!

We are in danger of forfeiting much that heretofore made the United States what many of us wish she still were. If the descent is to be halted or possibly even reversed, we had better be careful. Mark Steyn recently wrote,

Every time I retail the latest indignity imposed upon the "citizen" by some or other Continental apparatchik, I receive e-mails from the heartland pointing out, with much reference to the Second Amendment, that it couldn’t happen here because Americans aren’t Euro-weenies. But nor were Euro-weenies once upon a time. Hayek . . . wrote with an immigrant’s eye on the Britain of 1944:

the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues . . . were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one’s neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority.

Two-thirds of a century on, almost every item on the list has been abandoned. . . [T]he reflex response now to almost any passing inconvenience is to demand the government "do something," the cost to individual liberty be damned. . . As Europe demonstrates, a determined state can change the character of a people in the space of a generation or two. Look at what the Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population: That’s what happened in Britain.

Regardless of whether there is an actual God and regardless of our views on the matter, we should behave as though there were one of the sort on whom our fundamental national character has long been based. Failure to do so has already led the United States down the road toward oblivion, and this process must be reversed. Whether that can or will happen remains to be seen, but with the resurgence of popular support for the basic principles upon which the nation was founded, there is reason for optimism.

Lunatics, Once Objects of Derision, Now Govern.

Our souls soles are now free to soar, but we must love and understand all critters great and small.

Many years ago, in a less enlightened age, some people entertained themselves by visiting lunatic asylums in Washington, D.C. and making fun of the inmates. It was a cruel and inhumane exercise. Things have changed dramatically for the better as we have evolved and lunatics are no longer confined. As a modest form of reparation, they govern us -- not from padded cells but from well appointed offices where they are accorded the great respect which, as the previously oppressed, is their due. Turn about, as even small children know, is fair play.

This article should greatly encourage all who recognize that even lunatics now need love and understanding.

SCOTLAND YARD has bowed to Islamic sensitivities and accepted that Muslims are entitled to throw shoes in ritual protest — which could have the unintended consequence of politicians or the police being hit.

* * *

The concession has already been taken up enthusiastically by Muslim demonstrators, who pelted Downing Street with shoes in protest at the Israeli bombing of Gaza last year.

Dozens of ski-boots and clogs were also hurled at the US consulate in Edinburgh in a related protest, in which three policemen sustained minor injuries.

Shoes, and soles in particular, are considered unclean. Although the point has not been clarified by the authorities, it is likely that pork chops may now be hurled peacefully in response.

Unintended consequences? Indisputably. In any civilized nation, there must be a presumption that people who hurl shoes and other projectiles in the direction of other people make heroic efforts to avoid hitting them, just as suicide bombers merely wish to express their political views and don't intend to harm others. Unintended adverse consequences certainly are not properly to be anticipated. That is true in many other contexts. For example, I myself from time stick my fingers deep into an operating food processor to unclog a mess and routinely experience the unintended consequences of having them mutilated. Boy, have I been surprised, as I well should be; every time I do it, I experience the same surprise at the consequences, which I certainly do not intend. To expect unintended bad things to happen whenever one tries to prepare a meal would be paranoid, and there is no rational basis for assuming irrational behavior of any type from an otherwise tame food processor.

Confederate soldiers during the U.S. Civil War (known to reprobates as the War of Northern Aggression), such as General Robert E. Lee, were clearly terrorists, just as it is clearly true that Islamic terrorism and Jihad don't exist. In this glorious age of enlightenment, all things must be considered within their proper and socially acceptable frames of reference. Otherwise, some really nice folks may be offended. Unfortunately, some seem not to have understood the memo and continue to view al-Qaeda as an enemy! Even President Obama, probably in an eminently forgettable Biden Moment, recently expressed fears that "nuclear terrorism poses a graver danger than the risk of war between nuclear nations." He specifically referenced al-Qaeda in this context, as did his Secretary of State, Ms. Clinton. On the other hand, perhaps the leaders of al-Qaeda and other so called terrorist/extremist groups have secretly converted to Methodism, in which case it is right and proper to refer to them as terrorists. If true, that would go far to explain current U.S. policy in the national security arena. In any event, feeble attempts such as this to revise history may slow but will not stop progress.

A few of the less perceptive ape-descended carbon based life forms here on Gaia may unfortunately disagree. However, I am confident that we can all cherish and adopt these great new principles befitting our post-modern age if only we reach an appropriate state of post-modern enlightenment.

When the new age of enlightenment dawns, and dawn in all glory it will, I fervently hope to see not only adherents of the Religion of Peace but all others evolve to new and higher plains from which we will all be permitted to hurl projectiles at each other in the peaceful exercise of free speech. All, and not just the favored few, must be given maximum latitude in acting out their heart-felt beliefs and animosities.

And this brings me to the real thrust of today's homily. There are many Neanderthals who want the United States and other imperialist international powers to force Iran to abandon the development of peaceful nuclear weapons with which to make a clear statement of her opinion of Israel, a highly reactionary and illegitimate state. Demonstrating the correctness of Iran's view, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently demonized these peaceful efforts as an attempt to create "weapons of mass destruction!" He also manifested his continuing paranoia by again referencing the holocaust, a non-event. His drooling hatred was not hidden:

“The historical failure of the free world in facing the Nazi beast was in not confronting it when it could still be stopped," Netanyahu said, "today we witness the fire of the old-new hate, the hate of the Jews being spread by the regimes and organizations of radical Islam, spearheaded by Iran and its cohorts."

These fading and senile Neanderthals, and indeed the failed and failing nations they dominate, refuse to recognize that Iran has legitimate grievances against the rest of the world. She has suffered bravely through years of wicked oppression, and it is only right for her now to be allowed all of the freedom of expression she wishes.

Some are strangely prejudiced against the legitimate government of Iran and want her to just shut up. They are misguided and have been misled by the wicked imperialist efforts of the United States and her captive fascist media to foment rebellion so that imperialist countries can steal her patrimony. Iran rightly echoes the persuasive argument, "No Oil for Blood!" Despite the most oppressive efforts of the rulers of the world and their lackeys, the book is closing on the oppression of the Religion of Peace. It is high time for their soles to soar!