The Violence of Nature

In our culture, we say that we abhor violence, yet we are fascinated by it, Just look at our movies and TV shows. We are taught to value peace and have no qualms about blowing Nations to bits when they disagree with us. We are a curious people. Perhaps we are so fascinated with violence because we are taught that violence is completely unacceptable.
The World, in fact the entire Cosmos, is violent. Stars are fueled by thermonuclear reactions, creating unthinkable hear. Here and there, they explode. Galaxies literally eat each other. On the Earth, we witness volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. Just yesterday, America was able to witness the full fury of a Category 4 hurricane. The aftermaths of all of these events are horrific. But, witnessing the event itself, the eruptions of amazing force is to witness, not necessarily beauty, but the sublime. You cannot avoid being made aware of the awesome mystery.
So, having established that our Creator uses violence in his Creation, what about on the human level? We can be a violent lot and there is no reason to deny that. What can we do about that?
First, di not deny it. That just gives the violent urge just gives it more power. Bow, that does not mean to give in to these urges. Redirect the energy. Use it to find new answers, and, if you cannot do that, go out and find a way to burn off that energy. Work out. Play a sport. If you physically cannot do so, then sublimate the energy by watching physically violent activities such as football and boxing. The arts are another way to give safe vent to our darker impulses.
War is, to state the obvious, is violent and, while I think war is a stupid activity, it is justified in cases of direct attack by another Country. On a personal level, self defense or the defense of others is just fine.
The most troubling aspect of violence are the acts of random violence. Random acts of any sort are hard for humans to deal with. We want a neatly ordered World. We;;. it is ordered, but it is not always neat.
To sum up this rambling mess of a post, violence is part of the World and part of human nature. Sp be it. All you can do us learn to control, to sublimate, violent impulses and keep, by strength of will, your violent responses to a minimum. Peace is wonderful, but it will never, be the only game in the Universe. Have a fine day and say a prayer for thise who went through yesterday's monster storm.

What is Going On

I turned on the news this morning, a bad habit, to get some news about the storm. For reasons unclear to myself, I put on Fox News.
Did i get news on the storm? No. They were chatting about the Kavanaugh confirmation and how it will effect the mod-term elections. Really?
The Florida coast is about to be hit with a catastrophic, historic Category 4 storm, with 140 mph winds and a massive storm surge. The Damage will be beyond belief and lives will be in danger.
And they are talking politics.
Yesterday, the President spent an inordinate amount of time saying good bye to Nikki Haley. His only comment about the storm was that the Federal Government  will be ready to help. He threw in a few Kabanaugh comments and some mid-term election comments.
Again, a disaster is about to occur, effecting Florida, Georgia, and S. Carolina. And all the Fox News and the President want to talk about is politics. What is happening to our moral priorities. Lives come first. Who really cares who the Ambassador to the UN is. How many of us really keep track onf Supreme Court rulings. And, for good or ill, most people do not bother to vote, especially in mid-term elections.
The President and his ilk are obsessed with one thing and he made it clear in the elections. They care about winning. Power is the prize and morality and good sense have taken a back seat. This is sad.
Tomorrow, when I get up, I think I'll hunt for some cartoons in the morning.  Maybe I can find Curious George or Clifford the Big Red Dog. That would be time better spent.

Ready or Not, Here It Comes

Michael is coming. Yep, another hurricane and a pretty good chance that this one will be outrageously strong.
I am not going through another check list of preparation procedures. I did that recently and, if you wish, you can check back a couple of weeks.\The point is, if you are not ready now, you have a problem.. We started hearing that at least a strong tropical storm would hut the Florida Panhandle. Anyone who has watched these storms over the years should have seen that it would get worse. It did. Much worse. The gulf waters are very warm and there are no fronts to shear the winds. It is clear sailing for Michael.
Here's the thing. I used to live in the Panhandle region and the coasral areas were sparsely populated and there were no high rises on the beaches and islands. There really was ere not many buildings at all. Storms came in and left damage, but it was tolerable. Now, there are huge buildings everywhere and many residents and tourists.
 The possible huge storm surge is the issue. They can, especially when pushed by high winds, cause major structural damage. You could wake up on the 10th floor and find that there us not much left to the lower floors. Power will be out, Bridges may develop structural damage and remain closed indefinitely. Water service will be interrupted. Supplies will be cut off.
If you stay along the coast, you may be stranded for a good while.
This storm came up quickly and those on ots path have not had much warning. This underlines the necessity to plan ahead.
But, that aside, if you live along the Florida coast and are told to evacuate, do so. Now. All the rest of us need to pray for everyone in that region.
One last thing. Local authorities need to have an idea of what they will do to get the elderly and disabled. A society is and must be judged by how it treats those most in need.

Let the Good Times Roll

Just a quick note today. Right now, our World is filled with turmoil. As Yeates wrote, 'the center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the World.' As Jesus said, 'be not troubled. These things must come to pass.' What do you do in the meantime? Have as much fun  as you can, without harming others.
Celebrate. Eat, drink and be merry. Sing and dance and tell tales of great men and women. Play games and go hiking and talk to kids. Play fetch with dogs and watch cats stalking their prey. Raise gardens and smell the flowers. And, sometimes, just sit and watch the clouds roll by.
Our Creator does not begrudge us pleasures. The World is here for us to enjoy as long as we also take care of it.
Times of turmoil will likely grow worse before they grow better. A lot worse. You do not, in the days of dry wood. want to look back and wonder why you did not enjoy things now.
Remember the end of Yeates' poem. "Who knows what rough creature is slouching toward Bethlehem, his hour to be born."

Childhood's End

Childhood's End is a great sci-fi novel by Arthur C. Clatke, based around some of the ideas of Tielhard de Chardien a Jesuit monk and paleontologist. Basically, the end of humanity will come when we evolve to the point where we no longer need physical form, but are able to exist as pure intelligent energy. Or something of that sort. i don't know if I but that completely, but I do believe we are reaching the end of our childhood
Look at it this way. If you have kids, do you want them to remain kids or to grow up? There are a few parents who really want their kids to remain kids, but that is not the norm. And, if you want your children to grow up, then why would you think our Creator would not want us to further evolve?
The problem is people, the people who rub things. It is to their advantage to have us remain children because then, they can play Daddy and that means that they can control us. I have said it before and stand by this statement. Power is the most addictive drug. Not power with a purpose, just sheer, raw power fro its own sake.
Also, those who are being controlled want to remain so. It is more comfortable and easier to be told what to do than it is to think. On top of that, we grow comfortable with the old stories, the old myths and are loathe to discard them. We find comfort in tales of gods and goddesses. angels and demons,and all manner of spirit beings. These beings likely exist, in some form, but they are not supernatural. They are beings functioning in a different manner than we do, but they are still subject to the Natural Laws. We simply do not understand those laws fully.
And that is the point. Instead of clinging to ancient tales of dragons and ogres and trolls and Sea Gods, let us grow up and explore this vast and wonderful Universe. We will find it far more amazing than children's stories. Truth is always stranger and more fascinating than fiction.
Our Creator is telling us that story time for the kiddies is over.

Pain

Stephen King, as a result of a hit and run accident, became something of an expert, on a personal and experiential level, on pain. In his fine novel, Duma Key, the main character goes through rehab from a horrible accident and points out that pain is the most powerful dictator on Earth. As I have pointed out a few times, I have issues,, big issues with chronic pain.
Pain, chronic pain, rules your life.When it strikes, and it does so almost whimsically, the rest of your life stios. Ohm you keep functioning, usuallt, but you are never fully present, Part of you, a big part, is taken by the pain. Do not give me that mind over matter nonsense. Do not tell me that you have to be string enough to ignore it. I used to say those things and I was an idiot. You can learn to tolerate pain, to work around it, but pain, when it hits, cannot be ignored or simply pushed aside, not for long. In an emergency, yes, for a very short time, then it is back with a vengeance.
Even when the pain is dormant, it rules you. You are thrilled that you don'y hurt, but you know it will be back and a part of you is wondering when that will be. A sneeze, a slight slip, a quick turn of the head and there it is. Psychologically, it preys on you. You begin thinking that the whole mess is your fault, that there is a punishment factor involved. This is a feature for those of us raised inn the remnants of the old fashioned fire and brimstone Protestantism. It takes a while to get past that one.
What can be done? Damned if I know. There are drugs that help for short periods, As we all know, they have some very nasty consequences if you do not handle them correctly, but they work. One reason I am writing this post is because of the uproar over opiate abuse. There is almost am attitude developing a moral attitude about addiction, a feeling that the addict is weak. morally, and this is wrong. Often, opiate addicts started by trying to deal with very real physical pain. Likewise, many self medicate with alcohol.
We must not make addiction a moral issue. At the same time, we need to find a way to deal with chronic pain. There may be some possibilities with marijuana and, blessedly, those are now being explored. There is also, out on the fringes of research, some evidence that tiny doses of LSD like drugs may have considerable value.
Or, maybe we just have to accept a certain level of controlled addiction. You cannot simply tell sufferers to live with it. That is not going to happen, nor should it. We are often, in these cases dealing with the elderly, the very young and potentially terminal patients and we mist never grow so Puritanical about drugs that we refuse pain relief. There will always be those who simply abuse the drugs because they like them, but that should not lead us to the denial of useful medicines to those who need them, Again, we may have to accept a certain level of controlled addiction, but I am afraid that, in our current political clinate, such reasoned response may be out of the question.
I have nothing left to say ob the matter, no magic answers, no pep talks, no sermons. All any of us can do is use our heads and ise compassion. I truly hope that no one out there suffers chronic pain, but that is a foolish wish. Many of you will and I hope that others understand. Bless all of you

The Ryder Cup

Once again, America, despite being a far superior team, has shown that it cannot win a Ryder Cup in Europe. It really has become quite a strange thing  I gave no idea what is behind this, but here goes.
It is true that the course was set up to favor Europe. We do the same thing when we host. In this case, the fairways were very narrow and the rough very high. This took driver out of play for the long American drivers, but it did the same for Europe's Rory McIlroy and John Rahm, yet they coped. The greens were very slow but that is needed in Europe because the courses are often in windy areas. If you have high wind s and fast greens, it is no longer golf' it is hockey. American players do not like slow greens. Why? Who knows? But, they do get testy when forced to play slow greens All such talk misses the point. The course is to be played as you find it and the player is there to adjust. In fact, that is almost the point of the whole silly game.
There were bad decisions by the American Captains. Tony Finau was playing great, yet was sat out for some matches. DeChanbeau was playing poorly, so, of course they kept plating him.. Tiger Woods was clearly exhausted, yet was sent out for all 5 sessions. Phil Mickelson, after an early season win, has played horribly and continued that trend throughout the tournament. He appeared to have no idea what he was doing on the course.
The big issue was the lack of enthusiasm. At any given time, about half of the Americans on the Course appeared about half awake  DJ and Koepka could not understand that in foursomes, if your partner is in trouble, you have to play safe. DeChambeau's mathematical approach to the game fails when he finds himself in wildly uneven grounds with knee high rough. Patrick Reed's Captain America routine finally ran out of gas when he found himself driving terribly. For a spell there, he couldn't have found the fairway with a bulldozer.
I really don't care about the whole Ryder Cup thing. I always have found it silly, but it does show the problem facing golf in the future, the very near future. The game is so dominated by power, that when the players can't just bomb the ball out there. They lose interest. Yet, the power aspect has to be reined in. We cannot keep simply making courses longer. Land costs too much to start designing 9000 yard courses. In addition, the upkeep, especially the irrigation, would be absurdly expensive. The whole game can be brought back into focus by changing the ball. It used to spin more and travel less and that can be done again. However, the modern players will scream like the spoiled brats that they have become. The game will grow less and less watchable on the pro level. However, there is an emphasis on building short, playable courses for families and friends to enjoy.  In the long run, who cares about the pros. Go have some fun yourselves. And, while you're at it, have a Blessed Day.